Everybody bitches about cultural appropriation. But you know, bite me. Because what it really is is cultural cross-pollination and it's where everything important to art, architecture, music, science, and language comes from. Think of it as cultural endosymbiosis. Thanks for all you do Ted!
Interdisciplinary research in the humanities is where my heart is for this right here: “Relentless digging into primary sources (usually outside of the music field) that my peers had never even considered consulting”. These are why your articles are so fascinating to me. Lush in perspectives, backed with research & data, anecdotes from your interesting background as an accomplished musician, and most of all: empathy. Thank you, Prof Gioia!
My own researches have been focused upon Irish music, traditional and otherwise (a nod to Tin Pan Alley) over the years - which also claims a role in both instruments and dance steps relating to Jazz and its ancestry. I defer to those more expert in the latter, but I am reminded of a book about the Irish in America titled "How the Irish Became White" which reflected early years of discrimination in the US affected the role of the Irish in American society and how they evolved out of that early niche.
Love it, Ted. Seems to me that outcasts must, by definition, find a place for themselves--their whole selves. They need to feel human, as do we all. New Orleans jazz was called "The Big Noise." A psychoanalyst friend of mine commented, "You have to make a big noise if no one is listening to you." All best, Peter G
Great post. Poor people who have nothing at all but their lives, their bodies, and enough food from their masters to get up the next day able to work, possibly even deprived of sexual companionship of a spouse, can STILL make music, if necessary by singing and clapping their hands with no instruments at all. And people with no other ways to be happy and creative will sing among themselves and invent the great musical innovations of the world. It makes sense that it is the poor people, and the poorest of the poor, who make the big breakthroughs.
The Dorians and Ionians weren't, for the most part slaves. Nor were the Lydians or Phygians. The Locrians were largely pirates.
For that matter, Lesbos, and much of what is today Anatolia, were as Greek as Greek could be in ancient times., and the cities of Aegean coast of Turkey had substantial Greek populations until the 1920s. Hell, Southern Italy and Sicily at one time were known as "Great Greece".
Ted, you are setting up straw men. Ever since Fernand Braudel's 'La Méditerranée et le Monde Méditerranéen à l'Epoque de Philippe II' appeared in 1949, academic historians have been talking about things that you seem to believe you discovered for yourself. And there is a flourishing school of "Atlantic Studies" these days. In my own area of academic expertise, "early music", Thomas Binkley and others showed us all the key importance of multi-culti Medieval Iberia way back in the '60's, and Jordi Savall has kept the faith ever since. Sorry, man, you aren't the first to get here.
Love your work, your insights, your passion and your sharing. Thank you! This brings up a memory, slightly relevant to the picture you draw. I visited an Ottoman 'hospital' museum in western Turkey a few years back. Their focus was on mental wellbeing. Music and sound was central to their treatment protocols along with rose medicine. I experienced a sense of wonder along with the awareness of the pathways and movement of music through this ancient east-west cultural crossroads.
I studied music — including history, theory, and musicology, up to the doctorate level — in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I can fit all of what you’re saying into that framework — but you’re obviously right: I never learned any of that in college or at the university. I appreciate your knowledge and perspective immensely, Ted!
Fascinating article, but there’s an error. The Aeolians weren’t a slave group conquered by the Greeks. They were a Greek tribe from Thessaly and Boeotia who settled in Anatolia.
I agree with you about the importance of water. Usually, port cities have the best music. It was a port city that dominated the first wave of the British Invasion: Liverpool. And some of the best English musicians of the 20th century came from Irish Catholic working class backgrounds. True outsiders in a country like England that is based on a class system.
So did the Lydians only use that mode, the Dorians only theirs? And then they all assembled in Greece "proper" where they were named? I think not. You could just call each mode by a number and it would be the same thing. Just different ways to run through the 7 notes of the major scale by choosing a different place to start.
Interesting to dwell on that aspect without mentioning that other cultures have far more than 12 notes in their octave.
I'm sorry but with all the bashing of dead white Europeans combined with the meshugas of DEI everywhere, this seems a bit much. Great article in the NYT, mostly because of the commenters, on how this led to the decline of NPR. Every thinking person knows that New Orleans was diverse, that crossroads where cultures merge are the most interesting places on the planet, and that yeah water was, and still is, rather important when it comes to moving things around from place to place.
This brings more dimension to the phrase of whistling while we work...envision the outcast from wealthy trappings of comfort, Snow White, reduced to joyous simple labor, pruning the little garden plants and dusting and polishing the little dwarf house, with the happy seven dwarves returning from their honest, grubby work at the mine. Outcasts all fill the void with creation... pleasant and peasant sounds that fill the air. Loved your insights, Ted.
The same goes for science. Our standard history says that it started with Christian Europe in 1500. This skips over the more important fact that Christian Europe violently SUPPRESSED science for 1000 years while it developed fast in China and Persia and Syria. Science re-entered Europe via the Muslims in Spain and Turkey, the same path as music... but only after the Popes had lost some of their political force.
Watch the movie Caveman with Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach and Dennis Quaid. It has a unique and entertaining take of the origin of music in prehistoric times.
Everybody bitches about cultural appropriation. But you know, bite me. Because what it really is is cultural cross-pollination and it's where everything important to art, architecture, music, science, and language comes from. Think of it as cultural endosymbiosis. Thanks for all you do Ted!
Interdisciplinary research in the humanities is where my heart is for this right here: “Relentless digging into primary sources (usually outside of the music field) that my peers had never even considered consulting”. These are why your articles are so fascinating to me. Lush in perspectives, backed with research & data, anecdotes from your interesting background as an accomplished musician, and most of all: empathy. Thank you, Prof Gioia!
My own researches have been focused upon Irish music, traditional and otherwise (a nod to Tin Pan Alley) over the years - which also claims a role in both instruments and dance steps relating to Jazz and its ancestry. I defer to those more expert in the latter, but I am reminded of a book about the Irish in America titled "How the Irish Became White" which reflected early years of discrimination in the US affected the role of the Irish in American society and how they evolved out of that early niche.
Love it, Ted. Seems to me that outcasts must, by definition, find a place for themselves--their whole selves. They need to feel human, as do we all. New Orleans jazz was called "The Big Noise." A psychoanalyst friend of mine commented, "You have to make a big noise if no one is listening to you." All best, Peter G
Great post. Poor people who have nothing at all but their lives, their bodies, and enough food from their masters to get up the next day able to work, possibly even deprived of sexual companionship of a spouse, can STILL make music, if necessary by singing and clapping their hands with no instruments at all. And people with no other ways to be happy and creative will sing among themselves and invent the great musical innovations of the world. It makes sense that it is the poor people, and the poorest of the poor, who make the big breakthroughs.
The Dorians and Ionians weren't, for the most part slaves. Nor were the Lydians or Phygians. The Locrians were largely pirates.
For that matter, Lesbos, and much of what is today Anatolia, were as Greek as Greek could be in ancient times., and the cities of Aegean coast of Turkey had substantial Greek populations until the 1920s. Hell, Southern Italy and Sicily at one time were known as "Great Greece".
Your last sentence about living and thinking in silos is profound and identifies were we are and are heading currently.
Agreed --there's a lot we don't learn in music school. I would advise music students to augment their studies with Ted's Substack...and mine!
Ted, you are setting up straw men. Ever since Fernand Braudel's 'La Méditerranée et le Monde Méditerranéen à l'Epoque de Philippe II' appeared in 1949, academic historians have been talking about things that you seem to believe you discovered for yourself. And there is a flourishing school of "Atlantic Studies" these days. In my own area of academic expertise, "early music", Thomas Binkley and others showed us all the key importance of multi-culti Medieval Iberia way back in the '60's, and Jordi Savall has kept the faith ever since. Sorry, man, you aren't the first to get here.
Love your work, your insights, your passion and your sharing. Thank you! This brings up a memory, slightly relevant to the picture you draw. I visited an Ottoman 'hospital' museum in western Turkey a few years back. Their focus was on mental wellbeing. Music and sound was central to their treatment protocols along with rose medicine. I experienced a sense of wonder along with the awareness of the pathways and movement of music through this ancient east-west cultural crossroads.
I studied music — including history, theory, and musicology, up to the doctorate level — in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I can fit all of what you’re saying into that framework — but you’re obviously right: I never learned any of that in college or at the university. I appreciate your knowledge and perspective immensely, Ted!
Fascinating article, but there’s an error. The Aeolians weren’t a slave group conquered by the Greeks. They were a Greek tribe from Thessaly and Boeotia who settled in Anatolia.
I agree with you about the importance of water. Usually, port cities have the best music. It was a port city that dominated the first wave of the British Invasion: Liverpool. And some of the best English musicians of the 20th century came from Irish Catholic working class backgrounds. True outsiders in a country like England that is based on a class system.
So did the Lydians only use that mode, the Dorians only theirs? And then they all assembled in Greece "proper" where they were named? I think not. You could just call each mode by a number and it would be the same thing. Just different ways to run through the 7 notes of the major scale by choosing a different place to start.
Interesting to dwell on that aspect without mentioning that other cultures have far more than 12 notes in their octave.
I'm sorry but with all the bashing of dead white Europeans combined with the meshugas of DEI everywhere, this seems a bit much. Great article in the NYT, mostly because of the commenters, on how this led to the decline of NPR. Every thinking person knows that New Orleans was diverse, that crossroads where cultures merge are the most interesting places on the planet, and that yeah water was, and still is, rather important when it comes to moving things around from place to place.
This brings more dimension to the phrase of whistling while we work...envision the outcast from wealthy trappings of comfort, Snow White, reduced to joyous simple labor, pruning the little garden plants and dusting and polishing the little dwarf house, with the happy seven dwarves returning from their honest, grubby work at the mine. Outcasts all fill the void with creation... pleasant and peasant sounds that fill the air. Loved your insights, Ted.
The same goes for science. Our standard history says that it started with Christian Europe in 1500. This skips over the more important fact that Christian Europe violently SUPPRESSED science for 1000 years while it developed fast in China and Persia and Syria. Science re-entered Europe via the Muslims in Spain and Turkey, the same path as music... but only after the Popes had lost some of their political force.
Watch the movie Caveman with Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach and Dennis Quaid. It has a unique and entertaining take of the origin of music in prehistoric times.