Danielle’s CMUS 103 Blog

What if I like Your Politics But Don’t Like Your Art?

Michael Gordon explores the question of art and politics, and if they should be separate.  He works mostly with abstract music, and so is confined mostly to titles and vocal samples to express political messages in his work.  So, Gordon is not entirely convinced that abstract music and politics work well together, because, as he puts it, “There is no way to attach an intellectual meaning to a D-sharp.”  He believes that music exists on a metaphysical, not intellectual, plane, which allows the listener to project their own ideas on the composer’s “metaphysical framework.”  To Gordon, when a composer infuses a piece of music with a political message, he might gain the respect of the audience but he loses that metaphysical framework.

Gordon has struggled with this issue when he composed a memoral piece for the 2001 World Trade Center attacks using recordings of children’s reactions.  He claims that his intent was to only document the attacks and the children’s reactions, and so he made most of the music deliberately unemotional.  However, Gordon seems torn on the issue and admits that it is possible to create music with both a metaphysical and political framework.

Personally, I think that Gordon’s ideas on metaphysical musical frameworks might work for  some classical music, but we are emotional creatures that have emotional reactions to events in the world that then spur us to write some music that is a direct reaction to the event itself.  I love political bands like Mischief Brew and Propaghandi because they make me feel less alone in my radical political views, and groups like Headcount definitely made a difference in getting out the young people vote in the past election.  If you don’t like the music, I would say to Gordon, then don’t show appreciation!  The politics of the music are definitely not as important as the music itself.

“I can’t listen to that much Wagner.  It makes me want to conquer Poland.”–Woody Allen

The Balinese style of gamelan beleganjur is processional, unlike the Javanese gamelan that we have played, although I think that the Javanese do have a processional gamelan style.  They have a similar cyclical style that begins on the last beat (8 for Balinese, 16 for Javanese) and is marked by a large gong.  Both ensembles use kettle gongs and large gongs.  Gamelan beleganjur uses cymbals, which don’t exist in the Javanese style.  The cymbals are used for interlocking, which does happen in Javanese gamelan.  Gamelan beleganjur has pieces which change suddenly in tempo and use innovative approaches to form, while I believe that Javanese gamelan is more traditional and has slower tempo changes.  Both ensembles use the same two scales, slendro and pelog, and different modes in the scales.

I thought that this is pretty cool:

http://monkeyc.org/index.html

I really enjoyed the Turli Tava show, although I had to leave early to go to a friend’s birthday party.  I thought that the music peaked  around the end of the first set, when the band was really ‘on’ and the audience was responding energetically.  The group was technically excellent, and as a clarinet player I really appreciated the clarinetist’s lead lines.  My friend that I was with actually knows the bass player from contra dances around Princeton, NJ, and I know someone (well, my parents do) that is in the Klezmatics with the bassist, too!  Small world, right?

The crowd was a little strange, I felt some tension between the people who were doing all of the traditional dancing and the people who just wanted to boogie (that was my group of friends).  The music was fun to dance to, especially when the beats were faster and the lead lines more complicated, but the strange time signatures tripped most people up.  I could tell from the strange dancing styles that people were doing and how many of us looked lost that we were not used to dancing to music that wasn’t in 3/4 or 4/4.   When it was more energetic you could just jump up and down and not really worry about hitting the beats, but when the music was slower it was more difficult.  I didn’t go to the dance workshop and neither did anyone I was with but I didn’t really want to do the circle dances, they always seem like not as much fun because of how reigned in to the steps you are, without any room for the improvisation or expression which are so important to dancing for me.

I was listening to the listening assignments for this Friday with my boyfriend in the room and he hated them.  He asked me, “Do people actually listen to this?”  We started discussing the different scales and how that makes it less accessible for us, but I also think it is the lack of beat that makes the gamelan music seem kind of boring.  We also have no context for it, and I assumed that people generally do not listen to gamelan for fun but in ceremonial or social  contexts.  I would love to hear some of that “talempong that rocks” and see how rock instruments are used with the talempong!

I just had to listen to some John Cage and Pierre Schaeffer for Professor Roust’s class.  Compared to those pieces, the calls to prayer definitely sound like music.  I’m conflicted, though, since I know that they aren’t considered music in Islamic culture.  What is the difference between devotional music and melodic chants?  I’m reminded of being 12 and in temple with my dad.  He would harmonize to the chanted prayers, which embarrassed me terribly, since I was 12.  I guess I didn’t really consider the chants “real” music, even though they had some pretty melodies.  There was a clear divide between religious music, which we played in the temple band (my dad’s project–he played guitar and I played some clarinet and bass) and was often pretty cheesy, and chanting, which was often beautiful but unrefined.  Chanted prayers were what I liked the most about going to temple.  I’ve never been religious or even really believed in god, but I always enjoyed the melodies of the friday-night service prayers.  They occupied a different space than the music we played in the band or that I played at home, since they were simpler and there wasn’t any organization (like soprano, alto, bass) to them, which was why I didn’t like my dad to harmonize.  It was too irreverent and made us stand out too much from a group that was consciously singing in unison.  I can see how the call to prayer woud occupy a similar space for Islamic people, even though it has a beautiful melody.