On Jun 1, 5:28 am, Jack Campin - bogus address
<bo...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >>>> there is a large body of music employing pentatonic scales - but
> >>>> not anything smaller.
> >>> If you delve into the world of songs that children learn and sing,
> >>> even with different words in many cultures, you will find examples
of
> >>> the tone set m_sl as well as d_m_sl and m_sl_d as well as other
> >>> three and four note tone sets that are used as scales.
> > I am referring to children's songs. These tone sets are organized by
> > Zoltan Kodaly (and others) in an evolutionary order
>
> *Pedagogic* order. Kodaly makes no very strong assertions about the
> evolution of scales at this level of simplicity. He does suggest that
> they have the range they do because children's voices can't cope with
> anything more. As a statement about the physical vocal apparatus,
> this is obviously out to lunch - children can produce a very wide pitch
> range. But he may have a point in that they don't have the intellectual
> capacity to organize more than a fraction of that range into a melodic
> pitch set.
Pedagogic order is a much better choice of words. Thank you, that is
really what I meant. I was thinking of the "evolution of the student's
knowledge" and could not think of the proper word.
It sounds as if you have had at least some exposure to his teaching
methods. In RE: range of children's voices. This is not a statement of
what pitches that children can squeak out or produce in any manner.
They certainly can scream out a wider range of notes. His main focus
from the Kinder level and upward is to produce "tuneful singing".
Unlike the producers of "Annie" he (and certainly I !) don't believe
that it is developmentally proper for them to use their voice outside
of the range that he addresses. It is about a 6th that he likes to
keep as their tesatura and is somewhere around G to E (I have to look
at my notes. to say exactly. In order to satisfy parents and
administrators, one often have to expand his range but I have tried to
keep it as close as I could to his ideal. Kids CAN sing much higher.
As a group, however, many can not and it is im****tant for the child
not to experience any strain on their voices whatsoever if they are to
develop the pure sound that they are capable of achieving.
>
> The idea that cultural structures like musical scales "evolve" in a way
> that parallels children's intellectual development is just 19th century
> racist ideology. Kodaly was doubtless influenced by it (it would be
> difficult for anybody writing in the developed world not to be) but to
> his credit he seems to have tried to get past it. (Meanwhile in the
> real world, the good citizens of London have just elected a mayor who
> talks about "pickaninnies". Somebody nuke that dump, please).
I suppose that there are many shades of "evolve" and that this varies
from person to person. In no way do I personally mean that any music
from any culture need to "evolve" in the sense that it needs to be
corrected or to reach a higher state of perfection. On the contrary, I
think that music that is a part of a culture should be preserved, not
messed with at all! When I use the term, I am simply referring to what
I see as the natural order of development of a certain musical concept
that changes as the musicians strive to learn more and to stretch
their creativity to meet an ever changing world. I don't know of any
form of music that has not evolved to some extent even within its own
culture. A culture would have to be totally isolated and closed in
order to keep from adding influences from other cultures. If you have
a better word to refer to the natural growth of a culture and its
influence on the music that would take something like the modal
counterpoint of early church music and to morph into the major/minor
system that wold be better than "evolve" I will be happy to consider
adding it to my vocabulary as I will try to remember "Pedagogic
order". One of the reasons that I write to this group is to remember
and to learn the best choice of words in today's world society to
properly express my views. It is one of my weak points!
As to London's mayor: don't cry on my shoulder, we have to live with
Bush, Cheney and Rove, only to mention a few!
>
> > to teach music. They seem to come from the overtone series and they
> > appear to be timeless.
>
> They can't come from any such source. A tune that stays within a third
> has neither the octave nor the fifth in it, both of which ought to have
> been included first if the overtone series had anything to do with it.
I don't think that this is so. The first tone set that Kodaly teaching
uses is the minor third and then the m_sl. This tone set is heard
coming from the mouths of very young children in every part of the
world that I have lived. Bernstein has come to the same conclusion as
he crafted his view of the progression (Better than evolution?) of
Music since man first started to make sounds. It is in the partials
4,5,and 6 that they occur. I had noticed that kids sang this before I
discovered his Cambridge Lectures, but when he pointed out that their
"la" was always a bit sharp, it all fell into place. We always think
of the 6th partial as a flat minor 7th but it is also a sharp 6th as
well. If heard in this light, it makes perfect sense that it wold be
one of the earliest forms "scale" that is used for singing. As one's
subconscious mind ****fts through the notes in the OTS that it hears in
every sound produced by a vibrating column of air, these are the first
three tones that are close enough to create a scale or smooth order to
the notes that are relatively close together. Since we can't "hear"
the fundamental in some notes and the 2nd partial is rather low as
well, especially for a child's voice, the 3rd partial is still a bit
low but it is reinforced by the 5th, so that the 4,5,6 partials
provide a viable solution for the search of what tones to put together
to use the voice. Kids don't know what partials they are or if it is a
7th or a 6th of where it comes from, but it does have that very
pragmatic relation****p to the Overtone series.
Your statement of the tune staying within a 3rd suggests that you are
considering the drm tone set which I would consider to be a later
development within the early stages of formation. This tone set would,
IMO, come with the completion of the Pentatonic scale from what ever
means that one personally subscribes to as being its origin. I see it
as the partials 5,6,7,8,9 or E G A C D but I accept that it is also
the result of Pythagoras's ratios of the 5th. Personally, I can see
that he would have discovered this looking for a simple mathematical
formula to account for what had been discovered by the OTS naturally
in real life without any mathematics. This is of course my own
speculative opinion of what drove him to his discovery of the ratios.
Two different approaches with the same approximate outcome. Both of
them are workable.
Thanks for the interesting comments.
LJS
>
> ==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k ===
<http://www.campin.me.uk>
====
> Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800
739 557
> CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic
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