The Loquacious Listening Leper

Chicha Los Destellos, Valicha

This song has clear cosmopolitan influences.  It has a rather simple, obvious beat in a 2/4 time signature akin to that of most Western popular music.  The structure of the beat is vaguely reminiscent of Reggaeton, making it very poppy and danceable.  This song also shows its Western influence in its use of an electric guitar rather than indigenous stringed instruments.

wayno Julio Benavente, Valicha
This song serves as an excellent counterpoint.  Compared with the previous song, this artist shows a very high level of technical skill.  Staying true to tradition, he plays his charango, going through a complex and inconsistent meter.  Lacking a danceable beat, this piece seems much more presentational, suitable for a seated audience.

Chicha Los Shapis _somos estudiantes
The cosmopolitan influence is again present in this piece.  It begins with a repetitive synthesizer pattern, making use of both Western instrumentation as well as an introductive melody that was common in late 60’s early 70’s rock music.  The presence of panflutes allows the piece to retain a vestige of its roots.

This post is a day late because I had issues with being able to log in to my blog.  I found this piece interesting and worth writing about for a few reasons.  First, the timbre of the flute-like instruments (which I refer to as flutes for ease of writing) is quite raucous and wailing.  It reminds me of the tone colors that can be achieved on electric guitar through the use of heavy distortion favored by some noise rock artists in Western music.  I think this sound is a function not only of the pure timbre of the flutes, but also of the way they are being played.  There is a “messy” structure to their playing; the players do not coordinate perfectly with one another, playing notes at either slightly different times or pitches, and occasionally over-blowing their instruments.  It seems like the song is only loosely composed, and such departures are intentional and most likely improvised.  The phrasing is also odd; it is difficult to say where one phrase ends and the next begins.  A note that sounds like it might conclude a phrase ends up initiating a new one, almost as if the whole melody were one phrase.  The percussion is repetitive and relegated to the background of the piece.  To me, it sounds quite disconnected from the melody.

I find it interesting that after exploring very “foreign” musical traditions (by which I mean music that is far removed from most Western popular music in its structure, intention, and mode and atmosphere of presentation), we have now come to one that I feel is in many ways more approachable to an audience that has only heard Western popular music.

The song is based around a cyclical kora ostinado, reminiscent of the standard-issue guitar riff common in Western rock and blues.  The vocal pattern is a bit loose, but essentially follows a regular pattern, creating another similarity.

The professional status of these musicians is clear from the skill displayed during improvised sections.  Such showmanship is obviously alienating and intimidating to the less musically talented, relegating a performance to being much more presentational and less participatory.  In a final connection, this virtuosity is akin to that of the American and European “rock god” replete with gratuitous solos and the like that dominated 60’s and 70’s Western pop music.

Obviously, I’m not saying that this is “rock music” by any means.  Its loose, riff-based style does, however, remind me a bit of American rock-jazz fusion, with the vocals being the biggest difference.

I feel that this is a very appropriate shift in our musical studying as it has an interesting relationship to gamelan.  Both gamelan and this yodeling involve the careful coordination of musicians to produce a kind of musical gestalt – the focus is on the overall sound rather than any particular part.

The instrumentation is an obvious point of difference; it is all vocal as opposed to the obviously instrument-based gamelan.  There is also much more of a focus on pitch over rhythm, and coordination of harmony more so than that of timing

Balinese gamelan beleganjur is similar in many ways on the surface to the Javanese practice.  It still consists of many musicians, each wielding one piece of a linked set, working as a unit to generate complex rhythms.  There are, however, a few apparent differences.
The first is that of mobility.  Gamelan beleganjur is practiced with a set of percussive instruments that can be easily transported, and thus used while marching or moving in some other way.  This difference, while superficially one only of logistics, has profound effects on the atmosphere in which it is played and received.  I believe a performance is thought of very differently when the players come to the audience rather than vice-versa – it changes the dynamic between the two.  Going to a location specifically to see particular performers lends a sense of importance to them.  This importance is not necessarily superiority, but it does mean, in most cases, that they command your respect and attention for the duration of the performance.  Conversely, when performers come to a public space or accompany an event where the focus is non-musical, like a wedding or a funeral, they are much more a part of the background or merely one facet of a scene – there are other things that command attention and focus.  The performers do not hold the same kind of importance; the focus is less on creating expressive and powerful music and more on the generating of atmosphere.  There is evidence of this difference in the recording.  People in the audience are talking amongst themselves freely, showing that there is no need to respectfully listen to the music.
This form of gamelan also differs from Javanese musically.  It includes what sounds like different instrumentation.  There is a tone color I have not heard before, the harsh, crash cymbal-esque leading one.  It gives the piece a more aggressive and insistent tone than most gamelan songs.  Also, the different layers are not as evenly balanced in volume as other pieces to which we’ve listened.  One of the elaborating patterns is nearly completely buried beneath the harsh instruments and the more euphonic accompaniment, audible only in breaks between other instruments.  This unevenness, however, may just be an artifact of the recording process.

First, let me say that I am really looking forward to discussing gamelan; it’s part of the reason I took this class.  I don’t know if anyone is familiar with the soundtrack to the Japanese film Akira, but it was my introduction to gamelan and I’ve loved it ever since.

I found the beginning of this song to be pleasingly eerie. I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to articulate this feeling, but the spacing of the chord-based notes (that is, the ones that sound like they are composed of a few different bells being struck at the same time) is such that each is allowed to resonate on its own while still being part of the progression.  This gives the piece a feeling of slow inevitability that is a bit ominous.  As I listened, the image of a foggy swamp at dawn was called to my mind.  This reaction might seem a bit odd, but something about the tone color of gamelan makes me think of natural settings; I’m not sure exactly why.

About two-thirds of the way through, the tempo picks up and the song becomes much more busy.  The eerieness dissipates, replaced with a methodical atomosphere.  Towards the end, it slows down once more, returning to a theme similar to the beginning.  Continuing with the idea of dawn for the beginning, the structure of the song nicely frames the progress of a day – the slow tranquility at dawn, the business and activity of the day, the release and relaxation of the evening, eventually giving way to the silence of sleep.

I am guessing that these first two pieces are more examples of the vocal prayers which Muslims do not consider music.  I again maintain my stance that, by my definition, this kind of activity is most definitely music.  It obviously took human creativity and organization to construct the melody and what seem to be lyrics.   The vocalists seem passionate and inject emotion into what they are doing.  To avoid reiterating things I have already said, I will leave it at that.

I found the ringtone to be pretty nauseating.  It is just another example of the Western tendency to “exotify” other cultures.  The goal of the phone company, I think, is probably to appeal to idiots with money by using timbres they aren’t used to to convey vague notions of the mysterious and far away.  The fact that most Westerners have their thoughts occupied with material goods and the hasty lifestyle of capitalist productivity means that they have few outlets for spiritual meaning or connectedness to the Earth, and so when they hear some “foreigner” chanting they momentarily have a cheap, contrived version of a transcendent experience.  The electronic drone (at least I think that’s what it is) at the beginning was probably added by some marketer to enhance the “epic” atmosphere.  The piano at the end just made me laugh; it does not mesh with the singing well and was likely added to give some familiarity to the overall sound to make it more appealing to customers.  Why someone would feel the desire to make this their ringtone is beyond me.

Icon – “One Word” by The Mahavishnu Orchestra from their album Birds of Fire

This song makes me think of a sexual, passionate encounter between two people.  I’ve always interpreted the title as referring to love, and I feel the flow of the song mirrors that of a sexual encounter quite well.  The percussive build that leads into a fast tempo at the beginning reflects the rush of excitement in the first moments of kissing and embrace.  The short bursts of improvisation over the opening melody are akin to the impulsive movements and caresses of lovers, especially when they are in a call and response manner.  The song then breaks down into a slower temple and a bass-driven melody, which develops as the accompaniment grows more intense.  This section can be compared to lovers finding a position, settling into it, and then building upon it. The pressure builds for some time, eventually releasing in a rapidly intensifying call and response between the guitar, keyboard, and violin, all of which could symbolize an energetic physical exchange of lovers at a close level of communication.  The three build energy that is then transitioned into the drum solo.  I feel the metaphor breaks down slightly here, though not completely.  It could be interpreted as a shifting of the energy, perhaps a movement into a different position.  In any case, the other instruments return shortly and lead into a crescendo.  In this final build of pressure with a sudden release, the sexual comparison is clear.07-one-word.mp3 Read the rest of this entry »

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