Charles Seeger has made us seen how the study of musicology can fit into a large inquiry of human to the world, with all other disciplines of study, from natural sciences to humanities. This is an exciting picture, making musicology worthwhile.
I'm thinking about a different picture though, probably making me more exciting about musicology. Think about the cosmology, theoretical physicist, astronomer, the picture of universe, whether there is a beginning and an end of the universe, etc. All these being said, we could not even start to answer the question behind: why and how are things the way they are in the universe? Scientists often refer to God in this situation, how God has intended it, whether God plays dice, they say.
To me, the most mysterious thing is that our human world is already too rich for us to catch up, to understand. There are so many many many things going on in this world on earth, that one cannot even try to catch a big part of it. Meanwhile, our human world is nothing compared to the universe, both in the amount of time and space. Our existence means and matters nothing to other parts of the universe. We thought our small world is everything, but the it is nothing.
The wonderfulness about our world, compared to that of universe, is not dumb at all though. If the God designed the universe according to the laws, the laws of our human world is equally rich. Every natural biological device seems to be the most elaborate design. Why are they the way they are? Why do we human all have language and music, and they become so rich and complex, that we have to undertake a whole discipline over a long span of time to try to understand it? (Do we begin to?)
If there is God designed the vast universe, why would he care about our tiny world? Why would he bother to set these elaborate laws for something smaller than a H2O molecule in the whole body of ocean that covers the earth? What are those laws? How are they linked to the universe?
It also would be interesting to ask that, if God bothered to set up the laws for our world on earth, might he as well set up them for some other planets? How are the laws different? Does God himself care what we are thinking about these laws, trying to figure out them?
If we set out to answer any of these questions, we find ourselves doing things such as musicology and linguistics. These laws are not studied by natural sciences, yet they are less closely linked to the laws of the universe as it does for the laws of the earth, but that makes them more mysterious. If the earth as a planet and the universe shares some common laws as God created them, why did he create the laws of language and music for human? Many of these laws were not even realized to be existing until recently. Thus, everyone studying music and language, among other humanities/social sciences, are trying to figure out these laws. One day we might try to set foot into the next step to understand the creation of these laws.
Study of musicology is a noble and holy task.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Musical Instrument Collection at Met, New York
Today I went to New York and spent some time again at Met. This is the third time that I went to Met, and I went through the musical instrument collection with more attention to detail this time. I was so much more fascinated also because I recently re-discovered my strong interests in the study of musical instruments. For instance, I spent a lot of time in the European collection, from the long neck lute, course stringed guitars (just like the ones in Latin America), harpsichords, organs, to viola de Gamba, the predecessor of the violin family, etc. I got to see what Bach's Sonata for Viola de Gamba was playing on. It is believed that while the bowed string instruments first appeared around 10th century in middle Asia, the modern violin family did not get its shape until early 16th century. Before that, we have all kinds of shape and sized pre-violin family instruments, including viola de Gamba. They are equally fascinating to me as the violin family. There are some finest violins in the exhibition, by the way.
For the world music collection, I found that their Chinese collection is really old, the instruments are old style that are very different from today. They come from a collection of 1889. Looks very authentic. They believed that the huqin originated from Yuan dynasty, brought in by the Mongolian, rather than dating back to Xiqin in Tang Dynasty. They made a reasonable argument that the bow hair in between the strings reflects the need of the Mongolians who plays while riding their horse. The Gamelan instruments, sadly, has very few of them. I was surprised because Gemelan is so popular here in America. But Rebab they do have. The term Rebab(or rebel, rebec,etc.) is seen across the Islamic world from Egypt to Southeast Asia. Thailand seems to have both rebab-like instrument and huqin-like instrument.
A device called the sympathetic strings is seen both in European and Asian instruments, notably, many instruments of India. Sarangi is certainly very complicated looking. The folk forms of Sarangi seems simpler to play. I look forward to look into all these some day in the future.
For the world music collection, I found that their Chinese collection is really old, the instruments are old style that are very different from today. They come from a collection of 1889. Looks very authentic. They believed that the huqin originated from Yuan dynasty, brought in by the Mongolian, rather than dating back to Xiqin in Tang Dynasty. They made a reasonable argument that the bow hair in between the strings reflects the need of the Mongolians who plays while riding their horse. The Gamelan instruments, sadly, has very few of them. I was surprised because Gemelan is so popular here in America. But Rebab they do have. The term Rebab(or rebel, rebec,etc.) is seen across the Islamic world from Egypt to Southeast Asia. Thailand seems to have both rebab-like instrument and huqin-like instrument.
A device called the sympathetic strings is seen both in European and Asian instruments, notably, many instruments of India. Sarangi is certainly very complicated looking. The folk forms of Sarangi seems simpler to play. I look forward to look into all these some day in the future.
Monday, March 31, 2008
My book list
Recently my interest has been significantly broadened from music and linguistics, to include linguistic anthropology, world history, natural history, theory of universe, etc. Or rather say these are intensified, since I originally had them on my interest list in the notebook.
Today I suddenly found myself laying a pile of books on my desk that are really interesting, and these are definitely my favorite and classics:
WORKS. BRAHMS (Piano quintet op.34)
Ranma 1/2, vol.15 (original Japanese edition)
Bach Goldberg Variations by WILLIAMS
The Linguistic Construction of Reality by GRACE
Language and Culture by SHAUL and FURBEE
A Briefer History of Time by STEPHEN HAWKING
Attila by MAN
Parallel Worlds by MICHIO KAKU
The Maya by COE
Language, Culture and Society by SALZMANN
An Introduction to the Languages of the World by LYOVIN
Five Epochs of Civilization by McGaughey
Why Suya Sing by Anthony Seeger
Today I suddenly found myself laying a pile of books on my desk that are really interesting, and these are definitely my favorite and classics:
WORKS. BRAHMS (Piano quintet op.34)
Ranma 1/2, vol.15 (original Japanese edition)
Bach Goldberg Variations by WILLIAMS
The Linguistic Construction of Reality by GRACE
Language and Culture by SHAUL and FURBEE
A Briefer History of Time by STEPHEN HAWKING
Attila by MAN
Parallel Worlds by MICHIO KAKU
The Maya by COE
Language, Culture and Society by SALZMANN
An Introduction to the Languages of the World by LYOVIN
Five Epochs of Civilization by McGaughey
Why Suya Sing by Anthony Seeger
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
dream as a world
I don't know if we've think this way: dreams as a bordered world. I began to feel that sometimes in my dreams, many places were familiar only when I was in that dream; but when I woke up they don't make much sense any more. So I'm thinking the only possibility is likely to be that I have only seen them in previous dreams. Thus if dreams are composed like short stories( or long ones ), then is it possible that instead of totally independent stories, the author set them up all in one world, or country, or city? Like in Partners in Murder, Tommy and Tuppence spent all their time in England. Thus those locations only appears in that world. How mysterious.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Gamelan, Samba, and how we learn music
Growing up mostly exposed to the music literacy and Western art music way of training, my recent experience with Gamelan ensemble really has something interesting to say. Samba workshop teaches you in a similar way of Gamelan. This different way of how to learn a new piece, even a new instrument is: while others who are already competent to play are playing the cycles of the piece, the instructor teaches you, show you with oral way of transmission or with the aid of the minimum music notation, how to play. Then you try it, and through the cycles you try to pitch in, and finally you can totally play harmoniously together with others. This is playing by ear.
I was not only fascinated by this mere phenomenon. What was interesting to me is that when I managed to play a few tunes on the Indonesian flute (suling) with the ensemble, the instructor gave me a really difficult piece. He played several times (in fact he took three or four shot before regaining the right way to play, especially rhythmically), and then I began, totally clueless. The difficulty lies both in making the right pitch on a higher octave than usual, and making the rhythm right.
I was only given little chance in this rehearsal to play it and I didn't manage it at all. And then I didn't practice before the next rehearsal, which is two days later. But surprisingly, I manage the tune much better at first shot, and then get better and better, finally almost play right in every aspect, even rhythm.
This ability of human to learn music, or acquire music, is amazing. Without practice and thinking about it at all, one could manage to make significant progress after a day or two than the first try. And without hearing more demonstration in the second time, without more instructions, one could figure out gradually and manage to play in the right way through the cycles that others were playing, though in very different instruments and musical lines. One could just follow the musical implication of others and do the right thing. This correspond with the human's ability to learn language, especially children, when they make a creole complete during their growing up through several generations. It is still a mystery. And in regarding to music, how it is linked to language ability seems not to be clear enough. Its own mechanism, of course, still awaits exploration.
I was not only fascinated by this mere phenomenon. What was interesting to me is that when I managed to play a few tunes on the Indonesian flute (suling) with the ensemble, the instructor gave me a really difficult piece. He played several times (in fact he took three or four shot before regaining the right way to play, especially rhythmically), and then I began, totally clueless. The difficulty lies both in making the right pitch on a higher octave than usual, and making the rhythm right.
I was only given little chance in this rehearsal to play it and I didn't manage it at all. And then I didn't practice before the next rehearsal, which is two days later. But surprisingly, I manage the tune much better at first shot, and then get better and better, finally almost play right in every aspect, even rhythm.
This ability of human to learn music, or acquire music, is amazing. Without practice and thinking about it at all, one could manage to make significant progress after a day or two than the first try. And without hearing more demonstration in the second time, without more instructions, one could figure out gradually and manage to play in the right way through the cycles that others were playing, though in very different instruments and musical lines. One could just follow the musical implication of others and do the right thing. This correspond with the human's ability to learn language, especially children, when they make a creole complete during their growing up through several generations. It is still a mystery. And in regarding to music, how it is linked to language ability seems not to be clear enough. Its own mechanism, of course, still awaits exploration.
Seeger's mind
As we read and understand and interpret and 'conquer' one after another articles by Seeger, we surely learn a lot of his valuable ideas and concerns. But I'm more interested in the self-reflection part of this endeavor, which we do not usually touch upon. Such issues might include, most importantly, that I want to ask, how does Seeger's mind work to produce these distinctive and worthwhile studies? How does he manage to be so logic, so sharp in observation, and many other of his advanced qualifications as an outstanding musicologist, father and leader of American musicology, and the man who is very advanced in terms of foreseeing issues that will become major concerns in the future, even a hundred years later? Of course some of these might only be explained by the genius theory. The gift that every one of possess is certainly differentiated. Nonetheless, I still want to know, how can way extract some of the essence of his mind? That is to say, for instance, if you are a student of Seeger, you wouldn't just want to understand everything Seeger observed and thought and said, you should not satisfied by only understanding his ideas; in addition, what you want to learn is really how he got these ideas, how he observe things, how he analyze things in an absolutely smart and sophisticated way? How does his mind work, are there methodologies that we could rule out? Because once you're not with him, you've got to discover and create your own ideas and you wouldn't have him aside all the time. This is the thing I wonder. But I'm also skeptical: is this something we can learn?
Schenker, Reti, Chomsky, Lerdhal-Jackendoff, and Pian
Schenkerian analysis deals with different layers of musical structure, from surface to the deepest, reductive ones. Reti and others developed motivic analysis, seeing motif, especially underlying motives, being elaborated in many different ways, as the prevailing force of a piece of tonal music. These two both find the underlying, unconscious structures and patterns in music.
This idea of finding unconscious patterns links to the Chomskian linguistics very strongly. Syntactic theory, for instance, generative grammar, the most well-known Chomskian methodology, is based on this idea. Needless to compare them now technically, I wonder if this could serve as the basic common ground for the similarities and differences in music and language, mostly syntactically.
Two authors I read before actually come to my mind when I encountered Schenker and Reti. L-Jackendoff developed the Generative Grammar of Tonal Music in the 1980s, while that idea comes from linguistics, its application to music cannot avoid catching my attention that it is similar in many ways to Schenker.
The second author is Dr. Rulan Chao Pian of Harvard University, who studied 26 samples of Xipi Animated arias in Peking Opera in a paper that I read last year. Dr. Yung speaks highly of this paper, and it is indeed a sophisticated study. Pian identified several motives that predominantly appear throughout all the musical materials.Again, while her methodology, overtly stated, came from linguistics, one cannot help but notice the similarity to the motivic analysis of Reti and alike, despite the fact that they work in different music idioms and cultures.
It seems that this idea is worth pursuing and many scholars in different areas have actually done their studies on this idea. But first I need to make clear how do they relate and whether do they relate to each others, or they work totally independently. Either way it should speaks of the resemblance on some level between music and language.
This idea of finding unconscious patterns links to the Chomskian linguistics very strongly. Syntactic theory, for instance, generative grammar, the most well-known Chomskian methodology, is based on this idea. Needless to compare them now technically, I wonder if this could serve as the basic common ground for the similarities and differences in music and language, mostly syntactically.
Two authors I read before actually come to my mind when I encountered Schenker and Reti. L-Jackendoff developed the Generative Grammar of Tonal Music in the 1980s, while that idea comes from linguistics, its application to music cannot avoid catching my attention that it is similar in many ways to Schenker.
The second author is Dr. Rulan Chao Pian of Harvard University, who studied 26 samples of Xipi Animated arias in Peking Opera in a paper that I read last year. Dr. Yung speaks highly of this paper, and it is indeed a sophisticated study. Pian identified several motives that predominantly appear throughout all the musical materials.Again, while her methodology, overtly stated, came from linguistics, one cannot help but notice the similarity to the motivic analysis of Reti and alike, despite the fact that they work in different music idioms and cultures.
It seems that this idea is worth pursuing and many scholars in different areas have actually done their studies on this idea. But first I need to make clear how do they relate and whether do they relate to each others, or they work totally independently. Either way it should speaks of the resemblance on some level between music and language.
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