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By Tim Hazell For modern society, textures have become qualities of physicality associated with dynamic lifestyles. Driven by goal-oriented infatuations, individuals play hard and fast for high stakes. Latent talents for opportunism give twenty-first century humanities the hollow ring of propaganda. In Latin America ageless values and customs still persist just beneath cosmetics of imported fashion. North of the border, patinas of tradition are difficult to recognize. As we venture back further, struggles to recapture an essential pragmatism become more poignant and futile. For this reason, phenomena such as a Victorian or Medieval experience are restricted to regions of the imagination. The ephemeral music of citizenry and daily life is lost to us. Street vendors clamoring for their wares, banter in the fields to lighten the tedium of labor, the clatter of dances during rustic festivities, music to accompany the burlesque and passion of traveling theater-all this has proven transient. Sound as notation fails to convey the savors and peculiar characteristics of an era until we answer fundamental questions about the players and instruments themselves. Medieval manuscripts were written on durable hide parchment, and many illuminated treasures of the copyist's art survive. Frankish Emperor Charlemagne embarked on a fervent crusade to help establish libraries and havens for scholars throughout the Holy Roman Empire, though he was unable to master basic reading and writing skills. The intensive labor involved in hand duplication and appareling of books was the domain of highly skilled clerics for most of the early Middle Ages. Volumes were precious commodities, agencies of status for those fortunate few outside the cloister. Great care and artistry was lavished on religious texts, and transcribing music notation was an area of specialization reserved for the most experienced scribes. Although the primitive shorthand of medieval sound calligraphy is beautiful to look at, attempts to reconstruct the actual music can be frustrating. Ingredients for historically plausible orchestrations of works by composers such as tenth-century Abbess Hildegarde Von Bingen app ear as tantalizing abstractions. For the musicologist and archivist of today, the challenges of decipherment can provide deep satisfaction and lasting rewards. Sumptuous legacies, ranging from the sacred to profane, from monophonic scripts of single melody lines to rich polyphonic choral works, shed light on Germanic, Frankish and Saxon worlds. Music was a birthright of the abbot, merchant, innkeeper and burgermeister alike. Church, high court, university, town and tavern laid foundations for our musical heritage. Although real three-dimensional space is a concept inapplicable to clusters of tone and melody line, listeners who are transported by evocative sounds frequently imagine music as forms with tactile characteristics moving through implied external environments. This ambient space may consist of intervals of silence shaped and contained within a sonic framework. We no longer speak of music as being a separate entity or commodity without triggering a series of associations with other skills and discipl ines. When relating the concept of shaping space to music such as that of ancient Mexico, composing can begin around a very simple rhythmic pattern often based on traditional dance, using the ceremonial drum (huehuetl), or log xylophone (teponaztli), until some kind of structure emerges. The teponaztli is hollowed and elaborately carved from mesquite or nogal wood, having two or four tongues cut into its surface. These are struck with mallets. Rhythmic combinations are infinite. Two fundamental characteristics emerge: the pattern of meter, and underlying themes for the entire piece. As an example of parallel commentary, a typical Indian hypothesis is built upon well-defined elements, such as a primary theme and secondary theme. These serve as the basis for improvisation that is at the heart of complex and richly stylized orchestrations. The bhajan, dhun and kirtan songs of the Hindus, the kawali of the Muslims and Sikh shabad are especially oriented toward religion, but not all Indian music is serious. Popular genres abound such as the gazal, known for its poetic and romantic content. Among ethnic and mainstream composers, swatches or musical sketches expand the basics of theory and open up a dictionary of infinite possibilities. Assonance and dissonance are developments of mathematics, science and intellect pinning down intuition. How they are used to achieve impact is a question of individual talent. American blues represents a motherlode, the dark chocolate center pulsing and muttering within the translucent heart of Africa. Legendary American bluesman Robert Johnson (1911-1938) was obsessed with premonitions of his own early demise. The "Crossroads" provided an inspiration for his songs. Jordan's status as tormented genius, master of the folk blues idiom is unchallenged to this day. These lyrics say much about his sense of being accountable. I gotta keep movin Blues fallin down like hail Umm mmmm mmm mmmmmm Blues fallin down like hail And the days keeps on worryin me There's a hellhound on my trail Johnson was poisoned in 1938 with a bottle of strychnine-laced whisky during an evening of music and friendly rivalry between the leading blues exponents of the time. His interest in women and a houseman's jealousy was his undoing. Whether or not the tale is true, his life and musings about his own duality also reflect the need to reassess abomination and glory, elements of all human folly and great achievements. Tim Hazell is a multidisciplinary artist in the areas of painting, music, theater, education, writing and research, specializing in Latin America. He may be contacted at hazel@unisono.net.mx or at his website, www.timhazell.com . |