![\"Four](\"http:\/\/blogs.evergreen.edu\/melosmusicalcityfieldstudy\/files\/2015\/05\/IMG_20150506_103429-e1430882583794.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFour heads on a bus from Manila.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Last week, I introduced\u00a0ways in which Manila’s colonial history could\u00a0be traced to Mac\u00e9da’s work. This week, I will pick up\u00a0where I left off, to elaborate on the distinctions\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Mac\u00e9da drew between the Western and Eastern\u00a0“idioms”.<\/p>\n
“To understand [native people’s<\/em>] thinking and feeling, and to express this musically would be to step into another world freed from the constraints of a technological life today” (Maceda 1979). Mac\u00e9da was strongly a humanist, asserting that since\u00a0tools and technology\u00a0reflect<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0the\u00a0guiding ideologies of a culture, a hovering focus on the latter is a more “valid” source of a culture’s musical essence (ibid). For instance, an instrument with three holes at different distances apart allude to the\u00a0structural ideology which\u00a0assigned\u00a0those particular parameters. Mac\u00e9da saw modern salvation in village ideologies\u00a0because of what he saw in their values, demonstrated through their musical practice. (What might we find reflected in the\u00a0prevalent\u00a0musical practice of our own culture?) And so, this post will provide more\u00a0ideological <\/em><\/strong>differences\u00a0than specific techniques, in a condensed form.<\/p>\n Fuzz.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The “kubo” I am staying in.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n As Mac\u00e9da collected, the overarching characteristic\u00a0which\u00a0makes rural Southeastern Asian<\/em><\/strong> music distinct\u00a0is the importance\u00a0of\u00a0indefinite<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0diffuse<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0musical elements, through a unique use and definition\u00a0of drone and melody. This is opposed to the\u00a0precision\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>and closed-system\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>that comes with the Western employment\u00a0of “development” and cadence within\u00a0demarcated<\/em><\/strong> time.<\/p>\n Mac\u00e9da makes a summary of\u00a0the concept of time in Southeast Asian\u00a0rural music: “This simple music is based frequently on repeated sounds, with no stresses, showing a concept of time without marking time, like a straight line with no end – a concept of infinity” (Mac\u00e9da 1979).\u00a0A sense of “infinity” is achieved through a inclusive\u00a0sense of drone and melody mainly centered around colour<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(a broad sense of “tone quality”) dynamics rather than specific and fixed pitches.\u00a0From his field work in various remote villages in SE Asia, Mac\u00e9da describes\u00a0drone<\/em><\/strong><\/span> as “understood not only a sustained sound” but also a periodic reiteration or continuous repetition of\u00a0several tones from pitched or non-pitched percussive or non-percussive sources<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n His definition of\u00a0melody<\/span>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>is a\u00a0“permutation” or arrangement of multiple tones, pitched or un-pitched.\u00a0\u00a0This contrasts with the Western definition\u00a0of melody in which tones are arranged in definite pitch relations. He categorizes drone and melody into six types of combinations:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n He employs all of these combinations throughout “Udlot-Udlot” (1975), see video below this paragraph<\/em>. He writes, “written melodies can be seen, whereas drones can only be heard” (Mac\u00e9da 1986).<\/p>\n Click here to view the embedded video.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The natives’ concept of time in their music reflects\u00a0the relationship\u00a0they aspire to uphold with the universe through their way of life. This relationship with nature is: intimate, equilibrious, endless, yet indefinite, just as in their drone-melody relationship. Mac\u00e9da sees\u00a0the parallels\u00a0between musical practice and non-musical lives not as a mere analogies, but\u00a0actual connections. One area where he realized this was in the diversity of musical and domestic uses\u00a0SE Asian natives\u00a0derived\u00a0from the richness of sound materials found in their natural\u00a0environment – e.g. bamboo, coconut shells and leaves, animal parts, rice stalk reeds, carabao horns, vines, hair, wood,\u00a0etc.\u00a0(Maceda 1979). In such a rich use of ‘natural’ sound material, Mac\u00e9da saw a “profound respect for nature”, in which the natural vibrational\/tonal\u00a0decay\u00a0of the sound material, once struck, \u00a0“describes time” in the music (1986). In other words, the\u00a0tonal envelopes of sounds\u00a0as a central measurement\u00a0of time<\/em><\/strong>, derives from a\u00a0cultural value placed on the natural environment which produced the sound material. Hence, as he earlier wrote, “time is measured by natural events, such as the migration of birds, flowering of plants, or sounds of insects in the dry season”, instead of “fixed clocks ” (Mac\u00e9da 1976).<\/p>\n Masantol, Pampanga.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Masantol, Pampanga.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This points to the role\u00a0of sonic\u00a0“colour”, in conjunction with pulse, as one central indicator of\u00a0the passage of time, rather than a precise calculation and strict adherence of duration based on one’s position in relation to a metrical beat, marked by a pitch or harmonic stress. Pitch hierarchies sometimes\u00a0exist in native practices, but they are created through flexible durational or drone\/melodic patterns. (Defining the SE Asian concept of colour\u00a0deserves a whole section, so this will have to wait for another post for elaboration<\/em>).\u00a0The former yields more arbitrary, ambiguous, unpredictable time structures; whereas the latter is more specific and, thus, makes the music more identifiable in terms of its temporal position. In the beginning of “Udlot-Udlot” (see video above), we can hear Mac\u00e9da employing “unfixed” or “imprecise” measurements of time and pitch in the “TINIG” (voice) sections, his directions:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
(a)\u00a0drone without melody;<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n
(b)\u00a0multiple drones; <\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n
(c)\u00a0drone and melody simultaneously; <\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n
(d)\u00a0drone and melody consecutively; <\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n
(e) several drones to one melody; <\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and <\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n
(f)\u00a0several individual drones to make one melody <\/em><\/strong>(Mac\u00e9da 1976).<\/h5>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
“Singers sing a pitch given by a leader. The pitch is held for approx. 10 sec. As one singer takes a breath, another continues singing, thereby prolonging the pitch. The passage of time is indicated by a leader who swings a flag left to right. Each swing should take approx. one sec. The sliding voice (gliss[ando]) takes 5 sex. and the ‘rest’ or silence takes 5 sec. This whole pattern – 10 sec. plus 5 sec. plus 5 sec. – is repeated many time over for 4 min., according to \u00a0to duration indicated in TAGAL [‘time column’]…”<\/h5>\n