1
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'
2
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
3
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
4
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
5
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
6
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
7
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
8
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
9
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
10
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
11
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
12
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
13
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
Top Related