Comparación no Planeada - Tukey

The example below is a short transcription of two phrases of Koran recitation from Morocco. I have omitted the text to avoid the necessity of further introduction and contextual explanation. Sing or hum through the transcription, or listen to a recording of this type of material.

Example 1 Koran Recitation by El Hajj Mohamed al Hakim Bennani (Text Omitted).

Transcribed, with permission, from Musicaphon BM 30 SL 2027 (n.d.)

Is this music? Certainly, it looks like music because it has been written down in musical notation. But does that mean that it is music? Perhaps the answer to this question, yes or no, will depend on our definition of music, the couching of

which can be problematic. The Macmillan Encyclopedia says that music is ‘[t]he art of organizing sounds, which usually consist of sequences of tones of definite pitch, to produce melody, harmony, and rhythm…’ (Macmillan, 1988:845).

If so, then example (1) is not music. There is a sequence of tones of differing rhythmic durations but there is no harmony. Indeed, solo pieces for many instruments or voice from the western classical tradition become non-music when this definition is strictly applied. Looking at an alternative definition, my paperback English dictionary describes music as ‘the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession and combination to produce a composition having unity and continuity…’ (Penguin, 1986:604). This seems quite a good definition at first, although it is also possible to arrange and combine successive sounds in unified and continuous ways that strike the listener as being not exactly musical.

EXERCISE 1

‘SUCCESSIVE SOUNDS’—CLASSROOM PERFORMANCE EXERCISE

Divide the class into four groups and perform the exercise below as a round, clapping out the rhythms shown.

Exercise (1) definitely satisfies the criteria of combined successive sounds ordered into a unified, albeit rather unimaginative, composition. But is it really what we mean by a musical composition? For one thing, there is no melody. At least example (1) seemed to have a tune. And returning to example (1), when the same definition is used to decide whether or not this is music, we run into a further problem: when listening to unfamiliar sound structures, how do we know if they are ordered and combined into a unified composition? This is one reason why we need to add the study of history and culture to that of another people’s musical sounds.

In the case of example (1), the sounds are in fact carefully ordered and combined, but the man whose voice is transcribed above might as well be somewhat upset if we said his sounds were music. To the Moslem, the chanting of prayers and religious texts such as that in example (1) are not music but chant or poetry. musiqa, the Arabic equivalent of the English word ‘music’, refers only to secular, instrumental pieces. Performing non-religious music has been regarded in Moslem religious theory as dangerous, primarily because instrumental music was often heard in places like brothels and inns. Thus, by association, instrumental music is a potential threat to public morals, something that encourages and accompanies over-indulgence and intoxication. By defining secular instrumental pieces (music) on the one hand and religious vocal chant and sung poems (non-music) on the other as quite separate things, the typical Moslem has a quite different understanding of the concept of ‘music’ from that of the average European. This pattern is repeated all over the world. For example,

people in some African cultures cannot conceive of music without dance. In other societies, there is no general term like our word ‘music’ at all, people merely talk of songs or poems, pieces or dances, rituals and hymns.

Taking this idea one step further, not only do people all over the world have their own, individual ways of defining and understanding music, but so do people of different times, different social classes and different educational levels, even within the same culture, something which may be overlooked when we study the music of our ancestors. Beethoven provides a good example of this. Today, many consider him a pre-eminent composer. Even those who do not especially care for his music would be unlikely to question whether it is music or not. But, in 1857 a well-educated music critic described one section of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with the following words: ‘I would say…that it does not belong at all to the art which I am in the habit of considering as music’ (Bacharach and Pearce, 1977:19). This critic was not joking, nor was he a philistine; the fact is that he and many of his contemporaries found this part of the piece difficult to accept, even fifty years after it was written. Since he did not understand what he heard, the critic questioned whether it was really ‘music’ at all. Many of us, when first exposed to something strange or different, may also think like this, and perhaps it is good to question what we hear, but we sometimes need to question our definitions of music as well. An extreme example of this is to notice how we divide up the sounds of the animal kingdom: birds sing, dolphins have language and dogs howl. Do we mean the first sounds like music to us while the second and third do not?

My intention, then, is not to propose a search for a ‘better’ definition of music. Instead, I have tried to show that our commonly-accepted definitions of music, like those quoted above, have their draw-backs. A definition of music that most westerners accepted might not necessarily be the best, most scientific or only definition of music in the world. It might be very useful for classical musicians in Europe and North America towards the end of the twentieth-century, but the further we move away from here, whether geographically or temporally, the less reliable it may become. In other words, to understand the music of a different culture or period, we have first to understand their conception of music. And as a prerequisite to this, we need to know about their social situations and cultural beliefs, their language, their instruments and much, much more.

If, in the end, there is no single, easy and convenient answer to the question, ‘what is music?’, this is something to celebrate not bemoan. Music would hold little fascination for us if it was so simply explained. Even questions that cannot be answered may be worth asking for the light that attempting to respond to them sheds on related issues. One such question is whether music is a language or not.