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

[This] reminds me of interviews I had with the chief puppeteer in the major bunraku troupe, the chief chanter, and the chief shamisen player. I asked them how they trained, how they learned as children. As we all know, the standard system in Japan is to copy your master. [But] those artists said, “We do not copy our masters. Of course we watch our master and we learn. But no two human beings are alike, so it is impossible for me to copy my master. I have to internalize my art, make it my own. Then I can become a great artist.” This is a wonderful illustration of the solution to what might seem to be impossibly opposite goals: to “replicate” and to “create” anew.

I think it can be too easy to be so concerned about originality at the expense of the realization that we’re always borrowing from someone before us. It may make good talk for artists to talk about lack of creativity, but more often than not I find those kinds of arguments disingenuous at best, and just downright wrong at worst.

At the same time, the slavish devotion to copying, mimicking or imitating someone else can be just as impossible a feat to accomplish (as the Japanese artists above intimate) but it’s so easy to accuse someone of doing just those things when we can’t recognize the actual individuality and idiosyncrasies of someone’s “representation” of a work.

In the end, the greatest artists are those that can make ANY work, whether their own or someone else’s, speak powerfully. On the flipside the weakest artists have to hide behind the rubric and hubris of citing originality and creativity, or, dedication to the re-creation of a previous work to hide the fact that he or she has nothing really to say.

]]> http://blog.silpayamanant.com/2010/08/09/to-create-or-to-copy/feed/ 0 http://blog.silpayamanant.com/2010/07/29/dhawq-or-courtesy-in-music-accompaniment/ http://blog.silpayamanant.com/2010/07/29/dhawq-or-courtesy-in-music-accompaniment/#comments Fri, 30 Jul 2010 03:26:32 +0000 Jon Silpayamanant http://blog.silpayamanant.com/?p=480 This section of Racy’s “Making Music in the Arab World” could be just as applicable to the non-Arab musician. In the chapter titled simply, Music, he begins the section titled “The art of accompanying” with

When called for, musical accompaniment plays a crucial role in the evocative process. Basically, an accompanying performer must be musically effective without being too prominent or obtrusive. Musicians usually describe good accompaniment as tawriq, a term that implies subtlety and evokes the image of filling spaces somewhat sparsely with ornamental leaf designs (as in the case of calligraphy), or covering something with a thin film of paper or plaster.

Most of the above is relatively straightforward and goes without saying. I cannot recall the number of times I’ve performed with accompaniment that is just too loud and “in-your-face” to even warrant being called accompaniment. If the accompanying music is more prominent than the main melodic line(s) then why bother with a melody, right?

Racy continues, giving one particular example of a qanun player

He must refrain from moving ahead of the singer by anticipating the higher tonal areas of the mode, or playing more loudly than the vocalist, or producing melodic lines that are technically more complex or more ornate tan those being accompanied. It is often stated that the accompanist must have dhawq, namely “taste” or “courtesy.”

“Courtesy”–I like that. I’ll have to look up the Arabic word, dhawq, to see if that is indeed a good translation of the term but it encompasses exactly what I would think is the sentiment of good accompaniment. Courtesy implies some acknowledgement of the other musician in this context–an acknowledgement that what is going on in the melody or melodic line is far more important than what is happening in the accompaniment.

Racy continues

Tarab musicians devote a great deal of attention to the dynamics of accompanying particularly by praising the discreet and supportive accompanists and finding fault with those whom they consider musically self-centered, aggressive, and intent on soliciting attention

“[I]ntent on soliciting attention”–we have a saying for that in the West–intent on “being a Rock Star.” Something that annoys me to no end! Racy then gives several examples of musicians that, while having great technical facility, nevertheless are being “disrespectful of the artist being featured” (i.e. the artist that has the actual solo line). Apparently the Arabs have a phrase for this with respects to a singer (the quintessential melodic solo instrumentalist):

biqul kathir ma’ al-mutrib

which literally means “he says too much with the singer.”

nothing can ruin a piece of music more than a musician that has too much to say.

]]> http://blog.silpayamanant.com/2010/07/29/dhawq-or-courtesy-in-music-accompaniment/feed/ 0 http://blog.silpayamanant.com/2010/07/22/alternative-careers-as-a-string-player/ http://blog.silpayamanant.com/2010/07/22/alternative-careers-as-a-string-player/#comments Fri, 23 Jul 2010 02:33:31 +0000 Jon Silpayamanant http://blog.silpayamanant.com/?p=478 Earlier today I had the pleasure of giving a talk to young string players (grades 7-12) about, as the title of my post says, “Alternative Careers as a String Player” during the IUS String Clinic 2010.

The idea was to emphasize the kinds of careers a number of string players currently (or in the recent past) have pursued as well as talk about some of the string playing traditions that exist worldwide and emphasize that the training they are getting as young classical musicians is perfectly suited for a lateral shift in musical direction if that is what they wish or if that is where playing music takes them.

I didn’t say much about the idea that classical music in the US is declining a bit as I didn’t want to focus on some of the negative aspects of a shrinking musical market with a surplus of specially trained musicians for that market (though I did speak to a couple of the older kids afterwards about this). At the same time I almost feel that by not doing so I do a disservice to the kids. it’s really the main issue I have with teaching and what almost kept me from returning to this line of work.

What is nice is that I can tell people that if they want to go into music, then they have many alternatives rather than the three limited choices–the trivium as it were– of full-time ensemble performance, teaching (at either the private level or University level), or freelancing.

Granted, many of the things I did talk about piggy back on the freelance world–at least until you can create your own ensemble(s) as well as the need for it.

And not that it’s any easier to do that–starting practically from scratch (this is an overstatement) can be a daunting task so I needed to demonstrate that there is precedent for some of the string playing careers about which I was talking. And to go back to my interview with Colin Ramsey about creating a contemporary cello career that is far easier to do in this day and age than it would have been in the past due to technology and the ease with which information can be seen and consumed by musicians.

At some point I should probably formalize some of these issues and work on having a much more prepared presentation that I can offer to whatever institutions that would be interested as I believe thinking about career choices in these ways is far more fruitful than stating something to the effect of:

“Well, you’re going to need to work really, really, REALLY HARD and there’s still no guarantee that you’ll get that orchestral position/university position/string quartet position. Sure, you can probably go into an arts related job with your idiosyncratic knowledge–maybe a job on the staff at a concert hall or with a Symphonic organization, but your love of playing music is not going to guarantee you get to do so at any more than a part time hobby.”

Which can be the default answer whether or not the performing positions are available. I just happen to think they are available–just not necessarily here (in the US) or here (in traditional and orthodox performing organizations). That there seems to be a growing classical music scene outside the US and Europe hasn’t been emphasized enough and neither has the fact that Western instruments (especially strings) have been part of any number of Art music traditions in various countries outside of the Western world for up to a couple hundred years in some cases.

The fact that with this surplus of Classically trained musicians in the US has shifted what kinds of instruments/instrumentalists you’ll find in a “band” setting or non-Western Art music setting is just another sign of how musicians who love the instrument that they have trained with for what usually amounts to decades will find a way to perform on that instrument even if the Classical Music market can’t fit them in it.

Which just shows us that for some folks, if there’s a will to play, then there’s going to be some “unorthodox” way to play if the normal channels don’t pan out.

]]> http://blog.silpayamanant.com/2010/07/22/alternative-careers-as-a-string-player/feed/ 0 http://blog.silpayamanant.com/2010/07/18/microtones-2/ http://blog.silpayamanant.com/2010/07/18/microtones-2/#comments Sun, 18 Jul 2010 16:49:47 +0000 Jon Silpayamanant http://blog.silpayamanant.com/?p=475

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

Notably, the aesthetic of individuality is consistent with timbral specialization within the traditional ensemble. The takht specifically is a collection of khāmāt ṣawtiyyah, “sound timbres,” that are individually distinguished as well as imbued with ecstatic connotations. Incorporating one of each type of instrument, for example one ‘ud, one qanun, one nay, one violin, and one riqq, the takht amounts to few layers of discernible timbral-acoustical lines. Thus, it can be contrasted with such “unitimbral” but register-separated combinations, such as Europe’s Renaissance recorder of viol consorts, or for that matter the classical string quartet.

In turn, the singer needs to develop a general sense of who his listeners are and to establish good rapport with them. As he stands on the stage, he needs to look at the audience members and determine their overall level of musicality and general mood. In Fakhri’s words, “a mutrib must also be a psychologist.” One of Fakhri’s vocal accompanists maintains that Fakhri himself is well-known for his ability to “study” his audience. In order to create a comfortable jaww, or “atmosphere,” the mutrib may begin by saying a few words, usually familiar platitudes and prepare the listeners emotionally and arouse their enthusiasm.

Particularly in the large haflat, the mutrib also needs to locate the sammi’ah, or clusters of sammi’ah in the audience and to maintain direct visual and musical contact with them. In order to achieve that, he may make a few musical trials. As Sabah Fakhri explains, his haflah really does not begin until after about one hour of singing has passed, because until that time, he would have been trying pieces in different styles, muwashshahat, qudud, adwar and others to help him ascertain the existence and locations of the sammi’ah, as well as to sense the dominant tastes and inclinations in the audience as a whole. Fakhri adds that such musical scanning is accompanied by visual surveillance, which enables him to constantly monitor the audience’s reactions and to fashion or adjust the repertoire accordingly.

In a period of time many many musicians are talking about declining work and number of venues for performance of for what has been the longest time considered “standard” American genres what’s happening more than ever is with the rising minority population in the US comes a rising demand for entertainment for that population.

I don’t bemoan the lack of work since in some ways I find myself not having the time to do as much work as I can because I often have many conflicting possible engagements.

That fewer and fewer of those engagements have little to do with, say, Classical music or Western popular genres is telling me as much as anything.

One of those things is that the unadaptable musician is less and less likely to find work. In the freelance world you generally have to go where the work is and in this case, with a changing demographic what that translates into is the ability to play music for the audiences that are out there.

While the competition for engagements of non-standard American entertainment is still small while the market slowly adjusts itself (a constant feedback mechanism as they would say) to changing tastes I suspect more and more musicians will eventually catch on to the trend.

I’ve seen some interesting and ingenious attempts at filling these niches–most interestingly the Asian British Music entertainment group in the UK. Catering to a rising South Asian population this company books for a number of traditional as well as “fusion” type groups. For example, the string quartet Dil Se Strings String Quartet which, while playing the standard event music repertoire that one would expect from this quintessential of Western ensembles, the ensemble also has a songlist repertoire list that includes popular Bollywood and Bhangra tunes that would be perfectly recognizable to many South Asian audiences.

So while Dil Se Strings is competing with other string quartets for the same slice of the special events pie it has another pie of its own that [for now] no one in their area can touch (other than the numerous other groups being marketed by the Asian British Music company).

Over the past couple of years I’ve played as many Arabic, Greek, Indian and Internationally themed events as anything else (if not more) so it’s always with some bemusement I listen to the gripes of underworked (or out of work) musicians.

Not only was it just wonderful to play all this great Greek music and for wonderful folk dancers–it was also wonderful to play for literally hundreds of people willing to line dance to Greek music.

This complements my experience last weekend with an Arabic/Arab-American crowd for the engagement party I played.  Just seeing so many ethnic audiences mixed with the more orthodox proportion of American ethnic groups coming together to enjoy music and tunes from another culture.

And yet, at the same time, this is now a part of American culture isn’t it?   That we have to constantly talk about “Greek Music” or “Arabic Music” shows that we still have this difference from “Aermican Music”–but why exactly isn’t this music ‘American Music’?  It’s music made in America, by Americans, for Americans, right?

Alas, things just don’t quite work out that way and I really want to get into this topic in this post–hah!

In the end, though, I could really care less–I’ll just keep calling myself a musician and keep making music.

Certainly for the classical Egyptian tunes it would be a far more appropriate choice but the issue for me is that I just don’t have the same level of chops for the riq as I do for tabla. All the more reason for me to make the decision to switch (at least for the Classical Arabic tunes). Besides, it’s always nice to get myself out of my comfort zones and really get down to sorting through some more advanced riq techniques–it is truly an underappreciated instrument and far more versatile than many people give it credit for.