John Petrucelli Post 2

After our discussion of World Music, I felt inspired to further to explore the connection between John Coltrane and Indian Classical Music. I think that Coltrane’s study of Indian music is in direct response to his internal desire and need for a kind of structural framework or architecture in which to solo in a free context. Although Dr. Porter’s book, John Coltrane: his life and music, presents a quote from John Coltrane stating “since (My Favorite Things), I’ve been listening more and more to Indian music, and I’ve been trying to use some of their methods in some of the things we’re doing, but at that time it was more or less subconscious,” could it be possible that Coltrane may have begun to assimilate the work his was putting into to listening, analyzing, and (almost certainly) playing along with recordings of Indian music?

I think that Coltrane was experimenting with free jazz based on his experiences with Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra (especially with John Gilmore), but I postulate that Coltrane must have been looking for structure or a method of architecture for the music in different ways other than harmonic progressions. Obviously Ornette Coleman was very focused on the melodic implications, but I think Coltrane came to Indian music and was influenced by it because of its way of structuring the music based on the ragas.

On My Favorite Things[1], Coltrane demonstrates a sound concept reminiscent of the sounds of Indian music. I hear this connection especially because in the context of other possible influences on the soprano sound-wise, Coltrane’s sound represents a radical departure, which I believe was may have been inspired by Indian music. Use these clips as a baseline for comparison:

Steve Lacy- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlFUPVv6010

Sidney Bechet- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG4nPM9uxwg

Steve Lacy and Sidney Bechet were the two major influences on the soprano pre-Coltrane. Sidney Bechet’s approach and sound concept was distinctly influenced by the New Orleans jazz tradition, imitating the sound and vibrato of the clarinet. In the Steve Lacy clip, he has much less vibrato, but still maintains a very round, warm sound. In direct contrast, John Coltrane’s sound on soprano was very sharp, piercing, and harshly vivid. I think that there may be a specific Indian instrument, the “mukhavina,” which could have been a formative inspiration for his sound. This instrument is “a smaller version of the nadaswaram, usually only about a foot and a half in length… like the nadaswaram it is played in south India but it is more common in folk music. Curiously the name "mukhavina" literally translates to "mouth – vina.”[2] I submit a recording of the instrument for your comparison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy_yUDy5Vtk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nfKpiGwRVo&feature=player_embedded

Even if Coltrane did not come into contact with this instrument, I believe that his sound is very comparable, and therefore has a likely influence from the Indian music tradition. I think it is very doubtful that he was able to forge such a unique and innovative sound completely independent of outside influence, especially considering the direction of his listening and performing.

During the course of the solo on India from the 1961 The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wuaquaMmGA), I concluded that Coltrane may be using a raga based on the scale F G A B C D. He initially explores the lower tones of the scale, C and D, with the melody, which we learned is how Indian players begin the ragas. He consistently comes back to ideas and motives based on the intervallic structure of this scale. Now, to be sure, he certainly uses free sounds similar to those conceived on Impressions recordings (2:03), but he continually returns to the “raga ideas”. Coltrane also bends notes in the style of an Indian musician at 5:38.

As I was combing through Coltrane recordings from this time period, I found this recording of My Favorite Things from the 1966 Newport Jazz Festival's which I compared with a Ravi Shankar recording (unfortunately not the same time period). However I made a discovery of a similar ascending skipping motive that I would like to provide for you to review. To me this could demonstrate a definite Shankar influence on Coltrane, who says himself, “I collect the records he [Shankar]’s made, and his music moves me.” These two recordings are not made in the same time period, as I unfortunately do not have any recordings of Shankar of my own to be honest. However, given I was unable to find any information that he regarded Coltrane as an influence, or that he listened to his music heavily, I think that it is highly likely that the skipping motive Coltrane uses may come from his listening to Shankar’s music.

3:29, My Favorite Things, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAPbpI9O3ww&feature=related

- Ascending skipping motive

3:50- Shankar, Raga Rangeela Piloo,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzN2gUGYUGc

---

[1]Coltrane, John. My Favorite Things (Rodgers and Hammerstein) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I6xkVRWzCY

[2] http://chandrakantha.com/articles/indian_music/mukhavina.html

Gretchen--Post 2--World Music

The limitless variety of music from across the globe—as well cultural practices, traditions, religions, clothing styles, foods, and languages—is fascinating. To me, just the awareness that so many different cultural aspects exist is humbling. There is no way any one person can learn and understand everything about every other human culture. However, such an absence of knowledge is what makes disciplines such as anthropology, cultural studies, and ethnomusicology so valuable. It makes sense that ethnomusicology has also been called comparative musicology, for it can never be an unbiased scientific study. Regardless of whether we are ethnomusicologists, musicians, or engaged but music-illiterate listeners, our understanding of music (or any other cultural aspect) within our own culture will always shape our understanding of music within the context of another culture. As a result, it is essential that we as global citizens make an effort to expand out of the boundaries of our cultural blinders, allowing us to engage with the incredible depth of musical material available.

Tying back to the idea of improvisation, how can we objectively study the presence of improvisation in musical styles throughout the rest of the world if we are limited by the understanding of our own musical culture? Certainly the term “improvisation” doesn’t have the same meaning to Charlie Parker that it does to a ritual drummer in Africa. For that matter, improvisation probably doesn’t even have the exact same meaning to any two people in our class. In the first day of class, we compared two different encyclopedia definitions of the term, and even they did not present the same results. As noted from some of the readings, what might be considered improvisation to ritual percussionists in African cultures may seem no more than a slight variation on an established beat to a jazz musician from NYC. In the same way, differences in musical understanding can occur regarding tonal systems, instrumentation, personal expression vs. tradition, etc. As a result, it is not only enlightening, but essential to consider different world musics within their original context. Then, the “comparative” aspect, applied to our own cultural understanding, is what reveals the beauty of the endless musicality throughout this world. Just like in music itself—it is the variety (in rhythm, harmony, instrumentation, etc.) that makes it interesting and worth listening to.

However, in spite of all the perceived differences in musical styles across the globe, it also amazes me how many similarities exist as well. As we discussed, Indian ragas are a sort of variation on a Western scale. Similarly, I’m sure many other musical traditions draw from a framework of selected tones in order to create particular songs. Other musical similarities across the globe reflect human interaction and expression through percussive playing and singing. Many communities of people seem to engage each other through dance, which is often accompanied by a strong beat, created either by percussion or some type percussive instrumental playing. In terms of both personal and community expression, the voice still seems to serve as the most expressive instrument internationally. These examples, along with many I’m sure I am not aware of, suggest that there still remains a link through the vast diversity of human culture.

I must admit, part of the reason jazz appeals to me so much is its constant existence in a state of acculturation or hybridization. At its origins, it was highly influenced by not only African-Americans, but also the French-Creoles and Spanish in New Orleans, along with the European-influenced musics that were present in America at the time. As we discussed, there is now a very large Latin influence within the jazz community, as well as experiments with Indian music, African music, and other styles within our own borders—rock, hip-hop, funk, etc. It is also interesting that jazz has taken a universal concept (though not a universal term)—improvisation/variation/spontaneous composition/--and transformed it into a highly developed musical form that can be appreciated and adopted throughout the world.

The Song and the Improv

I hope it's all right to post again. I have been thinking a lot about what it means to improvise "on" a particular song. Traditionally it has meant that you must first play the song as written, and then use the chord progression from the song to build a new melody. My artistic experience, and performances I have seen and heard, are showing me that this is a limited approach and there are in fact many definitions to the word "on" in this context.

Take "La Cucaracha" from our Gabriela Montero video. The chord progression from the song is roughly | I | V | V | I |, creating a mirror. The improviser can build a solo using this concept of mirror. Melodic lines can be mirrored, a clave can be adjusted and mirrored, or a new chord progression can be created and then mirrored. The improviser could play anything as long as he could remember what he played, and then play it backwards! The chord form of La Cucaracha has many possibilites for extension. Instead of | I | V |, you can substitute | bV | bII |, using the tritone substitution, and then instead of | V | I | try | bVII | I |. And to "jazzify" it, try reversing the order of the first pair of chords, and make the first chord minor, turning it into a ii V.

So, now we have a chord progression that might not be recognizable to the audience as La Cucaracha, but it is born out of a deep focus on the song and an exploration of one of the song's central concepts. I think that certainly counts as "on" the song. Of course, it might not hurt to throw in some recognizable elements now and again, to make sure the audience is with you as you move through it.

I have also seen jazz pieces in which the composer has written solo changes that are different from the head changes -- the term is "through-composed." But the solo changes reference the head (or the head changes) in some way. They explore a new aspect of the song, but from start to finish the song sounds like one complete idea.

I think that as modern improvisers we need to seek out new ways to identify with our chosen songs. This is especially valuable when we are playing something that has been played many times. Within the different elements of the song -- rhythm, melody, harmony, lyrics, historical context, instrumentation -- we need to find what speaks to us, and it might not be the chord changes. We will craft an improvised "response" to the song, striving to make it artistically valid.

THANKS from Lew

What a great collection of comments! Tara, I totally agree with you that critics do not have the power to keep people from buying music they like. Theater seems to be different--it is well known that bad reviews have the power to close a show. Also, I am delighted to see that Bruce found some ideas that will be useful for his own work.

Lewis

Bruce Wands Comments Class 1

Bruce Wands Comments Class 1

I found our first class to be interesting and engaging. Lewis’s review of the history of improvisation opened some doors I had not thought of before. One of them was that I had assumed that the improvisation in Indian music was thousands of years old, rather than starting in the 1700s. I was also one of those that held the belief that the early 1900s New Orleans jazz was the golden age of improvisation. Lewis’s contention that the improvisation was controlled during that period changed my attitude. His emphasis on improvisation as a “continuum” makes much better sense to me. While “third stream” was mentioned in my Jazz Literature course this spring, I gained a deeper understating of the relationship between classical music and jazz. I was trained as a classical trombone player and moved to electric bass, rock, blues and jazz. My own music has two sides, a blues/jazz New Orleans approach and an electronic music/classical approach. The discussion regarding “third stream” helped me to see my music in a new way. Of particular interest to me was the discussion of graphic notation. While I was aware of it and had seen it before, it had slipped away from my awareness. One of my current areas of research is writing music based on imagery and video. This insight adds an additional dimension to that area of my art and music.

This is a first time blogger test!

Post 1

Like Dr. Porter addressed at the beginning of class, human society has always had an order or hierarchy; there was no period in time where civilization had no structure of some kind. I found this opening idea very thought provoking as we applied this notion towards improvisation in music, looking at both jazz and classical music. I found this relevant to looking at music in New Orleans in the early twentieth century. Like civilization’s organization as a whole, there were no early origins of improvisation in jazz as a wild and free act with little restrictions. As the recordings show in class, improvisation in jazz has developed from a rigid structure to more open in possibilities, from written solos that are worked out to “spontaneous creation,” which we heard in the recordings of “ Dipper Mouth Blues,” “Shoeshine Boy,” and “Parker’s Mood,” respectively, which each show a steady development in improvising. By listening to more than one recording, we can hear Johnny Dodds playing the same solo, with the second recording including the same solo from the first chorus on the first recording played twice. I found the Giardullo Method interesting when addressing group improvisation, which gave us a basic structure within our playing as a group, which helped us in playing both individually and as a group.

I also found it especially interesting to compare ideas and definitions of improvisation in jazz and classical music. Improvisation in the classical world seemed to revolve more on interpreting written compositions. The notes are already present, but how they are played is up to the performer, as Horowitz demonstrated. While improvisation in the classical world could also include performers creating new material as it is being performed, which is included in the Main Grove Dictionary’s definition, it is not expected today that classical musicians know how to improvise, with the exception of most organ players. I thought that the use of graph notation by classical composers was very interesting, in that it gave performers more freedom in terms of notes but still has a basic structure of what the composer wanted with direction and volume. I am looking forward to the next class when we look at improvisation in world music, to see what remains constant and what distinguishes it in definition and in development.