After tearing apart my home office and doig some re-organization I finally came across my copy of Charles Murray’s “Human Accomplishment” which was the main reason I decided to clean-up the office in the first place (so that I could find my copy, that is).

Mainly, I was interested in some of the methodology he uses in his book as he so meticulously describes all the statistical techniques he uses in compiling his inventories.

While I don’t agree with many of his conclusions (and how he got to them, for that matter) I was intrigued by the fact that he only included one inventory for music–and that was for “Western Music”–which listed the usual suspects in his rankings: Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, Bach, etc.

While his inventories stop at 1950 (so almost none of the so-called really popular “Pop Music” makes it into his lists) he does address the issue of Eurocentrism in Chapter 11 of his book, “Coming to Terms with the Role of Modern Europe” where he eventually states that,

“In music, the lack of a tradition of named composers in non-Western civilizations means that the Western total of 522 significant figures has no real competition at all.”

This is patently false as I’ve humbly come to understand only because I’ve spent the past few years playing music composed and written by composers from the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East that are centuries old in some cases and have also come to understand that the Byzantine Empire and the various Eastern Churches had traditions of notated music that in some cases date back to the 9th century or earlier.

Of course, since he is using standard Western texts for the compiling of his inventories of excellence, and having matriculated through that system of musical education, I understand that even trained musicians are not likely to know about notated art music traditions outside of the “West” so it would be disingenuous of me to criticize Murray for his ignorance of that without training as an ethnomusicologist [specializing in those areas of the world]. Then again, I’m no specialist in those musical areas of the world, either, but it hasn’t stopped me from knowing about the notation traditions and composer attributions in them. *shrugs*

I was really planning on writing much more but have been reading so many reviews of Murray’s book that I’ve really become far too fascinate with the oeuvre of literature surrounding its publishing to say much more right now. I will say that probably one of my favorites so far is Judith Shulevitz’s review in the New York Times.

What I hadn’t paid attention to in the past is that these fliers were (I’m assuming) for events in the Kentuckiana area (notice the bottom right hand corner: Vietnamese Musical Band of Louisville). The other flier I picked up was for a Vietnamese Lunar New Year concert happening at the local casino boat venue:

This reminded me of what I said about my “mission statement” as well as things I’ve posted elsewhere about playing for underserved audiences.

But what this really reminded me of what a short email exchange I had with someone that was spurred on by some comments I made in a discussion at Greg Sandow’s blog. I’m going to post my response to this person (I don’t have this person’s permission to post the other half of the exchange) which, I will mention, received no response but I think really underscores some of the issues surrounding my wanting to perform for underserved audiences, which in many cases means a minority audience (hence the title of this blog post). Some of this is only going to make sense in the context of the discussion at Mr. Sandow’s blog, but I think most of it is pretty self-explanatory.

to: ******** <*********@gmail.com>
date: Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 3:50 AM
subject: Re: Broader Audiences and such

****,

Thanks for being willing to continue this discussion. I really do appreciate it. I hope I clarified some of the points you’re referring to in my most recent post and response to Melissa at Greg’s blog (and I hope my public apology helps you understand that i’m not interested in a catfight as much as having a discussion). As far as to what Pierre-Arnaud–or rather to which composers he was using to illustrate his point, as I said in my post, Boulez, Carter and Lachenmann are hardly composers I would consider to have reached a larger audience at all.

That aside, I’m not sure how often you do read Greg’s blog or have followed any of my responses there, but your concerns about the whole idea of a “World Music group” are well founded and obviously issues I’ve had the ‘pleasure’ of dealing with. I think the biggest issue is that for all intents and purposes, that “World Music” designation was designed as a catch-all term that the music industry uses to market music that falls outside of most Western music genres. Or rather, it was a phrase that the industry adapted for use in marketing that kind of music (I haven’t really done any research on the evolution of the phrase as a way to categorize non-Western music, so can’t say for sure whether the usage was first a marketing term or just a general one to make those categorizations when describing the music).

That being said, there’s also the issue of it’s usage in marketing in two very distinct ways and for two very distinct “sub-genres” of “non-Western music”–basically for traditional folk/art or even pop music and then for the more contentious (and maybe the music to which you are referencing more?) so-called “World-fusion” music (especially as you describe it with the “World music groups generally condense various genres into stereotypes”). I’ve often heard this referred to as “Crossover” music, though that term also seems to include the crossover into classical music by pop musicians (or vice-versa) so maybe Crossover isn’t entirely appropriate here.

But my world music group isn’t entirely either of those. But mostly, the world music we do perform are traditional folk and art music works (with a smattering of world pop music hits). Given our instrumentation (vocals, mandolin, Egyptian tabla, cello, clarinet), it will never be entirely “traditional” enough for the purists at the same time, it’s a little too traditional for those audiences or contexts that want to “World Fusion/Crossover” sound (whatever that is). We generally stay away from genres or styles that have religious/ritual functions (for example, we would never think it would be appropriate for us to perform a “concert version” of an adhan–Islamic call to prayer–since none of us are Muslim, and since the call to prayer has a very time specific religious function).

That being said, the description of the students at the dance marathon was meant to illustrate changing tastes. If I had wanted to illustrate how good a fit we are as an ensemble in more traditional contexts I could have described an audience response at any number of private or public events we’ve done for ethnic populations (e.g. an Indian Bharat we did in Toronto in 2008 singing songs in Hindi and Punjabi; A Greek Orthodox engagement party consisting of primarily Arabs we played in Indianapolis a couple of years ago singing tunes in Arabic, Turkish, and Hebrew; The Louisville Italian Festival that we regularly played for several years performing only Italian standards with Italian instrumentation in various Italian dialects; a Greek restaurant owned by a first generation Greek immigrant that we regularly play singing Greek and Eastern European tunes; etc.). See, one of our stage-banter quips is to say we’re “putting the World back into World music.” These are what i meant by underserved audiences. I mentioned some others in the post I linked above (namely women and children).

I’m not meaning to be snide in response to your question, but we’re not all Americans. And in that sense I mean that I’m actually a legal resident living here in the States. Been here since I was a kid but have never bothered to get citizenship. Grew up in a household with my Thai mother as my primary caregiver. The first music I learned how to sing were Thai songs. Not having a Thai community around where I grew up, it made it difficult to keep a Thai identity despite being as immersed in it via my mother as was possible in the Midwest. At the same time, I never fully identified with mainstream American culture either for the obvious immigrant reasons as well as the legal reasons of my immigrant status which doesn’t afford me the same rights as citizens get.

My background has probably helped make it easier for me to identify with minority groups who have very little options as far as live entertainment options go. It has also probably helped me to understand how the live entertainment from our respective homelands resonate with each of us better than the majority of live entertainment that can be found here in the States can–not just the music, but also the dance and drama as well. That was even more apparent when I spent about a year doing write-ups for local (to Indianapolis) write-ups and previews of ethnic performances like Hindustani music concerts or Chinese Opera productions, or Salsa Band dance nights. Getting the feedback from members of those ethnic communities and the warm thanks and invitations to actually attend the events free of charge really drove the point home for me even more than my own personal experiences performing for them that there are sub-populations in the US that not getting what they want out of mainstream American culture.

And going back to you Glass opera example–and I’m not saying that Melissa’s Cantata is at all relevant as an analogy here since her work obviously has more contemporary social relevance than Kepler does–the disconnect you’re understanding between the content of the Glass opera and contemporary audiences is in similar ways no different than the disconnect between Western music genres and “non-Western” audiences. It has as much to do with a temporal and cultural gap as it does with a musical and aesthetic gap. For example, if Melissa had written her “Cantata” in Thai Classical Chant style rather than as a cantata, it would probably resonate with me even more. Or even had she written it as an Arabic wasla or Azeri mugham opera I might find it even more interesting. But she didn’t and there was no reason she should have since she had other reasons for writing it in the default art music style of the US/Europe and for most intents and purposes (for good or ill), the rest of the world.

As for why I get more satisfaction playing for underserved audiences (please note also that the world music group is only one ensemble I work with that plays music for underserved audiences) if some of the above hasn’t helped to make that obvious I’ll state it bluntly. I know what it’s like to have the pressure to assimilate into the dominant culture of the US and some of the social-psychology consequences that is a result of that pressure. I want to make it easier for immigrants or minorities to feel comfortable being who they are by showing that it’s 1) OK to perform music from your own background in more public forums, and 2) that there are people here in the states that do enjoy and appreciate non-Western music genres enough to make a stab at performing it publicly. In a nutshell, I’ve always viewed my function as a cultural ambassador–just one that happens to be making connections between populations within a country rather than between populations in separate countries.

In short–I tend to prefer the idea of a multi-ethnic nation to the idea of a melting-pot nation, if that makes any sense?.

Best,
Jon

I think this also underscores some of the things I just don’t have time for anymore as there obviously must be an “overserved” audience if we want to admit there’s an underserved one. And I really don’t feel the need to supply that audience with yet another live performance of a Beethoven Symphony or Beatles cover.

While I do still occasionally do things like this still, I’m much more interested in minimizing my activities in that direction because, you know as they say, “life is short” and as I say, “there’s a whole world of music out there” and I want to put energy in discovering the latter in my short time on this planet.

I think I’ll be blogging more about the whole idea of underserved audiences in the near future, but as this post is more than long enough as is, I’ll end it now.

But that’s the problem–the “keep plowing ahead” even when all the data tells me something might be a dead end, and in some ways wasn’t as rewarding as it could be (or used to be).

Sure, part of the problem is I still also have my “hobbies” outside of music (I have time for hobbies?) and even for my musical projects, I spend an inordinate amount of time doing tons of “non-musical” stuff (maintaining multiple websites and doing booking for many of my bands; running around Louisville/Southern Indiana to find sheet music for students; trying to develop very specific projects/presentations which is especially difficult when you get next to no input from other involved parties) that I slowly find myself less and less able to focus on the music (or teaching, as the case may be).

Granted–having dozens of hours of music (in too many genres and styles to list) that I need to keep under my fingers (and voice); on top of being part of some classical music groups which always requires me to learn new music for every show; as well as needing to be on top of music I need to teach (it can be tricky to teach something you don’t know, after all) it’s no wonder why I don’t listen to music anymore!

What I guess I must do is to start pruning the non-essentials (hence the streamlining reference in the first paragraph); get rid of the chaff; focus on the things that need to be focused on (including my students), including people who are actively collaborating/interacting with me or the projects I’m involved in; but most importantly create more time for me to do things rather than wasting so much time going down blind alleys. I just don’t have time for that anymore.

Needless to say, it was a bittersweet affair.  I don’t really want to imagine my neck of the woods absent a full time professional orchestra.  At the same time, I’ve been predicting the slow demise of these seemingly anachronistic ensembles for various reasons I don’t want to get into here (read some of my previous posts for some of that diatribe).

What I would like to say is that, for good or ill, I would prefer this situation not be the case and in some ways I’m beginning to see a reaon (or many reasons) for why it is a bad thing to lose such a wonderful ensemble not the least of which being that I have many friends and colleagues who have put in many long years of hard work into the organization.

What I am beginning to realize is how ridiculous the situation is and for a variety of reasons, the economic ones notwithstanding.  I won’t get into some of the typical arguments here about why such an organization needs to be saved since that’s been said over and over by advocates of classical music in general.  What I think I’m going to start exploring are much more objective economic reasons why the demise of any symphony orchestra is a bad thing.

In the meantime, I would like to direct to a youtube video by the Louisville Orchestra Musician’s Association which was shown before the concert:

As well as the website for the Lousiville Orchestra Musicians Association:
http://www.lomusicians.org/

The latter link has information about ways you can help fight to keep Louisville Symphonic!

–break–

Hindemith Sonata
Kodály Sonata

As most of you know, my principle instrument is cello. Or rather, the instrument I received the most training with happens to be the cello. So I’m finding it endlessly fascinating that I’m starting to get as many, if not more opportunities, drumming rather than celloing.

I suppose this could be disturbing, but I’ve gotten so used to different twists and turns in my musical career that I am hardly batting an eye.

Sunday, November 21 ‘ 3:00 p.m.
IU Southeast Orchestra
with guest artist
JESSICA LITWINIEC DORMAN, piano
PHIL THOMAS, conductor

ROSSINI: Overture to La Gazza Ladra
BARBER: Commando March
BARBER: Adagio for Strings
PROKOFIEV: Piano Concerto No. 1
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Russian Easter Overture

More info about this concert and the IUS Orchestra and Richard K Stem Concert Hall, follow the following link:
http://www.ius.edu/music/concerts.cfm

On another note, I just sat in a rehearsal with members of al Sur earlier today (Friday). Looks like I might need to get some cajon skilz soon…

And in true il Troubadore tradition, we premiered a tune that we had never played before (and that we hadn’t even rehearsed before) made famous by Lou Monty called “Lazy Mary.” It’s a tune we should have had been doing for years now but never got around to doing even though we always knew it would be a perfect fit for us. Of course the audience got a laugh out of the tune.

As it was raining when we first arrived the entertainment fell behind schedule so we politely shortened our set a bit to allow the last act to perform before the end of the events (which was an early 8PM). Our setlist was as follows:

Volare
Alma Del Core
Mambo Italiano
Mona Lisa
Gia il Sole Dal Gange
Come Fly With Me
The Best is Yet to Come
O Sole Mio
Vittorio Mio Core
Lazy Mary
That’s Amore
Con Te Partiro
Funiculi Funicula

In tarab music, the ability to play or sing in correct pitch is another requisite for creating ecstatically effective performances. Essentially, few theoretical works describe the ecstatic role of intonation, despite the abundance of treatises and text-books that deal with tuning and modal scales. Furthermore, in such sources melodic intervals are most often presented in terms of the microtonally crude, largely Western inspired theoretical system of equal-tempered half-steps, three-quarter steps, whole steps, augmented seconds, and so on, intervals derived from a theoretical scale of 24 equal quarter-tones per octave. In actual practice however, tarab music exhibits an intricate and highly patterned system of intonation.

AJ Racy “Making Music in the Arab World” pg. 106

See previous post, Microtones