Week 6: Amhrán na gCupán

(a) Title of piece: Amhrán na gCupán

(b) Performer(s): Nolan Laoibhse and co

(c) Culture or Origin - traditional folk song, set in Gaelic

(d) Orchestration- singers, solo cups, guitars, mandolin, bass

For this week's blog post I borrow a song that is now a fairly strong staple of middle and high school women's choirs in Texas as a "just for fun" song that was brought to our attention through the movie, "Pitch Perfect." To navigate the validity or possible genius of this movie is not the intention of my post, but to discuss our readings this week about the importance of musical play and the role of transmission, this song immediately came to mind. In the article, Children's Natural and Necessary Musical Play: Global Contexts, Local Applications, authors Campbell and Lew write, "Play has been described as a“"cause and effect" of a particular culture within which children are raised." (Campbell, Lew, 58) The age of students that walk through my doors on a daily basis are high school students, many of whom are burdened with a abundance of obligations to meet at school, work, and at home. Their free time is generally spent watching some type of entertainment, either movies, some television, or enjoying music. When the movie "Pitch Perfect" was released, so too were the internal desires to recreate the scene of Anna Kendrick playing a percussion part with a red Solo cup, while also singing what sounds like an Irish drinking song. Once one student had the part, they were often drafted as a young teacher, peer instructing others who wished to learn this song. So many of the girls in my program learned the song, that we performed it at our end of year show.

The reason I chose this version of the video is that I feel it demonstrates what Nettl describes as transmission. In Chapter 21 of Nettl’s book, In Human Culture, the author writes, “One may think of a repertory as consisting of a vocabulary of units, perhaps melodic or rhythmic motifs, lines of music accompanying lines of poetry, cadential formulas, chords or chord sequences. We could study the process of transmission by noting how a repertory keeps these units intact, and how they are combined and recombined into larger units that are acceptable to the culture as performances. The smallest units of content may be the principal units of transmission. (see Lord 1965, Chaps. 3 and 4; Treitler 1975):” (Nettl, 295) Many different "versions" of the song have been recorded to YouTube, but this version always intrigues me. The core rhythmic and melodic motifs are intact, the sequences are generally the same with slight alterations at the chorus, the only distinct change is the language. I took a moment to translate the opening titles, using the Google Translate tool:

Amhrán na gCupán - The song cups
Laoibhse ni nuallain agus co - Nolan Laoibhse and co
rannphairtithe idir scolairi agus foireann -  between students and staff participants
Curriarracht dhomhanda -  global Curriarracht
(go bhfios duinn) - To our knowledge 

Linking on the YouTube site leads to a summer program where students are immersed into learning the Gaelige language, the traditional Irish language. My educated guess, by looking at translated webpages and the context of the images posted, is that students are using songs and dances from their cultural environment and using the content to help bridge their knowledge and learning of a new language with familiar concepts. Campbell' article states a similar point, stating, "This means that children use play as a vehicle for cultural learning, and their play can serve as an important indicator and reflection of their development."(Campbell, 58) In a learning method similar way to my students, the cultural impact of their entertainment choices has an impact on their ways of "releasing" their internal creativity.

For younger children, I would agree that we as educators must help guide the learning experiences by providing the appropriate stimuli, without necessarily dictating the response. Call and response is an easily learned behavior, but to truly engage creativity, we must allow exploration.  Campbell writes, "As adults responsible for the young generation's welfare and education, teachers must challenge themselves to find creative ways to incorporate children's musical spontaneity in the classroom." (Campbell, 62) Providing structured time to be spontaneous might be a way to encourage discovery in younger age brackets, but the same discovery with my students tends to happen when students can remove themselves from the larger group to reveal some hidden musical idea. Teachers also need to fill their toolkits with ideas about world music discovery, as Campbell guides, "The children who will populate schools and preschools will increasingly come from these non-European groups, and teachers will need to be prepared to meet their unique needs."  (Campbell, 58) Therefore, I feel it is incumbent on this generation of teachers to learn to be creative with our students as well.

Week 5: Bećarac

Song Title: Bećarac
Group: KUU "Gacka" Ličko Lešće
Type: Croatian Tamburica Orchestra, with singers
Orchestration: Tamburica Orchestra

My weekly blog posts over the past few weeks have been outlining some very large shifts in my own view of world music, as there have been large shifts in my own world. A brief reflection prior to the reflection - my wife and I decided around the end of June to sell our house, and move on to a different location. July 4th, our house listed, and within a week we sold said house. Since then, we have been frantically trying to find our new home, knowing that time was creeping up on us. I am glad to say, we did find a house this week, contract done, and now we prepare to move everything to a new home, about 15 minutes from our existing location. As I began to write today's blog post, I am also beginning to stare at all the audio equipment that must also move to a new home - speakers, laptops, instruments, and one specific instrument - a "tamburica," given to me almost 10 years ago by my grandparents.

This instrument was brought back as a gift by my dad's parents, as I am into stringed instruments, like my father. He also has the same instrument, we both opened them up the same day, and looked at each other with the same confused face. His parents beamed with joy, as if providing the most interesting and profound gift ever given on Christmas. We said, "thanks," and they said, "you can play these, right?" My father, after paying for my Music Education degree, immediately looked at me and through me under the bus. I said, "Not yet - but I will figure it out..." Which brings us to today's posting, and the impending fifth or sixth move of said instrument, without much playing.

Campbell writes in Teaching Music Globally, "It's ok to create and re-create world music." While I would have difficulty playing in an ensemble like the group above, from Ličko Lešće, a village in Croatia, I can at least model the playing style by carefully watching this representation for my grandparents. My grandparents have the advantage of watching a group like this play in person through their travels, but our fieldwork of videos, audio recordings, and photos provide insight into the meaning behind the playing, not just the mechanics. Campbell writes, "When music is treated respectfully, with ample time given to its study, it is often a source of pride for people from a culture to hear their traditions - or new expressions reminiscent of their traditions - performed by those who have given their time and energy to it." (Campbell, 193) My task is to now spend more time working some techniques to a tune, and perhaps using this Serbian originated instrument in music that would be reflective of the original culture and, perhaps, in a new context. Either way, I still have to move it. Best wishes on a new week.

Week 4: El Hambo

Title: El Hambo [link to score]
Performer: East Carolina State University Chamber Singers
Type: Finnish Choral Music
Orchestration: SATB Chorus

For this week's blog post, my endpoint was quite far from my original premise, yet the concept of authenticity in our musicological quest becomes easier for discussion through this slight detour. I distinctly remember a work from my high school career, "Kde Sú Krávy Moje", by Hans Schimmerling, which tells the story of a farmer calling back his cows, by name, in a Slovakian dialect. A brief search for information on Schimmerling reveals numerous publications and work in musicology. A search for "proper" pronunciation for the cow names, however, reveals very little. A YouTube search provides no video performances of the work by Texas Tech under Ken Davis' baton, which would be ideal reference material, which leads to the detour mentioned above. 

I noticed the work El Hambo was performed by East Carolina at the American Choral Directors Association Convention in Miami. A quick listen to the piece, with shifting metrical alignment from 5/4 to 3/4 and back immediately perked up my ears. A quick search about Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, composer, revealed a biography (1) on ChoralNet that allows for contact via the site. A further search about the piece led me to a FaceBook group posting (2) by the Choir Project, which revealed that the words are intended to be nonsense words from the Finnish language. At that moment, the correlation to our reading this week was very clear in my reflection on my own teaching.

My very brief research aligned with the second and third strategies discussed in Koop's article in the NAfME journal, Music Educators Journal (3), "Can't We Just Change the Words?": The Role of Authenticity in Culturally Informed Music Education. Were I to teach this work, I would want to know as much about the proper pronunciation and vowel production necessary before ever teaching a note or 5/4 rhythm. To understand the text, whether a proper Czech name for a cow, or nonsense Finnish words, require the concepts of "authenticity as reproduction, reality, and relevance." (Koops, 25) Thus, in my own study of a work prior to teaching, I must seek out the cultural authenticity if I ever hope to have my students sing with any cultural integrity. Searching out model performances, either native to the culture, or by strong academic institutions with a focus on appropriate musicological renditions of the work must be sought out in advance of student learning.

(1) http://www.choralnet.org/view/user/700
(2) https://www.facebook.com/TheChoirProject/posts/248374795284913
(3) http://mej.sagepub.com/content/97/1/23.citation

Week 3: Májko, májko zelená

Gone are the days of winter, and the cold chill - now is the time for playing outside in the balmy, temperate climate of Czechoslovakia. "Májko, májko zelená"is the fifth piece from Jaro Se Otvira (Spring is Coming),  a cycle for men's choir and violin written by Zdenek Lukas [personal site]. This work has been selected for performance by the Texas All-State Men's Choir in February, 2015. As fate has provided, this piece of music is one of the pieces that I am teaching as a section leader at the Austin Community College All-State Choir Camp this week, the week that we find our focus in MUH 6935 on discussing the role of context in musical structure. This piece is an interesting study, as it is written in the key of C, but functions in what feels and reads like D Major, with F sharps written throughout. The lack of use of the C sharp leading tone, and avoidance for much of the work of the fourth scale degree imply a pentatonic scale, which in this work reminds me of an American "Southern Harmony" feel. As I was teaching the work, students were instructed to read the piece on solfedge in the key of D, and to interpret any sharps on F or C as Fa or Ti. Students immediately made the harmonic context connections to their major scale, most notably when the C Sharps appeared near cadential endings. From a structural standpoint, the singers noticed the following connections:

• Baritones have the story telling role in the verse
• First Tenors sing the chorus melody
• Basses imitate a "bass guitar" of some sort, due to the rhythm and sound

The singers had difficulty making the text connection to their own culture. Majko, translated, means "maypole," which is used in several European societies as a mechanism for partner and group dancing at festivals. There is no similar type dance or festival setting in our general area. Also lost on them was the concept of celebrating Spring, as in our area, cold does not mean months of ice and snow, but just another month of 80 degree weather. Thus the celebratory nature of the text was lost. Once these contextual clues were discussed, the overall context of the music was reflected in their singing in a much more celebratory way. After teaching this piece, I feel even more convinced that after careful discussion of the meanings of the cultural Czech elements listed in the story that we provide musical and societal connections to our students and their own musical ideals.

Week 2: Pare Cochero

Title: Pare Cochero
Performer: Orquesta Aragon
Type: Cuban Popular Music
Orchestration: Vocalists, Percussion Ensemble, Flute, Violins, Bass Guitar, Piano

According to the Smithsonian Folkways website, "Orchestra Aragón was created in 1939 by the noted violinist Orestes Aragón and first performed in and around Cienfuegos, its city of origin.” Their Cuban popular music style incorporates several familiar instruments with a fair amount of specific percussion instruments. The music reminds my musical ear of the same harmonic and structural elements of mariachi-style songs, where an accompanying group of background instruments give way to a solo instrument for introductory and connecting musical material, and a group of singers sing the text with a very full and guttural sound. The percussion instruments drive the undercurrent stylistically, but my personal knowledge of all the intricate instrumentation is lacking. 

Classification systems are important for purposes of instrument identification, as well as to facilitate discussions of musical time. With regard to instrument identification, simply naming all of requisite percussion instruments in this ensemble would be difficult without benefit of the video. Familiarity with the country of origin of a work and the Sachs-Hornbostel specific classifications of Membranophones would help isolate a search of the particular instrument name, should language become a significant barrier between an ethnomusicologist and local musician. 

Language barriers are also a great reason to understand and have command of multiple rhythmic classification systems. A firm understanding of simple variants of upbeat and downbeat are codified in several different cultures in Chapter 2 of Thinking Musically. A mentor conducting teacher identified the rationale behind an identified common musical language, or at least      functional translation, for any type of performance setting. During a rehearsal prior to a performance in mainland China, he noted that the concert master of the ensemble did not speak English, the conductor did not speak Mandarin, and the translator was not a musician. The communication method employed was a combination of Mandarin numbers, Italian musical markings, and British rhythmic methods.  Ideally, use of the local terminology with regard to performance practice is a more ethnomusicologically appropriate approach, and should be utilized as often as is practical.

Week 1: Bomba

Title of piece: Bomba
Performer(s): Raul and Freddy Ayala
Culture or Origin: Puerto Rican Folksong
Orchestration: Two drummers

Audio: http://www.folkways.si.edu/TrackDetails.aspx?itemid=14426
Liner Notes: http://media.smithsonianfolkways.org/liner_notes/folkways/FW04412.pdf

The study of ethnomusicology has unique qualities that require careful understanding and a very open musical mind. After reading through the assigned reading material this week, I found that some of the issues that ethnomusicologists reveal as biases toward listening to and teaching music outside our Western music framework. In the article, Music as Culture: Toward a Multicultural Concept of Arts Education, written by Author David J. Elliott, I identified a truth about my own teaching that will shape my learning during the study of ethnomusicology this term, specifically with regard to appropriate pedagogy. Elliott writes, “ ...to encourage an understanding of the meaning and use of a culture (macroculture or microculture) one must look deeply to the network of concepts, beliefs, and action systems from which the expressive products of a culture spring and by means of which they are perceived and interpreted.” (p. 150) In order to get a jump start on the curriculum project at the end of this term, I looked for music that is of the Western Carribean cultures, including Puerto Rico. With this concept in mind, I found that after listening to several different tracks from the album, Folk Songs of Puerto Rico, the tune “Bomba” piqued my interest. While there is a distinct correlation to the African drumming track from Ghana, on our listening list this week, specifically a lead and accompaniment feel, the two are distinctly different. Further study of the liner notes of the original album reveal that “Bomba” is not a specific song, rather a style of drumming with, “two drummers, one playing the accompanimiento, and the lead drummer playing the repique, or improvisation.” (p. 8) The liner notes discuss the fiesta that a “bomba” would be played for, the historical perspective leading to the beginning of the celebration, and even how the drums are constructed. With regard to pedagogy, all of this information is critical to provide the most authentic, or universalist perspective on this “foreign” music. My own perspectives and lack of understanding must give way to allow my students the opportunity to be presented music of other cultures, to help define their own cultural identity in a global context. As Riemer writes in Chapter 6 of The Contextual Dimension of Musical Experience, "we must struggle to learn foreign music and cultures, while understanding that there are no foreign cultures and exotic music.” (p. 188) I look forward to the expansion of my cultural understanding as the term progresses.