Category: World Music Studies

As I continue “doing ethnomusicology at home” my most recent engagement is within a Western Art Music ensemble, a surprising domain for a World Music researcher. The ensemble is a British brass band and I participate as a cornet player and an “amateur” musician. I have no interest in playing a brass instrument per se, only in participating in a British Brass Band.

It is a perfect successor to my study of (and participation in) another iconic English working-class avocation, morris dance. My interest in the British Brass Band began as a chance encounter with the movie Brassed Off, which is based on the story of a brass band and its players swept up in the collapse of its patron, a member of the coal-mining industry, during the years of Thatcherism. Morris dance and then the British Brass Band also provides me with plenty of grist for my Anglomania.

 

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo8hIc7DpuE[/youtube]

 

Participant-Observer

I am living two lives simultaneously – the “participant” in me is actively and wholly committed to the success of the ensemble by striving for perfection of my own part within the group. And as an observer, I am looking at the “familiar”, a Western Art Music Ensemble, as if it were Other. For those of you who are new to ethnomusicology, anthropology and related disciplines, the Other, or more properly, Others, are normally found in the realm of ethnic communities “from away” where compositional and performance features are often quite unlike anything in the West. By contrasting ensembles in the West with musical groups and soloists from elsewhere I engage in a kind of cultural triangulation championed by writers such as Bruno Nettl (Ethnomusicological Reflections on Schools of Music) and Christopher Small (Musicking).

Western music-making ensembles often come out of triangulating comparisons with a fearful list of failings. But, I want to find the original value of Western Art Music instrumental ensembles buried under centuries of encrusted convention instead of simply dismissing Western Art Music ensembles as cultural anachronisms. I should say “re-find” because my youth was filled with junior orchestras and bands that thrilled me. Later, as a young man, I examined my treasured Western Art Music ensembles, questioning the autocratic role of the conductor and the passive nature of the audience. Were the spectators concentrating, or lost in thoughts about work and family? And if they were concentrating, what were they concentrating upon – the structure of the form, and its unique take by a long-dead composer, or the back desk of the first violins who don’t seem to work quite as hard as the first desk? Knowledge about harmony and structure was information we struggled to learn, like novitiates in an esoteric cult. Given that most members of an audience have no idea what a sonata or rondo form is, even if it jumped up and bit them on the nose, do they understand the logic of the music on a subliminal level, or are they immersed in a fantasy that promises enlightenment if they simply listen to Western Art Music often enough. In the meantime, I imagined that they take comfort in the certainty of an acquired, heightened status, simply by witnessing a Western Art Music event.

Such are the existential rants of a young man.

Below are a few, very preliminary observations I’ve made about the British Brass Band experience. In a later posting, I’ll comment on its variation found locally, and in North America generally, with an aside on the sociology of playing in an amateur ensemble.

The British Brass Band

The British Brass Band is a specific type of brass ensemble, not just a collection of high and low brass instruments. Further, the British Brass Band has its own distinctive culture, a characteristic that is valued as much as its music repertoire. Jeremy Paxman (p. 22) adds it to his list of quintessential English touchstones.  England has its fair share of professional brass banders, but the overwhelming general membership participates at the level of avocation. Still, there are some that will claim their volunteer work in a Brass Band is their vocation, while their day-job is the avocation. The shining silver coating of the brass instruments (hence the synonym, Silver Bands) symbolically contrast with the coal-dust enveloping the bodies of the miners of northern England, home of the greatest brass bands in the world. Even today, companies and villages each have their own bands which compete vigorously in national brass band competitions that are the equal of the national sports leagues. In fact, English brass banders perform in competitions far more often than on the stage.

The British Brass Band is a member of the world-wide dissemination of brass band ensembles, from Romania to Indonesia (Tanjidor), New Orleans to the Ivory Coast. Each in its own way is boisterous and exuberant. Some are polished; all are joyful.

 

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjio-y6J0ME[/youtube]

 

The Instruments

The instrumentation of the Brass Band sets it apart from other large brass ensembles, particularly with their use of cornets instead of trumpets, and tenor horns instead of French horns. The baritones and euphoniums are distinctly different, as opposed to the generic concert band baritone/euphonium. Many of these instruments have a rather modest cultural capital (Pierre Bourdeau) in Western Art Music circles. For example, the tenor horn is called the “peck horn” because of its allegedly lowly musical contribution. And yet, in the world of the British brass band, the large variety of brass instrument types are highly valued for their subtle shades of timbre, in the same manner as a pallet of spices.

Brass instruments in general make extreme physical demands, even when played with restraint. Playing a brass instrument resembles long distance running where the forces of effort are in constant war with the forces of fatigue. I can play the flute for hours, but the cornet is entirely a different matter; once the mouthpiece goes up to the mouth, the clock is ticking before facial muscle exhaustion sets in, sometimes within minutes. Playing a brass instrument seems to me to be similar to any athletic venture that requires constant muscle development and toning. Miss a day of workout; lose a week of ability.

A very curious debate simmers over the use of vibrato. In the early decades of the 20th century (and possibly before that) every English brass band instrumentalist played with vibrato, creating a total effect akin to a string orchestra. But somewhere along the way, the brass banders, mostly in the south of England, gave up on the sound quality and adopted the “wall of straight sound” that seems to come from American (Chicago) school of Brass playing. Further, the vibrato was scorned as a virus derived from “jazz” as heard, for example in the sound of Louis Satchmo and his generation. Essentially, the aesthetic of vibrato as an expressive device has been devalued by the encroachment of an outside (read “American”), globalizing musical culture. In its defense, the straight tones of a brass ensemble resemble a pipe organ in full voice. There is no doubt that straight tones allow a kind of perfection of tuning that is without peer, where major and minor thirds are tempered for the real sound from the world of physics, instead of equal temperament. There is, however, one member of the brass band genre that has insulated itself from the outside force of the straight sound and continues to use vibrato with impunity – The Brass Bands of the Salvation Army. Like the British Band culture of long ago, the Salvationists are also deeply rooted in English working class culture, providing an alternative to the grinding life of hard (or no) labour. Even today, their outreach program of social assistance is second to none.

Another striking convention is the use of treble clef in all music notations, from the highest (Eb soprano cornet) to the lowest (BBb bass). With the exception of the bass trombone. Mysterious. Be that as it may, the use of the treble clef means that anybody in the band can switch instruments, and still play effectively, if needs be. The one rather odd exception is the trombones who read treble clef, and yet still have to gauge the length of the slide for each note. Only trombonists can do that. Although the possibility of moving from one instrument to another is available to the players, the reality is hampered by the demands of the different size of mouthpieces. When I played a baritone for a couple of weeks, I could not make a single sound on a cornet! It was alarming. However, there are superstars in the British Brass Band world, seen in videos on the internet, who play multiple instruments on stage as soloists, so it must be possible.

Sometimes I see the band as a composite of two, overlapping groups – high and low brass – reminiscent of pipe organ designations like 4-foot rank, 8-foot rank, and the behemoth 16-foot rank. This distinction is provoked by the curious term of “tenor” horn. From the vantage of the low brass, it is an alto horn, but from the view down from the high brass, it is a tenor voice. And, just as the cornet is the dominant solo voice of the high brass, the euphonium is the soloist within the low brass choir. It occupies exactly the same range as a baritone, but unlike the largely cylindrical bore of the latter, the conical bore of the euphonium gives it a darker timbre. The baritone, when seen from a distance, looks like a tenor horn. It can also be identified as a trombone, folded up for convenience, and equipped with the standard 3 pistons. They share the same type of mouthpiece. Most curious of all is the flugel, which can also be identified as a piccolo tuba.

The repiano cornet is the most enigmatic brass instrument for me. It sits beside the flugel player, acting as a kind of stand partner (they usually share the same music, albeit with occasional divisi high and low melody lines), and yet it shares the role of solo-playing with the solo section, albeit at different times.

The cornet – heart of the brass band

A “cornet” is not a “trumpet”. I discovered that mistaking a cornet for a trumpet is blasphemy in the brass band world. Although they have structural differences, which includes the engaging “shepherd’s crook” in one of the bends of the cornet, if the truth be told, they sound almost the same when played in their comfort range. But it seems to me that a cornet can never re-produce those extreme moments of trumpet bravura and even excess a la Doc Severinsen. It is as if the cornet emulates the traditional reserve of the English citizen. Regardless of this acoustic modesty, the champion players and even the rank and file achieve unimaginable technical virtuosity.

Even the pronunciation of the word “cornet” is subject to some disagreement between England and North America. Compare “aluminum” and “aluminium”. In England, the word is pronounced CORnet (cf. TRUMPet), not corNET (cf. corNETTO, the curved renaissance wind instrument that is a blown like a trumpet, and played like a recorder).

After several years of practicing in the cracks of the day, I moved up to the “solos”. The term “solo” is an anachronistic term for the cornet players playing the first parts. Those parts are usually very, very high in tessitura, making what I believe to be unreasonable demands on the players. (I’m probably the only one who feels this way.) The result of this demand is the most amazing cooperation. The 4 or so “soloists” will take turns playing very difficult high-note passages, sometimes resulting in only 2 players performing, while the other 2 pause for 8 bars or so to let the blood come back to their lips. Nothing is written in the music to indicate this strategy, and the players very rarely discuss it among themselves. It just happens, almost organically. I originally thought that we were alone in this strategy, but I have observed soloists in other bands do exactly the same thing. Mind you, in the high-level bands in England, the soloists don’t need that sort of strategy; they truly are a collection of concert soloists.

The British Brass Band culture

Perhaps the most vivid cultural component of the Brass Band in England is the club-like camaraderie, the defining sub-text in the movie Brassed Off. The close-knit associations are not surprising given the vast amount of group practice an English bander will volunteer – as much as 12 or so hours a week, in off-hours. Traditional bands were all-male affairs, so they had an overtone of testosterone and a penchant for pubbing after banding. Some practice halls in England are even equipped with a bar. Today bands have opened themselves to women. And naturally, women are excelling, particularly in the realm of baritone (Katrina Marzella, Kristy Rowe) and tenor horn (Sheona White).

In a future posting, I’ll describe some impressions I’ve gathered from 11 years in a local brass band, perhaps one of the most satisfying experiences of the 2000s for me.

Readings

Andew Duncan (2005) Scoring and Arranging for Brass Band

Trevor Herbert, editor (2000) The British Brass Band: A Musical and Social History

Christopher Small (1998) Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening

James Spradley (1980) Participant Observation

Bruno Nettl (1995) Heartland Excursions: Ethnomusicological Reflections on Schools of Music

Jeremy Paxman (1998) The English: A Portrait of a People

Ian Buruma (1998) Anglomania: A European Love Affair

Matthew Riley (2004) Musical Listening in the German Enlightenment

It’s that time of year again, when Ukrainians in the homeland and the Canadian prairies celebrate their culture by mounting a party called malanka. I was reminded of this occasion when I watched a recent episode of the Rick Mercer Report where Rick attended a malanka party in Saskatoon. If you are lucky enough to be invited to a malanka, you will find yourself in a spirited and noisy evening of dance and music in a hotel ballroom or community rec room, full of all generations. Think wedding reception. Sprinkled throughout the evening are interludes of entertainment, especially Ukrainian folkloric dance in spectacular costume – women wearing peasant dresses and streaming ribbons, men in Turkish trousers, and everybody wearing shiny red boots. Or not. I’ve seen the dancers simply strut their stuff in street or party clothes. Here in Vancouver, Ukrainian malanka makes barely a ripple on the cultural landscape, but on the Canadian prairie arctic that is Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina and Winnipeg at this time of year, it is the biggest event in the January’s social calendar, in the cities and out in the countryside. The reason is because Ukrainians in massive numbers settled in that part of Canada in the late 1800s.

Malanka celebrations (Malanckyn Vechir) occur on New Year’s Eve according to the Julian calendar, which runs a little more than a week later then the modern Gregorian calendar. That puts the date on January 13. It is part of a constellation of day-time festivities called Shchedryi Vechir (Generous Eve) where people share in carol singing (shchedrivky), dancing and feasting. The fun high day follows similar festivities about a week earlier on Christmas Day (Sviata Vecheria) when carols (koliadky) are sung at home and during Christmas house-visits, koliadnyky. Think wassailers.

Both Christmas day and New Year’s Eve festivities feature mummers plays. The plays and their associated shenanigans have a heightened spin in Western Ukraine among the rural Hutsul people of the Carpathian Mountains. Rowdy young men go house to house with ritualized greetings, group singing, dancing (hutsulka, kolomyjka, both shoulder-to-shoulder round dances) and of course, a mummers play.

The Christmas Day event is called vertep (related to the Russian petrushka – Stravinsky alert), centred on the nativity scene. Sombre re-enactments of the Jesus’ birth are contrasted with hilarious skits about the shepherds, the antics of the animals (especially the goat, koza, which also had a story of its own), and the comic characterizations of the accompanying costumed stereotypes – a local policeman, a blacksmith, the gypsy, a chimneysweep, etc.. The mummers play at New Year’s Eve is called malanka, and features many of the same stereotypical, comic characters.  In each instance, the accompanying characters make brief appearances, where they are announced by the performance of their defining songs (in the style of koliadky).

The malanka play is named after the central character. According to the song lyrics, she is beautiful, shy and on the look-out for a worthy husband. According to the lyrics. But in reality, “she” was a male dressed in shabby women’s clothing, blustering and wreaking havoc in the kitchen, pretending to clean it up, until “she” was persuaded to sit down and have a drink. Other, even shorter skits could be invoked, with specific songs performed during the mimed antics of one or more of the other comic characters who accompanied malanka. Food and drink would be consumed copiously and couple dances would spontaneously break out, much to the delight or chagrin of the females in the house. Behind the façade of merriment was an opportunity for the young people of the town to size each other up for potential romances and dalliances. The narrative of the play is concerned either with a portrayal of pre-nuptial ritual or a knock-about re-enactment of a myth about a young woman who finds herself caught in a web of intrigue similar to Persephone.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM9tjyWwyT0[/youtube]

When I became a morris dancer, I learned that many English folk arts (such as morris dance) were also timed to coincide with high days in the festive year, like malanka and vertep. I also learned that at Christmas time in England, mumming was far more prevalent than morris dance, so in order to go deep into this performance art I became the foreman of a mumming troupe drawn from morris dancers in our organisation. I quickly discovered that mumming was the equal of morris dance with its complex representations and vigorous performativity. And just as I had done in my later comparative studies of ethnic dances in relation to morris dance, I found a multitude of astounding examples of ethnic theatre resembling mumming. I hasten to add that is almost all “street” theatre and “kitchen” theatre, not the high tone productions found on stages, performed by professional actors and thoughtfully written by playwrights exploring human dilemmas, triumphs and hubris.  The examples of folk theatre I found were usually brief, physical and brimming with the kind of rough-and-ready humour Mikhail Bakhtin called Carnival Laughter.

It was during my mumming phase that I discovered traditional malanka. But, no sooner did I revel in this discovery, I became bamboozled by the malanka that I was seeing and hearing about on the prairies.  It had virtually no resemblance to the malanka I had read about.  What’s more, when I began to make inquiries in the Ukrainian communities I visited, I discovered that many of the malanka celebrants were entirely unaware of the traditional malanka.

The Malanka that one sees today is a party of an entirely different colour. Instead of “folk” it is “dance club” with music performed by a polka or soft rock band.  Although the event resembles a supper club, the many generations of people in attendance make the event more like a wedding reception. Granted, a typical malanka New Year’s party will have guest appearances by the local Ukrainian dance troupe, and party-goers may even have a go at a traditional dance and sing-along. Ukrainian language even makes an appearance at these events. Obviously the original kitchen “party” component has morphed into something more contemporary, in the tried and true manner of all folk customs that adapt to changes and modernity in general. I have no problem with that, but what I did find alarming was the seeming ignorance among many young Ukrainian-Canadians about the origins of their malanka.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vrtmxSK9s[/youtube]

Of course, the picture is never black and white. One finds videos on YouTube with young people having a whale of a time, pumped up by the hot music of young Ukrainian-Canadian musicians like Zirka. And come to think about it, the fun seen in internet videos suggest that young people are still sizing each other up at malanka parties.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpvZn2sHBog[/youtube]

The gap between the old and the new does not stop at the parties. I had heard of a video performance of a malanka play that was produced by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress in 1995 for sale to educational institutions across Canada. Imagine my disappointment when I found myself watching a dance-mime performance of the story of the “pagan goddess malanka” who was portrayed by a slim young ballerina dressed in beguiling Ukrainian costume, being escorted across the dance floor, and through the narrative, by gallant young men, also in traditional folkloric costume. The choreography was a mix of ballet and modern Ukrainian “folkloric” dance. I sat back in astonishment, pondering the thousands of young people in grade schools and universities who would use the video as the basis for their papers and multicultural presentations.

Young third and fourth Ukrainian-Canadians may have been unaware of the roots, but not the generation of their grandparents. The older the informant, the more aware they were of traditional malanka. But there was also a kind of shame and reluctance that tempered their fond memories. The grandparents seemed uneasy about the transvestism of malanka, and the general  foreign-ness of the event, given their desire to become “Canadian”. That is, Anglo Canadian, a hybrid of America and Britain. The internment of Ukrainians during World War II also made those mixed feelings even more complicated.

How times have changed. A traditional Malanka would be greeted with open arms today, if she could be found. I despaired of seeing or hearing about a real Malanka until a few years ago when I visited a small town in central Saskatchewan, almost entirely populated by many generations of Ukrainian-Canadians. There I discovered that the original Malanka and her troupe were alive and thriving. I also learned that researchers and scholars in the Ukrainian Studies department of the University of Alberta in Edmonton were delving deep into the mysteries of the original malanka play, just like scholars in England (and Newfoundland!) were investigating the roots of mumming.

When I began teaching at the School of Music at UBC, I dreamt of engineering a centre for ethnic music, dance and theatre where all the seasonal traditions like old malanka would be studied and performed. Given that they touch upon domains found throughout the Arts Faculty, they would make excellent cross-faculty fodder. The explorations would start with Old World (i.e., European) examples and then perhaps branch out to similar events around the world. For example, Sestubun in Japan has remarkable points of commonality.  You can find the project in my blog under Ethnomusicology ensembles.

Now, conditions may not be right. The tide of diasporan communities from Asia seem to have no interest in these hold-over cultures from Europe, and the latest generation of born-and-bred Canadian children have long since separated from the homelands of their European grandparents.  For example, it is typical to speak to children of English parents who have never heard of morris dance or mummers plays. I suppose each of these segments of modern society is re-shaping Canada into a transcultural image more suited to their needs.

Readings

Robert Klymasz (1970), The Ukrainian Winter Folksong Cycle in Canada, with music transcriptions by Kenneth Peacock

Robert Klymasz (1985) ‘“Malanka”: Ukrainian Mummery on the Prairies,” in Canadian Folk Music Journal, volume 13 (1985), pp. 32-36

Orest Subtelny (1991) Ukrainians in North America: An Illustrated History

Tamara Livingstone (1999) “Music Revivals: Towards a General Theory,” in Ethnomusicology, volume 43, number 1 (Winter), pp. 66-85

Phil Ryan (2010) Multcultiphobia

Cheryl Avery, Mona Holmlund (2010) Better Off Forgetting? Essays on Archives, Public Policy, and Collective Memory

Music

Tafiychuk Family

Hutsulshchyna No 1 Music of the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains (Koka)

With a family line from the Hutsul village of Bukovets, between Kosiv and Verkhovyna in the Ukrainian part of the Carpathian Mountains, this family has been cultivating local music traditions for decades. Their repertoire is recognized as a canon of Hutsul folklore. This first CD consists of ritual wedding music – kolomyikas and ritual games and spontaneous, archaic dances sung and performed on violin and instruments such as sopilka, floiara, telenka among others. This CD also includes a small booklet with a short story about the creation of the world.

Hutsulshchyna No 2 Music of the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains (Koka)

Volume two of the music by this family from the Hutsul village of Bukovets, between Kosiv and Verkhovyna in the Ukrainian part of the Carpathian Mountains, focuses on songs and improvisations of traditional melodies performed on violin and instruments such as sopilka, floiara, telenka among others.

These CDs and similar music productions are available at CD Roots.

 

Good news.

The university has scheduled one of my courses for May-June of 2013. Last summer, they chose my Popular Music course (M403J); this year they’ve opted for my version of the study of World Music (M328C). It is designated with a “C” because it keeps company with the same course taught by the other excellent instructors in the department of ethnomusicology, marked A or B, depending on the teacher. My version contrasts with theirs because of the unique content. Interestingly, because of the differences, students are welcome to enroll in all the various versions of M328. From my vantage, that option is a somewhat intimidating, given that the comparison of teaching styles is inevitable.

So what will be unique in my version of M328 in 2013?

The heart of all my teaching, past and present, is triangulation – the comparison of WAM (Western Art Music), the heart and soul of a School of Music or conservatory, with the sounds, contexts and performance practices of music from different parts of the world. I discussed this personal take in a previous post in this blog, and I review the concept in the first lecture.

The course will begin with an overview of the music of the world. Given that the such a perspective is vast, and in constant danger of degenerating into a Cook’s Tour of World Music (“if it’s Wednesday, it must be Belgium”), I have chosen to illustrate how music ideas have flowed around the world in the form of cultural diffusion. My examples are from the Black Atlantic and Eurasia from south to west.

This excursion into ancient globalisation will be followed by some in-depth presentations. I’ll begin with a topic that has never been more urgent – First Nations music and dance. As the Idlenomore movement gains traction (as of January 2013), Canadian citizens are in need of a greater depth of understanding of First Nations culture as aboriginal people empower themselves. Because this is a music course, the vehicle to achieve this greater depth of understanding is the music that accompanies the intertribal Powwow. Common throughout Canada, the Powwow and its heartbeat, the drum, has deep historical roots but it is also a living, vibrant cultural expression that has adapted and kept pace with modern times.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtS6AdbZkrc[/youtube]

Next will be a foray into Canada’s candidate for musical Intangible Cultural Heritage. UNESCO has stimulated a lot of interest in various exotic music and dance productions that are often identified as symbols of specific nationalities. Some examples of ICH are even imperilled, gasping for air as the tsunami of Anglo-american pop culture washes over them. So does Canada have an ICH? According to the Federal government, the answer is “no”. When the answer was “yes” in the long ago, it was the fiddle, played by First Nations and successive waves of immigrants from coast to coast to coast.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lTBQtzxAlE [/youtube]

We will review that perspective, and then show how an up-and-coming contender, the jing-hu, may take its place beside the fiddle as a member of Canada’s twenty-first century panorama of multicultural musical symbols.

Following the familiar we will travel to the exotic – Zen Buddhism in the service of music. Zen can make an enormous contribution to make to the life and times of a WAM musician, from its attitude to its quintessential meditation skills. But how? All will be revealed.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjWZz839T8w[/youtube]

Then, we will jump from the easternmost island nation of Eurasia, Japan, to its westernmost isle – Great Britain and England in particular. Who would have thought that Ol’ Blighty was “ethnic”? But surprise, surprise, it has maintained a form of “ethnic dance” that is as intriguing as flamenco or any other ethnochroreography . Called morris dance, it is a variant form of morisco that has been around since the Middle Ages .

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96L9-cTXn1w [/youtube]

In order to lay the groundwork for a proper understanding of morris dance, students will be introduced to Country Dance. Jane Austin fans are in for a treat.

Being the 21^st century, all the lectures will not be just wall-to-wall blah blah. Volunteer students will provide mini (20 minute) presentations that describe their musical passions and guilty pleasures, followed by questions from the class and more revelations. Each week ends with a twitter festival (using Connect) where everybody comments on the content of the preceding week’s lectures and presentations. Each individual weekly contribution is worth a precious mark, so it’s time well spent. Six weeks; six marks.

Building on the lectures, students will be challenged and immersed in music recognition assessments, reading submissions, online (yes online!) exams and a final assignment to show the results of their 6-week discoveries. If all goes well, certification and 3 precious units will be the final outcome, not to mention a new point of view that will stay with them for the rest of their musical lives.

Lately I’ve rekindled my interest in frame drums. My first encounter was with the tambourine – a frame drum with some added tonal colour provided by miniature cymbals called jingles. Back then, I had decided to challenge myself by writing a high-brow academic paper about a seemingly trivial, low-brow music instrument, the tambourine. What a wonderful adventure that was. It may be trivial in the hands of Mr. Tambourine Man, but in the Middle East and the Mediterranean it is very sophisticated low tech. You can read about some of the results of this research in my blog entry entitled Ethnomusicology by and for Women.

A few weeks ago I encountered a frame drum that was new to me. It was massive – perhaps the bass drum of the frame drum world.  Although normally played while holding it in an upright manner, a brilliant frame drummer percussionist named Glenn Velez devised a new ergonomic model of playing with the drum resting on the knee. Regardless of the playing position, the frame drum, called daf, tar, deff, duff, shares the same musical vocabulary as the doumbek and other Middle Eastern drums (and even South Asian drums).

As I marvelled at the drum, I asked myself, “Where do the players play this drum?” That question led me to belly dance. Suddenly I had a perfect point of discussion and debate for my teaching module on ethnochoreology, presented in my course entitled Introduction to the Study of World Music.

Dance of the belly

“Belly” is a crude way of describing the muscles of the hips and intercostal muscles (i.e., the belly, aka the six-pack), that “dance” to the rhythmic beat, instead of the feet. Whereas many choreographies outline geometric patterns on a stage, ice rink, swimming pool or whatever, by travelling through space in a forward or backward motion, mobility in belly dance is virtually non-existent. It shares many of the same “hip” movements as hula dance, but the mimesis of the hands is very different. In hula, the fluid gestures tell a story; in belly dance they simply outline an arabesque around and above the body, enhancing the shimmer and beats of the hips and stomach. Oddly enough, belly dance seems to share some of the same body choreographies gestures as bhangra. And its relatively stationary dance location resembles hip hop!

The history of belly dance is fraught with Orientalism, as evidenced by the term, “belly” (actually derived from the French la danse du ventre). One has to look past the sometimes dark moments of Oriental Othering (while acknowledging that they happened) and see the modern hybrids and historical re-enactments that have arisen. There are roughly two camps of belly dance,  approximately categorized as Raqs Sharqi, the hypersexualized cabaret style originally from Egypt that eventually became the most prominent form of Western belly dance, and Raqs Baladi (or Beledi), the vernacular (aka folk) version that de-emphasizes the hypersexuality while maintaining the essence of the motions. Baladi  is fully participatory, with all dancers welcome on the dance floor, while Sharqi is strictly presentational. The prominent element of hypersexuality in Sharqi has been transformed by many women into an exploration and discovery of sexuality and sensuality, completely inverting the dominant male gaze into pro-active Third Wave Feminism. Some Westerners and Middle Eastern male dancers have created a hybrid of both styles, using the modest dress of Baladi with the presentational aspect of Sharqi.

What particularly interests me is the fact that Baladi is also the kind of belly dance that is the common to the Middle Eastern everyman, and everywoman, at celebrations like weddings and parties. In most Middle Eastern countries, the gender differences are highlighted because both genders rarely dance together, not because of any interest in hypersexuality. Men dance in the company of men; women ibid, even if the opposite sex is present, simply watching and admiring. This form of belly dance is difficult to research, no doubt because it is of limited interest to the West and its fascination with Sharqi.

Frame Drums

I discovered that frame drums are commonly used to accompany belly dance. They perform this unusual accompaniment role by utilizing the rich and complex vocabulary of Middle Eastern Rhythmic modes.  These modes consist of additive metres as long as 10 or more beats of sound and silence, consisting of smaller units of twos and threes that are made richer with breath-taking improvisation, even to the point of disguising the beats. The rhythm of the dancer and the drummer is a tour de force of unison and layered rhythms.  Imagine a familiar dance, such as waltz or salsa, with only the accompaniment of percussion? Perhaps a crazy idea, but I think very intriguing. That is not to say that melody instruments do not join in the fun of Belly Dance, only that they are equal partners, and even ancillary at times.

Dancing Male Bellies

So having determined that the frame drum accompanies belly dance, is a performer restricted to accompanying females? For some men that might seem like heaven, and for women players, it must seem liberating. But, the answer is “no”.

Male belly dance – the outermost region of acceptability for many heterosexual men. Homosexual males have a long history of belly dance in the Turkish courts, but after much poking around, one discovers that Middle Eastern heterosexual guys from every walk of life, from soldiers to taxi drivers, are also comfortable dancing with their hips and bellies. This casual, participatory style is in addition to the male versions of hypersexual Sarqi which is a major hit in some cabarets and restaurants (including Greek restaurants!) around the world and in Vancouver. Given the hybrid form of belly dance performed by both men and women, abroad and in the Middle East, the distinction between homosexual and heterosexual presentation is blurred to the point of unidentifiable.  A six-pack is a six-pack, regardless of gender preference.

Male versus Female Bellies

So the next question posed is this. Is there a mimesis of gestures that are distinctly male, in opposition to female gestures? The answer appears to be “yes”, as seen in the video instructional entitled Learn the Art of Male Belly Dance, by Wesley Gomes. Although the beat is still highlighted by the hips, the gestures are masculine, although subtly so.

Still, Mr. Gomes is in the business of presentation. Is there a male form of social Baladi that avoids hypersexuality? According to an un-named informant, there is.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5tGRD9Kjlg[/youtube]

So could a male Physical Education, sorry Human Kinetics instructor in a high school, introduce belly dance to a mixed class? Could there be a club at university devoted to convivial belly dance performed by both sexes. Given that the dance form does not involve couples, would it would resemble a typical free-for-all of a downtown club? Probably not in my lifetime.

This entire discussion does not take into account the wishes and needs of Muslims from the Middle East which is another, far more complicated and necessary investigation for another day.

Readings

Jennifer Fisher and Anthony Shay, editors (2009) When Men Dance: Choreographing masculinities across borders

Anthony Shay, Barbara Sellers-Young, editors (2005) Orientalism, transnationalism, and harem fantasy

Stavros Stavrou Karayanni (2004) Dancing Fear and Desire: Race, Sexuality, and Imperial Politics in Middle Eastern Dance

A few weeks ago, during the final classes of my ethnomusicology course (M328C) I once again taught my unit on the Japanese vertical flute called the shakuhachi, and the influence of Zen Buddhism on its sacred solo music.  “Zen Shakuhachi” was the focus of my first excursion into music research, using my newly acquired knowledge of ethnomusicology and buddhology, following my initial fascination with Alan Watts. My field study in Kyoto and Kobe consisted of participating in group lessons and private instruction supplemented with extended explanations of the influence of Zen Buddhism. Essentially, I was learning how to play the Japanese flute, building on my training as a professional flutist. Some of that research was encapsulated in a Master of Music Thesis, The San Koten Honkyoku of the Kinko Ryū (The Three Sacred Traditional Melodies of the Kinko School) but unfortunately there wasn’t space or time to include the detailed lessons I received in the Taizan ryū (対山流) school of Zen Shakuhachi, associated with Meian-ji (明暗寺), the home temple of the lay komusō (虚無僧). I wish I could claim to be alone and unique in the study of Zen Buddhism and the shakuhachi, but many others have investigated the same ground, even more so in the last few years with the advent of the internet and its DIY blogs. Still, I may have one particular and unique point of view; I find it interesting to triangulate Zen Buddhist shakuhachi music with Western Art Music (WAM) and its educational music institutions.

Deep Practice and Deep Listening

Of course, advanced music students in universities and conservatories already expand their traditional knowledge with brief, Zen-inspired encounters. Coyle’s “deep practice” is often cited by private music instructors, and Barry Green’s populist tradebooks, The Mastery of Music: Ten Pathways to True Artistry (2005) and The Inner Game of Music (1986) sit on many a teacher’s shelf of core reference books. In musicology classes, music students are introduced to John Cage et al. His music of silence (4’33”) was partially inspired by Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (1870-1966), Japan’s great Zen Buddhist philosopher, during Suzuki-sensei’s residency at Columbia University from 1952 to 1957. Cage sat in on his lectures. The above Western names are only a small sample of the many authors who have explored the intersection of Zen Buddhism and music, and written a range of materials from self-help manuals to philosophical reflections. But these readings are understandably ephemeral to main-stream music studies.

Enlightenment

As I prepared my lecture notes this Fall, I found myself marvelling at the quandary of the word “enlightenment” as described and understood in the West and the East. Music students are somewhat aware of the former, given that their musical heroes such as Bach and Mozart sought to emulate Voltaire’s spirit of enlightenment, if not his atheism. The musical discourse of Western Art Music is, at its heart, “enlightened” with its blend of rational expectations and calculated surprises. Western Art music compositions have even inspired non-musicians to be equally thoughtful and intellectually engaged, be they politicians or philosophers. The academic study of music also aspires to be rational, even ultra-rational, raising musicology from its pedestrian place in the Humanities to a starring role in the Social Sciences.

Still, in the West’s headlong rush to create the Age of Reason in the eighteenth century, WAM encountered a wall that could only be breached by the spontaneous misadventures of the Romantics. Now, that early spirit of triumphant rationalism is parodied by Data, Tuvok and Seven of Nine. But regardless of our modern-day scepticism about the salvation of logic, science in general, and music theory in particular, is still deeply immersed in its mastery.

“Enlightenment”

So what is the nature of Zen “enlightenment”? First, it helps to understand two points of view. There is the vast wave of religious Buddhismt where the powers of heavenly others ( tariki 他力)  are invoked by faith and prayer.  Then there is the thin stream of those who carve their own paths (i.e. jiriki 自力) with the temporary assistance of a master (guru, roshi, etc.).

Second, we must let go of the word “spiritual”, at least in the sense of redemption and peace of mind. As one famous Zen monk said, “now that I’m enlightened, I’m as miserable as ever”.

Third, we are assured that the epiphany of Zen enlightenment cannot be arrived at by logic. Bodhidharma, the South Asian monk who founded Zen Buddhism in China, declared in no uncertain terms that the tools to achieve Buddhist enlightenment were “教外別傳  (kyōge betsuden) A special transmission outside the scriptures; 不立文字  (furyū monji) Not dependent on words and letters; 直指人心  (jikishi ninshin) Directly pointing to the human mind; 見性成佛 (kenshō jōbutsu) Seeing into one’s own nature, attaining Buddhahood”.

Buddhologists are well aware of the irony in the vow to let go of words and letters, given the vast literature that has been generated by Buddhism over the last 2500 years. The core sacred texts, called the Tripiṭaka (大蔵経 Daizōkyō), alone occupy several metres of library shelf space, and a visit to any New Age bookstore will reveal hundreds more books devoted to Buddhism. On the other hand, the profuse literature clearly shows that Zen Buddhism is most certainly not anti-intellectual. In some schools of Buddhism, logic is used to an extreme degree to illustrate the futility of logic. This radical introspection has prompted academics to see parallels in the writings of philosophers like Immanuel Kant, (1724-1804) (Critique of Pure Reason). Recent writings by critical theorists such as Steven Heine and Dale Wright have turned the postmodern gaze towards the classic writings of Zen Buddhism in an effort to purge Western affectations from Eastern reality.

Enlightenment, called kenshō  (見性), by Bodhidharma and everybody else in the history of Zen Buddhism, is arrived at by a judicious confluence of traditional meditation techniques, mindfulness, and random-based epiphany. This third condition is particularly curious, and aggravating to some, because it disallows the steady progress of logic through time to a final flash of acumen that resembles Archimedes’ “eureka!”

The literature in Buddhism is filled with circuitous descriptions of “enlightenment”, the consequences of that awareness, or the factors that must come to play before that awareness can be achieved. In all these places, Buddhism resembles post-modernism.  For example, postmodernists are quick to point out that truth is relative. Buddhists have known this from time immemorial because they have plumbed the depths of truth, only to find that it consists of “nothingness”, or rather “no thingness”.  Along with all aspects of reality, truth is in a constant state of “dependent origination”, pratītyasamutpāda (緣 起, engi), another name for cultural and even physical relativity.

In short, Western Enlightenment is rooted in essentialism and Eastern enlightenment in existentialism (but without the dead hand of fatalism). The binary is reminiscent of modernism and postmodernism.

Enlightened Musicking

So what does enlightenment hold for musicians? In WAM, Western enlightenment is manifested in the patient construction of a composition, the unraveling and quiet discovery of the inner mechanism of a piece of music, or the victory of a great performance after intense preparation, followed by adulation and perhaps a career. In Zendō ( 禅道), the way of concentration (“attention!”), enlightenment has consequences not tied to reason or personal gain. Certainly it is not the disastrous conclusion suggested by Herman Hesse in his magisterial book Magister Ludi, where the glass bead-game master realizes the futility of his ultimate game of universal logic, and drowns himself in a lake. In The Ten Oxherding Pictures and accompanying poems, we are given hints of the stages of progress toward enlightenment, culminating in the tenth edict, a return to society in order to spread enlightenment. This notion has been embraced in popular culture by the Naruto series, one of the best selling manga of all time. The protagonist has a technique named “Kakuan Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands,” a kind of Buddhist “pay-it-forward”.

Perhaps today’s postmodern musician can synthesize both “enlightenments”, despite their seeming diametrical opposition. The result would not be essentially spiritual, rational, or logical, but it would provide a focused and useful lens for the serious student of music and life. Buddhists call it madhyamaka (Japanese: 中觀派Chūgan ha) – The Middle Way.

For the Reading Journal assignment in the second week of 2012 Fall classes, students were asked to summarize John Baily’s excellent essay, “Ethnomusicology, Intermusability, and Performance Practice,” found in The New Ethnomusicologies (edited by Henry Stobart, 2008). As I re-read the article, I suddenly realized that his wife is the amazing Veronica Doubleday.

I say “amazing” because her research on women’s music-making is extraordinary. She accompanied her husband, John Bailey, to Afghanistan and discovered music performed entirely by women, with the tambourine at its centre. Out of that encounter came her wonderful book Three Women of Herat: a memoir of life, love and friendship in Afghanistan (2006). The book partly culminated her research on the prominent place of the tambourine among women throughout Central Asia, the Middle East and southern Europe. Her findings are seen in Ethnomusicology volume 25, number 4 (1999), pp. 101-34, in an article entitled “The Frame Drum in the Middle East: Women, Musical Instruments and Power”.

I learned about the work of Veronica Doubleday when I was doing my own research on the history and culture of the tambourine among women in the Salvation Army.  My article, entitled  “The Tambourine and the Salvation Army: Rebellion in the Service of Authority,” can be seen in the Canadian Folk Music/ Musique folklorique canadienne, volume 41, number 4 (2007). The project began almost as a lark. I was wondering what it would be like to research a lowly music instrument that was found at the far end of the spectrum, opposite to the lofty Western Art Music instruments like piano and violin. Coincidentally, I was carrying around a memory of an explosive, singular newsflash from my days as a Resident Artist at EXPO 86. The Salvation Army tambourinists, or more properly, timbrelists were performing a kind of “flash mob event” on the main “street” of the fair with their tambourines and brass band accompanists, and everybody who witnessed it were gobsmacked. The delight and surprise crackled over the network of walkie-talkies, but I was unfortunately too far away to rush down and see them.

When I conducted my fieldwork among the SA timbrelists years later, I discovered the art of the tambourine in their hands was certainly not a lark. They took their performance art very seriously, and expended countless hours perfecting it. The performance art involves intricate hand and arm movements, sometimes enhanced with stage blocking, all the while striking the tambourine in complex rhythmic patterns, in unison with other timbrelists, and in rhythm to music selections provided by a glorious Salvation Army Brass Band. My best sighting occurred when I was invited to watch the North York timbrelists march through the streets of north Toronto at the head of the Salvation Army congretation,  brass band, a big bass drum (the sound most admired by the founder, William Booth) , flags and banners. Since then, I learned that a similar, even bigger production is seen every New Year’s Day on television across North America. In the morning, the Salvation Army massed brass bands and their massed timbrelists lead the massive Rose Parade. They also participate in the Calgary Stampede parade, to great applause, also in the same manner. But those are all faint echoes of the original context of the marching, when the SA would courageously and defiantly march down the slums and shantytown streets in cities and towns around the world, including Vancouver, broadcasting their message of joy and hope to the desperate and the disenfranchised.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hGcaTV5jEw&feature=related[/youtube]

As I looked further afield, I came across an inspirational tambourine soloist, Layne Redmond, who has embraced the tambourine as a vehicle to express her feminist interests.  She has tied together the history of women’s traditional place as spiritual mentors and guiding lights in pre-historic Europe, with the tambourine (and its kin, the frame drum which is a tambourine without jingles). At one time there was an explosion of research that suggested ancient Europe was a matriarchal society before the arrival of male-dominated newcomers and their patriarchal, violent ways. All of these interests are recorded in her book, When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm (1997).

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJtpAP7hHu4[/youtube]

Although the theory is now refuted by authors such as Cynthia Eller in her book The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why An Invented Past Will Not Give Women a Future (2000), Layne Radmond’s  musical-theatrical productions of women re-enacting the spirit of ritual services while using the tambourine to enhance their songs and movements are really something to behold.  Her tambourine ensemble is called A Mob of Angels and I highly recommend looking for them on Youtube. While you’re on the web, be sure to look for Layne Redmond’s website, where you will discover that she is a major force in the world of percussion.

Another name I’m keeping an eye on is Allesandra Belloni who specializes in the tambourine of Southern Italy. When you look into that corner, you discover the truth about the Tarantella; it is a dance of ecstacy, not the hysterical response to the bite of a tarantula. In Spain there is the women’s tambourine ensemble Leilia which maintains the tambourine traditions of the Galician area in the north.

Not all the prodigiously talented tambourine players are women. There are brilliant male performers such as Glen Velez and Xabier Berasaluze “Leturia”, one of the duo of Spanish Basque musicians called Tapia and Leturia. In Brazil, the tambourine, called pandeiro, has taken on the status of national instrument. It is played by men and women. Back in Italy, in the province of Calabria, men dominate tambourine performance, a radical departure from the tradition. There’s probably a great story there.

I acknowledge that among female timbrelists, I am clearly an outsider. Julie C. Dunbar has provided people like me with important insights in her new book Women, Music, Culture: An Introduction (Routledge, 2010). Still, I suspect there is there is a level of appreciation entirely beyond my understanding . No matter. I love what they do.

“To textbook, or not to textbook; that is the question.” (Sorry, Will!)

I have struggled with this question since the very beginning of my teaching career. Each time my “Introduction to World Music” (M328) course rolls around in the school calendar, I re-visit my dilemma by looking at the fresh stock of World Music textbooks newly published. But I have never found the right fit. Now that we have arrived in the age of the webisphere and sites like Wikipedia, the question becomes moot. I should add that I entered the study of ethnomusicology at the graduate level, so I don’t have a fondly remembered and well-thumbed undergrad book to act as a role model.

Here is my problem in a nutshell. I teach a very unique set of lectures which are not mirrored by any one book.

Be that as it may, I want to take you on a quick tour of the World Music textbook literature created for undergraduate students. A more thorough survey is preferable, but this is the wrong place for such an ambition. Another, far better option would be for you to physically browse through the titles in the Music Library. Many of them include music examples in CD format, and online access to yet more information via their publisher’s website when you buy the book. I have added some example titles and their library location at the end of this blog entry, in case you take me up on the challenge.

As you casually flip through the pages, you will discover that many of the texts have virtually no music notation examples. This is because they are destined to be used in general interest classes comprised of non-music students in the same mold as campus-wide Music Appreciation classes. In fact, World Music Appreciation, and its close neighbour, Pop Music Appreciation, may be overshadowing that old standby called, anachronistically, Music Appreciation (that is, Western Art Music Appreciation, although units devoted to pop, jazz, and world, make brief appearances these days). This shift in interest is foreshadowed by the hundreds of undergrads who enrol for the Pop Music course at University of Toronto each year, and the dire statistics of the steady decline of WAM audiences and piano students interested in learning classical music. “Roll over Beethoven!”

World music textbooks are indescribably rich in information, delivered somewhat in the manner of a travelogue – one country, then the next, and so on as you travel the world, gobsmacked at the variety. Heather Sparling, one of my colleagues and a great friend in the CSTM (Canadian Society for Traditional Music, conducted a detailed comparison of three of them in a recent edition of MusicCultures, vol 34/35 (2007/08), the scholarly journal of the CSTM. Her interest was in the area studies, physical characteristics, costs, and supplementary goodies that come with each book upon purchase.

But all of the travelogue texts have two problems, in my opinion.

First, each book contains a vast amount of facts that likely would require intense and sustained study that could easily collapse into a “cramming” fest, given the many other course demands made of students. Oxford University Press, under the guidance of the editor Bonnie Wade, created an interesting solution to this problem of saturation. In addition to a general text on how to listen to World Music, Oxford publish a number of mini books devoted to individual music culture areas, to be chosen by the ethnomusicology teacher.

Second, I am hugely irritated by the lack of Canadian content. Each textbook casually and constantly employs references to America when making one or another point. No doubt American readers enjoy seeing familiar names and places in their textbook. (“I didn’t know that about Cleveland.”) But Canada is utterly invisible. Given that the textbooks are written and designed in America to service the huge and lucrative American university market where many World Music classes have enrolments in the hundreds, the lack of Canadian content is understandable.

So why are there no World Music textbooks specifically created or adapted for Canadian students, especially those who are new to Canada? An obvious answer might be that there simply aren’t the numbers to warrant the time and investment. But this answer does not hold water. Oxford University Press made a superb adaptation of their standard American textbook, American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3, for the Canadian market. It is entitled Rock: A Canadian Perspective (2008). Ryan Edwardson has written an excellent textbook called Canuck Rock: A History of Canadian Popular Music (2009) which has no American precedent.

Be that as it may, there are two general World Music textbooks that I am very fond of. First, there are the Rough Guides to World Music. They are cheeky and irreverent, but unfortunately too succinct to get under the skin of any one genre. They have a tone similar to Rolling Stone magazine, with a quick survey of each country’s traditional music, followed by a detailed look at its indigenous, hybrid pop music. Another favourite of mine is Music of the Whole Earth by David Reck (with photos by his wife, Carol), now out of print. It was savaged in the Ethnomusicology journal book review section, partly because of the author’s” gee whiz” tone and Pollyanna attitude. I loved it from the first moment I looked in its pages. The book has an irresistible sense of wonder, even if several facts are tossed about in a cavalier manner. The book has the same breathless rush of discovery as a great public lecture delivered by a charismatic speaker. It is ahead of its time as a “graphic text”, and the author solved the central problem of presenting music notation examples for non-music readers by devising a brilliant system of graphic notation. It is on reserve shelf in my course, M328, if you want to have a look at it.

Select Bibliography:

William Alves, Music of the Peoples of the World
ML3545 .A48 2006

Michael Bakan, World Music: Traditions and Transformations
ML3545 .B24 2007

Dorothea Hast and others, Exploring the world of music: an introduction to music from a world music perspective
MT90 .E97 1999 (Okanogan Library only!)

Terry Miller and Andrew Shahriari, World Music: A Global Journey
ML3798 .M53 2009

Bruno Nettl, Excursions in World Music
MT90 .E98 2008

William Malm, Music cultures of the Pacific, the Near East, and Asia
ML330 .M3 1996 and its companion volume (both published by Prentice-Hall as a set),
Bruno Nettl, Folk and traditional music of the western continents
ML3545 .N285 1990

Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World
MT90 .S53 2006

Jeff Titon, Worlds of Music
ML3545 .W67 2009

David (and Carol) Reck, Music of the Whole Earth
MT6.R273 M9 1977 (on reserve, in the MUSC 328 section)

Bonnie Wade, Thinking musically: experiencing music, expressing culture
ML3798 .W34 2009
Also look online for her collection called Global Music Series