Infinite Torture: Mus 17 Edition

Autonomous music

music with no ties to anything, unknown if even possible;

Functional music

- music with a purpose that represents something

Social function of music

Social purpose for music, i.e wedding music

Entertainment music

Hovering in between autonomy and social function

Marxist thoughts on autonomy of music

Marx thought that the autonomy of music was ideology; didn’t exist

Marxism, class struggle and music

A marxist would say music is apart of class struggle; music can dull your mind to ignore what’s going on in the world

Social realism, and worldview (Weltanschauung) and ideology

View that music should reflect social reality, real social reality, “Weltanschaung”; worldview effects the music you make

Cosmopolitanism vs. realism

Cosmopolitanism; bringing together, all music is related; vs realism, music should reflect one social reality

The Soviet folkloric song “Katiushka”

Example of soviet realism in music

Purpose of rock music in the Eastern bloc countries

Bob Dylan moment; protest song, music that can change reality

Nationalism and rock music

Rock music functions more as an aesthetic cosmopolitanism

Brouwer’s version of aesthetic cosmopolitanism

the idea of a world music that transcends borders before borders can form, of a tendency to create a world culture born from the dreams of the working classes as based on folkloric music, with Leo we see the idea of “universal music”as his gesture toward cosmopolitanism,

False consciousness

Music somehow transcends reality

Cuban identity and Fidel Castro

Embraced his identity and Fidel

Che Guevara’s take on artistic expression

Abstract expressionism good

Andrés Segovia’s influence on the guitar and Spanish music

Guitar is the soul of the Spanish people; essentially soft nationalism

Leo Brouwer’s compositional epiphany

Folk music, discovered it

Yoruban musical influence on Cuban music

African influence on Cuban , counting and things that show up in Cuban Music

Hyper-romanticism

Sensational, considered hard to play in its time

Reason for Brouwer’s composition “Un dia de Noviembre”

Film about man who is dying and has an affair while dying Brouwer wrote a beautiful piece for this film

Definition of rasikas

Connoisseurs of the music, highly valued, add something to music

Virtuosity and listening

Virtuosity- Playing really fast, one of the most controversial topics in music history, some listeners think it's better while others think it’s worse; slow part important for Rasikas

Social purpose of listening

Listening has a social function and is apart of the social being, be subsumed in the listening

Court tradition of aristocratic India

Most Raisikas try to connect to history and the past

Middle class atmosphere of contemporary Indian concerts

Social listening, idea that classical music appeals to this old middle class

Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus”

Way of doing something

What social class the rasikas belong to

Old middle class, money is somehow corrupt; you dont seek money you seek knowledge

Relationship of new wealth to Indian classical music

New Wealth about showing off, not seeking experience like old money

Nostalgia and social class

Rasikas defend the past and cultivate it

Knowledge of how to build social capital

Requires high educational qualifications

Social meaning of the alap

Alap the highest point for the Raisikas

Bodily movement while listening to music, social purpose of

Provides active feedback and appreciation of music, interaction with musicians

Concept of transnational people without a nation-state or homeland

LEft sometime 1000+ years ago, no homeland

Rajasthan as the point of departure for the Romani route

Largest collection of people with no care for having a homeland; Rajasthan as the romani root

Cultural nationalism

Type of nationalism to understand this phenomenon; Romani are proud of their identity and heritage, but no “nation”

Nomadicism

Stereotype of the Romani that hasn’t been true for centuries, most have been settled

Linguistic evidence for the Roma nation

Linguistic splits 1000s of years ago

EU law and the Roma

EU law talks about the Romani , required not to oppress the Roma to join the EU

Theories of the Roma migration

Theory that they left in different times, groups went off in diff ways

“Djelem, djelem”

Romani Anthem

Roma rights movement

Romani expression of identity, modern day, feel that they have the same rights as everyone

I+V=E

Improvisation + Virtuosity = Emotion

Relationship of Roma music to classical music

Western classical music held as pristine area of music, but is very influenced by Roma and world music

Latcho drom

Series of vignette that showed the journey of Roma

Role of music in Roma history

The way Roma life life is through music

Cultural imperialism thesis

Idea that the West smothers the rest of the world

Cultural grey-out thesis

Alan Lomak’s idea, that the problem of the world is once u have mass media and the internet, it tends to block out the original rural forms of music

What does it mean to say Westernization of indigenous musical practice?

Example- When you get western harmony and chords

MTV and the universal pop aesthetic

Pop music would take over the world and nobody would want to play indigenous music anymore

Globalization of music

Homogenization of music, indigenous musics starting to be influenced by what’s “popular” (i.e western)

“Jit” music from Zimbabwe

Jit music, is rock and roll but very indigenous

Salif Keita from Mali

One of the first African global world music superstars

Edward Said’s “Orientalism” and desert videos

Anytime you have these “desert” motifs, ends up creating an “other” view of the east not based on western reason

Ofra Haza singing a Yemeni wedding song

Sung a famous Yemeni wedding song, filmed in desert; sort of orientalism

Hybridity vs. colonization

Is it simple positive adaptation, or musical colonization of a western mindset being imposed when indigenous musics take western aspects?

Definition of tonality

Complex western harmony hidden from the rest of the world

Ephraim Amu’s “Yen Ara Asase Ni”

Is used as a nationalistic video, also example of morality in music

Morality in music

Western colonizers imposed their morality through the music they forced on others.

Christian missionaries in Africa, judgment of drumming

Banned drumming, saying it is bad

Hierarchical understandings of musical practices

“Western” music practices as the pinnacle

Kofi Agawu’s argument that tonality colonizes

Tonality is something pushed on the world by the colonizer, Europe, but only revealed as such in a limited capacity. “West and the rest”

Christian hymns

use prosody and rhythm schemes as imposing violence

Is there bad Western harmony?

This hybridity, the absorption of western musical traits like its harmony, passes over in silence the losses, indignities and humiliation suffered by the colonized.

Forest people of Africa; polyphonic practice

Bawe, amazing forest polyphony that influenced western practice

Definition of folk music

Music that with no known composer

Oral music

Music that is not written down but passed mouth to mouth

English, Scottish, Irish sources of folk music in USA

These folk songs disappeared in Britain but survived in the US

Folkloric vs. folk

Folkloric- sounds like a folk song but is composed, while actual folk has no known composer

Library of Congress and folk music collecting

Collect folk music

Influence of the radio on folk music

In the original folk music collecting scene, they said that radio was bad because it influenced Folk music and turned it into something else

Lomaxes and Lead Belly

Lead belly as the Lomaxes great “discovery” in a Texas prison. Lomaxes recorded him in prison, becoming a sensation as he was a convict who sang his way out of jail.

“In the Pines”

picked up by Nirvana and thus spread throughout the world, most popular Lead Belly song

the old weird America

Rural culture clashing with incoming industrial culture, two ways of living colliding

“Casey Jones”

Famous original folk-rock song about a man who averted a dangerous train crash at the expense of his own life

Bob Dylan’s role in folk music history

Bob Dylan internalized the folk song and became one of the most famous singers of the genre.

Definition of Latin America during Spanish colonial period

Latin America as a hedge against north american colonization

Sources of Latin American music

AMericana, indigenous people, AFrican people

“El condor pasa” and Simon & Garfunkel

Example of aesthetic cosmopolitanism

Panpipes in South America

Played Simon and Garfunkel songs

“El aparecido” by Victor Jara

Bob Dylan of south america

Che Guevara in South America

Murdered in South America

Inti-Illimani

Group that plays victor jara’s music to this day and carries it on

Nueva Canción

“New Song” of Chile and of all Latam, started in the mid 1960s. Song movement through which people stand up for their own culture, in the face of totalitarianism

Justice for Victor Jara

Family sought justice for his death in 2014, his murderer who was in the USA extradited back to Chile in December 2023

Sanjuan and instrumentation

Term that rose as early as 1860 and refers to a type of song or dance performed at the festival of St. John. Harp without pedals used by Quichua to perform

“Azúcar de Caña”

Written by Daniel Escobar, incorporates several terms of flirtation and eroticism. Has a Quijada, a traditional bone instrument. Lyrics reflect Moche culture.

Landó

A reconstructed genre, revival of Afro-peruvian music traditions that began in the 1950s

The role of the sitar

Adds depth, complexity and emotion to traditional ragas and compositions. Stands for intelligence needed for harmony with greater world

Split between the north and the south

Ethnic (Aryans in north, Dravidians in south), linguistic (Hindi north, Tamil south), religious ( varities of Hinduism, south less fundamentalist and less believing of caste system) and musical difference (Carantic in the south).

Alap

Expose, unfold the rag, start low and go higher

Rag

Tells you the phrase, what notes to emphasize, pitch hierarchies and

Gat

Fixed melody that signals entrance of Tabla

Jhala

Virtuosic part, should be very fast

Ultra Jala

3 notes plus drone stroke

Tihai

At climax, repeating phrase X3

Relationship to time in concert performance

Things start slow and go faster and faster

Drum language and strokes

Konnakol drum language, (vocal solfege syllables for the drum called the mridangam, [tha ka, tha ki ta etc.]

Tin-tal

Most common taal of hindustani music, used for fast tempo. 16 beat tala

Beat cycle

16 beat cycle, tintal

Solfege system

Syllables assigned to the notes of a scale, assisting the musician of mentally hearing the pitches of a piece of music