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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
 Posted - 04/18/2008 : 4:49:33 PM
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I was having a conversation over lunch today with a close friend who is a professional musician. (Classical & opera conductor.) The conversation got around to trends in contemporary music, and I think my friend had an insight that is worth repeating here.
Throughout contemporary music there is a very strong tendency towards rhythm and away from melody. My friend spoke of it in terms of contemp classical (where, interestingly, there is a reaction against this movement on the part of some composers,) and even more so in popular music. Hip hop, rap - perfect examples of music in which melody is almost an afterthought. Interestingly, Paul Simon made a comment, shortly after the popularity of his Graceland album, that he mourned the death of melody in contemporary music.
Relevancy to this board? Most of the traditional Hawaiian mele, at least that which is not chant based, is rich in deeply beautiful and moving melody. Certainly that it the most significant reason why I, and my friend, are hooked on it. But ... if the up and coming generations are brought up with music which disdains melody or at least relegates it to a strong secondary role, well, that adds to the obstacles to their apreciating traditional Hawaiian song. All of us live within our cultural "fishbowls." On the other hand, it might make it easier to young peopple to relate to chant based mele, withness the increasing popularity of hula kahiko.
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2008 : 02:57:23 AM
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Good topic, this.
Though, to be sure, we might just as well wonder about the new-fangled fad that moved Hawaiin mele away from rhythm and towards melody in just a few hundred years...
What I find so interesting is how non-melodic talk-style (rap) has taken over in trad & roots music as in places as divers as West Africa, Polynesia and Asia. Since contempory classical music (you know what I mean) tends to follow the pop world and vice versa, can we look forward to the conductor toasting over the string section while the triangle and timpani lays down a beat?
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2008 : 05:02:52 AM
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I coulda swore I read about Paul Simon regarding Graceland and rythms that he said that the rythm was what was important on that album and that his father who was a bandleader stated that without strong rythyms and hooking people in with the beat, you've got nothing. On that recording he had the "African" beat with Ladysmith Black Mambazo (I think).
However, I want both, to a degree. That is why I like Led's playing, especially Radio Hula. I like that bass he gets and it makes you want to get up and move around. It is so very syncopated. Same with Uncle Raymond's music -- he could play so sweetly and rythmically, like no one else could. Same-same for George Kuo's stuff -- good rythm, and Dennis and so many more, like Duke & Jay. But, the Hawaiian guys for the most part do not overshadow the melodies. They have a wonderful talent for balancing the two.
Now, the rap or hip-hop stuff I cannot abide. It makes my headache throb in time to the beat. And I definitely do not like electronic drums. That is just a headache waiting to happen, plus they just do not sound right. Like synthesized music. Fun for a while, but it does not have richness and tone and resonance like the real thing. My Clavinova can make the music sound like just about any instrument you can imagine, even guitar. Or so they say. It really does not sound like a guitar to me. Close but no cee-gar. And the built in rythms on the Clavinova can help you stay in time as you are learning a song, but stilll has the "dead" sound pf phoney drums. Sunds better to have a stick beating on a block of wood or `ili`ili or pahu, etc.
Moreover, melodic to me does not mean dischordant with all those weird flat-seventh-diminished-agumented chords. I do not like dischordant, I like something that is easy on the ears, something that does not feel liike scratching fingers on a chalkboard or an industrial sewing machine.
Ever hear of Devo? They came from a bit south of Cleveland. The guy who started Devo was a DoD contractor who got debarred and punished for doing scurrilous things to cheat the government. But they were kind of odd looking and their music wasn't music.
What do yunz think of the music of Bootsie Collins? Is that music, too? Da bruddah from anodda planet. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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RWD
`Olu`olu
USA
850 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2008 : 07:01:04 AM
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I have noticed it from amateurs on YouTube instrumentals and also in some professional instrumentals. I think the common thread is that they are instrumentals. When a tune has words that are sung you end up getting a melody, I think. Maybe not always. I havnt thought it over very well before writing this.
After looking at several "original" amateure instrumental videos on YouTube, it occured to me that they were playing an acompanyment and thinking it was a tune--problem was that there was no melody. Just fills and variations. I think it is from lack of experience in this case. When it comes to professionals that do the same thing, it must be lack of inspiration or from trying to fill up the CD. If it is a musical choice, then I don't get it either.
Must be getting too old to appreciate the change. :) |
Bob |
Edited by - RWD on 04/19/2008 07:28:32 AM |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2008 : 07:57:49 AM
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| You know, Bob. You have made a great point. That is kind of why I do not personally care for Bob Brozeman's steel guitar. It is too much and gets in the way and cannot hardly even tell what tune it is supposed to be. I guess it is too complicated and sophisticated for me. That is why I never liked Jimi Hendix playing the Star Spangled Banner. Or any of that rock & roll jamming kine. Sometimes people play instrumentals just to show off how fast their fingers can move. Then I listen to Uncle Raymond's music, or George Kahumoku -- slow and sweet. Aaaahhh. So nice. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2008 : 08:21:02 AM
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Mark,
Last year (before we got Kevin) I went to a chamber series for new compositions. Three concerts, 6 pieces, I would judge that in only 2 of them the melody was predominant or significant. (The conductor had a similar opinion, though evaluated that as very positive.) Or look at Lou Harrison's work influenced by Gamelon ensembles. Nowadays going to a Michael Tilson Thomas concert and you get him doing a "rap" before each piece. Only a matter of time before we get simlucast commentary. (If fact some concert halls are already experimenting with forms of this.)
Bob, I listen to a pop station about an hour or two a month just to hear what' going on. Lots of songs with lyrics. Not much nelody.
Wanda, Graceland did indeed have an strong Groove, African based. The beat is part of the groove and important. Simon, however, in his comments, was stepping back and looking at the arc of popular music and projective where it would go. Two different issues. |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 05:47:49 AM
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Raymond, the kind of "Western Art Music" you experienced is heavily influenced by academics. It has little to do with anything except pleasing other academics who all have experimental notions, and wish to advance their careers in academia. It is much like the "Deconstruction" nonsense in English Lit. Since we are in the center of one of these places (the Yale School of Music and the Yale English Dept. which was the epicenter of deconstruction a few years ago), we get to observe this more than most.
We went to a recital by Ben Verdery, who runs the guitar program here at Yale. He had one nod to Bach, and the rest was academic "experimental" compositions. Loops, which he played against, and looped, to play against them again. And, on and on. I know Ben likes roots music (or whatever you call it) because he bopped his head along to a ragtime piece a friend of mine played at a street music festival here. But, when he is being himself, both at school and in NYC (where he really lives) he plays that academic stuff. Atonal music (Schoenberg, et. al.)is now passe - can you believe?
The stuff you hear on radio is a cultural phenomenon and will pass when the next cultural phenomenon arises.
BTW, we have seen,and heard, LBM in person 3 times. They do have melody , but is backed by complex rhythmic patterns and physical actions, such as carefully choreographed jumps. They didn't make those things up - they are traditional Zulu patterns, honed in competitions that were held in all-male work camps. The things they originally composed were, in fact, the melodies to accompany the poems and stories they created. All the call-and-response rhythmic parts are traditional.
...Reid
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Edited by - Reid on 04/20/2008 05:49:13 AM |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 10:25:33 AM
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| Was listening to Bros. Cazimero today. Talk about melody. Nothing missing there. I just came to the realization that it is Roland who puts all the power in the Bros. Cazimero. Between his guitar playing and his soaring harmonies, he takes Robert's lovely voice to heights unseen. WOW! |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 1:07:51 PM
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| Let me be succinct. Most kids today like rap, hip hop, and similar. This is music without developed melody. Grow up with a taste for that and you will probably not be inclinded towards music which is strongly melody based - like much of Hawaiian mele. |
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hapakid
Luna Ho`omalu
USA
1533 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 1:29:39 PM
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Without getting into academic descriptions of musical terms, there are only a few melodies being written today that will endure for their beauty, but many from the past (that's the definition of "endure", I guess.) Some favorites: My One and Only Love, You Belong to Me ("see the pyramids along the Nile..."), Autumn Leaves. Lots of Hawaiian songs, of course, because they dwell on the melodic aspects of the music in order to tell a mo'olelo.
Jesse |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 1:34:32 PM
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quote:
Or look at Lou Harrison's work influenced by Gamelon ensembles.
Nothing new there. B'sides, Gamelon music is very melodic, in a clangy-bangy kinda of way.
quote:
Nowadays going to a Michael Tilson Thomas concert and you get him doing a "rap" before each piece.
Where's Steve Allen now that we need him?
quote:
Ever hear of Devo? <SNIP> But they were kind of odd looking and their music wasn't music.
Sez you.  I like Devo.
& Bootsy. And John Cage and Harry Partch and Ornette Coleman and 'Trane & Monk and Funkadelic and Lee Perry and Balkan stuff in factional time signatures and weird old modal Appalachian keening and Parisian/Afro/Mexican/R&B mash-ups and poly-rhythmic slit drumming from the South Pacific and all kinds of non-diatonic music with demented sevenths and over-sexed ninth chords (prizes for who comes up with the correct reference), and yes, even some hip hop.
Duke Ellington said "There are only two kinds of music: good and bad." To which I add, "Then there's the kind I like and the kind I don't."
I play the kind I like.
R We Not Men????
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 2:03:04 PM
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Did anyone, besides me, read the piece on Ornette Coleman in the current New Yorker? You can read it on their web site. One point (there were many) made in the article, is that Coleman has suffered, in a business way, because of his melodic predilections.
In addition, there is a *glorious* B&W picture of Coleman facing the article. No color digital camera can ever even approach the artistry of that.
...Reid |
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`Ilio Nui
`Olu`olu
USA
826 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 3:56:28 PM
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Mark,
This ones for you: I-M-4-U S-I-M S-I-M G-I-1-2-B-4-U-4-F-R U-R-X-T-C S-U-R S-U-R I-N-10-2-B-4-U-4-F-R I-M-I-N-U U-R-I-N-2 S-E-Z-2-C B-B U-N-I-C-I-2-I-O I-M-4-U S-I-M S-I-M And he still holds the record for the most songs copyrighted.
Bev and I have been season ticket holders to the Monterey Jazz Festival for 25 years. I also am a melody freak or at least a motif freak. The MJF, on any given year, can venture from KC and the Sunshine Boys to Ornette Coleman. I don't care how far out there it gets as long as I'm occasionally centered with the motif. It draws me back in. It's a statement of understanding; connection. If I don't "get it" I go wander the grounds and shop and eat. Ornette Coleman makes me walk, but I've also walked out on Dave Brubeck, my hero. I didn't "get it". At AMC, I've done 6 years worth of Master Classes. (Not Master in the George Winston/Dancing Cat sense) Keola always emphasizes that the first time through the pa`ani you should play the melody as close as you can, then you're free to twist it as you like; again, the center, the connection.
Jimi Hendrik's "Star Spangle Banner" is an ultimate expression of melody and creativity. IMO. Of course, I also saw him light his guitar on fire at the Monterey Pop Festival and then play harmony to it as it burned. The Four Way Osley may have enhanced the experience. But I also saw him so high on horse at the Fillmore, playing slow Bob Dylan songs, that I walked out. I didn't get it. Maybe melody is in the ear of the beholder.
I don't like "Rap". Not because it doesn't have a melody. It assaults my nervous system. I've spent a few late nights with Dr Dre and MC Hammer in studio sessions and came to understand and appreciate the medium. The "beats"are the melody. It's amazing to hear what the artist can do over the redundant motif; It's the percussion; the Chant. Don't listen to the words. Listen to the background. I still don't like it. It's the same reason I don't like most Classical Music. For the most part it assaults my nervous system, but it was Keola's classical sound that first lured me into Ki Ho Alu with his instructional VHS (now on DVD).
I have a dear friend, Phil Bauer, a world class graphic artist, who says "It's not 'I know what I like, it's I like what I know'".
pau, dog |
Edited by - `Ilio Nui on 04/20/2008 5:58:53 PM |
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RWD
`Olu`olu
USA
850 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 04:50:51 AM
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Ilio Nui
My god...I understood your first paragraph.
Should I seek help? :)
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Bob |
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`Ilio Nui
`Olu`olu
USA
826 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 05:15:45 AM
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Bob,
Is it that you remembered Steve Allen's theme song or that you understood the paragraph? Either way you need help. And so do I. LOL
dog |
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RWD
`Olu`olu
USA
850 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 06:20:27 AM
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| Never heard or seen it before. Go figure |
Bob |
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