April 15, 1997

 

Brazil

 

In America:  poor people in the cities, rich people out in the countryside.

 

In Latin America:  rich in the cities where there is electricity, running water, poor people outside                            the cities in boxes.

 

poor

 

flavela - buriel  barrio

a rich person has to buy their way in

wild flowers on slums.

carnival controlled by the Mafia.

mangera - name of one particular flavela.

 

the patron syndrome - A god or something will take care of everything.

      - if you're rich, you were destined to be rich. 

      - no incentive to give to the poor.

      - if you're poor, you were destined to be poor.

 

martial art style of dance:

capoeira - hands and feet

makulee - machetes

 

2 kinds of Brazilian Music:

Umbanda - Candouble - religious

 

music, trance and dance

Ä for a god to inhibit body.

 

drums in book

 

Rio de Genero      carnival  -  6 weeks before Easter.

 

 

 

April 17, 1997

 

Slave Trade

1538 - 1780   Latin America

1619 - 1863   America

 

 


Diaspora - displaced people; scattered against their will

(at first it only applied to Jews)

indigenous - original peoples.

 

Jamaica - Reggae, Rasta Fari music

 

Argentina - tango (spanish rule)

 

Trinidad - calypso

        î Henry Belafonti

Haiti è  french influence, voodoo  (means "religion")

  shango - the overall god in voodoo

    they use drums to put some one in trance so that a god                                                          (preferably shango) will possess them.

these things are from Youroba, Nigeria.

1 in 10 African are Nigerian.

 

Europe

bata - sacred, ritual music

but now used in public.

 

all the instruments are telephones - communications with the gods.

 

 hit drums     ð      tambourine rings

they think the gods are there doing it.

 

 

 

April 22, 1997

 

African Music  -  Slaves

 

prebellum - some British slaves came from Ghana (shanti symbol on coffins).

 

1865 Bellum - old style houses, with columns, etc.

 

postbellum

 

congo square (postbellum)

- Sunday afternoon place of worship/spiritual music.

- work for low wages.

- banjo, guitar, violin - European instruments.

very little percussion - on the sly, late at night (forbidden).

religion - protestant based,  songs divided into:

field hollers/work songs (I'd rather be somewhere else).


[most of white people music until 1920 based on marching & opera.]

 

African deterred from typical

- brought slurs

- flowing beat, fluid time

- jazz, blues, spirituals  --  Europeans find worthwhile about us.

 

Sacred Plantation music

- call and response: lining out.  (soloist reads it out, group answers/repeats.)

- no music background

1.  no beat - fluid time

2.  individual entrances

3.  polyrhythmic - 2 rhythms going on at the same time.

4.  intro of maj/min scales at the same time:  blue notes.

5.  lamenting mood/soul in music

- blurring tonal palette.

- adding more notes.

 

Trance.

 

singing in black church drowned out the white church singing.

 

World Blues

one singer & guitar

shuffle beat - music of the train

 

Dance

- steady beat

- syncopated beat to get you out of chair

- maj/min scales at the same time

- slurring

- call and response

- STANDARD BLUES BEAT -- 12 MEASURES

 

text - love, social problems

either:

- English sea shanti

- African work songs

 

slaves expected to sing - part of job description.  A good slave could really sing/sang all the time.

 

Mance Lipscomb   1895  (75 yrs old)

- sharecropper

- guitarist, made records

 


Important names:

Mance Lipscomb

Blind Lemon Jeffeison

Willie Ledbetter - Leadbelly

Mississippi John Hurt

        "        Fred McDowell

 

3 categories of music:

worship

work

play

 

spirituals - more than 4 (coral)

  - all written out (no lining or improv)

1880s     - sophisticated as structures, etc

  - transportable

  - but has same blurring tonal maj/min

  - rhythmic speech

  - sincapated beat

  - timbre of African American voice

regular, predictable

 

1890s  Ragtime - Scott Joplin

- Hubie Brooks

- brass band of the civil war

- each regiment had a band

- most skilled musicians - got to keep instruments after that war.  Used them to                                                  perform and make a living afterwards.  

- but clubs changed to pianists to save money.

- mostly played in whorehouses - prostitutes danced

- syncopated - try to make music interesting

 

1900  Jazz - New Orleans Sound

break band up/ second line- rhythm section- more import -drum, piano, bass, baritone

make distinction            frontline           

 

2nd line band

- bands that march in the street

- for funerals - real slow to the funeral, cut up on way back

- people behind doing their own thing - called 2nd line

 

 

 

 

 


April 24, 1997

 

Jazz      St. Louis/New York

 

Dixieland or New Orleans (1900)    è  Roarin' 20s

(Buddy Bolden)

 

Swing  (1930s)  Fletcher, Henderson

Bebop  (1945)  Charlie Parker

 

"Lining out"  =  call and response

 

combo  3-7   front line

 

missed this part

 

"Head"  arrangement    ----------->  not written

"chart"  =  written out arrangement

 

"up" tempo/medium tempo/ballad tempo

 

Pg 162 Jazz Form

- especially improv.

- dance music

 

A          B         A

 

16 measures

A    (2x)                       "Head" of the piece

16 - 32 "song" form

12 meas. Blues

Dixie

       Melody    --------->  clarinet or trumpet

&

      Harmony   --------->  trumpet or trombone, piano/banjo/guitar

 

 

16 meas.          B                                       order of solos:                        each solo is a "chorus"

    solo improv.                         frontline                        each soloist takes 3 choruses

on melodic + harmonic              rhythm              leader says "out" when over.

material of section A                             drums                          

 

rhythm section accompany        - they're playing linear material

soloist                           - melodic fragments, harmonic notes

- scales - to fit chords


     then back to

A                                             *Jazz is a craftmanship, an art form*

maybe with coda

 

"set" - 45 minute of playing (then intermission then another set.)

 

Jazz Rhythm

- is divided in 3

- called shuffle

 

sometimes there's a singer --  Bessie Smith  -- the most popular.

 

"scat" singer - singer improvises w/non word to answer soloist.

 

Dance styles:    2 step

Charleston

 

 

April 29, 1997

 

"Head" Arrangement - music from memory.

"Head" of the song - beginning of the song.

up, medium, ballad tempos.

"set" - when they band plays (between breaks, about 45 minutes).

"scat" singing - sing improvised linear lines to nonsense syllables during solos.

"front" - to lead the group.

"chops" - physical condition of player's anatomy (mouth muscles, hands).

"bag of tricks" or "bag" - certain characteristics of a performer, their style and repeated licks.

"session" -

"woodshed" - to practice.

 

Dixieland - Dance

Swing - Dance, also just to listen to.

 

Buddy Bolden established Dixieland.

Louis Armstrong makes it appreciated as an art.

also played swing in small combos.

Duke Ellington (frontman) established Big Band as swing.

Count Basie established Big Band.

 

*If it's not based on shuffle, it's not Jazz.

 

- gave rise to ballroom dancing, which rivals ballet.

"cutting session" - two soloists trying to out do each other, answering, "cutting" each other up.

 


Bebop 1945s (Rebop)

"Bop"

- back to small combos, night clubs.

- originated in New York.

 

Charlie Parker

Dizzy Gillispie

Thelonias Monk

Lester Young

Miles Davis

Max Roach

 

Intense, saturated syncopated rhythm

"Angular" melody - not singable - better for instrumentalists - large range.

complex, saturated harmony - for listening.

 

Combo music

 

Bebop established Jazz as an art form.

 

 

May 1, 1997

 

East Coast, Hard Bebop, Hard Bop (1955)

        (Funk/Soul)          "changes"

 

Horace Silver                                                               To more saturated and syncopated rhythm.

Art Blakey                                                                    overall more intense in overall effect.

Kenny Dorham                                                 Incorporation of Urban Blues and

John Cotraine   }                                                                      Gospel styles.

Johnny Rollins   }   Modalists                           

Miles Davis      }          modal jazz                                Post-Hard Boppers (1970s)

Zoot Sims                                                                     Wynton and Branford Marsalis

Filip Phillips                                                                  Chick Corea

Charles Ming                                                                Herbie Hancock

 

Jazz messengers - group formed by some of these people.

 

Miles Davis:  Bebop, West coast, East coast, Fusion, Modal

 

Gospel                                                 Urban Blues - night club kind

 

Thomas Dorsey                                                Muddy Waters - took it out of the country and into                                                                                             the city.

B.B. King - best of all time.


scale = modes

 

Modal cords - like drone, improvised on. songs on only one chord.

 

Contemporary Jazz - basically all Bop.

 

playing "outside"

 

Latin Jazz (Now called "Salsa") 1955s

Perez Prado

Tito Puente                              

Ray Barnetto                                        brought to NY, east coast

Machito

Cal Tjader

 

Progressive Jazz 1960s ("Third Stream")

Stan Kenton                                                    

Gunther Schuller                                               - more orchestra instruments

Gil Evans                                                          - symphonic quality

Eric Dolphy                                                      - expanded on jazz, added symphony

Charles Mingus                                     - less improv

 

Free Jazz (1960, 70s)

west coast

a "happening" - spontaneous get up on stage and do something

sounds like chaos

 

Archie Shepp - lives in Europe

 

Fusion/Crossover/Jazz-Rock  (Jazz 98.1 FM)

Chick Corea

Herbie Hancock                                               jazz:  triplet

Miles Davis                                                      rock:  duplet or quadruplet

Grover Washington                                          

David Sanborn                                     spyro-gyra, etc.

Toto                                                                

 

If it has duplet/quadruplet base, its fusion.

If it has triplet, its one of the forms of jazz.

 

Modern Big Jazz Bands combine:

Bebop

Hard Bop

Fusion

Latin (Salsa)


May 6, 1997

 

Jazz Styles

Dixieland or New Orleans (1900)

Swing (1930s)

Bebop (1945s)

West coast - Cool (1950s)

East coast Hard Bop (1955s)

 ("Funk" or "Soul")  (mixture of Bebop, West coast, Urban blues and gospel)

Muddy Waters

B.B. King

Thomas Dorsey

Modal (A spinoff of East coast) (1960s)

John Coltraine

Sonny Rollins

Miles Davis

Latin (Salsa) (1955s)

Progressive or Third Stream (1960s)

Free or Avant Garde (1965s)

Ornette Coleman

Archie Shepp

Sun Ra

Lester Bowie (Art Ensemble of Chicago)

Happenings - Alan Kaprow

Fusion - 98.1

Post-Harden Bebop - today's jazz

Marsalis, etc.

 

John Cage - more of a philosopher

spontaneous - not so planned out

Indeterminant - Aleotoric music - unplanned event

 

NEXT MONDAY:

 

Indonesia

13,000 Islands from Asia to Australia

 

Bigger Islands: Borneo, Sumatra, Sulawesi(Celebes), Java, Bali (very small/musically important)

 

Social Structure/Religion:  95% Muslim, Hindu, Budha. 

  originally animists

 

Uses of Music:

 

Kinds of Musical Instruments:


Gamelan:  Javanese orchestra

 

Shadow Play:  follows the days events of giving miniature homes to Ratukidu and going into                   trance to hear her.

 

Semma and Ratukidu:    Semma rules the earth

Ratukidu rules the waters

Goddess of the south seas

married to human who lies on both sides of the shadow screen

 

Every newborn comes to them directly from Heaven and is therefore treated with such reverence.

 

 

 

May 8, 1997

 

mozart  Java - Islam (plus mixture of Animism, Buddhist, Hindu)

Aristocratic (courts) village society, christianity

 

Secular music & trance for court village ritual and entertainment

 

rock                 Bali - Hindu (plus mix of animism and Buddhist) Semma, Ratukidu

n                                  village society (aristocracy eliminated by dutch 1910)

roll                               secular and sacred music and dance for village ritual and entertainment

 

 

In all Indonesia (esp. Bali)

music, dance, painting textiles, mask making

Shadow play (wayang kulit)

islamic people

all night

retells old Hindu stories

transports you to your history/ancestors

 

 

X         |

X                                 light      |

   musicians,                                          |

    singers                                  X         |                       X

    Puppeteer     |                Audience

|

        Screen

 

 


Instruments at Monday’s concert:

metal xylophones (sapong)

metal gongs (Rayang, Kempul - middle & gong - largest)

flute (suling)

bowed lute (Rebab)

drums (Kendang)

 

Javanese music - slower for trance

Balinese music - faster

 

Structure of Indonesian music:

Buka - intro

tuning - slendro  5 tones per octave

 pelog   7 tones per octave

 

MULTI-LAYERED MONOPHONIC MUSIC

1.  Elaborating (ornamenting) layer - small horizontal gongs (Rayong)

2.  Fixed melody layer - metal xylophones (Balugan - Java or Pokok - Bali) [plays vocal layer]

3.  Vocal layer - flute(suling) and bowed lute (Rebab)

4.  Drum layer - (kendang) signals as well as accompaniment

5.  Colotonic layer - large horizontal gongs (Kempul and gong)

punctuating at end of phrases/sections/pieces

 - helps musicians/dancers know where they are.

 

Ultimately Foreign Music

Music 151

Spring 1997

 


On Monday, February 10, I listened to about forty-five minutes of Persian music from Iran.  The group "Darvac" included Farhad (the leader), Reza, Mahmood and Moin.  Farhad played the setar and occasionally sang with a deep, bass-line voice.  Reza played the tar and had also written one of the songs they performed that evening.  Mahmood played the tonbak and the ney.  Moin was the singer, perhaps a tenor if my ears serve me right.  The setar is a small, long-neck guitar with a sort of raspy sound, which is why I questioned the quality of it's sound.  The tar is a long-neck guitar-like instrument with a skin stretched across it.  It is played with a pick  and it sound like an instrument used for playing Spanish love songs.  The tonbak is very similar to a tomtom and is played with the hands.  Mahmood plays a lot of rolls on the tonbak and uses the different areas of the drumhead for different pitches.  The ney is a very intriguing instrument which caught my attention the moment it was played.  It is a flute made of bamboo, end-blown with a breathy sound and a lot of echo.  Moin the singer had a shaky voice with wavering tone.  I wasn't sure if that was for effect or because he was nervous, but I wasn't really impressed.  What I really enjoyed listening to was the instrumental portion of the performance.  As a whole, Darvac had a very interesting sound accompanied by strange lyrics that created an ultimately foreign musical experience.  The music played that evening was "pretty old" according to Farhad, and contained a lot of improvisation.  The styles I heard that evening reminded me of various sounds I have heard on television and radio.  Some if it sounded like Spanish love songs, yodeling (especially when the ney was played) or a kind of tune I might have heard from the commercial for "Irish springs".


As far as musical details of the evening, I have noted several key distinctions.  The group maintained a steady rhythm, straight with a little off beats here and there, which was complimentary to the music altogether.  The melody was passed back and forth between members of the group with what I perceived to be a monophonic texture: one melody with accompaniment.  I also noticed that the dynamics varied some, but not at all dramatic.  The tone quality in general was edgy and bright.  In my opinion it was overall, a very good performance, enjoyable and well-rounded.  The only questionable aspects are not of my personal forte, therefore could have been intentional and in good taste according to the Middle Eastern culture.

I enjoyed the music itself as it had familiar sounds with a foreign twist.  It was an eye-opening performance and very enlightening.  My favorite part was when the ney was played.   Never before have heard such a  wondrous sound.  I am sure the audience appreciated the performance as well by their attention and applause.  The four members of Darvac performed authentic music for us while sitting indian-style on a rug up on stage.  Farhad, Reza, Mahmood and Moin shared their culture with us westerners while having a little fun with improvisation throughout the evening. 

 

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