Pour passer la Rhone and Passez pompon les carillons.

Title: Pour passer la Rhone and Passez pompon les carillons.

Performer(s): Elementary school aged children.

Culture: France
Instruments: Children's voices

Lew and Campbell (2005) describe musical play as universal and deeply specific to the culture of children. Not only is it specific to child culture, but it is also used as a vehicle to learn the larger value about the cultural norms in which they live. In the video posted above, the children use rhythm and singing to play and mimic the Westernized value of taking turns. Children's musical play is deeply important to figuring out the world around them and learning the social values of their surroundings.

References:

Lew, J. C., & Campbell, P. S. (2005). Children's Natural and Necessary Musical Play: Global Context, Local Applications. Music Educators Journal, 91(5), 57-62. Retrieved November 24, 2017.

The Drop That Contained the Sea

The Drop That Contained the Sea

Title: The Drop that Contained the Sea

Performer(s): Angel City Chorale, Kardeş Türküler, Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Soweto Gospel Choir, Nominjin, Dulce Pontes, Roopa Mahadevan, Anonymous 4, Schola Cantorum, Soweto Gospel Choir

Culture: United States, Turkey, Bulgaria, South Africa, Mongolia, Portugal, Ancient Greece, Norway, Uganda 
Instruments: Male voices, female voices, and western orchestra.

"The Drop That Contained the Sea" is a excellent example of newly-composed world music. Campbell (2004) states that this type of music can and should be created as long as the composer studies the inspiring music amply and throughly and respects the tradition of the culture. 

Christopher Tim does an outstanding job using his inspirations from 10 different world music traditions, and featuring traditional music ensembles, to create a story about the natural flow of water on the Earth; from the melting snow to oceans. Mr. Tin's writing is both a conservation of world music and an extension on each of the ten traditional musics.

I use the composition with my high-school students to give examples of some of the activities, such as groove, interlocking parts, theme, scale, and timbre, Campbell (2004) describes for make creating world music.

References:

Campbell, P. S. (2004). Teaching music globally: experiencing music, expressing culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

The Drop That Contained the Sea. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2017, from https://christophertin.com/albums/thedropthatcontainedthesea.html

Shalom Aleichem

Shalom Aleichem

Title: Shalom Aleichem

Performer(s): Diana Samu-Pandzarisz (Vocals) and Balazs Dongo Szokolay

Culture: Spain (Jewish State)
Instruments: Female voice and flute.

Diana's ensemble focuses on replicating Jewish music, particularly sheperdic, and portraying it in as if it were being done it its home setting. Koops (2010), specifically touches on this type of authentic performance and it's values.  Sephardi music is the music of Jews who lived and flourished in the Iberian penninsula for centuries until they were expelled with the Muslims in 1492. Sephardi Jews or Shepardim took their language and culture, including their musical traditions, from North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and countries in the Middle East where they settled. The lingua franca of Shepardim is Ladino (of Judeo-Spanish) which is based on medeival Castilian and written in Hebrew script.

References:

Jewish Music: A Selection of Contemporary Jewish Music. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2017, from http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/selections-of-jewish-music#sephardi

Koops, L. H. (2010). Can't We Just Change the Words? Music Educators Journal. 97(1), 23-28. doi:10.1177/0027432110376892

Pilence Pee

Pilence Pee

Title: Pilence Pee

Performer(s): The Bulgarian State Radio Vocal Choir

Culture: Bulgaria
Instruments: Female voice. The video below provides a good explanation of the unique vocal phonation.

Pilence Pee English Translation:

Where is the long rifle?

Where is the French sabre?

There is a plain wide field.

There’s a green forest behind the field.

In the forest a tall tree.

Tall and with a big trunk.

On the tree, there is a birdie, a little nightingale;

The birdie is singing, talking:

Those who have beautiful beloved ones

Let make love to them and never have enough,

Because turbulent years are coming,

So he won’t regret later.

This piece is through-composed to emphasize the importance of the text or the "story" with melismatic improvisations by sections and individuals during the ensemble drone. The through-composed structure and more risqué lyrical content is new to the The Bulgarian State Radio Vocal Choir, who up until the fall of Communism, was controlled and censored by the Bulgarian government who created the ensemble to promote and serve the State. 

Gammelkäring

Gammelkäring

Title: Gammelkäring

Performer(s): Myrkur Øksemorder

Culture: Nordic (Northern Denmark)

Instruments: Female voice and nyckelharpa. A nyckelharpa is a traditional Swedish musical instrument. It is a string instrument or chordophone. Its keys are attached to tangents which, when a key is depressed, serve as frets to change the pitch of the string.The nyckelharpa is similar in appearance to a fiddle or the big Sorb geige or viol. Structurally, it is more closely related to the hurdy-gurdy, both employing key-actuated tangents to change the pitch.

The nyckelharpa is a very intriguing instrument as it can be classified as a chordophone. A  chordophone can be defined as "sound produced by vibrating string" (Wade, 2013, p.39) Further more, a nyckelharpa can be considered a composite chordophone, meaning that there is more one string producing the sound. In this particular instance, instrument classification is useful because it allows the listener to be comparative to instruments in their own culture. This can help listeners to better understand the original sound source and better relate to the new sound.

Wade, B. C. (2013). Thinking musically: experiencing music, expressing culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

Adi Tala Konnakol Solo

Adi Tala Konnakol Solo

Title: Adi Tala Konnakol Solo

Performer(s): Vidushi Smt Sukkanya Ramgopal and Ensemble

Culture: South India

Instruments: Karnatic ensemble: Mridangam, Kanjira - a small tambourine, Ghatam - a clay pot, Tavil - a two headed drum played with sticks at one end and thimbles at the other, and Morsing - a mouth harp or 'Jew's' harp. 11 The melodic instruments in the Karnatic ensemble are Violin, Vina - a fretted stringed instrument, Bamboo Flute, Nagasvaram - a double-reed wind instrument. The fundamental pitch or key centre from which the ensemble tunes is the Tambura, a four stringed long necked drone instrument. 

Konnakol is a vocal expression of rhythm that has been primarily passed down through aural and oral transmission. Within the last one hundred years or so, note taking has been permitted for the memorization process but never in performance. Ethnomusicology informs us that South Indian Classical musicians have a heightened understanding of rhythm and that the transmission system (pedagogy) for konnakol creates musicians who have a deep understanding of their craft and the part they play in ensemble performance.