Thinking Out Loud - Am I "Ethno" enouph?

Underestanding Ethnomusicology

Ethnomusicology is the discipline that studies oral musical traditions from around the world. Often characterized and described as “music anthropologists”, ethnomusicologists emphasize the value of ethnic music to the ethnic group of its origin, within its cultural contexts.

Western music that we define as “classical” has a certain framework within which musicologists strive to theorize, interpret and analyze. As a result of the various methods by which cultures are examined, the contribution of ethnomusicologists to the history of human art is equally important. Numerous cultural characteristics that tend to fade away are preserved in archives through a variety of methods. These methods include audio and visual archives of performances, photography, preservation of instruments and archived taped and transcribed interviews, to name a few.

Moreover, the process and the contexts through and within which music is presented in cultures and societies around the world, is best studied with hands-on experience. There is great difficulty for someone who is trained in the Western “tonal” tradition to follow and comprehend or, more difficultly, to realize (through performing) music from other traditions. However, an ethnomusicologist does best in understanding a foreign culture by experiencing it up-close or even being part of it for an extended period of time.

One of the most vital facts which enhanced the nature of analysis and interpretation of Western music is the fact that Western classical music is a tradition that uses prescriptive notation. The use of notation since the 4th century (although more examples appear during the Carolingian Renaissance) was the most important factor that facilitated the formation of polyphony centuries later, and subsequently to the development of structures that are now based solely on notation. Naturally, if Western classical music did not use notation, not only would it have sounded a lot different, but it would have also been in some ways simpler for the fact that extremely complicated polyphonic musical settings are unlikely to be developed within an oral tradition. So it has been believed and taught until recently.

Ethnomusicologists however, have proven this point wrong. Music that is orally observed and orally transmitted has the capacity to develop in many interesting ways, including developments that are at times equally complicated as the most contrapuntally rich music of Palestrina and Bach. For example, there is plenty of evidence through comprehensive studies, research and analyses, that in the traditional music of India, the rhythmic and motific quality of their oral tradition is not only very complicated but also uses elements that Western classical music has not attained, because of the limitations of the Western notational system.

Traditional Indian music is based on musical colors (ragas) which are scales, modes or melodies. A raga is the platform on which the entire performance of a single piece of music is built. However, each performance of a raga is different, since improvisation allows the performer to give a personal character to the piece; to an Indian, performing a raga has a significant role in the overall experience of music.

One of the main differences with Western classical music is that the Indian ragas are not labeled with a composer’s signature. They have evolved through centuries of music making. Although they do not represent great musical minds of great masters of the art of composition, they do represent emotion and feeling, philosophies of the world and nature, varied moods, as well as many other things that Western classical music is set to capture.

However, though the sound of this music is not very similar to that of Western classical music, there are cultural elements with parallels in the Western tradition. As in Western church music, north Indian ragas called the Hindustani are assigned to specific times of the day or night. Also, the most popular melodic ragas (although they are among thousands of others), called the Bhairav, Malkauns, Hindol, Dipak, Megh and Shree Carnatic (Southern India), constitute one of the oldest systems of music in the world. They are based on seven rhythmic cycles (similar to the Western modal scales).

What is important for the different ways in which an oral musical tradition can develop is the improvisatory factor. Cultures in various parts of the world have evolved to use elements that in Western performance practice still do not exist or have been adapted only very recently. For example, a recent study of a Cree song by Richard Burleson, (conducted as part of the Native Music Project at the Marcel A. Desautels Facutly of Music in Winnipeg, Manitoba), shows that a recorded singer uses tones accurately that are not found in diatonic scales, by producing notes that Western theory defines as “quarter tones”. (Quarter tones were not invented or used in Western classical music until the 20th century).

Whether or not the native singer is aware that what he or she is singing includes quarter tones this still remains an important fact for an ethnomusicologist who is analyzing the structure of aboriginal musical culture by Western standards. Thus, it is important that the theoretical language of Western music is used by the researcher to analyze and document such facts, in order to reflect upon the effect that the performer has produced.

On the other hand, it is not always evident that the native performer—who sounds nothing but strange to an observer trained in the Western tradition—is performing something exactly as taught. It is very possible that he or she is incorporating a personal interpretation, or variation or something improvisatory that is not meant to be part of the orally transmitted song. In order to prove or disprove that, the observer has first to investigate whether the same element appears more than once within the piece (in the case of the Cree song, it does) and then ask for a performance of the same piece by another person in order to compare. Also, if possible, ask the performer to describe the part of the piece where the specific element appears, in hope of an answer that will justify the accuracy of the observation.

Another important element which ethnomusicologists come across is the meaning of a musical practice within the cultural tradition in which it appears. In another native song examined by the Richard Burleson's Native Music Project,  it was found that certain aboriginal songs can be owned (similar to performance, reproduction and copyright as we know it) and given as a present or an honor to another person. Interestingly, the difference is that in Western classical music, a composer can reserve the rights to publication, recording and performance only through written documentation, since the music is transcribed on music paper, in contrast to the aboriginal oral tradition.

Lastly, the most effective way in which ethnomusicologists can explore foreign cultures is the study of musics that share elements that can be effectively transcribed to some standard form of notation. For example, the basic building block of Chaozhou Xianshi music (traditional South Chinese music) is a series of pentatonic scales that consist of five scalar degrees and can be assigned a name as if they were diatonic scales with missing steps. Theoretically, the scale can be built on any of the twelve absolute pitch classes that constitute the standard tonal gamut, thus, easy to be descriptively represented using the Western notational system.

 

Ethnic Elements in Western Concert Music: Now and Then

Ethnic elements are often integrated into Western concert music, as nationalism has emerged at several points of Western music history. This phenomenon appears often in response to a perceived intrusion of internationalism in classical music and at other times simply in lieu of the interest of the composer to pursue a style that incorporates elements of ethnic origin in order to give the composition a nationalistic flavor or character. At times, the use of ethnic elements serves a patriotic goal of uniting the community through the use of a common cultural language (for example, 19th century German folk song).

For similar reasons, composers in the twentieth century regularly implement ethnic elements in their music, although more vibrantly, and as a further means to give an individual character to their output. United States composers like Charles Ives and George Gershwin used ragtime, fusing the jazz tradition with classical music. Bartok, on the other hand, who was among the most important contributors in the early stages of ethnomusicology, used Balkan folk music widely in his compositions.

During the late 1980s and 1990s, a new wave of classical composers emerged: these composers wrote genuinely in the tradition of classical music, yet were informed by rock aesthetics, and used popular and ethnic music instruments and rhythms in a way that’s less organic and integrated than ever before. Yet, they were motivated by the slow integration of technology and its capacity to reproduce music at fast speeds using a single sound of a traditional folk instrument to create an entire orchestra.

The new millennium is bringing a new collapse of genres in the world of Western art music. There are new “trades” currently used in contemporary composition that incorporate elements of ethnic origin, while in many examples, it is natural that the popularization of ethnic elements and its mixture with other mediums has created a stir among critics and new music communities across North America. Some deem it as an approach to composition that is catastrophic to all participating mediums while others see it as the only, inevitable way to adapting to the new reality while acquiring membership to a new way of thinking, a new kind of art. Is the fusion of ethnic elements in (classical) contemporary music culturally appropriate or not? Is this a window to a new palette for a modern composer or is it a way of “bastardizing” one’s inheritance? I think these questions are fertile soil for rational debate from all interested parties.  

Likely, parallel to this current trade, which is perhaps seeking a new spiritual age, musical colleges and higher educational institutions around the world have established folklore departments in an attempt to avoid the loss of their national musical tradition. On the other hand, there are composers who have employed various strategies to update their compositional languages in more organic ways. Most commonly, living composers have been prevailed upon to update their methods of composition in search of a new voice that could potentially mark the new millennium with its uniqueness.

Possibly a very interesting case to study would be the work of composers who integrate their own ethnic identities with Western classical composition, whether by nature or by educated choice. In the case of Canadian classical music, the flourishing environment allows many immigrants who bring along their ethnic backgrounds and incorporate them organically into works of concert music. A great example of that is award-winning composer Ka Nin Chan.

Chan was born in Hong Kong, and, immigrating to Canada, he brought along his mastery for writing for Chinese traditional instruments such as the erhu and zither and subsequently, was taught the Western tradition attending universities in Canada and the United States. In his most representative work, the opera Iron Road, the successful marriage of the Chinese traditional orchestra with a Western symphony orchestra, as well as singing traditions of traditional Western opera and traditional Chinese opera, shows the potential for alternative approaches in incorporating ethnic elements in contemporary classical composition.