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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION TO MUSIC & MUSIC GENRES

A) WHAT IS MUSIC?

Music is found in every known culture, past and present, varying widely between times

and places. Different cultures emphasized different instruments, or techniques, or uses for

music. The language, contents and styles of music of different countries may differ but it

has always been used as a source of entertainment, for cultural and religious practices /

ceremonies, and for practical and artistic communication, all over the world.

Introduction to music:

The music of India is said to be one of the oldest unbroken musical traditions in the

world. It is said that the origins of this system go back to the Vedas (ancient scripts of

the Hindus).

The basis for Indian music is “sangeet”. Let us begin by looking at the etymology of the

words 'music' and 'sangeet ', not because we are in search of 'origins', or 'pure' meanings

of these terms, but to explore what kind of cultural practices these concepts have covered

in the past.

Music is derived from 'muse' who in ancient Greek referred to the seven goddesses who

supervised a whole range of cultural practices, ranging from poetic inspiration and

eloquence, history, pastoral life, astronomy and celestial phenomena to instrumental and

vocal music, dance, heroic and erotic poetry. It appears that the Greek concept of 'music'

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is almost equivalent to the recent post-modern concept of 'Cultural Studies', which claims

to be 'committed to the study of the entire range of a society's arts, beliefs, institutions,

and communicative practices'. 1

Whereas the Sanskrit term 'sangeet' literally means 'sung together', that is, a combination

of three art forms: vocal music, instrumental music and dance. Although, these three art

forms were originally derived from the single field of stagecraft but today these forms

have differentiated into complex and highly refined individual art forms.2

Music may be defined as:

- An art based on the organization of sounds in time.

Or

- The art of organizing sound so as to elicit an aesthetic response in a listener.3

Or

- An aesthetically pleasing or harmonious sound.

Sound that moves the human soul by Christopher Hogwood.

Music is a unique experience for all of us. Though, like noise music also stems from the

same source, namely, sound, it stands tall apart and distinguishes itself by the virtue of

it’s being 'organized and pleasing.' Unlike noise, music is formed of a connected series of

sounds (tones) of a definite pitch and pattern that the brain could process into something 1 Milind Malshe, (2007), Research paper - Languages of Music: Search for an Indian perspective, International Conference India as a Literary & Cultural Space, Mumbai. 2 Milind Malshe, (2007), Research paper - Languages of Music: Search for an Indian perspective, International Conference India as a Literary & Cultural Space, Mumbai 3 Danlee Mitchell, Elements of music, at http://trumpet.sdsu.edu/M345/Elements_of_Music1.html

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beautiful and meaningful. Focusing our mind on the content of the sound would reveal to

us how music is woven around an aesthetically - sounding pitch with its dynamic notes

that move through in an ascending and descending scale, lifting our mind along with it

wherever it goes, while its rhythms unconsciously make us respond to its tilts and turns,

making us nod our head and move our body and limbs.1

According to Webster's II: New Riverside University Dictionary, Music is "the art of

arranging tones in an orderly sequence so as to produce a unified and continuous

composition".

Frank Zappa, the American rock musician would equate music in performance as a type

of "sculpture", in which 'the air in the performance is sculpted into something.'

Hegel would find that music- unlike any other art forms -has no independent existence in

space. It cannot be therefore, 'objective' in that sense.

Claude Levi-Strauss, the French anthropologist, would refer to music as a language with

the contrary attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable. He acknowledges

that the listener experiences a fundamental rhythm within himself- a concept propagated

in nada yoga and lost- in the dark abysm of time!

Music can be assumed as an intrinsic part of all of us as the pulse and rhythm are found

in our heartbeat, our breathing and our movement; melody is created in our laughing, 1 Dr. T.V. Sairam, What is music?, Pub. Nada Center for Music Therapy, 2004, Chennai

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crying, screaming or singing. The whole range of our emotions can be held within the

rhythms and harmonies of different musical styles and idioms. It is essentially, our own

experience, thoughts and wisdom. It exhibits certain immediacy, as it touches our soul

straight. The beauty about music is that it lends us an inexhaustible source of strength,

through a continuous assertion.

B) IS EVERY SOUND IN SPACE MUSICAL?

Any sound cannot be addressed as musical, we can distinguish musical sound from other

sounds by recognizing the four main properties of musical sounds:

1) Pitch (highness and lowness)

2) Dynamics / amplitude (loudness or softness)

3) Timbre or Harmonic Profile (tone quality or tone color)

4) Duration (length and periodicity)

The other elements / contents of music are:

i) Note / tone

ii) Rhythm

iii) Meter

iv) Melody

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v) Harmony

Sound is measured as the number of vibrations per second or cycles-per-second (cps),

also known as Hertz (Hz) produced by the vibrating body. If the vibration is steady (for

example, 440 Hz), the musical effect produced is known as pitch, tone, or note (all three

words are interchangeable.1

Pitch:

Image Source: http://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/web2/audio/figs/aud.0206.gif

'Pitch' refers to the location of a sound in a tonal scale, gets classified into high or low,

depending upon the speed of vibrations from the sound source. The faster the vibrations

the higher the pitch; slower the vibrations, lower the pitch. Pitch highness and lowness is

relative. In music, a sound that has a definite pitch is called a 'tone' / 'note'. It has a

specific frequency, such as 440 cycles per second. The vibrations of a tone are regular

and reach the ear at equal time intervals. Noise like sounds (squeaking brakes or clashing

cymbals) have an indefinite pitch because it is produced due to irregular vibrations. Two

tones will sound different when they have different pitches. The "distance" in pitch

between any two tones is called an interval. When tones are separated by the interval

called an octave, they sound very much alike. The distance between the lowest and

highest tones that a voice or instrument can produce is called its pitch range, or simply its

range.2

1 Danlee Mitchell, Elements of music, at http://trumpet.sdsu.edu/M345/Elements_of_Music1.html 2 Sylvia Constantinidis, History Of Music - Elements of Music, at http://historyofmusic.tripod.com/id6.html

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Amplitude:

Image Sources: http://www.virtual-sound.com/en/images/stories/demo_html/1t/012t.jpg

Amplitude is the physical measurement of levels of loudness and softness in sound, and,

in music, the psychological term used to describe gradations of amplitude is dynamics.

Degrees of loudness or softness in music are called dynamics / amplitude, our second

property of sound. Loudness is related to the amplitude of the vibration that produces the

sound. The harder a guitar string is plucked (the farther it moves from the fingerboard),

the louder its sound. When instruments are played more loudly or more softly, or when

there is a change in how many instruments are heard, a dynamic change results; such a

change may be made either suddenly or gradually. 1

Timbre: -

Image Sources:

http://walrusmusicblog.com/wp-content/uploads/retro/706blog_sound_of_color.jpg

1 Danlee Mitchell, Elements of music, at http://trumpet.sdsu.edu/M345/Elements_of_Music1.html

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Timbre is the quality of a sound that distinguishes it from other sounds of the same pitch

and volume. Tone color is determined by the loudness of individual harmonics or partials

within a single tone. Tone color is described by words like bright, dark, brilliant, mellow,

and rich.1

A few questions may lead to a more practical understanding of harmonic profile or

timbre:

- Is it possible to know who says "Hello" on the telephone before they identify

themselves?

- Is it possible to hear the difference between a flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet or

saxophone if they play the same note with one instrument following the other in

time?

- Is it possible to hear the difference between an acoustic guitar and an electric

guitar?

If the answer to any of the preceding questions is "yes," it is probable that humans have a

natural sensitivity to timbre.

Duration:

Image Sources: http://www.howmusicworks.org/509/Meter-and-Rhythm/Musical-Tempo

Duration of sound means length of time a musical sound lasts. Duration of sound also

deals with sound periodicity. Periodicity gives beat and rhythm to music. A steady,

periodic pattern gives beat or pulse to music while a repeated pattern of varying periodic

lengths gives rhythm to music. 1

1 Danlee Mitchell, Elements of music, at http://trumpet.sdsu.edu/M345/Elements_of_Music1.html 2 Dr. T.V.Sairam, What is music?, Pub. Nada Center for Music Therapy, 2004, Chennai 3 Sylvia Constantinidis, History Of Music - Elements of Music, at http://historyofmusic.tripod.com/id6.html

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Rhythm is the flow of music through time. It is often described as the 'essence of music',

regulates the flow of a melody. More specifically, it can be defined as the particular

arrangement of note lengths in a piece of music. A rhythm includes the effects of: beats,

accent and syncopation, tempo, grouping of notes into beats, grouping of beats into

measures, grouping of measures into phrases, etc.2

Here, Beat stands for a regular, recurrent pulsation that divides music into equal units of

time or can be defined as a temporal unit of music. For example- when we clap our hands

or tap our foot to music, we are responding to its beat. A group having a fixed number of

beats is called a measure. Accent and Syncopation is another important aspect of rhythm.

The way individual notes are stressed (by being played louder than the notes around it)

and how they get special emphasis, is known as dynamic accent and when an accented

note comes where we normally would not expect one, the effect is known as

syncopation.3

Tempo is the speed of the beat, the basic pace of the music. The greater the tempo, the

larger the number of beats that must be played in a minute and, therefore, the faster a

piece must be played. A fast tempo is associated with a feeling of energy, drive, and

excitement whereas a slow tempo often contributes to a solemn, lyrical, or calm mood.3

Melody:

Image Sources:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/BachFugueBar.png/220px-

BachFugueBar.png

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Melody may be defined as a series of tones, one following the other, sometimes

smoothly, sometimes brusquely. Repetition of pitch and rhythm patterns is an important

factor in any melody existing as an "entity." Melodic pitches are not randomly ordered,

but are subject to basic principles of design. The word harmony refers to the procedure by

which chords of music are constructed and the system by which one chord follows

another chord in time. A chord may be defined as a combination of three or more

different tones conceived as a related unit and sounding at the same moment in time.

Most music in western culture is a blend of melody and harmony.1

All these aspects are judiciously treated in music to give a personality to a musical piece

and are said to be the 'Building Blocks' of music.

C) REPERTOIRE OF MUSIC GENRES:

We can broadly classify all the popular Genres of Music, India & International into five

categories. They are:

1. Classical Music

Classical music in its widest sense refers to music composed in a classical tradition and

intended as serious art, especially as distinguished from popular or folk music. The term

is generally used to "canonize" a musical tradition dating to a period, which is the

"golden age" of music for a particular culture. Music derived from that "classical

tradition" is what is then termed that culture's variety of classical music. There are

numbers of classical music Traditions / styles found all over the world like:

Afghan classical music (Klasik), Andalusian / Arabic

classical music, Azerbaijani classical music (Mugham),

Cambodian classical music, Chinese classical music,

European Classical Music, Indian classical music (Within

Indian classical music, there are two distinct traditions,

Hindustani and Carnatic), Indonesian classical music

(Gamelan), Iranian classical music, Japanese classical

1 Danlee Mitchell, Elements of music, at http://trumpet.sdsu.edu/M345/Elements_of_Music1.html

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music (Gagaku), Korean classical music, Laotian classical music, Mandé classical music

(Griot), Ottoman classical music, Philippine classical music and Thai classical music.

2. Traditional / Folk Music

Traditional Music / Folk Music Folk

music, in the most basic sense of the

term, is music by and for the

common people. The Tech

Multimedia Music Dictionary defines

it as "music of the common people

that has been passed on by

memorization or repetition rather

than by writing, and has deep roots in

its own culture."

Folk music songs deal with almost every kind of human activity. Folk music often

expresses the character of ethnic and social groups and sometimes a nation. A folk song

can express political or religious beliefs, tell a story or describe history, or just provide

amusement.

Folk songs can often be classified

into different types. The ballad, a

song that tells story often about real

events, is one of the main types of

folk song. Ballads are in stanza

form, where a melody is repeated

for each of several verses, and may

have a refrain that is repeated

several times. Another kind of folk song is one that deals with a particular activity,

occupation, or set of circumstances. This group includes work songs, prison songs, war

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songs, and the like. There are also spiritual prayers; songs for children, songs about life's

stages, and many songs are just for celebration, dance, and enjoyment. 1

According to Webster's dictionary, folk music is the "traditional and typically anonymous

music that is an expression of the life of the people in a community". People play and

sing together rather than watching others perform. Folk songs are commonly seen as

songs that express something about a way of life that exists now or in the past or is about

to disappear (or in some cases, to be preserved or somehow revived).

3. Pop Music / Popular Music (Film Music)

Pop music is an ample and imprecise category of modern music not defined by artistic

consideration but by its potential audience or prospective market. Pop is music composed

with deliberate intent to appeal to the majority of its contemporaries.

A defining characteristic of pop music is that anyone is able to enjoy it. Artistic concepts

such as musical form and aesthetics are not a concern in the writing of pop songs, the

primary objectives being audience enjoyment and commercial success. Pop songs are

generally marked by a heavy rhythmic element, a mainstream style and traditional

structure. The most common variant is strophic in form and focuses on melodies, catchy

hooks and the appeal of the verse-chorus-verse arrangement, with the chorus sharply

contrasting the verse melodically, rhythmically and harmonically. Some of the most

common themes in pop music are romantic love and feelings. 2

4. Religious & Devotional Music

Religious music (also sacred music) is music performed or

composed for religious use or through religious influence. A

lot of music has been composed to complement religion, and

many composers have derived some inspiration from their

religions. Many forms of traditional music have been adapted

to fit religions' purposes or descended from religious music.

Almost every religion of this world has its own religious

1 Folk Music, at http://www.42explore.com/folkmusic.htm 2 Webster’s Dictionary

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music like hymns & gospel in Christian music, kirtan in Hindu music, gurbani in Sikh

music, Jewish music, nyabinghi in Rastafarian music, sufi in Mosque music, afro-

caribbean music and shinto music or taiko in Japan, etc. 1

5. Blues

Blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on the use of the blue notes. It

emerged in African-American communities of the United States from spirituals, work

songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The use of

blue notes and the prominence of call-and-response patterns in the music and lyrics are

indicative of African influence.

The blues influenced later

American and Western popular

music, as it became the roots of

jazz, bluegrass, rhythm and blues,

rock and roll, heavy metal music,

hip-hop, and other popular music

forms. 2

Jazz is an original American

musical art form in which the use of blue notes, call-and-response, improvisation,

polyrhythm, syncopation, and the swung note of ragtime are prominent.

In bluegrass, as in jazz, each instrument takes a turn playing the melody and improvising

around it, while the others revert to backing; this is in contrast to old-time music, in

which all instruments play the melody together or one instrument carries the lead

throughout while the others provide accompaniment. Bluegrass is distinctively acoustic

instrumentation not using electrical instruments of any kind except for the electric bass

guitar.

Classic rock and roll is played with one or two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm), a

string bass or (after the mid-1950s) an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit. The beat is 1 Wikipedia Dictionary 2 Wikipedia Dictionary

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essentially a boogie woogie blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, the latter almost

always provided by a snare drum. It later spawned the various sub-genres of what is now

called simply 'rock music'.

With roots in blues-rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal

developed a thick, heavy, guitar-and-drums-centered sound, characterized by highly

amplified distortion and fast guitar solos. All Music Guide states that "of all rock & roll's

myriad forms, heavy metal is the most extreme in terms of volume, machismo, and

theatricality."

Hip-hop music is a genre of music typically consisting of a rhythmic style of speaking

called rap over backing beats.

Rapping, also referred to as emceeing, is a vocal style in which the performer speaks

rhythmically and in rhyme, generally to a beat. 1

All these styles of music (mentioned above) are distinct and each holds due importance

from the healing point of view. People differ in nationality, religion, castes, tastes, etc.,

and so does their choice in music so it can be likely said that 'one man's meat could be a

poison for another.’

1 Wikipedia Dictionary