Purpose of Music

On the surface it appears that music is for entertainment or as a money-making opportunity for the gifted or the lucky. But if one looks a little deeper it can be seen that music can be used to bring people together to build community in group performances whether that community is in the audience, in the ensemble or both. Music can be used in psychology to help people express their emotions when they find it difficult or impossible to use words. Music therapists use music for healing the sick or the bereaved through its power to stir the emotions. Music can be used to help people unwind after an upsetting day, to enter into meditation, to express the religious sentiment or create drama in the movies. The powers of concentration involved in performing and composing music can give a person a greater chance of success in the world. It can help people see themselves as having an influence on the world and therefore feeling contented if they create something useful and beautiful. A person becomes a co-creator of the universe with the source of all life instead of merely theorizing about life in lofty spheres of abstraction which alone leads to depression and a lack of passion.

Many people are becoming unbalanced as a result of modern life due to its complexity and the difficulty of living sustainable with nature and each other. A call to greater complexity, disharmony and distortion for no other reason than because it is the way we seem to be going is like intentionally stepping on the gas while approaching a fatal fall from a cliff. There must be a balance between randomness and control.

I like aspects of modern education because it is sometimes saying that fields such as music are not separate boxes from other subjects. For example, music composition overlaps music theory, performance and aesthetics. These are obvious. What is not obvious is that music composition overlaps other fields such as religion, philosophy, mythology, architecture, mathematics, sociology and psychology. Music does not have hard boundaries that separate it from everything else and therefore cannot be thought of as a box. The same way that we cannot place ourselves outside nature. We are a part of nature, the trees are our external! lungs and there is no escaping the fact without them we would all die.

Southeast Asian/Gamelan Music

Indian, Persian and Southeast Asian music has a cyclic rhythmic concept and so the circular representation of it is the most appropriate. This is also the way they view time with reincarnation and past-lives etc. so the circular representation is a natural.

If we look at the rhythmic cycle in gamelan music on a circular grid, it often has two superimposed triangles representing 6 rhyhmic events divided into two kinds played in duple meter. They do not create polyrhythmic tuplets so are not symmetrical triangles. But the way the two overlap produces a symmetrical star of David/Jewish star, though usually the downbeat is not on the axis of symmetry.

Microtones:

Indonesian Gamelan has an octave divided into ten equal parts for the Slendro scale. Ten being a number of completion in Chinese theory which was carried to South-East Asia. Thai music is divided into seven equal parts where two are left out, usually the 4th and 6th so that there isn't just a scale of all equal intervals like the whole tone. This creates a pentatonic scale (5 notes). The notes that are left out are sometimes used as ornaments and passing tones. Burma leaves those degrees out too and also makes another scale in seven equal but leaves out the third and seventh instead.

Healing Music, Gamelan and Microtones:

The binaural beats of gamelan, created by the 2 identical instrument sets which are tuned about a 1/4 step apart, synchronizes with alpha or theta brainwave patterns depending on the exact distance of the interval. Gamelan musicians even say that their intent is to make the audience half-awake/half-asleep. I thought a 12-string type guitar retuned could also reproduce the shimmering quality of gamelan. The scraper used in Cuban music can also scrape out brain wave tuplets in 7, 9, 11, 13 or whatever.

African Music

African Music:



The African bell pattern.

The diatonic major scale can be assigned a rhythm to each scale degree so that the interval between C-D, for example, is related to a quarter note. The interval between E-F relates to an eighth note since there is only a half-step between them. The result of the entire scale related to in this way is the bell pattern found all over Africa in either its "Ionian, Lydian or Mixolydian rhythmic mode" form.

African rhythms are frequently interlocking and not conceived of having a downbeat or being grouped into measures. Like the music of India and much other music from around the world, the parts are additive such as 3+3+2 if we're in an 8 or16 beat cycle in a western conceived measure of 4/4. Western music seems to favor dividing the measure exactly in half. African, Indian, and Persian music rarely does this. African music has 3 basic kinds.. The first is a 12 beat rhythmic cycle in which in a western conceived measure would generally be in 12/8, which is reserved for funerals and royalty. A 16 beat rhythmic cycle in 4/4 is for light music. The last kind is a combination for ritual and worship where either triplets are occasionally superimposed over 4 16ths in 4/4 or 4 16th notes are occasionally superimposed over groups of 3 eighth notes in 12/8. Sometimes the beginnings and/or endings of triplets tie over into the next beat.

Interlocking African Rhythms:

To create an interlocking rhythm with what might be called the Ionian rhythmic mode, we can use the dorian rhythmic mode or the mixolydian mode played underneath it, either started an eighth note late in 12/8. Either of these will fill up all the holes in the Ionian rhythmic mode.

Tension/Stress/Anxiety and Healing Music:

The bell rhythmic pattern found all over Africa that is based on the C Major scales Ionian, Lydian or Mixolydian modes has “on the beat” events on at least the first three quarter notes in 12/8. The second half of the measure has most events that occur off the beats. This produces a "masculine" on the beat first part and a "feminine" syncopated second part.

Since there are 7 notes in a major scale, a rhythm based on it can never be divided exactly in half. One side either has 4 and the other has 3 events or visa versa. This may be where the preference for asymmetrical rhythms comes from around the world. This is possibly why the clave in Salsa music has two parts. One is on the beat, the other is syncopated. One has three events and the other has two.

The alternation of them produces the tension relaxation that we're used to as westerners. However, we need to be careful because the increase of tension so valued by westerners often has the result of producing anxiety in the listener. Not a goal of healing music but a little "interest" is good especially in dance music. African melodic cells would repeat ad nauseum except for the fact that they never play them the exact same way twice. I suspect this reduces the anxiety while simultaneously relieves the potential boredom.

Voudou Drumming:

Bata drums from Haiti (think voudou), use THREE drums/instruments to create the interlocking rhythm. I think the reason why so many people like interlocking rhythms such as Africa, Bali etc...is because they create a smooth rhythmic surface. The same things we find beautiful in art and in people we also like in music. We all love a symmetrical face with smooth clear skin.

In the Bata drumming of Haiti there are seven standard rhythms Bayuba, Yakota Ebipkumi, Biobayare, Idilantilanti, Bembe and Yanvalou. Each one is addressed to the Gods or a certain God and is in either a 6 or 12 beat rhythmic cycle and intended to induce trance. But unlike other trance traditions where the shaman travels to the spirit world, in Haiti the Gods are thought to descend and are said to "ride" worshipers. As Andy Narell’s lyrics say, “dress up in the beat and wait for the spirits to move.” When a person is posessed, people ask them questions about money, love and important information. The usualy stuff.

African Melody:

Amadinda xylophone music of Uganda
Africa has a scale in 5-tone equal that uses interlocking parts similar to gamelan music. So, western music is in 12 tone equal, gamelan music is in 10 tone equal, Thai is in 7 tone equal, Ugandan music is in 5 tone equal. I wonder if there are any cultures that use 11 or 9 tone equal. Maybe not.

Kora tuning:

The double harp from Africa known as the kora has a tuning in the more traditional inland regions having notes closer to the ones in 5 tone equal. These regions were less influenced by westerners and more influenced by Persian people.