Talk about Takadimi

Musicians across cultures have varying opinions on the concepts of beats, meters, and how to count them.  This can range from a gong keeping the rhythm steady or an internal pulse that every musician is expected to count out in their head.  Counting is an essential part of becoming a skilled and reputable musician in our western society today!

However, “counting” may not be the best term for it because many systems from other cultures don’t use numbers at all. In the early 1990’s three men (Richard Hoffman, William Pelto, and John W. White) came together determined to create the most well rounded rhythmic system.  Their plan was to compile thousands of years worth of organizational systems and borrow and cut ideas where needed to create the a system that could be used both by children and college students. After years of research they came up with the “Takadimi System”. Before they even began to formulate their new system Hoffman, Pelto, and White came up with 6 points that they believed to be absolutely essential for their system to work properly.  Their criteria are as follows:

1. It should lead to accuracy and musicality in performance,

both studies and sight-read, including the ability to

recognize and perform musical gesture.

2. It should require and reflect an understanding of rhythmic

structure, recognition of metric and rhythmic interaction,

and an awareness of precise contextual location of beats and

attack points.

3. It should facilitate aural recognition and identification of

rhythmic patterns and metric divisions.

4. It should provide a precise and consistent language for the

discussion of temporal phenomena. There should be no need

to create new terms or separate categories for performance,

transcription, or analytical work.

5. It should address rhythmic issues presented by musics

outside the realm of traditional tonal literature such as

asymmetric meters, modulation of meter or tempo, complex

syncopations, complex tuplet groupings, and passages that

combine these in novel and challenging ways.

6. Like pitch solfège, it should be a system that is easily

applied and adapts to broad applications, and it should be a

tool for life-long use.

To come up with these six points they looked back at older systems such as the Hungarian Kodaly Method and the 19th Century French Time-Names system.  From there they began to formulate the Takadimi system.

The Takadimi system is comprised of many syllables that are used for a specific place in each beat.  In simple meter, the attack on the beat is called ‘ta’ and an attack on the second half of the beat is always called ‘di.’ When the beat is divided further into fourths, it would be pronounced ‘ta ka di mi.’ They used and expanded version of these syllables to accommodate for the more complex compound meters which is “Ta-Va-Ki-Di-Da-Ma”.  In these meters, as in simple meter, the attack on the beat is called ‘ta.’ The first division into thirds is pronounced ‘ta ki da.’ The subdivision into sixths is pronounced ‘ta va ki di da ma.’  

This is an example used for third graders, which shows the age versatility of this system. Both Brian and Hannah can recall students having problems counting rhythm not because they don’t understand it, but because they lose track of the numbers. The takadimi system seems to lend itself well to young children who do not want to depend on numbers!a

As you can see the syllables Ta and Di are used where we would use 1 and 2.  Va, Ki, Da, Ma, and sometimes Ti are used to as subdivisions within the beat. The pictures below were created by the founders of the system to help explain how it works.

It is easy to see the similarities in how we count music to this system.  We are obviously far more comfortable with simply counting “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and” rather than “Ta Ka Di Mi Ta Ka Di Mi”, however, there seem to be some innate benefits to each system.  For example, I can’t figure out an easy way to keep track of the which beat I am on when using Takadimi while it is hard to lose track of it when you are saying the numbers out loud on the beat as we typically do.  A common problem we run into while using numbers to keep the beat steady is saying the entire number in one beat.  If the rhythm is faster it can become very hard to say “three”, that is why many people choose to say “tee” rather than three.  Both systems are viable and used by many people and cultures.  Once again it becomes clear that there is not one right way; often times, familiarity and comfort play a role in what system we chose to use.

Brian: Writing
Hannah: Media and editing

Fun with Tuning

An Overview of Western Tuning

Tuning, as a concept, is not as simple as Western practices make it out to be. The western beliefs on tuning seem natural to us because we have been trained for years to hear them. Perhaps the best example of Western 12-tone tuning is on the piano, which is specifically in equal temperament. This means each pitch is separated by the same interval (100 cents). Instruments of fixed-pitch in Western music (pianos, organs, etc.) are tuned in equal temperament. Other western instruments can be approached using pythagorean tuning (a system of fifths and fourths) or just tuning which attempts to make all chords and harmonies as consonant as possible.  

Take these three examples of the same piece played with different tuning methods. Remember that equal temperament is mostly found on pianos, as other instruments are rather hard to play with perfect 100 cent intervals.

Equal Temperament:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6XkgNT20Eg

Hear that the leading tones seem somewhat flat, though octaves are in tune.

Just Intonation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdL8aPQUOk0

Notice the half steps now seem to wide and don’t carry the melody as well.

Pythagorean Tuning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq-SrgV7_Ow

Listen and observe how the wider whole steps and narrow half steps make leading tones pleasing to hear. However, thirds and sixths may seem out of tune.

Of course, no performance of this Bach Air is going to follow the rules of these tuning systems to a matter of cents. Each system has its advantages and disadvantages; the trouble is determining what adjustments to make to each pitch to find a happy medium between these tuning mechanisms.

If this much variability exists in Western tuning, do we as Westerners really have the right to believe our ways are inherently better?

The Gamelan

Perhaps one of the most diverse musical traditions from that we are used to is the Javanese and Balinese Gamelan. Note that Gamelan refers to the type of ensemble, in which many percussive (often pitched) instruments are played. Even within this Indonesian tradition, there are variants in tuning methods. Generally speaking the two main forms of tuning are slendro and selog. Slendro consists of five notes within an octave, evenly spaced, while pelog employs seven pitches in an octave in uneven intervals. Not only are the intervals of tuning foreign to westerners, but the pitches within the scale as well. It is fair to say that there is not one set of specific pitches a gamelan is tuned to, while you would make the opposite argument about a piano or organ (assume 440hz as a standard western tuning pitch).

Slendro and pelog tunings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ku9iH2pU9g

Notice that unlike our western instruments, which can usually play the scale we need without much change, the gamelan requires an entire change in instrument to go between tunings. This makes for song pieces set in slendro tuning and some set in pelog; these would be played on different instruments. Traditional Indonesian gamelan players appreciate these variants in pitches, while a western trained ear pay perceive them as out of tune. In fact, most gamelan groups are not “tuned” to one another, causing discrepancies depending on which gamelan you listen to:

http://www.gamelan-bali.eu/_Media/relative-pitch-several.gif

This is a chart showing a comparison between gamelan ensembles and what pitches they use. “ding” refers to the lowest sounding note while “ding octave” is the upper note. The notes between are placed at their respective interval. While the ratios between notes remain somewhat similar (such as the smaller distances between “dung” and “dang”), playing all these “dung” and “dang” together would result in a wide range of notes.

In Conclusion

The idea of tuning is so arbitrary that it is hard to say if there is a correct way of tuning or even if one system is better than another.  Even in our Western culture there are multiple different ways to tune one instrument.  Tuning is one of the many ways cultures identify themselves through music.  A twelve tone chromatic scale on a piano sounds “correct” to our ears while a five tone Slendro scale will sound odd or out of tune, however, that does not make the Chromatic scale any more “correct” than the Slendro scale.  How a culture tunes their instruments is simply a representation of how they use music to express themselves.  Therefore, every method of tuning is just as reputable as the next.

Hannah Gorham: Writing

Brian Loughridge: Media  

Works Referred:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamelan

http://www.gamelan-bali.eu/pitch_and_tuning.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_temperament

Donellan, Grant. "Tuning Systems". 13 February 2016. Print.

Musicians and Performers: Who are they?

Brian Loughridge

Hannah Gorham

  

In our western culture we often hear people say things such as, "Everyone's a musician! You can sing, right? You're a musician!".  We have grown accustomed to the idea that practically anyone can be a musician if they want to; some people are just more musically inclined than others. It should be noted that idea is a very modern and western belief.  For centuries, the title of musician could only be obtained after years of training and perfecting a certain instrument or musical style. What we now consider "professional" musicians performed only for the highest class in a society and would rarely been seen by the lower classes. It wasn't until the renaissance period that the development of printing made distribution of music possible on a much larger scale.  This was the first time that notated music was easily accessible to the working class. The cultural boom that was the Renaissance Period gave birth to the Bourgeois class, a producing class with nothing to sell but their capacity to work and perform.  This working class of musicians was the precursor to every musical genius' that came out of the lower classes.

Although the working classes in England did not have notated music and were not considered "musicians" before the Renaissance, they still had their own way of musically expressing themselves. Troubadours and minstrels (medieval music makers) were a form of entertainment for both the working class and upper class. Much of their popularity came from their poetic ability in singing songs, not necessarily technical musical proficiency:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/A_Chantar2.ogg

Example of Medieval troubadour music

If this group of people performed with this level of musicianship before the renaissance why were they not considered "musicians" until they had notated music?  What separates a musician from someone who is just performing on the street? The modern troubadour still plays on the side of the street in America, yet we consider them a musician without a doubt.  Why would the street performer not be consider a musician then, but is considered a musician in our Western culture today?  All of these questions will have very different answers depending on where you are in the world when you ask them.  For example, when Bonnie Wade, the author of Thinking Musically, went to Bulgaria she asked her guide to introduce her to a local musician and  was taken to see the local Trumpeter.  After realizing that they considered him, not a local folk instrumentalist, to be a musician she was left wanting something less western.  She asked her guide if there were any vocal groups in town.  The guide told her that she was part of a local vocal group, but she failed to understand what connection there was between a man playing the trumpet and a group of people singing together.  In her mindset, there was no connection between this so called "Musician" and her vocal group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_gm0j1H1kc

Bulgarian vocal performance

As westerners, would we not call this music?  Why then, did Wade's guide see no connection between the two? Perhaps such  acts of culture are so ingrained in daily life that to seperate them as "special" defeats their purpose.

The word musician comes from the Latin origin musica which through French and English influence became music as we know it today.  Many European motifs and musical influences greatly affected what we know as Western music today.  Therefore, the term musician is completely European and Western.  When music makers from other cultures hear the word musician it is immediately associated with Western music.  That is why Wade's guide in Bulgarian was confused as to why she was looking for a musician as well as the local vocal group.  Musicians and a cultural own personal way of expressing themselves musically is often very separate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt41UrsGJJs

Qu'ran recitation

  

This recitation of the Quran is a perfect example of how cultures separate "music" and their own cultural expression.  Westerners hear this man recite the Quran and immediately associate it with a musically performance.  His culture, however, keep music and the recitation of the Quran very separate.  In their culture, music is very secular and used only for celebration or enjoyment while the recitation of the Quran is a very holy and divine act.  In fact, referring to this recitation as music can be and is very offensive to many people.

These examples show how expressing art in cultures varies greatly and the word "music" is just a title our culture as given these expressions.  No one can argue what is and what is not music because the idea of music is separately defined in every culture and every mind.

Hannah Gorham: Media + Writing Editing

Brian Loughridge: Writing