FTX-781 - THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED on 8 CDs

vol 1 incl THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF THE VOCAL GROUP

The notes that follow suggest the ways in which the singing groups of a culture reflect the organization of groups in other of the culture's activities. Two elements of group organization are considered - (1) the prominence of a solo or leader part; 2) the type of group organization involved. Solo and leader dominated group singing tends to be more common where males dominate productive systems; group-oriented performance without prominent leaders is clearly more frequent where females are productively dominant. Thus, the northern world of hunting, fishing, pastoralism and plough agriculture is solo or leader-oriented. The warmer world of gardening and horticulture is group-oriented. The group organization a culture employs in song performance seems to vary with economic factors. Interlock, where the parts are most equal, is commonest among acephalous bands of the non-complex producers, especially gatherers. Unison, the simplest technique of coordinating effort is resorted to everywhere, most prominent in the performances of small tribal societies, especially among planters without large herd animals. Overlap of parts is most typical of the larger agricultural societies with large herd animals and a complementary productive system. Alternation, where clear divisions between parts of the performing group are more clearly stressed, is typical of complex productive systems, especially those with plough agriculture (see Lomax et al 1968: 139ff).

01. Introduction with Georgian chorus - 1'22

02. Solo. N. Europe, England. An early and tragic form of the favorite folk lyric "The Tavern in the Town" - in the performance mode most typical of Northwestern Europe: strophic, solo, and wordy. Female. (Lomax *34, B21) - 0'21"

03. One Soloist after Another. N. America.A Virginia mountain courting duet, belonging to the genre of the medieval "debat" and many similar forms once popular in European cultures. Male and female solos with guitar. (Lomax #16, B10) - 0'53"

04. Social Unison. N. America, Pueblo Taoso. Social unison, the commonest way of coordinating group action in singing, dancing and work, is most frequent in the small acephalous tribal societies of the Americas and Oceania. Male Group.(Rhodes #3, A2) - 0'37"

05. Discoordinated. S. America, Interior Amazon, Jivaro. The babble of independent and dis-coordinated parts in this head-shrinking ritual seems to reflect the extremely loose and individualistic character of this head-hunting society. Female group.(Luzuy, A4) - 0'34"

06. Simple Alternation: Leader-Group. N.Europe, Scotland, Hebrides. A Waulking (tweed-working) song performed in alternation between leader and group. Alternation without overlap, often with a small, but respectful pause between the e clear-cut authoritative leaders. Female solo with mixed group (Lomax #33 B1) - 0'43"

07. Simple Alternation: Group-Group, Central Europe, Asturias. A representative of the early danced ballad style is the danza prima, where the whole community joins hands and dances in processional through the streets singing of valorous deeds of the Moorish wars. Female leader with mixed group. (Lomax #24, A6) - 1'00"

08. Overlapping Alternation: Leader-Group. Afro-America, Bahamas Islands, Andros. Overlap of parts is most frequent in modestly stratified cultures where political leaders and groups are still in daily contact, and is a main stylistic trait of speaking and singing in Africa. Here Bahaman Afro-Americans overlap parts in a ballad about the loss of the vessel Praetoria, in a hurricane. Mixed group/ male group. (Charters, B 3) - 0'49"

09. Overlapping alternation: Group-Group. E.Europe, Caucasus, Dagestan. Female and male choirs in the overlapped harmonized style, traditional in this mountain-valley refuge of early civilization. (Cowell #2) - 0'41"

10. Interlock. Central Africa, Equatorial Rainforest, Mbuti Pygmies, whose sharing, intra-supportive, egalitarian non-authoritarian and complementary society seems to be a survival of one of the earliest human systems, organize their group performances in a tightly built weave of brief interlocked parts. (Turnbull & Chapman) - 0'59"

11. Solo. C. Asia, Kazakhstan. From this old seat of pastoral empire comes a song in the bardic style, typical of Old High Culture - wordy, precise, ornamented, strophic, with a raspy, tense delivery, and a lute accompaniment. (Russia #7, 1) - 0'47"

12. Alternating Solos. S. Europe, Sicily. In Trapani, whose salt-works were manned by slaves in Roman times, salt porters continue an ancient tradition of rhyming about the number of bags they have carried, in wordy, precise, loud and forceful, narrow-voiced, raspy-nasal style, using wide intervals and free rhythm. (Lomax #29, B1) - 1'08"

13. Social Unison. E. Europe, Central Russia. A Molokan church Sunday School, singing a Protestant hymn in the style that is distinctive of Midde European hymns and chorales. On the one hand, it is explicit (wordy and precise) and on the other, it is highly cohesive - wide voiced, well blended and harmonized. (Pushkarow, A 6) - 0'52"

14. Discoordinated. E. Asia. Recorded during a bear totem ceremony of the Ainu who are a Paleo-Siberian, acephalous, non-stratified, non-solidary, hunting-fishing culture. A repetitive, slurred, rhythmically free, raspy performance, in a nasal, totally individualized and non-unified style with much gilottal and tremolo. Mixed group. (Kondo) - 0'36"

15. Simple Alternation: Leader-Group. N. America, French Canadian farm girls from the typical West European, centralized, stratified urbanized, non-complementary, non-solidary, intensive, mixed farming economy. The wordy, precise, intermittently raspy and nasal, strophic, unaccompanied, metrically regular, rather individualized, unison type of West Europe. (Barbeau, B 2) - 0'36"

16. Simple Alternation: Group-Group. E. Europe. State Siberian Russian Folk Choir singing an arranged, Russian peasant ditty. The communal and complementary agricultural villages of East Europe favoured this wordy, precise, strophic, metrically regular, forceful, wide-voiced, highly unified, polyphonic style. (Russia. #5, B 1) - 0'55"

17. Overlapping Alternation: Leader-Group. W. Africa, Senegal, Wolof. The context is an economy with cattle-herding and hoe agriculture. This is the West Sudanese praise-song type - 50% repeats, moderate enunciation, some free rhythm, litany, raspy, rather individualized often polyphonic. (Nikiprowetzky #1, A7) - 0'53

18. Overlapping Alternation: Group-Group. Bulgaria, Rhodope. A chain dance involving the whole village in a regional variation on the East European style: litanies with wide intervals, sung with precise enuncation, some repetition, regular meter, moderate dynamics, much coordination and polyphony. (Raim & Koenig, B2) - 0'48"

19. Interlock. C. African, Mbuti. Pygmies, we are told, men, women, and children treat each oteer as equals. Their social egalitaritarianism seems to be reflected in the way they organize participation in song and speech, where all parts tend to be equal and brief. Mixed group. (Turnbull, B20) - 1'34"

20. Test #1. E. Europe, Bulgaria, Sofia. A Koledo (Christmas carol, probably pre-Christian) by a trained city sextet, whose use of harmony may represent an urban innovation. Mixed group. (Lloyd #1, B 33) - 0'35"

21. Test #2. Africa, Central Bantu. A dance song of the Nsenge, cattle-herders and planters of maize, who live in a moderately centralized, stratified complementary society. Female lead and mixed group with drums. (Blacking & Apthorpe, B2) - 0'48"

22. Test #3. East Asia, Japan. The Eastern-most bastion of Old High Culture with its usual pattern of irrigation, cities, centralized government and subordination of women. Two female singers with samshin. (Masu, B15) - 0'51"

23. Test #4. W. Africa. The Kpelle are complementary, modestly stratified, cereal agriculturalists of Liberia. This song (which shows clear Pygmy influence) is for cutting brush. (Okieg A2) - 0'41"

24. Test #5. Australia, N. Arnhemland. The aborigines were small, nomadic, acephalous bands of Stone Age gatherers, held together by the authority of the elder male clanheads, channeled through elaborate rituals, such as this one summoning the souls of departed heroes. Male solo with sticks. (Elkin #1, B6) - 0'21"

25. Test #6. S. America, Interior Amazonia. The Iawa are a small non-centralized, nonstratified, semi-nomadic, non-solidary, complementary fishing-gardening tribe.This is a song of fishing magic. Mixed group. (Flornoy, A 3) - 0'19"

26. Test #7. Africa, Nilotes. The Luo are cattle herders and agriculturalist,: living in small villages in Kenya. The sandbagger likens the chief to a rock in the lake which stops the fish from passing (and thus feeds the people). Male solo with mixed group, stamping with legbells. (Tracey #2 :TR-167, B7) - 0'35"

27. Test #8. Polynesia. Cook Islanders live by horticulture and ocean fishing. Their groupy, somewhat stratified, complementary culture is reflected in the highly integrated performances of choreographed song dances in forceful, wide-voiced style. Male group and female group. (Beckett) - 0'40"

28. Test #9. The Balkans, Montenegro. This is a culture of mountain herders and small farmers, living on the edge of an empire - a stratified, though solidary and complementary society. In this dance song the village girls challenge the lads to seize them. Male group and female group. (Kennedy #1, A22) - 0'42"

29. Test #10. Europe, Spain, Castile. The individualistic monogamous, wheat farmers and shepherds of Spain created more ballads than any other people in Europe. This is a somewhat embellished rendition of an old romance (ballad) about the daughter of the emperor of Rome. Male and female solos. (Lomax #25 B9) - 0'58"

30 Test #11. S. Asia, India, Benares. A Hindi religious folk song about Krishna and his love for the lovely milkmaid, Radha, in the energetic style of the male village chorus. (Danielou #2, A2) - 0'56"

31. Test #12.. S. Africa. A Shona boy singing to his mbira (hand-held ideophone of tuned iron strips, thumb-plucked). His herding-cultivator people belong to a nation of over a million. (Tracey #1, A 13) - 0'33"

32. Test #13. S. Europe, N. Sardinia. The mountain shepherds in some hilly areas preserve many traces of antique culture, including this unique polyphonic, brass-voiced singing style. Male solo with male group. (Lomax and Carpitella #29, B 37) - 1'00"

33. Test #14. Africa, Equatorial Bantu. The Topoke are a modestly centralized, complementary tribe of jungle gardeners of the North Congo Basin. Here Topoke women perform their traditional duty of mourning the dead, each wailing on her own. Female group. (Camps, B3) - 0'29"

34. Test #15. Central Europe, N.E. Italy. Friuli. Here on the green slopes of the Italian Alps one finds a choral tradition like those of Tyrol and Austria and handling as a native folk product the melodic and harmonic style that gave rise to the mainstream of European classical music. This is a group of villagers, improvising one of a string of brief melodies called villanelli. (Lomax & Carpitella) - 0'43"

35. Test #16. E. Africa. A Topoke song celebrating a young mother's return to the village from the isolation hut in which her baby has been born. The hectic tempo is typical of this region of Africa. Female group. (Camps, A 4) - 0'34

36. Test #17. E. Europe. Georgia, in the mountain-locked Caucasus, has retained many antique traditions including this cannonic, contrapuntal polyphony with a yodeled leader's part - another example of a widely distributed and ancient style, most frequent among African pygmies. (Russia. #1, C1) - 0'39"

37. Test #18. E. Africa, Kenya Highland Bantu. Meru mountain herder-agriculturalists - neighbours of the Kikuyu - organized into petty chieifdoms - perform a dance song about a cattle raid. Male solo, with female group and male group. (Tracey #2: TR 153, A6) - 0'53"

TESTS - 1. Social Unison/ 2. Overlap Alternation: Leader-Group/ 3. Alternating Solos/ 4. Interlock/ 5. Solo/ 6. Discoordinated/ 7. Simple Alternation: Leader-Group/ 8. Overlap Alternation: Group-G/ 9. Simple Alternation: Group-G/ 10. Alternating Solos/ 11. Simple Alternation: Leader-Group/ 12. Solo/ 13. Overlap Alternation: Leader-Group/ 14. Discoordinated/ 15. Social Unison/ 16. Simple Alternation: Group-G/ 17. Interlock/ 18. Overlapping Alternation: Group-Group

THE REPETITION OF TEXT (10) - Repetitions of sung text are more frequent in simple socio-economics; less frequent in more complex. This variation seems to be indicative of the way that the level of new information in communication shifts with the general complexity of productive processes essential to a culture. 38. Extremely Repetitious. N.E. Ireland. Solo singing of strings of nonsense syllables is the major pattern in the whole Siberian Arctic, and it may be because N.W. Europe was historically a sub-Arctic culture zone that such songs (called mouth-music or diddling) are a frequent survival in the folk songs of the British Isles. (Chieftains, A4) - 0'38"

39. Extremely Repetitious. Central Europe. A German woodcutter's yodel, kin to one of the oldest song types - the far-carrying yodel that identifies a fellow culture member across distance. Yodeling is the main style of the African pygmies. Male solo. (Wiora, A3) - 0'21"

40. Extremely Repetitious. Afro-America. A North Carolina harmonica player whooping a fragment of The Fox Chase, which recreates, as do many early pieces of music, the chase and kill of an animal. Male solo. (Seeger and Terry, A3) - 0'27"

41. Repeat of #1 - 0'27"

42. Half Repetition. Afro-America. Georgia Sea Islands where many such 'shouts' (danced, clapped and overlapped spirituals) survived from the early beginnings of Afro-American Christianity. Mixed group with clapping. (Lomax #2, A4) - 0'39"

43. Extremely Repetitious. North America, New York City. A song of the Polish "chassidic" tradition which "rescued" lively secular folk tunes by turning them into holy dances - this one so effective that it is said to have caused the Rabbi's chair to rise and float through the air as he sang it. Male Solo. (Rubin, B1) - 0'31"

44. Little or no Repetition, Europe, N.W. Spain. A Galician woman beats her flax while singing a snatch of a Spanish romance (ballad) - the wordy genre of European plough agriculture. Female solo. (Lomax #28, A2) - 0'33"

45. Some Repetition (quarter repeats). South Asia, Nepal. The type of urbanized, sentimental song popular in Kathmandu - at the eastern extreme of the hard-grain, hard-hoofed animal, plough economy of Europe and the Middle East. Female solo with drum. (Pignede, B4) - 0'36"

46. Half Repetition. C Africa, Tanganyika. Bukoba men singing a paddling song in the leader-group, half-refrain style commonest at the mid-level of the productive scale, among gardeners and horticulturalists with domesticated animals. Male solo + group with drums. (Tracey #1, B28) - 0'35"

47. Quite Repetitious (2/3 repeats). North America. A Caribou Eskimo shaman singing a magic nonsense chant to bring luck to the hunt - with a new phrase added here or there. Male solo. (Barbeau #1, B38, Collected by J. Gabus)

48. Extremely Repetitious. Repeat of #l. Male solo - 0'46"

49. Test #1. South Asia, S. India. A Tamil rural song performed with notable precision of enunciation by a male soloist and male group with vani (bamboo flute), violin and mirdam (drum). (India #1, A3) - 0'54"

50. Test #2. North Europe, Norway. A sentimental song about the beauties of nature in Sete-dale Valley. Male solo. (Norway #1, A6a) - 0'56"

51. Test #3. Malaysia, Philippines, Mindoro. The Hanunoo live in small acephalous hamlets in the jungle; each person has his own yodeling trail call (uwi) to announce his approach through the heavy cover. Here several uwis are simultaneously performed by a mixed group. (Conklin, B5) - 0'53"

52. Test #4. West Africa. The Bulu, who raise root crops and small animals in small, complementary villages, sing in a unified, but spontaneous, wide-voiced harmony. Male solo with mixed group. (Cozzens, A1) - 1'09"

53. Test #5. North Europe, Scotland, Aberdeenshire, where the great tinker balladeer, Jeannie Robertson, ripples out a triple-entendre lyric about a nest of cuckoos - the bird of cuckolds, famous for laying its eggs in the nests of other birds. (Kennedy & Lomax #4, B4) - 0'52"

54. Test #6. Central Africa. A Babenzele Pygmy woman trills her slurred yodeling calls as she gathers in the forest. The song locates her in the forest and prepares her child for the culture it will inherit. Female solo. (Didier #1, A1) - 0'28"

55. Test #7. Old Europe, N. Spain. A Santander mountain dance, lustily sung by young women at the fiesta for the patron saint of their mixed farming village. Female group with tambourine, almirez (mortar and pestle) accompaniment. (Lomax #24, B9) - 1'31"

56. Test #8. Old Europe. N. Sardinian mountain shepherds, who employ the remains of megalithic trulli (forts) to pen their flocks, sing a bandit dance in a counterpoint of unknown, but clearly remote origin. Male group. (Lomax & Carpitella: #29, B38) - 1'10"

57. Test #9. North Europe. Hebridean women working the tweed and singing a Gaelic waulking song - in my estimation, the oldest song type current in the British Isles. (Lomax #33, B1) - 1'04"

58. Test #10. East Asia. Japanese women singing a rice-planting song which voices the desire of a young woman for a new crimson dress - and a lover. (Masu, A8) - 1'08"

TESTS: - 1. Half wordy-half repetitious/ 2. Little or none/ 3. Extreme/ 4. Quite/ 5. Some/ 6. Extreme/ 7. Some/ 8. Quite/ 9. Half wordy-half repetitious/ 10. Little or none 11. Half wordy-half repetitious/ 12. Little or none/ 13. Extreme/ 14. Quite/ 15. Some/ 16. Extreme/ 17. Some/ 18. Quite/ 19. Half wordy-half repetitious/ 20. Little or none

THE MUSICAL ORGANISATION - VOCAL & ORCHESTRAL (4 & 7) - A poly-voiced vocal musical organisation is most frequent in complementary socioeconomies, such as those of gatherers or gardeners with small herd animals, where women make a contribution to subsistence equal to or greater than that of men. Polyphonic orchestral organization is most frequent in societies with complex governmental and productive organisations.

59. Unison. N.E. Ireland. The famous 19th century nationalist ballad about the 1798 rising against the British, sung in the choral style popularized in Ireland by the Clancy Brothers. Four men. (Goldstein #1, B1) - 0'46"

60. Heterophony. S. Asia, S. India. A Madras-Tamil religious song to Vishnu, with the second singer a respectful step behind the lead, as is common in the rank and caste-conscious Orient. Two males with tambura (strings) and a reed drone. (Danielou #2, B13) - 1'08"

61. Polyphony. Europe, S. England, Sussex where the groupy, harmonizing style of complementary Central Europe appears in such rural "glee" singing - superbly described in Hardy's "Under the Greenwood Tree". (Kennedy & Lomax #3, A8) -1'18"

62. Unison. N. America, Pueblo Taos. Tightly organized unison singing, such as this, is most frequent among pre-plough agriculturalists, living in small, clan-organized, non-stratified, stable communities like the Pueblos. Mixed group with drum. (McAllester & Brown, A1) - 0'56"

63. Heterophony. S.W. Asia, Nepal. Gurung farmers singing as they return from their potato fields. They are individualistic private enterprisers in a highly stratified kingdom and their performances are notably individualized. (Pignelde, B1) - 0'51"

64. Polyphony. Central Asia, Mid East, Russia, Dagestan. A trained folk chorus singing about their beloved mountains in the wide-voiced, overlapping, unified polyphonic style so common in the Caucasus. Mixed group. (Cowell #4, A2) - 1'05"

65. Unison with flutes. S. America, S.W. Colombia. Poplayan Christmas music from the ruling seat of the Andean Inca empire, where pre-Columbian music survives in peasant fiesta orchestras of flutes, panpipes and drums. (Whiteford, A3) - 0'40"

66. Heterophony between flute and shawm. E.Asia, Korea. True orchestral heterophony, with instruments trailing each other, is most frequent where the respect relationship of caste-class systems governs interaction, as it does in the rigid, stratified society of Korea. (Masu, B31) - 1'08"

67. Polyphony between flutes, C. Europe, Moravia. Traditional sheperd polyphony from the heartland of the Austro-Hungarian empire, where the symphonic tradition came to flower. (Czechoslovakia #3, B2) - 0'34"

68. Unison percussion. E. Africa, Lake Malawi, Hehe. A girls' initiation song that sounds like a West Indian game song - leader/ chorus overlap, cohesive vocal polyphony, unified clapped unison. (Tracey #2 TR157 B 1) - 0'26"

69. Heterophony. C. Asia, Sikkim. Music to accompany the dance of the God of Death, performed by lamas from Tibet, a land of extreme stratification in both the spiritual and secular realms. (Bourguignon B5) - 0'29"

70. Polyphony. S.E. Africa, Mozambique. Chopi composers create long compositions for massed xylophones and dancers. This one contains 15 movements. (Tracey #1, A7) - 1'54"

71. Polyphony. C. Africa, Arunha. Black Africans usually handle instruments bilaterally at the central body line with left and right hands equally active. This is their way with the mbira, sometimes called the thumb or bush piano, because it can be held in two hands with thumbs playing counter-melodies as the musician strolls through the countryside. (Tracey #1, A10) - 0'23"

72. Polyphony. N. America. A Virginia mountaineer makes a dance orchestra out of his fiddle by regularly sounding chords. (Lomax #12, B4) - 0'39"

73. Polyphony. Malaysia, Borneo, Dusun. One variation on the E. Asian mouth-organ is the "sampotan" which sounds when air, blown into a hollow gourd, escapes through a set of tubes, some of which can be stopped and others of which act as drones. (Polunin #2, Blb) - 0'56"

74. Test #1. C. Europe, C. Hungarian Mountains. At mid-winter men go house to house, singing such colinde (carols) to bring their neighbours luck in the coming year. Mixed group with drums. (Alexandru, A2) - 0'23"

75. Test #2. S.E. Africa, Madagascar. Ambilube tribesmen harmonizing, playing in and out of sync, with the vocal tension that is normal to 'praise' songs such as this one addressed to the king. (Schaeffner and Rouget, B23) - 0'33"

76. Test #3. S. America, S. Peru, Quechua. In this remote Andean village the heterophonic, diffuse coordination, irregular meter and throaty delivery form a pattern found frequently in Nuclear America, from the Andes to the Central Valley of Mexico. (Cohen, 19) - 0'34"

77. Test #4. E. Europe, Romania, Wallachia. Dance tune played on the bagpipe by shepherds to hold their flocks and frighten off beasts of prey, from India west to Scotland. (Alexandru, A10) - 0'28"

78. Test #5. Afro-America. Virginian blacks were famed dance musicians in colonial times, and more recently have contributed much to the development and arrangement of the spiritual, as exemplified in the melting harmonies of this rural folk choir from near Norfolk. Male solo with mixed group. (Lomax #15, B3) - 0'44"

79. Test #6. Arnhemland, Marajin. Four old men, all important religious leaders in this ritually-ranked society, simultaneously sing variations on a devotional song, with stick accompaniment,. (West, B8) - 0'30"

80. Test #7. W. Africa, Nigeria, Jos Plateau, Anaguta. The interlocked, hocketing Pygmy-like style of this flute orchestra comes from a small, complementary tribe living in a zone once occupied by Pygmies, and probably represents an absorption of Pygmy style. (Diamond, Alb) - 0'23"

81. Test #8. C. Asia. A Tibetan lama orchestra of 2 shawms, 2 long trumpets, hand bell, cymbals, and 3 drums, plays an introduction to a prayer. (Crossley-Holland, B14) - 0'31"

82. Test #9. Melanesia, Admiralties. Baluan women singmg in seconds, Bulgarian style, in a culture where women do half or more of the work that produces the staple food. (Schwartz, 20) - 0'33"

83. Test #10. N. Europe, S.W. England. A reconstruction of a halliard chanty (sea work song) in the rough, antiphonal-unison style of the white shanty tradition. (Lomax & Kennedy #34, A1) - 0'28"

TESTS - 1. Unison/ 2. Polyphony/ 3. Heterophony/ 4. Polyphony/ 5. Polyphony/ 6. Heterophony/ 7. Polyphony/ 8. Heterophony/ 9. Polyphony/ 10. Unison