Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Unit 9 - Music and Cultural Identity (AARON COPLAND (1900-1990) (Popular…
Unit 9 - Music and Cultural Identity
NORTH INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC:
Centuries-old performance tradition linked to Hinduism (12th century)
Music passed down via oral tradition
Apprenticeships
Master players- pandit or ustad
Repertories of motives and themes- not a piece of music
All memorized- no notation
Music System:
Raga: series of pitches, projects mood, time of day
Pitches for the organized melody
Ascent sequences- aroha
Descent sequences- avaroha
Vadi- most important note
Pakad- essence of musical phrase
Tala- complex rhythmic cycle; translation- clap
Drone- form of harmony; striking of strings that sustain pitches
Played on sitar
Long-neck plucked string instrument with metal strings & gourd resonator
Ravi Shankar (1920–2012)
One best known sitar players and teacher
created an "Apprenticeship system"
Influenced Indian music in 1960 & 70s
pop music
Performed in Woodstock in 1969
RAGA BHIMPALASI:
Improvised melodic elaborations
Ascending and descending raga
Introduction- Alap
Slow/unmetered
Sitar alone
2nd Section- Gat
Tabla enters
Rhyhthmic cylce
3rd Section- Jhala
Faster tempo
Interplay of instruments
CHINESE OPERA:
Leading form of entertainment in China
for centuries (13th century)
Beijing opera
Most prestigious
Blend- music/mime/dance/costumes
Themes- novels & politics
CULTURAL REVOLUTION (1966)
Opera
Traditional operas were banned
After the Cultural Revolution, Beijing opera enjoyed a revival
8 approved as “model plays”
Example- The Story of the Red Lantern
Based on1958 novel- Will be Followers of Revolution by Daoyuan
Japanese occupation of China in 1920s and ’30s
Li Tiemei takes up the cause of the communist martyrs after parents death of parents
No romance
Heard on radio, film, and live performances
Singing styles and accompanying instruments very different from Western opera
“To be such a person” for soprano soloist accompanied by traditional Chinese instruments
Erhu, Yang Qin, Pipa
Mandarin
Heterophony
Communist Regime
Leader- Mao Zedong
Purge China of class-structured society
The WEST the ENEMY
JAPANESE MUSIC
Little contact with the West until 1854
US Navy ended isolation
Japan adopted elements of Western culture
Westerners experienced a “craze” for all things
Japanese
Scale System
Pentatonic (5 notes)
ECHIGO JISHI (THE LION OF ECHIGO):
1811
Kabuki play
Dance-drama
Much style- costumes, makeup, etc.
Two versions presented here:
Simple tune played on the shamisen
Dance performance with drum and shamisen
variations
Japanese Gamelan:
Traditional ensemble music of Java, Bali, and Sundan- Indonesia
Mostly metallic percussion instruments
Interaction of the melodic movement with a cyclical rhythmic
structure determines the form of the work
1889 Paris World Exhibition- introduced to Western culture
Ritual ceremonies, court performances
PATALON:
Overture to shadow-puppet play
Story from Hindu epic- Ramayana
Story of Kind of Rama whose wife is
kidnapped by evil king
Melody based on pentatonic scale
Drum marks transition between
sections
EAST AFRICAN DRUMMING:
Repeating patterns that
superimpose on each other
Europeans once viewed African music to be “primitive” due to lack of melodic & harmonic content
Oral tradition
Passed down from master to
apprentice
ROYAL DRUM ENSEMBLES OF UGANDA- ENTENGA
Uganda:
East Africa borders Kenya & Lake Victoria
Influenced by Arab, Indonesian, and British cultures
Music played at courts
Ensemble has 6 musicians and 15 drums
4 musicians plays on pitched drums (called drum chimes & played with curved beaters)
2 musicians accompany on unpitched drums
Use pentatonic melodies and polyrhythms
MODERN AMERICAN SOUND: Chapters 57 & 59
THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE
In the 1920s and ’30s, African American artists paying tribute
to their heritage
Growing sense of a new black identity
Looking to Africa for inspiration
• Seeking racial equality and black cultural pride
Sculptor Richmond Barthé
Poet Langston Hughes
Imitated the rhythms and flow of jazz
Musicians Duke Ellington and William Grant Still
WILLIAM GRANT STILL
(1895–1978)
Grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas
Moved to Memphis, then New York
Arranger for radio and musical theater
Studied composition with Varèse
Opened wider range of opportunities for African American
musicians
1st Symphony:
Afro-American Symphony (1931)
1st symphony by African American composer to be
performed by major American orchestra
1934 moved to Los Angeles- film and television scores
1949 opera Troubled Island
1st opera to be premiered by an African American
composer
GRANT STILL’S SUITE FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO
(LG49)
1943
Established practices to evoke images of black America’s artistic efforts
Each movement based on a different artwork by African American artists
I- Barthe’s African Dancer
II- Johnson’s Mother & Child
III- Savage’s Gamin
All movements use modal harmonies and blues-style melodies
The last movement (LG 49) flashy and syncopated, with a “stride” bass
MODERN AMERICAN NATIONALISM:
Non-concert traditions played a vital role in North American musical life of the late 1800s
Patriotism a part of national identity
Compelling American sounds from attempts to integrate vernacular and “serious” music
traditions
Music from various parts of the country
Art should “serve the American people” (Copland)
CHARLES IVES (1874-1954)
Born in Danbury, Connecticut
Church organist (13)
Studied composition at Yale
Decided against music as a profession and became insurance
agent; composed in his spare time.
Gradually became known to the general public; famous by age 73
Experimental Composer
COUNTRY BAND MARCH (LG 51)
1903
March for wind band
Complex mesh of tunes, mostly well-known musical quotations from Ives’s childhood
London Bridge
Yankee Doodle
Semper Fidelis
Simulates an amateur band’s skills
Out of tune notes
Bad entrances
Wrong notes
Harshly dissonant, polytonal
Sense of humor
AARON COPLAND (1900-1990)
Born in Brooklyn
Studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger (Composition teacher)
Returned writing jazz and neo-Classical styles
In the 1930s and ’40s changed directions- populist style
Investigated in 1950s as Communist supporter
Wide appeal and music useful in a variety of contexts
Rooted primarily in Appalachian and other Anglo-American
folk melodies
Popular ballets & film scores
Billy the Kid & Appalachian Spring
Of Mice and Men, The Red Pony, The Heiress
