source file: m1587.txt
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 14:39:57 -0800

Subject: Re: Emotional response upon first hearing harmonious polyphonic music

From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves)

>It seems to me that the fact that the Indians responded very
>enthusiastically to the sounds of their music deepened by the
>full harmonies of the piano is evidence which tends to support
>the belief that although not all peoples have developed a
>polyphonic music, there is something about full chordal harmony
>in music which is naturally appealing to people everywhere and
>which people will gladly incorporate into their music when they
>have once experienced it.

I think the idea that "full chordal harmony" is some kind of musical ideal
that only the Europeans were smart enough to invent is an arrogant point of
view. There are other reports of first reactions to European music ranging
from indifference to a feeling that the music was impoverished because of
its simple rhythms, unornamented melodies, lack of percussion, etc.

Certainly European harmony has not taken over all of the traditional music
of the world (thank goodness!). Popular music may seem like a
counterexample, but I think that it's more of an example of a mass-marketed
Western style that has had indigenous features glossed over it, rather than
European harmony added to a traditional form. Of course there are some
examples of the latter, but probably just as many examples of non-Western
influence on Western music -- clearly not on the scale that one would
imagine if indeed harmony was something that everyone would "gladly
incorporate into their music when they have once experienced it."

Medieval polyphony was something perfectly suited to the aesthetics of
gothic church music, so it is little wonder that contemporary writers
praised it, just as later writers praised the symphony orchestra, Bach's
counterpoint, Mozart's melodies, or Beethoven's emotionalism. Yet I would
hardly conclude that other cultures if exposed to Bach, Mozart, or
Beethoven would gladly don their styles. One might also point out that the
Medieval music refered to in those accounts certainly did not have "full
chordal harmony" as we think of it.

My interpretation of that arrogant 19th-century missionary's account is
that the indigenous people were excited to hear familiar melodies in a
novel context, just as the Europeans must have been astonished to hear
Dutch marches played by Javanese prajuritan ensembles or a Chinese
orchestra playing "God Save the Queen."

Bill

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^ Bill Alves                                      email: alves@hmc.edu ^
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