Dimensions In Rhythm

Traditional vs. Modern Apprenticeship

Excerpt from, “The Harmonic Perspective of Rhythm”

‘Ethnic’?

I believe a sensible introduction to the findings can be found in a description of the goals of the method. Prior to that introduction, however, a bit of background is necessary. I have already used, after Toro, the term, ‘ethnic music.’ This term would likely cause a great deal of discussion and contention if left without explanation. For example, who, and what kinds of music are ‘ethnic’? Perhaps, more to the point, who or what music is not? All people come from ethnic traditions, whether they attempt to be cultural standard bearers or not. And just as certainly, those who do not align themselves with an orthodox presentation of their culture are still affected by it and/or by the wide variety of more or less ‘pure’ cultural manifestations to which a person/artist will be exposed. This begs consideration of the question, what is a ‘pure’ cultural position? All cultures evolve and change, all the time. This phenomenon is arguably more rapid and the transformations more sweeping with ever broader exposure to the variety of extant cultural manifestations, through widely available digital media and ever more multi-cultural societies; this is in addition to the influence of ideas aimed at liberating our conceptions of what is acceptable and of what is possible. (There is also the possibility of reactionary orthodox-ism, with the view that alteration equates to loss.) However, despite the recent rapidity of cultural change (I resist the possible bias in the word ‘evolution’ here), I would hold that cultural change itself is, nevertheless, not a new phenomenon.

Even if cultural change were a relatively new phenomenon, where then would we draw the ‘line of purity’? One hundred years ago? Before Europeans began to colonize most of the rest of the planet? Before the Vikings sailed or before the East African dhow culture began? Before the Mongols first learned to ride horses, or before ‘Mitochondrial Eve’ first found her way across the Red Sea? I think it is clear there is no such line.

Still the term ‘ethnic music,’ though inadequate, does not represent nothing at all, for those of us who are passionate about older cultures, and their music. I have spent a good deal of energy trying to explain to urban South Africans, for example, that the ‘drum circle’ phenomenon represented in certain night spots and corporate boardrooms, though played on African style instruments, has little to do with the West African drumming traditions it purports to represent, consciously or not. In vaguely similar fashion, to the rhythmically sensitive ear salsa dance music produced on a drum machine is a far cry from Cuban Rumba, and electronic club music with a sampled tabla sound is a quite different phenomenon from a tabla solo by a player that has completed a twenty-year intensive apprenticeship under a guru that represents an unbroken chain of rhythmic mastery going back several hundred years (or considerably more depending on how the lineage is traced.)

After some thought and discussion with Dr. Kathryn Olsen, I have therefore sought to preserve Toro’s intention but in a more appropriate term. I believe the concept he is trying to convey refers to music that is aurally transmitted, from some sort of established lineage of performance practice. This excludes, with no attempt at judgment, those artists who have learned their music mostly from written materials (which of necessity have been rhythmically intellectualized) and those who have created music of their own volition with little or no reference to a traditional apprenticeship relationship. It includes, however, those that have managed to imbibe one of the older, previously apprenticed traditions by ear, the so-called, ‘natural musician.’ In contemporary culture, this might happen with the aid of recordings, and more recently, videos to be found online and elsewhere. This arrangement of terms and concepts obviously makes for grey areas. It is therefore perhaps not entirely effective to abandon the aforementioned term or to pretend that I can find one that is unbiased, but I will attempt to find a working replacement nevertheless. It is not my intention to focus on these grey areas but rather to see what these necessary generalizations can add to the discussion. I have therefore decided to group the terms Aurally Transmitted Music, Aurally Transmitted (Trained) Musicians and so on under the label AT/Music(s), or AT/Musician(s), etc., depending on the requirements of the discussion. I hope this convention will be clear and memorable enough.

And ‘Natural’?  

Furthermore, Toro frequently refers to ‘natural musicians,’ suggesting as well that in aural music cultures such as those found in West Africa or in the Afro-Caribbean folkloric culture that was his own early milieu, these individuals are unschooled in music; they rather excel at it through their own volition, as opposed to being trained in a conservatory. I originally balked at this notion, as, having spent four years among West African musicians in Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Guinea, Senegal, and other surrounding countries, I knew there was indeed an educational system in place. These musicians were almost invariably trained in an apprenticeship fashion. Arrangements were made between the family of a young musician and an older, established group leader. From the age of perhaps six or ten, the young neophyte played with the leader’s ensemble for three, five, ten years or more. These young musicians were thus immersed in an extended, professional, public performance experience of their cultural music tradition; they did not spontaneously create it from nothing. Thus these ‘natural musicians,’ in my experience, are able at a young age to demonstrate considerable rhythmic sophistication, breadth, and depth of repertoire, and especially, dimensionality. The aforementioned African and Afro-Caribbean traditions, among many others in the world, function as lineages passed on by apprenticeship.

However, I have since come to agree that many ATM practitioners might be labeled ‘natural’ or ‘unschooled’, in the specific sense that they are mostly taught by rote. Hence the choice of the ATM label. It most certainly was my experience that the apprenticeship mentioned previously was mostly without analytical and theoretical support. Though I do not support the idea that music is a language, universal or otherwise, because it conveys no specific meaning, I find language to be a good metaphor for many musical practices and concepts. In my experience of the apprenticeship system in West Africa, music was passed on as language is. The apprentice listened, tried, was corrected, and tried again. Discussions of musical concepts such as time signatures, keys centers, anacruses, harmonic structure or codas were completely absent.

I am not suggesting these concepts should be done away with, nor am I advocating ‘primitivism.’ I am merely setting the stage for a discussion of world musical cultures, as presented by Toro, and as experienced by me, in reference to rhythm in particular. On this stage I will examine and yes, generalize about, some of the music cultures of the world, their strengths, aesthetic loci, and pedagogical approaches.

Also, inherent in the idea of the ‘natural musician’ is the understanding that some exceptional individuals manage to imbibe more of the syntax and technique of their musical system than others. These individuals stand out, often at a young age, and seem to ‘get it’ while others require long years of dutiful study to arrive at a similar level of mastery. Toro showed me several example videos of child musicians who were ‘connected’, in his terms. This is another, related, more individual use of the term, ‘natural musician.’