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RE: Western art music is to Scale/mode as Flamenco, Arab, Hindustan are to...?
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tf10music
Posts: 112
Joined: Jan. 3 2017
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 RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
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quote:
Have you written in a historical vein before, perhaps in an attempt to solve, or at least find a new way of looking at, an old problem? If so, I'd love any advice you have. Also, I don't believe in political correctness, but kindness and empathy always work when you do not know somebody's life and struggles. That's just me.
I typically engage with some historiography and hermeneutics, despite the fact that when I write in the critical vein I tend to work at the intersection between literary studies and philosophy. In a lot of cases, it's usually a mixture of intellectual and social history that enables me to look at an old problem from a new angle. In the case of duende and tarab for instance, there are places in which etymology, mystical ideologies of revelation, performance practices and social history converge. From there, my main issue is a methodological one: does the available constellation of 'facts' (I am using that word very loosely here) suggest the truth-value of a given philosophical/analytical stance? If so, I go with it. But often, I am compelled to mix together different approaches and revise certain philosophical systems in light of what the information has disclosed.
I don't know if that gets at your question, and I'm rather early on in my own academic trajectory, so I'm sure my approach will shift as the years go by.
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Date Jan. 27 2021 22:14:04
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
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quote:
EDIT: I responded generally but in regard to recent arabic influence I am not sure. I argue otherwise. I think there are certain cultural elements that extend back in time that are of "Arabic/Sephardic" origin.
I think I was saying something similar when I wrote in a previous comment in this thread: "It may be an open question just when flamenco became recognizable as 'flamenco,' but I don't think there is any question about the influence Arabic, via the Moors, has had on flamenco."
Both you and Ricardo appeared to suggest that this observation lacked hard evidence and thus could not be taken seriously. (Your response was: "Yes, but who influenced what?") Admittedly, it is an anecdotal generalization and in itself would not be acceptable in a dissertation on the topic. But as a musicologist specializing in flamenco, I would be interested in your thoughts on it?
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 27 2021 23:36:39
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Brendan
Posts: 353
Joined: Oct. 30 2010
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RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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@Richard I’ve often wondered this very thing. We hear a lot about influences from the Andalusian caliphates that are supposed to have lain buried like Viking treasure for centuries, only to re-emerge as flamenco, but nothing about influences from living Moroccans just over the water. Why is this? Once flamenco becomes an object of national, regional, local or ethnic pride, it’s more comfortable for the undeniable ‘Moorish’ elements to be traced to a glamorous, chivalric, territorially Spanish and above all long dead population. The alternative is that foreign, Muslim culture is penetrating the border of Spain, and Christendom, and fertilising flamenco with its oriental juice.
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https://sites.google.com/site/obscureflamencology/
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Date Jan. 28 2021 0:45:19
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Beni2
Posts: 139
Joined: Apr. 23 2018
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RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
Both you and Ricardo appeared to suggest that this observation lacked hard evidence and thus could not be taken seriously. (Your response was: "Yes, but who influenced what?") Admittedly, it is an anecdotal generalization and in itself would not be acceptable in a dissertation on the topic. But as a musicologist specializing in flamenco, I would be interested in your thoughts on it?
I won't speak for Ricardo but my objection was not to whether or not there is hard evidence for the influence of "Arabic culture via the Moors" on flamenco. Rather, my issue (as a theoretical not practical matter) has to do with demonstrating that maqam practices are found in flamenco vocal and guitar iterations. If one cannot demonstrate a historical connection with some line of causation or correlation, then can flamenco really be explained with maqam theory?
The easy solution is to just say "although no one has demonstrated a direct connection between melodic practices in flamenco and Arabic maqam, it it useful to think with because x, y, and z."
I believe someone already pointed this out but some ajnas (not jins, oops) are not playable on western instruments. This ups the stakes in cross-cultural investigations because it could be that some artists at some point were imitating ajnas within constraints the idiomatic constraints of their instruments . How do we know that if we do not investigate? Although I do believe empirical evidence is important, I also worry that some scholars are afraid to hypothesize and that this fear might sometimes be born of fear (i.e. not getting tenured, not getting published, etc.).
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Date Jan. 28 2021 0:59:35
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Ricardo
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
Both you and Ricardo appeared to suggest that this observation lacked hard evidence and thus could not be taken seriously. (Your response was: "Yes, but who influenced what?") Admittedly, it is an anecdotal generalization and in itself would not be acceptable in a dissertation on the topic. But as a musicologist specializing in flamenco, I would be interested in your thoughts on it?
Well, as mentioned, and if you watch me “learning” about makkam of Turkey on that other topic I linked to, you can see right away the micro tone distinctions are no small detail. The way I see it...if the Arabic/Greek/Indian modal systems managed to get filtered through Equal Tempermant and tonal system resulting in western music, but managed to sneak in the back door of flamenco cante, then this tuning issue would have made the cantaores reject the guitar outright. Singing an E note vs an E half flat is a BRICK WALL right off the bat, musicologists don’t seem to get that.
Where as if the cante had already been filtered through equal tempered church and western music systems, baroque, classical, finally romantic period harmonies and melodies, then the guitar is GREAT, and any connection to the old world modal system has long ago already turned into different species of being. The tonos of the guitar are already in the minds of the cantaores as the cante we know today was being created. The main forms prove this by their adherence to a harmonic structure. There were/are no “tonos” in Greek Arabic or indian music, not now nor a thousand years ago. The concept of “tonos” or chords and progressions, are an equal tempered one...equal tempermant was an organization of ALL modal systems into a SINGLE framework called “tonality”, to be distinguished from the various “modalities” and it was finally achieved by deliberately and knowingly screwing up the beautiful tuning of the modal systems. Think of it as a VIOLENT twisting and forcing into a new form, not a minor musical detail. All links get severed at that junction...unless they bypassed it totally (traditional modal music of today which easily preserves the forms and terminology).
One can argue Turkish pop music is a fusion of the old modal singing and western harmony and like wise that is what cante flamenco is. This could also mean the cante could be the thing imposing on some GUITAR form, a nice neat baroque structure that gets the pseudo middle eastern vocal treatment, think Gipsy kings meets frank sinatra. Sure, and likewise all music is a fusion of Greek math ideas of music with whichever modern aesthetic interprets it. Al Dimeola’s “Egyptian Danza” is certainly an ancient Egyptian dance that has since evolved, through the filter of western music, but retains that important African element which is???? What is this style of music, more Pythagorean or more Bach?
We can trace flamenco back to the first wax cylinder then stop...from there we must extrapolate, guess, or look at written scores that might be relevant. The further back you go the fuzzier the connection gets. We can see the song form “fandango” of Scarlatti, while related most likely, is NOT the same FORM that flamenco uses today. Where did it change and why? There IS an answer hiding in that small time period of 1800’s and Arabs probably don’t have much to do with it specifically.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Jan. 28 2021 3:36:02
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Beni2
Posts: 139
Joined: Apr. 23 2018
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RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
Singing an E note vs an E half flat is a BRICK WALL right off the bat, musicologists don’t seem to get that. Which ones?
quote:
The tonos of the guitar are already in the minds of the cantaores as the cante we know today was being created. The main forms prove this by their adherence to a harmonic structure. There were/are no “tonos” in Greek Arabic or indian music, not now nor a thousand years ago. The guitar is a harmonic instrument but the voice is microtonal. The question is, to what extent have melodic gestures in the vocals been tempered by the constraints of harmony. I can't tell you the number of times I have heard, for example, a cantaor who hits a target "a" in the first tercio of a solea de Alcala to which the guitarist responds with an Am chord, but the singer then embellishes it by descending somewhere between the target "a" and g." What is a guitarist supposed to do with G3/4#. Stay on Am, go to E. And what about g1/4#? Stay on A, go to E, go to G? I have heard all these possibilities and sometimes you can sense the guitarist is attentive and cautious.
There is also a problem with sweeping generalizations. Some Jerezanos sing certain notes that sound flat to Western trained musicians but are common enough to be stylistic. Macanita comes to mind and she is amazing. Could it be that proximity to Morroco, as Bill pointed out, tempers these microtonal practices? I don't know. I am just riffing on questions I sometimes think about.
quote:
We can trace flamenco back to the first wax cylinder then stop...from there we must extrapolate, guess, or look at written scores that might be relevant. The further back you go the fuzzier the connection gets. We can see the song form “fandango” of Scarlatti, while related most likely, is NOT the same FORM that flamenco uses today. Where did it change and why? There IS an answer hiding in that small time period of 1800’s and Arabs probably don’t have much to do with it specifically. In regard to "Arabs," again, the question that Bill seemed to have and that I propose is that, based on the idea that most people agree that flamenco is a mix of cultures, who is responsible for what and when and where? Fandangos are sometimes attributed to the Moors but I think Brune suggested a Native American origin based on linguistic evidence. I think there is a bigger population that sees the fandangos as Andaluz with Arabic influence. Fandango means fiesta or juerga and is not a flamenco form. It is AFLAMENCADA. What are we supposed to do with that?
@Bill
I am optimistic that people with one foot planted in flamenco and another in academia will continue to discover new things and produce works that are refreshing and informative.
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Date Jan. 29 2021 23:25:59
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Ricardo
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
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quote:
The guitar is a harmonic instrument but the voice is microtonal. The question is, to what extent have melodic gestures in the vocals been tempered by the constraints of harmony. I can't tell you the number of times I have heard, for example, a cantaor who hits a target "a" in the first tercio of a solea de Alcala to which the guitarist responds with an Am chord, but the singer then embellishes it by descending somewhere between the target "a" and g." What is a guitarist supposed to do with G3/4#. Stay on Am, go to E. And what about g1/4#? Stay on A, go to E, go to G? I have heard all these possibilities and sometimes you can sense the guitarist is attentive and cautious.
I know what you mean. And I also think you are referring to Joaquin 1 specifically. But let me just say, I read this early on and believed it matter of factly...until one day I was on a gig with a Greek musician (electric bass) and despite our western progression, he was able to sneak in with his voice, over a Turkish pop song we were “jamming on”, some microtones...the effect is so striking and deliberate it actually affects you inside. I realized in that moment what microtones in eastern music REALLY are about, and there has never been any such specific thing going on in flamenco. I am saying I realized it then, and it is hard to explain because I don’t think I could do it myself without a lot of training. It is like micro surgery or something, and when you hear it and understand it is not something to pretend is done haphazardly. I don’t want to get deep into it here but let me just say this. If you use vibrato on your voice when singing, you can’t do those microtones at all. It defeats the purpose actually. Flamenco singers have always used vibrato. You can slow down recordings and see more clear what is happening with the vocal technique used by cantaores... I have always noticed when doing this, an adherence or attempted adherence by the cantaor to the western EQ temp scale, relative to the guitar. I am gonna leave it there for now.
Edit:about tempering orchestral instruments when guitar or piano is present...totally not the same thing as a sniper like razor sharp execution of microtones as is done in the eastern modal musics.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Jan. 30 2021 19:32:14
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Ricardo
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
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quote:
Fandangos are sometimes attributed to the Moors but I think Brune suggested a Native American origin based on linguistic evidence. I think there is a bigger population that sees the fandangos as Andaluz with Arabic influence. Fandango means fiesta or juerga and is not a flamenco form. It is AFLAMENCADA. What are we supposed to do with that?
Yes of course. The WORD...not the actual music form as we know it. Fandango the FORM, is HUGE in flamenco. The copla relative to the “ritornello” is observed in the Lopez piece...unfortunately I looked deeper (I did a harmonic analysis in other words) of the ritornello sections, and nothing in that piece is pointing to the actual ritornello forms used by guitarists in flamenco. There are “gestures” to use your word, such as the walking bass line F-G-G# to A...and brief Italian 6 resolutions to phrygian dominant, but NOT the actual fandango phrasing we are used to, (5 beat phrases that either start on 1, emphasize 3 and accent 5, nor the count 11->4, 5->9 type phrases that would constitute a model). Nor do I see a deliberate avoidance of the relative minor key half cadence (Bb->A instead of Dm->A), sadly my overexcited ear was hearing a lot of that at first (because I was excited by the resemblance of the sound and execution to flamenco fandango)...but in closer inspection it is MOSTLY half cadences in D minor going on.
What I am on about is that somewhere there exists the exact model and foundation of what evolved to be flamenco. I know folks can argue that the huelva model can be viewed as outside of flamenco, and alone stands clearly as the model the flamencos eventually used for all the derivatives (verdiales malaguena levante , later fandango naturales), but I am saying there must be also a model for THAT form specifically as well...hiding somewhere on paper.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Jan. 30 2021 20:43:11
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