On Musical Aesthetics

This article is a record of the learning I have acquired on musical aesthetics of cultures other than the western traditions of classical and popular musics. You will find here information about Persian music, Southeast Asian music, African, music, the classical music of India, shamanic music, jazz and the aboriginal music of Australia. If these interest you, read on.

Purpose of music:

On the surface it appears that music is for entertainment or as a money-making opportunity for the gifted or the lucky. But if one looks a little deeper it can be seen that music can be used to bring people together to build community in group performances whether that community is in the audience, in the ensemble or both. Music can be used in psychology to help people express their emotions when they find it difficult or impossible to use words. Music therapists use music for healing the sick or the bereaved through its power to stir the emotions. Music can be used to help people unwind after an upsetting day, to enter into meditation, to express the religious sentiment or create drama in the movies. The powers of concentration involved in performing and composing music can give a person a greater chance of success in the world. It can help people see themselves as having an influence on the world and therefore feeling contented if they create something useful and beautiful. A person becomes a co-creator of the universe with the source of all life instead of merely theorizing about life in lofty spheres of abstraction which alone leads to depression and a lack of passion.

Many people are becoming unbalanced as a result of modern life due to its complexity and the difficulty of living sustainable with nature and each other. A call to greater complexity, disharmony and distortion for no other reason than because it is the way we seem to be going is like intentionally stepping on the gas while approaching a fatal fall from a cliff. There must be a balance between randomness and control.

I like aspects of modern education because it is sometimes saying that fields such as music are not separate boxes from other subjects. For example, music composition overlaps music theory, performance and aesthetics. These are obvious. What is not obvious is that music composition overlaps other fields such as religion, philosophy, mythology, architecture, mathematics, sociology and psychology. Music does not have hard boundaries that separate it from everything else and therefore cannot be thought of as a box. The same way that we cannot place ourselves outside nature. We are a part of nature, the trees are our external! lungs and there is no escaping the fact without them we would all die.  

World Music Theory:

Aesthetics:

If we want to write beautiful music that inspires an individual or his/her society to live up to more of their productive community membership and their unique expression we need a definition of beauty.

Beauty:

What is beauty? Some have said that anguish captured in art and a vision of its resolution is beautiful and that anguish gives beauty its dignity and depth. I’m not sure I agree but maybe.  How can we capture anguish in music? We’re not sure. Minor keys, honest lyrics which are a historical narrative? How could we show anguish gives beauty its dignity and depth? We really can only speculate and experiment.

Another definition of beauty says that anything which copies nature is beautiful. But we would amend that to say, anything which functions as nature functions is beautiful. Merely copying the outward form of a termite mound wont be beautiful. But the building in Zimbabwe that copies the cooling function of the mound is profoundly beautiful. Zimbabwe is particularly hot and there is a large high rise office building there modeled after the termite mound which does not require any air-conditioning even in the swealtering summers, just like a termite house and simultaneously conserving the earths’ precious natural resources. How can we copy nature in music? Ocean, river, wind, wave, thunder and animal sounds? I fear this may be copying too much of the outer form and not enough of the inner function. Why do oceans, rivers, wind, waves, thunder and animals sound as they do, when they do, the way they do? These questions are difficult to answer?

Creativity:

To build a structure that copies the function of a termite mound is very creative. How can we also act creatively without contributing to the loss of community, degradation of the environment, wasting of resources, support of tyrannies, lawlessness and prejudice? How can we give people real direction in their lives? How do we actually BUILD community and ENRICH the environment not just conserve the little resources we have left? These are very big questions indeed. 

We need a liberated aesthetic beyond just creating the same mood of another culture’s music without knowing what we're doing or attempting to copy it in an authentic manner which is impossible for people who weren't brought up in it. Also, we can’t criticize other traditions for adopting western ways or changing their traditions. We cannot reserve innovation and the appropriation of other cultures music solely for ourselves. Their music hopefully was evolving long before they ever met westerners, the sign of a living tradition. Why should they stagnate now just because you want to maintain some kind of imagine!d purity in the music of the "noble savage" stuck in the time before “civilization” came along. Are you sure they’re so backwards and you’re so civilized?

In the Bata drumming of Haiti there are seven standard rhythms Bayuba, Yakota Ebipkumi, Biobayare, Idilantilanti, Bembe and Yanvalou. Each one is addressed to the Gods or a certain God and is in either a 6 or 12 beat rhythmic cycle and intended to induce trance. But unlike other trance traditions where the shaman travels to the spirit world, in Haiti the Gods are thought to descend and are said to "ride" worshipers. As Andy Narell’s lyrics say, “dress up in the beat and wait for the spirits to move.” When a person is posessed, people ask them questions about money, love and important information. The usualy stuff.

Southeast Asian/Gamelan Rhythm:

Indian, Persian and Southeast Asian music has a cyclic rhythmic concept and so the circular representation of it is the most appropriate. This is also the way they view time with reincarnation and past-lives etc. so the circular representation is a natural.

If we look at the rhythmic cycle in gamelan music on a circular grid, it often has two superimposed triangles representing 6 rhyhmic events divided into two kinds played in duple meter. They do not create polyrhythmic tuplets so are not symmetrical triangles. But the way the two overlap produces a symmetrical star of David/Jewish star, though usually the downbeat is not on the axis of symmetry.

Shamanic Percussion:

Unlike the African trance tradition, the shaman goes on a journey to the spirit world with the aid of music essentially drumming/chanting/singing. He or she goes to the spirit world (usually the "under" world) accompanied by his/her spirit helpers in the belief that he can recover lost souls or to see what are called power intrusions in the body of the sick person which are causing the illness from several supposed sources such as bad spirits or sent by evil sorcerers.

Shaman’s Rattle:

An interesting aspect of this is that the shaman's rattle is held close to his own head while he shakes it. I think it was Kay Gardner's book on healing music where I read about this aspect. The sound of the loud random multiple strikes occurring inside the rattle may be affecting brainwaves and keeping a "sacred rattle" used only for the purpose of achieving altered states helps the shaman strongly associate this state to the sound of the rattle. It's always wrapped out of sight in the ordinary day until it's time to do shamanic work so as not to dilute it's potency with random associations from ordinary waking life the same as with sacred masks, pipes etc. The sound of the rattle may also help the sick person enter into an alpha state which is considered the healing frequency you want to be in to recover faster. Shamans are also known to shake the rattle over the sick person.

However, shamans usually consider the voice to be the source of the greatest healing power. It can more fully express the healing intent/compassion/love. Getting clear on the intent of the work is usually considered the thing to do first before beginning any healing whether its vocal, musical or not. I heard a flute player online associated with Mathew Montefort/scalloped fretboard guitarist and Ancient Future/world music ensemble. She played a piece whose title was something for world peace. I really felt her intent come through that performance even on little computer speakers. Something I would aspire to.

Trance and Style:

Some studies have shown that there is no relationship between the types of music used and the types of trance induced. It’s been proven that music can help trigger and maintain trance states but all sensory stimulus, along with cultural belief systems and individual expectations contribute. The musical component of trances invokes an entire mythology to which certain emotions and behaviors are attached. Incense, flowers, costumes and ritual all play their part in invoking trances, not just the music. Sometimes the music is not even needed with the right individual.

Melody:

Buddhist Melody:

Music of the Buddhist world, especially Japan and also Native American music, often has a descending melodic line (not an ascending one that ends higher than it began with a climax 3/4 of the way through like western music does). In the Buddhist world, many times, scales are practiced in the descending direction unlike in the west where we practice everything ascending first. In the west, which was highly influenced by Christianity, we place hell in the center of the earth and heaven in the sky. Consequently we denegrate the earth and our bodies with its attendant sexuality and are trying to escape toward the intellectual spheres of heaven. This also relates to dance. Native American dance often have dancers crouched lower to the ground but in a comfortable way that will allow everyone to participate at a public pow wow. However, in Ballet people contort their bodies in a way that can damage it permanently such as walking around on their toes and they jump into the air in ways that only virtuosos can perfect in an attempt to escape the bonds of earth where only the wealthiest can attend. This perpetuates the idea that heaven is a very exclusive country club.  Much of this has resulted from the fact Greek translators of the early biblical texts didn't know what they were doing. They projected their philosophical idea that spirit is separate from matter onto their translations. This was not an idea which the early jews ever had. In fact quite the opposite.

Healing Music, Gamelan and Microtones:

The binaural beats of gamelan, created by the 2 identical instrument sets which are tuned about a 1/4 step apart, synchronizes with alpha or theta brainwave patterns depending on the exact distance of the interval. Gamelan musicians even say that their intent is to make the audience half-awake/half-asleep. I thought a 12-string type guitar retuned could also reproduce the shimmering quality of gamelan. The scraper used in Cuban music can also scrape out brain wave tuplets in 7, 9, 11, 13 or whatever.


Southeast Asian Melody:

Southeast Asia's melodic development is very similar to the Indian. But it gives a straight melody with an ornamented version and variations such as a rhythmically altered version all presented simultaneously. Voice crossing is integral to gamelan music. It’s used to maintain interest. Sometimes the melody is played at different tempos simultaneously. Western melod! y is very goal oriented. Gamelan melody is not like this and is supposed to create a timeless feeling which it does quite effectively. Like the classical music of India and Korea, the introduction usually has a part where there is no rhythmic beat. The Kebyar form has a melody in unison during the intro with no beat or it occasionally plays interlocking rhythms alternated with melody played by different groupings of the instruments. It plays interlocking variations in subsequent sections. It also has a grand finale beginning slow and ending fast just like Indian and Korean music. Before moving from the intro to the first section, the rhythm can completely break down while the musicians play fast but soft and making sure their part does NOT match rhythmically with anyone else’s as a transition. In the first section it has interlocking rhythms which is also found in the music of Africa, Cuba and Haiti though not as much in a melodic form but only in a rhythmic one. Gamelan music is based on a cantus firmus similar to the occidental sacred music that was based on the ancient melodies of Gregorian chant. The scale is based on ten equal divisions and their first scale was slendro which is about equal to C,D,F,G and A. It’s a pentatonic scale. This scale is used in temple services which are a combination of Budhism, Hinduism in Bali and Buddhism and Islam in Java. It is considered more dignified and less passionate than the pelog scale which sounds angry or sad to the South East Asians.  Pelog was created after the Dutch invasion. The native peop! le fought bravely for a long time but were cornered and about to be captured at which point the people who were still alive, of which there were a large number, committed mass suicide. The music created using Pelog is supposed to sound like the thunder of war and the clash of armies. It became popular very quickly and the forms that use it such as Kebyar, were never elitist music played in the courts of the king. It is a very recent development. Pelog has three forms known as patet. The first is roughly equal to C, Db, Eb, G and Ab a kind of Phrygian pentatonic scale. Anything played in pelog immediately sounds exotic to westerners because of the flat second degree and the strange skipping of F and B(b). One instrument in the ensemble plays neighbor notes around the cantus in a tenor voice where the cantus note is the middle of three notes. There are several different kinds of interlock! ing rhythms in gamelan music. The first is just a repeated note. The second is in the range of a fifth and where the two rhythms coincide, they meet on the fifth. The lower voice of the interlocking rhythm is comosed after the cantus. The upper voice is composed after that. The music has breaks and fill to add variety and to mark sections. Gamelan music has a colotomic structure where the largest gong marks the beginning and ending of large sections. Usually only the most experienced musicians play it, since its placement is so important. It plays every 32 or 64 beats, for example depending on the structure. Gongs for the colotomic structure are often gloriously out of tune with the rest of the ensemble. There are higher gongs which divide the structure further. One set of gongs plays on the last beat of every measure. This is similar to Korean music which places the accent in the same place and very different from western musical practice which usually places the accent on the first beat of every measure. The rhythms usually coincide on the last beat of a measure and meet on the fifth as I said before. When the music gets fast the players divide the music between them in hockett so that each person takes a turn playing each note of the interlocking rhythm. This technique is applied to all instrumental ensembles even one made up only of flutes. The higher pitched and fastest instruments are played by the youngest members of the ensemble. Playing in a gamelan orchestra is considered a community service. Songs are often named after the doings of animals. The cantus has definite methods for targeting destination notes. Just like classical and jazz. The most senior musician plays the drums and/or rebab, a bowed string instrument. Flutes play in unison with the rebab.

Japanese Gagaku Court Music

If you're thinking you would really hate Japanese Gagaku music and that you've never heard it before, think again. Ever hear that beautiful Shakuhachi flute music played by Samurai warriors and Buddhist monks? Its part of the same tradition. What could be cooler than that? It also sometimes has the beautiful silk stringed zither known as koto.

The scales of Japanese Gagaku court music are derived from building blocks known as fourth chords. Similar to tetra chords, they are not really chords at all but an interval relationship between scale steps. The difference between a fourth chord and a tetra chord is that the fourth chord is usually in the interval of a fourth and there are commonly only three notes contained within it, not four. So, the possible fourth chord combinations where the lower tetrachord usually goes would be CDbF, CDF, CEbF, CEF. The upper fourth chord may be conjunct or disjunct. This means that the upper tetrachord may start adjacent to the last scale step which is F, so the upper fourth chord would start on F#.

The possible combinations in that case would be F#GB, F#G#B, F#AB, F#A#B.

The disjunct tetra chord would start on G not F# in which case we have GAbC, GAC, GBbC, GBC.

There is a decided preference for the interval of a fourth and tritone in Japanese music. The fifth not being nearly as important as it is in western and India's music.

The other feature is that the other notes not spelled out in the scale may still be used as grace notes, passing tones or embellishments and there may be changing tones similar to the different forms of the ascending and descending melodic minor scale in western music or the different forms of the raga in India's music. This often creates a feeling of bitonality in traditional Japanese music.

Bitonality isn't completely off the map in popular music practice. Its right on the fringes which is where I am and like to be. I"ve read that Dionne Warwick's composer, I can't rememer his name, uses bitonality on several songs which made the charts so don't just write it off as irrelevant to what you are doing automatically.

Bitonality is an exciting arena which has not been explored fully in the popular music genre.

Also, if the scale does not have the fifth, G, the koto player may still play it anyway as part of a drone or "chord." My Indian vocalist tells me that even though a raga does not have a Perfect fifth the tamboura drone will still play it because it would be strongly present in the overtone series of the fundamental anyway. Japaese musicians are probably thinking along the same lines.

Another point is that the reed mouth organ, which can only be described as a globular clay/bamboo harmonica, usually plays the notes of the fourth chord/scales. The lowest note usually being the melody. The music does not have a chord progression since it only keeps playing the same chord only the lowest note usually changes to match the melody.

Japanese Gagaku music is the oldest continuously existing ensemble tradition in the world. They must be doing something right.

Mythology/Music Theory

The different ways of dividing the octave are related to mythological stories. The tonic is viewed as the king or emperor in ancient Greek music, the classical music of India and China. The fourth and the fifth are sometimes related to as the Asvan twins in Indian mythology or to ministers in the government hierarchy. The other notes in the scale are the subjects of the king. Notes outside the scale are enemies especially the one built a tritone from the tonic that, in the western tradition is viewed as the diabolical in music. The chord built on the seventh scale degree is also considered an “untouchable.” All of these ideas are a misapplication of the concept of, “as above, so below.” The ancients wanted to base their societies or at least SEEM to be basing their MUSIC on the natural order of the universe/ heaven. But making God a king and the angels ministers is sheer! projection because of the difficulty we have conceiving of a deity. Suggesting that since there is a caste system in heaven, there should be one on earth is self-serving of the upper classes. Repressive cultural control is not related to morality and is not derived from the authority of a venerable tradition.  The upper classes represent their program as fair and themselves and their music theory as moral and proper. They must rationalize their program as closer to immutable values and prevent outsiders from understanding it and of acquiring self-mastery. They use all of the above to propogate unfair classism.

There's a hero in mythology who cuts up the terrible dragon that goes around the octave. The dragon has the scales of a snake from the earth and the wings of a bird from the sky. It represents the unity of opposites and is represented as an urobourus. It’s the most important “God/hero” that cuts it up, releasing the waters of heaven that have been sucked up and distributes the snake’s body as food for the devoted. Its a terrible dragon because of the fifths. This is from a book called The Myth of Invariance. If you create a scale using perfect fifth intervals without tempering them, you arrive at pythagora's comma. The octaves don't line up and processes like the procession of the equinoxes going further and further out of tune. It’s definitely the SPIRAL of fifths and not the circle of fifths.

Astrology/Astronomy:

In western astrology when it says I'm a Leo born near the last days of the sign, actually in sidereal astrology I was born in the middle of the sign. In western astrology it might say tonight the moon is in Aquarius but if you look up into the sky it isn't. The procession of the equinoxes was discovered by western and Persian astronomers at about the beginning of Christianity. It is why the Mithraic cult was formed. They created a "God" that represented this discovery. The western solution to this discovery was to ignore it! Indian astrologers didn't do that and calculate the planets position based on their actual location. This is sidereal. This information was acquired from Susan Fox.

So, the octave and the days don't come out even. Sometimes it’s the dragon who divides himself in which case he is seen as a God. Quetzaqoatl is another snake from the earth with the wings of a bird representing unity and often drawn as an urobourus. His division of himself created the world.

In Thailand the snake is the symbol of God descending from heaven to be present within matter. That’s what the handrails with the descending snakes everywhere on temples and at the palace mean. The snakes often appear in pairs, which the author of the Myth of Invariance would see as representing the upper and lower tetrachords, and often have several heads represen! ting a unity of disparate elements; scale degrees, colors of the rainbow, ether, air, fire, water and earth, past present future, creation, preservation destruction. Take your pick. Sometimes its a push-me pull-you snake. In Thailand, Garuda is the guardian of Thailand. He is shown rending a snake in half. This symbol comes from India. It’s also the symbol on the Mexican Flag. The bird is from the sky and the snake is from the earth. Its Yin and Yang together. It’s about fertility and everything good and bad in the world. Jesus and the "devil" have to come together because they are brothers or brother and sister/husband and w! ife.  Quetzaqoatl is a "RAINBOW" feathered serpent. This also represents a unity of disparate elements

Musics Relationship to Dance:

African dance has often been viewed as obscene or liscentious because it usually involves hip motions which are interpreted as being overtly sexual. The music is usually designed for an actual purpose such as drinking and/or socializing unlike the modern "fine" arts which sees itself as beyond everything. Art for arts sake et al. In Africa onlookers usually participate in either the dance and/or the music and are encouraged to do so. The dance is seen as a lifestyle integral to everything African. To call it obscene is ignorant or purposefuly rude/racist.

The Greeks also based their music on the steps of dance. You may remember the terms from poetry class such as iambic pentameter etc… These describe the rhythms of dance steps. Different rhythms were thought to recreate different moods by the rhythms produced. This is similar to the melodic concept in India and Southeast Asia known as “rasa.” Classical motifs were also thought to possess this power to induce a feeling state. Each raga and rhythmic cycle is thought to have its own emotional flavor.

That brings us to the end of On Musical Aesthetics.