Leah’s Blog

This music has a steady, symmetrical beat.  It is distinctly recognizable as it is played by a drum which has a very different tonal texture from the rest of the instruments.  As the music goes on, the percussion instrument begins to elaborate some and later to speed up, but the basic infrastructure of the beat in 4 (8? 16? something like that) is still present. On top of the drums are several different types of aerophones, or perhaps a cordophone. I can’t tell, but the sounds seem most likely to be from a reeded instrument though I can also imagine it as a simple stringed instrument. From my vague knowlege of the Andes, the instruments all being aerophones seems more likely, because aerophones tend to be smaller, more portable, and easier to make than cordophones, which fits with the rough mountainous living conditions.  These aerophones play a repetitive melodic portion. They are divided into two parts, the lower more of a drone, and the higher with more variation between notes to create heterophany because the melodic lines are similar.  This piece comes from a festival, and i can imagine it as a group activity performed by musicians who do not normally play together, because the instruments seeem to have slightly different tuning and the switch from note to note is not tight.

I am fascinated by the mixture of musical styles in the piece for Monday’s listening titled “Pirates”.  As far as I can tell, it is being sung in a language near French, and the singing is really mostly rapping.  In the background in a chorus capacity are female singers who sing a few repetitive phrases between what I assume are the verses that are being rapped by the male performers.  The background music consists of stringed instruments playing the same two phrases repetitively during the verses, and a different short repetition during the chorus parts.  There are also drums, which sound to be played by hand, and some sort of metallophone (I think…listening again, that sound could be made by wood blocks)  adding another layer of density to the melody.  There are also, subtly, some shakers in the background.I’m very curious to know what country this music comes from.  It is under a day of listening that is from Africa, and while the drumming and shaker do seem African, the stringed instrument does not, and as I mentioned before, the lyrics seem to be in French.  Also, the music seems to be fairly modern judging by its cross-cultural influences.  The really interesting thing about it is that it sounds a lot like some rap I have from Israel, which raps in Hebrew and uses an electrophone to produce traditional melodies in known scales.  When I listen to “Pirates” I hear almost a generic sound, that of the foreign language rap.The questions are: What audience is this music intended for? (Those in the country of its production, or those interested in ‘global’ music?) Do people in the country it originates in hear it differently than I do because the underlying musical style is an icon or an index for them, or has it lost meaning because of an attempt to make it too ‘global’? Also, I’m very curious to know what the lyrics actually mean. The tiny little thing we have says it’s about pirates, and I’ve decided that they’re talking about pirating music because it says “hapirati hasidi” and that sounds like CD to me. I’m pretty sure that’s wrong, though…

The yodeling of the Bibayak Pygmies is absolutely enthralling.  It sounds like nothing I know within Western music.  The voices jumping up and down around the scales sound like instruments to me, because I’m not used to the human voice being to move so easily between such disparate pitches.  If I did not know that humans were producing these sounds, I would be fairly certain that it was some sort of reed instrument.  I do like the layers of sound, and the interlocking tones.  The definite rhythm, even if it is syncopated, is easy enough for me to follow, and though it sounds distinctly African, I don’t really have any evidence to back up that idea.  I also wonder what capacity the singing is used for.  It sounds like fun to me, so I’d like to imagine it’s just something that happens spontaneously while working or relaxing, because all you need are voices.  I also wonder if children just pick up how to sing like this from adults, or if it is something that has to be taught.  I’m know for sure my voice can’t do that (I just tried) but is that because this is the first time I’ve ever tried to yodel? 

The most obvious differences and similarities to be drawn between gamelan beleganjur and other types of Indonesian gamelan arise from the types of instruments included in each ensemble.  Gamelan beleganjur is a larger group of people, comparable to a Javanese gamelan, except that it is mobile. It shares that mobility with talempong, though a talempong ensemble is much smaller, including only four or five people. Other than that, though, all three types are based on gong instruments.   The similarities with talempong end here, as the gamelan beleganjur and Javanese gamelan are both high class instruments, meant to be played at state affairs and court functions, where the talempong is a music of the country folk.  Because it has less instruments, I  would assume this has a good deal to do with the simple logistics of the smaller number of instruments being easier to obtain on a limited budget.  Also, the Javanese gamelan and gamelan beleganjur use different instruments to layer in an interlocking fashion on a longer (from what I’ve listened to, generally sixteen count) cycle.

     I have no background in gamelan, no knowledge of what it sounds like beyond the tracks I’m listening to now. The first two thirds of the first track sound disorganized to me.  Though a steady pulse is developed later in the song, the beginning really just feels like the tuning that goes on before a performance, when each musician is occupied within his or her own mind.  I am moved by the moment when the seemingly random playing of several players, becomes something with recognizable order. When listening, I spend the whole first part trying to sort the sounds into some pattern that I can follow easily, but all I manage to do is get unsettled that I can’t find the intent.  When finally the order becomes obvious, my mind relaxes, and I can just enjoy the different (though not highly textured) sounds.      The second piece has a totally different feeling from the first.  The whole thing is more ‘exotic’ to my western ears, because the vocal style is so far from what I’ve become used to hearing.  The voice sounds almost like a reed instrument to me, and may in fact be accompanied by one at some point.  There is interesting play between the vocalization sounding like a drone and the gamelan actually being the repetitive portion of the music.  My ears have to work hard, because I can’t listen to both parts at once.  I either have to make an effort to hear the voices, or I have to listen to the pattern of the gongs.     The third piece also has vocalization, this time featured more prominently.  Vocalization starts the piece, making the listener (or at least me) pay more attention to the singing as the more important musical part.  However, about a third of the way through the song, another instrument is added.  I’m not great at recognizing things by sound, but to me it seemed to be a synthesized piano sort of sound, with the edges of the sound seeming distinctly electronic.  This piece is, overall, far more textured than the previous two, with several different types of sounds competing fiercely for the listener’s attention.     The fourth piece is the first one with a male vocalist.  Also, there is some form of atonal percussion instrument, perhaps just clapping and slapping the floor or walls, to create a many textured sound.  The whole piece is fast, and has many more instruments than the others.  There is vocalization from both men and women, and the gamelan itself sounds particularly smooth.  There also seems to be a stringed instrument providing background.  It reminds me of the smoothness of a viola or cello.     I’m starting to be able to differentiate the sounds of different sets of gongs.  The ones used in the final piece of music are very smooth sounding.  I would even venture to guess they are being hit by something soft, because there is no harsh noise at the beginning of every note.  Also, this piece is interesting, because it varies slowly enough that it is quite possible to pick out different sets of rhythms.  I like to imagine i can differentiate well enough that I can tell which sounds are being produced together, by the same musician.

I listened to the Call to Prayer Ringtone by M. Mehdi.  I’m not coming into the piece with a completely clear mind, because we already discussed in class the call to prayer, and so I had some foregone conclusions before listening.  Foremost among my thoughts was the debate about the whether the call to prayer is music.  The conclusion in class was that it is not.  Music is something to be interpreted subjectively, and the fact that the culture views the call to prayer as solely for religious purposes removes it from the music category.  This is hard to grasp for a mind that has no indexical or iconic associations with the sounds, but I understand the point. Nevertheless, when I listen, I don’t understand the words, don’t know what I’m hearing.  Objectively, I hear music.  In the ringtone version, I especially hear something created with intent for recording and listening.  The man singing has a voice that is very smooth and seems to be trained for a more western style of singing than the call to prayer requires.  When I’ve heard the call to prayer in Ghana and Israel, I’ve noted the intensity and feeling of the muezzin’s cantillation.  In this recording, the man singing seems to understand the words at the same level as I do.  They are sounds, but carry no meaning to him.  Furthermore, the synthesized echoes and piano piece at the end are out of context with the Adhan.  I supposed they are intended to be iconic of the majesty of the call to prayer sounding from the minarets of mosques, but again, it feels forced and the true meaning is lost. I would be tempted to suggest that the ringtone version of the call to prayer is music.  Yes, the words are holy, but by playing this unfeeling version from a phone, it seems as though the sacrilege has already been committed. I don’t imagine this ringtone would be acceptable in devoutly Muslim areas.  The ringtone doesn’t seem like a prayer to me.  Rather, it is a misguided attempt at music.

 

An easily recognizable iconic song is Colonel Hathi’s March, from the Disney production of The Jungle Book.  Though the music is not as easy to hear in the video as in the sound recording, with some careful listening (and perhaps closed eyes, so the animation doesn’t give everything away) it is quite possible to hear the sounds as the icons they are.  The very beginning of the song (unfortunately cut off in this youtube version) is a low flute, putting the Disney music aficionado immediately in mind of the ‘primitive’ jungle.  Shortly thereafter, the well regimented rhythm of a march begins, putting the listener in mind of, well, a march.  At the same time, some big brass instrument (a trombone? a tuba? I don’t have well trained ears) comes in, creating low vibrating sound that, even without a picture to enhance the image, is reminiscent of an elephant’s trumpet.  I find this song and icon, because even without visual imagery, the listener ’sees’ marching elephants.   One of the most potent indices in my personal repertoire is Donnie Iris’s song, Ah Leah.  It may seem as though the representation is self centered because my name is in the song, but in truth, the song makes me think of a particular friend and situation every time I hear it.  Donnie Iris is from close to my hometown, so the song is often played on our local radio station.  A friend was once listening to late night radio while writing a paper and heard the song, and got so excited she called me on the spot to come down to her house and listen to the song.  To get it again, we used youtube, and found one of the worst music videos we believe ever to have been earnestly made.  Whenever I hear the song now, I get very strong memories of this particular friend: the smell of her house, that crazy late night paper writing look she cultivated so well, even the stuffed french toast that we would make to eat only between midnight and six in the morning.  Hearing Ah Leah is like having a three minute and forty two second  visit with my friend.