World Music Assignment

Listen to “composed world music CD” and report back

Celeste Hutchins

Proseminar

World Music Paper

 

         For
my World Music listening, I chose La Koro Sutro by Lou Harrison.  I picked this piece because I thought
it was obviously an example of "composed world music" and because I’m
quite fond of it.  Now that I’m
examining it more critically, however, I’m not as certain that it is an example
of world music. 

         La
Koro Sutro is
composed for 100 voice chorus, harp, organ and the "American
Gamelan."  The American
Gamelan is not actually a gamelan, but rather a metalphone percussion
instrument built out of old oxygen tanks and other scrap metal by Bill
Colvig.  It has its name only
because it sounds like a gamelan, but otherwise has little connection to the
real thing.  This may be
problematic if this piece is to be classified as world music, since the
instrumentation is domestic.

         The
language of the piece and the text is very definitely international.  It is an Esperanto (La Internacia
Lingvo)
translation of the Buddhist text, the Heart Sutra. The CD helpfully comes with the
words in Esperanto and a side-by-side English translation.  It was also premiered to an international
audience.  The notes with the CD
explain, "La Koro Sutro was first performed for an international gathering of
Esperantists in San Francisco on August 11, 1972."  The Harrison biography notes that this
performance took place shortly after a Universala Kongreso in Portland, Oregon.  While certainly not every piece of Esperanta
music ever
written is automatically world music, this one, because of the nature of the
translation, should be counted as a world music text.

         The
sound of the piece also sounds like world music.  The tuning is very obviously not 12-toned equally
tempered.  This is especially
evident in the American Gamelan sections. 
The other percussion also has a "world music" feel to it.  The singing also sounds somewhat non-western.  It is reminiscent of some chant music,
especially when it has longish melismas on a single vowel.  This may be because Harrison studied
and found inspiration from early music. 
It may also be an imitation of a singing style found along the Pacific
Rim.  Based on the sounds alone, I
would certainly consider this piece to be world music.

         The
packaging of the CD, however, does not convey world music.  The cover graphic pictures some grass
and a large anthropomorphized flower with a goatee.  It is smiling at an insect that also has a goatee and three
hearts float between them.  Eight
notes in various orientations dot the background.  It says, in large text La Koro Sutro on the right hand side.  Around the edges are names of people
involved in the project.  Also on
the same disk are Varied Trio, performed by the Abel, Steinberg, Winant Trio and Suite
for Violin and American Gamelan, featuring David Abel on violin.  The disk is published by New Albion
Records.

         All
of the performers, packaging, Pacific Rim aesthetics and even the record label
are so very California San Francisco Bay Area, that they make me homesick.  Of course, while I lived in California,
I did not think of this as purely California music, I thought of it as world
music.  Lou Harrison was known not
only as a California composer, but more so as a world music composer.  I did not think of his music and especially
this piece, as indigenous, but looking at it now, it very obviously was.

         In
conclusion, while this CD is very obviously a California phenomenon, I still
would count it as an example of composed world music.  The international Esperanto community is eager to embrace it
– the best Esperanto vocal work ever written – as coming from Esperantio, and the music synthesizes so
many ideas and cultures that I would count it as a world phenomenon.

         (Esperantio is the name of a fictional
Esperanto homeland.  It is
essentially international in nature.)