how musical is man?

First let me say that this is a wonderful book by John Blacking -- in fact a landmark ethnomusicological work. I invite you to read it and be inspired by its many insights and quetions. Having said that I do think there are some problem areas. Briefly synopsized, Blacking spent time with a tribe in Africa where there are no distinctions made between musician and non-musician. He then later has difficulty understanding Western music as it clearly delineates between the two (or at least that's his thesis).

I'll offer this analogy: Imagine a tribe where there are no distinctions drawn between doctor and non-doctor -- all are healers of more or less equal ability. We can probably safely assume that there's an upper limit to the kinds of healing that could occur here. In our own society (and in many, many others) there are professional doctors who spend a lot of time in training and in research and consequently give us things like heart transplants, cancer treatments, antibiotics, and so on.

So music can be understood similarly: we have all sorts of musical levels represented in our society, and consequently we get Paganinis, Coltranes, and Steve Vais. And it isn't just a Western phenomenon: if you were to learn koto in Japan you do so from a master player; in India if you were to learn sitar you would do likewise. Whether this dizzying array of talent and subsequent complexity and 'sophistication' is all for the better is hard to assess across cultures, but surely having to ability to paint with many colors is at least as good as painting monochromatically (that depends upon the artist and the viewer, of course).

But I really take issue with the fact that Blacking is so predisposed to seeing our culture's lack of musicians everywhere as a problem of elitism and of class exploitation. Perhaps a concert-goer can be "passive" and happy, but my suspicion is that the more we are musicians the more we can deeply participate in the music being offered us. And I don't know if Blacking has ever given a classical concert/recital or not, but you definitely want people to show up if you do! Perhaps 30 years ago there was some sort of elitist will keeping the masses from attending concerts (though I doubt it) but nowadays I think that classical musicians really want to reach out, which can only be done by better education. And that education would be (from my point of view) not teaching appreciation but teaching everyone to be musical. Or showing people that they have the innate talent of music and leading them toward exploiting it.

when not to cancel a lesson

I encounter this one often. Someone decides that s/he hasn't practiced enough over the week (or whatever span) and consequently decides that canceling the upcoming lesson is the best move. It's anti-intuitive but this is exactly the time to take the lesson. Why? Because only about 0.001% of people (and that's a generous estimate) magically start practicing the next week all on their own. The lesson can inspire, hopefully: if not a change is in order.

magic spells

One good way to understand the function of music is to consider that particular instances of music (songs, symphonies, chants, jams, grooves...) are magic spells. The important point here is that a song, for example, is not like a magic spell, but is a magic spell. In fact music is probably the only real, or at least reliable, kind of magic spell. There's a reason why words like enchant and incantation have to do with singing. Certain tunes can just put a smile on your face, no matter your mood to begin with, and others can bring tears to your eyes. And beyond emotions music can really entrain^{FN 1} us: certain grooves can be extremely hypnotic, or seem to aim at 'opening up' our consciousness. We'll return to this theme time and again, but it's a good idea to consider that when you make music you're actually performing magic spells that have a real consequence. Not many magicians try to make spells that are boring.

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1. There is scientific study about sounds causing brainwave entrainment. For example: if one of your ears hears a steady pitch at 440 Hz and the other ear hears one at 400 Hz, a brainwave of the difference between the two frequencies is produced -- in our example a brainwave of 10 Hz, in the Alpha range. Alpha waves are associated, moreover, with the state of the mind as it is found in deep meditative states.

the sixteen men of tain

I'm not writing this post to plug this fabulous Allan Holdsworth album (but hey, if you don't own any Holdsworth and dig on fusion why not leap in with this one?). I was listening to it the other day and I realized how mis-characterized Holdsworth really is. He's seen as a guitarist's guitarists, a shredder with awesome technique who's really only interested in the technical and so on^{FN 1}. So wrong.

If you listen to the tune "Above And Below" you'll see what I mean. It's triadic, extremely pretty, no soloing (although the stretches for holding the chords are probably virtuosic at times). Overall he seems very concerned with emotional content. There are blistering solos throughout the cd, but it's still not hard to hear that feeling is of paramount import, as is lyricism, particularly on tracks like "0274" and "Downside Up".

And of course you can hear some pretty wild and out-ish sounding stuff: "The Drums Were Yellow" features this in spades, with only guitar and drums. The soloing on all tunes is great, and a good model generally for soloists (usually progressing from simple ideas to more florid, but often interjecting nice lyrical passages).

I don't want to over-simplify this album: it's harmonically complex and very interesting compositionally, and all the performers are hot. But it does bear mentioning that this is not an album unconcerned with mood. Music is multi-dimensional, and an intellectual apprehension of it is often needed to fully enjoy it (think of fugues where we have to keep the theme in our head, or keeping track of a song's form, etc). But still music accesses our 'precognitive' areas, areas that trigger moods and feelings. As Ricardo Muti said before conducting Beethoven's Fourth (I believe with the Philadelphia Orchestra) "Music is feelings." And this is its strength.

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1. I dig on guitarists whose main motives these are all the same, so I'm not defending Holdsworth from something I don't like.

beyond the 13th chord

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: a 13th chord contains all the notes of its scale, so how can you go beyond it? That's a good point, but if you consider that a 13th chord consists of 7 different tones and that there are an available 12 from the total chromatic then there are obviously 5 tones remaining which could be used harmonically (if so desired). Vincent Persichetti goes over this in his fabulous book Twentieth-Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice. He does state that the 'unwieldy' terms of 19th or so aren't normally employed (that is the descriptions, not the chords) but let's just see if we can wield one -- even a bigger one -- anyway.

Consider the following chord:



From the G2 up to the E4 we have a G13 (dominant) chord. When we get back to the G it is sharpened, the sharp 15th. Next in the series is B, but here flattened, so a flat 17th. And so on. It is quite unwieldy to label such a beast:
G13#15b17#19#21#25
(There is no possibility in this type of chord of altering the 23rd to produce a new tone: can you see why?) In this case on a chart it would seem better to indicate something like "TC" (total chromatic) or some such, but seeing a symbol like G13#15 shouldn't pose a real problem...

those rests can mean something

The rest is a potent creative factor.
--Vincent Persichetti, Twentieth-Century Harmony

This post is particularly aimed at classical guitarists, but it does apply across the board more or less. Sometimes when confronted with rests in music it's debatable as to whether they're really to "played" (if you will) or not. I have one test that can help determine this: if you encounter a rest where it would've been easier for the composer to have not written rests and instead have written a longer note value then the rest should be observed. If you write music you'll know that this is the case. It takes extra effort to pen (or to click) in a rest. For a clear example that all of us probably know consider Sor's Study Op.30 no.20.


Also consider the 10th measure of Sor's Divertimento op.1 no.1.


Here it would've been so much easier simply to write a dotted quarter note, so it's a pretty safe conjecture that those rests really need to be there (i.e. that low G needs to get cut-off on beat 2 -- and yes, it should be a G, not an E: this sort of misprint is common, and you'll get used to it when you read from facsimiles).

The opposite can be true, too, of course. More on that in a later post...

c.o.m.a. at abc no-rio

A plug here: if you're in the NYC area please check out the excellent musical event called C.O.M.A. (Citizen's Ontological Musical Agenda) which happens almost every Sunday evening around 8pm at ABC No-Rio (located at 156 Rivington Street between Clinton & Suffolk...
here's their site). Usually two ensembles perform after which there's an open session, so bring your instrument of choice (or voice for that matter) and join in: it's very deep, and fun.
$5 Donation.