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I've been watching discussions of scale and mode on several channels and find them problematic. This also relates to the discussion flamenco key and the concepts of modality and tonality.
A scale is an ABSTRACT collection of notes usually represented in ascending order, hence "scale" from the Latin for steps or ladder.
A mode, also from the Latin, is a manner, a way, a mode of doing something... in this case, arranging melodious from the notes of the scale. Modality is the name given to the general practice.
In early Western music there were eight modes. 4 authentic modes were Dorian, phrygian, Lydia and mixolydian. Add the "hypo" prefix to each and you have the plagal modes.
To elaborate on "mode," YouTube "jazzers" will sometimes explain the concept as a subscale of a parent scale. So D Dorian would be the second mode of its parent C ionian scale.
Dorian and hypodorian share the same notes and finalis, "D." They DO NOT share reciting tone and hypodorian can include notes up to a fourth below the final.
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RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
That is of course pertinent info. However it helps to literally spell out the notes of the “hypodorian” so everyone gets oriented on the same page. The “enigmatic scale” sent scores of teen guitar shredders like piranhas hunting for the darn notes and mystery on the early internet chat forums. In the end it is simply a lydian scale that has a passing b6, which is taken as the root, but the 7th is omitted instead.
EF#G#A#B(c)C#.... when the C natural is taken as the “root” of the scale, you get interesting harmonic implications. C# dorian, skip 2nd like blues, and add maj7 is an even simpler view.
But in the end it is a simple thing. There tends to be this mystery and fascination with a specific scale “name” that gets blown out of proportion of it’s musical context and unfortunately, flamenco is a horrible victim of this thing. Church modes are quite simple once the circle of 5ths is understood imo.
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
quote:
But in the end it is a simple thing. There tends to be this mystery and fascination with a specific scale “name” that gets blown out of proportion of it’s musical context and unfortunately, flamenco is a horrible victim of this thing. Church modes are quite simple once the circle of 5ths is understood imo.
I'm not done. It got busy at work..
Just for fun: In soleá, F in the bass beats 1-9, melody begins on first string g, ends on g# beat 10. What mode? Same melody but over f-a-b? ...
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to chester)
quote:
Are you going to explain flamenco theory using CHURCH MODES? Reciting tone? Really?
...and Ricardo is saying this is "pertinent"??
wow.
On the contrary! I introduced the difference between scale and mode in Western art music as a departure point to respond to @JoeVidettoe in the "Flamenco Keys" thread. He asked what conceptual terminology would be helpful for communicating with other people. He is using the Enrique Vargas material. So I was going to problematize the cross cultural use of terminology. Then I got busy at work....
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to chester)
quote:
And another thing -- other than the movie Latcho Drom, and being "exotic", what's the connection between flamenco and Hindustani music?
To date there are several books that argue for or at least acknowledge the possible connection of Arabic to flamenco music. Romero Jimenez' La Otra Historia de Flamenco and Cruces Roldan. I forget her title.
Peña Fernandez argues that the Roma brought their musical traditions from India, rhythmic and melodic. He singles out the bhairav scale [e-f-g#-a-b-c-d#-e: double harmonic major]. Romero Jimenez also suggests similarities between flamenco and Hindustani music.
There are several questions concerning any application of Arabic or Hindustani conceptual or theoretical musical models to flamenco. The first question is historical: is there a direct and causal line from these musics to flamenco. The second is practical: can theoretical and analytical concepts be used to explain flamenco and compose within cultural conventions.
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Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
quote:
The first question is historical: is there a direct and causal line from these musics to flamenco. The second is practical: can theoretical and analytical concepts be used to explain flamenco and compose within cultural conventions.
Have you seen any evidence of Romances and Corridas? I mean hard evidence...The old guys that sing those sure make it sound like Solea/buleria related form. Just wondering if there are notated medieval versions to examine, or Gregorian chants that are written (an ethnomusicologist told me once “Polo” is in there somewhere but I never saw it on paper), where we can definitively say “HERE is the song and it’s harmonic structure that eventually became solea”?
As far as using Greek or Arabic Modal music, again, I saw those makkams data base and I don’t recognize any flamenco palo structures, and certainly the practice of using and naming tetra chords and makkams or makkam families was not retained for flamenco...but like the Turkish makkam we saw mixing “Rast” with “segah” and such, the melody was claimed to be old as or older than medieval era...I could imagine finding something more specifically related to “solea” structure. I could see such a melody and modal structure carry through medieval period and get reharmonized via Romances and tonal harmony. But we need to just see it written down in concrete form.
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RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
quote:
To date there are several books that argue for or at least acknowledge the possible connection of Arabic to flamenco music.
Do we really need books "arguing" for a "possible" connection between Arabic [music] and flamenco? I think most people who have a reasonable background in flamenco and history acknowledge the Arabic connection via the Moors who invaded and conquered Spain in 711 AD. The Arabs had conquered all of North Africa by the late 7th century and brought with them their language and music. The Moors carried the language and music with them to Spain.
I have yet to see any evidence that denies the influence on flamenco of the Roma (now Gitano), Moors, and Sephardic Jews. 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.
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."
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
This was really directed a JoeVidetto as I noted in the post above. He was asking about how to communicate with other musicians.
My point is that NO ONE HAS PRODUCED A DEFINITIVE THEORY THAT EXPLAINS FLAMENCO IN A PRACTICAL WAY. Here are some of the problems I wanted to highlight that have to do with translation.
Rough translations for scale and mode on Western art music in Arabic music are ajna (pl. Jins) and maqam. In Hindustani music thaat and raga. Jins ("genus" from the Greek) does not really translate and is used as a placeholder for trichord, tetrachord, or pentachord. Jins get combined to make maqam but a maqam has conventional turns and gestures and is close to "mode."
Hindustani thaats (I believe there are 10 in Bhatukandes classification) are more like scales. They are abstract collections of pitches. Raga are conventional turns and gestures and so raga is more like mode. In fact, from the ten thaat derive something like 32 raga. Thaat are heptatonic (seven notes) and many more or less map onto western "scales." However, derived raga use alterations, sometimes microtonal, and sometimes these are determined by direction.
THEREFORE, when using the foreign concepts to describe our explain flamenco, it would be less egregious to use "jin hijaz" or "thaat bhairav" when discussing pitch content, a user similar to "scale."
Although Ricardo pointed out that it's kind of nitpicking from a layperson's perspective (and I agree), these concepts have real meaning in their cultural contexts. For example, when two "classical" musicians talk about church modes, they will have common ground conceptually. One might ask, "Boethius or Glarean" but they both get it. Likewise, jazzers might recognize double harmonic major while a historical or ethno- musicology might recognize the double harmonic major as a double phrygian dominant, "oriental," or bhairav thaat.
As for connections of any of these conceptual and theoretical fairings with flamenco, I would (and do) argue that 1) Western theory gives 99% of the conceptual tools w would need for a good explanatory theory, and 2) there is a long history of guitar accompanied song and dance in Spain from which flamenco inherited some of its structural and musical components. They are, of course, arranged differently and have evolved but they are there.
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
quote:
I have yet to see any evidence that denies the influence on flamenco of the Roma (now Gitano), Moors, and Sephardic Jews. 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.
Hi Bill. That's argumentem ad popular but I happen to agree. I attempt some speculative explanation regarding Arabic and Sephardic influences in my dissertation using anecdotal and historical evidence from interesting sources, some going back in history, some flamenco. Flamenco studies in the past tended to go all or nothing on the gitano influence. Even those that have looked to other sources don't provide direct empirical evidence.
A scale or mode should not be thought of as historically or casually linked unless it can be shown to be. Roldan's book is ok as far as demonstrating historical contact but I want to see evidence: was the voice used in the same way, was the poetry similar in form and/or content, were the rhythms similar, etc.? Give us concrete evidence.
@Ricardo You should read Castro Buendia's work on the soleá and seguiriya (siguiriya, seguidilla, 😆). There are connections of other genres to the soleá... it's not "la mare de to'o loh cante" in a biological metaphor sense, more like in an adopted sense.
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RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
quote:
Ricardo You should read Castro Buendia's work on the soleá and seguiriya (siguiriya, seguidilla, 😆). There are connections of other genres to the soleá... it's not "la mare de to'o loh cante" in a biological metaphor sense, more like in an adopted sense.
Before I make the effort (which I will if you think it has what I want) does it have concrete notated musical examples, mainly, of romances etc?
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
Before I make the effort (which I will if you think it has what I want) does it have concrete notated musical examples, mainly, of romances etc?
It has concrete examples but not of romances. I think anyone who wants a biological "this begat this begat romance begat solea" will be disappointed. Think of all of the parameters (DNA?) Of the solea; voice timbre and technique, tercets and quatrains in octosyllables, their content, rhythm, meter, "scale," etc. That DNA does not just come from one or two "parents."
Anyway, I don't think you will be disappointed. Think of it as the next best thing to Rito y Geografia.
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RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
Well I couldn’t find that book but I did find the fandangos book he contributed to. We saw before the Scarlatti and Solera fandangos didn’t really follow the Fandango model, but this guy has it right. The copla is at 1 min. He could be copying guitarists or influencing them...his timing (late 1700-early 1800s) falls right at that ambiguous line. It’s a fabulous virtuoso composition, can anybody find and load the score? It’s got those Aug6 chords at 2:25, I would like to see the voicing.
So there has to be a more concrete missing link between this and Scarlatti. Lopez is clearly already using the existing song form that served as the flamenco model. Based on just this, we can describe flamenco guitar (putting aside solea and siguiriyas for now) and ALL it’s massive body of derivatives, as either “ritornello” variations, OR Copla. From that a “theory system” that ties directly to common practice could be designed.
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RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to kitarist)
Awesome thanks! So I did find an Italian 6 chord (page 5 third line last bar and final cadence) but the spot I liked was actually g#dim7-A. Anyway a concrete score model of flamenco form to work from. The challenge is still to justify A phrygian over common practice D minor here.
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
Based on just this, we can describe flamenco guitar (putting aside solea and siguiriyas for now) and ALL it’s massive body of derivatives, as either “ritornello” variations, OR Copla. From that a “theory system” that ties directly to common practice could be designed.
In my dissertation I focus on the solea with some discussion of seguiriya and lay out a theory system that includes "ritornello." The theory can be easily contextualized and laid out for much of flamenco before 1970ish.
Because of the complexity of flamenco rhythms and the evolution of compás and harmony, you could write a whole volume on each palo, maybe more.
What's holding me up is all the cultural and interdisciplinary conceptual and theoretical discussion. You're basically learning another discipline well enough to support your arguments and bolster them against delegitimizing counter arguments.
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2) No New Messages quote:
To date there are several books that argue for or at least acknowledge the possible connection of Arabic to flamenco music.
Do we really need books "arguing" for a "possible" connection between Arabic [music] and flamenco? I think most people who have a reasonable background in flamenco and history acknowledge the Arabic connection via the Moors who invaded and conquered Spain in 711 AD. The Arabs had conquered all of North Africa by the late 7th century and brought with them their language and music. The Moors carried the language and music with them to Spain.
Where did/do "most people" acquire their "reasonable background in flamenco and history" so that they could "acknowledge the Arabic connection via the Moors who invaded and conquered Spain in 711?"
quote:
I have yet to see any evidence that denies the influence on flamenco of the Roma (now Gitano), Moors, and Sephardic Jews. 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.
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From: Washington, DC
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
quote:
Where did/do "most people" acquire their "reasonable background in flamenco and history" so that they could "acknowledge the Arabic connection via the Moors who invaded and conquered Spain in 711?"
Most people who have an interest in flamenco and its origins in Andalusia, if they have any curiosity at all, will have read up on the subject and looked up the history and development of the genre. I'm not talking about a historian or a musically-trained individual. Just someone with an interest. We have had many discussions on this Foro on the subject of flamenco and the influences that have shaped it.
Of course, there may be some who have no interest in the history and development of the genre, but I doubt if they will continue as serious students.
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."
Posts: 3467
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From: Washington, DC
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
quote:
Yes, but who influenced what?
In the topic I addressed, it was the Arabs, via the Moors, as well as the Gitanos and Sephardic Jews, that influenced flamenco. Of course there have been other influences such Latin American "Ida y Vuelta" that the Spaniards brought back with them.
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."
Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
quote:
Yes, but who influenced what?
In the topic I addressed, it was the Arabs, via the Moors, as well as the Gitanos and Sephardic Jews, that influenced flamenco. Of course there have been other influences such Latin American "Ida y Vuelta" that the Spaniards brought back with them.
Bill
Problem is Bill, musical analytical minded folk (like me) see gaping gigantic holes in those types of generalizations. Concrete examples are needed or it holds no water, and while it doesn’t harm the present ability to practice the art, it can feed these misconceptions people always enter the learning process with. Example above...I went reading the guy Romerito mentioned a few hours ago...I waded through musical score examples of BS caña, Scarlatti and Soler fandango, aguado,...none of which, despite the claims, have anything more than superficial elements of the flamenco it claims to be an influence on or derived from. As evidence it is either missing something to make a PROPER connection, or, it needs to be DISCARDED as evidence of anything important. The Maximo LopezFandango was on a different level of appropriate evidence...and it was mentioned IN PASSING! Ridiculous to me. That’s how I see it. What music did the moors perform....anything like the makkams? It COULD be 100% true, but where is the damn score? This IS music we are talking about. And I don’t need scores only, but the first wax cylinders don’t show the Moorish connection directly. So the only music evidence has to be in some written form before that time. Vague anecdotes (a camel decided music will continue in these lands LOL) or the freaking TITLE OF A SONG???? Worst of all, a freaking CONCERT REVIEW!! That kind of junk is all worthless really.
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
Example above...I went reading the guy Romerito mentioned a few hours ago...I waded through musical score examples of BS caña, Scarlatti and Soler fandango, aguado,...none of which, despite the claims, have anything more than superficial elements of the flamenco it claims to be an influence on or derived from
Which article did you read? He includes many musical examples.
@Bill I agree. Anyone who comes to flamenco tries to absorb knowledge in whatever form they can, if they're serous. That still does not tell us anything about who influenced or contributed what.
@Ricardo
quote:
The Maximo LopezFandango was on a different level of appropriate evidence...and it was mentioned IN PASSING! Ridiculous to me.
This is why seemingly unimportant connections actually ARE important. All the anecdotes, all the concert reviews, etc. don't mean anything individually but sometimes they provide one more piece toward the solution of a particular puzzle, musical, historical, or otherwise.
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
quote:
Cruces Roldan
Right, but Cruces Roldán also is very careful to emphasize the idea that ascribing a direct causal relation between a lot of important elements of arabic music and their analogues that appear to pop up in flamenco would be a little bit irresponsible. She makes this point in particular when talking about tarab/sama. There's a lot of possible history mediating the point of contact between the two traditions.
It's for this same reason that I find myself unsatisfied with the cut-and-dry notion that there is some sort of linear connection between the conquering Moors, the pueblo Gitano and the Sephardic Jews. The period between the 15th and 17th centuries is really complicated and delicate with respect to morisco autonomy and the degree to which the dominant Christian culture managed to suppress their cultural practices. And in the 14th and 15th centuries, a lot of Jews embraced being part of Christian society in order to avoid their typical status as the 'emasculated' element of the social order in the Iberian Peninsula. The earliest possible record that we have of any Romani person entering Spain dates back to 1425, but it took a while for that process to accelerate, such that it took 74 more years before there was any central governmental policy that 'dealt' with the Roma.
All of this is to say that even pointing out concrete similarities in the music doesn't tell us much about the journey and process of influence. I happen to think that such concrete musicological work ought to be done alongside a historical excavation of the performance ideologies and mysticisms surrounding flamenco -- that's one way of developing a more nuanced view of the ways in which these influences actually played out. To her credit, Cruces-Roldán does do some of this in her book on flamenco and Música Andalusí, and there's a new-ish book that does something like this from the 18th century onward by K. Meira Goldberg.
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to tf10music)
quote:
Right, but Cruces Roldán also is very careful to emphasize the idea that ascribing a direct causal relation between a lot of important elements of arabic music and their analogues that appear to pop up in flamenco would be a little bit irresponsible. She makes this point in particular when talking about tarab/sama. There's a lot of possible history mediating the point of contact between the two traditions.
Of course she does, she's trained in anthropology. In my opinion anthropology and ethnomusicology are too careful when it comes to comparative methods and historical speculation. Sometimes you have to test things out in order to discover anything of value. I've gone down the tarab/duende rabbit hole. There is a lot there to think about. Majlis/juerga, ya layali/yali que yali, etc.
quote:
All of this is to say that even pointing out concrete similarities in the music doesn't tell us much about the journey and process of influence
That's a point that has already been made by myself and Ricardo. There are really two questions at play. First, how can flamenco musical structure, be explained
RE: Western art music is to Scale/mo... (in reply to Beni2)
quote:
Of course she does, she's trained in anthropology. In my opinion anthropology and ethnomusicology are too careful when it comes to comparative methods and historical speculation. Sometimes you have to test things out in order to discover anything of value. I've gone down the tarab/duende rabbit hole. There is a lot there to think about. Majlis/juerga, ya layali/yali que yali, etc.
Seems like scientism to me! But that's fine -- to each their own. Personally, I believe that the requisite caution is necessary in these cases.
Re: Tarab/duende/belcanto/mysticism: I've got a clunker of an article coming out on that later this year. I'll probably never be satisfied with everything about it, but such is life when you're trying to write about the ineffable.
I also found his dissertation entitled "Formación musical del cante flamenco: en torno a la figura de Silverio Franconetti (1830-1889)". It was published as a book - "Génesis musical del cante flamenco: De lo remoto a lo tangible en la música flamenca hasta la muerte de Silverio Franconetti".
It is 3,017 pages (!!), of which the text is "only" 1,350 pages; the other ~1,700 pages is an Annex with music scores; presumably of examples referred to in the body of the work.
Because of its much more expansive scope, I'd say this one seems more worthy of your characterization as "...the next best thing to Rito y Geografia".
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