1.

Western Music and World Music

1) The Western attitude toward Extra-European music
Before late 19th century:
General ignorance of real non-Western music.
Love for exotic imitations (Rimsky-Korsakovs Scheherazade; Turkish
music by Mozart
20th century:
Non-western music is stimulated only among a few people (Debussy)
Mid-20th century:
Ravi Shankar (Indian sitarist) began extensive tours
Collaborations between Shankar and the Beatles; Shankar and Yehudi
Menhuin
Non-Western music influenced the following composers:
Henry Cowell
John Cage
Lou Harrison
Olivier Messiaen
Steve Reich
2) Traditional Professional Cultures the classical music of other
cultures.
Distinctive values
Melodic intricacy
Distinctive tuning systems
Rhythmic intricacy
Harmony: rare in the Western sense
Essentially monophony or monophony with drones
Heterophony (improvised unsynchronized polyphony, nonharmonic)
Improvisation as the basis for most non-Western music
General lack of the concept of a finished composition and an
individual composer
Many traditional professional cultures were influenced by Western
music.
3) Folk Music
Ancient origin; oral tradition.
Usually monophonic, sometimes heterophony
No cultivation of professionalism
Once thought of as primitive; now seen as an important manifestation
of culture
Exploitation for political purposes: the changing ideology in the Soviet
Union
1920s: a remnant of bourgeois nationalism
1930s: unite the workers and peasants against capitalism
The composers who used folk music as a source
Mussorgskii
Bartok

Stravinsky
Copland
Gyorgy Ligeti (Afro-Caribbean drumming)
Osvaldo Golijov (Argentina/US, Afro-South American tradition)
4) Popular Music
Presumption: popular music is for the mass audience and intended to enrich
the composer, performer, and publisher.
World domination of popular music American, British, Latin/Caribbean popular
culture
5) Jazz
A combination of popular, traditional-professional, and even folk music.
6) Distinctive Features of Western classical music
The fixed, completed composition
The celebrity of the composer
Glorification of the interpreter
Notation of music
Tempered tuning
Harmony

1. The Three Classes:

Upper class (aristocracy) Hereditary
Lower class (the poor)
Middle class (everyone in between)
2. Two Aspects of Our Lives that Affect the Art:
Sacred (religious)
Secular: the word originates in the Latin for century.

2. Thinking About Music Historically

1) Time
An indefinable concept

2) Facts
Dictionary definition: Things Done, Actual Occurrences
Revisionist history: Rewriting history, sometimes altering facts to support a
view point
3) History (Greek inquiry)
Gives shape to the passing of time
Gives us cultural roots for a profession on older European music
History is connecting of events or facts. It is not the facts themselves
Therefore views of history differ even if the facts are the same.
4) Music History: the facts
The art work
A score: The score of a piece of music is the written version of it.
Urtext: an edition of musical score showing the composer's intentions
without later editorial interpolation