Chapter 37: The Far East

1. Chapter 37:The Far East

2. Japan’s Musical Traditions • Ma: loosely translated, “rest,”“space,” or “timing.” In music, the silences between sounds • Traditional music often slow, non-metric • Goal is an unrefined sound • Allowing for the instruments’ characteristic “noises” • Traditional repertoire is highly valued • Visual element of performance is also very important

3. Two Traditional Japanese Instruments • Koto • Type of zither; Traditionally has 13 strings • Uses pentatonic tuning • Player can bend pitches • Part of the court orchestra as long ago as 700CE

4. Shakuhachi • Bamboo flute; Komuso, wandering priests, played them in meditation • Allows for enormous variety in dynamics, tone quality, pitch, and expression • “Yamato-joshi” • Existed as oral/aural music • Subtle changes reshape the piece over time • Slow, nonmetric • ma

5. A Chinese Melody for the Erhu • Great emphasis on melody, almost no harmony • Melodies have microtones—tones found “in between” half-steps on a modern keyboard • Erhu (“ARR-who”): player passes the bow between two fixed strings while twisting the instrument; a sound box provides resonance: vibrato-rich, veiled tone • Pipa: a four-string lute • The Butterfly Lovers Concerto by Chen Gang (b. 1935) and He Zhanao (b. 1933) • Traditional melodic gestures of the erhu and the sonorities of the late-Romantic Western symphony orchestra • Western influences condemned by Chairman Mao Zedong

6. Characteristics of Indian Music • Strong tradition of classical, folk, and popular music • India’s classical music is the oldest and most revered • Northern India: Hindustani-style music • Southern India: Karnatak-style music • Relies exclusively on the melody for musical expression • No contrapuntal lines, no harmony; use of a constant drone • Highly flexible quality of Indian melody can best be heard on a string instrument • Raga: Basic pattern of pitches • Raga Bhimpalasi

7. Tala: Indicates how many pulses are grouped together and how they are grouped together in long cycles • 3+4+3+4+3+4 or 2+4+4+4 (as in Raga Bhimpalasi) • Ever-recycling nature has been compared to the Hindu concept of reincarnation • Beat often purposefully deemphasized • Karnatak-style classical music: Audience participates in keeping the tala by clapping • Hindustanti style: Almost always sung • Sitar: Large, lute-like instrument with as many as twenty strings • Tabla: Pair of tuned drums • Sam: First pulse of a tala

8. An Orchestra from Bali, Indonesia • Gamelon: Ensemble made up of different instruments that play together • Mainly percussion instruments: Tuned gongs, pitched gong-chimes, drums, cymbals • Metallophones: Xylophone-like instruments with bronze keys struck by hammers • Occasionally flutes and voices are added

9. Gamelan Music • Cyclically organized music structured around a single core melody • Creates rhythmic and melodic ostinatos • Gong indicates the pattern • Big, booming gong strikes only as a cycle ends or begins • Elaboration on the core melody • Interlocking styles: Players of different instruments contribute snippets of music that combine to form composite musical lines • Reinforces the Balinese belief that everyone in the world supports and relies on others

10. Interlocking style: • “Hujan Mas” (“Golden Rain”) • Popular keyboard piece based on a melody from a Javanese piece of the same name • Each instrument has a chance to show what it can do • Opens with a complex, rhythmically irregular introduction played by unison metallophones • Core of the piece is a continuous eight-bar rhythmic-melodic cycle