Tarantella- Sicilian Folk Song
Performer: Unknown- probably people from Mt. Altesina
Instrumentation: Accordian, guitar, tambourine, drums
Culture or Origin: This is a Tarantella dance from Italy, more specifically: Sicily.
Connection:
I chose to share this Italian video because I had recently been to my grandmother's house this past weekend and she was talking about Italy and shared some of the music and dance from when she lived there as a young girl. The Nettl readings this week placed heavy emphasis on how music is transmitted and how one becomes master of music in many different countries. I picked the Italian tarantella because there are many different versions of it. Each one is similar yet completely different. The tempo is always fast because the whole premise of the dance is about a person who has been bitten by a wolf spider and needs to engage in a frenzy dance in order to prevent death from the disease. The tunes and melodies are different in each tarantella one can find. However, the instrumentation stays pretty consistent from tarantella to tarantella.
Many folk songs are passed down orally from person to person. From the reading, it is interesting to think about how one song can change into many variants and versions depending on the culture and instrumentation of people. If we were to perform the tarantella in the classroom from what we hear from different versions of the song and perform it on different instruments while changing some of the tunes, wouldn't that also be considered a variant? The history of the song, which Nettl talked about it chapter 27 is changed. It started off as one thing and ended as another, while keeping some aspects of the original.
Great connections to the reading, Cat. You ask a good question about variants... I believe it is a question of intention. Is the piece altered because one does not have the background knowledge, has not thoroughly investigated a music, or is performing in inaccurately because of a lack of attention to nuance? Or is it altered via slight changes to the melodic line or rhythm because of the way it is transferred to others; because music lives and changes organically?
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see how the "telephone game" principal can apply to everything over time. With the music and dance being passed on by what listeners glean from a performance leaves their performance largely dependent on their own interpretation. Each person will add their own inflections and personality to their performance and that will morph the performance for ever. With modern notation we (for the most part) negate the potential for music to change so drastically which is something that I feel detracts from the music itself. Everyone should perform music in an intrinsically pleasing way, not just spit back what's on the page.
ReplyDeleteBut also without notation, a lot of music would be lost with the modernization of the world such as what is happening in Korea. Without the government stepping in and saying that traditional music is important and should be archived, recorded, and performed, the music of the ancient people of Korea would be lost to K-pop and other forms of popular, exported media. So while notation may take out the personal relationship one might have with performing and learning a piece aurally through culture and tradition, notation can keep that telephone effect from hanging up when there's nobody left to pick up the phone.
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