3/4
On Hindu classical music
koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2012/05/hindu-survival-what-is-to-be-done.html
Hmmm. I think I know what he's trying to say, and if I'm right:
I was long in need of a word to explain why I liked Jazz music so much and felt it was similar in a way to our music, until the word in English was supplied by others who had consciously noted the difference. The word is "improvisation". European classical music doesn't know anywhere near the same "degree of improvisation".
As another explained to me, the older European classical music compositions were (and are still, ideally) to be played as written down to even the "stress" marks, not to mention that you always need to hit the same notes (same melody) - except for little flourishes perhaps. Even though the later, more sentimental strains of western classical (I think Chopin onwards etc) allowed people to play "more sentimentally" and thus not needing to be perfectly accurate to the exact markings for "hit hard now, play softly now" etc, it still allows considerably less leeway for the individual performer to develop the song and embellish it with their own touch.
Whereas Hindu, E Asian heathen and Jazz music (the latter owing to its very African origins) have great amounts of improvisation, naturally, built-in. In fact, this appears to be a key defining feature of such traditional music.
And I quite suspect that *that* difference is what makes Elst describe traditional Hindu music "as more individualistic and more complex" than European classical music and which thence leads to the perception of the former differing "from European classical music the way adult music differs from childrenââ¬â¢s songs".
Wish we could know what ancient traditional Hellenistic music sounded like: in his writings, the Emperor Julian impressed on the reader that it was *music* that was the pinnacle of Hellenes' accomplishment in maths and everything. So one naturally wishes one could have the pleasure of hearing it... Sigh, christianism murdered that too. Some sacred instruments remain, but that's not the same...
I have a sneaking suspicion that all heathen music - including the Hellenistic kind - had a significant component of "improvisation" and that perhaps this (the developing on a melody but sticking to the scale/raga) could at least be part of the mathematical element that Julian was alluding to.* And I further think that the modern change in popular music to a novel-like format for songs and music (a beginning, middle, end/couplet-refrain even climax) was a musical memetic revolution and has consequently started acting as a Replacement.
(Just to make it clear: while some modern western musicians try to incorporate evolving grooves and rhythms, and even evolving melodies or instrumentation in their pieces to keep the song "developing" instead of descending into excessive repetitiveness, that's not at all the same as improvisation. Neither is polyphonics or specific countermelody, nor sudden breakaway interludes in the middle of an otherwise generic song. And live remixing of trance etc songs is not what people mean under the term "improvisation" for the phenomenon either.)
* Alternatively, it could be polyphonics too (?)
On Hindu classical music
koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2012/05/hindu-survival-what-is-to-be-done.html
Quote:Indian classical music [...] More individualistic yet more complex, it differs from European classical music the way adult music differs from childrenââ¬â¢s songs.
Hmmm. I think I know what he's trying to say, and if I'm right:
I was long in need of a word to explain why I liked Jazz music so much and felt it was similar in a way to our music, until the word in English was supplied by others who had consciously noted the difference. The word is "improvisation". European classical music doesn't know anywhere near the same "degree of improvisation".
As another explained to me, the older European classical music compositions were (and are still, ideally) to be played as written down to even the "stress" marks, not to mention that you always need to hit the same notes (same melody) - except for little flourishes perhaps. Even though the later, more sentimental strains of western classical (I think Chopin onwards etc) allowed people to play "more sentimentally" and thus not needing to be perfectly accurate to the exact markings for "hit hard now, play softly now" etc, it still allows considerably less leeway for the individual performer to develop the song and embellish it with their own touch.
Whereas Hindu, E Asian heathen and Jazz music (the latter owing to its very African origins) have great amounts of improvisation, naturally, built-in. In fact, this appears to be a key defining feature of such traditional music.
And I quite suspect that *that* difference is what makes Elst describe traditional Hindu music "as more individualistic and more complex" than European classical music and which thence leads to the perception of the former differing "from European classical music the way adult music differs from childrenââ¬â¢s songs".
Wish we could know what ancient traditional Hellenistic music sounded like: in his writings, the Emperor Julian impressed on the reader that it was *music* that was the pinnacle of Hellenes' accomplishment in maths and everything. So one naturally wishes one could have the pleasure of hearing it... Sigh, christianism murdered that too. Some sacred instruments remain, but that's not the same...
I have a sneaking suspicion that all heathen music - including the Hellenistic kind - had a significant component of "improvisation" and that perhaps this (the developing on a melody but sticking to the scale/raga) could at least be part of the mathematical element that Julian was alluding to.* And I further think that the modern change in popular music to a novel-like format for songs and music (a beginning, middle, end/couplet-refrain even climax) was a musical memetic revolution and has consequently started acting as a Replacement.
(Just to make it clear: while some modern western musicians try to incorporate evolving grooves and rhythms, and even evolving melodies or instrumentation in their pieces to keep the song "developing" instead of descending into excessive repetitiveness, that's not at all the same as improvisation. Neither is polyphonics or specific countermelody, nor sudden breakaway interludes in the middle of an otherwise generic song. And live remixing of trance etc songs is not what people mean under the term "improvisation" for the phenomenon either.)
* Alternatively, it could be polyphonics too (?)