Just another Edublogs site
We need each other
we need light
we choose light
The creative project that Mark and I did was to symbolize the responsibility we have to choose between darkness and light. Standing in a circle and sharing the light while singing and opening our hearts was a lovely way to spend time together.
And thankfully no sprinklers were triggered!
Book of note: Celtic Modern – a difficult-to-read collection of essays on the global circulation of Celtic music and the place of music in Celtic culture, published in 2003. The editors are Martin Stokes and Philip V. Bohlman who are ethnomusicologists and professors.
What do you think of when you think of Celtic culture and music?
It is this?
What is sold as a Celtic culture has little to do with history and even less to do with modern culture in these “Celtic” countries. How did pseudo-Celtic culture become so popular? Was it Lord of the Rings or these guys? https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/eurov-riverdance.gif
It is more complex than that.
People like to have a sense of historical roots. If they discover an ancestor from a Celtic country, they adopt what is marketed as Celtic culture – even though it is fake. A homeland is important for exiles and immigrants but becomes romanticized over time and distance. The search for this (mainly Irish) identity is shared by many North Americans and made possible by the commodification of music. Virtual Celtic communities exist now but there are also real communities using “Celtic” music to construct an identity.
In a mobile society like ours, is this so bad? Should we be celebrating that people are finding stability and identity through this music?
This is current Scottish culture as they seek independence from the English tyrants.
In the Celtic globalization of the 1990s, “Scots were amazed to find that they were considered by other nationalities to be Celtic.“ (p. 258) Traditional musicians of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales reject the term “Celtic” as an all-encompassing marketing tool that eliminates unique traditions.
Will new innovations destroy tradition? Music and traditions have already changed over the years. There is no pure source located in antiquity. The ancient Celtic tradition represents an undefined lost golden age that never existed. Even the harp is questionable. The bardic harpists died out in the 1700s and the harp became a parlour instrument for middle and upper class women.
Traditional musicians are concerned about the loss of their culture, but they are criticized as being purists for their concern.
International folk music is a world music genre where all is lumped together for marketing. “The post modern music world is brashly commercial… It has an unnerving absence of principles.” (p. 215)
Composers (and marketers) say they are just doing what all musicians do: exploring and extending the craft.
Maybe it should not be called Traditional Music.
Australia had the highest percentage of immigrants from Ireland of any country and their Irish identity was important to those immigrants. A new immigration flood from Ireland also happened after World War II. A folk music revival in the 60s and 70s created bush bands which used folk rock versions of Australian ballads combined with Irish dancing.
The didgeridoo was introduced to folk rock bands in Australia as a social political statements about wanting a new identity that was uniquely Australian and took responsibility for poor treatment of the aborigines in the past. I’m cool with that. Then, an Australian musician moved to Ireland and took a didgeridoo. It has now become popular in Ireland. This sounds strange but bronze age horns were excavated in Ireland which are similar and are played the same way. Maybe that makes it ok?
Some places in the valley had 77% Irish population (both Protestant and Catholics). They were isolated for a long time because of location. Name places celebrate the Irish roots, and they have a strong Irish communal history with events such as Orangemen parades and community step dancing.
I found it curious that the book did not have a chapter about the Canadian Maritime Celtic culture.
Where I live has strong Scottish roots and many Scottish name places, to the amazement of my Scottish cousins. Kincardine celebrates its Scottish heritage proudly, and it is also a tourist draw. Quintessentially Scottish, pipe bands have spread around the world and kept alive through competition. Kincardine has a wee pipe band that parades down main street every Saturday night in the summer, followed by the crowd. They turn around at the end of main street and come back again. Sometimes, other groups join for a “Mass Band”. It is a quaint but fun community tradition.
Some excellent pipe bands have come from Australia. They experimented with new compositions and innovations, such as “Master Blaster” which was presented in a rock concert style and included other instruments such as the didgeridoo. https://youtu.be/8DUHJrfYfGM (Listen to the first minute) Traditionalists felt that these new recordings had moved too far away from the traditional competition repertoire but this eclectic music appeals to a wider and younger audience.
Brittany holds the largest annual Celtic Festival in the world with global promotion that attracts thousands. It is a vital tourist event.
The first international Celtic star was from Paris (huh?), named Alan Stivell, who was a multi-instrumentalist famous for his harp. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_4-dx03sso
Corsica has stone circles and so it was assumed that the Celts were there at some point. Except, these stones have faces carved in them. There are now theories that stones have a Middle Eastern origin. Corsican culture is different from Celtic, having vocal music that uses microtonal ornamented male polyphony (beautiful to listen to and very difficult to learn). It sounds eastern European, not Celtic. There has been a revival in the popularity of Corsican traditional music since the 1970s. It had never disappeared.
Activity to Ponder:
If you had a chance to adopt the culture of an ancestor, one that you might not identify with currently, which culture would that be? How might you dress, what music, food, activities might you become involved with?
For me, I could identify as:
I could dress up and pretend to be a fierce warrior woman and attend fun events like this:
Thanks, Dad, for your Viking genes!
As some of you know, Saturday night was the Laurier Choirs fall concert, and I have been the TA for the Concert Choir and the Maureen Forrester Singers this term. For the Concert Choir, this has meant meeting one-on-one with students that need extra vocal support for learning their parts. For the Singers, I had the wonderful opportunity to rehearse one of my own compositions with them, which I then conducted at the concert.
I have to be honest. My anxiety level was sky high. I have lots of experience with this. So why the change?
I felt intimidated by the presence of the other faculty, conductors and music students. I felt that my conducting techniques were from a different school of conducting (not elaborate, but pragmatic to get the job done and not distract from the choir and the music) and would look unprofessional. I was worried that I’d do something awful like get lost in the score and cue and cut at the wrong times. Or knock my music off the stand.
Some other factors were that my soloist was sick and we used a first year understudy. I also had the great idea to ask them to sing without their scores…which is something I like to do so the musicians are free to express the music. But that puts even more pressure on the conductor to lead them well. My husband and children were not able to be there for support. I had to try to block that from my mind but, of course, it popped up from time to time.
My piece ended up being the second last of the evening. By the time we got to it, I was sweaty and my breathing was shallow. It felt like being back in my undergrad days before a juried recital, or the time I did a public masterclass with a well-known composer. I called into play all my techniques for stage fright: extended breathing out, prayer, and a banana!
It was a good reminder of what many students experience. I was wondering how this event could have been transformed into something friendlier. The music was excellent but I wonder who else was feeling scared?
Once I was in front of everyone, it was fine. It was better than fine. It was great! I am so thankful for this opportunity. A few years ago, I had a major health crisis followed by another major health crisis. At that time, survival and healing were on the forefront. I am now living with a chronic disease that may one day take away my ability to compose, play, conduct.
It makes me a bit concerned for my capstone…but I am hoping that the Community Music experience will be different from what happened on Saturday night, even though I attempted some collaborative elements by giving the pianist, flautist, and soloist freedom to embellish (they did a small amount) and asked for suggestions from the choir (they didn’t seem to have any).
If you’d like to hear the piece, here it is on a not-so-wonderful iPhone recording. “How Sweet Is My Sleep” is based on a medieval Jewish poem by a poet living in Egypt but writing in the style of the Spanish school of Islamic poetry, translated into English by a Russian scholar and located on an American website, now composed by a Scottish-Canadian composer.
Oh, how sweet is my sleep
on the river bank in the moonlight,
I’m surrounded by beds of roses,
red roses bloom among the white.
Come and sit, sit in the myrrh and flowers.
The sorrows of your heart will soon take flight.
The morning breezes gently blow,
The morning breezes gently blow,
the myrrh is opened,
the scent of blossoms fills the air, the scented air.
Oh, how sweet is my sleep
on the river bank in the moonlight,
I’m surrounded by beds of roses,
red roses bloom among the white.
Ah.
I used the ancient Phyrgian mode and the wind instrumentation to build the mood (I have it scored for oboe and English Horn as well, for its more nasal tone). I hope it’s not appropriation. I have Jewish ancestry on my mother’s side. I am going to develop a companion piece that will have a lively mood based on the same poet’s work. Our resident expert percussionist will give me some pointers for that!
Last year, I did a course on songwriting and arranging. Nothing about it was collaborative and it was a heavy academic course that the class struggled with. After our session with Glenn, I felt sad that the previous course hadn’t included at least one collaborative session. As students, we would have enjoyed the process and it would have lightened the load and created community. There wasn’t a sense of community at all. However, in the process, I had to read lots of songwriting books and found this interesting website, if you are interested in reading about the craft of songwriting. http://oxfordsongwriting.com/
I’d like to do more study on it from a collaborative point of view. I’d like to try out some different techniques based on what I find.
As you know, I am a composer and really find using that part of my musicality interesting and satisfying. I use improvisation during the experimentation period when I am determining what direction to take a new piece. I also taught myself to improvise from lead sheets and use that often in my church music work. So, when I saw the title of this book in Gerard’s pile, I was curious and grabbed it:
The Fierce Urgency Of Now – Improvisation, Rights, And the Ethics of Co-Creation by Daniel Fischlin, Ajay Heble and George Lipsitz
Published by Duke University Press, 2013
I have never thought about improvisation as a political practice. It never crossed my mind; however, the authors of this book take a strong Marxist stance that it can be viewed this way. (Perhaps Marxists view everything through a radical political lens?) While they had some interesting perspectives, there were a number of things I did not agree with and so I find myself feeling a little grumpy about it all. (This could also be related to fatigue and a lack of chocolate).
“Improvisation is not merely an artistic form potentially useful to civil rights activism, but is also an artistic, political, social, and moral practice that cannot succeed on its own terms unless it does meaningful work in the world.” (xv)
“Without serious shared purpose and collective responsibility, expressive culture runs the risk of becoming a little more than a trivial form of self indulgence.” (Introduction, xv)
Who wants to be considered self-indulgent, and someone who is not involved in meaningful work in the world? I can feel my grump arising.
How is this so? The authors say that when you improvise, you break the traditional hierarchy of instrumentation. It should be no surprise that they quote from Small’s “Musicking” a number of times.
“The seemingly simple act of breaking with dominant ideas of instrumentation and orchestras orchestration opens up new possibilities.”(xvi)
That phrase “breaking the dominant” is used a lot.
I have a question: What about times when improvisation is not political?
The authors are not ok with that. When artists use clichés and habitual gestures, don’t listen to one another, use “authoritarian” musical gestures, focus on their own technique rather than collaboration, then the authors consider this a failure that should be “confronted.” (205) That sounds a little ominous because they see it as more than a musical issue.
What Does the Title Mean? The authors have taken (stolen?) a phrase from a Martin Luther King speech about “the fierce urgency of now” to say that the times we live in now are similar to his times. I do not agree and I think this devalues the immense struggle and achievement of the civil rights movement.
Quoting Marx, the authors call for revolutionary change:
“…improvisation is important, because it can be one of the activities whereby people break the chains of the past and learn to become fit to found society anew.”(148) There’s that term “break” again.
The authors use vocal improvisation in civil rights activism as an example of “unity with difference” and “essential for social movements”(152) The same melody was sung slightly differently by each singer. I am not convinced that there was a political motive for this stylistic characteristic.
Here is the authors’ research hypothesis in the Improvisation, Community and Social Practice research project:
“Musical improvisation is a crucial, largely unexamined model for political, cultural, and ethical dialogue and action. Taking as a point of departure performance practices that cannot be readily scripted, predicted or compelled into orthodoxy, we argue that the innovative working models of improvisation developed by creative practitioners have helped to promote a dynamic exchange of cultural forms, and to encourage new, socially responsive forms of community building across national, cultural, and artistic boundaries.” (191)
How does this apply to community music?
“Improvisation demands shared responsibility for participation in community as well as an ability to negotiate differences and a willingness to except the challenges of risk and contingency. And in an era when diverse peoples and communities of interest struggle to forge starkly new forms of affiliation across cultural divide, the participatory and civic virtues of engagement, dialogue, respect, and community building inculcated through improvisatory practises takes on a particular urgency.” (206)
“As a cultural practice, improvisation may have a great deal to teach about fundamental aspects of being human.” (81)
I think it tells us that we are intensely creative beings. In my worldview, it is because we are created in the image of the Creator and so we reflect immense creativity. We can and should use that creativity in our community music practice and help others tap into their creativity.
The authors recognize the intense need to make music in even the worst situations and quote a prisoner describing making music with his water cup and how it brought joy to the other prisoners. I think this example shows creativity at work.
Some questions are posed on pages 191–192 that we can consider as community musicians:
But…this book made me feel a little depressed as a composer. It presents an all or nothing attitude that tosses me, and others composers, to the curb. I have been told by CM facilitators how helpful my collaborative compositions are to them.
I explained the premise of the book to my piano tuner, who is an older well-known and excellent improviser. He burst out laughing and thought it was a little ridiculous. He uses his improvisation to bring joy and healing to people (goes into seniors’ homes). He doesn’t view it as a political act against dominant institutions.
Have you been having lots of lightbulb moments in this course? Get ready for another one. My report is based on the article by the American ethnomusicologist, anthropologist, and linguist, Stephen Feld, entitled Sweet Lullaby to World Music. (Feld, S. (2000). A Sweet Lullaby for World Music. Public Culture, 12(1), 145-171.)
It’s been 120 years since the first sound recording technology developed. Commercial recordings were made all over the world after the phonograph’s invention . Now, we can hear all the music of the world, from anywhere in the world. This globalization causes celebration by some and concern by others.
Musical globalization is celebrated because we have access to more diversity. Musical globalization is lamented because it can lead, and has led, to homogenous music, generic styles, and hybridization.
1950s-60s: Independence demonstrations in the in Africa, Asia, and Latin America created a commercial desire for authentic music.
1960s-70s: Ethnomusicology’s world music courses led to some musical pluralism.
1980s: Popular music studies of Western popular musical forms, particularly rock music were developed. Ethnomusicology began to use insights from popular music studies in how they studied world music.
The commercial potential of world music developed rapidly in the 1980s, and “world music” changed from an academic term to a marketing category.
Western pop star collaboration became popular as artists and their record companies were able to finance projects, for example: Paul Simon’s Graceland (South African). Academics responded with criticism. The idea of world music as a source of inspiration and collaboration to promote artistic equity and wealth distribution developed such as Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD (World of Music and Dance) festivals and Real World label.
1990s: there was rapid genre expansion and promotion in the entertainment industries. Billboard magazine had a world music sales tracking category, the Grammy award was for “world music” instead of “ethnic and traditional”, and specific magazines, sections in music industry magazines and listener guides were published.
World music airplay led to new channels, videos, t.v. series, web sites, stores, mail-order catalogs, and record labels that promoted and merchandised world music. Consumers became familiar with groups of diverse histories, regions, and styles.
World music was no longer dominated by academic study and promotion of traditions. It was a global industry, focused on marketing “danceable ethnicity” and exoticism.
Everything was combined under one label and ethnomusicologists were worried at how easily differences were set aside. They are committed to authenticity and believe the recording industry presents a less artistic, more commercial, diluted product. In a short time period, the diversity of world music has turned into one world music.
(Swiss ethnomusicologist Hugo Zemp, recently, and in the field).
Zemp recorded a Baegu lullaby entitled, “Rorogwela”. It is an unaccompanied vocal sung by a woman named Afunakwa. UNESCO Musical Sources released it in 1969 on an LP of music from the Solomon Islands recorded by Zemp. It was well-known to Pacific Islands ethnomusicologists but not outside that field, and was re-released on CD in 1990.
Francis Bebey was considered the best known African musician of his time. He convinced Zemp to allow a 40 sec sampling from his Central African recordings only for a project to aid the rain forest
Turns out that Deep Forest, without permission, used other samples including the lullaby from the Solomon Islands
see below for what they did with the sample
(Above: Two scenes from the original video, and a second official video, which uses a South African tribal family and deserts.)
(Above: DF album opening song video. The album theme and marketing was as African pygmy music)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x05BUoXCXjM
(Above: a Solomon Islands group from the Southwest Pacific; they have a different blonde hair gene from the Western gene.)
(Above: A scene from a Deep Forest concert, performing “Sweet Lullaby”)
(Saxophonist, Jan Garbarek, who arranged the DF version and recorded it as “Pygmy Lullaby”. He didn’t know the original source and was criticized when the truth came out. He turned around and filed complaints against the media for the critique. )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb8H_99d5gU
Questions for us to ponder:
Is this a brave new world of cultural and financial equity in the entertainment industries?
Is world music being rewarded by greater visibility?
Is this an opportunity for creativity?
OR
Does world music erase musical diversity?
What is being lost musically?
Does it commodify ethnicity, exploit musicians and create indigenization?
What’s the cost of globalization?
Have you heard of that strange thing that sometimes happened in history where people were inventing the same type of device in different locations? And then there was a mad dash to the patent office, and someone’s name got on the device first.
Like this:
Why, you are wondering, am I giving you a history lesson? (For more of these fun facts)
It’s because I just read about a composer who was being a community musician without being a part of the whole CM movement. David Mahler, an American composer (not the hammered dulcimer guy), is an enigma to the composer community. He has a career described as “independent, diverse, and hard to classify” while he was described as democratic, inclusive and community-oriented. He used the term “Listener-in-Residence” to describe himself once. I think he would be interested in what we are doing in our class!
If you want to read more about him, check out this article:
http://music.ucsc.edu/sites/default/files/MahlerJSAM.pdf
and this one:
http://music.ucsc.edu/sites/default/files/DavidMahlerNotes.pdf
If I can track him down, I might try and get an interview!
Rumi was a Sufi Mystic poet. Here is my community choir in Owen Sound learning an adaptation of this poem in a layered way to help the non-readers.
Enjoy your reading week, but try to remember: “Don’t go back to sleep!” Get your reading done!
The Mysticism Of Sound And Music – The Sufi Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan
True Confession: I did not really want to read this book about the Sufi philosophy on in music, sound, language, and words but I was reluctant to say “no” to Gerard.1
I didn’t think that there would be anything in it that would resonate with me. I wished, loudly, several times, that I had picked a different topic.2 (Full disclosure: It’s because I thought it would be an easy first presentation since my undergrad degree specialized in it. Many philosophers and theologians say that music is close to the spirit and can give a feeling about life that words alone cannot give.)3
I avoided the book. It lay on my piano and I side-stepped around it4, eyeing it suspiciously, unwilling to open its pages. However, when I finally did, this is the first thing that I read:
“I offered this instrument to the divine musician, the only musician existing. Since then I have become his flute and when he chooses he plays his music, the people give me credit for this music which, in reality is not due to me, but to that musician who plays on his own instrument.” (Prologue.)
Wait a minute. This is how I have always felt about my musicianship, especially my compositions, of which I cannot explain the source. Seen through my Christian worldview, I believe they somehow come from God. Reading further, this author again echoes my thoughts in a slightly different way when he talks about inspiration as coming from the divine mind: “It is in the inspiration that one begins to see this sign of God, and the most materialistic genius begins to wonder about the divine spirit.”(pp. 243-244)
Well, now. Driven by curiosity about the creative process, I had ecently read Songwriters On Songwriting by Paul Zollo. He interviewed a large number of famous popular musicians, and surprisingly, many also described a sense that their creative ideas were coming from an outside source.5
So, I settled down and read, making notes and seeking to understand the writer’s philosophy/theology. Then I searched out other resources from the WLU library and started seeing links to the topic in other books for the course. With a binder full of notes, how would I express these to you, my beloved co-labourers in this academic and musical endeavour? Behold, my humble attempt, complete with footnotes galore.6
1Who would dare?
2My sweet husband grew tired of me wailing, “WHY, OH WHY, DID I PICK SPIRITUALITY AND MUSIC????”
3Tedylan have set the pattern for confessions, so I thought I’d get mine over with. Who’s next?
4If you think sidestepping around my piano is easy, you have never tried it. I have a chair addiction that gets in the way.
5They also had thought drugs would help their creativity but realized that what they wrote while stoned was actually pretty crappy compared to what they wrote while rational. (Which may or may not also be crappy, too, depending upon your view of that kind of music.)
6Which I have tried to make interesting, since according to our RM class, none of you like to read footnotes. It’s like having a conversation with yourself and your imaginary audience.
The author, Inayat Khan Rehmat Khan Pathan, lived from 1882 – 1927 and founded the Sufi Order in the West in London in 1914. He had initially moved to from India to England as a Northern Indian classical musician. His message of divine unity focused on love, harmony, and beauty, which combined his passion for music to teach that music is the harmonious thread of the Universe (paraphrased from Wikipedia).
Mystics of all ages have loved music, and it is central to many religious rituals. My personal experience has been with Christian worship music, where music has an extremely important role, as we sing to, and with, one another making music in our hearts as well as audibly to God. 1 Music was a vital part of the Protestant Reformation because the Reformers felt that the music was being done for them by the professional choirs of the Catholic church and that it needed to be given back to the people.2
Higher Call
In many eastern traditions, Nirvana (defined in this book as perfect peace) is attained through music and meditation. By playing, loving and hearing music, we develop music in our personality, thoughts, words and actions, and it brings “the harmony for which the soul yearns and longs.“ (p.8) Could there be a connection between peace within an individual and a peaceful society? Khan writes that music alone will unite the divided souls of races, nations and families.3 Thus, musicians can have a higher calling: to bring peace and harmony to the world through music.4
Music as described a specially divine art because it is the miniature of the laws of rhythm and vibration working through the universe. It is superior to all arts because it raises the soul of man and is essential for spiritual development. It has a magical power and intoxicates listener, player or singer as it touches our deepest part. The eastern view is that music was the first language, therefore, since it was the first expression of the emotions and passions of the heart, it is also the last expression of the emotions and passions of the heart and gives the artist liberty to express his emotions and passion.
Healing the Frozen Heart5
Music is used to warm the frozen heart, to produce feeling, to stop selfishness and coldness. We can train our hearts to feel emotion through music that arouses sorrow, repentance, devotion, joy, humour, or admiration.6
Music can heal if life is put into it by the performer or composer. The healing power of music is associated with vibrations and breath. Hindi music realized that a certain way of expressing tone and rhythm brought about a greater emotion or a greater calm and this developed into the practice of yoga, which has become a popular stress-reduction practice in the West. Healing with music is reflected in the Jewish tradition of David soothing King Saul’s distress by playing the harp. In our culture, we now have the field of music therapy and community music therapy. Singing is seen as especially powerful for healing so the singer‘s heart must be prepared with great power of love and sympathy.7 The author believes it is possible to “tune to the audience” so that the music will touch everyone there. There used to be a tradition in Hindi performances to choose music in the moment based on intuition of what the audience needed to hear.8
Hungry?9
Sufis use music for purification and prayers, which rises from hearts via music. 10 They call it food for the soul. When the soul is “starving” we have cravings that make us disagreeable, restless, irritated, depressed, and despairing. Have you ever had those type of feelings if you’ve been away from music for too long? I have, and I get a euphoric rush when I have time to compose. This shows that people need and long for music.
Higher Level
If a person does not respond or appreciate music, beauty and art, it is because their soul has not been awakened. But when the spiritual life springs up, “it lightens all of the burden is that a man has. It makes his life smooth, floating on the ocean of life.” (I experienced that floating sensation after this past weekend’s concert, Sing Fires of Justice. I expect that others did, too.)
Five different aspects of music are described: Popular (induces body motion), technical (satisfies the intellect), artistic (brings beauty and grace), appealing (pierces the heart), uplifting (soul hears the music of the spheres). I was interested to read that the highest and most ideal form of composition is that which expresses life, character, emotions and feelings, which is the inner world only seen “by the eye of the mind“. Khan says that free composition and improvisation has an important role, and this lines up with a core Community Music tenet. 11
1Ephesians 5:19 is one of many Bible passages that address this.
2I view this as indicating the history of community music actually pre-exists what the textbooks mention as being the start of the movement during the social reform in the 1960s and 1970s. So much of society centred around the church at that time, that it is likely that the communal aspect extended outside the church. I have not found this information in the Community Music textbooks, which tend to ignore Christianity, but it would be in the area that I would be interested in examining in more detail.)
3 This is similar to the Christian tradition, where there is a belief that one day all nations will be gathered together in peace, worshipping God in every language.
4Some of us would happy with finding matching socks, but nonetheless, it is good to aim higher.
5This is not referring to a certain blockbuster movie.
6 See p.28. He believes that the dervishes are moved by the Spirit and by music to cry, dance, and feel pain and joy more deeply. Other religions also experience this, for example, dancing was important part of the American Shakers rituals.
7 pp. 84-89. I love that thought! Singing is also seen as the expression of the spirit and the shortest way to spiritual height.
8 This happens in some Christian worship services where the worship leader tries to sense what’s the congregation needs in terms of repeating a song, verse or chorus or whether to exclude/include a song. However, there a general program in place and hand signals or verbal instructions are used between the leader and other musicians so that they will know what is going on. Sometimes it is confusing.
9 Any similarity of this heading to https://cmnews.edublogs.org/ is entirely coincidental.
10 Psalms in the Old Testament are ancient Jewish prayer-songs that are sung by Jews and Christians.
11 There were some things in this book that we would reject outright , such as, if you like music with rhythmic beating this means you are on the lowest evolution of the soul. He also thought that listening to jazz was harmful and that we should only listen to accomplished musicians. Singing in natural pitch will be a source of healing to the singer and to others but things make the singer lose this power are listening to commercial music, voice classification and training, and imitating other voices. Each voice has a predominate quality: earth (hope giving), water (soothing), fire (arousing), air (uplifting), ether (inspiring) so training the voice to makes it different will destroy these qualities. Is this behind the Natural Voice movement? Time to do some more reading.
I discovered other resources that described similar concepts using different language, which may be helpful, if the Sufi teaching seems a little bit too “out there”. Some books were weighty, with sentences like this:
“Because of the non-conceptual character of art, there is that’s always a residue that cannot be explained by rationalistic explanations, be they ancient or modern.”1
Another book2 studied “the tingle factor”- a term for what people experience when music takes them beyond themselves,also known as transcendent ecstasy (TE). Is it physical, psychological or spiritual? Some say it’s just the release of endorphins or adrenaline. But could it be more? Music is the most frequently mentioned trigger for TE and is associated with feelings of loss, pain, light, heat, calm, and peace. The poetry of the lyrics can help us to realize and express a sense of yearning and be emotionally cathartic.3 There is an entire music genre dedicated to helping listeners open up and work on their emotions.4
CM Alert: the communal dimension of music contributed to TE (especially if it involved common lyrics, loud music and dancing).5 Being caught up in the music can produce understanding about ourselves, our world , and how to live in this world.
“The sense of being taken beyond oneself is an essential element in developing a full appreciation of what it means to be human.” 6
Another resource on the communal aspect of music resonated strongly with me by describing human voices united in community as primary instruments of the “collective soul.” 7 Communal singing is especially powerful because sound of the human voice awakens deeper dimensions and opens the soul to itself. Our cries of anguish or ecstasy can be voiced in a language that moves musically between participants to a profound effect.
Regarding the social/political power of music, Salyers says: “This is raw stuff from the earth and from the heart of the people who yearn to be free… It is a cry that transforms yearning into action. Songs like that move the soul and hence the social body” 8 And also, “Music and song in times of great pain and disorientation illuminate the truth for generations long after.”
It has been said this way: “Together we make up a single choir in perfect equality of rights and of expression whereby earth imitates heaven.”- John of Chrysostom 9 An interesting study was done in Sweden on the physical effect of choral singing, reported with the delightful title When Choirs Sing, Many Hearts Beat As One. It found that singing quickly synchronized their heart rates to the phrasing of their song.10 A physical, mental, vocal and spiritual unity can be realized through participatory music.
There are so many intriguing aspects to the connection of music to spirituality. It has been an important part of my personal spiritual practice. Clearly, it has meaning and importance for us as Community Musicians as well. I suspect that we should never be surprised when music has an extraordinary effect when it awakens something in us so deeply that “we understand the hope and the fear, the terror and the beauty of life”11
Personal Reflection: What has been your personal experience with the spiritual element of music? When did you find that you were taken outside of yourself through music? Is there a song that touches you in a deep place when you hear it?
Why Does It Matter? Implications for Community Musicians
What is your higher call as a CM?
How can you use your music for healing of yourself, other musicians, your audience, and for reconciliation of man-to-man?
How could your music make others suffer?
How can you “evolve” as a community musician?
Are there ramifications from music being primarily used for entertainment instead of healing?
What could we do differently in light of the spiritual power of music?
“Music can be so deeply changing that we are changed.” (Saylers)
1It made me think fondly of Nathan, and has an equally weighty title of Voicing the Eneffable (Pendragon Press Hillsdale, New York, 2002 )
2 It had the strange title of Personal Jesus by Clive Marsh and Yvonne Roberts ,Baker Academic Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2012
3I had the strange experience of weeping uncontrollably when composing a song about a broken relationship. My marriage is fine.
4Hence, this may be another reason to avoid New Age minimalistic music.
5Some of you are on the right track!
6Marsh and Roberts, p. 86
7 Music And Theology by Dan Salyers 2007 Abingdon Press, p.5
8 Written from a Christian perspective, the author says that songs about the radical justice of God should agitate and disturb us and indeed in the history Christians have been on the forefront of social change although this is not often talked about today. The author here describes the need to not just have songs of praise and thanksgiving but also of lamentation and righteous indignation. p. 51 and 60
9He was an early Christian bishop, speaking of the communal singing in his church. (quoted in Salyers, p.7)
10 https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/07/09/200390454/when-choirs-sing-many-hearts-beat-as-one
11 Saylers, p. 68
It’s been a busy weekend since I decided at the last minute that to experience all that this degree program has to offer that I should be a part of the SFJ event. So that meant driving back and forth on Saturday and Sunday and listening to research class recordings and reading a textbook while my husband manned the wheel.
How to describe this concert? Glorious heart-lifting choral singing that welcomed the community to participate, all voices blending together in a reflection of the unity we long for.
I met some of the lovely members of Inshallah who told me of the joy they experienced from that community choir.
There were lots of orange shirts to remind us that every child matters. I was glad to wear mine and have some insight into what statement we were making.
Nathan made a video of a special First Nation song in honour of The Working Centre and I learned more about the many ways they are making an impact in Kitchener.
There was a short drama that I didn’t understand at all so Gerard will hopefully shed some light. [Edited to add: Lee told me it was about Syrian refugees and the ironic fact that they have settled in Kitchener, which is named after Lord Kitchener, who in the Boer war “ordered that all Boer farms should be destroyed under his “scorched earth” policy …to prevent the Boers from resupplying from a home base. This policy included the incarceration of tens of thousands of women and children, who were forcibly moved into 45 concentration camps throughout the Transvaal. There were another 64 concentration camps for black Africans who had made the serious error of supporting the Boers. More than 26,000 Afrikaans women and children died in these camps. We do not have any figure for the similar number of black Africans who died, as the British army did not regard them as important enough to keep records… To my mind he is a war criminal. – Alan Clayton”. https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/13140565.Kitchener_was_a_war_criminal/
We did vocal improvising while the earth charter was read (like in class but without ropes) and also during a responsive reading and while the opening indigenous chant was sung.
A small ensemble sang a lovely Baha’i and a Muslim piece.
A music video about the corals was shown with adorable baby turtles. I’m a bit ignorant about that so will google it. [I watched “Chasing Coral” on Netflix and it is an alarming report on the bleaching and death of corals from overly warm temperatures. While it was interesting to learn about the problem, it left the watcher with alarm, sadness and no answers. I have since read that there has been adaptation and recovery in some cases: This paper describes how many corals are showing some degree of adaptive capacity to both warming and to acidification, more than some scientists were expecting. Spalding notes that such adaptive capacity, alongside the natural resilience of reefs can enable them to recover even from quite severe perturbations. For example, most reefs in the British Indian Ocean Territory and the Seychelles, which lost virtually all their coral in 1998 due to warm-water induced coral “bleaching”, showed good recovery within a decade.
https://www.conservationgateway.org/ConservationPractices/Marine/crr/library/Pages/Warm-water-coral-reefs-and-climate-change.aspx
It was a memorable night and it was good to see Mark and Niki there. You would have been blessed if you could have attended. There’s a certain euphoria and insight hovering over me as we drive back home to Owen Sound in the rain in the dark.
We always pray for protection from the deer who don’t look both ways before they cross the road. They are such a beautiful part of God’s creation but in the battle of car versus deer, no one wins.
