Concert Report

My Middle Eastern evening of music was an enjoyable experience of new sounds. Sitting down at my table with my herbal tea in hand, I observed the musicians as they chatted with the crowd while setting up the stage. The atmosphere of the cat was welcoming and relaxed. The audience was composed of students and professors. Some waited patiently like myself, and others crouched over books and behind laptop screens. I knew that this was not the typical classical concert where complete attention was required and coughs were kept to the minimum. On the contrary, this was a gathering place welcome to everyone and anyone who simply wanted to be surrounded by the sounds of a new or perhaps in some cases familiar culture. I questioned what environment this type of music was traditionally played in, in the Middle East. Was it played for communal gatherings? Or perhaps concerts follow the more serious concert structure, attentiveness and all. Maybe the music was played for the purpose of dance? Or maybe the performance situations varied based on the variety of repertoire. After the concert, I the variety of the repertoire proved that the setting and context of this music varied as well. Yet, I leaned towards the idea that there was lacking a much needed participation of the audience in many songs.
Titon’s music-culture model questions the saying that music is universal.  As a common practice around the world, music is not always interpreted correctly due to cultural differences and practices. Various cultures dictate the significance of music within that culture. In this sense, a culture is the way people live, and how customs, beliefs and general mindsets have been transferred for generations. This cultural inheritance guides and controls people’s ways of grasping new concepts. Music as a concept is easily misunderstood. The strumming of a guitar could be one person’s favorite sound and another’s definition of terrible noise. However, if both agree that a common sound is considered music, the term universal is applicable and proves itself to be correct. Tackling new music can be challenging, yet in this environment, it was a natural acceptance to a new culture. One’s normal reaction would be to simply label music as good or bad based on personal taste and opinion. Eventually, one deconstructs the unfamiliar sound by questioning instruments used, how sounds are being created, how musicians are obtaining these sounds, the significance of lyrics etc.
Titon created a music-culture model to answer and structure these questions. At the center of the model is affective experience followed by performance, community and finally surrounded by memory/history.  The affective performance is the power source, and how one is affected by the music. It causes a person to respond physically and emotionally. The performance is the actual process that transforms the music’s impact into being. A performance is a presentation that people respond to. It is the event fueling an audiences’ reaction. The model characterizes performance as organized sound that is guided through rules. These rules are musical aspects such as melody, meter, rhythm etc. The community is another vital element in relation to performance. The community has an effect on the performers and how they relate with their audience. Finally the memory/history is the reflection of the musical experience. History can be told through the music through sons, ancient instruments etc. The audience can remember music, it can be recorded, broadcasted or notated. Regardless, memory is an important aspect as it measures how much the music has affected the public.
The entire atmosphere of the show was relaxed and low key. Between the pieces, people overall seemed to generate positive responses. A few murmurs and nods here and there would occur throughout, yet there were not any outstanding reactions until the end of the show. One of the last pieces was a fast pace, rhythmic song, which was obviously meant to be played in some kind of dance, participatory context. A woman from the audience decided to change the performer/audience separation, as she began to belly dance to the rhythm. Immediately, audience members were cheering her on, and the tabla player urged her onto the stage and extended his solo for her. For about ten minutes, audience and performers seemed mesmerized and in some sense relieved and pleased at the dancing interlude. I think the reason for this was that the original context that this music should have been played in, was finally portrayed concretely. This event is a prime example of how a person responded physically to a performance, proving that they were affected by the music in some way.
The actual characteristics of the musical selections were quite broad, as the musicians would jump from one specific style to the next. This was an enlightening experience for me, as I was anticipating the evening to be generally all similar sounding, yet upon critically listening to rhythm, melody, use of instruments and other instrumentation attributes, I was surprised to learn that many different styles existed under one genre. Selections from Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine for instance, were not performed the same, nor did they sound exactly alike. Some examples served as indexes to me, reminded me of klezmer music, as Jewish holidays and family memories came to mind. Others, were more nazal and whiny sounding, with many melismatic passages played by the clarinet, and to what seemed free unaccented, rhythm free strumming. As a result of this musical variety, the audience, and myself included, were free to develop an opinion favoring Middle Eastern country styles over another. Even though the Middle Eastern music as a whole, sounded different to the crowds western trained ears, this music was not the type that was intolerable. Rather, it was a recognizable sound, as I am sure many members of the audience heard the style before at some point. Recognizable is one step closer to understanding basic musical concepts and principles, and the community seemed and proved to be willing to accept, and even enjoy the exotic sounds.
The memory/history element of Titon’s model, was mildly applicable to this performance. As a fresh listener to the style, a lack of musical familiarity and extended knowledge blocked me from remembering detailed elements of the music. Instead, aspects that remained were general observations of the entire performance experience. From the reaction of the crowd, to little stories and anecdotes told by the musicians, my mind seemed to tune into everything but the music. It is quite an effort to force oneself to deconstruct and attempt to mentally retain musical characteristics of a completely new sound, and I think that was the general consensus and position of the audience. Overall positive responses were evoked. Some, like the dancing response, were more affective than others, and some were open minds and nods of approval and appreciation upon accepting innovative sounds into one’s quotidian listening repertoire.

“I have adhered to the honor code on this assignment.”
Evelyne Arsenault Cooper

The night of November 4, 2008 will forever be remembered around the world, and most particularly the United States, as a monumental turning point in history.  When the people of the United States elected Barack Obama as president after eight years of Republican domination in politics and after over two hundred years of Caucasian domination in politics, the world recognized the significance of this event and celebrated most accordingly.  Those included in this worldwide celebration were many students at Oberlin College and Conservatory.  Upon hearing the news from locations all across campus, students “took to the streets”, if you will, and came together most notably in Tappan Square. The blurred lines between performer and audience, and the interplay between community, performance, affect, and history made this “concert” of sorts one of the most characteristic of the social and cultural dynamics of the Oberlin Campus.  To examine these dynamics, I will use Titon’s music-culture model ethnomusicology model.
In the tradition of Oberlin’s vibrant artistic community, the celebration that commenced in Tappan Square was focused around music.  A band of students armed with traditional aerophones and makeshift idiophones stormed their way through wilder bowl, gathering a quickly growing following, and made their way to Tappan Square. 

There, and even on the way to their final destination, they played music in the “Dixieland style” (as noted by the Oberlin review).

This band of students would traditionally be seen as the only performers at this concert, due to the fact that they are the ones that were creating music with traditional instruments.  However, in this instance, this is most certainly not the case.  Besides the fact that there was no physical celebration between instrumentalists and non-instrumentalists (they were sandwiched in between dancing bodies in various states of undress rather than isolated on a stage), the non-instrumentalists played a very large part in the creation of the musical performance.  Most obviously were the sounds that people made to go along with the music.  Some examples of this include clapping hands and chanting “Obama” repeatedly throughout the night. 

When the song was recognizable, most notably when the troupe played “When the Saints Go Marching In”, the entirety of population gathered in this area would sing along and therefore become a contribution to the musical sound aspect of performance.  It must be noted that there were still some distinctions between those who were instrumentalists and those who were not.  This is because they were for the most part in control of the tempo, sound quality, and every other component of the auditory experience. The final product is an amalgamation of the efforts of both what might be defined as the musical performers and those who might be defined instead as the audience (although they can all be seen as participants in the musical creation.  In the diagram of concentric circles drafted to explain his concept of the “music-culture”, the music created is obviously seen as the center element.  Furthermore, it is surrounded first by a circle representing performers, which is then surrounded by a circle representing the audience.  If one were to draft a music-culture model of this particular musical event, he or she would need to delineate the circle separating performance with audience in a way that showed the permeable nature of this divide (by using a dotted line, most likely).
The second part of the music-culture model that Titon used that is applicable to this musical event is the diagram that is again a series of concentric circles, the middle circle in this case being affective experience.  The general atmosphere was that of high spirits, a very intensely positive general affect. This was influenced and caused by the performance but also influenced the performance right back.  A community circle surrounds the performance circle. This holds true in the example discussed in that the performance (which is further articulated in the previously discussed component of the Titon’s model) shaped the community that evening.  The fact that the performance was so interactive with such a blurred line between performer and audience (there was only participant) allowed an egalitarian and united community to emerge among those present in Tappan Square that evening.  The way the community formed that night will shape the history that will be made in Oberlin’s record of political involvement for years to come.  Furthermore, the characteristics of the performance when seen elsewhere will serve as indexical to the certain affect felt by the participants in the musical community that emerged in Tappan square that evening.
The casual, free form structure of the musical event speaks volumes about the social and cultural climate of the Oberlin campus.  One can deduce that while the student body values talent and individualism, the members recognize when there is a time that the group seems more important than the individual.  It also calls to mind a cooperative spirit that is talked about so much on this campus.  The fact that Oberlin students chose to hold this impromptu, celebratory gathering the night of the election shows how important politics are to their lives.  Clap your hands, dance, yell the name of the president-elect, play a trumpet (or a cookie sheet) – it can be seen that value is placed on overall, mutual and cooperative participation in musical performance, and therefore in other sectors of life as well.

Watching Sweet Honey in the Rock perform was a refreshing experience for me on a musical level. In their commitment to make music from the rich textures of African American legacy and traditions, Sweet Honey in the Rock has vocal expertise that captures the sounds of Blues, spirituals, traditional gospel hymns, rap, reggae, African chants, Hip Hop, ancient lullabies, and jazz improvisation. Occasionally accompanied by hand percussion instruments, Sweet Honey in the Rock produces a sound filled with expressive harmonies and complicated rhythms. This, combined in unique ways with cultural contexts, creates power in their music.

During the concert, I took copious notes on the sounds I heard, instrumentation, and certain musical characteristics. For each song, there seemed to be one leader who set the tone and the pace. The part of the leader was much more flexible than the repetitive background harmonies. The leader’s part demonstrated variation, improvisation, and much more interaction with the audience. This person sang the highest, the loudest, and was in somewhat of a spotlight for most of the song. Because there was usually one dominant melodic voice accompanied by other voices, I would describe the group mostly as homophonic, yet I think I could also hear polyphony at times. I would also describe Sweet Honey in the Rock’s musical style to be polyrhythmic. Traditional African music, particularly that of West Africa, is known for its highly complex polyrhythms. Rhythms and counter rhythms evidence the common African cultural tradition of call and response, with different drum lines, other musical instruments, bodies and voices contributing rhythmic elements that complement and communicate with one another- much of which I could point out during the concert. Sweet Honey in the Rock used several hand instruments. There were cowbells, maracas, shekeres, the tambourines, claves, and more- most (if not all) of which were African instruments. The instruments emphasized the up beats, while I heard weak down beats. In the mix of voices, I heard ululation, glottal stops, and yelps. I remember one member of the group describing that some of the background of their music is derived from Mali and Egypt and also includes Indian text/slurs.

Of the five performers, two seemed to be alto, and the other three seemed to be able to sing much higher, switching between soprano and mezzo soprano parts. However, it was obvious that each of them could carry a song all on their own, each possessing a wide voice range. Their voices of smooth texture created beautiful harmonies that ring in your ear. The harmonies were not of bright, major scales, but a mix between harmonic and melodic minor, qualities of jazz music. I could also hear a kind of familiar Indian-like sound.

Another musical device that added to the power of the music was call and response.  Sweet Honey in the Rock engaged the audience in a way that espoused excitement in all of us. It was enough for us to know that we could just be a part of what they were doing. There was a participatory feel to the concert the entire night. Members of the audience were somehow involved in the performance, weather that be singing, dancing, making noises, or simply tapping a foot or nodding their head to the beat.

I will use Turino’s explanation of sign types to help explain the effective power of Sweet Honey in the Rock’s performance. For many of the songs, a member of the group would give a brief talk before explaining the significance or background of the song. One song specifically was about a woman in agony because she wanted children, but could not conceive. So she would sing out in hopes to bear children. When performer sang this particular song with such soul and context, I felt certain emotions for the woman in the story. For me, the long, held out notes in a powerful chest-voice range resembled the pain one might feel for not being able to have children. I felt direct feeling caused by this sign that was given through the story. This song was an icon for me. Although I could not personally relate to the song, I was still able to add power and significance to this particular song. The musical devices used such as acceleration and rise in pitch also contributed to this feeling.

Similar to the introductions given before certain songs, many of the songs had messages within them. One song in particular, “Greed,” can be described as an indictment of a decadent society. The song focused on how greed works against those who are consumed by it. I also caught on to a few references that alluded to encounters in American history where greed was prevalent. A quite passionate song can be heard on the CD “twenty-five” (which I bought that night) titled, “We Are The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For.” The lyrics of which are from a poem honoring South African women, and as such are a message of freedom to all women, and to all who are not free.

When analyzing music, it is important to understand that every sign is something that stands for something else. The dictionary in part defines context as  something “that surrounds a particular word or passage and determines its meaning.” Therefore, as Richard P. Smiraglia articulated Marco Ligabue in his essay, a sign’s meaning depends on the context that surrounds it; alone it means nothing (3). Sweet Honey in the Rock’s material has content as it is drawn from spirituals, work songs, Western-African traditionals and gospel that accompanied the tribulations of their forebears, and then evolved to include so much more-jazz and blues. The sings with context embedded in their lyrics adds power and meaning to the music of Sweet Honey in the Rock.

References

“context.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Fourth ed. 2006.

Ligabue, Marco. “Sound and Sign: Some Notes and REferencs on the Modalities of Signification in Music.” Contemporary Music Review. vol. 17 (1998): 35-46. Quoted in Smiraglia.

Smiraglia, Richard P. “Musical Works and Informational Retrieval.”Project MUSE vol. 65 (2008): 3.

I have adhered to the Honor Code in this assignment. Melissa Elie.

On October 14^th, Sweet Honey in the Rock, described on the Oberlin website as a “Grammy Award-winning African-American female a cappella ensemble with deep musical roots in the music of Africa and the sacred music of the black church as well as in jazz and the blues” performed at Oberlin. Two important ethnological modes of analyzing musical performance seem particularly relevant to the concert – Titon’s music-culture model, and Turino’s participatory/presentation framework.

According to Titon’s music-culture model, there are four components of a music-culture: ideas about music (which includes music and the belief system, as well as aesthetics of, contexts for, and history of music), activities involving music, repertories of music (which includes style, genres, texts, composition, transmission, and movement), and the material culture of music.

Sweet Honey drew from a variety of music-cultures, such as those of the BaMbuti and BaMbara, as well as American blues, gospel, and jazz.

Sweet Honey’s first song was based on a song of the Mbara people. The group educated the audience on Mbara ideas about music by describing the spiritual relationship between the Mbara and the forest, as well as the purpose of the song in BaMbara culture. The style of the music – with an emphasis on vocals, interlocking, a cyclical form, and core and elaboration – clearly drew on BaMbara style. The second song, a prayer for children, was apparently based on a song of the BaMbuti of Mali, and possessed these same characteristics.

However, when it comes to material culture, Sweet Honey’s influences were less clear. Through the evening, Sweet Honey members used five different percussion instruments. While the instruments were clearly drawn from ‘African music culture’ (however broad and meaningless that phrase may be), the audience was never told anything more specific about the instruments or their origins. Through research, I was later able to identify two of these instruments as a guiro – a wood tube containing small beads, played by shaking and rubbing a wooden stick along notches on the outside – and a shekero – a dried gourd with beads woven into a net covering the gourd. However, I’m not sure that these instruments are used in BaMbuti or BaMbara music. Obviously, only so much background information can be given in a live performance, but I would have preferred to know which African cultures the instruments stemmed from.

While later songs were not described as being from specific African cultures, Sweet Honey continued using techniques to produce noise with their vocal cords that reminded me of BaMbuti techniques, such as yodeling, and having several women sing repeated musical phrases with large intervals to form a core melody. Vocables used – vowels, grunting, clicking, rolling R’s, and other techniques sounding like bird calls and squeaking – seemed to be drawn from ‘African music-culture’ as opposed to American, but I was not clear on whether the BaMbuti and BaMbara used all these noises. On another note of material culture, for the second half of the program, Sweet Honey members wore brightly colored multi-patterned clothes which seemed to draw on “African” style, yet I had no idea which exact culture they might be from.

Sweet Honey also drew on the African-American music traditions of jazz, gospel, and blues. For example, one song stylistically drew from the blues tradition, being based on a basic twelve-bar blues progression (tonic-subdominant-tonic-dominant-subdominant-tonic). Textually, many songs celebrated traditional themes of Christianity, social justice, and well-known African Americans. When it came to material culture, while, as an a capella group, Sweet Honey could not literally play many of the instruments in these music cultures, during one song they did use their hands and arms to indicate that they were pretending to play the double bass and trumpets.

Overall, Sweet Honey songs characteristically had textures that were quite thick. For example, during many songs, each member might be singing a different rhythm, notes, and lyrics at the same time.  They often started songs out with simple, transparent textures – one woman singing a bass line – and slowly added in parts – another ostinato, humming on top, and  a vocal solo perhaps. After a while, the women might add a variety of percussive instruments on top of the melody as well. After the song climaxed, they would slowly break the texture down again, as parts dropped out until there was only a bass line was being sung. This process did not happen for every single song, but was quite characteristic overall.

The whole performance was shaped by Sweet Honey’s ideas about music. That is, the group seemed to see the occasion not as just an opportunity to share beautiful music, but also an opportunity to provide spiritual and moral guidance. Many of the songs carried important messages, urging audience members to have healthy self esteem and to obey their moral compass even when it may cause them to break the law. In this sense, the performance provided an occasion for elders to pass cultural knowledge onto a younger audience, meaning it served a social function which many musical performances at Oberlin do not.

The concert also served a unique social function in that it was relatively participatory. Turino defines participatory music as “a particular type of music making in which there are no artist-audience distinctions, only participants and potential participants. Moreover, in this type of tradition, the quality of a performance is judged by the level of participation and the practices and style of the music are oriented toward inspiring maximum participation.” By contrast, in a presentational musical performance, “Clear artist-audience distinctions are made…The artists have a responsibility to entertain an audience that is not directly participating in music making and dance.”

At the concert, there was clearly a distinction between Sweet Honey and the audience, enforced by the layout of the performance site, with the group on an elevated stage, illuminated by lights, and amplified by microphones. However, Sweet Honey blurred this distinction through encouraging the audience to participate in many of their songs, asking them to sing two ostinatos repeatedly, dividing the audience into three sections and giving each a section to sing, creating a call and response situation where the audience would repeat back the musical phrase that the soloist sang, or asking the audience to sing the chorus of a song. During those songs where audience participation was expected, the success of the song was affected by the level of audience participation and the ability of those participating to accurately carry out the task or musical phrase they were given. Because the audience was composed of Oberlin students, who excel at mimicking pitches and keeping a beat, practically everyone in the audience participated, and they were highly accurate. Thus, although everyone was aware of an artist/audience division, the artists invited the audience to participate in many songs. On a scale from presentational to participatory, then, the performance was still presentational, but much nearer to being participatory than, say, an Italian opera.

In sum, the concert was a delightful opportunity to listen to music influenced by a variety of cultures, be spiritually and musically inspired, and participate in music-making with a very talented group of women.

On November 9, 2008 I went to the Sweet Honey in the Rock concert held in Finney Chapel. Since I arrived 30 minutes early I had my pick of seats. I sat in the front row of the Balcony for two reasons. The first being I’m short and wanted to eliminate the possibility of someone blocking my view, and second being the balcony proved to be a great place to watch people throughout the concert.  Since I arrived early, very few people were present. I took the extra time to examine the stage. With the help of red lighting they managed to make Finney’s stage look smaller than normal. The lighting coupled with the six chairs arranged in a semi circle, helped to create an intimacy between the audience and the performance to come. I also believe the stage was arrange this way to pre-focus the audiences attention, in order to keep our eyes from wondering around the large stage during the performance.

Ten minutes before the start of the show, the audience began to pour into the seats. As I looked from one face to another I once again felt the power of music. Flowing into Finney Chapel were people of various races, couples of various age and orientations, and for a moment in time the generation gap between old and young snapped closed. As the noise rose from reunions and introductions, I also sensed the relaxed anticipation of the audience growing. It was almost as if everyone was thinking the same thought, “It’s Sweet Honey in the Rock, of course it’s going to be amazing.” This collective confidence infused in to my body, and I sat back ready to enjoy the show.

Five minutes, and the steady stream of people continue.  The lower level is now full, and people are starting to fill the first section of the balcony. When the stream stops, Finney Chapel isn’t packed, but there is a nice size audience in attendance. As we wait for the performance to start I wonder if the turn out would have been so nice, if it weren’t parents weekend. I don’t get to finish my thought as the lights go dim to thunderous applause.

Sweet Honey in the Rock started off the show by telling the audience not to be shy. They wanted us to clap, sing, dance, sway, and do whatever the music called us to do during the course of the show. It was evident by their choice of clothing and songs that the first set focused on Africa. They preformed songs from African tribes like the Mbuti and Mali. They also relied on interlocking, diaphony, and heterophony to create and build up the melodies of their pieces. Furthermore they preformed a mixture of open ended and closed songs. I noticed that who ever sung lead in the open-ended songs, was the person the rest of the group took their cues from. After each song, they told the audience why it was important to them or the culture from which it originated.  This seemed to be a winning combination as I could feel the continual raise of the audience’s energy.  The end of each song was met with thunderous applause, whistling, and woo’s. The success of the first set is due to how well they executed their concept of Africa. Through their music, and iconic African clothing, I believe they stayed, as close to being as authentic as possible, while still maintaining a contemporary style that held the attention of everyone.

The second set of the Sweet Honey in the Rock Concert wasn’t as successful. Vocally the women were on point, and the chemistry between them still oozed from their pores, but it was the concept behind the second that weakened the impact. It started with their costumes. They were bright, multi colored outfits, that flowed like kimonos, but made them look bigger then life. As the second set was geared towards the blues, the out fits didn’t make sense. I guess they were going for something more fun, but I just felt like the look was over done. Also, the second set lost the authenticity of the first. It seemed as if the focus of the second set was promotion, while the first was exhibition. At first I thought it was just me, but as I looked down at the audience, I noticed them moving. People weren’t swaying to the melody; they were wiggling, stretching, or stock still as if they were really concentrating on what was going on. During this set, the air of Finney Chapel kept shifting from wild to mild interest. The break down of the concept affected the ability of the audience to accurately interpret the music. Unfortunately, this disconnect took away the audience’s ability to enter a collective flow.  I believe this is due in part to splitting the show in two. Had they toned down the second set of costumes, and found a way to blend the two halves together, the second portion would have been more successful. Overall, the concert was great, and more then worth the 7-dollar cover charge.

            The Orchestra of Middle Eastern Music concert took place in at the Cat in the Cream.  The audience did not fill the venue, so there was no immediate sense of connection among the onlookers.  The musicians had to work harder to make everyone in the audience comfortable, and they knew it.  As the musicians explained, most of the music we heard was meant for big events: wedding songs, feast music, dances. In these situations, the listeners are a cohesive group, and they interact more with the musicians.  Their object is to dance, to physically enjoy the music.  This puts the audience in sync with musicians who get their enjoyment from the flow state they achieve while playing, along with experiencing the good indexical associations with the sounds produced.

            To term the musicians an Orchestra of Middle Eastern Music is somewhat of a misnomer.  There were four musicians and only three of the instruments were truly from the Middle East.  This is not to suggest, however, that the sound was incomplete.  It did not seem as though there were parts missing in the music, or that the sound was not full enough.  The instruments native to the Middle East were the kanun, ‘ud, and Egyptian tabla.  The kanun is a many stringed instrument, held on the lap and played with picks on both thumbs.  It bears great similarity to the zither. The ‘ud is like a lute, with a rounded body and no frets, allowing for more tones than its Western equivalents. The final instrument of the Middle Eastern contingent was the Egyptian tabla.  It is a drum shaped like an hourglass, and it can produce several different sounds when struck with the hands. The Orchestra also had a clarinet player who represented the great variety of aerophones throughout the Middle East, and the ‘ud player vocalized with most of the songs.

            By utilizing Merriam’s tripartite model, the concert can be evaluated in terms of the underlying concept, the sounds being produced, and the behavior of the musicians and audience.  Because the entire model is interconnected the various aspects of the concert will be discussed individually.  Attempting to separate the experience into categories of sound, concept, and behavior does not allow for the true versatility of the music.

            The music played at the concert was from all over the Middle East.  The musicians had a huge repertoire and versatile instruments, and played selections from Palestine, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and any other Middle Eastern country the audience could supply.  The ‘ud player explained the tones sounded different than the Western musical norms because of the use of maqams.  Maqams are special patterns of notes that are dictated by relationships within the music.  Each song is set up within a particular maqam, and each maqam is different. However, the sounds produced do not initially strike a Western musical sensibility as happy and sad like major and minor keys do.  The maqams fit well within Merriam’s model.  A maqam directly influences the type of sound that is produced, but it is also used to inspire a specific mood in the audience.  This, in turn, can affect the audience’s behavior.

            An introduction to the taqsim constituted the next part of the audience’s Middle Eastern cultural immersion.  For the first few songs, the taqsim was not recognized by the Western listeners as part of the performance.  The whole concert was very informal, with much banter between audience and musicians, so when the ‘ud player started to make noise on the ‘ud a few minutes before the rest of the musicians joined in, the assumption was that he was tuning, or maybe refreshing his memory on the song he was about to play.  The whole audience seemed to have this impression, because people would talk and move around during this ‘tuning’ period.  The ‘ud player soon realized the cultural gap and explained to the audience that his non-metric ramblings were in fact part of the song proper.  The taqsim is an improvisation based on the maqam, and its purpose is to put the audience in the mood of the maqam, to get the listeners warmed up for the piece.

The taqsim is an interesting concept because it lands squarely in the middle of each of the three categories of Merriam’s model.  Firstly, it establishes a sound base, and acts as an introduction, an initial impression of what the song will sound like.  Also, it is a conceptual tactic, used to set the mood for the audience, and to the knowing listener, it cues that the song is about to begin.  Furthermore, it is a solid example of a socially ingrained behavior pattern.  To the Western listener, it is not clear that a piece with only one of the instruments and no particular rhythm is a performance of  music.  Therefore, the Western audience member reacts to it as a warm-up.  Behavior like walking and talking without focusing on the performers is still assumed to be acceptable.  However, the audience member who is accustomed to such music knows that the taqsim constitutes the beginning of the performance, and adjusts his behavior accordingly.

The final aspect of the concert that merits close scrutiny is the participation of the audience.  The music played was not meant to be performed so much as participated in.  Though the venue was set up as a performance space, with the musicians separated from the audience by a raised platform, it was clear that the music was meant to be involve the listener.  The rhythms produced by the tabla are so infectious that it takes a great deal of self control not to physically express them in some way.  The musicians themselves spent all of their time encouraging participation.  They would dance while playing and sing even though they had no microphones.  Near the end of the performance, a couple from the audience got up and started to dance.  The woman was clearly enjoying herself so much that the tabla player invited her up on stage and improvised a drum solo for her.  For the last song, the musicians chose a piece that had easy movements. The beat was infectious, the sound undeniably joyous, and the audience danced along.

I have adhered to the Honor Code in this assignment.  Leah Pallant