Cultural Background: Tibet
Tibet is part of the PRC (People’s Republic of China), Buddhism common with Indian or central Asian Buddhism. The music of Tibet also reflects its distinct cultural heritage. One of the very first Tibetan music is religious music; This reflects that religion is one of the most important influence over all aspects of lives in Tibet. Tibetan Buddhism is one of the main influences.1 Tibetan music are typically chanting; in Tibetan or Sanskrit. The chants are complex and are often based on reciting sacred texts or in celebration of festivals and rituals. The rituals are commonly performed to worship and pay respect to the Buddha; these types of rituals are recurring rituals throughout the year.2Cultural Background: Brazil
Brazil is the largest country in South America. The core culture of Brazil is derived from Portuguese culture due to its strong colonial ties.3 The music of Brazil is full of passion and joy resulting of the cultural influence from Portuguese and African, and Amerindians. However, Brazilian music developed unique and original styles such as choro, sertaneji, and Brazilian rock. Very little is known about Brazilian music since there was no written records; the music are often passed on through oral tradition.I will introduce the context and the origins of the piece in general, as well as the composers. The piece comes from two different countries and culture, however, shares interesting links
Tibetan Ritual Music was a song from a special ritual dedicated to a female deity known as the 'Venerable Diamond Yoghini.' 4 The performance is typically performed by a group of percussion and wind instrument with variety of timbres. Loud instrumental passages answered by soft singing, sustained monotone contrast with fast, wide ranging melodies. The accompanied chants alternated with those accompanied by regular patterns on the cymbols and bass drum.
The instruments featured in the Tibetan piece
(left to right) dnl-bu : hand bells, rgya-gling : oboe with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, and rng : double headed drum.5
Brazilian Ritual Music, also known as ‘Kaiapo music’ are predominantly vocal, however, there may be some instruments such as rattles and horns used to accompany and as time.6 This type of song is also performed by men in ceremonial activities such as the naming ceremony, agricultural, hunting and fishing rites. In ritual performances, men singers sings in ‘falsetto’, high register. This piece is labelled as ‘No ‘ok-’a a mor’ meaning the final dance; performers will paint make up on their face.7
The instruments featured in the Brazilian piece
The Brazilian piece is solely male vocal.
The investigation will give an in-depth analysis focusing on two main aspects of the pieces that contains connections: melody and structure.
Tibetan ritual piece is a religious piece performed by monks and nuns; the text of the piece was derived from one of the ‘sacred’ text and it piece is clearly ‘through-composed’ since the parts did not repeat nor form identifiable verses. The piece is a chant accompanied by regular patterns on the percussive traditional instruments such as Rolmo gsil snyarn (cymbol-like instrument) and Rng (drums).
The piece contains varieties of ‘timbres’ (tone quality) and ‘dynamics’ (volume), as well as being characterized by various contrasts such as the loud instrumental passages answered by vocalist groups singing softly. Moreover, the sustained monotonous vocal pitch also contrast with the fast, wide ranging melodies and the rhythmical passage on the percussive instruments which made it ‘heterophonic’ in texture.
The harmony of the Tibetan piece is clearly ‘antiphonal’, similar to the call and response style of piece typical in Gregorian Chants and other religious music. At 0:00-0:20, antiphony is evident as the male soloist sang a leading verse from 0:01-0:04 which led all other voices in at 0:04 as well as the dnl-bu, the hand bell playing in different parts of the phrase.
As other voices enters, (monks and nuns) female group vocalist performs the passage a fifth higher than the monks, however, all of them are chanting to a ‘two-note pattern’ accompanied by occassional bell rings. The piece demonstrates ‘melismaticity’ meaning the vocal phrase sung to one syllable of text (as evident during the first section of the song 0:00-0:28), and motives through the use of repetition of the melodic phrase.Brazilian ritual piece is a ritual song sung by adult male voice. The piece didn’t contain consistant instrumental accompaniment; it consists of a lot of repetition of the same ‘motifs’ or melodic ideas. The piece is performed in plain vocal phrases without the instruments. The piece explores interesting use of rhythmic alterations and beats to ornament different parts of the song.
While compare to the harmony of the Brazilian piece, the piece is monophonic since it only contains vocal phrases and all vocalist sings in unison throughout the piece. Therefore, the texture of the piece is thin and only contains a few timbre. However, the piece focused on exploring the dynamics and rhythm. While the voices are singing the same melodic phrase in unison, the use of fast, lively rhythms create interesting passages. The barline below demonstrates the very first passage of the piece during 0:00-0:08. Notice that there are a lot of repetition of the melodic pitch, however, the piece formed lively, interesting passage through the exploration of rhythm, using quavers and semiquavers.
The melody of the Brazilian piece consist of a relatively narrow-ranged melodic passages as a result from the piece being ‘monotonous’ and had no harmonic techniques. However, the piece demonstrates interesting use of melodic phrase through the different sections used in the song. The piece contains quite a scalic, modal tone repeating mainly 4 notes: F, Ab, Bb, and C.While the melody of the Tibetan chant displays clear antiphony consisting of several monotonous passage as well as the passing melody. There are also performance techniques similar to ‘glissando’, however, within narrow range of melody for example demonstrated in 0:04-0:08 of the piece, it is evident that the vocalist slide between each passing notes. The melodic range is wider than Brazilian piece due to the variety of ‘timbres’ and instruments that existed in the piece. The piece gives the impression of being a modal piece since the piece also make use of some of the pitch more frequently than others; the pitch such as G#, B, C#, and D# can be identified as the dominant pitch in the vocal chant.
Moreover, the melodic part did not exist solely on the vocal lines but in instrument as well. In this piece ‘rgya-gling’ was featured in section 2 of the piece, the instrumental section.
The instrumental section in this section features interesting rhythm contrast towards the first section. The dominant melody of the rgya-gling are F, G, A, and B; these pitch are used a lot throughout the passage. The third section during 1:16-1:25 is an antiphonal secion which establishes two more phrases of the chants similar to section 1. While section 4 during 1:26 all through towards the end of the song was performed by a solo monk and joined by other vocalist who sang in an octave higher. The chant in this section also features four main notes in the melody: G#, B, C#, and D#. It is clearly evident that short motifs are repeated in varied ornamented form in this piece. The small scale is also a stylistic consistancy throughout the piece, however, there are also large scale unity becauase the chants melody and instrumental passage were repeated throughout the piece.
When compare to Brazilian ritual piece, the piece is constructed from three basic phrases and each phrase of the song appeals in two or three different forms but consisting of mainly repeated notes of the same pitch. The three melodic phrases are as demonstrated below:
However, the piece did not stick to this arrangement and it frequently rearrange the parts and create a new combination of patterns. This can also be recognised as a form of ‘improvisation’which is also common in world music. The piece gives the impression of being a ‘cyclic’ piece where the melodic parts are created but can be alter and rearranged in performance and is not restricted to only one type of pattern. By listening to the whole piece the sections can be identified as: AA BB CB AA BB C. The structure may not be compare to the western forms, however, the structural evidence proves the structural form of the piece being the repetition of the same melodic phases and follows a certain pattern. The piece is ‘monophonic’ in texture and only one tone quality was consistantly performed in unison throughout.
In conclusion, the investigation of the two world music pieces demonstrates that they had clear links in the aspects of melody and structure. The diversity of techniques and stylistic aspects of the pieces shows interesting and distinct contrast which made the topic of world music very devastrating.
Bibliography:
Stock, Jonathan. World Sound Matters: An Anthology of Music from Around the World. Student ed. Germany: Schott, 2004.
"Music Tibet." Music Tibet. http://www.musictibet.com/ (accessed September 12, 2010).
Year. "Brazilian Music." Carnaval Brazilian Music. http://www.carnaval.com/music/samba.htm (accessed September 12, 2010).
Bennett, Roy. Investigating Musical Styles. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
"World Music - Tibet." Digital Daydreams Music Resources. http://www.digital-daydreams.com/enc/world/show_country.php?id=40 (accessed September 12, 2010).
Endnotes:
1 Bennett, Roy. Investigating Musical Styles.
2 Bennett, Roy. Investigating Musical Styles.
3 Stock, Jonathan. World Sound Matters: An Anthology of Music from Around the World.
4 Stock, Jonathan. World Sound Matters: An Anthology of Music from Around the World.
5 http://www.digital-daydreams.com/enc/world/show_country.php?id=40
6 Stock, Jonathan. World Sound Matters: An Anthology of Music from Around the World.
7 Stock, Jonathan. World Sound Matters: An Anthology of Music from Around the World.
