The Structure and Techniques of Uzbek Music - Coursework Example

and Number of the Teacher’s Anthropology THE STRUCTURE AND TECHNIQUES OF UZBEK MUSIC IS INTER-CONNECTED WITH THEUZBEK AESTHETICS AND CULTURE Introduction Uzbek music is directly associated with Uzbekistan’s culture and aesthetics. Ethnomusicology or the scientific study of music takes into consideration both structure and techniques of music, as well as the interconnections between music and other parts of the culture. Hence, listening to Uzbek music and studying its characteristics provides insights into the Uzbek aesthetics and culture. Ethnomusicology of Uzbek music takes into consideration several elements: the role of music in Uzbek society, the musicians, the characteristics and various genres of Uzbek music, and its material culture which include the instruments, their distribution and musical tastes. Thesis Statement: The purpose of this paper is to present the argument that the ethnomusicology of Uzbek music and understanding it, help to gain insights into Uzbek culture. The analysis will be supported by ethnographic evidence and examples. Discussion The rich and diverse musical heritage of Uzbekistan has contributed significantly to the establishment of a national self-consciousness and cultural identity for the nation as a whole, particularly after the country achieved independence in 1991 from the Soviet Union. The main sources are written texts including historical manuscripts, contemporary national studies and samples of traditional music notated in the Western staff system; and an extensive range of national melodies and “intonations”, together with the emotional images of the national spiritual world (Djumeiv: 166). The Role of Music in Uzbek Society The Uzbek’s way of life, customs, thoughts, hopes and struggle for social and national liberation are deeply reflected in Uzbek folklore, causing a variety in theme and genre of Uzbek folk songs. The main types of songs are: daily life songs such as lullabies, children’s songs, calendric songs and lyric songs, the latter including songs of love, humor, nature, meditation, etc. Family ceremonal songs such as wedding songs and laments in funerals, work songs, songs of social protest, and historical songs. In turn this thematic variety led to musical diversity. The above are the specifically ceremonial and daily-life songs, which is one genre of Uzbek folk songs. The other genre included those songs which were performed everywhere with a great variety of theme: the terma or chublama, koshuk, lapar, yalla, and ashula genres. Except for ashula, the aforementioned genres are basically strophic in structure, melodically narrow and improvisatory. “The ashula is particularly distinctive, with its extensive melodic structure and through-composed form based on a single thematic cell. Uzbek folk music is basically diatonic in scalar foundation” (Karomatov & Slobin: 48). The main tunes and melodies in both instrumental and vocal-instrumental formats that form the foundation of a national musical identity are: “Tanovar, Munojot, Navo, Ushshoq, Chuli Iroq, Segoh, Ajam, Nasrulloi, Chorgoh, Eshvoi, Qaro quzum, Bayot, Gir’ya, Q’oshchinor and Qalandar” (Djumaev: 178). Other aspects of Uzbek music that operate as symbols of national identity include the sounds of various national instruments, predominantly the tanbur with its system of melodic ornamentations, rhythmic formulas known as usuls, and other characteristics. The richness of the repertoire in terms of melody and rhythm helped musicians to develop a distinctive world of sound, widely recognised as national heritage, after independence, due to the efforts of activists to construct a national musical identity (Djumaev: 179). The following example illustrates the role of music in Uzbek culture and society. Alexei Fedorovich Kozlovsky, a talented Russian composer, was enchanted by the musicality that he found in his Uzbek surroundings. In the old city of Tashkent, he wandered around with his manuscript book, transcribing “the singing of teahouse musicians, the chants of wandering dervishes, the cries of peddlars” (Levin: 19), the music that went along with itinerant tightrope acts or goat fights at the hippodrome, and the music that accompanied every kind of folk festivity or celebration. The inspiration for Kozlovsky’s first Uzbek symphonic composition called Lola, which means “tulip” in Persian/ Turkic, was the spring tulip festival that took place in Isfara in northern Tajikistan. This three-day festival of dancing, singing and merry-making took place after the gathering of tulips from the mountains where they bloomed in the spring. All the participants decorated themselves with tulips as well as decorated an old, strong tree cut for the purpose, and while singing and dancing all the while, carried an old man on it to the main square of the village, where the festivities were held (Levin: 19). Kozlovsky’s Lola is a symphonic tone poem in three movements that portray three different scenes from the tulip festival. The high, tremulous drones in the opening of both Lola’s first and second movements is similar to the Orientalist cliches of this famous nineteenth-century Russian predecessors. However, on the whole, Kozlovsky keeps away from cliches such as banner techniques, modal harmonizations, quirky rhythms and fast-paced dance numbers with exotic scales. Instead, he composes a true-to-life musical impressionism based on his own direct and long experience of the music he depicts. He does not imitate Uzbek melodies and rhythms, but develops orchestral timbre and coloration to convey a more abstract sense of the atmosphere of a place, and the feeling of the events that occurred there (Levin: 19-20). Characteristics and Various Genres of Uzbek Music Uzbek folk music is basically diatonic in scalar foundation. The music is characterized by a wealth of melodic emotional nuances, distinctive metro-rhythmic quality, shortened or modified lyric songs, marked caesuras and essential, well-proportioned form. The repertoire of Uzbek professional music of the oral tradition is distinguished by the breadth of range, over two octaves, and highly developed melody. This includes the maqam cycles and those vocal and instrumental pieces which are more developed in form and melody (Karomatove & Slobin: 48). The Shash Maqam is a compilation of instrumental and vocal pieces that epitomise the essence of classical Central Asian aesthetic ideals in music and poetry. Associated with the classical Maqam music of other Islamic lands by a common heritage of music theory and musical terminology, “the Shash maqam nonetheless displayed features of melodic style and formal structure that set it apart from this heritage” (Levin: 10). Central Asian musicians and scholars took great interest in the Shash maqam’s origins, which masters had created it, whether the melodic techniques had similarities with Turkish, Arabic and Persian classical music, or perhaps the even earlier maqam systems of the Uighurs, the Turkish Muslim people who inhabited the ancient Chinese Xinjiang; though those modes were no longer apparent on the musical surface (Levin: 10). According to Karomatov and Slobin, the various regions in Uzbekistan have a shared way of life and ethnic commonality; and four basic local styles are currently defined for Uzbek music. Local conditions of life and work, as well as customs and mores had initially influenced the themes and genres of folk songs. The four styles are those of the “Surkhandarya-Kashkadarya, Bukhara-Samarqand, Khwarizm and Ferghana-Tashkent zones” (Karomatov & Slobin: 49). In Surkhandarya and Kashkadarya, songs about pastoral work and nomadic life predominate, also work songs related to cultivating cereal crops. Examples are the hay-mowing song “Ezi” and the threshing song “Maida”. The musical way of life of this region differs distinctly from the other parts of Uzbekistan. Prominent places are held by the bakhshi, the singer of tales, and the dumbrachi, the skilled performer of the dumbra, two-stringed plucked lute. In Bukhara and Samarqand, professional singers and instruments play the main role, along with skilled performers of the maqams, the highly developed lyric cycles of Uzbek and Tajik art music. Other genres of music include cylces of dance songs, instrumental melodies and usuls or drum patterns.The sazanda dancers, singers and instrumentalists were widely favored (Karomatov & Slobin: 50). The Khwarizian style is distinctive, and includes the melodic patterns, manner of performance of the epic tales (doston), nuances based on local dialect, as well as content. In Khwarizm the tales are sung exclusively to striking tunes, whereas in all other regions of Uzbekistan they are sung in a declamatory, recitative, melodic style, rarely employing dance-like tunes. The dutar lute is used, or often the whole ensemble consisting of bulaman, ghichak, dutar, and doira. In other regions, tales are performed by the bakhshi reciter to the dumbra. Individual Khwarizian tale episodes may even be accompanied by the tar lute, rubab and accordian (Karomatov & Slobin: 51). The local traits of folk music in the Ferghana Valley are especially interesting. Instrumental use is comparatively limited. Professional music occupies a secondary role. Here the maqams were not as widespread in pre-Soviet times as in Bukhara, Samarqand, and Kwarizm. The exception was the cultural center of the Ferghana Valley, Kokand, where the maqams and other varieties of Uzbek professional music were introduced from Bukhara. The songs are narrow in range and simple in structure, but with multiple aspects. Ichkari or women’s songs, and the panis-ashula have unique singing style and varied manner of performance (Karomatov & Slobin: 51). Through all layers and spheres of Uzbek musical culture, there is inclusion of Islam, which is seen in the creativity of modern composers such as Mutal Burkhanov (1916-2002) who used the sacred sound and textual elements of Islam (Djumeiv: 180). Uzbek Music: Composition, Learning and Transmission In Uzbekistan, native scholars’ devotion to the study of their own culture and music has led to an increasing conviction that they are the only ones who are in a position to understand it. To understand the impact of the Soviet regime on the transformation of musical life in Uzbekistan, a useful strategy is focusing on the efforts to create an Uzbek classical music tradition and an Uzbek opera. The parameters were set in the 1930s, and they stayed in place until the early 1970s, with the ensuing legacies continuing until the present day (Kale-Lostuvali: 551). From the idealism of the 1920s, there was a shift towards cultural fusion between Europe and Asia. The development of monophonic Central Asian music into European style harmonic music, and the use of folk song as a key resource for art music composition were developments that took place. However, there was a historical precedent for this type of musical Realism in the Russian composers of the 1860s, with Musorgsky as an example (Levin: 14). The ideological convergence of Uzbekistan and Europe began to be reflected with increasing intensity in music performance, composition, pedagogy and scholarship. Russian performers, composers and music historians taught western music, including the reading and writing of staff notation and composition and orchestration. Concurrently, “they taught their students how to transcribe and arrange Central Asian folk music, how to compose it and how to use the folk idiom as a source of melodic material for both classical and popular works, such as agitprop marches and musical dramas” (Levin: 14). The Material Culture of Uzbek Music: Instruments, Distribution, Musical Tastes Uzbek musical art has deep roots in ancient antiquity. Even as early as the sixth to fourth centuries B.C., Herodotus wrote about the role of music and the abundance of songs and dances among the tribes living on the territory of present-day Uzbekistan. “This is confirmed by archaelogical finds in the territory of Uzbekistan, including monuments of material culture and works of art” (Karomatov & Slobin: 48). Material culture of a region is reflected to a certain extent by the musical instruments prevalent during a particular time. Early and original forms of instruments have been discovered in the form of images of musical instruments, musicians and dancers on wall inscriptions, terracotta statues, and other monuments of visual and applied art of the early century A.D., in Uzbekistan and other Central Asian republics. The perfected images were of musical instruments similar to the lute, harp, flute, and others, which indicate a much earlier stage of a centuries-old development of instruments as well as instrumental music which belonged to the ancestors of the Uzbeks and other Central Asian peoples (Karomatov et al: 12). The traditional Uzbek dutar belongs to the Persian long-necked lute tradition. It is used in folk music and performances in many regions of Uzbekistan. It is widely used by women in the Ferghana Valley, which is a rare use of lute-type instruments in the Afghan-Central Asian area. The dutar is also used in urban music and in the arcane or highly specialized Shash maqam; hence it is the most commonly used Uzbek chordophone (Slobin: 10). Many ancient instruments which continued to be used in later centuries also include a flute-like instrument called the nai, and plucked string instruments known as the tanbur and the cud. Besides these, other ancient stringed instruments that are described or mentioned in scholarly treatises are the cang which was used in the sense of a harp at that time, nuzxa, kanun, rebab, and navxi; and among wind instruments: the surnai, organun and others besides the nai. The great Uzbek poet and thinker Alisher Navoi has referred to many musical instruments existing in his time in various contexts, for example, cud, tanbur, cang, rebab, gidjak, kanun, rud, nai, surnai, karnai, and daff or doire. Medieval treatises by Central Asian music theorists, especially those written by Abdurahman Djami, 15th century, and Darvish Ali, 17th century, depict these instruments as used in the original form, without significant alterations (Karomatov et al: 12-13). Some highly perfected instruments that existed simultaneously include the shepherd’s pipes: cupon-nai, gajir-nai, sibizik, etc. are also very popular among women and children, till the present day. They still play an important role in the lives of Uzbeks who labor in distant steppes and mountain pastures. Due to their limited expressive capabilities, these instruments made them suitable only for folk-performers. However, more developed kinds of Uzbek musical instruments went beyond the limits of the folk repertory and facilitated professionalism in Uzbek and Tadjik music, and helped musicians such as Babrat, as early as the first centuries A.D (Karamatov et al: 13). Conclusion This paper has highlighted the ethnomusicology of Uzbek music. It has been argued that the structure and techniques of Uzbek music is inter-connected with the Uzbek aesthetics and culture. The role of music in Uzbek society, the musicians, the characteristics and various genres of Uzbek music, and its material culture which include the instruments, their distribution and musical tastes have been investigated in order to support the argument. Further, ethnographic evidence and examples have been used to confirm the stand that Uzbek music and culture are inter-related. The contemporary musical culture of Uzbekistan has entered a new stage of development, which includes restoration of the earlier characteristics and the formation of a national musical identity. Authentic indigenous music traditions are given emphasis, while including the complex integration of different cultural accumulations from other regions. Towards the formation of a new national identity, an essential principle is the combining and re-thinking of the Uzbek cultural systems and the achievements of the preceding eras. Thus, the essay argument is supported, that the ethnomusicology of Uzbek music is inter-related with other parts of the Uzbek culture (Djumaev: 181). Works Cited Djumev, Alexander. Musical heritage and national identity in Uzbekistan. Ethnomusicology Forum, 14.2 (2005): 165-184. Kale-Lostuvali, Elif. Varieties of musical nationalism in Soviet Uzbekistan. Central Asian Survey, 26.4 (December 2007): 539-558. Karomatov, Faizullah, Djijiak, Tom, Levin, Theodore & Slobin, Mark. Uzbek instrumental music. Asian Music, 15.1 (1983): 11-53. Karomatov, Faizullah & Slobin, Mark. On the regional styles of Uzbek music. Asian Music, 4.1 (1972): 48-58. Levin, Theodore. The hundred thousand fools of God: musical travels in Central Asia (And Queens, New York). The United States of America: Indiana University Press. (1999). Slobin, Mark. Conversations in Tashkent. Asian Music, 2.2 (1971): 7-13. Read More