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Alice seems to be flexible in her approach to dancer and guitar. My experience was with dancers who were totally inflexible with little improvisation; boring. I liked the ideas expressed about dancers and guitarist playing off each other as in a artistic partnership, with a measure of spontaneity. For the most part, art should not be bound totally by regimented and ironclad rules.
sometimes it helps to distinguish what we mean by "dancers"
IMO there is a world of difference between dancers working in tablaos in spain and student dancers here in the UK, and the special category of "student teachers" who are nowhere near the pro dancers in Spain but are teaching classes in provincial towns and cities all over the country here. They actually vary a lot between advanced students who are very good (but still not at the pro in spain level) and the... how shall i put it... shall i just be tactful and say "less advanced"?
Leonard Bernstein famously drew parallels between music and Chomsky's "universal grammar" in his 1973 lectures The Unanswered Question, which are readily available on Youtube. While the comparison was at times somewhat lax, there were nonetheless some interesting insights.
That there are similarities is rather obvious. Both have rules, standards and common practices with regards to grammar, "phonology", prosody, etc. There are teleological similarities as well (communication, expression, etc.). As far as communication between performers, there is a common distinction made between more improvisational forms and recitals. I believe this has been studied in neurosciences, the results being that performers drew on different cognitive abilities for each. I'd imagine the same is true for conversations vs. poetry recitals.
What I often object to is when people say "music is a language", often saying things like "music is a language that transcends borders, cultures, etc." It seems to me that the difference between two musical genres, say, flamenco and gamelan, is just as pronounced as the difference between two languages, say English and Chinese. Communication across forms of music is not straightforward. Perhaps if more people understood this, understood that music is not one language, that each genre is a language in its own right, then the monumental task of creating "fusion" would be more carefully thought out and there would be less crap on the market.
That said, maybe crappy fusion has a role to play. In the same way that neither docco nor I are native English speakers but can still communicate thanks to some form of "globish", so too can performers of different genres communicate with each other through crappy fusion. Though if we really wanted to express ourselves as best we can, then we would have to speak our own language(s) or take an approach to fusion that goes much further than simply using a genre of music as a superficial stepping stone to something else.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Music is way too subjective to be compared to a language. Put 10 people with different musical backgrounds/tastes in a room listening to the same piece of music and ask them what was being communicated.
Some will just talk about the lyrics, others won't even notice lyrics, others the main melody, others will speak about the rhythm, etc etc. It's a very personal thing.
With language I expect everyone to understand clearly my intention when I say "No cheese on my food!"
Posts: 2007
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: Flamenco is a language (in reply to mark indigo)
Twenty years ago I was playing for a dance company and they were struggling with a group number. Can be tough for some dancers to do complicated stuff in unison, and even American dance companies feel pressure to bring new stuff to their audiences. So, the other guitarist and myself were sitting watching them butcher the same passage, recently brought back from Spain from a maestro, over and over. I said under my breath to the other guitarist " We could play for way better dancers"
He replied, Yes, but why would those dancers want us?"
Totally agree about some dance teachers, but same holds true for guitarists. In 35 years I have only seen/heard a few guitarists who could equal not a maestro, but a solid pro from Spain.
quote:
ORIGINAL: mark indigo
sometimes it helps to distinguish what we mean by "dancers"
IMO there is a world of difference between dancers working in tablaos in spain and student dancers here in the UK, and the special category of "student teachers" who are nowhere near the pro dancers in Spain but are teaching classes in provincial towns and cities all over the country here. They actually vary a lot between advanced students who are very good (but still not at the pro in spain level) and the... how shall i put it... shall i just be tactful and say "less advanced"?
Leonard Bernstein famously drew parallels between music and Chomsky's "universal grammar" in his 1973 lectures The Unanswered Question, which are readily available on Youtube. While the comparison was at times somewhat lax, there were nonetheless some interesting insights.
That there are similarities is rather obvious. Both have rules, standards and common practices with regards to grammar, "phonology", semantics, etc. There are teleological similarities as well (communication, expression, etc.). As far as communication between performers, there is a common distinction made between more improvisational forms and recitals. I believe this has been studied in neurosciences, the results being that performers drew on different cognitive abilities for each. I'd imagine the same is true for conversations vs. poetry recitals.
What I often object to is when people say "music is a language", often saying things like "music is a language that transcends borders, cultures, etc." It seems to me that the difference between two musical genres, say, flamenco and gamelan, is just as pronounced as the difference between two languages, say English and Chinese. Communication across forms of music is not straightforward. Perhaps if more people understood this, understood that music is not one language, that each genre is a language in its own right, then the monumental task of creating "fusion" would be more carefully thought out and there would be less crap on the market.
That said, maybe crappy fusion has a role to play. In the same way that neither docco nor I are native English speakers but can still communicate thanks to some form of "globish", so too can performers of different genres communicate with each other through crappy fusion. Though if we really wanted to express ourselves as best we can, then we would have to speak our own language(s) or take an approach to fusion that goes much further than simply using a genre of music as a superficial stepping stone to something else.
I like what you say: ".. that music is not one language, that each genre is a language in its own right, then the monumental task of creating "fusion" would be more carefully thought out and there would be less crap on the market ..."
So, there are a lot of genres of music in the world. And one more is that why some genres of music are recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural (such as Flamenco and Argentina Tango) while the others are not? Do you agree with the UNESCO classification?
So, there are a lot of genres of music in the world. And one more is that why some genres of music are recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural (such as Flamenco and Argentina Tango) while the others are not?
You get a clue from the very name of the UNESCO Convention - "Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage".
The focus is on safeguarding, on preventing the disappearance of, a particular kind of intangible cultural heritage: oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, traditional craftsmanship etc. as they relate to a community or a group that considers them part of their cultural heritage.
Just read Articles 1 and first half of 2 of the Convention:
Also, from the FAQ:
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
Hard to say. I don't know much about the selection process and criteria to get on that list. What I've noticed though is that, when a folk genre is added to the list, those who support it are the members of the community that practice the genre and foreigners, whereas the general population of the country in question is either indifferent or opposed to it. If you peruse Spanish media of the time when flamenco was added to the list, you'll find plenty of examples of people mocking and deriding the decision. Perhaps that's the point of having that list?
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
What I often object to is when people say "music is a language", often saying things like "music is a language that transcends borders, cultures, etc." It seems to me that the difference between two musical genres, say, flamenco and gamelan, is just as pronounced as the difference between two languages, say English and Chinese.
I couldn't agree more, Piwin. Having spent years living and working in our Embassies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Jakarta, Indonesia, absorbing gamelan with the sinden, the female singer backed by the gamelan orchestra, while maintaining a love and understanding of flamenco, I can attest that, although each is a form of music, they are too different to be wrapped up together with the term "universal music." They are as different as English and Chinese. I will say, though, that flamenco is probably better understood as a musical form by a variety of cultures than is gamelan. This is probably the result of flamenco being a form of Western music, which is much better understood, even in a country like Japan, than is gamelan.
In a totally different vein, music, especially Western music, has always been compared to mathematics.
Bill
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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: 3487
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Flamenco is a language (in reply to BarkellWH)
I agree with Bill Barkel.
A couple of weeks ago the great Chinese classical guitarist Xuefei Yang played here in Austin. Her virtuousity was staggering. About hslf of her program was well known guitar pieces by Spanish composers, including a couple of popular arrangements of piano pieces. She also played a zambra by Niño Ricardo with very good flamenco technique, rare in classical guitarists.
The other half was Chinese pieces, including her variations on folk songs, modern pieces written for Yang by prominent Chinese composers, and her guitar arrangements of pieces for pipa, the chinese plucked and strummed instrument.
On the way out from the performance I passed Joe Williams, the guitar society's Composer in Residence and Artistic Director. I said, "If the structural organizing principles of their music are so radically different from ours, what do you suppose the rest of the culture is like?"
Didn't the "music is a universal language" bit get started in the 19th century, maybe earlier? If so it seems to have been a eurocentric idea, put forward by people unacquainted with Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Malayo-Indonesian, and flamenco music.
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