MUCO 380 notes PDF

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Collective doc for the notes from Dr. Leslie Gay...

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Tuesday, October 19, y MUCO 380

Musicology ( Repertories of music (sound/concepts/behavior style

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genres texts

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• transmission •

composition

(movement (behavior

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Material culture of music

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the physical objects that a culture produces : for a music culture

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musical instruments, recordings, music manuscripts, sheet music publications

photographs and paintings of instruments or musicians in performance Selecting a subject for fieldwork research

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your research will focus on an online musical situation that you seek out from people rather than (mostly) books in a library through in-person witnessing, observing, questioning, recording, photographing, and even performing

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therefore your research subject must be available to you here and now — a living tradition

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Music of Native Americans - “Gizhebs”, Bear Creek, Ojibwa powwow drum group • powerful piercing salsetvte vocal style, use of vocables (non-lexiacal

Musical sound/repertory

syllables) • of predominantly men singers, with continuous pulsing drum rhythms • falling coral line, terraced descent (“tumbling strain”) of conjunct melodic phrases • asymmetrical repetition of phrases (“push ups”), addition form, emphasized “honor beats” • monophonic, polyphonic, or heterophonic texture? • how does this music conform to your expectations of “Native American Music”? 1

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• how do you think Europeans scholars who first considered such music -

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viewed Native Americans? Diversity and Unity in Native American Music • Native Americans, American Indians, or First Nations Peoples consist of hundreds of social groups and communities across North America • with 500 federally recognized tried in the USA dn over 600 more in Canada The Powwow • Native American powwows emerged in the late 19th century in Oklahoma and became widespread among native peoples after WWII as a pan-tribal or intertribal celebration of “Indianness” • a general camaraderie and celebration characterizes the powwow; there are also special events such as races, art exhibits, beauty pageants, and lots of dancing and singing of native music, much of which is competitive • “Straight up” Gabriel Desrosiers, The Northern Wind Singers - mostly unison singing w/ loud and piercing falsetto emphasized driving drum beat - falling melodic line — w/ terraced descent — of more than 8va w/ portamento marking ends of phrases - constructed from repetition of phrases, some “incomplete” or asymmetrical, marked by the “lead” and followed by “seconds” - use of vocables - repetitions called “push-ups”

Music in Africa - Where is Africa’s beginning and end? • The African continent has 2 broad regions: the Maghreb (North Africa)

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and the sub-Sahara. Generalizing beyond that is problematic: - one-tenth of the world’d population lives in continental Africa. Currently there are 54 countries on the continent - Includes about 1000 distinct languages - people involved with farming in rural areas — a majority — but increasingly people work for corporations in large urban areas - politically, continental Africa ranges greatly — several African kingdoms with large centralized governments emerged in the Middle Ages, along side these were small “stateless” societies. European colonialism reshaped the political landscape of Africa Concept of Music • Hard to fins an African language that has a term equivalent to our term “music”. There are terms for singing, playing an instrument, etc. Equally problematic are our terms “folk”, “classical” and “popular” when applied to music. Even the catch-all term “traditional” can be misleading

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• the arts generally maintain an important and strong link to political, -

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religion, and social life. Moreover, we also find music mixed with other “performance” modalities, some quite unexpected to westerners Postal worker song The kingdom of Mali • Mali, historically a powerful and wealthy Muslim state, emerged as a centralized hierarchy organized empire during the 12th century • Ranging from the Upper Niger River to the Atlantic coast, it had distinct social classes, including learned scholars (writing in Arabic), Islamic libraries, and universities • after 1600 the empire began to decline because of the slave trade, conflicts with neighbors, and then with British and French colonialism beginning in the 19th century • Malian, W. Africa, Jalolu, & Mandé culture - Jalolu (plural for jali, aka griot) within mande society- part of complex hierarchy • jong — descendant of slaves • horon — decsendandts of free born - nyamalo — craft specialists (including jalolu and other craftpersons) - sula— royals • Jalolu compositional elements - vocal and kora performance elements - vocal elements • kuma — speech narratives • donkilo — a basic vocal melodic style • satire — an improvised exclamatory style - Kora elements • kumbengo — short ostinato • brimintingo — virtuosic instrumental passages • konkong — ostinato played on resonator...