East-West Encounters

What is East?

The area strengthening from Turkey and the Black sea region across (Has most of people) the Asian continent. This includes countries of the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent

What is west?

Europe and the United States (lot of money)

Russia

More European when talking about, Russia including in the East, the political cold war made Russia the East, Russia has both

Nation-to-nation

Colonialism -Cultural Diplomacy

Institutional

Concerts by visiting artists -Classes like this!

Individual Study

As a performer -As a scholar -As a composer

Hearing and Listening

Anywhere sound is happening!

Ravi Shankar

Indian sitar player, composer, teacher, cultural ambassador, etc. (1920-2012)

Had a vested interest in collaborating with Western musicians and developing new musical languages

Yehudi Menuhin

American/British violinist, teacher, cultural ambassador, etc.

Likewise, a highly respected master of Western classical style

Nurtured a lifelong interest in music’s of the world; served as president of London’s Asian Music Circle beginning in the 1950s

West meets East

Released to critical acclaim in 1967

A-side: composed and improvise works in Indian style

B-side: Enesco’s “Rumanian” sonata for violin and piano

Georges Enescu

Romania; spent much of his career in France (1881-1955)

Regularly incorporated Romanian themes and concepts into his music

Requires some significant bending of traditional Western expectations

This particular sonata has features that suggest an allegiance with Indian music

Beat or Pulse

Regular marking of time

Tempo

Rate at which beats occur (Some musical works do not exhibit a strong sense of beat or meter – these are said to be in a “free tempo”)

Meter

Pattern of accented beats (e.g., groups of 2, 3, or 4) (Also accounts for the “feel” of the beat, such as whether it is steady or swung)

Rhythm

Can also be used to describe the internal timing of a specific musical phrase or composition

Chabbiyat Tazi Marghul (Uybur)

• Medium Tempo

• Two-beat meter

• Simple Rhythms

The river Herlen (Mongolian)

• Free Tempo

• Unclear Meter

• Complex Rhythms

Jizu Kuang (Chinese)

• Slow Tempo

• Compound Meter

• Syncopated Rhythms

Register

Whether the sound is high (treble) or low (bass) (Different cultures have different systems for describing individual pitches with high precision)

Tonality

A system of pitch organization (Includes concepts like scales, keys, and modes)

Melody

A linear assemblage of pitches (Often divided into “phrases”)

Harmony

A vertical assemblage of pitches (Often divided into “chords”)

Dynamics

Loudness and softness

Articulation

The way in which a sound is attacked and sustained

Monophony

Everyone does the same thing (single-line) (Also includes single-line music with a supporting drone)

Heterophony

Parts that do almost the same thing; performers may “ornament” a line

Polyphony

Multiple independent lines

Homophony

Melody & accompaniment

Can also be described technically on the basis of a sound’s … and …

Envelope; Spectrum

Notation

Many traditions do not use musical notation: they are oral traditions. And not every written tradition notates all aspects of a musical work.

Text

Whether or not a piece of music involves spoken or sung words can greatly affect how we assess it

Priorities

This is essential in distinguishing between various styles and genres.

Big business (Instruments)

Designing, building, and learning to play them are all massive endeavor

Timbres (Provide a range)

Tone colors

Extensions of the voice

They let us expand the ways we can express ourselves

Art objects (Instruments)

They possess intimate cultural, spiritual, historical and personal significance

Idiophones

Sound produced by the whole body (like the temir qobyz of “Kuu”) (Drums)

Membranophones

Sound produced by flat material (like the drum of the “Dance of Tamir Agha”) (Drums)

Chordophones

Sound produced by strings (like most of the instruments from last class) (Plucked)

Aerophones

Sound produced by wind (like the duduks of the “Dance of Tamir Agha”) (Pipes)

Electrophones

Sound produced by electricity (we haven’t seen one of these yet)

The Voice!

• Register

• Method

• Timbre

• Gender Concerns

• Language (texts and vocables)

Fieldwork

Ethnomusicologists gathered materials from around the world

Review

A listening panel assessed the state of things, and chose musicians they thought would play ball

Convene

16 composers and 40 performers gathered at Tanglewood, a large music center near Boston

Build Trust

Folks stayed in contact, learned from each other, and finally released an album, When Strangers Meet, in 2001

Arabian Waltz: By Rabih Abou-Khalil

Not really a waltz: Waltzes are usually in a fast 3-beat meter • This piece is metrically complex

Night of the Flying Horses: By Osvaldo Golijov

Argentian-American composer

Originally from a set of three songs for soprano and orchestra

This song itself is in three parts:

• Yiddish lullaby

• Doina (“slow, rubato gypsy lament”)

• Gallop (“a theme I stole” from friends in a band)

Object Appropriation

“When the possession of a tangible work of art … is transferred from members of one culture to members of another.”

Context Appropriation

“Significant recuse of an idea first expressed in the world of an artist from another culture.”

Style Appropriation

“Worlds with stylistic elements in common with the worlds of another culture.”

Motif Appropriation

“When artists are influenced by the art of a culture other than their own without creating works in the same style.”

Subject Appropriation

“Ousiders… represent in their artworks individuals or intuitions from another culture.”

Exotica

Being this idea of is this cultural appropriation/west instruments made into east like

Flower album

Being with both East/ West Instrument

Continuity

Emergence from a long-standing political-economic environment

Support

Artistic practices receive critical and financial validation by people of power

Professionalism

Practitioners form a “quasi-priesthood.”

History

Opportunity for rules of performance and composition to become solidified

Canon

Society at large agrees on an accepted repertory of pieces or forms that symbolize and embody the tradition’s ideals and priorities

Notation

In origin, staff notation is an almost exclusively European technology

Composition

Many musical works are set, but frameworks for improvisation are just as valid

Art Music

All music is art (but is all sonic art classical music?

Elitist

Power may play a role in sustaining the tradition, but it does not define who makes or hears the music

Complexity

No tradition holds a patent on complexity; classical traditions are typically just invested in codifying their intricacies

Classical

“Classical music” is a Western invention. Every society establishes its own sense of which musical practice deserves pride of place (and why [and whether the word “classical” even applies]).

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

• Scheherazade

Important Russian composer and naval officer (1844-1908)

Successfully advocated for the development of a distinctive Russian classical style

• Involved an emphasis on:

• Orchestration

• Melodic embellishment

• Use of folk material

• Distinctive harmonies (e.g., octatonicism)

The Kalander Prince(s)

• Shows up as three(!) stories within a story:

• First, an erotic encounter between a porter and three sisters

• Eventually, a whole bunch of other people show up, including three wandering princes

• Each has been through harrowing experiences, which they describe in detail

• It is not obvious which one Rimsky- Korsakov used as the basis of the movement

Turkish classical style

• Texture: predominantly monophonic

• Tonality: based on the maqam system (it’s complicated)

• Rhythm: based on the concept of usul (also complicated)

• Form and genre: diverse, with nuanced connections between secular life and Islam

• Timbres: many types of instruments, most designed to permit levels of flexibility similar to that of the voice. Also percussion!

Giacomo Puccini

• Madame Butterfly

• Who is regarded as the last great Italian opera composer of the Romantic era

• Basic plot:

  • As part of a real-estate deal, an American soldier marries a Japanese teenager (Butterfly)

  • He leaves, never intending to return

  • Butterfly gives birth to his son

  • He does return, but with a new American wife

  • Butterfly commits suicide

Lou Harrison

Concerto in slendro

(For violin solo, celesta, tackpianos, and percussion)

Chen YI

Happy Rain on a Spring Night

• Why is she important?

  • She represents a cohort of Chinese composers who reacted against the constraints of the Cultural Revolution

  • Chen’s music uniquely blends expertise in European and Chinese music

  • Her style is uncommonly personal and distinctive

Toru Takemitsu

November Steps

(For shakuhachi, biwa, and orchestra)

Yin Chengzong

The Yellow River Concerto

Cantata ≠ Concerto

Cantata = semi-dramatic works for voices and instruments that develop a story or theme over multiple contrasting movements

Yusef Lateef (1920-2013)

Initially associated with bebop, but later experimented with fusion and new age(!)

Specialized in winds not commonly heard in jazz: flute, oboe, and lots of Asian instruments

Thoroughly disinterested in boundaries: studied multiple traditions, wrote books, and taught at several colleges

Don Ellis (1934-1978)

• Studied European and Indian classical music (plus jazz)

• Entire creative life driven by innovation: used experimental instruments, orchestrations, and musical structures

• Also sought to unite disparate jazz worlds: big band, bebop, and fusion

Vagif Mustafazade

• Tragically short life: 1940-1979

• Trained as a classical pianist, but picked up elements of mugham along the way

• As the jazz taboo waned, he devoted himself to learning its fundamentals by ear

• Heard an affinity between jazz and Azerbaijani music → sought to combine them

Improvisation

Central to both jazz and traditional mugham performance

Structure

Just as jazz is typically based around chord progressions, mugham is based around scales and modes

Opportunity

There was an obvious vacuum of cool, danceable music!

Attitude

Like all great musicians, Mustafazade was driven, committed, and understood how his work interacted with tradition

Uzeyir Hajibeyli (1885-1948)

• Sought to do the same thing with classical music 60 years earlier

• His opera Leyli and Majnun, from 1908, helped solidify the status of classical composition in the region

• Carefully considered how the mechanics of European and Azerbaijani music could mesh

Aziza Mustafazade

• Born in 1969

• Inherited her father’s talent, openness, and sense of commitment

• Also classically trained in piano (and voice), but in a much more open society → tremendous range of influences

Fred Ho

• American baritone saxophonist, thinker, and revolutionary: 1957-2014

• Served in the Marines before studying sociology at Harvard; was largely self-taught in music

• Ultimately succumbed to colon cancer, but only after putting out several books and more than a dozen albums

• Saw this as a common experience among both the Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) and African American communities → Joined in the latter’s efforts to organize and effect change

City Pop

Basic Reception, Vaporwave, Nostalgia

The Hu

• Most are newly composed, with contemporary texts

• Generally based on traditional themes: the warrior spirit, riding, pride and resilience of the Mongolian people, etc.

Yang Tae-Hwan

• Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

• Most famous for a set of four violin concertos called “The Four Seasons”

• Yang played the slow movement of “Winter”

What is globalization?

• A process whereby the distinctions between local, national, and global become increasingly hard to define

• This is one definition among many!

• Particularly relevant for how we think about music and its relation to culture

Erhu

• Local: development as a folk instrument in some regions of China

• National: broad acceptance as a symbol of Chinese music

• Global: appearance, along with Greek, Indian, European, and dozens of other instruments, on an album by the Swiss musician Andreas Vollenweider

R. Carlos Nakai

• Local: the specific places and traditions represented

• National: the idea of “Native American” and “Japanese” musics

• Global: further integration of Western harmony, pop rhythms and formats, widespread availability

• Arizona-born flutist descended from the Navajo and Ute nations (b. 1946)

Rabih Abou-Khalil

• Lebanese oud player, born in 1957

• Studied both Middle-Eastern and European classical traditions

• Since fleeing the Lebanese Civil War in 1978, he’s been based in Germany

• Hungry People dropped in 2012

• Features a highly unique sound, built on the skills of international collaborators

• This music resists the boundaries of geography, history, and genre: it is radically syncretic