klezmer melodic contours 2

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

Josh answered:

Hi Aron,

your questions are no trouble at all.  

The *overlapping contours* term was not used in the sense of Schenker's
Ursatz and combinatorial levels, although you certainly CAN ascertain a
scaffolding level of structure very easily. For instance if you take the
common shabes tune Yismekhu in D Freygish, which is played by many bands
as a klezmer tune, the opening section would have a MELODY Ursatz of
D....F#....a...c...C...Eb...D

Since Schenkerian analysis is based upon functional harmony, it's not
the best model for modal music which is not harmonically based, though
you can extract some of his ideas and apply if you want to dig into it.
I wrote a very extensive article on the freygish modes which suggests a
model for analysing the modes, and it is still awaiting publication in
Musica Judaica after being accepted 5 years ago(!) If you provide me
with your address, I can send it to you. Please quote it propoerly if
you use it.

There are 2 basic kinds of overlapping contours which exist in the
modality of klezmer music

1) Those with the same pitch and intervallic content but different
tonics

2) Those with the same basic contour (ascending and descending movement)
but not necessarily with the same pitch and intervallic contour

The 1st case involves related modes. Example:
Take the mode D freygish (D Eb F# G A Bb C D)
and the mode C Mishebarakh (C D Eb F# G A Bb C)

Both of the above modes have the same basic pitch content (there are
actually differences, but for the sake of presentation, let's ignore
them). A typical motive for BOTH of them is the following line:

G F# G A Bb A G F# G

This line occurs in both modes frequently in exactly the same way.
So this is a case of the same movement, pitch and intervallic content
but different fundamental tones (The tonic of D freygish is D, whereas
the tonic of C mishebarakh is C)

In the 2nd case:

let's take 2 DIFFERENT modes with DIFFERENT pitch groups, but in this
case with the same tonic, D:

D Freygish (D Eb F# G A Bb C D)
and D Mishebarakh (D E F G# A B C D)

comparing a typical cadence form of both we get for D freygish:

A G G F# F# Eb Eb D D

and for D Mishebarakh: A G# G# F F E E D D

In both cases, the movement is the same, but the intervals and pitch
groups are different. Yet this line is typical to both modes. In fact,
the entire *contour vocabulary* of klezmer music pretty much overlaps
everywhere from mode to mode whereas the intervallic structure is the
main differentiating point of the modes. True, there are very specific
motives in each mode which are unique to that particular mode, and they
usually have a very specific function (i.e. modulatory, transitional and
cadential), but in general, you can almost take the contour of one tune
and transfer it to a different mode and get a fairly logical new tune
without much adjustment. Try it some time.

The concept of *passing notes* does not work as it does in
counterpoint, which is where the term has its origins. The difference is
that with contrapuntal passing tones you are dealing with the musical
space separating one consonance from another, in which case the passing
tones serve to connect moments of repose through stepwise motion using
intervals which can be both dissonant and consonant against another, or
several voices. It assumes a priori at least 2 carefully controlled
voices.

In the modality of klezmer music, you are not dealing with dissonance in
the same way. There is no strictly controlled usage of voices, nor a
theoretical aesthetic governing the concept of dissonance as you have in
counterpoint. You DO have stepwise moving lines which connect moments of
repose, but these *pillars* (moments of repose) do not require a system
of approach and release which you get with the concept of *consonance
and passing tones*.

Schenker's analyses of classical music do deal broadly with the concept
of passing tones in the contrapuntal sense, though he widened his ideas
to include all the situations of dissonance which ocurred up till the
end of the Romantic period. His concept is based upon multi-voiced
controlled dissonance and homophonic music, expanded to include
multi-voiced chromatic harmony, but his thinking is a synthesis of the
contrapuntal system of Fux combined with the functional thinking of
Rameau combined with the algebraic system of Sergei Ivanovich Taneiev.

My main criticism of Schenker is that he concentrates on the resulting
phenomenon of structure in a piece and not the PROCESS used to get
there. If you analyse the METHODS used to achieve a result, your
analysis will have a completely different meaning than if you extract a
common *cake form* from all the pieces of an era and then try to fit
every piece into that mold. No composers thought structurally like
Schenker.

Schenker's technique of analysis can be likened to taking a poem and
finding all the capital letters in each line, calling their collection
the basic *Ursatz*, then finding all the vowels and calling those the
*Urlinie*, then finding all the remaining consonants and calling those
*elaboration*. Each combinatorial stage of analysis is then called
*fundamental structure*(capital letters), *Middle ground*(vowels) and
*foreground* (elaborative consonants). All of that tells you absolutely
nothing about the thought process, aesthetics, techniques or intent of
the composer. I never understood why he became such a cult figure in the
annals of academia. I suppose making complex compositions into even more
complex analyses is appealing to many composition departments, and keeps
students busy for years just trying to understand the system of
analysis. Josh

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