Derrick’s blog

El Condor Pasa 

The first Nhemamusasa track sounded if it was at a celebration of some sort. It sounded if there were maracas and drums being played. There was lots of singing going on. It was if you a had a choir with one lead singer. It sounded if everyone was having a good time. There might have been dancing but I’m not sure.

The second Nhemamusasa track sounded similar to gamelan. The reason I say this is one of the instruments sound similar to one of the instruments in gamelan. It also seemed that it started out with one instrument. There was no singing

The third Nhemamusasa track sounded like it was being taught to some people. The man in the track tries to keep the beat by saying it out loud. Similar to how Ms. Fraser keeps the beat for us. The instruments were similar to the second track. I wonder if there is any correlation between this style of music and gamelan.

The biggest difference between the Balinese gamelan beleganjur and the stuff we have been studying is the portable instruments. I feel the Balinese gamelan allows the musician to have more freedom. It allows them to be able to walk as they play music instead of being confined to an uncomfortable position. It also allows them to play one instrument, which inturn makes them better at that instrument. You cannot carry a lot of pieces with you so that allows the musician to really specialize in that one instrument, that allows for interlocking among the musicians. It is also known as kotekan which is symbolic and religious to the people. Another reason it has more freedom is it allows them to have battle of the bands. You know that has to be a blast with all those instruments. I think Balinese gamelan beleganjur allows the musician to be more expressive than the conventional stuff we have been doing and going over.

The loud style started out with one sound and progressively added more as the song went on. As the song went on the speed  of the beat got faster and faster. As the music approached the end it started to slow down sound by sound until there was no sound.

The soft style started out with a beat and singing. As the music went on the speed of the beat picked up and so did the singing. As the music approached the end the speed of the beat slowed and so did the singing. The beat and singing ended together.

One difference I could tell was the loud style only had instruments while the soft style had instruments and singing. Another difference was that the loud style had to build up to it’s full beat while the soft style was already at it’s beat when the music started.

One of my comments brought to my attention that a “social context is the situation in  which the piece is played”. Meaning I would be wrong about my social context in Journal 3. Then I got to thinking if social context is the situation in which the piece is played; then couldn’t an instrument in a piece determine whether that piece is music for different social classes?

Some of the similarities of the two tracks were: I thought they used a similar drum instrument because Mina had a higher tone than the Sidi, there was a sound in both that sounded like stepping, both tracks had a repeated rhythm, and both were music. Some of the differences of the two tracks were: the Sidi had this duck call horn in it while the Mina didn’t, the Mina had a higher tone than the Sidi, the stepping sound in the Mina was different from the Sidi. The only thing I can tell about the social context is that they are similar but, one is probably in better social context. The reason I say that is because of the tones of the instruments are different. I would think the higher toned one (Mina) would be better than the lower tone one (Sidi).

I think the 3 tracks that we listen to were not music at all. The reason for this is that, I remember we listened to something similar to these tracks in class. Ms. Fraser told us that the prayer were presented in that way but they didn’t consider that music. They considered that sacred. So with that already in mind, I consider these tracks prayers and not music. Plus there was no beat or rhythm to the tracks. Which tells me that it is not music. Now on another note, the only one that I may consider on the music side is track 3 because it had a little bit of instrumentals in the background, but other than that nothing else sticks out as music.