Response to Shelemay Reading After the listening examples and discussion on Wednesday, I found the sound of the Armenian Duduk piqued my interest. Perhaps I was interested due to the fact that the listening example of the Duduk fits better in my narrow perception of music better than others, but other than that, I found it interesting that every aspect of the music was very aligned, the timbre and melody all pointed towards a character of slight melancholy and mystery. This becomes interesting when compared to how the Shelemay reading (2017) mentions that the Duduk represents an inherent Armenian identity(p. 35), as connections could be made to the social characters of the ethnic origin of the instrument. Notably, this character differs from the instrument’s original use which is for social festivals, but it is coherent with how it is used outside of its original culture, for example in a piece “Duduk of the North” by Hans Zimmer used in Gladiator(2000) to enhance moments of sad but not tragic resolution. After learning about the Duduk it also makes more sense of why the composer chose to use the Armenian instrument which was once historically a part of the Roman Empire where the movie is set. The second example which I found fascinating was the North Indian Sitar which I found interesting because, in the Shelemay reading, it mentions that the Indian musical system had later adopted a scale system very similar to the Western solfège system (p. 44) and this was possible because it would not alter their music dramatically, and it is a specific example the amazing fact that a few scale systems came to exist and accommodate all the different types of music around the world without communication with each other. This prompts me to question how the entire human race has come to know music and sound throughout our evolution and how these sounds have embedded themselves into our natural system. Aside from that, after listening to another example of Indian sitar music, the “Spirit of India” album by Ravi Shanker, I gradually began to notice clearly hear the different musical lines and the texture, mostly polyphonic and harmonic texture at times, it created and the noted use of a drone, which is again a coincidental musical occurrence that happens worldwide. Additionally, I learned that according to Narayanan (2002) the sitar is culturally considered a “female” instrument in India which is why there are more female players and the major reason for this is that it is a instrument that is not as physically demanding as some other “male instruments” which includes different aerophones which historically required larger lung capacity (p. 1).
Bibliography Narayanan, R. (2002, May 22). Sitar. Retrieved from http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_597_2005-01-04.html Shelemay, K. K. (2015). Soundscapes: Exploring music in a changing world. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.