RE: [microsound] complexity

[Brian Redfern <bredfern@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

If anyone would like more info about music - linguistics and african
aethetics there's a book called "The Flash of the Spirit" thats a good
start, also a good book about dance as language is:

Talking Drums of Africa 
John F. Carrington

Unfortunately the book is very hard to find, but  
do a search on google for "yoruba talking drum" and you'll find some nice
academic websites with info, as well as Francis Awe's site who is a yoruba
master drummer living and teaching in los angeles.
 On Thu, 25 Jul 2002, dan latorre wrote:

> brian, this is interesting... outside of general searches through
> comparative socio-linguistics and general linguistics or other
> anthropological studies, do you have any references (books, essays,
> urls, etc.) to share that relate language variations across cultures to
> the types of music they create, as you cited in your email?
> 
> much appreciated,
> dan
> 
> "I'll play it first and tell you what it's called later."
>       - Miles Davis
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Brian Redfern [mailto:bredfern@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
> > Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2002 12:10 AM
> > To: microsound
> > Subject: Re: [microsound] complexity
> > 
> > Intersting enough you can also look at Miles Davis, who basically used
> > next to no vibrato, while before bebop during the swing era guys were
> > using vibrato to death. Its like the fake emotion sound to 
> > make. What's a
> > trip though is that we can't understand how someone could 
> > literally speak
> > with a drum, because english is not a tonal language, but 
> > languages like
> > Yoruba are tonal, so each inflection of the drum is literally 
> > a different
> > word, so people can actually speak through the drum. This is even
> > different than indian tin-tal, which is a rythm language, but 
> > the sylabals
> > are similar to the do-re-me-fa-so of westerm music, where the 
> > syllables
> > are just used to teach certain patterns. What's unique about 
> > west african
> > music is the ability to literally speak who scentences of an 
> > actual human
> > language using a drum with a varying pitch. Thus people could 
> > acheive long
> > distance communication to masses of people, where the drum is a huge,
> > giant megaphone. 
> > 
> > Not everyone can use the drum well enough to effectively 
> > communicate with
> > it, that's why the master drummer traditionally has a vital 
> > role in west
> > african kingdoms, as it takes years and yeasr of practice to get good
> > enough to communicate effectively, but when you get a chance to hear a
> > master drummer from west africa its quite an amazing 
> > experience and will
> > definitely change your musical life. In fact I have to get off my lazy
> > butt and start going back to study at the Yoruba House cause I have a
> > Yoruba master drummer in my own 'hood I should be studying with :-)>.
> > 
> 
> 
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