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Paul Ayick Survey In Historical Styles MUH 6688 1/24/2007 Developing Contemporary Idioms out of Traditional; Music By: J.H. Kwabena Nketia The atonal, 12-tone, and serial techniques of the 20th Century were an effort by composers to find a new voice, a new mode of expression, a new style if you will beyond the Romantic and Impressionistic music that dominated the later part of the 19th. Now that we have had time to listen, absorb, and reflect we find that these attempts, while certainly innovative, may not have always been totally successful or indeed aesthetically satisfying for many listeners. Indeed different doesn’t always equate to better. As the 20th century gave way to the 21st we witnessed more and more composers turning to indigenous music from all around the world as a source of new inspiration. This the beginnings of a new musical style which has come to be known as “World Music” This new emphasis on cultural inspiration does not exist only in the realm of the composer of music in the European art music tradition but in jazz, pop, and other genres as well. In fact even the lines that served so well in earlier times to differentiate one genre from the other have also become blurred. No doubt this world Music phenomena can be attributed to a globe made increasingly smaller by improved modes of both communication and travel. Regardless, in this fine article Mr. Nketia illustrates specific ways that these cultural musical idioms might best be employed by current composers or as he states; “to approach contemporary music as a cultural phenomena and to view it’s creative process from the standpoint of ethnomusicology.” As Kwabena points out this borrowing of sources from traditional ethnic music is not anything really new to composers, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Debussy, Bartók and many other composers used musical devices found in indigenous folk music as compositional sources in their works. I think Nketia is attempting to re-establish some limits as a reaction to the total freedom afforded composers over the past century. For instance when discussing Tradition he says: It is the usages of the past that provide the moulds for creating and developing channels of the communication and musical codes that can be understood by the receptors of music and not just by those who generate them.” So just how then is the composer to create something fresh? According to him these three techniques are the key: 1. Reversal Techniques 2. Syncretic Techniques 3. Techniques of Re-interpretation It is this point that I feel this paper gets a bit confusing for I think Nketia may be over-intellectualizing an art form that really needs only to communicate to be understood on a more instinctive level. For instance in explaining what he means by the terms “Reversal Techniques” he states: The reversal technique consists simply of (a turning the procedures of tonal music around and using the logic of the reversals as the basis for the major combinations of sounds and rhythm at crucial points of stress and tension. (b) employing techniques for making the regular irregular and vice versa. (c) generally avoiding procedures or combinations that may suggest unconscious return to tonality or “root harmony” incompatible with the idiom of tonal music.” I can’t help but think that this kind of work jockeying is wasted energy and if Nketia’s real goal is to compose music that is new and fresh that energy might best be expended in composing. After all the impetus for this article is in actuality Nketia’s goal is to compose music that will be received well by his African brethren, music that speaks in a voice within the constraints of his homeland. He makes that exact point, that in order for a composer to communicate effectively he must find a voice that speaks within the constraints of the ethnicity of the audience. In simple terms, what is effective to an audience in Manhattan may totally miss the mark in Ghana, (his homeland.) Thus is accomplished according to him by using what he calls a “Syncretic Approach” or; “going to traditional music or music in oral or partly oral tradition for creative ideas, sources of sound, themes and procedures that may be used for expanding one’s modes of expression.” Listeners, he says, are usually more apt to respond favorably to music that speaks in the same way in which their native language flows, each having it’s own peculiar rhythmic flow or feel. On a personal note, over the years I have worked in many ethnic bands that played in the musical styles representative of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Santa Domingo, and South America. Each country or region has it’s own unique stylistic parameters (especially rhythmically) and “gringos” are often hard pressed to as we say, “find the groove.” Even after 5+ years of playing in one particular Afro-Cuban band I always felt somewhat inept to a degree interpreting certain conceptual concepts. When one has to think about whether or not the feel is correct it usually isn’t! Nketia also talks about the importance on drawing from the past when trying to create a new musical idiom. Again, this is a concept probably as old as the tradition of composing music for art’s sake. We have seen over and over again one composer drawing from a predecessor and this is not a fact that Nketia doesn’t acknowledge: “In the early phase of the contemporary music movement, other composer similarly sought out the medieval church modes and deliberately developed melodic and harmonic systems out of them that gave the compositions in which they were used a new character.” Rather he reminds us that this option, in spite of all the newfound freedoms of the 20th century, is still a viable one. The underlying theme of this fine article is as I perceive it, that music can develop in a fresh, new way that does not have to rely on atonalism (which can alienate many perspective listeners) and by employing these tried and true device evolve into something viable and progressive. I have seen the adverse, repellant effect much of the atonal, experimental music played by jazz musicians through the 60’s and 70’s had on potential audiences and I couldn’t agree with him more. There is little future in playing solely for ones self.