I need to spend considerably more time in the library to flesh this theory out, and perhaps stand on Bruin walk handing out $5 bills to attract participants for experimental research, but I had to put the idea down while it was still fresh.
First of all, I want to prove the universal existence of modes in all music cultures and also to lay out the general principles, based on human cognition that have guided the formation of these modes. A catalog of modes is easy enough to create, and they should be indexed by the various features that give them their respective similarities and differences, namely (and my indexing proposal will probably hint at some of my hypotheses) number of pitches in an octave, maximum and minimum intervals (by cents), distribution of smaller steps (such as where are the "half" steps, or tight spots), presence or absence of perfect 5th, use of dominant (and which note).
What I expect to find is that there is a limit to how far notes a step apart can be stretched, after which they will no longer be perceivable as step, and that no extant modes will feature step intervals larger than that. This threshold for step perception should be verifiable by experimental study.
In general, modes around the world have 7 steps, and that seems to reflect the human ability to perceive step intervals, distributed over and octave. There are two obvious exceptions. The first is the gap of a minor third (or similar interval) in the pentatonic mode, or in modes that have fewer than 7 notes. It seems that this case would have to represent a subset of the 7 note mode (and indeed Javanese music demonstrates the coexistence of 5 and 7 note modes). One possible interpretation of this was put forward by Roger Bourland. He supposes that the 5 note mode facilitates heterophonic or even polyphonic experimentation, such that all the members of a community can sing or play in a mode, with little consideration for rules of pitch combination. Any pitches in a pentatonic scale can be played simultaneously without serious accoustic problems. It could be said then that 5 (and 6) note modes are the result of pruning problematic notes in a heterophonic texture - the capacity for 7 notes coexisting with a practice of avoiding unpleasant intervals in favor of greater freedom in spontaneous polyphony. While this conjecture would be hard to verify historically, it strikes me as very plausible.
Another explaination for the pentatonic mode (and also the "no 6th" mode common in Appalachian folk songs) stems from my lessons years ago with William Critser. He asserted that there was something fundamental about the accoustic nature of the falling minor 3rd - that it was something children do naturally (and therefore is the dominant feature in childrens' play songs). In fact, we see the minor third all over the place - it is a common reciting tone in Catholic liturgical chant, it dominates many childrens' songs such as "Sally Water" and "Ring Around the Posy," we hear it in Colonal Bogey March (and it may be very telling that the composer drew this thematic interval from a non-musical source), it is a widely used interval in blues, and of course, it is the gap interval in the widely used pentatonic mode. So widely used is the minor third that I believe rather than an exception to modal step, it may be one of the most basic building blocks of the human music experience. Accoustically, it is a fairly straightforward interval, a simple 6:5 ratio. As in Colonal Bogey, however, I wonder if it is not drawn from sources that are not purely musical, namely from pitch in speach. There ought to be substantial documentation of the pitch contours used in speach, and I will report back on my findings on the subject soon. My guess is that people use a falling (or even rising) minor third rather often in speaking. The mode therefore fills in around the basic interval of a minor third. Interestingly, the fact that this gap is a minor third (and not a major third) makes it difficult (and unlikely, based on other accoustic factors) to break it down into equal steps. Could the minor third therefore be the reason unequal steps are needed in the full 7 note modes?
There is one exception, though, that comes to mind that makes a universal cognition approach to step modes problematic. That exception is the modes that have something comparable to an augmented second in them, what could stereotypically be called "oriental." Most Americans and Europeans find this interval, when highlighted (not tucked away in a rhythmically innocuous place as in the use of harmonic minor scale on dominant 7th chords in the Baroque) rather exotic sounding, evoking a Something and a Somewhere. Cesar Cui's Orientale hinges on this point of flavor. Now, it is unlikely that musicians and audiences from such a place would find it particularly "exotic," though I wonder if the flavor of the augmented second (or near equivalent) would prick the ear of a native listener in a similar way. Indeed it might just be a shared experience, even after factoring out the association of the "extra wide" step as a signifier. My reason is that this step in the mode usually comes between the second and third degrees of the mode, or between the sixth and seventh (I'll elaborate on this in my upcoming catalog). The interval does not appear just anwhere, as in the diatonic modes, and therefore seems to pick its pitches based on accoustic considerations as well as modal tonic/step considerations. The major third seems a pretty likely given its clear existance as a harmonic, and the low second degree (Phrygian second) exists elsewhere. So I wonder if this mode (or modes, since there are a number of variations) in fact evolved separately, and that while the pitches were derived from multiple considerations (i. e. the desire for a harmonically pure third and a low supertonic to tonic step), the inherent goofiness of the resulting interval became exploited rather than tucked away. I will hypothesize that ornamentation and rhythmic accentuaion of this interval reveals that native proponents of these modes are well aware of its goofiness (i. e. flavor) and exploit it, thereby rendering an argument that the augmented second is problematic for the human cognition step mode theory ungrounded (at least on this point).
Given my research is primarily intended to describe what rhythm is, how it works, where it comes from and what this elusive thing called "flow" is, you may wonder why I spend so much time and effort looking at modes, which would normally be considered in the domain of pitch. But I believe it is in modality that rhythm gets its value and its function. Sure, there are plenty of examples of non-pitched percussion music, and I want to be careful not to imply that there is anything missing or inferior about percussion music. And yet, while there are examples of highly precussion-dominated musics in the world, percussion-only musics are rare. And in those musics, timbre and color tend to be important shaping forces as well as rhythm. It is in a mode that the pure set of pitches and perhaps even the outline of contour (though even this contour is meaningless until it is set in motion by the most basic elements of rhyhtm) is brought to life and has its musical potential piqued. To understand rhythm we must understand what it can do, and the vast array of modal musics, notated or improvised, provide a rich laboratory where were can see how real musicians playing for real audiences use rhythm to unlock modal potenial and make music.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Hard Evidence
If you have read my last few blogs, you will notice that I have a keen interest in uncovering something about the early days of European instrumental performance practice (and the music with its rhythmic and pitch content itself). I feel this area of music history is important because it occurred at the same time as the theoretical and practical tenets of Western music as they existed in burgeoning liturgical contrapuntal music were first documented (at least in a body of commentary that has grown continuously to the present modern era), and though largely undocumented, would have influenced later documented instrumental composition and performance practice. I believe it is unlikely instrumental traditions in the common practice period simply piggy-backed on the developments of vocal music, only imitating the practices existing in a largely liturgical body of work while forgetting the gestural content of improvised or rote-learned music of a previous era. To this claim, I will provide some evidence, though I should make it clear that my endeavor in researching this era of history is to fill a vacuum that I intuitively sense, rather than to explain the meaning of fragmented mysteries calling out from the past.
You may also have noticed that I have been very interested in the transmission of culture between the Christian world of the late middle ages and the Islamic world of the time. While the application of Arabic performance practice has been experimented with by performers of ancient European music, it is ripe fruit for critics apt to find Orientalist undertones in a fantasy of reviving moribund and lost Western traditions with the vitality of an exotic Other. However, suggestive evidence of cultural transmission between East and West at a critical point in the history of European music is pervasive. Furthermore, in the canonization of Western art music and its rigorous defining of itself (and particularly the value laden holding-up of great works of art), musicologists (ever since an awareness of historical literature among musicians and listeners) have tended to misread the significance of works of the past, listening to older music with the aesthetic ears of the present.
The following list includes items which I consider evidence toward the likelihood toward the importance of instrumental music and the Arabic connection in the late middle ages:
1. The transmission of culture from Persia, North Africa and the Arab countries in the form of musical instruments is well documented and obvious. The spread of wind and stringed instruments in the years before the 13th century was rapid, on a large scale, and also included some verifiable aspects of performance practice such as tuning and use of bow (bowing technique was new at this time in Europe, where previous stringed instruments were only plucked).
2. Dance music has its own history, traceable in court dances as far back (maybe further) as the 14th century, and we can see how some basic dance forms and the accompanying music persisted and changed throughout the two or more centuries preceding "modern" instrumental performance practice (such as that of Haydn's music, after which developments in the use of instruments in the modern sonata aesthetic and "absolute" music can be seen clearly). Bach, while so often cited for his significance as a singular genius of profound works and his contribution to model harmonic language and Baroque counterpoint, is also useful in this discussion as he stands in the middle between eras - the modern and the ancient - and wrote music in already archaic dance forms. Bach's appropriation of these forms may be far from authentic, but mark clear evidence of the transmission of secular musical sensibilities from the ancient to the modern.
3. The human apparatus for music has not likely not changed for about 50,000 years - the minimum time that significant evolutionary changes would need. There is nothing about the human brain/mind that would make one more modern therefore more disposed to complexity, skill or advanced musicality than one of earlier Millenia. It is a common fallacy that music some how "developed" from primitive origins without taking into account changing aesthetics. Music of the past did not propose to adhere to the aesthetics of modern taste, and subsequent developments in music cannot be seen as "improvements" in so far as quality or virtuosity are concerned. Virtuosity [read early posting] is a capacity universally distributed in humans in every era and culture.
4. A major increase in the transmission of culture between Europe and the Middle East occurred during the Crusades. While violence, racism and all forms of brutality were rampant during this time, the transmission of culture (including mathematics and engineering) was very real and had real implications.
5. It should be noted, however, that while the Crusades "brought back" a lot of cultural material from far away places, there were areas in Europe of neighbor-transmission. This would include the Muslim occupation of the Iberian peninsula, which offers potentially the most furtile environment for transmission of culture and assimilation of musical sensibility and technique. The Moors, often identified as Arabs, though mostly Berbers in Spain, ruled over a largely indigenous population who were subsequently expelled or forced to convert, following the reclaimation of Christian territory complete in the fall of Grenada under Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492.
This type of Eastern influence on the fringes of the European continent finally calls into question the identity of what is essentially Western about European music. The development of canonical literature involves a transnational system of networks, of conservatories, patrons and ensembles throughout Italy, Germany and France. Clicheed reductions of European music history have it that lyracism is essentially Italian, Germans perfected the meat and potatoes of form, and the French gave us all the spice of orchestration. The great canon of Western musical literature actually does not fall far from this simplistic reduction. Late theorists such as Shenker identify a small group of German and Austrian composers as the supreme exponents of Sonata form. There is also a large gap between the early Baroque and Berlioz (and a good deal after him as well, into the 20th century) during which few if any notable French composers emerge in the canon, and the isn't much from England at all between the Elizabethan madrigals and Elgar. What we see, however, is great production (and recognition) of works in other countries both before and after the Common Practice period. What, then, should "we" as heirs to cultural heritage take as our legacy? With the exception of a body of work consolidated by historic criticism spanning a couple busy centuries, the bonds of what holds European music together as essential are not so tight. Given the fairly obvious Germanic bias in 19th and 20th century music scholarship, I believe it is wrong to look at our own distant past as part of that same canon, which simply did not exist as the single consilidated mass of literature as it was in the 19th century even as recently as 300 years ago. Furthermore, despite the enormous project of counterpoint, the perfect tonal paradigm and concepts of "absolute art music," I believe there is a thread of continuity in instrumental performance practice that persisted through the early days of European instrumental music well into the modern era of documented commentary and notated music.
You may also have noticed that I have been very interested in the transmission of culture between the Christian world of the late middle ages and the Islamic world of the time. While the application of Arabic performance practice has been experimented with by performers of ancient European music, it is ripe fruit for critics apt to find Orientalist undertones in a fantasy of reviving moribund and lost Western traditions with the vitality of an exotic Other. However, suggestive evidence of cultural transmission between East and West at a critical point in the history of European music is pervasive. Furthermore, in the canonization of Western art music and its rigorous defining of itself (and particularly the value laden holding-up of great works of art), musicologists (ever since an awareness of historical literature among musicians and listeners) have tended to misread the significance of works of the past, listening to older music with the aesthetic ears of the present.
The following list includes items which I consider evidence toward the likelihood toward the importance of instrumental music and the Arabic connection in the late middle ages:
1. The transmission of culture from Persia, North Africa and the Arab countries in the form of musical instruments is well documented and obvious. The spread of wind and stringed instruments in the years before the 13th century was rapid, on a large scale, and also included some verifiable aspects of performance practice such as tuning and use of bow (bowing technique was new at this time in Europe, where previous stringed instruments were only plucked).
2. Dance music has its own history, traceable in court dances as far back (maybe further) as the 14th century, and we can see how some basic dance forms and the accompanying music persisted and changed throughout the two or more centuries preceding "modern" instrumental performance practice (such as that of Haydn's music, after which developments in the use of instruments in the modern sonata aesthetic and "absolute" music can be seen clearly). Bach, while so often cited for his significance as a singular genius of profound works and his contribution to model harmonic language and Baroque counterpoint, is also useful in this discussion as he stands in the middle between eras - the modern and the ancient - and wrote music in already archaic dance forms. Bach's appropriation of these forms may be far from authentic, but mark clear evidence of the transmission of secular musical sensibilities from the ancient to the modern.
3. The human apparatus for music has not likely not changed for about 50,000 years - the minimum time that significant evolutionary changes would need. There is nothing about the human brain/mind that would make one more modern therefore more disposed to complexity, skill or advanced musicality than one of earlier Millenia. It is a common fallacy that music some how "developed" from primitive origins without taking into account changing aesthetics. Music of the past did not propose to adhere to the aesthetics of modern taste, and subsequent developments in music cannot be seen as "improvements" in so far as quality or virtuosity are concerned. Virtuosity [read early posting] is a capacity universally distributed in humans in every era and culture.
4. A major increase in the transmission of culture between Europe and the Middle East occurred during the Crusades. While violence, racism and all forms of brutality were rampant during this time, the transmission of culture (including mathematics and engineering) was very real and had real implications.
5. It should be noted, however, that while the Crusades "brought back" a lot of cultural material from far away places, there were areas in Europe of neighbor-transmission. This would include the Muslim occupation of the Iberian peninsula, which offers potentially the most furtile environment for transmission of culture and assimilation of musical sensibility and technique. The Moors, often identified as Arabs, though mostly Berbers in Spain, ruled over a largely indigenous population who were subsequently expelled or forced to convert, following the reclaimation of Christian territory complete in the fall of Grenada under Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492.
This type of Eastern influence on the fringes of the European continent finally calls into question the identity of what is essentially Western about European music. The development of canonical literature involves a transnational system of networks, of conservatories, patrons and ensembles throughout Italy, Germany and France. Clicheed reductions of European music history have it that lyracism is essentially Italian, Germans perfected the meat and potatoes of form, and the French gave us all the spice of orchestration. The great canon of Western musical literature actually does not fall far from this simplistic reduction. Late theorists such as Shenker identify a small group of German and Austrian composers as the supreme exponents of Sonata form. There is also a large gap between the early Baroque and Berlioz (and a good deal after him as well, into the 20th century) during which few if any notable French composers emerge in the canon, and the isn't much from England at all between the Elizabethan madrigals and Elgar. What we see, however, is great production (and recognition) of works in other countries both before and after the Common Practice period. What, then, should "we" as heirs to cultural heritage take as our legacy? With the exception of a body of work consolidated by historic criticism spanning a couple busy centuries, the bonds of what holds European music together as essential are not so tight. Given the fairly obvious Germanic bias in 19th and 20th century music scholarship, I believe it is wrong to look at our own distant past as part of that same canon, which simply did not exist as the single consilidated mass of literature as it was in the 19th century even as recently as 300 years ago. Furthermore, despite the enormous project of counterpoint, the perfect tonal paradigm and concepts of "absolute art music," I believe there is a thread of continuity in instrumental performance practice that persisted through the early days of European instrumental music well into the modern era of documented commentary and notated music.
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