Strength of Beat Positions in Melodic Rhythms

There is a greater likelihood that a chord tone and an important beat will coincide. Also, in a C Major scale for example, there's a greater likelihood of C being that note. Next up, E and G are statistically equivalent in strength. After that D and A receive equal weight. Finally, F and B come in last.

The different rhythmic positions will have varying degrees of gravitational pull on the chord tones. In a measure of 4/4, the first beat of the measure has the biggest chance of occurring simultaneously with a chord tone. The third beat has only a slightly lower magnetic influence on chord tones. The 2nd beat of the measure is next in line. The fourth beat has lower attraction still.

Upbeats as in the "and of 1,2,3 and 4" have even less pull. 16th note subdivisions begin to function only as ornaments to the beat they neighbor and have no attraction on chord tones of their own.

Of course, if you put chord tones on every beat in every song, it will be boring. Sometimes playing chord tones in a melody on beat 1 is enough. Oftentimes, it isn't. If you have a case where that isn't working then you can put a chord tone on beat 3 as well to give that measure a little more unity. If there are no chord tones on beats 2 and 4 then it can create a nice tension and release through a few measures or a whole section.

In syncopated music it often sounds good to put chord tones off the beat so then you could have chord tones on the "and of 1" and the "and of 3". Or on most if not all of the off beats. This makes a nice contrast to sections where chord tones fall on the beat.

If you were working with a melodic series of pitches but with a new melodic rhythm, and if you wanted the chord tones to fall on the beat, (syncopated or not) you could repeat a note which was a chord tone that was falling on the "and of 2" for example so that beat 3 would also get that chord tone.

The other option would be to repeat the previous note instead which would push the onset of the chord to start on beat 3, not before.

Also, you can end on a weak rhythmic position in a chorus but then you probably don't want to end on a stronger rhythmic position in the verse. The strongest ending positions are...

Book Summary: Anthropology of Music

The book Anthropology of Music talks about a new awareness of ethnomusicology's obligaton and a probling for what it is, does and the purposes toward which it is directed. It's the author's contention that ethnomusicology should focus on concepts about music, how music and behavior are interrelated and the sound of music. The author states that ethnologic behavioral concerns have not received an equal amount of attention by ethnomusicologists.

Performers and the performance context should be more fully at the center of analysis. The mere preservation of music has been overly focused upon,and ethnomusicology's role needs to be wider than that. More fully, ethnomusicology should have technical goals such as determining what music is to the extent possible, how music is made and what it's structure is both from a microscopic view and from the big picture.

Ethnomusicology also should have behavioral concerns relating to physical, conceptual/cultural, social, and learning what it means to be a musician, a listener or a participant in the culture in question. It should also be concerned with showing connections betwen ethnomusicology, the humanities and the social sciences. One of the problems that has been plaguing ethnomusicology has been it's inability to combine the social sciences and the humanties together.

The author states that the social sciences are concerned with the economic, political and social aspects of humanity while the humanities are concerned with art, religion, and philosophy. Social science stems from the needs of the body and the humanities stems from humanitiy's purposes. Social science engages in descriptions of behaviors while the humanities are concerned with human values.

The author believes that the thread connecting them is that they are both interested in what people do and why. The author goes on to say that ethnomusicologists have not consistently and completely applied the scientific method and have placed too much emphasis on the laboratory phase and not enough concerning the proper things to do before going into the field and in the field once they get there.

Ethnomusicologists should institutionalize a field method that is taken from ethnomusicology's base of accepted theory and then create hypothesis', field problems and research designs based upon the theory/theories. Concerning a good research plan there are four points to consider. Is the research possible? Does it have a goal? Has the methodology been recorded and which to employ based on a knowledge of the variety of methods available.

It should also say what the study did and did not accomplish. Musicology's neglected field phase can be broken down further to 6 areas of inquiry. 1 The material culture of music such as where the instruments fit within the taxonomy. 2 Song texts. 3 Categories, 4 The musician. 5 The uses and functions of music. 6 Music as a creative cultural activity.

Ethnomusicology also needs to determine the optimum number of song samples necessary to isolate styles and sub-styles. Lastly, ethnomusicology needs to be able to determine what aspects of structure constitute the determining factors of a certain style such as range, level, direction, countour, interval, interval patterns, ornamentation, melodic devices, melodic meter, duration values, structure, scale, mode, duration tone, subjective tonic, meter, rhythm, and tempo.

Indian Ragas

Indian Ragas:

Styles of Traditional Indian Music are based on the raga which is a composed scale that traditional says may have different ascending and descending forms similar to the western melodic minor scale. However, ragam are not scales or modes. Ragam have characteristic phrases called pakad if there is only one or swarup if there are several. Indians choose contrasting ragas for the next piece in a performance unlike Turkish musicians who usually say the next mode should be a direct development or Arabian music where frequent modulations should go unnoticed.

The introduction in Indian music is a long, long improvisation without a set meter. The composed section is in a particular rhythmic cycle. It has improvisational elements similar to jazz. The final movement uses speed picking. The first part of the fixed composition is confined to the lower and middle octaves. The second part extends from the middle to the upper octaves. A good musician should be able to play for more than one hour and not repeat the same phrase twice. Indian music does not allow multi-layered compositions. They say it would be rude to speak while someone else is speaking.

The most popular Indian Thaats/scales are;

Bilawal C D E F G A B1/4sharp. Its basically a major scale with a very sharp leading tone. ,

Bhairav C Db E F G A B1/8sharp. It has only a slightly raised leading tone.

Khamaj C D E F G A1/8sharp Bb1/8sharp. This is India's mixolydian.

Todi C Db Eb F# G Ab B1/8sharp.

Kalyan C D E F# G A1/4# B1/4#. This is India's Lydian mode.

Kafi CDEbF# G A1/4b B1/4#.

The indications for sharpedness and flatedness are only approximate.

Ragas often have two notes that are emphasized, usually a fifth apart, each appearing in a separate tetrachord. Both Persian and Indian music may have changing tones like the two versions of the melodic minor scale but Indian music never modulates. (There may be some recent exceptions).

Ornaments of Classical Indian Music:

The primary ornaments in Indian music which are some of the more beautiful available to the modern composer are portamento, a short grace not of low intensity, encirclement by microtones sometimes played in a series, fast oscillation but slight pitch variation and a lesser frequency oscillation but greater amplitude of vibration, three repeated notes and Andola and Murahan which have no western equivalent.

Indian Improvisation:

Classical Indian improvisation involves using the common motifs for a particular raga and standard ornaments. Motifs are turned into variations by rhythmic augmentation, diminution, retrograde, inversion and an unusual technique of adding notes such as playing the first not of a motif then playing the first and second, then playing the first, second and third etc…until the whole thing is revealed. This is also done in reverse order and backwards. Motifs are also sequenced through rhythmic displacement and note order permutations such as 1234, 1243, 1324 etc…

The moods created by music are carefully controlled. Indian musicians say that some sentiments are appropriate for music and others aren’t. Sadness and joy are proper but humor is not. Humor is o.k. in the theater however.

Thats the end of this discussion on Styles of Traditional Indian Music.