FTX-786 - THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED - 8 CDs
- vol 6
This World Music Course introduced by Alan Lomax, the leader of the team
who put it together in the 1960s, was originally titled "Cantometrics - the
measure of song". As "Folk Song Style and Culture" it was published by The American
Assocation for the Advancement of Science in 1968 and in 1976, the team published
the recorded samples from the Lomax field recordings as well as others from
outstanding international field collections, and thus produced an ethno-musicology
course with tests for researchers and students. So now, "Music from around the
World" is available on 8 CDs together with a ninth forming a final Graduation
CD. Peter Kennedy used this course with his students at Dartington College of
Arts from 1972 and found it particularly successful in all three: Art, Music
and Theatre depts.
INTERVAL SIZE (21) - Like the embellishments of which they form a part,
narrow intervals seem to be most frequent where there is much social stratification.
The explanation may be that in a situation where one is continually addressing
a person of higher or lower status restraints are imposed on the interaction
so that it proceeds carefully- in small steps.
THE POSITION OF THE FINAL TONE (19)
OVERALL RHYTHM - VOCAL (11) - The degree of regularity in vocal rhythm seems
to be a function of the degree of indulgence in child rearing. In cultures where
infants are not indulged, regular rhythms tend to be more frequent, whereas
indulgence of infants is associated with irregular meters. This might be seen
as preparation for the patterns of adult life, since developed states and animal
herding, which depend upon discipline and order, weakly predict regular meter.
Irregular meter on the other hand is significantly more frequent in relatively
simple, pre-animal husbandry economies; it also weakly predicts low stratification.
PHRASE LENGTH (17) - The strong social correlations of phrase length are
with child rearing - short phrases with severe, long phrases with indulgent
systems, and medium length phrases with a high demand for obedience. This might
be interpreted to mean that cultures which do not limit the child's social input
establish a preference for long drawn-out phrasing; whereas those societies
which demand quick, brief responses from children set the stage for the short
phrases. This speculation is all the more interesting since both symmetry and
rhythmic regularity, two other controls of interaction, seem also strongly linked
to variations in childhood experience.
