Where Worlds Collide, So Do We All
There are a handful of characteristics in Western Art and Folk music that have connections with the broad global concept of its definitions. Generally, the product of this music includes tonality, melody, rhythmic structures, ceremony, and performer/audience expectations. The act of musicking, as described by Christopher Small in his 1998 book “Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening”, considers the concept as a verb, not a noun. He writes, “To music is to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing. We might at times even extend its meaning to what the person is doing who takes the tickets at the door or the hefty men who shift the piano and the drums or the roadies who set up the instruments and carry out the sound checks or the cleaners who clean up after everyone else has gone. They, too, are all contributing to the nature of the event that is a musical performance.” Robert Christgau writes a remarkably interesting perspective on Small, here in his article from 2000 called “Thinking About Musicking”. Obviously, the scope of what we define music to be gets extremely broad when put into this context. Looking simply at the product and setting aside the multitude of participatory elements that go into the end result, there are several interesting outliers whose differences from Western components of music fall.
In music of the Americas (strangely not considered “Western Art music”, even though it is geographically, the furthest west), the uses of melody and rhythm are present as we might define in the spectrum. However, their stylings are influenced by more by ceremony, ability for generational transmission, and emotive connections instead of what Bruno Netti so eloquently observes, “the idea of technical complexity has never been a criterion of musical quality to Native American peoples.” He continues, “The rather athletic view of music taken in Western culture , where star performances by individual composers and performances and their ability to do very difficult things is measured, is replaced in Native American cultures by quite different values.” Read more about this perspective in my writings on June 10th, here. These cultural deviations from Western culture permeate in other situations of geographical isolation from the European countries where we build the lexicon of orchestral composition. It seems the further we stretch this line, the more variation we can observe.
Much of the Korean, Japanese, and Indonesian cultures have variant uses of melody that strike the Western ear as unusual. While Middle Eastern music may have its unique tendencies towards singular melody, it often still maintains principles of rhythm, song structure, and instrumentation that, at the very least, is relatable to Western sensibilities. Scholars like Bela Bartok were fascinated by regional compositions, but he was obviously able to incorporate many of these idioms into his own expression without insurmountable obstacles to attracting the European ears. In fact, his work, along with many others whom we see take the plunge of capturing multi-cultural perspectives on expression have proven to drive new genre and push the advancement of the ages. When music starts to change in dramatic fashion, there is a heavy argument to have about what is either following or representative of this manifestation. Did the composers like Bartok and Verdi who studied regional sounds of eastern lands drive change, or were they writing about the change that they observed? Did the music of Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean develop variation in orchestral arrangement as a result of French occupation in the late 1700’s, or did they attract those cultural influences with their captivating sounds? Was the Jazz music that erupted from New Orleans a result of the conglomeration of a wide range of people groups, or did its roots set the stage for them to arrive? Whatever the case, when we see big markers in the epochs of human history, there is often an incredible song that sits in its heart.
Congo Square is an epicenter of musical importance. This vital part of the economical growth of the Americas also has a vibrant story when it comes to the mixing of people groups. Native Americans, Jamaican Voodoo, French Renaissance, Spanish Conquistadors, African Spirituals, and British Traders are just a handful of the characters that inhibit this amazing tale. The genres of music that unfold from this collision of culture in incredible, and much of our current sonic soundscapes exists because of the interactions and history of this area.
For the past few days, I’ve written about one of the branches of Modernism, and woven a story behind the emergence of Dubstep. This music genre is just a small thread in the fabric of our modern electronic music world, but its properties highlight an important facet that makes popular music functionally possible. The act of collaboration, collective participation, and cultural interaction is a huge stamp on significant definitive points in the story of music history. We see it in the creativity of Beethoven and the Romantic Era, as European travel and communication is revolutionized by railways and telegraphs; We see it as the New World explodes with the automotive, the telephone and advent of recorded sound and its connection to jazz; and most recently, we see this immense shift in the age of the internet, where the world stage bursts into a giant chorus of accessibility.
One of my favorite blends of technology comes from the modern era, just on the cusp of Napster and the explosion of information exchange. The mix culture was still on the horizon, but Soul Coughing was already throwing their weight into Sugar Free Jazz. Enjoy this listening example before we take a deeper dive into New Orleans on the Feature Article coming this Saturday.