Author’s Background
Excerpt from, “The Harmonic Perspective of Rhythm”
This chapter, in a self-reflexive mode, presents early and more recent life experiences, both factual and perceptual. This data is meant to give a limited picture of John
Early Life to University
I grew up in a suburban, middle class, family of five. Though music and musical experiences were plentiful, I did not come from a musical family in the usual, stereotypical sense, one that enjoys music making together from a particular point of view. With two half-sisters, nine and ten years older, my early musical life was rather one of exposure than practice. My sisters and mother would often sing together, participating in school choirs and harmonizing choral and popular music around the home. I had a steady diet of classical music played on albums and on the radio by my mother and other close relatives, and my sisters’ collections had me passionate about popular, rock, and rhythm and blues music from an early age, with a bit of jazz and fusion mixed in. We had a piano that I toyed with, but lessons were never mentioned. My mother and sisters studied piano intermittently, along with guitar and ukulele. Much later I discovered that my father was a good piano student as a child, but he dropped it, presumably for his interest in sports and cars, the passions for which I have mostly known him. Although it was apparently not recognized or encouraged in my early development, I have always had a fascination with sound and mimicry; I take great pleasure in the experience of sound in music and in the environment, including bird calls and other natural sounds, those of machines and other man-made devices, as well as the sounds of languages and their accents.
My first attempt at formal music lessons in primary school went badly, though I enjoyed the instrument on my own before meeting the instructor. I remember him as curt and short-tempered. Though I had never had any music instruction, he pointed at the page of music notation and told me to play certain notes on my trombone. I had no idea what that entailed so I just blew whatever I could. He replied, “Wrong! This note!” and indicated again. His indications were of no help, but I tried again. In humiliation and frustration, I quit. In retrospect, he must have thought I had had some previous instruction, but he was mistaken, or a very bad teacher, or both. I do not remember any continuing emotional response to the experience, but I suppose it had some negative effect on me; a later mention by my mother that the trombone in the house was, “so awful!” elicited an unexpected and powerful emotional response in me, even as an adult. Though this experience was a negative one and steered me away from early instrumental fluency, it was also ‘instrumental’ in allowing my sonic engagement with my early world to be broad and spontaneous, rather than directed by the pursuit of European Classical or marching band music. This is potentially a factor in my later capacity to understand and find satisfaction in music from other cultures of the world; music with different aesthetic loci.
I continued as an avid listener. I embraced the guitar in my mid-teens and took to it with great speed, such was my passion for the music I loved in those years. I brought my guitars with me to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), but did not seriously consider a music major until participating in an exchange program with the Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico. It was on this journey that I began to look more seriously at cultures outside my own. It was also on this journey that I bonded closely with several, like-minded friends, and together we shared a growing fascination for travel, world culture and art. This was a time of reckoning for me, of commitment to the artistic path. On return, I decided to pursue music academically. At first, this meant European Classical guitar, but I later switched to a cross-cultural approach
Though UCLA is one of the original, famous ethnomusicology schools, when I attended in the late 1980s, there was no undergraduate program in that discipline. The closest offering was the program in Worlds Arts and Cultures, with a music emphasis, introduced to me by a student friend from the Guadalajara exchange. In this inter-disciplinary program, the focus was on the so-called, ‘non-Western’ cultures of the world. This was an intentional reaction to the dominance in the various curricula, stronger in those days, of the cultural production of Western Europe. To study ‘Music’ was to study European Classical music, and so on. I joined the World Arts and Cultures programme, in which I spent the rest of my undergraduate career learning and learning about the dance, music, art history, folklore and anthropology of various non-European traditions.
Rebellion and the Search for Meaning
I became quite a convert to this agenda, finding beauty and potency in non-European artistic forms, and irritated by the hegemony of European forms in academia. Perhaps this stance was stirred by the rebellious side of my personality or my frustration at a world full of injustice that seemed to be rooted in European colonialism and its various legacies: slavery, economic subservience, political instability, religious and cultural hegemony. It was also a rebellion against the social and political system under which I came of age. I was defiant of a perceived societal focus on materialism and of material success as the primary marker of a life well-lived. I was also disconcerted by racism and inequality along racial lines in the communities I had been a part of and in the world at large. I did not respect the political system that thrived on maintaining at least some of these values—empty and unjust for me—at the expense of the natural environment and at the expense of those who cannot or will not compete with the dominant system. This system was the American economic and political system, the product of a modified version of the European worldview.
I am unabashedly criticizing the European and American system, the modern world, ‘the system,’ in an attempt to recreate the young person I was in the era under question. I still hold some of the viewpoints referred to above, but tempered by much more extensive travel, reflection, and a bit of tolerance—for the ‘oppressors,’ as well as the ‘oppressed.’
Perhaps I was part of new generation of university educated, culturally disenfranchised youth, seeking meaning in traditional forms to help fill a void unaddressed by modern society. I was reasonably well cared for and loved, given a good, public education and provided with the necessities and diversions of a fortunate youth. My experience with divorce and separation of family notwithstanding, I cannot say that I was deprived of food, shelter or love. I was quite well-off on Maslow’s famous hierarchy. However, my culture does not really consist of a culture. As a Caucasian American from a family with many generations in North America, I did not grow up with a strong sense of cultural identity. I would hypothesize that my experience is exemplary of a subset of the society in which I was raised. Our culture was the marketplace—the things and hobbies and pastimes that interested us. I would not suggest that this does not constitute a culture of some sort. There are hundreds if not thousands of subcultures within the larger ‘American’ culture: California culture; surfing culture; the various cultures of computer experts or ‘geeks;’ the culture of African dance and percussion aficionados…if there is an ‘American’ culture, is it baseball, hot dogs and apple pie? Is it Hollywood movies? In modern, commercial society, without strong ethnic or geographic ties, one’s ‘culture’ is rather a patchwork of whatever comes one’s way, whatever pleases someone enough to persuade them to invest their time and sense of self. They/we allow these certain things to become more or less a part of our identities.
The salient point from my experience is that I grew up without a strong sense of belonging to any cultural or religious group. My own ‘culture’ mostly consisted of people who had a similar experience to mine, raised by television, radio and other media that were produced for mass consumption. This left me with a cultural void, or rather a strong desire to seek out systems of knowledge that seemed to promise depth, organization, or a path to meaning, even if partially constrained by the boundaries or contexts of those older cultures from which they sprang.
Furthermore, I aspired to participate in the creation of something new for my generation. Compared to the more traditional, African societies in which I would eventually live and work, this impulse appears to be rather accelerated in modern, industrialized society, likely owing to the influence of formal education, the push toward independent thinking based on
These personal reflections and the suggestion that my experiences fit with some larger social phenomena might be framed in the terms common to social theory: The drive to be different and better than previous generations is a hallmark of modernism; however, the lack of connection to a strong, guiding root or mother cultural matrix can lead to feelings of emptiness, or lack of the fulfillment and sense of belonging once nurtured through older cultural models and their collateral social networks. I will add to this disorientating combination the critical modern perspective, “Something is wrong here, we must fix it!” turned on modernity itself. The resultant unrequited need for fulfillment leads some toward postmodernism, “which tends to
For myself
Drawing on the work of Anthony Giddens, Rice comes to a similar perspective.
In his (Giddens 1991) view tradition gave to people their habitus, status, and roles, in the process limiting their ability to structure a self outside these given frameworks. Modernity, on the other hand, knocks down these traditional underpinnings and requires all of us to construct reflexively our biographies from a wide array of choices not available in traditional societies. Lifestyle choice becomes not a trivial accoutrement of the bourgeoisie but crucial for everyone living in modernity. (Rice 2017, 116). “What to do? How to act? Who to be? These are focal questions for everyone living in circumstances of late modernity-and ones that, on some level or another, all of us answer, either discursively or through day-to-day social behavior” (Giddens 1991, 70; cited in Rice 2017, 116).
Rice goes on to connect this orientation to the methodological stance of the modernist musicologist.
The self-reflexive project of self-identity in
modernity, understood as a social process, provides the rationale and foundation for subject-centered musical ethnography. (Rice 2017, 116)
After finishing my degree, I stayed in Los Angeles one more year, working and continuing to study Yoruba talking drums with master drummer and fellow student Frances Awe from Nigeria. (He helped design th mass produced dundun below.)
I wanted out of the big city, so I moved to the far northern end of California and found several other varieties of African world music practitioners. I was pleasantly surprised, in fact, to find the level of knowledge, skill, and commitment that I did among my newfound peers. These were not academics (though some had also studied music at university) but enthusiastic hobbyists. They were after hours musicians and dancers, of various creeds and
Questioning Motivation: a ‘Spiritual’ Resolution
I am sitting in a barn full of bailed hay adjacent to the house I share in the Arcata Bottoms, lowlands on the road to the Mad River
Maybe it is the smell of the hay or my secluded spot, ten feet off the ground on the fragrant bales. Whatever the inspiring conditions, I find myself thinking once again, ‘Why play music anyway? What’s the purpose, if not to impress people and build my own ego? Am I not just looking for a way to feel better about myself, and if so, is it not an empty pursuit, bound to fail?’ [1]
I have engaged intermittently with Buddhism and meditation since I chose it as the subject of my first high school term paper. These thoughts in the barn were at least partially inspired by my Buddhist leanings. I should explain that for me, Buddhism in its original form is more psychology than religion. It is about knowing oneself and the tendencies of the mind, to as great an extent as is possible. The goal of complete self-knowledge, if that is possible, then brings on the fabled religious experience of permanent transcendence. It is this possibility that also inspires some people to religious devotion in the practice of meditation and self-examination as prescribed by the Buddha.
Awareness
The parallels in this study to this awareness-seeking perspective are many. There is the self-reflexive approach itself, where all observed or even imagined experiences are potential material for documentation and analysis. As the mind is the only filter we have to translate experience to ethnography, it should not be left out of the equation. To strive for objectivity in our observances is a noble, if impossible goal. To move in that direction then, observance of the observing and processing mechanism—the mind—is valid and, I believe, called for, whether or not it is documented. The task of meditation is to let the mind settle enough that we can see its patterns and preoccupations, its tendency to jump all around when we may think there is continuity of thought, and its tendency to focus on those matters that hold personal importance for us. These patterns of thought are at odds with the goal of objectivity. It is an imperfect science, but it is the basis of all contemplation, scientific or otherwise. As such, self-awareness and admission of biases should be cultivated by anyone attempting to present academic ‘truth.’ For me to omit this aspect of my own perspective, for example, would sacrifice some of the truth of my internal process, which is the generator and/or translator of all that is presented here.
Awareness is also at the core of the experiential perspective. Without self-reflection, no explicit knowledge would be generated, and the implicit would remain unconsidered. It is through the process of asking, “What do I do?” and “How do I do that?” that we begin to generate ideas—perhaps even answers—that can be transmitted to someone else for their own evaluation and possible use. The deeper and more consistent the awareness, the more material is generated, with perhaps greater odds that we will hit on some truth, whether it be solely personal or useful to some wider audience.
For me, an awareness perspective has parallels in many of Efrain Toro’s ideas as well, both technical and philosophical. Throughout my lessons with him he stressed the idea of starting one’s music practice anew every day. By this he explained that he has committed himself to checking that each day he starts by touching his instrument with a correct and fluid motion, one that completely releases the energy generated by the movement. Here we are in the world of experience, and this might seem like the talk of a mystic to someone who has not experienced the phenomenon. I can say from my own experience that the seeds of this idea grow with focused practice into a deeper and more consistent awareness of this very phenomenon. The energy used will never be completely released, but the idea is that energy must not be held in by muscular tension (which might be related to psychological tension); this gradual awakening is accompanied by the realization that freedom from (unnecessary) tension is not learned completely but rather developed over a lifetime. It is inherent in this approach that the process is continually re-examined and begun anew—this is the awareness algorithm. Here it operates with special emphasis on the idea that any technical, movement goal is efficiently and continuously developed through conscious awareness. It is through awareness that we determine whether and to what extent the limbs are relaxed and the energy passing freely through them. While there may exist people who find great technical ability without much ‘thinking,’ Toro has strongly suggested to me with his words and abilities that this approach will likely have a ‘low ceiling.’ To continue to progress throughout one’s lifetime, perhaps to achieve greatness, it seems necessary to seek more than unconsidered trial and error can give.[2]
When he says he ‘starts over,’ everyday, Toro also explains that he starts with very basic material, grounding himself and his body in the central pulse(s), to which all other elements are, or should be, subject. His rhythmic philosophy, hinted at earlier, is one of perspective. This he compares to the development of visual perspective which took place in Renaissance painting, when artists learned to produce drawings and paintings in which all objects in a scene are seen in spatial relation to the observer.[3] Similarly, only through a strong, grounded centre can other syncopated, polyrhythmic and polymetric elements take on their differing, counter rhythmic roles, for the listener as well as the performer. Though he has come to be known for his command of very complex, polymetric combinations and permutations, Toro insists that the mind be centred in the most basic element, the pulse[4].
On a related, more philosophical note, Toro also talks of the, ‘field of possibilities.’ By this he means that commitment to one musical path, like the mind committing to one idea, limits the potential to consider other paths. From this pre-commitment experience, which he also refers to as, ‘the one,’ (meant in a metrical as least as much as a meta-physical sense) all things are possible. In Buddhist or meditation narrative, this is similar to the idea of the ‘void,’ or, ‘nothingness.’ In physics, philosophy/ontology as well, this idea would correspond to that which is not matter, energy, or empty space. It is the concept that for something to exist, it must also be possible for it not to exist, and before it did, there was nothing. Therefore, somehow, all of creation is in fact dependent on the concept of nothing, of non-existence. (Genz 2009; Sartre and Barnes 1992; Kelsang Gyatso 2011)
Lama Encounter
From my own experience, I am reminded of a meeting with Tibetan Lama, Akong Tulku Rinpoche. I was among other interested visitors and volunteers at the Rokpa Buddhist Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe, during the Tibetan Lama’s bi-annual visit. I was an occasional visitor and participant in lectures and meditation sessions there and was fortunately able to attend on this rare occasion to be near a potential ‘realized being.’ I felt a bit the fly on the wall, sincerely interested though I was, and not brave enough or dedicated enough to queue for an audience with the guest of honour. Then, quite abruptly, a film-maker and sometimes musical collaborator friend of mine said, “Have you talked to him yet? He’s really easy going, just go talk to him,” and ushered me by the shoulder right to the open chair next to him. I should mention this Lama had a reputation for being dry and stern, not quite the warm, smiling wise man we might be used to from documentaries about the Dalai Lama. The queue had dissipated and with not more than a few seconds notice I was now in semi-private consultation with the Lama. I could not think of much to say, but felt I must say something, so I turned to my usual topic of conversation, music. I explained that I was a musician and he suddenly got very excited, straightening up and snapping out, “Oh, good! What do you play? Guitar?” I explained that I had previously been a guitarist, but that I presently played percussion and piano and composed. With a sudden, relatively bubbly demeanour, he continued, “Oh, ok. No matter. So, when you practice your music, that is your meditation!” I was taken aback, happy that my story had brought such enthusiasm from the
I think it possible that Rinpoche’s demeanour seemed to change so abruptly because he saw the potential that music offers as an awareness-centred occupation. Any daily activity can be an opportunity to practice awareness, but for reasons stated above, perhaps music demands it. Toro told me that the tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain has also said that his practice is his meditation. (Toro 2012g; Hussain 2011) This idea is significant in the present context as it suggests that awareness of the mind, or mindfulness, can be applied to musical endeavours, transforming them, if the practitioner is so inclined, to spiritual endeavours. By spiritual endeavour, I mean an activity of mind that brings on moments of transcendence, of awareness beyond the normal realm of day-to day consciousness. For those who are moved by the idea of a spiritual life or a spiritual practice, the inclusion of music in that practice is an opportunity to combine a pastime or profession with a deeply held, meaningful life path. The mechanism, in this case, mindfulness, goes both ways. Music practice can be used to deepen one’s knowledge of themselves and of the moment, and can be dedicated to the larger world outside one’s own selfish impulses and desires. Likewise, mindfulness, the desire for an ever calmer, more accepting, more aware and less personally absorbed mind can contribute to one’s capacity for music, by accommodating the patience and insight required to overcome technical and interpretative obstacles, and by training the mind to be more restful, insightful, spontaneous and relaxed. (Cleary 1995; Nairn 1998, 1999; Akong Tulku 1995; Nhất Hạnh 1999; Thubten Yeshe 2000; Kornfield 1993)
Recent research suggests that what many tend to think of as consciousness, a background of continuity with which we observe and process the world, is actually more of a continuous stream of more or less related thoughts bombarding the thinking structures of the brain. (Robinson 2011; Damasio 2000) From this relentless and sometimes random storm of thoughts, we convince ourselves that there is a solid ‘me’ and a solid ‘you’—personalities that exist. In ‘thinking about the thinking’ we convince ourselves there is some ‘thing’ that we have, that is ‘me.’ Perhaps awareness then, is a myth; maybe awareness is just more thinking that we convince ourselves is somehow ‘higher’ or more profound than thinking about what we ate for breakfast or what colour to paint our toenails. Still, it feels like something more. In my experience, awareness is the thinking behind the thinking: The active state of observing the mind and the body, and paying attention to their habitual tendencies, thereby giving us a bit more choice in how we choose to act. Awareness is observation…of the observing mind itself. It is maturation of the mind. When children mature, they (hopefully) learn to reflect before they make important choices. ‘Should I finish school?’ ‘Should I drive drunk?’ ‘Should I swim in the sea during a hurricane or play golf in a lightning storm?’ In developing mindfulness, we deepen this process to include the conditions we observe in our inner life. ‘My mind is full of angry thoughts, should I act on them?’ ‘Nothing is really permanent. My mind is often preoccupied with concerns about my identity and the needs of my ego; Are these thoughts who I am? Should I let them be? If thoughts are not who I am, then what are the alternative possibilities?’
Perhaps there is a continuum that runs from purely physical or ‘trivial’ matters, to highly mental, intangible, layered thought matrices such as self-reflection of which awareness and ‘spiritual’ experiences would be examples. All is ultimately based on judgment. Some claim the spiritual is in everything. This brings us back to Hussain’s and Rinpoche’s statements that musical practice can be meditation. It can be a chance to observe ourselves, body and mind, and a source of reflection on our own habitual tendencies; ultimately, from this perspective, all thoughts, perceptions, and experiences can also be sources of reflection…if one can maintain permanent awareness of one’s own mind.
A Controversial Statement
In discussing the significance of personal, mental process in the development of musical skill, I’m reminded of a statement that uses terminology from the ‘objective’ realm. The great Puerto Rican conga player, Giovanni Hidalgo, stands as an icon in the worlds of Latin Jazz, ‘World’ percussion, and Caribbean music. He is perhaps the first truly modern conga player, with astonishing technique, the likes of which had not been seen before he showed others that it was possible. Though his background is firmly rooted in Afro-Caribbean traditional forms, I use the term modern because he has found a way to embrace rudimentary drumming techniques—the modern approach of categorizing technique into groups of essential movements, or rudiments, which are practiced outside of the traditional goal of focusing on repertoire—and incorporate them with Afro-Caribbean folkloric music. I am influenced in this categorization of, one might say, ‘modern ethnic musician,’ by Toro, but it is a phenomenon I spent much time considering before I came under the sphere of his influence. It is this convergence of ideas, in fact, that lead to my interest in Toro, as discussed elsewhere.
The comment I mentioned comes from the DVD, Traveling Through Time, by Hidalgo and another exemplary ‘ethnic modernist’, Horacio ‘El Negro’ Hernandez.
In the discussion section after their piece, Juntos, Hidalgo talks about the way the two have been referencing various older, folkloric and popular repertoires, recombining them and incorporating modern technique, and presenting their work to the next generation, who will then continue the process. Then he pauses and says, “I say something always, and for me, it’s the truth. We are…any instrument, any level, any…artist…we are scientists.” (Hidalgo et al. 2004) English is not Hidalgo’s first language. He is also prone to heartfelt, quasi-mystical flights of praise for his predecessors, praise for his instrument, the beauty of the music, the love he feels when he plays, and so on. The first few times I heard him say that artists and musicians are scientists, it struck a chord in me, but I brushed it off as an off-the-cuff, less than thoroughly considered bit of artistic license, uttered by a great player who is somewhat less of an accomplished speaker. Science, after all, is about un-biased testing and replicable results, about concrete explanations for puzzling phenomena. But recently, while practicing and considering this idea of awareness, it occurred to me that there is a great deal of testing and experimentation that goes into overcoming a technical hurdle in performance practice. I believe this idea is what piqued my interest the first time I heard Hidalgo’s comment. Now, however, I realize that not only do we conduct a great deal of experimentation to find the right course through a technical hurdle, but that the field of experimentation—an individual mind/body system—is not observable to anyone but the experimenter, as least not in the complete sense that is required to own and use that system. Outsiders such as teachers can be a great help, but ultimately, the questions, the experimentation and the answers are only fully known to that one individual. Many things still differentiate the process from normal scientific endeavour, of course. Perhaps most obvious is documentation of the experimental process. In the auto-ethnographic realm, Sudnow’s Way of the Hand presents one attempt at this sort of documentation. (Sudnow and Dreyfus 2001) In the present research, I have made a considerable attempt to document my experiments, successes, trials and tribulations in acquiring some of Toro’s technical approach, in my tabla studies, and in my more casual pursuit of piano technique. I find, however, both in Sudnow’s book and my own experience, there is just too much to document. The mind has only so many resources and so much attention to devote to these inter-twined tasks: experimentation, documentation and analysis. This is especially considering that technical and musical success—in stiff competition with documentation for the researcher’s time and attention—are pre-requisites for the ‘study’ to generate any meaning. What use would there be in saying, “I tried x technique but I was too busy thinking about it and writing about it to engage with it completely; this may or may not be why it failed to produce results.”? Moreover, even if I manage to shed some light on one aspect of technique acquisition, it will have been for me, in my mind and my body. Perhaps a scientific study could be applied at a less personal level, such as whether exposure to certain technical advice shows a statistical difference in some measured performance capacity of a certain technique. This could make a valid and reasonable experiment, but it is a long way from music or the process of becoming a musician. What is more, the advice will still have been observed, interpreted and applied by each participant in their own way, in their own mind and body.
These two mental processes—experimentation with immediate feedback and alteration of behaviour in a quasi-intuitive, experiential modality on the one hand, and a tendency towards a more prolonged, analytical and documentary approach on the other—may underlie the stereotypical character types we see around us: the athlete and the intellectual. These prejudices are wrong and potentially harmful; plenty of good athletes are also good students and vice-versa. Still, I meet children all the time, including my own two, who I would characterize as prone either to rapid acquisition of physical skill, and less to observation, verbalization and analysis, and those on the opposite end of the spectrum. I grew up with lots of them. David Elliot echoes this observation in the performance realm:
In domains such as the performing arts and athletics, where thinking effectively in action is what counts, the relationship between procedural knowledge and formal knowledge can be highly variable. Many students grasp principles nonverbally in the process of music making and in the course of seeing and hearing models (practical concepts) of how to perform artistically. Other students require “talk” before they can think-in-action. (Elliot 1995, 60)
It is a common goal in education to stimulate both ends of this spectrum, with the idea that some, ‘get it’ in one realm and some in another. Music, in what has been referred to in recent times as the now infamous, ‘Mozart Effect’ perhaps offers crucial training in both modalities[5].
A Scientist’s View
Concert pianist and acclaimed educator William Westney looks to the chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi on the (im)possibility of categorically describing, analysing and defining the process of technique acquisition:
Other scientists have also looked to music as a special problem-solving medium and as a means of understanding and representing abstract concepts. Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) was a world-renowned chemist who turned to philosophy in later life and achieved great prominence as a thinker. Polanyi went beyond the objective scientific method in which he was trained when he said that humans “know more than we can tell”: there are important truths which are personal and irreducible and which can never be analyzed or described. This view acknowledges that the scientific method will not always be adequate, since science takes a reductionist approach—one that reduces a big question to smaller, more manageable ones without necessarily ever answering the big question.
To illustrate the shortcomings of reductionist analysis, Polanyi turned to piano technique as an example. In fact, this passage reveals far more insight into piano playing than many books by musicians do! Polanyi understood that since the body will always be more sophisticated than the mind, its workings at a certain level can never be explained by one person to another. (Westney 2003, 218)
The analysis of a skilful feat in terms of its constituent motions remains always incomplete. There are notorious cases, like the distinctive “touch” of a pianist, in which the analysis of a skill has long been debated inconclusively; and common experience shows that no skill can be acquired by learning its constituent motions separately. Moreover, here too isolation modifies the particulars: their dynamic quality is lost. Indeed, the identification of the constituent motions of a skill tends to paralyze its performance. Only by turning our attention away from the particulars and towards their joint purpose, can we restore to the isolated motions the qualities required for achieving their purpose…This act of integration is itself unspecifiable. Imitation offers guidance to it, but in the last resort we must rely on discovering for ourselves the right feel of a skilful feat. We alone can catch the knack of it; no teacher can do this for us. (Polanyi and Greene 1969, 126 in Westney 2003)
Polanyi has captured the essence of making music: good, purposeful practice results in a dynamic and irreducible “act of integration.” (Westney 2003, 219)
Hypothetically, skill acquisition might still be thought of as a scientific
Back to, ‘Why?’
So, I was in the barn, playing the mbira for myself and thinking, ‘Why play music anyway? What’s the purpose, if not to impress people and build my own ego? Am I not just looking for a way to feel better about myself, quite possibly at the expense of others who are less skilful, and if so, is it not an empty pursuit, bound to fail?’ The answer which came to me, which satisfied me, was that in playing music I am acting as a channel of something beautiful, something not entirely of myself (something natural?); I am taking inspiration and a bit of knowledge, creating sound, organized sound, and broadcasting it back to the universe. I had a profound feeling that it mattered not whether anyone ever heard what I was doing, it was still relevant and still constituted a positive contribution to humanity, perhaps to something greater. This was a personal realization, but born of the application of conscious awareness to the choice of musical and life path. Music became, in that moment, a primary instrument in the quest to develop ever-finer awareness. It became my yoga.
I stayed in Arcata only three and a half years, but it seemed more. I did well in the music scene. I was asked by friends to teach. I played in bands. I played in two or three dance classes per week and played with friends in study groups and at parties. All together I often played six times a
Africa
After two months of language, cultural and technical training in Senegal, I arrived in my new home country with the rest of my training class, most but not all of them just out of university. I was placed in the far northwest of the country, in a small village called Zeguetiela, about 65
I have always been cautious, however, to advocate an approach from industrialized society at all costs. I would sometimes tell my friends in the village, when they would ask about the outside world, that they in fact lived very charmed lives in many ways. There was no obesity or lack of food; everybody was strong and fit; they were proud to produce everything they needed to live; the people sang while they worked and talked, joked and laughed all day; they had their own unique dialect, different from those of villages even 15 kilometres away; they had no inner conflicts about where they came from or who they were in the world; they shared all material possessions, to the extent that everyone had basically the same, which was almost always enough to survive, and no one was what we would think of as remotely wealthy. History, role, and responsibility were all defined for those willing to accept their lot. The gnawing inner turmoil that seems to plague us in the industrialized world seemed for the most part absent. One thing the villagers lacked however, perhaps felt more by the youth, with their energy, ambition and glimpses of the wider world, was the economic power to escape, should they so choose. They ostensibly lacked the freedom to be somewhere else, to be something else—not completely, but the odds were stacked high against those who dreamed of the lives they saw now and then on the village nurse or teachers’ battery powered televisions.
The Contemporary Struggle
I am of two minds regarding the superiority of the contemporary, materialistic and capitalist approach to life. I am not able to suggest an alternative, but I do respect and wish to preserve the legacy of traditional cultures. For better or worse, traditional, rural culture in its refusal to change at all but the slowest pace is the source and guardian of much wisdom concerning the natural world, concerning human nature and human relationships, and concerning music. It is the source of traditional music, and without understanding the source, it is impossible to understand the music in all but a technical sense. Mamady Keïta, as perhaps the most celebrated African drummer in the world, is no stranger to the stage or the outside world. However, he sees the traditional/modern dichotomy thus:
Today the true traditional rhythms are only found in the villages. Many of the young people from Conakry (Guinea’s capital city) learn about the djembe only through the ballet[6], and know nothing of how it is played in the village. In the capital, there might be about five musicians who know and play traditional rhythms.
As far as I am concerned, people commit a grave error when they mix traditional rhythms and ballet rhythms to the point that they cannot discern one from the other. Meanwhile, there are many African adventurers who spread these rhythms all over the world and proclaim them to be traditional rhythms.
The real traditional rhythms of a village are never changed. Before a traditional rhythm changes “men will give birth to children!” This is so because, for centuries, an oral tradition has existed that has nothing at all to do with fashion, but everything to do with our history.
If we do not pay close attention here, we will destroy our identity, our tradition, and our history. (Billmeier and Keïta 2004, 42–43)
The Modern Takes the Lead
With time, I became fond of the village celebrations and style of music. Over the course of the two years I spent in Zeguetiela, I played with the local drummers and with bala players (balafola) on a few occasions. However, aside from my initial comparison with the fast, flashy playing I had known in the US, there were several other factors which kept me from a more thorough immersion in the village music. The most important of these was the relative lack of music making. As poor peasant farmers in the drier Northern region of the country, the people worked virtually all the time. Village celebrations with music took place maybe once per month, on average, or less. I also began lessons with Cisse Seydou on the bala. Seydou would become one of my dearest friends and musical inspirations, but our music lessons were mostly esoteric, mostly in private. I wanted to be playing more regularly.
I did play with the villagers on many, memorable occasions: Village wide celebrations for the end of Ramadan, full moon dances around a giant bonfire, and large work parties in the fields. People sometimes tried to stop me, however, because they said I would get tired or hurt my hands. Likewise, when I tried to show the local musicians some phrases I had learned from their colleagues with modern, (African) ballet training, they would say, “Oh. That’s how you play chez vous!” Again, in my frustration, I would tell them, “No! This is African music!’ They did not believe me. For all the reasons mentioned, but especially because of the relative lack of music making in the village I began to search for musicians in the regional capital, Odienne, whenever I passed through. There I met and befriended the leader of a popular Jembe group, Kone Kassim, and a friend from Guinea. I took lessons from them and played with their group for several months and eventually brought them back to the village for a few days. There we played the days away in the relative quiet of the countryside and even put on a show for the villagers one night in the school. Everyone was quite impressed with the skills of my new young friends, even though they played in a style closer to what I had been exposed to in the States. They also noticed that I could keep up with them, enough to accompany them at least, and that we had a friendship and brotherhood in music, regardless of our different races and origins; these two gentlemen even left the ‘big city’ to come and work with me out in the countryside. My message—that white foreigners could play African music, that I was serious about really learning—must have been a bit clearer. Not long after, one of the regular village drummers, one who had been friendly in the past, Karim, said that he would introduce me to his Patron, his master. I said, ‘Sure. Sounds good,’ but, in my naivety, I left it in his hands and never enquired further. Not impressed by their music, I let it slip away. These are the sorts of details I could leave out of this discussion, but I have come to believe it is important for me to explain some of the hidden details, including mistakes I have made and potential sources of regret. It was only some years later I learned of and acquired Keïta and Billmeier’s book (first published in 1999, about two years after this experience), read of the difference between village and modern music, and of the importance of the village traditions. I thought the young men who played in the village were the carriers of the tradition, not thinking there could be a master. I had never seen any of the older people play local music. There were two I knew of who played the bala, but they had learned in another region, and I also knew them to be the only ones. I have since read in Keïta’s book:
My master, Karinka Djan Condé, was not a famous musician. He lived as a simple farmer in our village. But he was a true master who had practiced the tradition and the magic of this instrument for many years. A master, especially a master of the djembé, must master all rhythms and know exactly when each is played and why. There are also some sounds of the djembé that a master transmits to only one student, who is devoted, body and soul, to the djembé.
My master knew the seven secrets of the djembé and initiated me into these secrets: that was, and is, a great honor for me, and, at the same time, a big responsibility. (Billmeier and Keïta 2004, 34–35)
If there was a true master in Zeguetiela, one capable of transmitting the centuries old secret traditions, I did not meet him as such. I travelled still further afield in the ensuing years looking for the ‘real’ tradition of the Mandeng. Perhaps I needed only focus on what was in front of me.
Branching Out
In the middle of my second year, I went on a work related, technical training to Guinea. While at the Peace Corps house in Conakry, I met another American who was passing through, Paul. Paul had been taken by West African music in the States and had moved to Bamako, Mali to study jembe and bala. We hit it off and explored a bit of Conakry together before exchanging addresses and going our separate ways. Toward the end of my time in the village, I took a holiday to Mali and found Paul once again. Here in Mali, in the capital, I took lessons with Paul’s teacher Fousseini Sissoko, and found a vibrant music scene, bubbling with the contributions of many ethnic traditions. Just walking the street in Bamako in the evening, we would hear many kinds of different music—from amplified Peulh reed flute wailing from makeshift speakers at feedback volume, like some kind of Sahelian Jimi Hendrix, to Tuareg electric guitars, the heptatonic bala, koni and Arabic inspired praise singing of Mandeng Jelis (griots), the large pentatonic bala of the Senoufo, and Bamana, the jembes and dunduns of half a dozen different celebrations, hired by families of various ethnicities.
Clash of Commitments
I returned to Côte d’Ivoire resolved to finish my service and move back to Mali straight away[7], but I was greeted with congratulations for a new post I had been awarded; I had applied to extend my service as a volunteer leader, establishing a new office up-country from the capital.
Though it was a difficult decision to make, in the end, I chose to remain in service and move to the city of Korhogo. Korhogo, Ivorian capital of the Senoufo ethnic group, is in the centre north of the country, famous for its traditional weaving and sculpture, ceremonies with masked dancers roaming the streets, and bala music.
The Mali decision on hold for another year or so, I encountered another disorientating situation; I met the woman who would eventually become my wife. My attention was divided in a number of ways, work—finding and establishing a new office space in an unfamiliar African city—music, of several varieties, and new love. Despite these challenges, I managed to find in short order the leader and ex-leader of all the local jembe troupes, Dembele Tidiane.[8] Originally from Burkina Faso, he was also an excellent bala player, who played a very exciting style. He helped me find office space in a popular and well-placed quartier, with lots of traditional culture, as opposed to the usual, quiet NGO and expatriate neighbourhoods. The office, also an up-country way station for passing volunteers, became something of an African music and culture nexus—occasionally even to other passing tourists and ex-patriots—helping to fulfil some of our mandate to encourage cross-cultural exchange. In addition to my work duties, I played for many marriages and naming ceremonies as part of Tidiane’s group. In the evenings, he would teach me bala and eventually, we started giving performances.
Drama and Pilgrimage
The Korhogo experience was rich with wonderful, cross-cultural encounters: Work and performance trips in the neighbouring countryside and eventually, the drama of aborted presidential elections due to mass action anti-government protests, a coup d’etat (during which I was absent), and falling asleep at night to the sound of automatic weapon fire, among much else. Near the end of my time, I took Tidiane on a pilgrimage to the Mandeng heartland of Mali and Guinea. There was much drama to enliven this experience as well; on my return to Bamako, we learned of the death of Fusseini Sissoko from his twin brother Alhassan, who would become my long-term teacher and lodger; in upper Guinea, we were threatened and extorted at check points and Tidiane was nearly shot by a drunken, armed policeman, distraught that his own village had been attacked with support from the Burkina government. I was told by a
A Home in Between
I had the time of my
life in West Africa, even deciding to stay indefinitely on several occasions,
but eventually, my romantic relationship sorted and strong, I decided to return
to the USA, as my wife to be had already done. Perhaps not coincidentally, it
was around this time that I envisioned a combination of Western—especially Jazz—harmony
and African rhythm. I loved the music I had been playing and felt, as many
American, European and Asian musicians do (judging by the popularity of serious
African music study in these diverse locales), that there was something
important in the African rhythmic perspective, something intrinsically
powerful, stimulating, complex and of profound human beauty. Some of my fascination
lies in the fact that the experts and principal exponents of the music are for
the most part, illiterate and uneducated, in the Western/modern traditional
sense[9]. Nevertheless, I wanted to combine my experience and
growing expertise with my own cultural perspective—harmony, notation, strongly
rooted as they are in analysis and the transmission of explicit knowledge. This
shift back toward my roots would eventually lead to the attempt at
cross-cultural synthesis I have found in the perspective under scrutiny in this
study, as well as in a Master’s Degree in Jazz Composition. I would yet travel
and live in California, Zimbabwe and South Africa, studying western and
traditional music of various sorts along the way, but the seeds of the search
now being conducted through the lens of the harmonic perspective of rhythm had
been sown throughout this long journey.
Footnotes
[1] This is, in essence, a ‘quote from memory’, hence the use of the present tense. It is italicized so as to distinguish it as neither part of the current narrative nor as a quotation from another source.
[2] As mentioned elsewhere (Chapter 1: Constructed Knowledge and the Experiential Perspective), actions are also considered knowledge in contemporary thinking. (Elliot 1995, 55) An integrated approach between explicit and implicit knowledge is implied.
[3] For a video explanation preferred by Toro, see episode three from James Burkes’ series, The Day the Universe Changed, especially from about 20:00 to 30:00. (The Day the Universe Changed, #3: Point of View 2012, available on youtube.com)
[4] I argue elsewhere that a central tenet of the philosophy under scrutiny is polymetricity, or awareness of several metric references on theoretically equal, as opposed to hierarchical, terms. Toro’s method comes to this awareness several steps after the beginning stages being discussed, with the eventual centre being on ‘one‘, the metric cycle itself.
[5] The ‘Mozart Effect’ usually refers to the contention that listening to classical music, especially that of Mozart, produces a range of beneficial effects, including increased academic performance and even increased IQ. The plethora of claims, products, and public and political debate regarding this idea seems to originate with the work of Alfred Tomatis, and the research of Rauscher et. al., who, in an article in the journal Nature, showed that listening to certain Mozart pieces produced a temporary improvement in spatial reasoning. (Tomatis 1991; Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky 1993) IQ was not measured. Recent research such as that by Moreno et. al., suggests that training in music (as opposed to passive listening) might indeed enhance cognitive abilities (verbal intelligence) in children. (Moreno et al. 2011)
[6] Keïta is referring to experience gained through African dance companies such as Les Ballets Africains (The African Ballet), which became Guinea’s national ensemble after that country’s independence in 1958. (“Les Ballets Africains: African Culture for the Modern World”)
[7] On my return from Bamako, I spent time with a favourite musician of mine: Senoufo bala player, singer, and composer, Souleymane Traoré, also known as Neba Solo, in his village, near Sikasso, Mali. I committed to return there for training, until my plans changed, as described in the text. Traoré has since been invited to Harvard University by Quincy Jones Professor of African American music, Ingrid Monson, who is reportedly preparing her next book about him. (“Ingrid Monson, Quincy Jones Professor of African American Music, Harvard University”; Kenedougou Visions: Music of Neba Solo by Ingrid Monson || Radcliffe Institute 2013)
[8] The younger, competing groups were composed of his former apprentices.
[9] Although many of the younger apprentices had basic literacy in French, most of my older musician contacts did not know even the alphabet. According to UNICEF data on Mali, for example, for the period 2008-2012, the literacy rate for male youths (aged 15-24 years) was 56%. (“Statistics”) I left Mali in 2000. In my experience, a musical or other apprenticeship was often chosen in place of schooling. This practice was changing—slowly—in favour of more universal schooling, more girls in school, and so on, but I suspect the literacy rate of older musicians from rural areas (the origin of the music) is much less. Certainly, music literacy rates are much less still.
Bibliography
As you’ve seen in the text, I have included links to most of these works. If you are interested in purchasing any of them, please consider clicking through and helping to support this labor of love. Thank you! YIR (Yours In Rhythm), John