Chapters 1-5 of “Exploring the World of Music” by Hast et al. Essay (Critical Writing)

Sound, Music, and the Environment

Music is an intentional construction that has a distinct structure, form, emotional coloring; it is a system of communication. The role of music is to bring some emotional meaning, i.e., awake feelings and transfer the emotional state of the creator, bring people together, etc. However, music is not only an emotional tool – it can be viewed from the point of view of basic physical laws. This way, music is a simple vibration perceived by the human ear. Thus, the main parameters of music are its frequency, amplitude, duration, and timbre. The simplest elements of a tone are the fundamental pitch and progressively higher overtones (partials, harmonics). Since music is governed by usual acoustical principles, it can be described in terms of melody, rhythm, dynamics, and timbre (Hast, Cowdery, and Scott, 2010).

There always are unpredictable and immeasurable elements in music-making; they shape the spiritual context and make it good or bad. Besides, the performance and reception of music also possess the utmost significance. The environment is a complex of all influences surrounding an individual or a nation; it has profound influences on the way people relate to their music and create it, the style of its performance, etc. The authors also state that nature also has an enormous impact on music-making. This is proven by examples of the Bosnian Highlands and topics of nature, landscapes, and mountains in the creative activity of the Zabe I Babe trio, of the inhabitants of Australia and Papua New Guinea who are sure that signing can open the doors for communication with spirits, and of the Tuvans in Siberia who reflect their pastoral lives and detailed geographic descriptions in songs (Hast, Cowdery and Scott, 2010).

Urban environments also influence music-making heavily; some famous cities are said to possess a musical system of their own; they experience ‘syncretic’ practices of mixing several cultural trends. “Modernization” and “Westernization” are also trends in music evident in all areas; one of the examples thereof is the hip hop culture and rap music. Despite the wide scope of spreading, such trends preserve their authentic specificity (Hast, Cowdery, and Scott, 2010).

The Transformative Power of Music

Music moves people and has many connections with culture in other dimensions, representing a “universal language” for any community. Ethnomusicology is the study of music in the cultural context; from this perspective, music is viewed as related to rituals (e.g., typical kinds of music used at weddings, funerals, etc.) and having the aesthetic power (music is commonly associated with aesthetic beauty). Music is also affected by personal power: once considered in the unity with the performer, it may become personified. At times musical power can be generated from group meetings; it affirms human values and represents a link to the unseen and extraordinary. The power of music is embodied in various cultural contexts, which will be evident from a series of following examples (Hast, Cowdery, and Scott, 2010).

Live music performance shapes shared experiences and help establish friendship; the power is revealed in the combination of the familiar and the spontaneous. One more context for the revelation of music power is social dance (e.g., the New England contra dance). Music in worship is also a commonly met practice. It is used in religious ceremonies to invoke spiritual sentiment. It is widely used in the Christian church (Hast, Cowdery, and Scott, 2010).

In some cultures, music is viewed as having the power to heal (e.g., the Kung Healing Ceremony); it is used as a powerful medium for presentation at political meetings or as a tool of social criticism of the government. There is a special place for national anthems and patriotic music – these types of music are used to reveal feelings of a political character. Music of protest and resistance has historically been used by various civil movements and has become powerful historical evidence of these events.

Music and Memory

Memory can be individual (shaping a personality) and collective (shaping group identity). Individual memory can be functional (facts) and affective (emotions). Music helps store and recall both types, being either an object or an instrument thereof. In this respect, memory acts as a mnemonic device, i.e., it connects memories with certain tunes. It reminds individuals of events, places or helps to memorize better texts (Hast, Cowdery, and Scott, 2010).

Music is used for mythological purposes – to take people back to the beginnings of their society (e.g., the Walbiri Fire Ceremony, the Suya Mouse Ceremony, etc.). On the group level, music can shape collective identity (which can be seen on the example of the traditional Irish music that is associated with “folk songs” of the past as well as Irish traditional singing that is considered the “old way” and constitutes lyric songs, nature poetry, etc. Such strong collective identity phenomena are explained by the history of Ireland (Hast, Cowdery, and Scott, 2010).

There also are ballad traditions in the USA, Scotland, and England. Since the US was inhabited by immigrants from Great Britain, the US folk tradition is heavily influenced by those artists. This way, nowadays, old traditions and early music are rediscovered for the contemporary generation (the Renaissance lute music). People who are interested in old music are artists who look for something more than plain music and want more than just classics; they are guided by nostalgia and curiosity and see the cure of “cultural amnesia” in old music (Hast, Cowdery and Scott, 2010).

Transmission: Learning Music

Transmission means the communication of music traditions; it may be an individual and social process and refers to both teaching and learning musical traditions. It can be conducted orally, by electronic information carriers, and in writing. Though transmission varies across societies and cultures, it has some unifying elements and is closely connected to people (Hast, Cowdery, and Scott, 2010).

All people learn music through enculturation, even not being musicians: the process is similar to learning a language. The role of traditions in the process of informal enculturation is substantial: it occurs through active and passive listening. Some examples of cultural transmission are singing rituals in the Bosnian Highlands, informal learning of Irish traditional music. The transmission also has certain peculiarities according to music styles (e.g., eclectic jazz tradition, the special jazz language, and specifics of learning to speak it) (Hast, Cowdery, and Scott, 2010).

Another way to learn music is through apprenticeship characteristics in some cultural contexts (e.g., the guru-sishya parampara in India that transformed in the 20th century and accepted cross-cultural discipleship). Indian classical music, as well as classical music in the West, was supported by courts and the church. Music was an important part of court life. Only in the 18th century, musicians became independent and acquired the ability to express their individualism through music. One of the good examples of apprenticeship in music is playing the piano – pianists start their education in childhood and receive private instruction for a long time before they are able to play independently (Hast, Cowdery and Scott, 2010).

Rhythm

Rhythm is a generally applicable notion and has key importance in music; it moves and structures music through time. Musical time is metrical, i.e., it consists of recurring meters consisting of four pulses each. There are different kinds of music in which meters can be duple, compound, triple, etc. In every genre of music, the meter is at the background of music, and rhythm is at the foreground, while the overall speed is referred to as tempo (it can be slow – ‘adagio’ and quick – ‘allegro’) (Hast, Cowdery and Scott, 2010).

There are also cases when music does not represent a structured form – it may also be played in the free rhythm (e.g., North India jor improvisation). Western music is linear, similar to the language spoken, and graphically represented; however, some other cultures (e.g., North India) represent a cyclical organization of music. Some other rhythm-related phenomena include syncopation (accent on off-beats falling between the pulses), swing (animate performance, interpretation with the same accent on off-beats, more a more intricate one), and polyrhythm (usage of combined rhythms).

Rhythmic principles differ across cultures (e.g., tala and alap performed in the free rhythm in North India, or the polyrhythm of Africans – the jibber style, kumbergo, and kora, or Kuba’s rumba playing – yambu, columbia and guaguanco styles thereof; Brazilian samba – cancao, enredo, etc.). Funk and rap are modern musical trends that have their own rhythmic peculiarities. Rapping has typically been developing in the African-American culture and is used for improvising or using polyrhythmic music and performing abusive, usually obscene songs that reflect the urban style of life. If the rap compositions are without vocal elements, they usually represent the polyrhythmic funk conversions (Hast, Cowdery, and Scott, 2010).

Chapter Six Summary

All melodies share a common element called a pitch (i.e., the vibrating frequency of a tone). They have changing octaves. Octave divisions are called scales. There are several systems across cultures that divide octaves in a different number of steps (including the chromatic scale consisting of twelve pitches and widely spread in the West). Pitch relationships are called intervals (octave is the eighth interval; other types are the second and the unison). Depending on the sound of notes, the interval can be melodic or harmonic (Hast, Cowdery, and Scott, 2010).

The smallest interval is the half step (minor second). A small group of repeated pitches constitutes a motive (motif); there are various music systems that are theoretically referred to as modes. Throughout Western music, historical melodies have gone through intensive rethinking and reconsideration. Arabic music is centered around the concept of maqam (the specific type of music mode) – it has much in common with European scales and Indian ragas. The concluding tone in Western music is called finalis, while the Arab and Indian melodies finish with tonic (Hast, Cowdery and Scott, 2010).

The notes of Arabic music differ greatly from the Western ones because of differences in the octave division. Arabic musicians add their own ornamentation to the maqam and modulate it. Irish music also has certain peculiarities in melody types (dance music, slow instrumental airs, songs in the English language, and songs in Irish). Ballads in Irish music may have different texts but be based on similar stanzas. The Indian classical music is called raga sangit and uses a seven-note (heptatonic) scale. It is closely tied to the concept of raga – several hundreds of ragas constitute the building material with the help of which a unique melody may b designed (Hast, Cowdery, and Scott, 2010).

Reference

Hast, D. E., Cowdery, J. R., Scott, S. A., Brier, R. P., Klugerman, I. H., Pacific Street Films, & Educational Film Center. (2010). Exploring the World of Music. Kendall/Hunt.