Download MUSIC 350 Lecture Notes

KOÇ University Summer 2010
MUSIC 350 Lecture Notes
Ozan Baysal
INTRODUCTION
Our course description was; “A musico-sociological investigation of the musics of Istanbul as a
window to have a deeper look at the city’s cultural mosaic.”
This falls into the area of Musicology & Ethnomusicology;
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The scholarly studies of music – Ethnomusicology differs as it it the study of any
music within its contemporary cultural context.
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Combining studies of Music, History, Sociology, Anthropology, Folklore, Gender
Studies, Theater, Philosophy …etc
The organization of this course will be chronologically based as we will be seeing the history
and the cultural transformations of the city through different periods. However, a survey
course on the musics of Istanbul presents a challenge on which musics to include. Because of
this the musics that are chosen for the course should be considered only as representations
of these periods; but with them we can have more accurate glimpses at the memories and
reflections of a deep culture.
How We Will Listen
The primary objective of this course is to expose you to the multilayered and multifaceted
musical traditions of Istanbul. Learning to recognize such musical traditions and express
some knowledge about them is our general aim. Besides the written documents from which
we’ll first establish a background knowledge, we will also be listening extensively. Thus, it is
important to talk about some general characteristics of musical sound and discuss ways of
listening. Next we will be discussing how music acts in a culture. It is also beneficial for us to
get familiar with the terminology we’ll be using in our discussions and seeing in various
articles.
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1) MUSICAL CONSIDERATIONS (ELEMENTS OF MUSIC)
The following list summarizes main elements of music that can guide us in our activelistenings & evaluations;
1) TIMBRE & MEDIUM
2) PITCH
3) RHYTHM
4) FORM
5) DYNAMICS
6) PHONIC STRUCTURE (MUSICAL TEXTURE)
Now let’s discuss these elements seperately;
Timbre & Medium
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Timbre: Color of a sound
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Medium: object that produces a sound
o Voice/Instrument/Both
o Solo/Ensemble
o Vocal Timbre
Male/Female voices & the style of singing (Arabesk vs Opera)
o Instrumental Timbre
Closely related (and depends on) instrument construction.
Classification systems;
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European-Art Music Tradition
o Strings
o Wind
o Brass
o Percussion
o Keyboards
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Sachs-Hornbostel System
o Standard classification system for musical instruments in the field of
ethno-musicology in which instruments are classified according to
what part of the instrument vibrate to produce the sound.
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o Four primary categories (+ one new category)
Aerophones
Chordophones
Idiophones
Memraphones
Electrophones (after 20th century)
Instrument Families & Some Turkish Musical Instruments
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Aerophones
o Instruments that require air to produce sound; instruments that produce sound through
the direct vibration of air, rather than through the vibration of air by another medium
such as a string or a membrane
o Flutes,Reeds,Trumpets
o Flutes: column of air is split on an edge.
o Reeds: Have one or two small pieces of material, such as cane, bamboo, or metal, that
vibrate when air is blown over or through them.
o Trumpets: Require the performer to vibrate the lips , rather than a reed, as they blow air
into the instrument.
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Chordophones
o Defined as having one or more strings stretched between two points. Sound is produced
when the string vibrates.
o The two basic types are lutes and zithers. What distinguishes them is the relative size of
the resonating body
o Zithers
The strings are stretched parallel to the entire sounding board, as with the piano.
Thus the whole instrument acts as a resonator.
No neck
Plucked (with finger or plectrum) vs. Struck (Hammered)
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o Lutes
In addition to a resonating body, a lute has a neck, which allows a performer to
vary the acoustical length of a string to produce different pitches, as with the
guitar. Because its neck does not act as a resonator, a lute generally has less
resonance than a zither of the same size, and its sound dissipates more quickly.
Bowed vs. Plucked
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Fretless vs. Fretted (Fret -> Perde)
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o Lyres & Harps: the strings are suspended by an open frame and are most often
plucked
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Idiophones
o Instruments that themselves vibrate to produce sound, such as rattles, bells, and various
other kinds of percussion. (“Idio” means itself). Practically anything can be considered an
idiophone, from bottles, to slamming doors, to change in your pocket.
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Membraphones
o Instruments, such as drums, that use a vibrating stretched membrane as the principle
means of sound production. The stretched membrane is usually the animal skin, that is
stretched over a frame. This category encompasses the majority of drums found in the
world.
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Struck with the hand / Struck with a stick or other device
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Pitch
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Tuning Systems
o The pitches common to a musical tradition.
o Tuning systems are culturally determined. Our ears become accustomed to the tuning
system of the music we hear on a regular basis. In Western-tuning system octave is
divided into 12 equal parts (example; notes on the piano). However in in Turkey, the
makam system has commas, or microtones, that cause the octave to be divided into more
than twelve pitches. (More about makam system later).
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Scale - Interval – Range
o Scale: Set of pitches used in particular performance. (The pitch palette).
o Interval: Distance between two pitches.
Wide vs. Narrow intervals
Traditions can be recognized as their utilization of wide or narrow intervals.
o Range: The span of pitches a given instrument or a voice is capable of producing.
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Melody: Organized succession of pitches forming a musical idea.
o Melodic Contour: General direction and shape of a melody.
Drone: Continuous or repeating sound
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Listening: Itri- Naat & Kudsi Erguner- Istanbul’da Bayram
Ornamentation: Embellishments or decorations that are applied to a melody, and
thus modify musical idea. Ornamentation can consist of just a few added notes or
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of a long series of tones meant to display a performers skills or make the basic
melody more interesting.
o Text Setting: The rhythmic relationship of words to melody
Syllabic (one-pitch per syllable) vs. Melismatic (more than one pitch per syllable)
Rhythm
Rhythm is essentially the relationship of sound durations.
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Beat – Tempo
o Beat is a regular pulsation of sound (ex. Heartbeat)
o The rate of speed of the beat is called Tempo
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Meter: Groupings of beats into regular units (ex. 2/4, ¾, 4/4, 6/8 …etc.)
o Accent: emphasized beat; ONE – two – three – ONE – two – three – ONE – two…
o Regular/Irregular
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Rhythmic Modes in Turkish Music => Usül & Cycles
o Düm’s & Tek’s
o Velvele
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Free Rhythm
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Rhythmic Density – Busy or Relaxed
Phonic Structure / Musical Texture
Phonic structure is the relationship between different sounds in a given piece.
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Monophony: One-line of music
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Heterophony: Simultaneous variations of the same line of music
o Listening: Ruhi Ayangil – Katibim Introduction
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Polyphony: Multiple lines of music; that are independent of each other
o Listening: A.Adnan Saygun – Katibim, variations on the theme for chorus
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Homophony: Multiple lines of music, in which one of the lines are dominant, and that every other
line function as harmonization of it, each line usually having the same rhythm of the primary line.
o Listening: Callisto Guatelli Paşa – Hanım Sultan
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Other important elements of music
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Dynamics: relative loudness or softness
o Crescendo/Decrescendo: A gradual increase/decrease in dynamics
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Form: Overall pattern of music as it unfolds in time; the architectural design of a piece.
o Some Turkish Music Forms: Kar, Karçe, Beste, Ağır Semai, Yuruk Semai…
o Cyclic forms : ex. Fasıl & Ayin
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2) CULTURAL CONSIDERATIOS
Music and Culture
What we have talked about regarding “music” was “technical” aspects. In this sense, music is just
organized sound and can be analyzed through concentration on its elements, such as melody,
rhythm, phonic structure, form and so forth. However; no music exists in a vacuum, free from social
context, even if it primarily lives on concert stages or in recordings. All music manifests itself within a
culture, however defined, and has meaning for those who create, perform, or consume it that go far
beyond the sounds themselves.
Cultural Knowledge & Identity
Every individual absorbs a certain amount of cultural knowledge while growing up. Just being
somewhere makes you a member of a “cultural group”, whether at the level of family, tribe,
community, nation, continent …etc. Who you are depends on where you are and with whom you are
living.
A person expresses their identity in a variety of ways; the clothes we wear, the foods we eat, and the
language we speak, are all outward projections of “who we are”, (or more accurately “who we think
we are”). Biological factors (race, sex) are often cited as the source of a person’s identity; however,
cultural factors are equally, if not more accurate determinants.
Along with other cultural elements, such as language, religion, dress, diet and so on, music shapes
how people think about themselves and their role within a society. Music, dance, festivals, and other
public expressive cultural practices are a primary way that people articulate the collective identities
that are fundamental to forming and sustaining social groups, which are, in turn, basic to survival.
The performing arts are frequently grounds of identity, allowing people to intimately feel themselves
part of the community through the realization of shared cultural knowledge and style and throught
the very act of participating together in performance. Music and dance are key to identity formation
because they are often public presentations of the deepest feelings and qualities that make a group
unique. Through moving and sounding together in synchrony, people can experience a feeling of
oneness with others.
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Jeff Titon’s Music-Culture model
o Here’s an example of a systematic outline, or a model, that might help us understanding how a
music-culture, or a sub-culture, might work and what its components might be. The model is
closely related with elements of a musical performance event we experience in our daily lives;
o As can be seen, at the center of the event is your experience of music. The music is sung/played
by performers (perhaps you are one of them). The performers are surrounded by their audience
(in some instances, the performers and audience are one and the same), and the whole event
takes place in its setting in time and space.
o Next we transpose this diagram into four circles representing a music-culture model;
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o Here, at the center of the music (as you experience it) is its radiating power, its emotional impact,
whatever makes you smile, nod your head, tap your foot, become sentimental, dance ..etc. We
call this music’s affect; the power to move. Thus we place “affective experience” in the central
circle of the model.
o Performance brings music’s power to being; so its in second circle. Performance involves many
things;
First; people mark performances, whether musical or otherwise, off from the ordinary
flow of ordinary life. When performance takes place, people know the difference. We
often mark endings of performances with applause.
Second; performance has purpouse. The performers intend to move (or not move) the
audience, to sing and play well (or not well), to make money, to have fun, to learn, to
advance a certain rite or ceremony; and performance is evaluated partly on how well
those intentions are fulfilled.
Third; a performance is interpreted as it goes along, by the audience (who may cry out or
applaud, or hiss) and by the performers (who may smile when things are going well or
wince when they make a mistake).
The most important thing to understand about performance is that it moves along on a
basis of agreed-on rules and procedures. These rules enable the musicians to play
together and make sense to each other and to the audience. The performers do not
discuss most of the rules; they have absorbed them and silently agreed to them;
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Starting at the same time;
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Playing on the same key
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Playing in the same rhythmic framework
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Even in improvisation the performer follows such rules.
Rules or accepted procedures govern the audience too. (Example: how to listen to a rock
concert at a venue vs how to listen to a classical music concert at a concert hall)
o The next circle after performance is Community.
The community is the group (including the performers) that carries on the traditions and
norms of performance.
Performance is situated in community and is part of people’s culture. The community pays
for and supports the music, whether directly with money or indirectly by allowing the
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performers to live as musicians. Community support usually influences the future
direction of a particular kind of music.
o Time and space, the fourth circle in Elements of Musical Performance, becomes Memory and
History in our Music-Culture model.
The community is situated in history and borne by memory, official and unofficial,
whether remembered or recorded or written down.
Musical experiences, performances, and communities change over time and space; they
have a history, and that history reflects changes in the rules governing music as well as
the effect of music and human relationships.
Music & Meaning
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Use vs. Function
o Whereas use, defined as “the ways in which music is employed in human society”, can be
easily observed; function requires much deeper inquiry into the meanings of music.
o Musics use and function in a ritual context;
Ritual: Religious rituals, sporting events, graduations, weddings, National Bayram
parades, and many other occasions…
Example; we hear Turkish National Anthem before all football events in Turkey.
Casually, this is merely a step in a longer sequence of events, but its function is to
reaffirm national identitiy and solidarity.
Music & Transmission
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Technology
o Advances in recording technologies and media
o While early field researchers traveled with heavy loads of equipment and
numerous boxes of cylinders, todays scholars can get high quality digital recordings
with equipment that fits easily into a shirt pocket.
o Mass Media in spreading of music;
Radio -> Vinyl Records -> TV -> CD -> Internet -> MP3
Dissemination easier and faster
o Poor quality recording at a fieldwork VS High quality studio recordings
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Related Arts
o Dance
o Theater
o Visual Arts
o Literature (Programmatic Music)
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Pedagogy
o Teacher-Student relationships (ex. Meşk)
o Institutions that are open to public (ex: conservatoire)
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Notation
o “Musical literacy” vs “Musical illiteracy”
o To what amount can the notation hold all the aspects of music?
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Exchange & Adaptation
o No musical culture develops without outside influence.
o Adapting instruments, styles, timbre preferences, tuning systems
Istanbul: A Perfect Case Study
Greek - Roman - Islamic Empires
Crusades - Ottoman Empire
Musical Exchange and some results;
– Similarity between Greek and Arab music theories
– Certain procedures and melodic styles from Turkey became fundamental in
Southeastern Europe
– Similarity in instruments
Turkish Baglama vs Greek Buzuki
Turkish Kemence vs Greek Lyra
Turkish Ud vs Greek Lauto
Persian Santur vs Turkish Kanun vs American Dulcimer
– When Islam expanded in Europe -> Mosques in these lands practice typical Islamic
forms of chant; including Ezan and reading of Koran
– The Rom; migrating from India to northern Africa, Turkey and Europe
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