The most important things I learned this week weren't specifically about music. They were more about HOW to learn, and how to succeed in graduate school.
For example, I have a TON of reading to do. Not just required reading; there are tons of additional books on subjects I know so little about. Choosing what to spend my time reading is difficult. Knowing what to read for is also a challenge. But it's a challenge I must take up.
Now on to the good stuff...
African Music: I learned about "finding the beat" this week. It's sometimes tougher than it looks. I'm inclined to read African beat patterns in terms of 2/4 or 4/4, when in reality it's actually more like 12/8. I'm always amazed when the bigger drums come in, how they've been hearing this triplet feel the entire time, despite the bell pattern. I know it will take more practice (read: more listening) to really get the hang of things, but I'm already discovering how to "find the beat" in several African music examples that Dr. Agawu gave to us.
I also learned a lot about semiotics this week, which is the study of signs and symbols. I knew almost nothing of semiotics before this week. I had a glancing understanding as to the definition of the term, and I had done some research on concrete vs. abstract symbols within the realm of human development and education. But that was IT. But then this week, we had to read Eco, Peirce, and other semiotic writers, and it was like going from 0 to 60 in 2 seconds. I found myself overwhelmed.
But I persisted, and I managed to learn some basic things about semiotics. Namely, what the differences are between icons, indices, and symbols. Symbols are the most complex, because they are basically arbitrary identifiers which only relate to what they relate to because of some previously-established code. Words are symbols. The letters C - A - T do not in any way resemble a cat or create a cat. But somewhere along the line, a group of people decided to dub these three letters grouped together as C - A - T as a symbol for a furry feline animal who loves lasagna. My name is a symbol. It's just two phonemes thrown together: Han - nah. What's a han? What's a nah? They mean nothing? Not even together do they mean anything. But through repeated use, those phonemes have come to represent me and my identity.
Meanwhile, music tends to be more iconic and indexical. It's iconic insofar as it is directly mimicking something concrete. For example, Messiaen's bird calls in Quartet for the End of Time are designed specifically to denote actual birdsong. It's not a perfect copy of birdsong, but it's definitely an intentional copy, and we can recognize it as a bird's call. Indexical music comes through direct association. There's a direct cause-effect relationship between an index and its interpretant. Think of the phrase "when there's smoke, there's fire." Smoke is an index of fire. It doesn't physically resemble fire, but based on past real-life experience, we've come to understand that the two things usually show up together. The same can be said for, say, a V-I chord progression being an index of ending a piece. With indices, it's all about real-world co-occurrence. No one is forcing the two to come together; they just appear that way enough times to where we link the two together. This could either be through natural co-occurrence, or social co-occurrence. And since it's real-world co-occurrence, everyone's perceptions of an index can be interpreted very differently. While the Trumpet Taps may connote death to an army vet, for me it may connote something far less grave. It's all about what we've experienced.
Can music be symbolic? Sure. But the writer Thomas Turino argues that the true emotional power of music exists in its indexical quality. The fact that each of us brings something different to the table in terms of indices means that we each can have our own personal interpretation of a piece of music. Furthermore, this interpretation we experience is usually on a more primal level that has no language -- no symbol. It's therefore a more direct experience; we are forced to re-live previous experiences in order to interpret a work of musical art.
This is why I couldn't listen to "Almost Gothic" by Steely Dan for almost four years. Whenever I heard it, the music served as an index to a specific time, place, and relationship. It was "our song," so to speak. And the feelings I felt during that relationship were strong, but ineffable. I can say words like "love," but that word just doesn't totally encapsulate the exact nuances and facets of my emotion. I can't completely describe the love I felt. And because I can't describe it, I am forced to simply re-experience that feeling. Music facilitates this response. It's indexical ability to relate to one's first-hand experiences without the use of language are very powerful.
Anyway, I found that idea to be very interesting. I'd like to explore this more, because I do think that music acts as a symbol as well as an index/icon, but Turino didn't touch on that very much.
What does all of this have to do with African music? I'm beginning to figure that out, but I'm not entirely sure. Dr. Agawu did not finish his discourse on semiotics in African music in class. I did hear several examples of iconic African music. The most... well, iconic... is the talking drum, which literally mimics speech patterns.
10 Albums:
We went through a little crash-course of music from 1969 to 1990 via a playlist. Among the tracks were David Bowie's "Space Oddity," Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime," ABBA's "Dancing Queen," and Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car." While it was definitely fun to listen to these great songs and talk about how much we love them, I'm unsure about what exactly I was supposed to take away from that experience. All I really learned was that group listening is kind of hard to do because everyone approaches a song from a different perspective. And you're afraid to not like something because it may or may not be your neighbor's favorite song. I don't know. It just didn't seem very critical.
And I don't mean 'critical' as in 'fault-finding' or 'negative.' I just mean that I don't think we really listened to this music with new ears and unlocked it as much as we could have. I mean, yeah, "Purple Rain" is great... but WHY is it great?
I have this conversation with my husband all the time, because whenever he doesn't like a song, I always interrogate him as to why and he often can't come up with an answer. "I just don't like it," he'd say. "Do I need a reason?"
Well... yes! At least I need a reason. For me, listening to a piece is finding those reasons! This may be why I find most music to be at least somewhat tolerable. Because I listen to it in a way that breaks it down to its various parts (instrumentation, melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.) and I usually find at least one component part that makes the whole thing salvageable. (Example: Nicki Minaj's "Stupid Hoe" is overall a pretty lousy song, but at least her vocal delivery is interesting.) In any case, I find I can always explain why I like a track because I have the tools and vocabulary to do so. And if I find something I don't like about the track, I have the tools and the vocabulary I need to explain why I don't like it. I assume most composition and musicology doctoral students have those same tools and vocabulary.
...Yet I don't think those tools were used to their fullest in that class. There was a lot of "great" and "beautiful" and "different," but not a lot of evidence to support those qualifying phrases. At one point, a student said she didn't love a track. When asked why, she said "I can't put my finger on it." It was just like my husband, who knows jack squat about music!
Is music just that ineffable to some people? I mean, I totally get how these component parts of a piece can work together to create something far more than the sum of its parts -- that's what makes music so great. But at the end of the day, it is just sound. It's a series of vibrations hitting your ears and your brain is interpreting them a certain way. I don't think there's much subconscious activity going on there. It's like what Turino said; it's the emotions that are ineffable, not the music itself.
AAAAANYWAY I'm blabbering on.
Handel's Messiah: I got a chance to look at some REALLY OLD SCORES last week, all of them relating to Handel's epic oratorio Messiah. I have a long history with that piece, and I thought my experience with performing and listening to the work would help in this class. But it looks like this course is going to focus around primary source work. I'll have to use some skills that I don't have yet. For example, I have to create a critical edition of a piece of music that doesn't have one, yet. WHAT? I've never done something like that before! For the paper, I'm supposed to engage not just with the published score of Messiah. I'm supposed to be doing comparative work with the original source material, which sounds like a real challenge.
That said, I am glad I'm doing this kind of work on a piece like Messiah. A piece I already love and I'm already familiar with.
Russian Ballet
HOLY COW, the things I learned about Russian ballet from the Silver Age! Mainly related to the SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT and how Russian composers were interested in ambiguous reality. We looked over several ballets last week, including The Little Humpbacked Horse, Coppelia, and The Sleeping Beauty. I found Coppelia to be a particularly fascinating ensemble. The symbolists loved it because it concerned itself with crossing between the world of people and the world of mechanical dolls. The symbolists are constantly asking "What is reality?" A lifelike doll is a good apotheosis of this question; she is mechanical -- not real -- yet behaves like a real person? So... what is she, really? And who does she symbolize? Are we not all puppets, subject to forces much larger than ourselves? Who's the puppet master, if this is the case? What is our purpose, then? Good questions to consider as we study Petrushka next week.
We also talked about the notion of Dionysian ("capital-M") versus Apollonian ("lowercase-m") music. Nietzsche first came up with those Greek-inspired terms to denote music that is transcendent and ecstatic (Dionysian) from more banal, frivolous, purely functional Apollonian music. The Sleeping Beauty sort of places the two musics in foil with one another.
I'd explain more, but I don't have my notes with me and I've spent way too much time on this blog post as it is. Just know that I am LOVING this class, and I am very thankful that Dr. Morrison let me take it as an independent study course. It's laying the groundwork for what I might want to study as a dissertation topic!
Listening To: Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors, Handel's Messiah, Stravinsky's Petrushka, and Michael Bolton's "Love is a Wonderful Thing" six or seven times in succession.
Reading: Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy in the Spirit of Music
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