http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klww4AerPgw&feature=related
This is a performance in Japanese Nou theatre. It was peformed at Odaiba in Tokyo. Essentially, it is a very old form of Japanese art that is very traditional. Nearly everything about Nougaku is standardized: from the gestures to the muscians, the stage, etc.
There is always a group of 4 instruments that accompanies the actors who are most likely going to be male wearing masks so they play male and female roles, called the hayashi. The hayashi has a bamboo lute, noukan, and three small drums. Even though the lute is the only instrument that actually has any sort of ability to create a melody aside from the singer, there is still quite a variety of sounds.
The idea in Nougaku is that the audience is suspended in a dream-like state. Even the theatre they sat in was part of the stage for the Nougaku. This is very true for traditional Nougaku which lasted all day. The audience members would escape to the world of Nougaku for a day. This sense of timelessness is helped by the structure of the noukan, which helps it to have a wider range and more mellow sound so the tonal center can change thus making the performance seem never-ending.
It feels like the musicians are not following any particular sort of beat. The drummers will play their rhythm with the other drummers but not necessarily in time with each other, this layering being one of the characteristics of Nougaku, while shouting kakegoe. There is a lot of communication going on between the actor(s) and the hayashi since some parts are never rehearsed or each performance is slightly different. This applies to the singing as well. The pitch the singer starts on does not matter, unless they're singing the chorus, and it doesn't follow any particular rhythm either. Those like free recitation in speech -song is called kotoba while the more melodic counterpart is called fushi. This makes the music sound like a Buddhhist chant which probably has to do with the roots of Japan's religious culture being very deeply rooted in buddhism and shintoism.
Another thing is that fully tradition Nougaku theatres are powered completely by humans. If the stage rises it's because a human was below the stage powering it and all parts of the Nougaku house had no electricity to run anything. candles are used for lighting and stage lighting as well. Nowadays, however, most Nougaku stages are more modernized for convenience sake.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Post 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hArUiFv2FaY&feature=related
I chose to listen to this song by Nikhi Banerjee. He is a sitar player that is considered a master of sitar playing.
The song being played has one sitar, one tambura and one talba player. The sitar, sitting in the center, starts off slowly and easily, very soothing. There is a lot of bending of the pitches. Though there is most likely a mode, the song is probably mostly improvisation. There is quite a bit of repetition of notes but since the player of the sitar bends pitches and plays a slightly different rhythm each time it doesn't feel too repetitive. The song in general is decidedly minor. The tabla player doesn't start right away, but starts about 1min 20sec into the song. Talba isn't completely audible but it is present so that if it were not there the audience would notice something was missing. All the while, the tambura is in the back providing a drone to everything. The drone note is played repeatedly with a certain rhythm to keep things interesting. The tambura player mostly stays out of the way of the sitar while remaining present in the musical texture. This makes the song homophonic with the sitar as the melody and the tambura as the harmony creating chords with the notes the sitar is playing.
Overall, the song starts off mellow, slow and soothing and remains that way for most of the song until the last minute or so when the sitar player starts playing a much larger amount of notes. The build-up to this from the beginning is done so the transition isn't so abrupt. Although there isn't an immediate recognizable singable melody, there could be one. Despite this, the song never makes the audience feel lost.
There is good communication between the performers as they are constantly looking at each other suggesting that the song is probably mostly improvised (if not completely). Although the performers are performing for an audience, they don't seem to really take the audience into much thought in their performing. The players seem to be enjoying their music. They perform music for themselves as well and the audience simply gets to listen because sounds waves travel.
I chose to listen to this song by Nikhi Banerjee. He is a sitar player that is considered a master of sitar playing.
The song being played has one sitar, one tambura and one talba player. The sitar, sitting in the center, starts off slowly and easily, very soothing. There is a lot of bending of the pitches. Though there is most likely a mode, the song is probably mostly improvisation. There is quite a bit of repetition of notes but since the player of the sitar bends pitches and plays a slightly different rhythm each time it doesn't feel too repetitive. The song in general is decidedly minor. The tabla player doesn't start right away, but starts about 1min 20sec into the song. Talba isn't completely audible but it is present so that if it were not there the audience would notice something was missing. All the while, the tambura is in the back providing a drone to everything. The drone note is played repeatedly with a certain rhythm to keep things interesting. The tambura player mostly stays out of the way of the sitar while remaining present in the musical texture. This makes the song homophonic with the sitar as the melody and the tambura as the harmony creating chords with the notes the sitar is playing.
Overall, the song starts off mellow, slow and soothing and remains that way for most of the song until the last minute or so when the sitar player starts playing a much larger amount of notes. The build-up to this from the beginning is done so the transition isn't so abrupt. Although there isn't an immediate recognizable singable melody, there could be one. Despite this, the song never makes the audience feel lost.
There is good communication between the performers as they are constantly looking at each other suggesting that the song is probably mostly improvised (if not completely). Although the performers are performing for an audience, they don't seem to really take the audience into much thought in their performing. The players seem to be enjoying their music. They perform music for themselves as well and the audience simply gets to listen because sounds waves travel.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Post 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZKtelBD534
This was certainly interesting and quite nice to listen to as well. I suppose the song is called "Shab Shishey"
Instrumentation-wise I heard flute (2 i believe), violin, cello, harp, maracas and guitar. It could either be guitar or harp or both. All these instruments are fairly quiet which would accompany a mellow song well. The song is sung in Arabic with a lot of embellishments. There are a lot of parts that sound like the singer is going around the pitch but that may be the middle eastern use of "quarter notes" which have a very small interval. For some reason, Arabic is quite soothing to listen to. The tempo floats at around 132ish according to the metronome so it's slow enough to be mellow. Dynamics-wise, like previously stated, it's quite mellow and soothing to listen to. I don't understand Arabic but this song might be a sad song. The singer starts off softly and towards the end of the song there is a climax moment of stronger sound. This is also emphasized by singing a higher pitch. The melody is first carried by the flutes in the introduction. When the singer comes in, the singer has the melody while no other instrument has the exact same line. The flutes and violins accompany the singer nicely. They are not overly loud but just loud enough to be present. The guitar and maracas keep a steady tempo with a rhythm in the background. They keep repeating this rhythm throughout the whole song. Since the singer seems like she's doing her own thing at times, the guitar and maracas keep the tempo and, in a sense, guide the singer through the song. The violins also have 8th notes rhythms though those are not used so much for time keeping. With some faster moving notes in the song, it will sound less boring and give it some movement which such a mellow song needs.
This was certainly interesting and quite nice to listen to as well. I suppose the song is called "Shab Shishey"
Instrumentation-wise I heard flute (2 i believe), violin, cello, harp, maracas and guitar. It could either be guitar or harp or both. All these instruments are fairly quiet which would accompany a mellow song well. The song is sung in Arabic with a lot of embellishments. There are a lot of parts that sound like the singer is going around the pitch but that may be the middle eastern use of "quarter notes" which have a very small interval. For some reason, Arabic is quite soothing to listen to. The tempo floats at around 132ish according to the metronome so it's slow enough to be mellow. Dynamics-wise, like previously stated, it's quite mellow and soothing to listen to. I don't understand Arabic but this song might be a sad song. The singer starts off softly and towards the end of the song there is a climax moment of stronger sound. This is also emphasized by singing a higher pitch. The melody is first carried by the flutes in the introduction. When the singer comes in, the singer has the melody while no other instrument has the exact same line. The flutes and violins accompany the singer nicely. They are not overly loud but just loud enough to be present. The guitar and maracas keep a steady tempo with a rhythm in the background. They keep repeating this rhythm throughout the whole song. Since the singer seems like she's doing her own thing at times, the guitar and maracas keep the tempo and, in a sense, guide the singer through the song. The violins also have 8th notes rhythms though those are not used so much for time keeping. With some faster moving notes in the song, it will sound less boring and give it some movement which such a mellow song needs.
Monday, February 8, 2010
extra credit post
So...the discussion with the Chinese theatre troop was quite interesting.
As expected of any group that doesn't live in America, they would think that American only listen to a very narrow genre of music. Things like rock and roll or punk or hip hop. So they would think that these things are the only things we would have in common if they even listen to any of that stuff. To an extent, they are right.
In the eyes of a Chinese, Americans may have more of everything like money, opportunity, space, fresh air, a bigger house, etc, but as I sat in the performance hall listening to the many things being said by the Chinese students, I could not mistake the feeling of inferiority at no fault of the Chinese students. Perhaps it is the culture but the music of China has been around for ridiculously longer than the so-called American music. The guitar which is considered a "western" instrument was being played by one of the Chinese students and for some reason Americans would be so surprised and ask, "oh? you can play guitar?" and silently question why the Chinese students chose to bring a guitar and some other exotic instrument.
Of course, no one knows everything and everyone is willing to learn which is why there were so many questions going around. The Chinese students showed some traditional music because the American students would have had little to no exposure to such things. The American students showed some more contemporary "American" music. To assume that the western side of the world had heard little to none of the traditional music of the east is reasonable but to assume that the eastern side had heard little to none of the more modern and popular music of the west is almost ridiculous, although the Chinese students were not ones to interrupt. This is the same mentality Americans take everywhere, partially without intending to.
One of the things about Chinese is their relatively smaller stature so it is in the culture blood that they must use other means to compensate for their smaller stature. They invented fighting styles, instead of running around town to call everyone they made a giant drum literally called "big drum", entertainment consisted of elaborate theatre productions and music performances, they used their brains. Even today, they are still doing the same thing: the humble person who says nothing is listening and taking everything in; learning and observing the right moment to speak, unlike the bucket that is half full and full of noise only.
As expected of any group that doesn't live in America, they would think that American only listen to a very narrow genre of music. Things like rock and roll or punk or hip hop. So they would think that these things are the only things we would have in common if they even listen to any of that stuff. To an extent, they are right.
In the eyes of a Chinese, Americans may have more of everything like money, opportunity, space, fresh air, a bigger house, etc, but as I sat in the performance hall listening to the many things being said by the Chinese students, I could not mistake the feeling of inferiority at no fault of the Chinese students. Perhaps it is the culture but the music of China has been around for ridiculously longer than the so-called American music. The guitar which is considered a "western" instrument was being played by one of the Chinese students and for some reason Americans would be so surprised and ask, "oh? you can play guitar?" and silently question why the Chinese students chose to bring a guitar and some other exotic instrument.
Of course, no one knows everything and everyone is willing to learn which is why there were so many questions going around. The Chinese students showed some traditional music because the American students would have had little to no exposure to such things. The American students showed some more contemporary "American" music. To assume that the western side of the world had heard little to none of the traditional music of the east is reasonable but to assume that the eastern side had heard little to none of the more modern and popular music of the west is almost ridiculous, although the Chinese students were not ones to interrupt. This is the same mentality Americans take everywhere, partially without intending to.
One of the things about Chinese is their relatively smaller stature so it is in the culture blood that they must use other means to compensate for their smaller stature. They invented fighting styles, instead of running around town to call everyone they made a giant drum literally called "big drum", entertainment consisted of elaborate theatre productions and music performances, they used their brains. Even today, they are still doing the same thing: the humble person who says nothing is listening and taking everything in; learning and observing the right moment to speak, unlike the bucket that is half full and full of noise only.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Evening of Latin Music
On January 29, 2010 at 8:00pm there was a concert located at the conference center presented by the UT Dallas music faculty. At first, when I saw that it was Latin music I wasn't expecting anything spectacular and I also wasn't expecting the room to be so filled with people. For a concert, the room was bordering on too small but the audience was quiet for the most part and everyone had seats as far as I could tell. Being a faculty concert at an university, the room or space can be overlooked.
The music was decidedly more contemporary which leads me to believe that it was at least partly mix metered, as many contemporary composers like to do. The first piece, Suite for violin, clarinet and piano by Darius Milhaud is one such piece that was performed that day. The first movement of the work starts at a quick pace with melodies and counter-melodies, while the second movement is slower and features fewer voices at the same time. The third movement picks up the pace again and addresses the first movement with a joyous sound. A characteristic of the fourth movement that is found in many contemporary pieces is the existence of many clash notes. Using clash notes, one is able to create a moment of tension to release the next moment.
On stage, the performers, for the first piece, sat facing each other as much as possible and they though they all wore suits they all looked quite comfortable. As the performers, they are joining in this bond of music as they each play their parts and pull each other along. It is very much a different experience for the performer. The audience is left to listen to the sounds of the music, which is the bi-product of the musician's fellowship with one another.
As an audience member, listening to this music is experienced in 2 parts, the visual and the audio. What makes music beautiful to watch, in a sense, is the relation of the musicians as they play. The violin, clarinet and piano players did not look as though they involved the audience as they performed. The concert, then, was as much a performance for the audience as it was for the musicians themselves.
The music was decidedly more contemporary which leads me to believe that it was at least partly mix metered, as many contemporary composers like to do. The first piece, Suite for violin, clarinet and piano by Darius Milhaud is one such piece that was performed that day. The first movement of the work starts at a quick pace with melodies and counter-melodies, while the second movement is slower and features fewer voices at the same time. The third movement picks up the pace again and addresses the first movement with a joyous sound. A characteristic of the fourth movement that is found in many contemporary pieces is the existence of many clash notes. Using clash notes, one is able to create a moment of tension to release the next moment.
On stage, the performers, for the first piece, sat facing each other as much as possible and they though they all wore suits they all looked quite comfortable. As the performers, they are joining in this bond of music as they each play their parts and pull each other along. It is very much a different experience for the performer. The audience is left to listen to the sounds of the music, which is the bi-product of the musician's fellowship with one another.
As an audience member, listening to this music is experienced in 2 parts, the visual and the audio. What makes music beautiful to watch, in a sense, is the relation of the musicians as they play. The violin, clarinet and piano players did not look as though they involved the audience as they performed. The concert, then, was as much a performance for the audience as it was for the musicians themselves.
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