I read Mieczyslaw Kolinksi's article "Ethnomusicology, Its Problems and Methods" in the May, 1957 issue of Ethnomusicology and found his concerns to be quite different from current ones. Kolinski spends a good deal of the article refuting claims made by Eric von Hornbostel. Some of them seem ridiculous to me: Hornbostel made assertions about whether musical cultures (i.e., folk songs) have "basically ascending" or "basically descending" trends in their melodies. European music supposedly had the former, non-European music the latter.
Already there are some problems. How can all non-European music be grouped together? How can all European music be grouped together (and what counts as European)? If you solve those problems, how can you possibly provide a representative sample of all of the music in the world in order to compare? What does it even mean to have a "basically" ascending/descending trend?
This last question is addressed by Kolinski. He describes a system in which the first and last tones of a melody are given values in relation to the total tonic range of that melody. By calculating the shift for individual songs, and averaging this shift for all of the music of a particular country (again, how do you decide where everything belongs?), one can allegedly calculate the degree of ascent/descent in a particular culture's melodies.
Even if you accept the premise (that is, even if you ignore all the questions posed above), I would argue that this method is still ineffective for measuring the shift.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
24 Hour Music Log
Sunday, September 14, 2008
12:00-1:00am: At a party. Some kind of dance music is playing in a room upstairs.
1:21am: Back in dorm. First several tracks from Wire's Pink Flag.
1:27: Wu-Tang Clan - Shame On a Nigga.
1:36: First three tracks from Neil Young's Harvest.
1:46: First two tracks from the Wrens' Secaucus.
2:41am: First three tracks from Neil Young's After the Goldrush. "Needle" is typed into iTunes in an attempt to find the song "The Needle and the Damage Done," but first Elliot Smith's "Needle in the Hay" goes on.
3:15: Youtube video - Swedish band First Aid Kit covering Fleet Foxes' "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song."
3:18: Elliot Smith's XO.
3:56: Jared Arnold - song 10 (soltero college song whiny vocals).
3:59: Soltero's Defrocked and Kicking the Habit goes on. Sometime between 4 and 5 I fall asleep, but iTunes works through four other Soltero albums until 7am.
12:49pm: Still in dorm. Soltero - Lemon Car.
1:02pm: Bob Dylan - Tombstone Blues.
1pm-6pm: Guitars and a harp are fiddled with frequently by myself and my suitemates. No playing together, just solitary noodling.
around 6pm: Cars pass me while I walk; muffled bass; only song I can pick is Lil Wayne's "A Milli."
7:30-8:30pm: I am offered a ticket to see the Kooks. Having never heard them before, a friend and I check out their music videos on Youtube. We get distracted and watch Len's "Steal My Sunshine," Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name Of," a-ha's "Take On Me," and a couple of search results for "crazy guitar" and "polka."
9:00-11:00: At Lupo's, in-between set music is being played over the sound system. Modern rock. Eventually the Kooks come on and play.
11:40pm-beyond: Back in my suite, people are watching Twin Peaks, a TV show with a memorable soundtrack. I go to watch an episode of the Sopranos in my room, which begins with Alabama 3's "Woke Up This Morning."
12:00-1:00am: At a party. Some kind of dance music is playing in a room upstairs.
1:21am: Back in dorm. First several tracks from Wire's Pink Flag.
1:27: Wu-Tang Clan - Shame On a Nigga.
1:36: First three tracks from Neil Young's Harvest.
1:46: First two tracks from the Wrens' Secaucus.
2:41am: First three tracks from Neil Young's After the Goldrush. "Needle" is typed into iTunes in an attempt to find the song "The Needle and the Damage Done," but first Elliot Smith's "Needle in the Hay" goes on.
3:15: Youtube video - Swedish band First Aid Kit covering Fleet Foxes' "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song."
3:18: Elliot Smith's XO.
3:56: Jared Arnold - song 10 (soltero college song whiny vocals).
3:59: Soltero's Defrocked and Kicking the Habit goes on. Sometime between 4 and 5 I fall asleep, but iTunes works through four other Soltero albums until 7am.
12:49pm: Still in dorm. Soltero - Lemon Car.
1:02pm: Bob Dylan - Tombstone Blues.
1pm-6pm: Guitars and a harp are fiddled with frequently by myself and my suitemates. No playing together, just solitary noodling.
around 6pm: Cars pass me while I walk; muffled bass; only song I can pick is Lil Wayne's "A Milli."
7:30-8:30pm: I am offered a ticket to see the Kooks. Having never heard them before, a friend and I check out their music videos on Youtube. We get distracted and watch Len's "Steal My Sunshine," Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name Of," a-ha's "Take On Me," and a couple of search results for "crazy guitar" and "polka."
9:00-11:00: At Lupo's, in-between set music is being played over the sound system. Modern rock. Eventually the Kooks come on and play.
11:40pm-beyond: Back in my suite, people are watching Twin Peaks, a TV show with a memorable soundtrack. I go to watch an episode of the Sopranos in my room, which begins with Alabama 3's "Woke Up This Morning."
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