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.)

Sleep is a new religion

Those of you who have talked to me lately may have noticed that i sound kind of . . um . . . angsty. Those who have not talked to me may have noticed that I haven’t posted much to my blog. So I got somewhat behind on school work and decided that I should spend more time being social, because I like to be social and at the same time I decided that coffee was the Best Thing Ever. Yeah, so I didn’t sleep very much the last week or two. I’m not sure.

Yesturday I slept 12 hours. I feel mellow again. I’m quitting coffee as it is EVIL, since it temporarily allows one to go without sleep, when one should not go with out sleep.
So I think I’m more or less up to date on my school work. Everyone is still talking to me. I have memories of angst that don’t make sense, but that’s ok I guess; I think I didn’t fling too much drama around, or not everyone would be talking to me. Um, and I have a purple mohawk. Well, it’s clairol burgundy color, which is like a subtle brownish purple. I woke up from a strange dream and my pillow was missing. No, my hair was changed.
My advisor says that first year grads push themselves to the edge of a nervous break down and then become apathetic and stay that way for the remainder of their program. Maybe apathy is like a form of composer student nirvana? I don’t actually care. Sleeping makes me feel so much better that I’m considering taking a nap.
Sorry if I dumped angst on you. Next time (godess help me if there is a next time), just tell me to sleep it off.

Writing MOO themes

Ok, so my moo theme playing thingee works. it’s not mp3 streaming yet, but it will be very soon. (i hope. depending on how hard it is.) why not prepare for the web radio launch by writing your themes now?

Notes

Notes look like “4c#3”. the first number is the length of the note. ‘4’ indicates a quarter note. ‘8’ and eighth note. you can use any number at all that you want for the duration. bigger numbers are shorter than smaller numbers.
the ‘c#’ is the pitch. The ‘#’ can go before or after the letter. You can’t currently specify a flat, so use a sharp if you want an accidental. using sharps, is, of course, optional. note names go from a-g.
The ‘3’ is the octave. the lowest octave is ‘0’. the highest octave is as high as you want to make it, but if you get too high, you won’t be able to hear it. Octaves start with c, so the note below 4c3, is 4b2.
What notes to use? Just make some up. Or you could have your theme say something about your player or object in SolReSol. AOL_USER’s theme is SolReSol for “girl, I want your body.” seriously. Also, astute cell phone users will note that this is the same format for notes used by nokia, so you could go to a ring tones web site and copy some notes from a pop song or something

Adding the notes

you’ve got yer notes all picked out, now you want to add them.

@property me.theme "4c#3, 4c3, 3b2, 4c#3"
@chmod me.theme +r

That example puts a theme on your player object and marks it readable. you need to make it readable, or the program won’t be able to read it. If you want to add a theme to some other object, just replace “me” with the name of the object.
If you finally hear your theme and can’t stand it, you can change it.

@set smoothie.theme to "8a#2, 8#a2, 4c#3, 8a#2, 2d#3, 2f#3, 4c#3"

You could also write some verb to change your themes periodically. in the future, there will be support for a get_theme verb, so that you can modify your theme every time the verb is called.

More moo documentation

I have docs! check out http://www.xkey.com/~celesteh/computers

Other News

Dispatch from Paris

Christi seems to have broken her nose.

She was recopying all of her music, in preperation for gradschool applications (this is my fault, I said that most of it needed recopying), for ten hours in a row, from 7pm-5am. And she sat up and looked at the clock and notes that her back was crunched in and she was utterly exhausted. shortly atfter that, she says, she misjudged the distance between her note and a blunt object
I wish I could send flowers.

Xtain Pacifists

So right before fall break, I happened upon a very small peace vigil in “downtown” Middletown. It was a few old guys with peace signs standing in front of the episcopal church. So I stood with them for a while, holding a sign with a pro-peace message on it and decided to come back the next monday after fall break. Being active is important. Maybe more so in tiny towns than in big cities where everyone expects you to be.

today I came back and it was raining, not hard but apparently enough to make the ink run on their signs, so they were standing in the church door, instead of down on the sidewalk. They were all fired up about the march on Washington, which they had gone to, but I did not. I stuck my bike in the vestibule and went to stand with them. Only one guy was holding a sign and it said “Jesus is the Prince of Peace.” I picked up some sign about the administration lying and we stood in the church door while they stood around and dissed the Green party. The Greens in CT are apparently less together than they are in CA and are apparently looking to get some of the peace crowd to join the party. These guys were tired of the Greens trying to convert them, especially since they’re so inneffective (because they have so few members) blah blah blah. Uh, yeah. I’m a Green. they’ve been tremendously successful in Germany. then the subject switched to SUVs. A woman there was talking about how tiny women drive SUVs. tiny women! They have no buisiness driving that kind of car! they get in accidents!
I switched the subject to SUVs as a symptom of class warfare, lest I start defending the right of tiny women to drive any car they damn well please. and it went around for a while until the Quaker woman standing next to me said that she was uncomfortable with the Jesus sign. I pointed out that it was impossible to tell whether the guy holding it was a pacifist or a bible thumper. He got adamant about how this was a religious peace group and he was not taking Jesus out of it. It was bad enough that they had to quit carrying the pro-Palestine signs because the local Rabbi had complained. and then the subject wended around to Jews.
It’s a small town. folks in a small town might not know the difference between Zionists and Jewish people as a group. The problem with Jews . . .. Oh but that one guy that spoke at the march was Jewish . . . blah blah blah. yikes. So I ran away.
As I was retrieving my bike, they seem to have come back to their religious (Christian) identity. “We’re a religious group!” the guy with the Jesus sign was saying. Quakers. Catholics. etc. “Actually, I’m an atheist.” I said as I snapped on my helmet. yes really. maybe, indeed I would turn to God on my deathbed, who can know the future?
they want me to come back next week, maybe so they can convert me back to being catholic, or maybe so I can convert them all to being Green.
I reported all of this to Aaron, my housemate, and he said, “wow. Greens. Women. Athesists. you’re lucky they didn’t start talking about gay people.”
indeed. I need a new peace group.

Research status

The manuscript of the play, La Misterie du Siege d’ Orleans, does not have any sheet music with it, nor any ornamentation of any kind. However, it does have many, many pauses that were intended to be filled with music. Many of these pauses contain instructions for orchestration. The most common instruments mentioned are trumpets, bugles and organ. No 15th century document even mentions the play. The librarian at the Joan of Arc center says that it has never been performed in it’s current form. some scholars believe that it is not really a play, but rather a collection of smaller action vignettes associated with the annual May 8th festivities commemorating the raising of the siege. This hypothesis seems logical, given the evidence above and also because no-one has really been able to date the manuscript. Parts of it seem to be written right after the siege and other parts appear to date from later years.

The play (or series of processional events) seems to have been written for the entire town to take part in. entire battles are re-acted out. It calls for thousands of actors. Part of the town is supposed to be set ablaze for it. It would take several days to stage it in it’s entirety. and it has over a hundred “major” characters.

The play certainly grew out of the May 8th processions, whether or not it was just a collection of past processional events. It’s possible that musical sources for it were battle songs, hymns and some courtly processional music. the librarian at the Joan of Arc Center (whose name I wish I had gotten), says that all of these sources are lost. there is some evidence around the music at the cathedral, however.

For my paper, I intend to analyze the instrumentation in connection with the action. I’m going to read _Aspects of Genre in Late Medieval French Drama_ by Alan Knight and talk to Professor Alden to figure out what to do with this.

over draft protection

check it out. you can slack and let your bank account drop to zero and if you have overdraft protection, you can continue to get money out of atms and pay all your bills without the check bouncing, and so, say, if my joint checking account with christi were at zero dollars right now, she ought to be able to get euros out of the atm while the check mailed today wends it’s way through the mail system and becomes part of the available balance. so says the customer service rep who wouldn’t do a transfer from another bank. (if for some reason, this turns out not to be the case, i can wire money to wells fargo on monday)

la la la

Kids say the darndest things

Alvin likes to tell folks about his undergrad seminar that he teaches on Esxperimental music. His goal is to inundate the kids with thousands of musical examples and not much discussion. he wants them to understand structure and not talk about emotional reactions to music.
this stance has led to speculation on the part of the grad student population as to what motivated him to limit discourse in this way. One of the vetran students said that the undergrads here will say bizarre things trying to describe their reaction to a pice. really, really strange, he said.
Today, in the class I TA, the students were playing their midterm projects and the class was discussing them a bit. One of the students played a really good project. Very nice. Very tonal (as in, it used them, verses being musique concrete), very thoughtful. It was lovely. Ron gave some feedback and then the class was asked if they had comments. they’re a quiet bunch. half the time, they won’t say anything. But this one kid, who was very impressed, started speaking, kind of slowly about it. “The beginning sounded like robots who were in love, but who were fighting, like, on top of a carribean restaurant . . .” [pause] “that was full of aliens.”

took the words right out of my mouth

502 lines of perl code

and it still doesn’t work

all i have to do now is figure out how to open a OSC receiver socket in super collider, parse the incomming arrays and handle the timing. the durations come in ahead of the pitches. maybe i should do a different thing where every other one is a pitch so it’s /player pitch, dur, pitch, dur, pitch dur, etc. that might be better. it would be an easy change.
i think once i take the useless comments, the print statements and other debugging junk out of my perl program, it will only be 350 lines are so. that’s a lot of perl though. and if you add up all the junk i already removed, i probably generated over 1000 lines, of which less than half are useful. that’s depressing
anyway, i have the instruments to play already written.
i must sleep in the six hours before class. my project isn’t done. i’m sure that welsyean will flunk me out over this and my as-yet still unwritten stravinsky paper
It was snowing outside a few hours ago. i hope it’s warmed up. i knew i should have brought a warmer jacket with me
good god. snow.

Perl? Why the hell would i know perl?

Just because I spent two years as a perl programmer is no reason at all to think i ight know how to store data in it. what a silly idea. i think i’ll spend days trying to figure out how to dereference arrays. after all, it’s not like i have anyhting better to do. it’s a good thing that i’m such a mellow person or i might get the urge to kill the undergrad in here who keeps asking me for help with his midterm project even though i’m not the ta for this class, i’m just a fucked up student and his project is working.