Much of the music we hear on popular radio nowadays is very homogenous in terms of time: narrow range of tempos, all around 3 minutes. But many world musics have very different ways of structuring time. Please ask Profs Arom and Tenzer how time is structured differently in the musics they talk about and what the experience of different musical times do to us as listeners.

Andy : Richmond, VA

I just listened to the clip of the Pygmy man playing the single note whistle and singing. Herbie Hancock used this same technique on the opening riff to “Watermelon Man” from his incredible 1973 album “Head Hunters”. In this particular case the whistle was made from a half-filled beer bottle.

I would be interested to hear from your guests if they know of similar situations where traditional / aboriginal music has been “borrowed” by jazz / pop musicians.

Great show. Any recommended recordings for purchase?

Can you guests suggest where we can find CDs of the music they are discussing?
Wonderful show.

I was lucky to attend West Virginia University in the late 1960s and the early 1970s when percussion professor Phil Faini (Fy-EE-nee) traveled to and returned with various instruments and musical knowledge about East & West Africa which he shared & taught with the university community.

I was exposed to fantastic music during my visit to Haiti. Gaga and Rara (in the Dominican Rep.) are fantastic examples of complex, hypnotic and transcendant rythms. I have a feeling that these styles will become obsolete when ever Haiti modernizes. Currently, there might be one or two radios in a town, and then it might only be listened to once in a while, and thus these styles are widely used! It’s awesome to think that there is such a resource so close to this country, and that it might be close to being lost!

There’s nothing like music to understand a culture!

Robert Kyr, professor of composition and theory, at University of Oregon School of Music and Dance and the
director of the Pacific Rim Gamelan, has a wonderful CD, Violin Concerto Trilogy, that beautifully melds Western orchestral music with Balinese Gamelan in the Violin Concerto No. 2 (“On the Nature of Harmony”), section of the CD.

I had the opportunity to spend time in Mali, W. Africa in the late 80s. While I was there, I took music lessons on the balafon–a instrument like a xylophone. I was mesmerized by a whole different, and impenetrable, sensibility around “time.” Trying to apply my concepts of beats and measures and time signatures and keys was fruitless. Only by putting aside my understanding of these structures and using my ear and memory could I play along with my teacher. One night, while sitting in the dark outside the hut where I was staying, I focused in on the sounds around me. I heard the rhythms of the music I had been learning in the patterns of music that were being created by three fruit bats singing in three separate trees, accompanied by the croaking and chirping of toads and insects. Sounds hokey, I know–but it was amazing! It made me wonder to what extent human music comes from inside ourselves or is a reflection of what we absorb from the environment of sound around us.

Wonderful show! Thanks to Tom Ashbrook, Simha Arom and Michael Tenzer. It was a genuine pleasure to hear samples of the music discussed on the show today (and thanks to “On Point” for putting up samples on this forum).

I am a musician and have been so since I was around four. I started on drums and ukulele. I now play a variety of percussion instruments, as well as acoustic, electric and resonator guitars. I also give lessons in all of those instruments.

The layering of instrumentation, particularly from the gamelan ensemble, was intriguing. I have been most interested in my life with polyphony and polyrhythms but how to achieve a balance of those using modern forms, so it was quite a delight to hear some of the recordings presented today when broken down into their individual parts then having each added together.

There was a bit of controversy about three quarters of the way through the show when Tom played some of Madonna’s and Herbie Hancock’s music that utilized some of those traditional elements heard from some of the guests’ field recordings. Mr Arom very flatly said that this way of using traditional forms of music did not serve any purpose (I’m paraphrasing, but it was to that effect).

I have to disagree with Mr. Arom, and my rapt attention of the discussion to the beautiful music being played in the show, and the moments of being transported by the various musical samples, was interrupted by a very old–and, in my opinion, very pedestrian and tiresome–debate of traditionalism vs. modernism in art (and, I might add, with virtually no examination of the complementarity of the two).

While I respect the importance of preserving traditions, I also feel that there is plenty of room in this world for both the preservation of traditions and the borrowing of traditions to produce new music forms.

I live in an area renowned for its traditions of Piedmont Blues, Old-Time Mountain Music, and Bluegrass, etc. There are plenty of traditionalists as well as modernists in those forms around here, but the traditionalists regularly show their disdain (in very much a similar way as Mr. Arom) for those who blend the different forms. They are very vocal about modernism being invalid, and even hold onto a notion that modernism will kill the traditions. There will always be traditionalists who play, promote and teach purity in tradition, and this is great, but the modernists keep the music vibrantly alive so that it doesn’t fall into the realm of “museum piece.” Modernism also serves to engage a new generation of listeners and players to both forms. More often than I can count I will hear of a young person who has been exposed to a modern form of a particular genre of music, then he/she will want to go back and explore its roots.

This process keeps music evolving, as well as serves to keep traditions alive. Otherwise musical forms die out. As the world evolves and remote areas of the world begin to acquire the acoutrements of modern society, tradition and modernity will blend. I feel if we embrace both, both will stay alive.

Loved the show, but was surprised there was no mention of Evan Ziporyn and his group at MIT, Gamelan Galak Tika.

http://www.galaktika.org/

Seems like a logical, local tie in.

Arom’s recording of “Hindehu”, in which the singer alternates between voice and flute was absolutely breathtaking and fascinating. Very great show today, On Point. Thank you!

Fantastic show on my favorite topic, traditional music from around the world!

I listen to On Point in the evenings. Yesterday morning I had sent off an application and course proposal on global music exchange to a university. Then I received to music preservation type recordings in the mail and to top all that off, I turned on the radio and I heard this segment which blew me away.

I’m a music journalist who started covering global music in 2002. I quickly fell in love with field recordings and traditional music. I also learned about psychoacoustics and sound healing (how musical vibrations affect our minds and bodies) and decided to research how ancient traditions healed with music.

So hearing a show about roots music acts as a high point for me. And like one of your guests mentioned, listening to music from other places is like falling down the proverbial rabbit hole or maybe a musical Land of Oz.

I hope you produce more segments on music and anthropology in the future.

Several comments above have requested links to audio recordings. Probably the best one-stop shop for authentic, legal, quality downloads and CDs is the Smithsonian Folkways site.

http://www.folkways.si.edu

Click on ‘advanced search’ and you can search by nation, genre, etc. This record label was formed in the late 1940s and has long specialized in folk, tradition, and world music. Enjoy!

Thank you very much for the show. Good for the soul.

I am wondering: is an English translation of the words used in the Balinese teaching song, and other like it, available? Where would I find such a thing? The little bit that Michael Tenzer translated for us struck me as very beautiful.

Are the recordings not working above? Would love to hear them.