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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
 Posted - 09/24/2010 : 09:23:10 AM
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There is a big difference between someone saying "I am offended by this word" and saying "this word is offensive."
In the former case, I can respect the speaker and try to understand why it affects them personally; perhaps I will learn something I had not before known - or they may discover that they were working under an erroneous assumption.
In the latter case, however, the speaker is telling me that I must accept their perspective on the issue to be forced upon me, end of discussion.
Many commonly-used terms can be described as having offensive origins at some point (think "to gyp someone"), but some of those stories can be inaccurately apocryphal. (In my personal experience, the etymological research I've seen into "Jew's harp" tends to lead towards Keaka's notes.) And as a different kind of example, there are many people who firmly believe the word "niggardly" is offensive towards African-Americans, incorrectly so.
Bottom line is that we're never going to PROVE these points to the complete satisfaction of all parties - so let's not impose our personal perspectives upon others, if we can at all avoid doing so.
SO ---
Why is it, in Hawaiian music, there is much praise for the very distinct ha`i effect, while many other musical styles work to blur the vocal break between full and falsetto voice? |
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noeau
Ha`aha`a
USA
1105 Posts |
Posted - 09/24/2010 : 09:37:01 AM
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| If you find and listen to recordings of old chants you will see that haʻi existed way long, possibly, before the arrival of missionaries and four part harmony. it was part of the sound of some chants and it gave them an eerie sort of sound. |
No'eau, eia au he mea pa'ani wale nō. |
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Volcano
Akahai
USA
89 Posts |
Posted - 09/24/2010 : 09:56:43 AM
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| All of your points are much appreciated, but here's my viewpoint: I am anything but a defender of the Jewish religion or any other religion for that matter. However, I don't deny almost 6,000 years of familial history. I spent most of the 1970s as the ONLY admitted Jewish musician working in the country music industry. I traveled for almost a year with a card carrying member of both the KKK and the American Nazi Party. Needless to say, I have felt the sting of hate and irrational anger. So be it. There seems to be no knowledge of the origin of the term Jew's Harp, only conjecture. There is only scant evidence that the term has been used in it's earliest times with derogatory intent. In Michael Wright's scholarly article (referenced above) he refers to the "Jewish Race." While most likely completely innocent, it takes away a great deal of his credibility. In fact, over time, the term Jew's Harp has taken on offensive meanings to a group of people who may be overly sensitive. But sensitivity comes from living in a certain reality. I can't deny that I am of the Jewish culture no matter how meaningless it is to me. A google search of my last name will show there are groups who feel my family controls world banks. And there are those who threaten further extinction of my immediate bloodline even though there's not a banker or money person among us. So here I am trying to be in a certain community - a loose online community but one nonetheless. I saw a term that I found offensive and thought I could gently point it out to the person who used it. So I was apparently wrong. |
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hapakid
Luna Ho`omalu
USA
1533 Posts |
Posted - 09/24/2010 : 2:44:47 PM
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Back to falsetto singing...
As retro pointed out, Hawaiian falsetto singers emphasize the break where most forms try to minimize it. I think that listening to Hank Sr. or even Garth Brooks throw it into their singing I'm reminded that the break of the voice shows a strong naked emotion connected to what the singer is saying. Even more so in Hawaiian music where sentimental affection for a person or place is found in almost every song.
Jesse Tinsley |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 09/24/2010 : 3:01:29 PM
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| Down home people (kinda like Hank, Sr.) have used that break frequently. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of famous people that you would know, but plenty uncles and Pawpaws sing that way, even now days. Even periodically, a few Aunties and Mawmaws. Sometimes Bill Monroe sang that way. To us from the Appalachian mountain areas (I shan't call us hillbillies lest someone come give me the cyber stink eye). That is why the stuff passed off as country music contemporaneously is JUNK. But as much as I like down home music like that, it is not done any where as good as it is done in Hawai`i. I love it and wish I could sing that way. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 09/24/2010 : 7:21:42 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by guitarded
... he loudly chanted an oli that included a dramatic break in his voice that sent chills down my spine. I had never heard him do anything like this before so it really caught me off guard. Strong naked emotion. Good description.
No`eau and I were talking about this again tonight, and he was telling me more about the break in chanting; it reminded me that Kalae Miles taught some of us about that in a workshop a few years ago, and how the ha`i can be used to emphasize a part of the chant that is key - a way of saying "children, listen and REMEMBER this."
Perhaps that still exists in the other cultures we're talking about as well, but it's become a bit more subtle over time. |
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basilking
Lokahi
125 Posts |
Posted - 09/25/2010 : 06:16:20 AM
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| I recently attended a Western Music Ass'n workshop taught by WMA female yodeling champion Judy Coder. Lots of interesting & useful technical tips. Discussion of the need to avoid "Swiss" style and hew to the cowboy style; I felt no need to muddy the waters with the Hawai`ian vocal applications I'd apply the help to. Her general remark that a yodel or falsetto break draws attention to a song or certain emotional portion echoes remarks above. |
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hwnmusiclives
`Olu`olu
USA
580 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2010 : 04:54:47 AM
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I spend a lot of my summer at the Jersey Shore. No, it is nothing like what you see on the TV show. But there is one perspective that is the same about the show as it is actually being here: There is a gentle disdain for those who invade the shore points during the summer months. This is true of every "culture" that has a tourist attraction in their backyard - from the coastal towns of Maine to Key West, Florida. The "locals" in every tourist town have a term for the seasonal invaders. In Hawai'i you might hear the term "haole tourists." Here in New Jersey we call the non-locals "bennies."
I grew up with the etymological history of the term "benny" as it was handed down to me through my family, and I was sure it was true. Supposedly, "benny" is an acronym for the faraway points from which the tourists came: Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark, and New York. The first initial of each of these spells "BENNY." A few weeks ago, however, I was reading Ben Zimmer's column in the New York Times Sunday Magazine section. (Ben Zimmer replaced my hero, the legendary William Safire.) The topic was the origin of "benny." The origin I put forth above was one of many contending possibilities. Another was that it was a reference to the hundred dollar bills (on which the face of Benjamin Frankin appears) that the tourists came and threw around. And yet another which I had never heard claims that the term comes from the common Jewish name "Benny" - a reference to the fact that so many of the tourists were Jewish.
It's funny how my perspective on the word changed when I heard this. I stopped using it almost immediately because I never realized that there may be insulting racial implications to a word I had used since childhood. But now reading this thread, I wonder why I stopped. The origins of the word are truly unknown. All we have are theories. I stopped because I wanted to be sensitive to others. But it raises the question about whether I was being insensitive or others are being overly sensitive.
I was a linguistics major. So this is an issue that interests me on a number of levels - both as a lover of words, a citizen of the world, and an observer of human nature. Consider this...
Some here have said that the origin of "Jew's harp" is that it was an inexpensive instrument and there is a stereotype at play in the name. What if I told you that the instrument is called a "Jew's harp" because a man named Goldberg invented it but nobody could remember his name? So they just called it the "Jew's harp" because Jewish people remembered that someone Jewish invented it. If we suddenly started calling that a "jaw's harp," perhaps Jewish people would be offended for not calling it by its proper name since calling it its proper name would be an honor to the Jewish man who invented it.
We weren't there. We'll never know.
The real question isn't whether or not a term is racist. The real question is what makes a term racist? And I think the answer is perception. I used to carpool with a libertarian (he was the libertarian vice-presidential candidate more than a few years ago) who had some pretty radical ideas about things. We had quite a row one day on the lengthy drive to the office. And I shot back at him, "You offended me." And he said with no malice and yet no apology, "No, I didn't. You may be offended, but I didn't offend you. Why do you blame me for being offended? Because I said it? Why didn't you think to blame yourself for how you reacted to it?" And I think there is a great deal of wisdom in this. Somehow through time, we have given emotions to words. We say this word is "rude" or that word is "racist" or even that a word is "emotionally super-charged." But words can't have emotions. They only have the emotions we give to them. (Check out Louise Rosenblatt's Reader Response Theory - about the interaction between reader and text, speaker and listener.) When we say that someone used an offensive term, perhaps we should pause to ask ourselves if we really believe it was their intention to offend. Then we should ask ourselves why we were offended. How many generations do we need to be a part of the fabric of a nation before we stop considering ourselves a "minority?" What is the trigger inside of us that is preprogrammed to rankle at certain words and references? And why do we try so hard to control how others use words rather than try harder to control our reaction to them?
Maybe the problem isn't them. Maybe it's us. So many of us - myself included - are quick to give an education to someone else about their cultural insensitivity. The question is why does it matter? For all we know, we are creating a complex for someone who doesn't have a racist bone in their body, and now that they have been enlightened that the name of an instrument is potentially racially offensive, this previously innocent person now has to have the presence of mind to go around trying not to unintentionally offend others by saying things they never knew were offensive in the first place.
Leave it alone. Words only have the meaning we give to them when we receive them. This is how 100% of misunderstandings occur. "What I said" doesn't matter. Only "what you heard" does. What we cannot hear - ever - are the motivations of the heart. Nobody knows somebody else's motives. So why do we claim that we do? And we do it every time we say, "That's offensive."
And just so this post is relevant to the charter of this forum, I think there is another lesson here. We don't know the true origins of the term "Jew's harp," and we don't know the true origins of the term "benny." So, how useful is an oral tradition anyway? If we know so many mele by how they were taught by one's grandfather or mother or uncle, and if the versions of the same song taught to us by different people are different somehow, whose version is right? Maybe that isn't the question to ask after all. I mean... Whose version of a mele is correct is the same question as whose version of the etymology of "benny" is correct, no? So maybe we should be asking ourselves a different question. Maybe the question isn't whose version is correct. Maybe the question is why should it matter? What do we gain by knowing our version of a song is the right version besides being... right?
~ Bill
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Edited by - hwnmusiclives on 09/27/2010 05:04:17 AM |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2010 : 05:36:02 AM
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| Bill - I applaud you. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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Bau
Lokahi
USA
226 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2010 : 08:31:01 AM
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great post Bill, you touched apon a lot of interesting concepts.
It does tie in well to my original question, about the origin of styles. One thing that has always puzzled me have been notions of racial, cultural and national boundries. People have always traveled and taken on new ideas, aspects of other cultures, and bloodline too as they have interacted. So do boundries even exist? Like Hawaiian guitar, which was not realy Hawaiian but guitars came from the spanish, they just did it there own way. Even the race of people, as some of the other discusions suggest were not 'native' to the islands at one time but migrated there from the north. So for me I find it confusing look at something from a view of what culture it belongs too of what is 'native' of 'traditional'. Exactly, what is the 'right' way?
very interesting anagram of the term 'benny' btw lol
And that was my assumption about the Jew's Harp , that the name was because it originaly a Jewish made instrument.
All life is perception from the imput of sences, to how we mentaly and emotional view and react to things. All the worlds a stage, and we are only interpretors of each others 'performance' and can't see into anothers heart. And I get dismayed myself at how we are so programed to always take offence at mere communication and harbor alienation instead of trying to sort out the misinterpreation, yet the real things of this world, terrible goings on and injustice that we should take great offence at, are so often ignored or avoided. |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2010 : 09:06:34 AM
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RE: The etymology of the term "jew's harp"--
For the record, the VIM referenced on the jewsharpguild.org site linked to previously is the late, lamented Vierundzwangsteljahrsschrift der Internationalen Maultrommelvirtuosongenossenscaft, of which I am a charter member.
Frederick Crane traces the first use of the term "Iues trump" (trump is the Medieval name for the instrument) to 1545. He goes on to say " The name is strange, illogical, and a little embarrassing."
As a descendent of Aaron and a longtime jew's harp player (with the cracked teeth to prove it) I use whichever name works with my audience.
Am I offended by "jew's harp?" No, I am not. But I also recognize that the phrase is much the same as "indian giver" or "gypped"-- or, for that matter "Indian" or "Gypsy" -- in that it reflects the everyday prejudice of an earlier time. I will not tell you the original name of the mountain I live on here in Oregon.
Incidentally, the only Hawaiian stringed instrument, the ukeke, is played in the same manner as the, ahem, trompe (French name for the, umm, juicy-harpy-thingie.)
RE: The break in the voice when singing falsetto in Hawaiian music. I love it.
It is quite common in folky styles. Just heard an amazing Galician singer who emphasized the break as a rhythmic device--and one which exactly mimicked the characteristic break of the gaita.
Once again, the commonality of all us folks on the planet is a source of joy and wonder.
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Edited by - Mark on 09/27/2010 09:11:45 AM |
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basilking
Lokahi
125 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2010 : 2:57:17 PM
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| "Sing a song of six-string, apocryphal awry" |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2174 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2010 : 3:07:12 PM
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Musicians have always listened to other musicians.
A rose by any other name would still have thorns.
A friend took "nationality" jokes and renamed them "man" jokes. They still worked.
Wanda, "hillbilly" has an old history. In Scotland, Protestants were called "Billies" (after King William of Orange) and Catholics were "Timmies". As most of the early white settlers of the Appalachians were Scots and Scots-Irish Protestants, the name came about.
Humanity has alway had trouble with percieved "otherness". Ignorance begets and perpetuates fear, whereas ignorance should spur curiosity, learning and a humility born of "not knowing all the answers".
Thus: There are many ways to build / tune / play a guitar.
Stay curious. As my Grandma said, "All the cards haven't been played yet." |
Edited by - thumbstruck on 09/27/2010 3:09:13 PM |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2010 : 3:16:21 PM
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| I'd druther be called a hillbilly than "poor Appalachian white" like some government studies have done. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him a duck. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2174 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2010 : 04:06:56 AM
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| You can lead a horse to drink, but you can't make him water. |
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falsetto singing
