Chapter 37:The Far East

Japan’s Musical Traditions

• Ma: loosely translated, “rest,” “space,” or “timing.” In music, the silences between sounds

• Traditional music often slow, non-metric• Goal is an unrefined sound

– Allowing for the instruments’ characteristic “noises”• Traditional repertoire is highly valued• Visual element of performance is also very important

Two Traditional Japanese Instruments• Koto

– Type of zither; Traditionally has 13 strings– Uses pentatonic tuning– Player can bend pitches– Part of the court orchestra as long ago as

700CE

• Shakuhachi – Bamboo flute; Komuso, wandering priests,

played them in meditation– Allows for enormous variety in dynamics,

tone quality, pitch, and expression

• “Yamato-joshi”– Existed as oral/aural music– Subtle changes reshape the piece over time– Slow, nonmetric– ma

A Chinese Melody for the Erhu

• Great emphasis on melody, almost no harmony• Melodies have microtones—tones found “in between”

half-steps on a modern keyboard– Erhu (“ARR-who”): player passes the bow between two

fixed strings while twisting the instrument; a sound box provides resonance: vibrato-rich, veiled tone

– Pipa: a four-string lute• The Butterfly Lovers Concerto by Chen Gang (b. 1935)

and He Zhanao (b. 1933)– Traditional melodic gestures of the erhu and the

sonorities of the late-Romantic Western symphony orchestra

– Western influences condemned by Chairman Mao Zedong

Characteristics of Indian Music

• Strong tradition of classical, folk, and popular music• India’s classical music is the oldest and most revered• Northern India: Hindustani-style music • Southern India: Karnatak-style music• Relies exclusively on the melody for musical expression• No contrapuntal lines, no harmony; use of a constant

drone• Highly flexible quality of Indian melody can best be

heard on a string instrument• Raga: Basic pattern of pitches• Raga Bhimpalasi

• Tala: Indicates how many pulses are grouped together and how they are grouped together in long cycles– 3+4+3+4+3+4 or 2+4+4+4 (as in Raga

Bhimpalasi)– Ever-recycling nature has been compared to the

Hindu concept of reincarnation– Beat often purposefully deemphasized – Karnatak-style classical music: Audience

participates in keeping the tala by clapping– Hindustanti style: Almost always sung

• Sitar: Large, lute-like instrument with as many as twenty strings

• Tabla: Pair of tuned drums– Sam: First pulse of a tala

An Orchestra from Bali, Indonesia• Gamelon: Ensemble made up of different

instruments that play together– Mainly percussion instruments: Tuned gongs,

pitched gong-chimes, drums, cymbals– Metallophones: Xylophone-like instruments

with bronze keys struck by hammers– Occasionally flutes and voices are added

Gamelan Music

• Cyclically organized music structured around a single core melody– Creates rhythmic and melodic ostinatos

• Gong indicates the pattern– Big, booming gong strikes only as a cycle

ends or begins

• Elaboration on the core melody• Interlocking styles: Players of different

instruments contribute snippets of music that combine to form composite musical lines– Reinforces the Balinese belief that everyone

in the world supports and relies on others

• Interlocking style:

• “Hujan Mas” (“Golden Rain”)–Popular keyboard piece based on a melody from a Javanese piece of the same name–Each instrument has a chance to show what it can do–Opens with a complex, rhythmically irregular introduction played by unison metallophones–Core of the piece is a continuous eight-bar rhythmic-melodic cycle