World Music, Spring Semester 2013
Soundscapes
• Anchored in a specific place
• home environment; music has a space it resides in.
• If you are at sea, the sound changes all the time according to the environment
"Music isn't so static and is constantly affecting different ethnomusicological genres, and to
divide a course into different regions of the world, geographically, would be inaccurate."
• "Ethnos" = greek for groups
• Musical events:
○ setting/places/accomodations
○ people
○ meaning/purpose
○ traditions
○ sound/origin/elements of sound
Singers in Tuva, which is a part of Russia have learned to focus on certain overtones and suppress other overtones
○ There's a main/fundamental tone in their music
○ There are overtones/partials (tones)/harmonic tones
Where we encounter music: concerts, home, cell phones, social setting, background/or foreground, mall
• Whether you are expecting it (music can come at you as a surprise)
Accoustics of a room affect sound and sometimes amplifies certain freqeuences, which is
why DJ's or sound engineers use an equalizer to lower certain frequencies.
Significance of sound means how important something is. Sign = symbol, or a warning,
caution. Sign also points to something up ahead.
Ethnomusicology Is the study of music from an anthropogenic perspective, looking at observation and
"musical events." alternative names: sociomusicology or musicology
Khoomii "WHOmee"
A style of throat-singing
Accoustics Explores the physical and other processes of that shape the production and conveying of
sound
Fundamental tone The tone most easily singled out by the ear. Harmonic series, harmonics, or partials are produced in every natural occurance (non-digitally) enhanced.
Setting "The context of a musical performance, such as the structure of the performing space or
behavior of those present."
Shruti Pitch, in indian music. There's always a drone or Tambura/Shruti box. Instruments tuned to pitch, not fixed notes
Swaram Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Da, Ni, Sa. Quarter tones. Solfege
Ragam 72 Melakarta Ragams. Ragam is a mode that has at least five notes in a scale.
Arohanam/Avarohanam Scale going up is Arohanam. Scale going down is Avarohanam.
Equivalents:
Ragams for certain times.
Raga Alaap Improv
Gamaka Sort of like vibrato (trills?), the notes change though.
Shankarabharanam Major scale.
Devotional Indian music. You can tell when listening to it that it uses the word "Shiva."
Music - Organized sound that is meaningful to people within a specific time and place.
Inuit "Katajjaq", when two women sing in a playful manner who sit face to face. The singing ends when one person runs out of breath. It is not considered music, however, because it is considered a vocal game.
"Voiceless" - sounds produced when vocal chords are held apart
"Voiced" - sounds produced when vocal chords are pressed together
Quality of Sound - The color of a sound, arising from acoustical properties of the harmonic series.
Sound sources - The voices and instruments that produce musical sound and whose vibrations give rise to our perceptions of quality.
Vibrato - A regular fluctuation of a sound, produced by varying the pitch of the sound
Straight tone - A sound that lacks any vibrato
Raspy - A singing voice that is rough or gruff in quality.
Chest voice - Sound resonated from within the chest, with a low, powerful, throaty vocal quality.
Head voice - a light, bright, high tone resonated in the head
Falsetto - the process of singing by men in a high register above the normal male singing range
Nasal - A buzzing vocal quality produced by using the sinuses and mask of the face as sound resonators.
Indonesian music - Gamelan is an instrument long believed to have super natural powers.
Japanese bamboo flute - the shakuhachi, has been developed over the course of 1,000 years.
Armenian music - Duduk - a wood binding attached by a string on the left of the instrument is placed over the mouth piece to keep its reeds together
Organology - the study of musical instruments
Ethiopian music - lyre (Krar), is thought to be the "devil's instrument" because of the myth that it arose from the devil's attempt to mimic the larger baganna.
Sachs-Hornbostel system - named after the scholars who developed the system, it is a classification system of of instruments.
- Idiophones - Self-sounding instruments. The material doesn't matter, but as long as it's sent into vibration. Some examples are Gongs, bells, two hands and feet, etc.
- Chordophones - Have one or more vibrating strings as the sound source.
- Membranophones - Struck instruments such as drums, keyboards, that are struck by a hammer or hands--could be other methods as well. Drums have a membrane (drumhead) stretched across one or both ends of the instrument.
- Aerophones - Instruments that require air to be blown through it to produce the desired sound.
- Electrophones - Instruments that require electricity for there to be any sound, such as electronic synthesizers, keyboards, etc. Also, electric guitar that uses an amp is an example.
Lutes - Those with a neck and body to which strings are parallel. It's a chordophone.
Harps - those that have a sound board attached. A chordophone.
Zither - A chordophone without a neck or yoke whose strings are stretched parallel to the soundboard.
Lyre - Chordophone whose strings are stretched over a soundboard and attached to a crossbar that spans the top of a yoke.
Intensity - The loudness or softness of a sound. It refers to volume or dynamics
Pitch - The highess or lowness of a sound
Range - the distance between the highest and lowest pitches that can be sung or played by a voice or instrument.
Interval - The distance between two pitches.
Indian music - Indian solfege uses a system called sargam.
Melody - A sequence of pitches, or a "tune"
Conjunct motion - Stepwise melodic movement using small intervals, as opposed to disjunct motion
Disjunct motion - Melodic motion by leaps of large intervals, as opposed to conjunct motion,
Ornaments - Melodic, rhythmic, and timbral elaborations or decorations such as gracings,
rekrek - grave notes.
Phrase - A brief section of music, analogous to a phrase of spoken language, that sounds somewhat complete in itself, while not self-sufficient. Phrases are typically separated by brief pauses in the singer's voice.
Pulse - The short, regular element of time that underlies beat and rhythm.
Tempo - the music's rate of speed or pace.
Accent - emphasis on a pitch by any of several means, intensity, altered range, or lengthened duration.
Compound meter - groupings of six, nine, or twelve beats per measure.
syncopation - A thythmic effect that provides an unexpected accent, often by temporarily unsettling the meter through a change in the established pattern of stressed and unstressed beats.
Irregular meter- Asymmetrical groupings with different numbers of beats per measure.
Free rhythm - Rhythm that is not organized around a regular pulse.
Biphonic singing - A singing technique of inner asian origin in which two tones, the fundamental and an overtone, are made audible simultaneously by a single singer; also known as harmonic singing.
Monophony - a "single sound", the simplest musical texture
Homophony - a musical texture, where the arts perform different pitches but move in the same rhythm.
Polyrhythms - different rhythms.
Bag-pipe music, Scottish, Ireland, Spain. The earliest reference to bag-pipes is a bag of skin. 1500's bc = mccrimons
Uilleann pipes = most popular, it looks different you play sitting down and you don't blow into it.
Gaita = Spanish bag pipes
Gaida = similar to Spanish bag pipes, but from Bulgaria
Tulum = from Turkey, without the drones
Masak = India, Pakistan bag pipe. Some say bag-pipes originated in India or the Middle East. They use ornamentation
Doubling - Is on the first beat of a measure
Grip - Give a sense of the sound stopping.
Birl -
Taorlauath -
They are an instrument of war (music)
Transformation to Classical - Piobaireachd
Mouth Music
Canntaireachd
Civic Functions
Parades, military, dances, police and fire departments, funerals
Entertainment and Dance
Ceilidhs
Highland garnes and Scottish festivals
Competitions
War-oriented heritage
UI Pipe band ended in 2008
Portable What you learn is from your education, which isn't entirely true. You can learn from experience, not
repeating the same mistake twice, and being self-taught. Learning in an educational setting,
however, is the most efficient way of learning.
Unilinear One line process. Migration as a unilinear process from point A to point B.
Diaspora A community who has migrated from one group to another group/who have a shared heritage and
homeland as an idea of a homeland for Jews
Little Italy New York City
China Town In New York City
Town Pela Dutch
Power The ability to create ideas of groups of people.
Identity A group of peoples' difference that separates a group from one another.
1840's Irish/Scottish Migration
1864 Immigration Act
1880's Southern and Eastern Europe
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
1C9an2t1onese Emergency Quota Act
narrative
songs
Shang Chi. Muk'gu or Muyu. Southern Chinese Song. It combines song and speech--it's
amateur and recreational songs. An example of a lyrical line is "Uncle 'NG' comes to
gold Mountain". The text centered on the migration experience set in his home place/
homeland. Second part of the text talks about living in USA, and he talks about
returning home in the song with gold + financial success.
Lebanese-
American
migration
music
One form is Mawwal. They're songs that make use of colloquil Arabic. The form
alternates between free rhythm + refrains. It allows for technical abilities in
improvisation. Listen to CD2-5. "Wakef'ala Shat Baber," which is recorded in 1950.
Maqam
huzan
Cross between Indian Rhagha and Western Scale
Chinese instruments
Erhu A stringed instrument that is very tall and it operates like a
violin.
Dance in India
Dance with
music
Can motivate people; dance is the visual part. Dance flows with the music.
Field song Labor songs/people working the plantations/etc.
Love poems A story of a man and a woman in different stage of a relationship. The name of the
song, Balavi, like a flower.
Mudras A hand gesture. Poetics, 1080AD, power of suggestion. Mudras the oldest forms of
graphics formed with the hands. They have meaning.
