Volume VII | May 2021 EDITORIAL TEAM Editor-in-Chief Phoebe Van Egeraat Deputy Editor Orla Adamson Cover Art by Aiesha Wong Formatting Aiesha Wong, Cathal Eustace Copy Editors Jack Doherty, Ciarán Drohan With thanks to Du Music Society Central Societies Committee The Staff and Students of TCD Music Department The Views expressed herein are the personal views of the contributors and do not reflect the views of Writings about Music. Content © the contributors except where otherwise stated.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Editor’s Introduction Articles Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit: Musical literacy’s place in the digital age: A question of relevance. Lucy Rice The Five Percent Nation and Hip-hop. Nathan O Maoilearca Internet Memes and Music Copyright: How monetisation exploits the labour of content Creators. Nathan O Maoilearca Metric Spaces and Measures of Musical Distance Jack Doherty The Effect of Wagner’s ‘Judaism in Music’ in the discourse about 19th century European Jewry Phoebe Van Egeraat The Music of Romantic Ballet Rebecca Armstrong Folk Influence and Rimsky-Korsakov Molly Guy Lambton Composition : Singing Wires for Voice and Tape Margaréta Merényi
Editor’s Introduction. My name is Phoebe van Egeraat and I am the editor-in-chief for Writing about Music (WAM) 2021. It is my privilege to present you with the 7th edition of the journal. WAM is Ireland’s first student-run musicology journal. It was launched by student musicologists in 2008 with the intention of giving students in the music department a platform to showcase their work. Originally, only students in the music department could submit articles to the journal, however, the WAM of 2021 is much broader in its scope. Students from every department were invited to contribute to this edition. We are immensely grateful and impressed by the high quality and the variety of the contributions received, and would have dearly loved to publish all of them. The final selection is a representation of this high standard and diversity. The WAM 2021 edition has, we hope, an appeal for every music lover. It contains submissions as diverse as the contributors to it. It gives an insight into the world of music as interpreted and appreciated by Trinity students from every discipline. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the indispensable support and involvement of the following people in the production of this 7th volume. Thank you to Conor Kinsella and the DU Music Committee 2020/2021 for reviving the journal this year. My thanks also to the WAM editorial committee for their creativity, passion and dedication. A final thank you goes from all of us to all our contributors without whom there would be no journal. Enjoy.
Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit. Musical literacy’s place in the digital age: A question of relevance. Lucy Rice
Although, by no means, is musical notation and/or musical literacy entirely obsolete, through the revolution of the digital age, it is no longer a skill fundamental to the practice of music composition. The writing is on the wall so to speak, or should I say, the writing is no longer on the wall as it has been inputted in the form of MIDI into a DAW, intended merely for the ears and not for the eyes. Indeed, Taruskin was able to recognise this in the early 2000s upon the completion of his book A History of Western Music in which, on the subject of musical literacy he writes: “And so in a sense, I am writing the complete history of the literate musical tradition in western music” This awe striking statement forces many to come to the realisation that musical literacy is simply no longer a necessity when it comes to composition. It, almost like medieval neumes, is now, in a sense, merely a key to decode and decipher music of the past. However, that is taking an extremely nihilistic, simplistic and sensationalist stance which disregards the specifics and nuances of the argument. I will thus consider contrasting perspectives concerning Taruskin’s claim here. First, I will argue for the benefits of new forms of technology such as the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), MIDI and the technique of sampling which allow for music to be composed without the use of a manuscript and pen...or pencil as most professors would insist. At the same time, I will also consider the benefits of musical literacy, arguing from personal experience, that even in the digital age, it should not be underestimated as a compositional aid. The 1980’s, much like the 1800’s is a key era that must be considered when reflecting on the evolution within the world of composition. The 1980’s mark the beginning of the digital age and with that, three extremely important new forms of technology: (i) the DAW, (ii) the digital sampler and (iii) MIDI. (i) The DAW was introduced and began to gain popularity in the late 70s and early 80s. This invention slowly began to undermine the importance of musical literacy as it meant that many could now begin recording outside of the studio without being specifically educated in music. However, The DAW has evolved even further since its original conception with new DAWs such as Ableton, Logic Pro and ProTools dominating the music industry both in the professional sphere and the amateur sphere. These DAWs and many others are widely accessible to the public which means that once again, one does not need to have been specifically educated in music to become extremely proficient at using the software. (ii)The digital sampler was also introduced in the 1980s. The sampler, as it was not originally commercially successful, was very affordable and many who were unable to afford DAWs or MIDI keyboard were able to utilise sampler technology as all one needed was a record player. This, once again, made the ability to compose music
more widely accessible and thus you did not need to be educated in the dangers of parallel fifths and unresolving sevenths to be able to write music. Many debate the legitimacy of sampling in hip hop as a form of composition but as Mark Ronson, renowned producer stated, sampling is just like any other form of music, “we take something that we love, and we build on it”. So in the same way that Mozart used ideas from Bach and Debussy used ideas from Beethoven and Freddy Mercury took inspiration from the world of opera, sampling is merely a new way to apply your own narrative into the music that inspires you. (iii) Although the other two forms of technology are useful when considering the evolution of musical composition and the role of musical literacy in said composition, MIDI is one of the main technologies that has redefined the idea of musical literacy from a musical fundamental to a musical niche. Any keyboard instrument is often cited by teachers as an excellent instrument to begin learning as it does not require difficult techniques such as tuning for stringed instruments) or omboshure for wind and brass instruments. The notes are there, all one must do as a student is learn their patterns and slowly, over time, glean the many musical ideas that the keys have to offer. In the past however, as a composer, this was not enough, perhaps, one could play the most profound original compositions yet, if one was not able to write them down you were limited in many ways: i) One was not able to convey this piece to others without playing it ii) one was not able to arrange the piece for other instruments and was thus limited to the keys of the keyboard and finally iii) one would risk their work being forgotten either by themselves or by the next generations With MIDI however, none of those past limitations remain. With a digital keyboard, one is instantly a multi-instrumentalist, meaning that they can now overcome any previous instrumental limitations. Unlike sampling, MIDI is not used exclusively by the more popular genres such as Hip Hop and Pop, many film composers, although they most likely have been educated and could notate the scores for orchestras, now compose exclusively through MIDI, indeed often times, unless they are composing for a major feature film, the budget does not allow for the use of a full orchestra and thus MIDI is used for the final soundtrack of the film. Many benefits can come as a result of this new ‘illiterate’ form of music, to both the illiterate and literate musician. Midi composition offers a new freedom to classically trained composers, it allows them to simply hear the music and write what they think the piece needs even if that is a dissonant pedal note that they never would have dreamed of writing when they saw all the problems it caused on paper. It also gives a new sense of accessibility to music as a whole, combined with the many new social platforms such as soundcloud, and spotify that allow composers to share their work, we are able to hear the creativity of those from all backgrounds, ethnicities and social classes. Composers that, had they been born 200, 100 even 50 years earlier would never have been given the opportunity to express themselves through music. As contemporary musicologists believe and Alex Ross points out “literate music is only one genre among many and by no means the most prestigious.’’ Many who read Taruskin’s previously cited statement may have felt fear and sadness that an incredibly refined art was perhaps coming to its final cadence. It is often stated that classical music is dead or is dying, the orchestra programmes favour the music of the dead over the living, that the greats are gone and we must preserve their
style in order to prevent it from going extinct. However, these statements have been around since the 1800s when a book was published in 1802 praising and idolising Bach stating that after Bach, music was no longer progressing. To put this in perspective, 1802 was the year Beethoven began composing the Eroica Symphony…as Alex Ross stated regarding the perpetual extinction of classical music: “If this be the death, then the record is skipping” Classical music according to most is constantly on the brink of extinction and has been for nearly 200 years. Yet, there are many reasons that these new technologies are exactly the thing that music has been ‘dying’ for. We should no longer try and preserve the past, we should lean into the new and the exciting. Most great composers agreed on that. “Kinders, macht neues” -Wagner No one must limit a composer felt Beethoven, no one should tell them “thus far and no further” “I love music passionately and it is because I love it that I try and free it from the barren traditions that stifle it” -Debussy. On the advent of the invention of devices such as the gramophone, many contemporary composers such as Pierre Schaeffer became enamoured with the idea of composition for the gramophone as opposed to for an instrumentalist or orchestra. And thus, the shift began towards classical composition beyond the scope of musical notation. Although this essay, thus far, has celebrated these new developments and celebrated music being freed from it’s staved confines, I recognise that this is not an entirely positive development and that music literacy is still important in order to create music that reaches its maximum potential. I feel that musical literacy is important when it comes to (i) sharing and explaining musical ideas in collaborative projects and (ii) pushing the boundaries of a project further than what the brain can imagine. (i) As a producer, I occasionally find it difficult working with musically illiterate artists, particularly as a result of Covid 19 as, in a sense, there is a sort of language barrier that exists between us and it can slow down and hinder the creative process quite considerably. I may have an idea that they struggle to understand as they cannot hear me play it out and similarly, they might have written an incredible passage yet are unable to write it down or describe it for me to see. Obviously, they can record themselves playing it and visa/ versa however this slows down the creative process and can often leave projects feeling disjointed and not very cohesive. (ii) I also feel that being musically illiterate leaves one in the danger of being limited to composing in certain keys that they are comfortable in and also being limited as to what their mind and ear can conceive without ever hearing it before. This is not to say that one must write on paper to use ideas such as dissonance and suspension, however, once one is comfortable and familiar with the ideas, they will then find it easier to apply the ideas to their compositions whether they compose in MIDI or on manuscript.
The definition of the word ‘composer’ has evolved to mean so much more than a musician who puts pen to paper and organises notes on a stave. Anyone who writes any form of music should be considered a composer and as discussed in this essay, there are now many avenues one can take if they wish to compose an original piece of music. The mystery of music remains intact, music still remains a prestigious and elusive artform beyond the complete and utter scope of human understanding—we are all still students of it’s sonic beauty. As is the same in any form of musicianship, without embracement, enthusiasm and curiosity, a student cannot truly master their craft. As discussed in this essay, both musical literacy and technological literacy have their merits and downfalls in regards to classical composition. The true students of music should make an attempt to learn both. In summary, I do not feel that the term ‘composer’ should be limited to the description of a classical/literate composer because, as Alban Berg once eloquently stated to a nervous young Gershwin: “Mr Gershwin, music is music.”
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
The Five Percent Nation and Hip-hop. Nathan O Maoilearca
Five Percent has always been a part of hip-hop. It enriches the black youth, man. If you take the Five Percent out of hip-hop, you might take a lot of knowledge out of hip-hop too.1 - 9th Wonder
There is an inextricable link between the Five Percent Nation and hip-hop culture.2 Artists such as KRS-One, Brand Nubian and the Wu-Tang Clan helped to bring its teachings to a wider audience. In this essay, I will discuss this presence of the Five Percent Nation within Hip-Hop, particularly from artists in New York in the 90s, when international awareness of the movement was at its height. While the movement is highly praised by those involved, I will also examine its controversies. The group was monitored and branded as a ‘gang’ by the FBI and also had received heavy criticism from New York media and publications.3 I will attempt to disentangle some misconceptions, particularly those that brand the group as racist and violent. However, it is also important to shed light on valid criticism, as misogyny and homophobia is prevalent throughout the movement’s beliefs. What is the Five Percent Nation? The Five Percent Nation formed as a splinter group from the Nation of Islam (NOI).4 Founder of the Five Percenters, Clarence 13X was originally an active member of the NOI, but revised its teachings for the youth on the streets of Harlem.5 Those within the movement believe their duty is to guide the majority into having knowledge of self, to ‘civilise the uncivilised.’6 They claim to advocate ‘Freedom, Justice and Equality to all the human family of the planet Earth’. Arguably the most popular representation of the Five Percent Nation in hip-hop, is the Wu-Tang Clan.7 Each of the nine emcees identify themselves with the movement. In the documentary Of Mics and Men, GZA calls it a ‘powerful thing at a
1
Khalik Allah, ‘POPA WU A 5% STORY FULL FREE’, YouTube, Dec 18 2019, https://youtu.be/lBIO2kDovrA? (Accessed 18/05/2020). 2 Suad Abdul Khabeer, ‘Rep that Islam: The Rhyme and Reason of American Islamic Hip Hop’, The Muslim World, 97 (2007), 125–141 (126). 3 ‘Five Percenters’, FBI Vault, https://vault.fbi.gov/5percent/five-percenters-part-01-of-01/view (Accessed 18/05/2020). 4 Ted Swedenburg, ‘Islam in the Mix: Lessons of the Five Percent’, (University of Arkansas, 1997) 2–3. 5 Ted Swedenburg, ‘Islam in the Mix: Lessons of the Five Percent’, (University of Arkansas, 1997) 2–3. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid.
young age, learning about yourself.’8 Raekwon talks of the ‘knowledge of self’ he received at the age of seventeen or eighteen.9 Frontman and producer of the group, RZA, dives further into the teachings of the Five Percent: ‘We are not just children of slaves. The original man is the father of civilisation.’10 RZA is referring to a Five Percenter belief that states we are the descendants of the black man.11 Despite the stark social and economic imbalance between race within America, the Five Percent Nation teaches its followers a gnostic worldview. It teaches that they are the divinity and they are the original people.12 In many ways, the Five Percent Nation attempted to rebuild black culture and identity within America. For one, it offered an alternate education for those who the traditional education system failed to adequately teach. To a lot of guys in the ghetto, this was their education. I knew brothers who only graduated fifth grade yet they were scientists because of the Lessons. The learned geology, geometry, astronomy, physics, history – all of it came through the lessons.13 – RZA
It also attempted to remove lingering racist assumptions that remained after 400 years of slavery in America.14 As a consequence of the Atlantic slave trade, those exploited were stripped of their culture, language and basic human rights.15 Chattel slavery, in particular, allowed for people to be considered as ‘legal property’, to be bought, sold and owned.16 It was taught that the black man was ‘cursed, made to be despised, a servant, a slave.’17 The lasting effects of this brutal treatment left a generation of people searching for a new culture and identity. Part of this reconstruction begins with the three lessons, Supreme Mathematics, Supreme Alphabet and Solar Facts that were introduced into the Five Percent teachings.
8
Of Mics and Men - Episode 1, by Sacha Jenkins, 2019, 60 min. (Showtime) Khalik Allah, ‘POPA WU’, Timestamped at https://youtu.be/lBIO2kDovrA?t=1802 (Accessed 18/05/2020). 10 Ibid. 11 Mattias Gardell, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and The Nation of Islam, (North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1996), 144. 12 Teresa N. Washington, ‘Rapping with the Gods: Hip Hop as a Force of Divinity and Continuity from the Continent to the Cosmos’, The Journal of Pan African Studies, 6/9 (2014), 72-100 (73). 13 RZA, The Tao of Wu, (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009, 38. 14 Khushbu Shah, Juweek Adolphe, ‘400 years since slavery: a timeline of American history’, Guardian, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/aug/15/400-years-since-slavery-timeline (Accessed 18/05/2020). 15 Bayyinah Jeffries, ‘Black Religion and Black Power: The Nation of Islam’s Internationalism’, Genealogy, 3/24 (2019), 1-11 (3); Herbert Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 179. 16 ‘Modern Abolition’, Freedom Center, https://freedomcenter.org/enabling-freedom/five-forms-of-slavery (Accessed 18/05/2020). 17 RZA, The Tao of Wu, (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009), 40. 9
If you were poor and black, (Supreme) Mathematics attacked the idea that you were meant to be ignorant, uneducated . . . it exposed the lies that helped treat your forefathers as animals.18 – RZA
These were devised and included by Clarence 13X with his right-hand man, Justice, in a way that was accessible for the youth.19 The lessons represent a system which can be used to creatively explain fundamental truths and the profundities of life. Manipulating these numbers into patterns or using simple arithmetic can reveal these truths.20 Symbolic significance is attached to the meaning of numbers in the first lesson, Supreme Mathematics. Lord Jamar, a member of Brand Nubian and the Five Percent Nation, breaks down these meanings on his podcast.21 He notes that while the system may be based in numerology, it is designed for ‘the black man and woman in North America,’ whose particular social and historical situation within that country is fundamental to understanding the lesson.22 He begins by explaining that cipher, representing the number zero, is not nothing, but an all-encompassing number. It holds a special relationship with numbers one, two and three as cipher may also take form as a circle and can be split into three 120°parts: knowledge, wisdom and understanding.23
Excerpt from Five Percenter rap.24
18
Ibid. Felicia Miyakawa, Five Percenter rap: God hop's music, message, and black Muslim mission, (Bloomington: Indian University Press, 2005), 25; Hardknocktv, ‘Busta Rhymes on 5 Percenters & Nation of Islam’, YouTube, 29 May 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zjHRXeM8g4 (Accessed 18/05/2020); RZA, The Tao of Wu, (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009), 31. 20 Felicia Miyakawa, Five Percenter rap: God hop's music, message, and black Muslim mission, (Bloomington: Indian University Press, 2005), 25. 21 Yanadameen Godcast, ‘Lord Jamar breaks down Supreme Mathematics’, YouTube, 23 July 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1PrAOtxDBc (Accessed 18/05/2020). 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Felicia Miyakawa, Five Percenter rap: God hop's music, message, and black Muslim mission, (Bloomington: Indian University Press, 2005) 25. 19
The next three numbers may be grouped similarly to the first three. Jamar explains that this is due to limitation of number six. The first three numbers add up to six and are also all factors of it, which represent the cyclic nature of this number. Breaking that limitation is seven, aptly symbolising God.25 The number seven is one greatly respected amongst Five Percenters and is used as the movement’s logo.26 Similar to Supreme Mathematics, the Supreme Alphabet ascribes each letter with a particular meaning. Both lessons can be used collaboratively to create more complex understandings. The Supreme Alphabet can also be used more fluidly, with some letters having multiple meanings.27 An example of this would be breaking down the word ‘Allah’ into ‘Arm Leg Leg Arm Head’, giving divinity a human form. Throughout his book Tao of Wu, founder of the Wu-Tang, RZA frequently uses the Supreme Alphabet to detail and explain significant moments in his life.28 In his earlier years, RZA found himself facing charges for attempted murder, following an altercation on the street which led to two others being shot.29 While preparing for the court date, he described how he rediscovered the Five Percent Lessons: I stopped smoking, stopped drinking, started studying the Lessons again. I thought about my daughter having to visit me for eight years inside.30
Following an impassioned testimony, he was deemed not guilty and described the verdict as his ‘second chance at life’. Using the Supreme Alphabet, we learn that these events inspired the meaning behind his stage-name. RZA is broken down into Rakeem Zig-Zag-Zig Allah, where Zig-Zag-Zig symbolises the turbulence of his youth.31 Islam and Christianity Unlike the NOI, the Five Percent Nation actually bares little resemblance to traditional Islam and many Five Percenters tend to disassociate themselves from it.32 As a derivative of the NOI, the movement does borrow Islamic terminology. For example, Clarence 13X altered area names within New York to replicate historic Islamic sites. Harlem, the Bronx and New Jersey became Mecca, Medina and New
25
Ibid. Ted Swedenburg, ‘Islam in the Mix: Lessons of the Five Percent’, (University of Arkansas, 1997) 5. 27 Felicia Miyakawa, Five Percenter rap: God hop's music, message, and black Muslim mission, (Bloomington: Indian University Press, 2005), 29. 28 RZA, The Tao of Wu, (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009) 29 RZA, The Tao of Wu, (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009), 91. 30 Ibid., p.92. 31 Ibid., 95. 32 Michael Muhammed Knight, The Five Percenters: Islam, hip-hop, and the gods of New York, (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007), 179. 26
Jerusalem.33 This is another example of how the Five Percent Nation constructed a new identity for those that were part of the movement. Islam was initially introduced into America through African Muslim slaves, and as opposed to Christianity, it didn’t carry the same history of black persecution.34 Criticism of Christianity as an enslaving religion was common by members of the NOI. To Sister Ann 3X the ‘religion [was] based on a lot of unrealistic ideas given to the slave by his slavemaster to keep him a slave’.35 Free from these connotations, Islam flourished as the religion meaning ‘freedom, justice and equality’.36 It was a religion that challenged oppressive Western religious ideas. GZA discusses his early upbringing as a Christian37 on ‘Swordsman’ on his album Liquid Swords: Cause at a young age, I was molded in a religion I relied on And got caught up in superstition . . . But with knowledge of self from off the shelf Made things seemed complicated now small like elves.38
While GZA isn’t directly comparing Christianity to slavery here, it did cause superstition and complications in his worldview. His introduction to the Five Percent teachings allowed for greater clarity to things that once seemed complicated. In essence, the Five Percent nation offered a more relevant way of understanding the world around him. Later in ‘Swordsman’, GZA does move the topic to slavery and race-relations. He refers here to the slave masters on the top deck, a metaphor for current racial imbalance in America: We were on the same ship when the slaves were checked I had to pull your card, you was on the top deck.39
Through clever wordplay, GZA attempts expose this injustice. He further describes the ‘brutal pain, from whips and chains’ he had suffered. This could be a reference to the suffering he shares collectively through ancestry or it could reference the destructive effects of slavery that lasted and still last through generations that
33
Juan Floyd-Thomas, ‘A Jihad of Words: The Evolution of African American Islam and Contemporary Hip-Hop’ from Noise and Spirit (New York: NYU Press, 2003), p.55. 34 Bayyinah Jeffries, ‘Black Religion and Black Power: The Nation of Islam’s Internationalism’, Genealogy, 3/24 (2019), 1-11 (3). 35 Edward Curtis IV, Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975 (North Carolina: UNC Press, 2006), 20. 36 Ibid., 27. 37 Taji Ameen, ‘The GZA Gave a Lecture at NYU and We Went’, Vice, 2012, https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3b5an3/the-gza-gave-a-lecture-at-nyu-and-we-went(Accessed 18/05/2020). 38 GZA, ‘Swordsman’, Liquid Swords, (Geffen Records, 1995). 39 ‘Swordsman – GZA’, Genius, https://genius.com/Gza-swordsman-lyrics (Accessed 18/05/2020).
followed. This lasting impact is commonly referred to in hip-hop as ‘modern-day slavery.’40 Foundations in the Nation of Islam Four of the original teachings from the NOI - Student Enrollment Lesson, Actual Facts, English Lessons No. C1 and Lost-Found Lessons – were kept by Clarence 13X, and in many ways, the Five Percent Nation continue the NOI’s legacy and message through an alternate lens.41 References to the NOI can be seen in hip-hop during the late 80s and early 90s. For example, Public Enemy’s ‘Party for Your Right to Fight’ in 1988 references the movement’s leader Elijah Muhammad and also cites teachings from the NOI in the lyric, ‘for the original black Asiatic man, cream of the earth and was here first.’43 By the early 90s, the NOI was represented further through the albums of KRS-One and Ice Cube. On the cover art for By All Means Necessary, KRS-One stands in an identical pose to the famous photograph of NOI spokesperson Malcolm X holding a semi-automatic gun.44 42
Album Art for By All Means Necessary
40
Picture from magazine Ebony45
Examples of the term ‘modern-day slavery’ in hip-hop include Kanye West’s ‘New Slaves’ and Brand Nubian’s ‘Concerto in X Minor’: Kanye West, ‘New Slaves’, Yeezus (Def Jam, 2010); Brand Nubian, ‘Concerto in X Minor’, One for All (Elektra, 1990). 41 Felicia Miyakawa, Five Percenter rap: God hop's music, message, and black Muslim mission, (Bloomington: Indian University Press, 2005), 29. 42 Juan Floyd-Thomas, ‘A Jihad of Words: The Evolution of African American Islam and Contemporary Hip-Hop’ from Noise and Spirit (New York: NYU Press, 2003), 51. 43 Public Enemy, ‘Party for your Right to Fight’, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Def Jam, 1988) 44 Boogie Down Productions, By All Means Necessary (Jive Records, 1988) 45 Ebony Magazine, April 1985 available at https://books.google.ca/books?id=bejF5O-tvasC&pg=PA143#v=onepage&q&f=false (19 May 2020)
The original was taken in 1965 amidst fear of his imminent assassination. Ice-Cube’s Death Certificate is another album which promotes the NOI, even featuring a spoken word verse by NOI’s minister Khalid Muhammad.46 Accusations of Hate and Violence Both movements also faced similar criticism and backlash, in their struggle for freedom and equality. Leaders of the NOI had been accused of inciting violence and encouraging hatred.47 Malcolm X maintained that the Nation of Islam has never initiated any acts of violence. As an American citizen, violence was only justified in self-defence irrespective of race.48 Similarly, accusations of violence and hate were attached to the Five Percent Nation. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an American non-profit anti-hate organisation is one such accuser. The organisation is widely known for their contributing efforts in dismantling the Ku Klux Klan during the eighties and their monitoring of other hate groups. According to the SPLC, the Five Percent Nation encourages hate because many prison officials assert that ‘the Five Percenters group is simply a violence-prone black supremacist prison gang’.49 New York media outlets also ran provocative headlines condemning the movement. New Pittsburgh Courier branded the group as a ‘mysterious gang of thugs’ on a front-page story.50 ‘Harlem’s 5 Percenters – Terror Group Revealed’ read a headline of the New York Herald-Tribune.51 Wu-tang’s RZA even associated the Five Percenters with violence when he was first introduced to it.52 When discussing similar accusations during the civil rights movement, Malcolm X argued that criticism of the organisation usually stems from an attempt to suppress black voices and dismiss these teachings, rather than draw attention to what caused such conditions: The guilt complex of the American white man is so profound that when you analyze the condition of the Black man in America, instead of eliminating the causes that create those conditions, he covers it up and labels his accusers of teaching hate, but actually they are exposing him for being responsible for what exists.53
46
Ice Cube, Death Cerificate, (Lench Mob, 1991) reelblack, ‘Malcolm X – Interview at Berkeley (1963)’, YouTube, 11 June 2018, Timestamped at https://youtu.be/FZMrti8QcPA?t=57 (18 May 2020) 48 reelblack, ‘Malcolm X – Interview at Berkeley (1963)’, Timestamped at https://youtu.be/FZMrti8QcPA?t=601 & https://youtu.be/FZMrti8QcPA?t=154 (18 May 2020) 49 ‘Radical Religion in Prison’, Southern Poverty Law Center, 2003 https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2003/radical-religion-prison (18 May 2020) 50 Michael Muhammed Knight, The Five Percenters: Islam, hip-hop, and the gods of New York, (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007), 75. 51 Michael Muhammed Knight, The Five Percenters: Islam, hip-hop, and the gods of New York, (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007), 76. 52 RZA, The Tao of Wu, (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009), 34. 53 CBC, ‘Malcolm X on Front Page Challenge, 1965: CBC Archives | CBC’, YouTube, 7 April 2010, Timestamped at https://youtu.be/C7IJ7npTYrU?t=88 (18 May 2020) 47
This counter-argument is equally applicable to the accusations placed on the Five Percent Nation. Hysterical headlines of petty crimes and allegations that Five Percenters encourage black supremacy is merely scapegoating. Unlike the NOI, the Five Percent Nation assert that they are neither ‘anti-white’ nor ‘pro-black’.54 Criticism of the entire movement as violent or hateful is not only false, but is a failure to acknowledge and understand the conditions that movement was born from. This topic of the media and politicians diverting responsibility and suppressing exposing information is a common thread to both the NOI and the Five Percent Nation. It’s manifestation within hip-hop can be seen on ‘Fourth Chamber’, from Liquid Swords by GZA. RZA’s verse expresses this argument: A hit was sent from the President to raid your residence Because you had secret evidence and documents On how they raped the continents and lynched the prominent Dominant Islamic, Asiatic black Hebrew.55
The last line is a clear reference to both NOI and Five Percent teachings on the origin of the black man. The description of the ‘President’ raiding his house and taking his family hostage can be read as a representation of those in authority trying to not only suppress the Five Percent teachings, but also suppress evidence of the Atlantic slave trade and lynchings of black Americans. The message here is not dissimilar to Malcolm X’s. Just Criticism The movement can be fairly criticised, however, for its sexist and homophobic values. There is a strong emphasis on male leadership within the Nation, perhaps explaining the very few amount of female hip-hop artists representing the movement.56 According to its beliefs, the role of women is to ‘respect themselves, submit to the will and authority of men and to manage the affairs of family and home.’57 Women within the movement must also cover up three-quarters of their body with loose fitting clothes.58 Misogynist teachings such as this, while often dismissed as symbolic, promote the control of women by men.59 Gender roles within the Five Percent Nation are far from balanced. This sexist narrative is also one that permeates Five Percent hip-hop. The Poor Righteous Teachers reflect this viewpoint on ‘Can I Start This’: ‘Peace to all the
54
Michael Muhammed Knight, The Five Percenters: Islam, hip-hop, and the gods of New York, (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007), 175. 55 GZA, ‘4th Chamber’, Liquid Swords, (Geffen Records, 1995) 56 Juan Floyd-Thomas, ‘A Jihad of Words: The Evolution of African American Islam and Contemporary Hip-Hop’ from Noise and Spirit (New York: NYU Press, 2003), 60. 57 Ibid., 60. 58 Ted Swedenburg, ‘Islam in the Mix: Lessons of the Five Percent’, (University of Arkansas, 1997) .7. 59 Juan Floyd-Thomas, ‘A Jihad of Words: The Evolution of African American Islam and Contemporary Hip-Hop’ from Noise and Spirit (New York: NYU Press, 2003), 60–61.
Queens (women), submitting to the sevens.’60 Using Supreme Mathematics, rapper Culture Freedom represents man by the divine number seven, while women represent the number six, subordinate both in number and meaning, as six defined as limited.61 Homosexuality is also shunned amongst many Five Percenters within hip-hop. A famous example of this is the Tribe Called Quest song ‘Georgie Porgie’, featuring Brand Nubian, which was refused by the label for its homophobic lyrics.62 Lord Jamar describes Georgie, a gay man, as ‘wounded’ on his verse and asks why ‘a man would want to be a weak cipher man’ He uses the Supreme Alphabet here to compare Georgie to a woman, replacing ‘wisdom’ with ‘weak’ and ‘cipher’ with ‘o’.63 Grand Puba then delivers a final blow: ‘Even wore a dress and on his face he had swine, He cipher monkey cipher, you fucking faggot.’64
He likens Georgie to a pig, which is particularly insulting considering the consumption of pork is shunned amongst Five Percenters.65 More Supreme Alphabet wordplay follows with Puba spelling out ‘homo’. While homophobia is certainly not limited in hip-hop culture to Five Percenters, it does seem as if it’s becoming less prevalent in hip-hop today. Popular artists such as Tyler, the Creator and Brockhampton are two examples of the growing list of those deconstructing the negative connotations of being gay.66 A Tribe Called Quest’s 2016 release, We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service exemplifies this turnaround.67 Tribe went from being the co-writers to one of hip-hops most homophobic songs, to openly criticising discrimination of gays on ‘We the People’. The Five Percent Nation and its representatives within hip-hop, however, continue to denounce homosexuality. Collaborators on ‘Georgie Porgie’, Brand Nubian, have remained set in their ways. Lord Jamar asserts that ‘gay culture has no place in hip-hop’ and gay hip-hop shouldn’t be ‘promoted to the youth’ according to
60
The Poor Righteous Teachers, ‘Can I Start This’, Holy Intellect, (Profile, 1990) Juan Floyd-Thomas, ‘A Jihad of Words: The Evolution of African American Islam and Contemporary Hip-Hop’ from Noise and Spirit (New York: NYU Press, 2003), 55. 62 ‘Georgie Porgie’ – A Tribe Called Quest feat. Brand Nubian, Genius https://genius.com/A-tribe-called-quest-georgie-porgie-lyrics (Accessed 18/05/2020). 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Michael Muhammed Knight, The Five Percenters: Islam, hip-hop, and the gods of New York, (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007), 60. 66 Gerrick Kennedy, ‘Lil Nas X came out, but has hip-hop? A macho culture faces a crossroads’, LA Times, 2019, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2019-07-30/lil-nas-x-black-queer-menhip-hop (Accessed 19/05/2020). 67 A Tribe Called Quest, ‘We the People’, We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service (Epic, 2016). 61
Sadat X.68 Official representative of the Five Percent Nation, Born Justice Allah, maintained that ‘we don’t have no homos in the Nation of Gods and Earths.’69 Conclusion The problematic beliefs of the Five Percent Nation should not be dismissed or accepted as a product of its time and the movement should be rightfully criticised for accepting both homophobia and misogyny within its culture. Despite this, the significant positive impact the Nation has had on hip-hop culture and American culture is undeniable. Clarence 13X is credited for bringing the core beliefs of the NOI and recontextualising them for the next generation. The introduction of lessons such as the Supreme Mathematics and Alphabet offered alternative methods of education to the youth of Harlem and beyond. In the footsteps of the NOI, the movement’s efforts also continued to deconstruct false and racist preconceptions about black Americans. Five Percenters are taught about the origins of human-kind, not as an anti-white message, but as much-needed encouragement and hope in the face of oppression. ‘It wasn’t until some like the Father came to actively disseminate this information to poor black men – saying, “Hold on, your people are the fathers of civilisation” – that people like me were set free. I can now say that if it wasn’t for Mathematics, I wouldn’t have achieved anything. I never would have imagined that a poor black motherfucker like me would grow up to respect the world, his fellow man, or himself’.70 - RZA
In RZA’s case and many other cases in hip-hop and beyond, the Five Percent Nation has transformed the often-nihilistic outlook of black working-class neighbourhoods into an empowering alternative.71 Evidence of this is clear through the literature, interviews and lyrics of hip-hop artists associated with the Five Percent Nation.
68
djvlad, ‘Lord Jamar & Sadat X: Gay Culture Is Over-Promoted Today’, YouTube, 25 July 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN0M-t1Fy-Y (Accessed 18/05/2020). 69 The Source TV, ‘Five Percenter Justice Allah Explains Basic Concerts of the Nation + Weighs-In On Jay-Z Affiliation’, YouTube, 11 April 2014, timestamped at https://youtu.be/LAvh679JPbk?t=105 (Accessed 19/05/2020). 70 RZA, The Tao of Wu, (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009), 40. 71 Juan Floyd-Thomas, ‘A Jihad of Words: The Evolution of African American Islam and Contemporary Hip-Hop’ from Noise and Spirit (New York: NYU Press, 2003), p.59.
Internet Memes and Music Copyright: How monetisation exploits the. .labour of content creators. Nathan O Maoilearca
This essay will examine the relationship between internet memes and music copyright. A preamble on the origin and definition of an ‘internet meme’ and how they can contribute to the commercial success of recorded music will introduce the main argument: the monetisation of internet memes that use copyrighted music as memetic material violates the US Copyright Act of 1976 and unfairly exploits labour of online content creators. Throughout the essay, I will refer to legislative acts within the United States, as much of the discussion on this topic revolves around YouTube and its parent company, Google, is governed by US law. What is a Meme? The term ‘meme’ originates from the Richard Dawkins publication The Selfish Gene. It was defined in 1976 as ‘a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation,’ predating the World Wide Web.72 The speed and interconnectivity of the internet, however, allowed memes to be transmitted and imitated rapidly on a global scale.73 This evolution birthed the ‘internet meme,’ which can be defined as ‘a group of digital items sharing common characteristics of content, form, and/or stance, which were created with awareness of each other, and were circulated, imitated, and/or transformed via the Internet by many users.’74 The term ‘meme’ will refer to this definition throughout this text. The video sharing website, YouTube, is a crucial platform for examining how memes can contribute to the popularity and success of commercial recorded music. It is a central location online for the propagation of memes and music streaming.75 YouTube was conceived as a website for user-generated videos when it was launched in 2005, serving as a domain for public self-expression. It also employs a system that responds to user engagement, by collecting and presenting usage data of the most viewed/liked content, allowing the users to determine the popularity of uploads.76 Over one billion users are active on YouTube daily, with three hundred hours of content uploaded every minute.77 The web traffic analysis company, Alexa, records it as the second most visited website globally as of January 2020.78 Its popularity, coupled with its adherence to participatory culture provides a thriving hub for music sharing, memes and memetic material. 72
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), 192. Limor Shifman, ‘An Anatomy of a YouTube Meme’, New Media & Society, 14/2 (2011), 187–203 (189). 74 Limor Shifman, Memes in Digital Culture (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2013) 41. 75 Limor Shifman, ‘An Anatomy of a YouTube Meme’, New Media & Society, 14/2 (2011), 187–203 (189–190). 76 Limor Shifman, ‘An Anatomy of a YouTube Meme’, New Media & Society, 14/2 (2011), 187–203 (189–190). 77 Michael Soha and Zachary J. McDowell, ‘Monetizing A Meme: Youtube, Content ID, And The Harlem Shake’, Social Media + Society, 2/1 (2016), 1. 78 ‘Top Sites’, Alexa, 2020 https://www.alexa.com/topsites/ (Accessed 10/01/2020). 73
Harlem Shake The Harlem Shake meme exemplifies how internet memes can contribute to the commercial success of a music release. The accompanying song of the same name exploded in popularity following this internet dance craze. The track was released on the 22 of May 2012 and was received favourably within electronic dance music circles. It wasn’t until January of the following year, however, that the song began to spread virally.79 The original videos feature mundane activity until the beat drops, then cutting to a scene of outlandish dancing. This was the template adopted by the countless videos that followed, with remakes being filmed at offices, playgrounds, university accommodation and even army camps.80 These videos fit our definition of a meme, as they share characteristics of form but are also circulated and transformed via the Internet by many users. This internet sensation benefitted the artist Baauer, and his record label, essentially providing free promotion for the single. Following this global exposure, the song Harlem Shake garnered hundreds of millions of streams through YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music and other services. It sold over one million digital downloads on iTunes and earned a spot at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks.81 While commercial music can indirectly profit from memes, it is a new phenomenon that is both created and controlled by the internet masses. It becomes more problematic, however, when copyright holders control such creations. This occurs when a copyrighted piece of music is intrinsically linked with a meme, allowing copyright holders to monetise this material. Again, YouTube is a platform that employs such a payment system for copyright holders.82 The Digital Millennium Copyright Act states that ‘upon notification of claimed infringement’ by copyright holders, the online service provider – in this case, YouTube – must ‘respond expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity.’83 In order to comply with the DMCA and to avoid litigation with copyright holders, YouTube created the ‘Content ID’ system to either efficiently remove infringing material or financially benefit from it.84
79
Michael Soha and Zachary J. McDowell, ‘Monetizing A Meme: Youtube, Content ID, And The Harlem Shake’, Social Media + Society, 2/1 (2016), 3. 80 Michael Soha and Zachary J. McDowell, ‘Monetizing A Meme: Youtube, Content ID, And The Harlem Shake’, Social Media + Society, 2/1 (2016), 3–4. 81 Ibid., 7. 82 Taylor Bartholomew, ‘The Death of Fair Use in Cyberspace: Youtube and the Problem with Content ID’, Duke Law & Technology Review, 3/1 (2015), 66–88. 83 Ibid., 70. 84 Taylor Bartholomew, ‘The Death of Fair Use in Cyberspace: Youtube and the Problem with Content ID’, Duke Law & Technology Review, 3/1 (2015), 66–88 (71-72); Benjamin Borough, ‘The Next Great Youtube: Improving Content ID To Foster Creativity, Cooperation And Fair Compensation’, Albany Law Journal Of Science And Technology, 25/1 (2015), 96.
Content ID’s algorithm compares every upload with every reference file of copyrighted material in their database. This database contains over three million files and the material is provided by copyright holders. Every time Content ID finds a match, the copyright holders govern whether to remove the video, leave it up or monetise it on the basis that it contains potentially infringing content.85 Monetisation, the most popular of the three options, is used to generate profit from ad revenue.86 For example, Content ID notified Baaeur’s record label of the use of ‘Harlem Shake’ in every matching Harlem Shake meme. The label decided to monetise these videos.87 Soha and McDowell’s calculation of the total number of views of these combined YouTube videos is over 1.38 billion. At the reported rate of $6 per 1000 views and accounting for YouTube’s 45% share, the label’s total YouTube revenue is at least $4.5 million.88 This figure is likely higher, as the combined views figure was calculated using a sample of only the 250 highest viewed videos. For both YouTube and label, Content ID allows the Harlem Shake meme to be financially controlled and profited from. Copyright Law As mentioned, YouTube’s Content ID system was intended to comply with the DMCA; however, it fails to balance the DMCA’s three aims: ‘The DMCA was enacted to balance copyright holders’ demands for policing copyright infringement, online service providers’ demands for protection from liability for hosting infringement, and content creators’ demands for protection against liability for distributing lawful content.’89 Copyright holder’s and the online service provider’s demands are met with Content ID, but content creators are not given sufficient protection. Despite this monetisation, the copyrighted material used is often not violating the DMCA. Internet memes may be exempt from infringement, under the fair use defence.90 This defence appears in the Copyright Act of 1976 and considers copyright infringement using a four-factor test:91 Factor One: Character and Purpose of the Use Factor Two: Nature of the Work Factor Three: Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Used Factor Four: Effect on the Potential Market for or Value of the Work 85
Taylor Bartholomew, ‘The Death of Fair Use in Cyberspace: Youtube and the Problem with Content ID’, Duke Law & Technology Review, 3/1 (2015), 66–88 (69). 86 Michael Soha and Zachary J. McDowell, ‘Monetizing A Meme: Youtube, Content ID, And The Harlem Shake’, Social Media + Society, 2/1 (2016), 6. 87 Ibid., 9. 88 Ibid., 9. 89 Laura Zapata-Kim, ‘Should Youtube's Content ID Be Liable For Misrepresentation Under The Digital Millennium Copyright Act?’, Boston College Law Review, 57/5 (2016), 1850. 90 Ronak Patel, ‘First World Problems: A Fair Use Analysis Of Internet Memes’, UCLA Entertainment Law Review, 20/2 (2013), 235. 91 Ibid., 244.
The first factor constructs a strong case for internet memes being fair use. The purpose of using copyrighted material within a meme is to benefit or advance culture. Memes are a mode of communication often reducing culturally relevant or topical material into an online joke. Their rapid circulation, replication, and mutation creates a cultural interchange, in which the meme is ‘recognisable not because of the underlying works, but because of the meme itself.’92 The ‘Harlem Shake’ meme transformed Baauer’s relatively obscure EDM track into an internet dance craze, transcending the original purpose of the content. To the younger generation, Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ has also found another context, being associated with an online ‘bait and switch’ joke.93 These developments change the content into something culturally significant, in a manner that is removed from the original copyrighted content. Factor two tilts toward the copyright holder, as if the copyrighted material in question is music, then the work is recognised as artistic and is less likely to be eligible for fair use.94 Factor three is dependent on the amount of copyrighted material used within the infringing media.95 The duration of a selected part of a track used for a given meme will govern this outcome. Memes aren’t typically a lengthy form, given that they are rapidly circulated, imitated and transformed. Immediate examples that come to mind are the memetic uses of the ‘Déjà vu’ by Dave Rodgers and Yes’ ‘Roundabout’; all of which clock in at under ten seconds.96 Some memes use slightly longer passages however, such as Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘The Sound of Silence,’ which can exceed thirty seconds.97 Therefore, factor three is likely case dependent, while factor two will fall in favour of the copyright holder in most cases. Each factor is given a different weight of significance, however, depending on the type of infringing content. In the case of a meme potentially infringing recorded music, the normative values that support the first factor should grant it more significance than factors two and three.98 Factor four weighs in favour of fair use once again. The use of recorded music as a memetic material more often than not serves to increase its market value. We can see an increase in record sales and streams of particular tracks, correlating to
92
Ibid., 252. ‘Rickroll’, Know Your Meme, 2009 https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/rickroll (Accessed 10/01/2020). 94 Ronak Patel, ‘First World Problems: A Fair Use Analysis Of Internet Memes’, UCLA Entertainment Law Review, 20/2 (2013), 252. 95 Ibid. 96 ‘Deja Vu Meme Compilation’, YouTube, 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeLHomaez9g (Accessed 10/01/2020); ‘To Be Continued Meme Compilation’, YouTube, 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeLHomaez9g (Accessed 10/01/2020). 97 ‘Sad Affleck’, YouTube, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtfoRESVir0 (Accessed 10/01/2020). 98 Ronak Patel, ‘First World Problems: A Fair Use Analysis Of Internet Memes’, UCLA Entertainment Law Review, 20/2 (2013), 254. 93
its use within a meme.99 The blow-up of Lil Nas X’s country/trap song ‘Old Town Road’ can be accredited to its popularity as a meme on TikTok.100 Users posted short videos on the app with the song as an accompaniment, commenting on the bizarre country-trap genre mix by dancing in clothes commonly associated with the American country lifestyle. The single became the longest running number-one hit of all time on Billboard’s charts. It has sold over one million copies in the US and more impressively, has passed 1.3 billion streams on Spotify.101 Additionally, Baaeur’s ‘Harlem Shake’ received so much revenue and global attention that the label’s founder declared it had “saved the label,” which was ‘headed for financial ruin.’102 Without the advent of memes and their fair use of this copyrighted content, these examples simply would not have excelled to the commercial heights that they have reached. Weighing up the factoral analysis indicates that in most cases, fair use should protect memes that use recorded music from copyright liability. Memes should be considered a productive use of copyright as they ‘effectuate cultural interchange.’ In addition to this, memetic uses of recorded music increase potential revenue streams for the copyright holders, rather than steal or undercut from them. Limitation of Content ID If most memetic uses of recorded music should not be liable for copyright infringement, then why is it that YouTube’s Content ID system removes or monetises them? This is because Content ID is merely an algorithm that detects copyrighted material, and is therefore unable to distinguish whether a video’s use of this content is fair use or not.103 Content creators can dispute a Content ID claim, leaving the copyright holders to either uphold or drop the claim, with consideration of fair use.104 If upheld, content creators can appeal once again at risk of receiving a formal DMCA takedown. Once YouTube receives a DMCA takedown notice from the copyright holders, the content creator must then submit a counter-notice. The copyright holders may then take legal action within fourteen days of this counter-notice.105 99
Michael Soha and Zachary J. McDowell, ‘Monetizing A Meme: Youtube, Content ID, And The Harlem Shake’, Social Media + Society, 2/1 (2016), 7. 100 Andrew Chow, ‘Old Town, New Road’, TIME Magazine, 2019, 56. 101 Hugh McIntyre, ‘”Old Town Road” Has Now Sold One Million Pure Copies’, Forbes, 2020 https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2019/07/08/old-town-road-has-now-sold-one-million-pure-copie s/ (Accessed 10/01/2020). 102 Michael Soha and Zachary J. McDowell, ‘Monetizing A Meme: Youtube, Content ID, And The Harlem Shake’, Social Media + Society, 2/1 (2016), 9. 103 Laura Zapata-Kim, ‘Should Youtube's Content ID Be Liable For Misrepresentation Under The Digital Millenium Copyright Act?’, Boston College Law Review, 57/5 (2016), pp.1856–1857. 104 Ibid., 1859. 105 Amul Kalia, ‘Casualty Of Youtube’s “Contractual Obligations”: Users’ Free Speech’, EFF, 2015 , https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/casualty-youtubes-contractual-obligations-users-free-speech (Accessed 09/01/20).
Due to Content ID’s inability to differentiate between lawful and unlawful use, many legal uses of copyrighted material are either unfairly monetised or removed. If the content creator decides to challenge this decision, they are forced to adhere to YouTube’s convoluted and lengthy appeal process. During this process, the content may be restricted for weeks, given that it favours the copyright holders rather than the creators.106 Conclusion It is evident that through online copyright payment systems, such as YouTube’s Content ID, copyright holders are given full control over any possibly infringing content online. Even though this content may comply with DMCA, as it may constitute fair use under the Copyright Act of 1976, copyright holders are given the benefit of the doubt. This is because copyright payment systems are computer automated and unable to distinguish between fair and unfair use. The arduous task of disputing a Content ID claim is complex and disputes can last weeks. As a result, many internet memes that use recorded music are being unfairly monetised by the copyright holders, exploiting the millions of hours of free labour that a mass of users devote to these creations. Perhaps a fairer monetisation system could be employed, where content creators share some of the royalties. A better solution yet, but one that probably wouldn’t be in YouTube or copyright holder’s best interests, might be to remove any monetisation, following the altruistic nature of memes.
106
Ibid.
Lil Nas X
Metric Spaces and Measures of Musical Distance. Jack Doherty
This article is an adaptation of a presentation given on March 10th, 2020 at the Trinity College Dublin Music Research Colloquium Sophister Forum. This article will explore several possible applications of a mathematical concept known as a metric space to musical analysis. It will begin with an in-depth analysis of the concept of a metric, followed by its implementation within the analysis of music. This concept is in some ways similar to the idea of a Generalised Interval System (GIS),107 developed by composer and music theorist David Lewin, but differs in some notable ways. We will begin by explaining what a metric space is. To put it simply, a metric is a way of applying the notion of distance between two objects in a set. The most intuitive metric to most people is probably the straight-line distance metric, meaning the distance between two points. When determining distance on a map, one of the first things we often do is establish distance “as the crow flies;” how far away the point one is looking at from where they are standing if they move in a straight line. While this notion of distance is perhaps one of the most commonly thought of forms with regards to maps, it is, of course, not the only one that can be used. While distance as the crow flies may give us a rough idea of how long it will take to get somewhere, we cannot follow the crow as it flies in a straight line to our destination. We have to follow roads or paths and avoid obstacles. So, when a route is looked up on a GPS, it will give you a different distance than the distance as the crow flies. This distance is using a different metric, a path metric (sometimes known as a taxicab metric) rather than a straight-line metric. Another example of a metric that we can apply to the real world is called the SNCF Metric, or the British Rail Metric. Using this metric, we measure the distance between two points on a map not by the shortest route as the crow flies, but instead by the distance it takes to go from one point to a central hub, and then move from that hub to the destination. The names refer to the common issue when travelling by rail in France or Britain of needing to make a trip through Paris or London before getting to your proper destination. For the purposes of this paper we will refer to it more colloquially as the Dublin Bus Metric, as getting where you want to go by Dublin bus without first taking a trip into the city centre is a very rare occurrence. We can abstract this further. Ideas of distance can be applied to things other than maps. A simple application of the idea of distance applied to something non-intuitive comes from the Levenshtein Metric, or Levenshtein Distance. The Levenshtein Metric measures how different (or “far apart”) two strings of characters 107
Lewin, David, Generalized Intervals and Transformations, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, first published New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 26.
are from each other by checking how many characters need to be changed to get from one to another. The words father and mother have a Levenshtein distance of two, because we can move from one to the other by changing two letters.108 For example, you can go Father -> Fother -> Mother. Even at this stage of our analysis we can see a possible application to music. One could use this Levenstein Metric to measure the “distance” between two melodies, or two chord progressions, that is how many entries in the sequence of notes or chords would you have to change to make them the same. A metric space is a set (sometimes called a space) paired with a function called a metric. This set can be anything from a set of numbers, to a coordinate plane like a map, to a set of notes or chords. The metric is a function that takes in two elements of the set, and outputs a number which represents the distance between those two elements of the set. This function must follow three specific properties. These properties are the Identity of Indiscernibles, the rule of Symmetry and the Triangle Inequality.109 The formulae describing these properties are reproduced below their explanations. The Identity of Indiscernibles states that when we are measuring the distance between two elements of our set, the distance can be zero if and only if the two elements are the same.110 This makes sense intuitively, if you pick a point, the distance from that point to itself has to be zero because they are in the same spot.
The rule of Symmetry states that the distance from point A to point B must be the same as the distance from point B to point A.111 This also makes intuitive sense, because the distance between two things should remain the same regardless of which one you start at.
The Triangle Inequality states that if we have three points, A, B, and C, then the distance from A to C must be less than or equal to the distance from A to B plus the distance from B to C.112 This is less intuitive than the previous two criteria, but it 108
Mozgovoy, Sergey, Metric Spaces Notes, (2018) https://www.maths.tcd.ie/~mozgovoy/data/notes_MS_2018.pdf, (Accessed 01/04/2021), pp.2–4. 109
Ibid. Ibid. 111 Ibid. 112 Ibid. 110
does have a relation to the real world. It basically means that the shortest distance between any two points is a direct distance, not one that goes to any other point that isn’t on that shortest route.
Now that the necessary background mathematics is out of the way, we shall discuss how this concept can apply to musical analysis. By and large, music analysis is concerned with looking for similarities across a piece of music, trying to find commonalities between distinct objects. As a measure of distance, or of difference, a metric is very well suited to helping quantify how similar certain things are. This is where similarities to Lewin’s Generalised Interval Systems come in, as both a GIS and a Metric are functions that you plug values into, and you get a number that should tell you how far apart those two things are from each other. The GIS tells you in terms of an interval113—which Lewin explicitly compares to distance in his book—and the metric tells you the distance in a more abstract sense. Now two examples of musical metrics will be presented, a simple one at first, and then a more complex one that uses the first as a jumping off point. The first metric we shall look at is what I have called the Difference Metric on Sets. The Difference Metric on sets takes two pitch-class sets A and B as inputs. The “difference” between these two sets is defined to be the number of shared pitches between the sets A and B subtracted from the number of elements in the largest set between A and B.
As an example, consider the pitch-class sets A = {C, D, E, F#, G#, A#} and B = {C, D, E, F#, G, A, B}. The overlap of these two sets is {C, D, E, F#}, and the largest set is B containing seven elements, so our difference is 7 – 4 = 3. This may seem like a very crude way of defining how different two chords are from each other based on the pitches contained within them, however, this stage is necessary for the next example which is much more interesting.
We will now look at what I have called the Difference Metric on Set-Classes. A set-class is a set of pitch-class sets, containing all transpositions and inversions of any particular set114. Examples of set-classes would be the set-class containing all 113
Lewin, David, Generalized Intervals and Transformations, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, first published New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 26. 114
Forte, Allen, The Structure of Atonal Music, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), pp. 8–9.
major and minor triads, or the set class containing all dominant and half-diminished seventh chords. The Difference Metric on Set-Classes between two set-classes [A] and [B] is defined as the minimal value of the difference metric on sets for all pairs within the set-classes [A] and [B].
Consider the set classes 3-12 (The Augmented Triad) and 4-28 (The Diminished Seventh). Since one is made up entirely of major thirds, and the other of minor thirds, they can at most only overlap one element. Thus, the minimum of the difference between any two must be 4 – 1 = 3. This final metric is a generalisation of the Rp relation described by Allen Forte. This relation, while very interesting, is seldom used in analysis due to how limiting it is, since it only concerns itself with pairs of set classes that by the above metric would have a distance of 1. Generalising the relationship makes it much more versatile and allows you to compare things in a much more interesting way. These metrics also have several other mathematically interesting properties such as an isometry with respect to complementation as defined by Allen Forte (meaning that if you plug two sets into the metrics, and then plug their complements—that is all notes that are not in the original set—into the metric, you should get the same result). It should also be noted that the proofs that both of these are metrics are actually rather involved, and not very intuitive to understand if you don’t have a background in mathematics. 115
However, the point of this is not to demonstrate on particular metric, but to try and explain the intuition behind what a metric is, and how they work, so that other metrics can be devised to be used in music analysis. Like the GIS of David Lewin (who in Generalised Musical Intervals and Transformations goes to great lengths to demonstrate that GIS’s can be used to measure things other than pitch, such as rhythm116), the concept of a metric can be applied to any area of music. My examples given above were both concerned with harmony, because that is the area that interests me the most, and the idea of expanding Forte’s Rp relation was what inspired my research into the application of metrics to music. Metrics are a very powerful tool for creating an idea of distance between objects that don’t appear at first glance to have an easy way to define how different they are and can actually reveal very interesting things. They are very versatile and are used in many areas of mathematics and computer science for many different reasons, and they could be applied to music too in meaningful ways, much like how the GIS as a versatile framework for measuring how far apart or different from each other two musical objects are. 115
Ibid; p.47. Lewin, David, Generalized Intervals and Transformations, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, first published New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), pp. 24–25. 116
The Effect of Wagner’s ‘Judaism in Music’ in the discourse about 19th. .Century European Jewry. Phoebe Van Egeraat
This essay examines the ideas found in Richard Wagner’s 1869 essay “Judaism in Music” in terms of its place in the discourse about European Jewry in its time. I will begin with a brief biography of Wagner and then detail some of the ideas in relation to Jews and music expressed by him in his essay. I will explore how Wagner’s essay impacted 19th-century Jewish musicians, those he particularly vilified, namely the German composer Felix Mendelssohn and the German opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. I will then address societal and political attitudes towards Jews generally in Europe in the 19th-century and I will look at the opinions, responses, and reactions of late-nineteenth-century critics to his essay in order to uncover the discourse about Jewry then taking place in Europe. Richard Wagner was a German music composer. He was born in Leipzig, Germany in 1813. The Wagner family were ethnic Germans and they resided in the then Jewish Quarter of Leipzig. Wagner would therefore have had numerous relationships and interactions with Jewish people. He had Jewish friends and colleagues such as the Jewish conductor Hermann Levi and the Jewish choirmaster and writer Heinrich Porges. Wagner’s essay entitled “Das Judenthum in der Musik” was initially written by him in 1850, under a pseudonym, and it was published in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, a music journal. Nearly twenty years later, in 1869, using his own name, Wagner published a revised and expanded version of this essay. The essay was translated into English by W. Ashton Ellis and entitled “Judaism in Music”. In the English language, Judaism carries the meaning of the practice of the Jewish religion, a topic not referred to in Wagner’s essay. Judentum in 19th century Germany however carried a much broader meaning which included the concept of the social practices of the Jews. This first English translation of the essay, therefore, has been questioned, but it is closest in time to the German publication and thus captures the sentiment of that time better than a modern translation could. Wagner focuses on three main ideas in his essay. Firstly, he asserts that Jews have monopolised the world using money, and therefore intend to dominate the world of art in the same way. Wagner openly criticises Jews and explicitly expresses anti-Semitic views. He labels Jews acquisitive, driven only by a desire to obtain and amass money. Money is commonly held in all religions to be the root of all evil. All immorality and wickedness are caused by money. Jews as money lovers are therefore manifested by Wagner to be intrinsically wicked and evil. This is illustrated by the phrase “Money remains the power” which guides the Jewish people in all matters.117 117
Wagner, Richard, and William Ashton Ellis, Judaism in Music and Other Essays, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1894), p.6.
He paints Jews as philistines, guided by materialism and lacking aesthetic and artistic values. Wagner alleges that the Jews are ‘incapable of giving artistic enunciation to [their] feelings.’118 He maintained that Jewish music was devoid of expression and lacked artistic colour and form. Secondly, he propounds that the Jews are incompetent musicians due to their foreign tongue and accent. He refers to particular physical characteristics of Jews in a derogatory manner so as to undermine them in the eyes of society. He claims that Jews are stubborn and resistant to change, ‘The Jew speaks the language of the nation in whose midst he dwells from generation to generation, but he speaks it always as an alien.”119 He claims that the Jews pursue their own interests and not the interests of the country they live in. According to Wagner, they do not belong to any country, they merely live in various countries. This implies that they should therefore not be accorded the same respect or enjoy the same rights as native ethnic Germans. Thirdly, Wagner avers that the Jews are innately unoriginal and are ‘parasitic’ in their dependence on Western Europeans for music forms to emulate. He likens them to parrots, calling them “foolish birds” a possible reference to their hooked noses, and states that there is “something disagreeably foreign to that nationality,”120 a possible reference to their sallow skin colour. He argues that Jewish pronunciation is “outlandish and unpleasant’ involving a ’creaking, squeaking buzzing snuffle.’121 He deliberately derides them to undermine them and to stir up hatred and distrust. His ideas are blatantly anti-Semitic. Wagner deliberately attacks Mendelssohn because he was a Jew, criticising him for polluting ethnic German music. Ellis remarks that this attitude was widely adopted.122 Wagner argues that, although Mendelssohn’s music is aurally pleasing and euphonious, it fails to communicate emotion or any deeper meaning, arguing that ‘we have only been able to feel engrossed’ by the music of Jewish musicians, but this interest is merely an ‘amusement-craving’.123 Wagner continues by claiming that Mendelssohn eventually ‘lost even all formal productive-faculty’, that his previously recognised musical ability deteriorated with time.124 Critics believe that Wagner’s remarks had a long-term effect on the careers of Mendelssohn, Heine, and Meyerbeer, all Jews – ruining their reputations and leaving a stain on the discourse about European Jewry at the time. Although the essay only refers to Mendelssohn by name, the others are clear targets. He attacks every facet of their musical identity, labeling them amongst all Jewish people, as unfit composers, inadequate conductors, and inept performers simply because they were Jews. 118
Ibid; p.8. Ibid; p.7. 120 Ibid; p.8. 121 Ibid; p.7. 122 Wagner, Richard, Judaism in Music, 1850. 119
http://users.belgacom.net/wagnerlibrary/prose/wagjuda.htm (Accessed 24/12/2020). 123 Wagner, Richard, and William Ashton Ellis, Judaism in Music and Other Essays, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1894), p.11. 124
Ibid; p.12.
In the early 19th century, Jews held a minority status in Europe, and their acceptance in society varied greatly from country to country. In many cities, they had to stay in assigned areas called “ghettos” which they could only leave during the day. The Wagner family lived in the Jewish quarter of Leipzig. Even though Jewish emancipation, that is the granting of full citizenship rights to Jews, which had commenced in France in the 18th century, was spreading, anti-Semitism existed, more or less, in all of 19th-century European societies. The economic and social problems that accompanied the rise of capitalism and industrialization in the 19th century, were often blamed on the Jews. Emancipation gave Jews an opportunity to prosper. The social upward mobility of the Western Jews during the 19th century frightened the middle classes, which therefore became the main supporter of anti-Semitism. Throughout the 19th-century Europe witnessed its most widespread revolutionary phase. The year 1848 is known as the Year of Revolution or Springtime of the Peoples. The political upheavals throughout Europe at this time led to significant social and cultural change. The revolutionists included the Liberals, who wanted a Republican Government; the Nationalists wanted national unity based on common language, culture, religion, and a shared history, the Radical Democrats who wanted universal male suffrage; and the Radical Socialists who wanted worker ownership and redistribution of wealth. Wagner’s first essay was written in 1850 and his ideas, as set out above, are clearly influenced by this historical background. Wagner, as is evidenced from his essay, was a Nationalist. His Nationalism and the empathy he expresses for ethnic Germans are used by him to justify his victimisation of the Jews, ‘it is much rather we who are shifted into the necessity of fighting for emancipation from the Jews.’125 A nationwide repugnance to the Jewish race is alluded to and is clearly at the time a widely held sentiment. The essay claims that Jews are parasitic in their nature. Wagner writes that Jews ‘win the power of lodgement’ in a host’s body, that of an ethnic German, ‘yet merely to destroy it.’126 Following on from this, Wagner vindicates the Nationalists’ supposed hatred for the Jews, asserting that this distaste is intrinsic and warranted. He describes anti-Semitism as an ‘unconquerable’ and ‘involuntary feeling’ which ‘utters itself as an instinctive repugnance against the Jew’s prime essence.’127 His essay is written for an ethnic German audience. He employs persuasive language and adopts an inclusive tone, using the pronouns ‘our’ and ‘we’ as he speaks collectively to the ethnic Germans. The essay was not translated into Hebrew until the early 1980s. Clearly, although the Jews were Wagner’s target, they were not his target audience. Wagner was trying to propagate his ideas within a nationalist group. He was feeding into the Nationalist beliefs of the time and isolating Jews by vilifying them. By characterising
125
Loeffler, James, “Richard Wagner's ‘Jewish Music’: Antisemitism and Aesthetics in Modern Jewish Culture.” Jewish Social Studies 15/2, pp.2–36 (p.6). 126 Wagner, Richard, and William Ashton Ellis, Judaism in Music and Other Essays, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1894), p.14. 127 Loeffler, James, “Richard Wagner's ‘Jewish Music’: Antisemitism and Aesthetics in Modern Jewish Culture.” Jewish Social Studies 15/2, pp.2–36 (p.6).
Jews as “others” that did not belong to the European society, he denigrates them and thwarts the perception of Jews by ethnic Germans. A look at the reviews of Wagner’s essay by the critics, which reviews were mixed, reflects society’s attitude, also mixed, to Jews at this time and the discourse surrounding them. Saminsky, a late-nineteenth-century composer and a Jew embraced ideas from Wagner’s essay. Saminsky, like Wagner, agreed that it was integral for Jewish musicians to express features of nationalism in their work in order for their music to be of respectable quality. Saminsky, was not shunned for his Wagnerian remarks illustrating Wagner’s popularity in 1869.128 This example highlights the complexity of antisemitism in nineteenth-century Germany. Loeffler insinuates that the German Jews were able to separate the art from the artist and maintained their appreciation for Wagner’s music post the publication of his essay. ‘German Jews proved to be loyal fans of Wagner’s music and creative mythologies even as they wrestled with his well-known antisemitism.’129 He maintains that not all Jewish musicians were affected by Wagner’s vicious comments, yet everyone had an opinion. Russian music critic Sergei Durylin abridges this point eloquently as follows: ‘With Wagner or against him, but not outside him’. Responses to the essay were both positive and negative, but few fell between. Early-twentieth-century Russian Jewish musicians were among those who reacted to Wagner’s essay positively. Russian Jews were ‘blamed for preventing the development of a true Russian national music’, and for ‘lacking their own folk song traditions.’130 Loeffler outlines that renowned Russian nationalist composers, namely Balakirev and Mussorskii, were forwardly antisemitic, yet ‘embraced elements of Jewish folk music in their work.’131 Jewish composer Idelsohn (1882-1938) was among those to support Wagner’s ideas. He republished the essay on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Wagner’s death in commemoration. Critics who did not support Wagner were brutal toward him in their defence of the Jewish race, ‘The press and Wagner’s many enemies did delight in heaping ridicule upon him.’132 The reaction to the anti-Semitic ideas expressed by Wagner in his essay was therefore mixed, either pro or anti. As already mentioned, anti-Semitism existed in all of 19th-century society and this is obvious from the ideas expressed by Wagner in his essay which promoted and endorsed it and in the positive reviews given by many, not all, critics to it. The essay is recognised as a key contributor to the rise in popularity of anti-Semitism in nineteenth-century Germany and foreshadowed Nazi Germany. Wagner was an acclaimed and beloved musician of the Nazi party. Anti-Semitism grew increasingly more popular in the fifty years between Wagner’s death and Hitler’s rise to power. Wagner’s disparaging remarks directed at the Jewish race, such as labeling them as ‘parasites’, reappeared during the Second World War. 128
Ibid. Ibid; p.11. 130 Ibid; p.13. 131 Ibid; p.14. 132 Conway, David, Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 2012), p.151. 129
Wagner maintained that ethnic Germans are genetically programmed to dislike Jews based on their physical attributes - it is an ‘involuntary repellence.’133 By stating that Jews should not be involved in the composition, production, or performance of art forms he promoted the idea of ostracism of Jews in society an idea that traveled beyond Germany. Wagner’s essay received much support upon its second publication – support which had been maintained for decades, carrying Wagner’s ideology into Nazi Germany. Many Jewish musicians magnanimously looked past Wagner’s blatant attacks and maintained their interest in his undeniably brilliant music compositions. Wagner’s essay had a very influential place in its time and the discourse around the essay, even its title, marked Jews as ‘Others’. His ideas promoted the exclusion of Jews from society and emboldened hate-filled individuals to attack them.
133
Wagner, Richard, and William Ashton Ellis, Judaism in Music and Other Essays, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1894), p.5.
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
The Music of Romantic Ballet. Rebecca Armstrong
‘Romantic ballet changed the way Europeans, in particular, danced and the way they looked at dance.’ -Sarah Davies Cordova
Romantic ballet emerged from the aesthetics of nineteenth-century romanticism, with this new perspective informing dance technique, musical approach, and dramatic narrative. The most significant works tracing the inspiration and development of romantic ballet include Robert le Diable (1831), La Sylphide (1832), and Giselle (1841). For the purposes of this article, I will examine the antagonistic relationship between music and dance, how the romantic era propelled their connection into a more complex environment, and how romantic ballet was therefore characterised before Tchaikovsky entered the late 19th-century ballet scene. My focus also poses another question still relevant today— has music come to shape the way humans interpret dance, or has dance come to shape the way humans interpret music?
The early ballet in French ‘divertissements’ of Lullian opera and ‘ballettos’ of Italian opera would indicate that music is the driving force for choreography, given that many composers (Lully included) were talented dancers who organized and participated in the noble dances they composed. The genre of ‘opera-ballet’ was coined following the death of Lully in 1687 to describe an intricate combination of operatic song and dance (Anthony and Bartlet 2001). Post-enlightenment thought inspired neoclassicism and the ideas of maître de danse Jean Georges Noverre in his 1760 lettres sur la danse. He proposed a new style of dance, ballet d’action, where choreography was the sole narrator of dramatic action. This throws into doubt the authority of music on the ballet stage and characterises dance as a medium of expressing emotion, enabling a new perception of dance. The successor to this style is romantic ballet, which surfaced with the performances of ballet-pantomime in the Paris Opera between 1830-50. (Kant 2011, 110, 118) As ballet established itself independently from opera, a reversal in roles occurred between ballet master and composer. Opera relied on collaboration between composer and librettist with equal freedom and artistic agency. In contrast, ballet composers fulfilled a strict agenda of choreographers and maîtres de dance. They became secondary figures in the artistic process, as indicated by Noverre’s lack of attribution to composers of his ballets.
Composing for ballet became a subordinate and less attractive role for the ambitious composer in the romantic era. (Sabee 2011, 803-805) Nonetheless, the dramatic alteration in the soundscape of romantic ballet after 1830 owes much to Giacomo Meyerbeer’s musical writing. The elusive, mysterious atmosphere of Robert Le Diable (1831) made a ground-breaking impact on audiences. Theatrical devices were subordinate to the illusion created on stage, an archetypal feature of romantic style. The ‘Ballet of the Nuns’ in Act III relies on Meyerbeer’s musical narrative and ‘danceable’ melody lines to convey an enchanting gothic atmosphere. This magical scene caught the imagination of all who saw it. It was to open up new vistas of inspiration to choreographers and scenarists, and to be developed in a long series of ballets on supernatural themes, of which the greatest were La Sylphide and Giselle. (Stenning Edgecombe 1998, 391)
The eclecticism of Meyerbeer’s work reflects his unique assimilation of French, Italian and German styles, as well as folk song, to obtain a newfound romantic ballet idiom in music. Melodies were crafted to motivate and match the dancers’ movement and gesture, who ‘spatialize our sense of the tune’. Phrases were preceded or followed by distinct features such as gruppettos (turn), inclusions (beginning and ending on the same note), and ascending passages. Marking out phrases employing such features became known as ‘motivity’. Elements of the score in opera Robert le Diable (1831) are emulated by his successors Adam Adolphe in Giselle (1841), Ludwig Minkus in La Bayadère (1869) and Don Quixote (1877), and Tchaikovsky in Swan Lake (1877). The prelude to Swan Lake can be traced to the overture to Robert le Diable. Similarly, the opening chorus of Robert exhibits parallels with Minkus’ wedding march in act II of La Bayadère and the beginning of Act V Don Quixote, which are founded on a festive staccato figure. Forty years later, Robert le Diable’s influence is still strongly perceived in romantic ballet. (Stenning Edgecombe 1998, 393,403-409) The scores of romantic ballets consist of two discernible types of music, the symphonie / pantomime which depicts the action, narrative, mood and often incorporates diegetic sound effects. In contrast, the pas maintains a strict pulse and tempo for complicated dance segments, used frequently in divertissements of opera. Ballet composers were required to incorporate both types and to portray a style that suited the setting or ethnicity of the characters. (Smith 2000, pp. 6-8)
Romantic ballet music saw a decline in texted stage signs and instrumental recitatives in the 1830s and 40s. Instead, the more subtle verbal weapon of the romantic ballet composer, the air parlant, (an excerpt of texted music borrowed from a popular opera or song of the time) was deployed, utilizing the natural association of lyrics with their melodies to bring particular words into the mind of the spectator. (Smith 2000, 8, 101-110) The evolution of the air parlant in romantic ballet provoked influence beyond its own genre. Opera compositions often subordinated vocal lines to give prominence to dance forms. Romantic ballet thus altered the soundscape of all dance forms, be it ballet, opera, or concert music. (Stenning Edgecombe 1998, 395)
It was common practice for composers to adapt the music to suit the development of dancers’ style and technique. Frequently composers were required to rewrite entire sections of the composed score to suit choreographers and dancers with very little notice. Ballet librettist and poet Théophile Gautier, through his conservative choice of composers, indicates the rigid musical structures nurtured by the ballet world. A culture of borrowing and imitating over time engendered clichés in composition to match specific steps or moments in dance sequences. As the technique of dancing rapidly on tiptoe (‘couru sur les pointes’) became part of the dancer’s physical vocabulary, this was matched in music with lighter articulation and instrumentation with less timbre such as flute trills and tremolos. The ballet composer was left with very little scope for originality. (Jordan 1981, 374-377) The prominent status of borrowed music declined due to most critics in the 1830s and 40s seeking original music in ballet scores. Composers were faced with a new problem, as original music often fails to explain their accompanying narratives. How then could composers provide music that assimilates both explanation and originality? The composers of La Sylphide and Giselle employed a revolutionary device: the recurring melody. Instead of borrowing familiar melodies external to the ballet world, they introduced and repeated melodies at important moments in the narrative. Schneitzhoeffer’s score for La Sylphide in 1832 was received by many as overtly original and unintelligible, despite incorporating various airs parlants including Gluck’s ‘J’ai perdu mon Euridice’. Schneitzhoeffer employed recurring melodies in a less obvious manner. A triadic melody is introduced in Act 1 after James has first spotted the Sylphide and asks Gurn if he has also seen her. The melody returns towards the end of the ballet when James seeks help from the sorceress Madge to catch the Sylphide. Adam Adolphe also uses motifs to enable the audience to follow the action. Giselle’s waltz motif is
heard when she expresses her love for dancing. The ominous music of the mad scene incorporates tunes reminiscent of the earlier daisy-petal scene and ‘lovers’ pas de deux’. Hilarion’s theme is heard the first three times he appears and the moment the Wilis attack Albrecht. These recurring melodies can now be recognized as pre-Wagnerian leitmotifs. Despite their growing popularity in ballet-scores, their effectiveness in explaining dramatic action was not as successful as previous techniques. As composers moved away from borrowing music, ballet-pantomime music revealed less verbal content. The audience’s expectations evolved and relied less on the score to understand the narrative. Between 1830 and 40 a radical shift occurred in the history of ballet. The music was no longer responsible for explaining the plot and solely provided substance. Audiences and critics instead depended on the visual action to explain the plot. (Smith 1988, 15-20) Consequently, the shift away from musical storytelling in ballet calls for a brief examination of the narrative focus of romantic ballet after 1830. Ballets of the 1830s and 40s frequently transpired in natural settings and were often based on fairy-tale stories with ethereal characters such as ghosts, sylphs, nymphs, dryads, and (usually female) spiritual creatures. In contrast to opera depicting the intellectual, socially charged, aggressive aspects of romanticism, ballet came to represent the romantic ideology that was pastoral, feminine, and ‘natural’. The romantic view of the landscape and the eternal feminine contributed greatly to the repertory of ballet-pantomime and associate directly with Edmund Burke’s theory of the sublime and William Gilpin’s ‘picturesque’ style. Romantic ballet engendered the cult of the ballerina. It drew focus on the femininity of the ballerina and the erotic nature of the feminine character, lending itself to aspects of voyeurism, raising the question of whether the ballerina can possess a natural objective beauty. The beauty and technique of the ballerina could be better described in picturesque terms; however, the ideology of the sublime is depicted perhaps most evidently in Giselle. Once devoid of human traits, her beauty transcends beyond symmetry, virtuosity, and line to become an element of nature. The narrative explores a message of beauty and suffering, Giselle’s act of self-sacrificial forgiveness spares her no reprieve, and “the full weight of the ballet’s tragic sublimity falls upon the ballerina’s shoulders”. (Sowell 2011, 183-186,204,211-212) The way Giselle captures romantic sublimity represents a profound alteration in the perspective of dance and signifies why it remains in ballet repertoire to this day. During the 1830s the ideologically inspired shift in ballet made an indelible impact on the dance and music world, audiences and critics alike. It is my
contention that the visual representations and ideologies of romantic ballet were much more progressive in comparison with their musical counterparts. The femininity of the ballerina was explored in an awesome ethereal, supernatural sphere. Aesthetics of beauty, sublimity, nature, and imagination were conveyed through every theatrical medium available on the ballet stage. The soundscape of ballet changed the way in which dance was interpreted and performed and reached its most dramatic heights in the following decade with the music of Tchaikovsky and Minkus.
Folk Influence and Rimsky-Korsakov. Molly Guy Lambton
The revival or recovery of folk traditions came about at a time when culture was beginning to value the past as a source of knowledge, a way in which to learn about human’s strength and shortcomings, and as a chance to learn about the source of modern-day culture and tradition. This mental shift in part came about as a result of Gottfried von Herder’s philosophy at the end of the 18th century, which held that rather than a universal human experience existing, each community that shared a language and other learned behaviours created its own experience and world view.134 This was developed by philosophers such as Hegel, who thought that all art should have meaning as part of its value. Influenced by and perhaps inspiring such philosophers, artists across all art-forms began to explore their past. The folk culture that had previously been associated with the peasantry was highly sought after and collected by artists and linguists alike in order to determine and honour the roots of their country’s history. This resulted in the creation of collections like the Brothers Grimm stories.135 This movement was deeply rooted in and linked to romanticism, allowing people to explore their sense of self through the idealisation of their country’s origins. Composers of the time developed folk songs and idioms within their work to varying degrees. This essay will focus on the role of folk idioms in the music of Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, first contextualising his work within Russian romanticism, and then looking at the ways in which he used folk idioms within his work. The essay will then briefly look at some problems that arise from the use of folk idioms within music, before drawing together previous points to conclude the role of folk idioms within the music of Rimsky-Korsakov and his contemporaries. This movement was growing in its influence around the same time that Russia was being westernised by Tsar Peter I, coming in as a capable actor in western art music and simultaneously becoming a European political and diplomatic power.136 This means for as long as Russia has been composing western art music, they have had nationalist ideals, and tried to create truly ‘Russian’ art music. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov is a Russian composer who was no exception. He was insistent on representing his country through his music and his use of folk idioms from early on in his career. As the Grove dictionary states, ‘the national element pervades [his music] like a subtle but unmistakable aroma’.137 Despite being ‘unversed in harmony
134
Richard Taruskin, Music in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005) p.122. Ibid. 136 Ibid; p.230. 137 George Grove, Eric Blom, and Denis Stevens, Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 1954), p.174. 135
and orchestration’,138 He composed his first symphony while working in the navy, weaving traditional Russian songs into its themes. He was guided by other members of ‘The Five’, a group of composers who together formed the backbone of Russian nationalistic music. Rimsky-Korsakov’s nationalistic ideals meant that at a certain time his music was censored outside of Russia.139 The role of folk idioms in Rimsky-Korsakov’s work was primarily in the interest of creating authentically ‘Russian’ music, fitting with his nationalistic ideals. It would have also allowed him to explore the roots of his own country through folk songs and stories. This sort of tendency in composing music – and indeed art-making in general – was characteristic of the romantic period, the values of which were conducive to both self-discovery and to fantasy. Ironically, the fact that Russian composers of this time were nationalistic was indicative of Russia’s westernisation more than anything else.140 One example of folk idioms in Rimsky-Korsakov’s work is in his Sinfonietta on Russian Themes Op. 31. The first movement, Allegro Pastorale, is based on the folk song ‘Ta tuman yarom kotitsya’ (The mist creeps in the field).141 While some integrations of folk music into orchestral works break down the folk songs into very small motifs and develop them as with a newly-composed motif, Rimsky-Korsakov takes relatively large 2-4 bar sections of melody.142 This is visible in Figure 1, the melody of which roughly fits the titular words Ta tuman yarom kotitsya (The mist creeps in the field), albeit in a minor key. Rimsky-Korsakov keeps the folk melody partially intact. Rather than rendering it unrecognisable through development he strengthens its use within the work. He doesn’t take apart the tune for the furthering of his own music, and is careful to keep it discernible. This shows respect for Russian tradition, as the song is a work in its own right, rather than something that needs to be improved upon.
Figure 1Rimsky-Korsakov, Sinfonietta on Russian Themes, Op. 31 I: Allegro pastorale, bars 1-7, Violin 1. Rimsky-Korsakov also used folk idioms in works such as Scheherezade and Capriccio Espagnol. In these cases, he was not using folk influences as a means of representing his own culture, but instead as a means to discover others. Like many Russian composers, he had a love for and romantic view of eastern Asia, or the orient, clear in 138
Rimsky-Korsakov, Nicolay, My Musical Life (London: Ernst Eulenberg Limited, 1974; first published New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1923), p.xiv. 139 George Grove, Eric Blom, and Denis Stevens, Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 1954), p.174. 140 Richard Taruskin, Music in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005) p.233. 141 Gerald Abraham and Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Studies in Russian Music (London: Faber and Faber, 2011), p. 56. 142 Ibid.
his Scheherazade. He uses hints of Asian styles of music in order to create the folk idioms within this work, rather than actual folk tunes, as he did in his opera Antar. This is audible throughout the work, such as in the Sultan’s theme whole tone descending scale, as well as the key of Scheherezade’s violin theme. One of his other most well-known works, Capriccio Espagnol, is one celebrating Spanish culture. While this work, like Scheherezade, is often seen as an excuse for Rimsky-Korsakov to show off his orchestration skills – which it does, exquisitely – it also accurately represents several types of Spanish dance. He uses a returning alborada, or dawn song, in three of the five movements. This dance usually requires the bagpipes to function as a drone, and Rimsky-Korsakov uses the strings, and later woodwind, as a punctuated drone in a varied crotchet-quaver-quaver rhythm throughout, moving the dance along and allowing the dance tune to shine through. A similar technique is visible in many Asturian and Galician Alboradas. The final movement is an Andalusian dance, the Fandango, mixed in with the alborada from previous movements.143 Like a traditional Spanish Fandango, Rimsky’s movement is marked by castanets and the orchestral ‘stamping of feet’144 characteristic in a Fandango, as well as sustained increase in tempo. The use of folk idioms in pieces of a foreign nature seems to be more about interest in, and discovery of, exotic cultures for Rimsky-Korsakov than his other work. An interesting way to approach the folk tradition interweaved with Russian music is through harmonisation. Rimsky-Korsakov revised a lot of his older works as he learnt more about harmonisation, both in an effort to make them follow the rules of classical music, and to make sure that the harmony he had in place complemented the folk songs he employed, such as in his Hundred Russian Folk-Songs, op 24, where he was concerned with making his work ‘simple and Russian enough’.145 His efforts to maintain homophony in his folk-tunes was perhaps misplaced, as some Russian folk songs were in reality not only monophonic, but also polyphonic through imitation. This idea of retaining and creating what was of a true Russian style was indicative of Rimsky-Korsakov’s deep need to accurately portray his country through music. This essay has looked at the revival of folk traditions in music in a predominantly positive light. It gave creators a new way to fabricate work, and allowed creators and recipients alike to both learn about and be proud of their country’s cultures and traditions. There are, however, several reasons it was not always perceived as a good creative outlet, or as a positive influence on society. The revival of folk traditions within a modern context inevitably leaves out some key aspect of the original work. This is often just the setting within which a folk song is sung, or a folk dance is 143
Katherine Baber, ‘About Rimsky-Korsakov’s Cappricio Espagnol, Op. 34’ in Redlands Symphony (Redlands Symphony Association, 2021). 144 Gloria Lotha and the Editors of Encylopaedia Britannica, ‘Fandango’ in Encyclopaedia Britannica (2016–; accessed 7 January 2021). 145 Gerald Abraham and Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Studies in Russian Music (London: Faber and Faber, 2011), p. 45.
danced. Art-forms that move into the mainstream are often diluted, and their essence lost. One example of this occurring is composers mutilating existing folk tunes into oblivion through development. The solution to this problem, according to Gerald Abraham, is to involve folk tunes within opera, where the composer no longer has to attempt ‘to reconcile reconcilables, [or] the very simple and natural with the very complex, and, in a sense, artificial’.146 This view is that it is preferable to preserve folk tunes as a song within an opera, instead of using them as a melody to be developed upon. Rimsky-Korsakov wrote many operas founded in Russian history and legends, but also succeeded in artfully winding folk tunes into orchestral works. Nonetheless, it is likely that Rimsky-Korsakov contributed to the negative subsumption of folk music. In conclusion, the role of folk idioms and traditions within the music of Rimsky-Korsakov and his contemporaries was primarily of a nationalistic nature. This was reflective of the political and cultural climate occurring at the time. Romanticism fostered nationalism and allowed it to grow, notably in Russia, where almost all composers held nationalist beliefs which shine through in their music. Rimsky-Korsakov used actual folk tunes in his work, and also composed some folk melodies of his own to use in his music. He did not limit his capacity to mix folk with classical music to his own culture however, and successfully composed works like Capriccio Espagnol which explore the folk traditions of another part of the world. The primary role of the folk idiom in his work remains to be giving meaning to his music, and to ignite a sense of national pride in the listener. Rimsky-Korsakov’s expert orchestration and manipulation of folk melodies allowed for the simultaneous telling of a story, whether fanciful or rooted in reality, and a discovery and reaffirmation of one’s national values.
146
Ibid; p.59.