Trans-Cultural Composition in the 20th Century

Authors(s): Dale A. Craig

Source: Tempo, New Series, No. 156 (Mar., 1986), pp. 16-18
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/945845
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TRANS-CULTURAL COMPOSITION

IN THE 20TH CENTURY

Dale A. Craig

THE MOST REMARKABLE development in 20th-century music has been the gradual rise of trans-

cultural music to status as the dominant activity of composers. Interaction between musics of

various types within the same culture, and between cultures (including those separated from us

in historical time), has been more important than the conventionally-recognized classifications

of 20th-century musical activity such as expressionism, atonality, impressionism, neo-classicism

(in its purist, Eurocentric stance), serialism, total serialism, chance, and minimalism (when it

poses as an intellectual movement without cross-cultural referrents).

Nationalism was not a 19th-century phenomenon fixed in history; it became internationalism

in the works of Bla Bart6k. Styles which were thought of as the new international styles for a

time-neo-classicism and serialism-were chauvinistically European; and those which were,

at the time, thought of as narrowly confined to single nations had much more to express to the

world as a whole.

Before long, all musical traditions will be learning new possibilities from many others. Far

from creating standardization, this will create a plethora of ever-subtler stylistic makeups and

distinctions. D'Indy was thought of as a rather Germanized French composer. How would we

today, in 1983, describe Charles Camilleri, Alan Hovhaness, or Chick Corea? It would require a

list of influences, such as Chick Corea provides on his Three Quartets recording: Bart6k,

Beethoven, Berg, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Thelonius Monk,

Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Peter Serkin, and Wayne Shorter (among others).

One of the most certain and striking occurences of the early 1980's is that 'serious' and

'commercial' (for want of better terms) composers have joined into a common stream:

1. There are many stylistic similarities

2. Both strive for commercial success

3. Record packaging is similar

4. There is less reliance on scores and more on framework instructions for improvisation

5. The musical heritage of both is extremely varied and has touched upon tribal, folk,

popular, and cultivated musics from several cultures.

Anthony Braxton, for his Six Compositions: Quartet recording, gives elaborate theory sup-

ported by abstract drawings. Although he gives as his forebears Henderson, Ellington, Mingus,

Parker, Tristano, Coleman, and Dolphy, the actual sound and spirit of his work is very much

like the 'serious' music written by academic composers, just as his theories read like theirs.

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TRANS-CULTURAL COMPOSITION

If we turn to a 'serious' composer, however, we find almost the reverse: Philip Glass's

Glassworks disc uses electric organ, bass synthesizer, soprano sax and tenor sax in addition to

more expected instruments; credit is given to his sound engineers, just as on popular albums;

and the simple but elegant look of the packaging is as for a commercial avant-garde jazz

recording or a pop album by one of the more advanced, subtle groups. The sound of the music

approaches that still but sensuous trancelike quality which many pop groups also have created.

In fact, it is more 'popular'-oriented than Anthony Braxton's variety of'jazz' composition.

There is a 20th-century modern music literature, outside Europe and the United States, of

which the Wester world is barely aware. Music reflective of 20th-century tensions, of explosion

of information, of pain, and also of refreshing, healing synthesis has been composed in Japan,

Korea, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and Islamic countries of West Asia. This music needs

to be discussed in order to give balance to our world view of 20th-century music. To read Paul

Griffiths's Modem Music: The Avant Garde since 1945 one would think that modern music since

World War II was composed solely in France, America, Germany, Italy, England, Poland, and

Holland.

In considering various musical fusions, a distinction needs to be made between composers

who mainly write their music down and those who favour live encounters between musicians

who may not even know each other's tradition. Much of the synthesis which is occuring is

unconscious, and some of the best trans-cultural music happens in this way. Many composers,

however, consciously create opportunities for East-West improvisation or eclectic written

music.

Some composers have already entered a very high level of creation which draws upon all their

past learning, no matter what its source may have been. They are making a transcendental

world music, and it is the most communal musical evolution man has known since his

beginnings. In this music we can hear not only the difficulties but also the spiritual heights of our

future as a species. Charles Ives, speaking of'Music and Its Future', said:

The future of music may not lie entirely with music itself, but rather in the way it encourages and extends, rather than

limits, aspirations and ideals of the people, in the way it makes itself a part with the finer things that humanity does and

dreams of.

Charles Seeger made the useful distinction between musical types, all of which might be

found within the borders of one country: art, folk, tribal, and popular music. Art, or cultivated,

music includes advanced musics of Oriental high cultures. Folk music includes Asian music of

the people as well as the music of European villages and rural areas. Tribal music includes that of

the earliest peoples to occupy Vietnam, India, Oceania, Australia, Africa, Alaska, and the

Americas. 'Popular' means just what it says: we cannot have a rigid definition, but we could

include within it commercially successful music.

An ancient country like China has all four of these: the many forms of cultivated music of the

Han people; the various folk musics like clapper tales or nan yin (Southern songs); tribal music of

the Miao, Zhuang, and other groups; popular music like patriotic songs or even the 'Chinese

Violin Concerto' Liang Shan Bo & Zhu Yin Tai; and, if we stretch present political boundaries,

commercial popular music in the Mandarin Pop of Hong Kong and Taiwan. It is useful to think

of the various strata which exist in other countries today and to consider all the types of music

which are there.

What is the value to the composer of knowing about these types of music in a number of

countries? His or her history and world consist of all these, not the limited vocabulary of

resources to which he/she may imagine being restricted. This is the first time in world history

when it has been possible to know such a variety of musics and to create new musics which

express the multiplicity of humankind and also the common humanity which we all share.

The recordings we see in the 'international' sections of record shops represent some of the

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17

TEMPO

18

musics of the world: world musics. But when a composer creates, using an immense array of

possibilities, not limited by preconceptions or an incurious nature, he/she may be making

trans-cultural world music.

Trans-cultural music unfortunately often happens as a result of unthinking, casual encounters

between musics:

a. When music educators iron out all folk music into one bland, equal-tempered type (with piano accompaniment!).

b. When an Indonesian angklung band plays harmonic Western songs in a chordal way which denies their

distinctive heritage of composite melodies, with their communal interlocking and interplay.

It happens at an intermediate level of awareness in:

a. Debussy's Pagodes, with its coloristic use of pentatonic scales.

b. Ravi Shankar's two Concertos for Sitarand Orchestra, both of which arc strangely stilted and forced; we sense a

great musician out of his element.

It occurs in a peculiarly European intellectual manner in:

a. Olivier Messiaen's abstraction of Indian talas so that they lose their visceral rhythmic feeling and instead

become additive rhythmic sets.

b. Ton de Leeuw's Gamelan, which uses the gamelan in a Western way; and his Music for Strings, which is

ostensibly about India but in which it is difficult to hear anything Indian except the major-sixth drone at

beginning and end.

And it is heard in works like Stockhausen's Stimmung and later ones in which he, like some

others, appears to be trying to cash in on a trend. This sort of composer does not seek to know

Asian music but wishes to drain it for what it can contribute to an idea-bank. (This is as suspect

as the current rash of'Romantic' orchestral works.)

But there have been more successful (that is, sincere, understanding, and authentic) occurences

of trans-cultural music. Tony Scott, thejazz clarinettist, has used the koto, shakuhachi and sitar in

order to expand and enrich his art. (Musicfor Zen Meditation; Musicfor Yoga Meditation.) Dewey

Redman uses the Chinese conical oboe Suona very effectively on KeithJarrett's Yawuh disc. On

the recording Jugalbandi the English pianist John Barham improvises on the piano with sarod

player Ashish Khan in a raga/tala, and the Gibson String Quartet plays an excellent piece created

by Ashish Khan. Yuan Lee Tchen's Orchid and Orange, for flute and cello, is serial but

emphasizes pentatonic modes. Isany Yun's Loyang and Reak suggest Korean court ensembles.

Maki Ishii combines a Gagaku ensemble with a symphony orchestra in Sogu-II.

Most of these examples show the composer as being bi-musical, familiar with two or more

musical cultures equally or nearly so:

Tony Scott: koto/shakuhachi/Zen

sitar/raga/tala clarinet/jazz

Dewey Redman: jazz reeds Chinese suona

Ashish Khan: sarod ragas piano, string quartet

Yuan Lee Tchen: Chinese pentatonic modes European serialism

Isang Yun: Korean hyang-ak German symphonic avant-garde

Maki Ishii: Japanese gagaku Western symphonic avant-garde

Another area besides trans-cultural music which is occupying many composers' intellects and

energies is what we might call 'Eco-music', the non-romantic 20th-century music of Nature;

this is music which shows awareness of the relationship between man, his music, and his natural

environment.

As composers become not just bi-musical but polymusical and increasingly aware of their

strong connexions to the natural environment, they move beyond localized concerns and begin

to think globally. They begin to create a transcendental world music which draws upon all the

resources they have found in the musics of the world.

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