Musical Instruments; a Brief Description of a , Few Additional Musical Genres Or Contexts; and Finally, a Consideration of Recent Developments and Popular Music
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• ~ J, . ~ ~ ~ J':'-_J_ ~.: ' ~- ;, ·1 ...,. ures PRESENTING THE WORLD OF MllSIC T he purµo~;e of this book is to introduce the reader to the world of music, the music of the v.rorld's cultures, emphasizing the diversity and the uniqueness of each. Directing ourselves to students- particularly those without a technical background- and to general readers, we want to give a sense of the character of 1nusic and musical life of all the world's peoples. Given that there are thousands of peoples, each with their own music, we can accomplish this only by careful , sampling and judicious synthesis-through crafting excursions in world music. These excursions take the form of eleven chapters, each of which is devoted to presenting a representative set of case ~tudies within a major culture area. Even s0, we have had to leave large areas untouched. In order to provide a degree of depth JS well as breadth, we have had to be , selective. Vie therefore work with c;1se studies that, taken together, will provide the reader a picture of the way the world's peoples make music, think about it, itC t 5 1 $5 • use it in their lives, and also what all this music sounds like and how it is struc tured. The world's musical diversity is reflected to some degree in the diversity of the organization of our chapters, but all chapters have commonalities. In each chapter, we first focus on a detailed description of a musical event that may be considered broadly representative of its culture area. Ordinarily, this is followed by an introduction to the cultures and societies of the area; an exploration of musi cal life and ideas about music, of musical style (described in terms comprehensible by nonspecialists), music history, and musical instruments; a brief description of a , few additional musical genres or contexts; and finally, a consideration of recent developments and popular music. We describe musical cultures as they exist · today, but wherever possible we provide some information about their history. We do this in some measure to dispel the notion that western academic or art · mu sic lives in a sense through its history, whereas the musics of other socie- 1 ties have no history at all, or at best a very different sort of history. We should , make one thing clear from the start: every musical system-that is, the music and 3 4 I \ ( l R\ I(),._, 1:-. \\ (lR \ ll \\l l '-.1( 11rnsi c:1 l life nf each society, from the multifarious society <Jf New York City to * Explore ~earning 0b1ect1ves :1 natin.: Amazoni an tribe ·of two hundred persons-is a complex phenome~on 10 ,' rtlls chapter en th,n may be analyzed and comprehended from many perspectives. We certainl_y mymusiclab.com ,rnuld n· ot be able to provide the amount o f J eta1·1 n ecessary t o illu·st rate. th1 c:; · · · h h' h d · l herefore intro- pomt fo r all th e cultures and musics wit w 1c we ea • W P·- L · . duce the world's musica l complex ity selectively, each chapter featunng on_e or a few concepts. Thus, in addition to providing a set of general and essentially parall el introductions to the musics of eleven world areas, this book may also be read as an introduction to the topics within world music study: • Chapter 2, on India, devotes special attention to the relationshjp of music and dance. • Chapter 3, on the Middle East, concentrates on different con_ceptio1:s of music in the world's cultures and on ways musicians learn to 1mproVIse. • Chapter 4, on China, presents a detailed examination of the role of music in the political development of a modernizing nation. • Chapter 5, on Japan, shows the survival, in a moderruzed society, of its older traditions. e Chapter 6, on Indonesia, examines the place of Indonesian music in musi cal contexts around the globe and explores the role of artists and tourists from abroad in Indonesian musical culture. • Chapter 7, on sub-Saharan Africa, provides special insight into the world of popular music in the area's urban societies. • Chapter 8, on Europe, concentrates on the interrelationships among folk, art. and popular musics in the contemporary world of Europe and looks at ics attempts, since World War II, to become an integrated musical urut. • Chapter 9, on Latin America, analyzes the relationships of social values and musical style through case studies dr::iwn from the area. • Chapter 10, on the Caribbean, gives a sampling of the diverse musical styles and genres from the multitude of island cultures, showing how in rn::iny ways, music serves to unify the contrastive cultures often living in ckse proximity, while at the same time giving each society an emblem of its identity. • Chapter 11, on Native Americans, provides information on the study of history and prehistory of musical cultures without written records. • Chap~e r 12 provi_de~ insight int~ ?1e interaction between unity, diversity, and difference within both trad1t:1ona.l, rural folk music, and modern, urb2nized music in multiethnic North America. * ·exp-lore F !)f each ~re2 of the world covered by a chapter, we have tried to provide rr-: r;10nal rr,av, r1r , thr:: an overv;ew; thus, Chapter 2 speaks at least briefly to many of the kinds of mu ir,ir-r:yt; ;~ GfrJbe 0n sic fo und in India; Chapter 7 tells of the differences between East, Central, and mym\.f">idab.com West Africa, :rnd between rural and urban musics; Chapter 11 gives an over view of the musics of i:he hundreds of Native North American tribes. INTROl)UCTION : STUIJ'r INC MUSICS OF Tl Ii: WOf~UJ'S CU LTlJkE S 5 Mariachi BancJ Moyahua from th e state nf Zacatecas, performing on the streets in M ex ico. Source : Peter M. Wilson/Alamy Al though we believe that our accounts achieve this kind of breadth, we also wish to show the reader the depth of musical culture, the many things that go into the composing, performance, and understanding of even a basic song or ritual, its history and the effects it has, and how it is perceived and judged by the people who render it and who hear it. We have tried to accomplish this by concentrating. in each chapter, on a limited number of representative cul tures, communities, events, and even instruments within the broad geographi cal area that it covers. Thus, Chapter 3 concentrates on Iran, where one of the authors has done original research, to impart a sense of the many things to be noted, even though space limitations prevent giving the same attention to the Arab peninsula or Turkey. Chapter 8 presents the scope of European music, wi th all its variety, through the prism of the city of Vienna. One of our purposes is to expiain music as a cultural phenomenon. We do hope to persuade readers to listen to music of at least some of the world's many societies and to find it enjoyabie. But much of the music we will be discussing has purposes far beyond enjoyment. The significance of much of the world's music is in the realm of religion and society, in the way humans interact with the supernatural and with each other. In some societies, music identifies clans and social classes, confirms political status, expresses communication from the supernatural, and cures the sick. Thus, although readers will want to know how the musical pieces of the world's cultures are put together and what general principles of composition may dominate in a given society, it is perhaps even more important for them to understand each culture's ideas of what music is, what its powers are, how it relates to other aspects of life, and how it reflects 6 EX CURSIONS IN WORLD MUSIC RECITATIVE important· th.mgs about its people an d their · VIew· o f the wo rld · For· this rea. sod n, A style of barely sung recitation although we wish to explain the nature of musical sound, we also have tne to in which the action or plot present a holistic picture of musical life and musical culture. is carried forward. Often used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas, it imitates the rhythm and cadence of speech LOOKING AT MUSIC IN SEVERAL \NAYS and is generally sparsely accompanied. Our purpose is to present the varieties of the world's musics and t? present c d tandma- a par- ARIA several ways of looking at music, all of them necessary 1or un ers o , tic· ul ar work o f music· as it· mteracts· wi·th· its cu 1ture in· man1 · y ways • The worldsb A self-contained, often highly t virtuosic piece for solo voice, music includes the music of Europe and we illustrate our approach firS Y ' ' most commonly used in opera, commenting on a work that is likely familiar to some readers, Mozart s o~era, that affords the character a The /vlarriage of Figaro (originally named Le Nozze di Figaro). Its structure is _an moment of reflection on a alternation of recitatives in which the action is carried forward through qU1ck particular sentiment_. issue, or dialogue barely sung, with arias and vocal ensembles such as trios and quartets, dilemma taking place within in which characters make lyrical and contemplative statements or rea~t to wh~t the plot. has just happened. Knowing this tells us something about the aesthetics an?, if you will, the attention span of the patrons. But it also tells us about the relation ship of opera to spoken drama, about the way Mozart and other composers of his time, and their audience, perceived the relationship of music and language.