Photos and sound file at here at the Christian Science Monitor.
How one Southern church forges unity through voice
The centuries-old tradition of Sacred Harp, a form of choral singing in which anyone can participate, draws people to a spare church in rural Alabama once a year.
By Carmen K. Sisson | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the May 28, 2008 edition
Nauvoo, Ala. - The road to Liberty Grove Primitive Baptist Church meanders through northern Alabama, a lazy, looping ribbon of smooth blacktop at times, a treacherous snake of faded, broken gray asphalt at others. It's a path not unlike that of faith. Not unlike that, at times, of life itself.
Voices rise and fall in the breeze, audible long before you see the simple wooden church resting beneath a canopy of hundred-year-old oaks. The doors and windows are open, and music pours out across the desolate landscape, winding through the trees and lifting through billowing white clouds to a heaven of clear blue sky.
The music is Sacred Harp, a nondenominational form of choral singing that encourages community participation. Despite suggestions that the tradition is dying, there are singings from Chicago to San Francisco, and even the United Kingdom, every week, some attracting as many as 1,000 participants.
Slick CDs are being produced, and professors from around the world are hunching over atlases and MapQuest directions, trying to find their way to churches like Liberty Grove, hoping to study a culture that has become synonymous with the rural South but began in the singing schools of colonial England.
Today, fans of the music face a steep challenge – how to bolster the momentum of Sacred Harp and continue to make an ancient folk tradition relevant in today's modern world.
Liberty Grove, established in 1835, is the type of church typically associated with Sacred Harp. The church interior is unadorned. Bare pine walls. Plain metal fans and naked bulbs dotting the pine ceiling. Worshippers scattered among straight pine pews in uneven clusters, their hands rising and falling in 4/4 rhythm, down on the first beat, up on the third. Feet keep time as well.
Everything here is about time. Man's journey through life. God's infinite presence from creation through eternity. The music itself, sparse and raw, hearkening to a world where salvation and redemption were the backbone of rural culture.
The songs, culled from an 1844 hymnal, The Sacred Harp, were updated in 1991. The music is a style of shape-note singing, also known as fasola, in which the notes are printed in special shapes that help the reader identify them on the musical scale.
The songs center around death and resurrection, sin and repentance, minor keys lending a sad poignancy. Despite the name, there is no instrumental accompaniment. "Sacred harp" refers to what followers say is a God-given instrument – the human voice.
Singers face one another in straight-backed wooden chairs forming a hollow square – men on one side, women on the other – altos, basses, tenors, and trebles holding songbooks they no longer need to read.
The music is entrenched, etched into memory by childhood Sundays that seemed too long – itchy, starched dresses and pinching patent leather shoes, choking ties and hair slicked down with mothers' spit.
• • •
"Fa so la," Arthur Gilmore begins, his deep voice providing the pitch to guide the singers. From his position in the center of the square, he gets an experience unique to the leader – a wall of sound buffeting from four directions in quadraphonic stereo. There'll be no sermon today. Never is. The songs themselves are lessons for the followers, but religion is left on the doorstep, as are politics.
The purpose is the music, and its unique sound attracts people from all walks of life, from Buddhists to Jews. Sacred Harp singing is participation more than performance, open to anyone who wishes to enjoy it, out of spirituality, curiosity, or a love for music.
Dr. Eric Eliason, a music professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, is one who has come to participate in the once-a-year event at Liberty Grove. He says he's taught Sacred Harp for years, but just began singing five months ago when he discovered a group meeting weekly 10 minutes from his house.
"I thought it was a Southern thing," Mr. Eliason says, filling his plate during the customary dinner on the grounds here, spread upon a long picnic table beneath the trees. For visitors like Eliason, the home-cooked meal, prepared over several days, is exotic. Sweet potato cobbler, fried okra, Coca-Cola ham, coconut cake, banana pudding. For others, it's everyday food, another day in the South.
Though some attribute the resurgence of Sacred Harp to its vignette in the movie "Cold Mountain," Eliason says it began rebounding in the 1970s thanks to singers like Bob Dylan, who spawned a renewed interest in folk music. Dr. Warren Steel, a professor of music at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss., says technology has helped fuel the movement. Mr. Steel runs a website devoted to fasola and attends singings 30 weekends a year.
Today, both he and Eliason have been invited to lead. There's no pressure. If the singers falter, they begin again. Steel says singings still fulfill their original purpose – to gather communities together in a world where religion can be divisive and the arts are a commodity. "You can't buy this," Steel says. "You can't make money off it."
Still, there is some money involved. Liberty Grove gives $3,000 in scholarships every year and is seeking a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts and donations to build a music and cultural center. The purpose is to promote Sacred Harp singing, but other traditional music will be featured as well. The church has also taken advantage of technology, producing CDs, brochures, and operating a website.
Despite the publicity, everyone admits attendance is waning. There was a time when a singing like this would draw people from across the state to pile food and blankets into wagons and travel the dusty roads leading to the church. In later years, there were shiny campers and children buying snow cones from vendors, heedless to the white dresses and shirts that often fell victim to sticky-sweet rivulets of colored syrup.
• • •
Those days are gone now. The creek bed is dry, the tin dippers and wooden pails giving way to indoor plumbing and the steady beat of progress. Snow cone vendors haven't been here for years. The grounds now are spacious. A scant 40 people have gathered today in this one-red-light town of 284 people. Yet still, they come. And still, they sing.
Septuagenarian Sarah Beasley-Smith stares heavenward, her voice mingling with the others. Most of the people here today are related to her. Her mother and father met here. Her grandfather taught the singing school. She says the singings remind her of childhood and a time when she thought of this as "old folk's music."
She understands its appeal now. It's become a piece of her heritage she intends to keep alive. "It would have died if we'd kept it in the South," she says.
Seth Holloway leans against a sports car in front of the church, sending text messages and checking his MySpace page on his cellphone. A Christian music producer in Tennessee, Mr. Holloway comes home every year for the celebration he found boring as a child and admits is still somewhat tedious.
People are beginning to leave, a steady stream flowing to a slow trickle until at last the church is silent, windows lowered, doors locked. The wind kicks sand in great sweeps across the church's century-old cemetery. There is history here. Life, death, continuum.
And always, there is song.
Showing posts with label lute/harp/zither. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lute/harp/zither. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
U.S. Releases Seized Iranian Dulcimers to Legendary California Music Professor
Washington DC (USA) --(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The very mention of the word ‘Iran,’ can often trigger a reflexive enforcement response by the U.S. Government. But in the case of Manoochehr Sadeghi, an internationally renowned musician and retired UCLA professor of musicology, reason prevailed, and U.S. officials allowed Professor Sadeghi to take possession of musical instruments that otherwise might have been embargoed under U.S. trade sanctions against Iran.
In August, 2007, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents seized four miniature dulcimers (called santurs in Persian) that a relative in Iran had sent to Professor Sadeghi. After considering a petition by Professor Sadeghi’s attorney, however, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) at the U.S. Department of the Treasury granted Professor Sadeghi a license to import the dulcimers and Customs finally released the instruments to Professor Sadeghi.
Professor Sadeghi was born in Iran in 1938, moved to the United States in 1964 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2001. He is a virtuoso on the santur, an Iranian stringed instrument played with two featherweight mallets. Professor Sadeghi began studying as a child in Iran, performed as a soloist with the Iranian national orchestra and has performed before foreign dignitaries including Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain and the late King Hussein of Jordan. He taught at the Conservatory of Persian Music and, after moving to the United States, became a professor of Persian classical music, theory, history and performance at UCLA. His students have included Daniel Sheehy, the Director of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, and the Hon. Jimmy Delshad, the mayor of Beverly Hills, California and the highest-elected Iranian-American official in the United States.
In Los Angeles, Professor Sadeghi has performed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. He has also performed in Washington, D.C. at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Freer Gallery of Art, and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. He has received the prestigious National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts.
Professor Sadeghi uses the dulcimers to privately teach students, give concert performances, and promote greater understanding of Iranian culture and music. He plans to eventually donate the dulcimers to museums throughout the United States.
Commenting on his receipt of the license, Professor Sadeghi said, “Music transcends all political boundaries and differences. I am enormously grateful to the Treasury Department for not letting our current relations with Iran stand in the way of my receiving these wonderful instruments.”
Professor Sadeghi’s attorney, David H. Laufman, a partner at Kelley Drye & Warren, secured the release of the professor’s seized instruments after persuading OFAC to grant him a license. He stated that “It’s never easy to obtain a license to bring in goods from Iran, particularly in the current enforcement climate. OFAC is to be commended for taking a hard look at the facts and coming to an equitable resolution.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog recently profiled Laufman for his efforts.
Beverly Hills Mayor Delshad commented that “Professor Sadeghi is the world’s leading master of the Persian santur and it has been a privilege to be his pupil.”
In August, 2007, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents seized four miniature dulcimers (called santurs in Persian) that a relative in Iran had sent to Professor Sadeghi. After considering a petition by Professor Sadeghi’s attorney, however, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) at the U.S. Department of the Treasury granted Professor Sadeghi a license to import the dulcimers and Customs finally released the instruments to Professor Sadeghi.
Professor Sadeghi was born in Iran in 1938, moved to the United States in 1964 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2001. He is a virtuoso on the santur, an Iranian stringed instrument played with two featherweight mallets. Professor Sadeghi began studying as a child in Iran, performed as a soloist with the Iranian national orchestra and has performed before foreign dignitaries including Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain and the late King Hussein of Jordan. He taught at the Conservatory of Persian Music and, after moving to the United States, became a professor of Persian classical music, theory, history and performance at UCLA. His students have included Daniel Sheehy, the Director of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, and the Hon. Jimmy Delshad, the mayor of Beverly Hills, California and the highest-elected Iranian-American official in the United States.
In Los Angeles, Professor Sadeghi has performed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. He has also performed in Washington, D.C. at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Freer Gallery of Art, and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. He has received the prestigious National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts.
Professor Sadeghi uses the dulcimers to privately teach students, give concert performances, and promote greater understanding of Iranian culture and music. He plans to eventually donate the dulcimers to museums throughout the United States.
Commenting on his receipt of the license, Professor Sadeghi said, “Music transcends all political boundaries and differences. I am enormously grateful to the Treasury Department for not letting our current relations with Iran stand in the way of my receiving these wonderful instruments.”
Professor Sadeghi’s attorney, David H. Laufman, a partner at Kelley Drye & Warren, secured the release of the professor’s seized instruments after persuading OFAC to grant him a license. He stated that “It’s never easy to obtain a license to bring in goods from Iran, particularly in the current enforcement climate. OFAC is to be commended for taking a hard look at the facts and coming to an equitable resolution.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog recently profiled Laufman for his efforts.
Beverly Hills Mayor Delshad commented that “Professor Sadeghi is the world’s leading master of the Persian santur and it has been a privilege to be his pupil.”
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Ilyas Malayev, 72, Uzbek Musician and Poet, Dies
New York Times
May 7, 2008
Ilyas Malayev, 72, Uzbek Musician and Poet, Dies
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Ilyas Malayev, a musician and poet renowned in Uzbekistan and transplanted to Queens, where he was a legend among fellow Bukharan Jews, died on Friday in Flushing. He was 72 and lived in Forest Hills.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, said Lana Levitin, his manager.
Before emigrating from his native land in Central Asia, Mr. Malayev won fame and official plaudits in the former Soviet Union for his interpretation of the shash maqam, a body of folk melodies and songs that originated as the court music of feudal Bukhara. He also performed his own songs, and wrote lyric poetry in several languages, which he published in the United States under the titles “Milk and Sugar” and “Devon.” Still, he struggled to build a new creative life after immigrating to America in 1992.
“He’s one of maybe half a dozen people in the world who has such a deep knowledge of the shash maqam,” said Walter Z. Feldman, an expert on Ottoman Turkish music, told a reporter for The New York Times in 1997. “What Malayev knows almost nobody knows.”
Mr. Malayev was born in Mary and grew up in Kattakurgan, a small town near Bukhara, where he learned to play the tar and the tambur, string instruments similar to the lute, as well as the violin. He also applied himself to the shash maqam, studying with local teachers and listening to recordings made in the time of the last emir of Bukhara.
In 1951 he moved to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, where he performed in various state-supported ensembles. He appeared with the Uzbek Song and Dance Ensemble from 1952 to 1960, the Ensemble of Singers and Dancers of the Peoples of the World from 1953 to 1956, and the Folk and Variety Orchestras of Uzbekistan Radio from 1956 to 1962. From 1962 to 1992 he performed with the Symphonic Variety Orchestra of Uzbekistan Radio.
Mr. Malayev achieved great popularity as a variety performer and wedding entertainer, combining comedy routines, poetry recitations, excerpts from the shash maqam and his own songs. His performances in stadiums drew tens of thousands of Uzbeks, and his appeal reached beyond his native republic.
“No occasion would be complete without Malayev,” he told a reporter for The New York Times in 1997. “When Brezhnev came to visit, my wife and I always sang.”
Despite his reputation, Mr. Malayev was unable to publish his poetry in the Soviet Union. He attributed this to anti-Semitism. He belonged to a small Jewish minority in a predominantly Muslim (although officially atheist) society. Traditionally, Jews performed as musicians at the court of the Bukharan emirs.
After emigrating, Mr. Malayev found his way to Queens, where an enclave of Bukharan Jews was developing in Rego Park and Forest Hills. He became a central figure in the area’s cultural life, organizing local musicians and singers into an ensemble, Maqam, for which he was an instrumentalist and music director. As the Ilyas Malayev Ensemble, the group released a compact disc on the Shanachie label in 1997 called “At the Bazaar of Love.” After Mr. Malayev’s death, the group was renamed the Ilyas Malayev Ensemble Maqam.
Besides his wife, Muhabbat Shamayeva, a vocalist with the ensemble, Mr. Malayev is survived by two sons, Radj, of Forest Hills, and Gera, of Leonia, N.J.; three daughters, Nargis and Viola, both of Forest Hills, and Bella, of Tel Aviv; 15 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
“While other Central Asian émigré musicians plugged in and sang pop songs in the hope of appealing to a younger crowd, Malayev never abandoned his belief in the power of traditional music and poetry to stir the spirit,” said Theodore Levin, whose book “The Hundred Thousand Fools of God: Musical Travels in Central Asia (and Queens, New York)” includes an affectionate portrait of Mr. Malayev. “A listener didn’t need to understand Uzbek or Tajik to feel the power of his songs and poetry.”
May 7, 2008
Ilyas Malayev, 72, Uzbek Musician and Poet, Dies
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Ilyas Malayev, a musician and poet renowned in Uzbekistan and transplanted to Queens, where he was a legend among fellow Bukharan Jews, died on Friday in Flushing. He was 72 and lived in Forest Hills.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, said Lana Levitin, his manager.
Before emigrating from his native land in Central Asia, Mr. Malayev won fame and official plaudits in the former Soviet Union for his interpretation of the shash maqam, a body of folk melodies and songs that originated as the court music of feudal Bukhara. He also performed his own songs, and wrote lyric poetry in several languages, which he published in the United States under the titles “Milk and Sugar” and “Devon.” Still, he struggled to build a new creative life after immigrating to America in 1992.
“He’s one of maybe half a dozen people in the world who has such a deep knowledge of the shash maqam,” said Walter Z. Feldman, an expert on Ottoman Turkish music, told a reporter for The New York Times in 1997. “What Malayev knows almost nobody knows.”
Mr. Malayev was born in Mary and grew up in Kattakurgan, a small town near Bukhara, where he learned to play the tar and the tambur, string instruments similar to the lute, as well as the violin. He also applied himself to the shash maqam, studying with local teachers and listening to recordings made in the time of the last emir of Bukhara.
In 1951 he moved to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, where he performed in various state-supported ensembles. He appeared with the Uzbek Song and Dance Ensemble from 1952 to 1960, the Ensemble of Singers and Dancers of the Peoples of the World from 1953 to 1956, and the Folk and Variety Orchestras of Uzbekistan Radio from 1956 to 1962. From 1962 to 1992 he performed with the Symphonic Variety Orchestra of Uzbekistan Radio.
Mr. Malayev achieved great popularity as a variety performer and wedding entertainer, combining comedy routines, poetry recitations, excerpts from the shash maqam and his own songs. His performances in stadiums drew tens of thousands of Uzbeks, and his appeal reached beyond his native republic.
“No occasion would be complete without Malayev,” he told a reporter for The New York Times in 1997. “When Brezhnev came to visit, my wife and I always sang.”
Despite his reputation, Mr. Malayev was unable to publish his poetry in the Soviet Union. He attributed this to anti-Semitism. He belonged to a small Jewish minority in a predominantly Muslim (although officially atheist) society. Traditionally, Jews performed as musicians at the court of the Bukharan emirs.
After emigrating, Mr. Malayev found his way to Queens, where an enclave of Bukharan Jews was developing in Rego Park and Forest Hills. He became a central figure in the area’s cultural life, organizing local musicians and singers into an ensemble, Maqam, for which he was an instrumentalist and music director. As the Ilyas Malayev Ensemble, the group released a compact disc on the Shanachie label in 1997 called “At the Bazaar of Love.” After Mr. Malayev’s death, the group was renamed the Ilyas Malayev Ensemble Maqam.
Besides his wife, Muhabbat Shamayeva, a vocalist with the ensemble, Mr. Malayev is survived by two sons, Radj, of Forest Hills, and Gera, of Leonia, N.J.; three daughters, Nargis and Viola, both of Forest Hills, and Bella, of Tel Aviv; 15 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
“While other Central Asian émigré musicians plugged in and sang pop songs in the hope of appealing to a younger crowd, Malayev never abandoned his belief in the power of traditional music and poetry to stir the spirit,” said Theodore Levin, whose book “The Hundred Thousand Fools of God: Musical Travels in Central Asia (and Queens, New York)” includes an affectionate portrait of Mr. Malayev. “A listener didn’t need to understand Uzbek or Tajik to feel the power of his songs and poetry.”
Friday, August 31, 2007
A Dylan on the Persian Lute, With a Songbook of Sly Protest
September 1, 2007
A Dylan on the Persian Lute, With a Songbook of Sly Protest
By NAZILA FATHI
TEHRAN
He plays the setar, a traditional Persian lute, and is a master of classical Persian literature and poetry. But the sounds he draws from the instrument, along with his deep voice and his playful but subtly cutting lyrics about growing up in an Islamic state have made Mohsen Namjoo the most controversial, and certainly the most daring, figure in Persian music today.
Some call him a genius, a sort of Bob Dylan of Iran, and say his satirical music accurately reflects the frustrations and disillusionment of young Iranians. His critics say his music makes a mockery of Persian classical and traditional music as he constantly blends it with Western jazz, blues and rock.
Mr. Namjoo, 31, is a singer, composer and musician, but most of all, his fans say, he is a great performer.
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“I wanted to save Persian music,” he said in an interview at one of his studios in Tehran. “It does not belong to the present time and cannot satisfy the younger generation. The fact is that Persian music is very close to other styles, and it is possible to mix in other styles with a little shrewdness.”
His blending of Western and Persian music produces unexpected moments that jar the traditionalists but are thrilling to his fans, who are mostly young artists and intellectuals. His music sounds Persian, but the melodies take away the melancholy that often suffuses classical Persian music.
But it is Mr. Namjoo’s lyrics, his fans say, that make his music so important. He sings old Persian poetry, such as works by the 13th-century mystic poet Rumi or the 14th-century poet Hafiz, with its connotations of love and lust. But with his mastery of Persian literature, he is able to write his own lyrics into the accepted forms, adding layers of meaning.
“The first time I listened to his music I found it unexpected,” said Mahsa Vahdat, a 33-year-old singer. “It started with a laugh for me and ended with a cry. His music and his lyrics express the bitter situation of my generation and they represent the society we live in.”
Defying Iran’s cultural police, he does not shy away from contemporary issues.
“What belongs to us is an apologetic government,” he sings in a song called Neo-Kanti. “What belongs to us is a losing national team.” Those were references to the widespread disappointment with the government of the former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, and the constant losses of Iran’s soccer teams.
“What belongs to us, maybe, is the future,” he adds, in a voice that is more resigned than hopeful.
In another popular song he sings, “One morning you wake up and realize that you are gone by the wind, there is no one around you and a few more of your hairs have gone gray, your birthday is a mourning ceremony again.”
After throwing in an unexpected Western melody, he goes on in a lower voice, saying, “that you are born in Asia is called the oppression of geography, you are up in the air and your breakfast has become tea and a cigarette.”
Atabak Elyassi, a musician and a professor of music at Music College at Art University in Tehran, said there was protest and satire in Mr. Namjoo’s music. “In the meantime, it is very Iranian,” he said, “because he constantly points to issues that are about the lives of Iranians.”
Mr. Namjoo was raised in the religious city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran, where he started learning classical Persian music when he was 12.
As he grew older, he said, he listened to Western music and became interested in Jim Morrison, Eric Clapton and the Irish pop singer, Chris de Burgh. He read philosophy and Persian literature, and developed a fondness for a strain of modern Persian poetry that stresses phonetics over the meanings of words.
But what changed his approach more than anything, he said, was his experience in the theater. When he was admitted to the University of Fine Art in 1994, he was told that he had to wait a year before starting classes. So he decided to pass the time studying theater.
“A musical instrument is a medium for a musician to play music,” he said. “So is the voice of a singer, it is like a medium to sing through it. But neither of them is involved in building relations with a living creature.
“But when I studied theater I learned to connect with my audience, and that was when my poems changed,” he said.
It is hard to gauge Mr. Namjoo’s popularity, for he has come of age in a time of intense pressure on Iranian music.
Most music was banned after the 1979 Islamic revolution, with only religious and revolutionary songs deemed appropriate. To this day, women are not allowed to sing. Over time the restrictions were eased, first on classical Iranian music and then, in the mid-1990s, on pop music. But after the election of Iran’s current, conservative president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, music came under a cloud once again.
The authorities canceled a concert of rock and jazz music in Tehran in July. In August, more than 200 people who attended a private rock concert in Karadj, 30 miles west of Tehran, were arrested. The public prosecutor in Karaj, Ali Fallahi, called the concert “satanic,” local news agencies reported.
Mr. Namjoo himself has not yet been able to give a live, public performance, and he has not received a government license to sell his CDs. But he is able to perform privately, his CDs are sold on the black market and, in an inexplicable twist, his songs are played on Iranian radio stations. As of three weeks ago, his manager said, 1.6 million people had downloaded his music from YouTube.
In July, he did receive an invitation to a government ceremony to sing a few songs in praise of Imam Ali, the martyred son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad and the man whom Shiite Muslims consider Muhammad’s legitimate successor. Yet, the room was filled with artists and musicians, rather than government officials.
Because of his cutting-edge style, Mr. Namjoo is under another kind of pressure. Most classical musicians are purists, insisting that the music not be altered in any fashion. They dismiss Mr. Namjoo’s music as absurd because of the way he has incorporated Western influences.
If you take Iranian classical music on one side, and Western music on the other, said one critic, Reza Ismailinia, who runs a small art gallery in Tehran, “then I think Mr. Namjoo’s music is like a caricature in between, or a kind of fantasy.”
But many disagree with Mr. Ismailinia.
“I think he will be remembered as a courageous artist who opened a window toward creating something new and for going beyond traditional barriers,” said Alireza Samiazar, the former director the Contemporary Museum of Art in Tehran. “I think his contribution to our music will be great.”
Undeterred by the critics, Mr. Namjoo says his next ambition is to study music abroad.
“I want to be challenged and get acquainted with Western music,” he said. “I was accepted too easily here.”
Monday, May 14, 2007
A Great Lute Page
Here's a wonderful page on the hitory of the European lute:
http://www.vanedwards.co.uk/history1.htm
http://www.vanedwards.co.uk/history1.htm
Monday, March 12, 2007
The Electric Kantele (Finnish Folk zither)
Arto Sirén: An ancient instrument enters the modern era
(text originally published in Finnish Music Quarterly 3/2003)
Kimmo Pohjonen, Timo Väänänen and
Ismo Alanko around Koistinen model
The electric variant on Finland's national instrument, the kantele, is an open invitation to play and compose not only folk but music in any genre.
The history of the kantele would, in the light of contemporary research, appear to stretch back about two thousand years. Developments were slow until the mid-19th century, when interest grew following the publication of the national epic, the Kalevala. In time, the kantele came to be regarded as Finland's national instrument – a process that was to curb further modifications for decades to come.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the kantele acquired more strings (the traditional model had five), but it was still tuned
chromatically. Not until 1927 did Paul Salminen, a resident of St. Petersburg who settled in Finland in 1919, come up with a concert kantele equipped with a mechanism allowing the player to raise or lower the pitch. It continued to be played in the National Romantic spirit, however, and the sound produced was weak.
Many would claim that the gentle sound of the kantele, which lends itself perfectly to meditation, is in fact one of its strengths. Yet others regard it as the main obstacle to spreading beyond Finland's shores. And indeed, the soft sound was one of the reasons why, at one time, it was obliged to make way for the fiddle and accordion on its native soil, in Finland and Karelia. Since the kantele was rediscovered in the 1970s, its volume has been the subject of growing attention.
Advances in the teaching of the kantele and the growing number of players have made people more aware of the instrument's potential. It has thus expanded into the classical, world music and other arenas, and in doing so encountered challenges of a new kind. Over the past few decades solutions to the problem of audibility have been sought by building instruments of a construction designed to yield a louder sound, and by exploiting electricity and amplification technology.
First electric kantele in the USA
The attitudes of the Finns to the electrification of their national instrument have nevertheless been reserved. The first electric kantele was made not in Finland but in the USA.
This historic instrument was produced in the 1940s by Vilho Saari, an emigrant from Halsua. The impact of the world's first electric kantele remained slight, however, and it did not excite the Finns in the same way as the electric guitar developed at about the same time and destined to sweep the world.
Not until the early 1970s were the first steps towards electrifying the kantele taken in Finland, when the Karelia ensemble led by Edward Vesala and Seppo "Baron" Paakkunainen tried amplifying the sound with microphones. Even so, the instrument still had very narrow application, and external mikes continued to be virtually the only means of amplification. Yet the idea remained ticking over in the minds of players and instrument makers.
Breakthrough slow
A new page was turned in the history of the electric kantele in 1983, when Jussi Ala-Kuha built a 26-stringed electric kantele on the lines of a semi-acoustic electric guitar at his instrument workshop in Kaustinen. This electric kantele by a builder widely known for his guitars and mandolins underwent exhaustive testing with an electric guitar, bass and other instruments.
The experiments and faith in the potential of the new instrument were further enhanced by the EMF kantele microphone patented by Kari Kirjavainen in 1984 and still in widespread use. Also dating from about this time was the 5-stringed electric kantele of innovative design made by Rauno Nieminen. Having successfully passed all the tests, the electric kantele made its appearance in the Salamakantele ensemble from Kaustinen. Among the experimenters were Hannu Saha, who later made the kantele the topic of his doctoral dissertation, and the American-Finn Carl Rahkonen.
Having set off along a new track and been the subject of much debate, the electric kantele met an overwhelming wave of opposition from players. Such slogans as "great new potential", "modern", "revolutionary design" and "kantele enters new spheres" were not compatible with 1980s concepts of the Finnish national instrument. Jussi Ala-Kuha refused to be daunted, however, and continued working on the kantele alongside his other stringed instruments. He still looks upon the acoustic kantele as the basis for his electric models, but has incorporated sound-improving features borrowed from the kanteles of the first half of the 20th century and the zither, a kindred instrument familiar in Central Europe.
“I don't make flat, board-like instruments because I don't consider they produce a good sound,” says Jussi Ala-Kuha. “Instead, I have sought ideas from the models made in the Perho River Valley, the heart of Finnish kantele culture, and used them to build electric ones as well. The main idea throughout has been to amplify the sound of an acoustic.”
Ala-Kuha makes JAK electric kanteles to order as a supplement to his main items, which are guitars and mandolins. Over the years his workshop at Töysä in South Ostrobothnia has produced ten semi-acoustic electric kantele models, the biggest of them fully-mechanised ones with 33-37 strings designed for professional use.
The kantele hits the media
The public at large has really become aware of the existence of the electric kantele over the past few years, through the models designed and manufactured by Hannu Koistinen of Rääkkylä while working on a development project for the concert kantele. But despite the recognition he has received for his work as an instrument builder and to make the instrument better known, the electric kantele was not invented by him. Nor do the slogans employed in advertising the new electric kantele differ much from those applied to the instruments of Ala-Kuha twenty years ago.
In addition to his pioneering development, Koistinen does, however, enjoy a more favourable climate of opinion than his predecessors. This has to some extent assisted marketing of the Koistinen electric kanteles in the past few years and afforded them greater coverage by the media.
Hannu Koistinen, who began making kanteles in the late 1980s, was originally inspired by the work of his father, master kantele maker Otto Koistinen, from the late 1950s onwards. In addition to improving the technical properties and gaining publicity for the instrument, son Hannu is eager to give it a new image.
“The electric kantele opened my eyes to the need to seek out the dynamic aspects of the instrument, and not just its gentle, beautiful sound. Even so, the instrument alone is not sufficient to change the way people think; because an instrument only really comes to life when people start writing new music for it. I shall be interested to see what turns up, and I'm sure that the electric kantele will, like the ordinary kantele, spread further and further afield in the next few years, and no longer be confined to Finland.”
Folk and World Music
Timo Väänänen
with the "Wing" Catchy design
Just recently, Hannu Koistinen has concentrated on developing a whole range of electric kanteles. Alongside the big electric model, his Wings series of instruments with 5-15 strings played at the neck like a guitar has seen the light of day. Despite the widespread interest aroused by the small kanteles equipped with the microphones of Kimmo Sarja of Kaustinen, the Koistinen flagship is the 39-stringed electric kantele in orange Lamborghini paint that has caught people's eyes with its modern design.
“I've found giving the instrument a new design challenging, and I look on design as a major way of modernising the kantele. Because the design is what gives the instrument its image.”
Kantele artist Timo Väänänen has been in on the development of Koistinen electric kanteles since 1997 and is particularly pleased to see the innovations introduced in the small kanteles.
“The small electric kanteles lower the threshold for players thinking of taking up the instrument. They also work well in an ensemble, where they usually assume the role of a comp instrument. A big kantele is much more demanding to play, and it may not be so easy to accommodate in a band. A big electric kantele covers the same register as keyboards, and the quality of the sound can be altered by various effects, just as on an electric guitar. Even so, there is no clear model for using it in an ensemble.”
The big electric kantele has already become very popular, calling forth various views on the music composed for it.
“Kantele development has reached a very dynamic stage,” says Väänänen. “The instrument has lost none of its diversity and will no doubt continue to make progress under the influence of players and builders. I'm very curious to see how the rising generation of kantele players exploit the potential of the electric kantele. They have a bigger than ever range of instruments to choose from, an open mind on music making, and opportunities for better and better tuition. So I reckon that ten years from now, we'll have come a long way in playing the electric kantele.”
Traditional and new sounds
Thanks to the sound-processing options nowadays available with an electric kantele and modern technology, it is impossible to specify any particular sound ideal for the instrument. In the future, the kantele may travel further and further away from its traditional sound and context.
“The kantele of the future will act as a sound source for increasingly synthetic projects,” reckons kantele builder Hannu Koistinen. “Or at least it has all the potential for this. Yet despite all the processing, I don't think the inherent character and timbre of the kantele sound will really change very much. All in all I believe the kantele has just as much chance of making a go of it in world music as any of the other instruments already being used worldwide by the great stars.”
The electric kantele is a marvellous tool for the player who grasps its full potential, but players' sense of style is also being tested more and more as the sound and the ways this is used expand.
“It's important to understand sound qualities in playing the electric kantele,” stresses kantele researcher-musician Hannu Saha. “Failure to do so will destroy both the instrument and its powers of expression. In this respect there are no ready models to work from; in the long run, experience is the best teacher.”
Saha expects the electric kantele to acquire far greater significance in the future. “Yet it's important to remember that it will never fully replace the acoustic kantele. They are two different instruments, just like the acoustic and electric guitar.”
Growing interest
The publicity afforded the Koistinen electric kanteles has aroused growing interest in the models made by others, too. These others include Ala-Kuha, already mentioned, and Pekka Lovikka, who began making kanteles in 1983 and this spring brought out his own electric kantele.
“At first I wondered why make an electric kantele, but when I looked into it, and having made a few, I came to view the potential and idea in a new light. The very look of the flat kantele helps the player to do away with any restricting images of the instrument and to venture out into new fields and listen to it with a new ear,” says Pekka Lovikka, director of Ylitornion Soitintuote.
According to Lovikka, the flat kantele further permits a new kind of contact between player and audience. Despite the innovations and ongoing trends, Lovikka still views the results with humility and restraint. Despite what may seem to have been major steps forwards, he does not see any real limits to the instrument's development. His works produce electric versions of all his big kanteles, and these will shortly be supplemented by a range of small electric ones.
Like Hannu Koistinen, Pekka Lovikka has faith in the future of the electric kantele, but he has not been at such pains to give the instrument a new shape and image. Instead, he wishes to make the potential of present-day electro-acoustics available as such to interested kantele players. One of the users of the Lovikka 39-stringed electric kantele painted an electric shade of blue is Outi Nieminen, a member of the pioneering world music ensemble Piirpauke and now, with her husband Ismaila Sane, of the Senfi duo devoted to Finnish-Senegalese music.
“The sound box kantele is a precious, magnificent instrument and suitable for almost all kinds of music, but not for amplified ensemble playing. That's why for me, at least, the electric kantele is an invaluable tool,” says Outi Nieminen. “Working as I do in a multicultural environment, I can be an equal member of the band even in a big hall, and still be heard. I would say from experience that the electric instrument is enriching kantele music and, with all the new things it has to offer, bringing it closer to young people. This will not, however, take place of its own accord. Instead, players will need to adopt an even more liberal attitude both to the instrument and to different musical styles.”
Another advantage of the electric kantele is that it withstands changes of climate much better than an acoustic one. The Lovikka Electric Tropical model that has just gone on the market will make life much easier for kantele musicians travelling and performing in various corners of the world.
“The great thing about my present instrument is not only that it can be heard better, but also that I can play it in the frozen north or in Tenerife or hottest Africa and it behaves in exactly the same way,” says Outi Nieminen.
Exports reliant on random contacts
The ability to withstand climate changes greatly enhances the export prospects for the kantele. Pekka Lovikka reckons there would be a considerable demand for Finnish kanteles if only the makers and interested buyers could find one another better than at present. Due to the meagre marketing resources, exports are for the time being still to a great extent reliant on random contacts.
One of the bottlenecks in the export of acoustic and electric kanteles is, in Pekka Lovikka's opinion, the lack of tuition in the large instrument abroad. There is great interest, especially in the United States, but it tends to fall off in the absence of teachers and tuition. The high price of the large kanteles also makes people stop and think before investing in one. As the volume of production and the number of manufacturers increase, the prices will probably fall to some extent, but it is pointless to expect any drastic drop as a result of mass production. The price of a large electric kantele of professional standard at present (2003) varies between €3,800 and €10,000, depending on the model and the maker.
Now that the electric kantele has found its niche in Finland, it remains to be seen how it will fare abroad. But thanks to the sustained efforts of a number of people and the new electric models, the kantele is better equipped to satisfy players' wishes and increasingly varied needs.
© Arto Sirén
Translation: © Susan Sinisalo
___________________________________
Photos:
Pohjonen, Väänänen, Alanko: Aki Paavola
Timo Väänänen: Ilari Ikävalko
(text originally published in Finnish Music Quarterly 3/2003)
Kimmo Pohjonen, Timo Väänänen and
Ismo Alanko around Koistinen model
The electric variant on Finland's national instrument, the kantele, is an open invitation to play and compose not only folk but music in any genre.
The history of the kantele would, in the light of contemporary research, appear to stretch back about two thousand years. Developments were slow until the mid-19th century, when interest grew following the publication of the national epic, the Kalevala. In time, the kantele came to be regarded as Finland's national instrument – a process that was to curb further modifications for decades to come.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the kantele acquired more strings (the traditional model had five), but it was still tuned
chromatically. Not until 1927 did Paul Salminen, a resident of St. Petersburg who settled in Finland in 1919, come up with a concert kantele equipped with a mechanism allowing the player to raise or lower the pitch. It continued to be played in the National Romantic spirit, however, and the sound produced was weak.
Many would claim that the gentle sound of the kantele, which lends itself perfectly to meditation, is in fact one of its strengths. Yet others regard it as the main obstacle to spreading beyond Finland's shores. And indeed, the soft sound was one of the reasons why, at one time, it was obliged to make way for the fiddle and accordion on its native soil, in Finland and Karelia. Since the kantele was rediscovered in the 1970s, its volume has been the subject of growing attention.
Advances in the teaching of the kantele and the growing number of players have made people more aware of the instrument's potential. It has thus expanded into the classical, world music and other arenas, and in doing so encountered challenges of a new kind. Over the past few decades solutions to the problem of audibility have been sought by building instruments of a construction designed to yield a louder sound, and by exploiting electricity and amplification technology.
First electric kantele in the USA
The attitudes of the Finns to the electrification of their national instrument have nevertheless been reserved. The first electric kantele was made not in Finland but in the USA.
This historic instrument was produced in the 1940s by Vilho Saari, an emigrant from Halsua. The impact of the world's first electric kantele remained slight, however, and it did not excite the Finns in the same way as the electric guitar developed at about the same time and destined to sweep the world.
Not until the early 1970s were the first steps towards electrifying the kantele taken in Finland, when the Karelia ensemble led by Edward Vesala and Seppo "Baron" Paakkunainen tried amplifying the sound with microphones. Even so, the instrument still had very narrow application, and external mikes continued to be virtually the only means of amplification. Yet the idea remained ticking over in the minds of players and instrument makers.
Breakthrough slow
A new page was turned in the history of the electric kantele in 1983, when Jussi Ala-Kuha built a 26-stringed electric kantele on the lines of a semi-acoustic electric guitar at his instrument workshop in Kaustinen. This electric kantele by a builder widely known for his guitars and mandolins underwent exhaustive testing with an electric guitar, bass and other instruments.
The experiments and faith in the potential of the new instrument were further enhanced by the EMF kantele microphone patented by Kari Kirjavainen in 1984 and still in widespread use. Also dating from about this time was the 5-stringed electric kantele of innovative design made by Rauno Nieminen. Having successfully passed all the tests, the electric kantele made its appearance in the Salamakantele ensemble from Kaustinen. Among the experimenters were Hannu Saha, who later made the kantele the topic of his doctoral dissertation, and the American-Finn Carl Rahkonen.
Having set off along a new track and been the subject of much debate, the electric kantele met an overwhelming wave of opposition from players. Such slogans as "great new potential", "modern", "revolutionary design" and "kantele enters new spheres" were not compatible with 1980s concepts of the Finnish national instrument. Jussi Ala-Kuha refused to be daunted, however, and continued working on the kantele alongside his other stringed instruments. He still looks upon the acoustic kantele as the basis for his electric models, but has incorporated sound-improving features borrowed from the kanteles of the first half of the 20th century and the zither, a kindred instrument familiar in Central Europe.
“I don't make flat, board-like instruments because I don't consider they produce a good sound,” says Jussi Ala-Kuha. “Instead, I have sought ideas from the models made in the Perho River Valley, the heart of Finnish kantele culture, and used them to build electric ones as well. The main idea throughout has been to amplify the sound of an acoustic.”
Ala-Kuha makes JAK electric kanteles to order as a supplement to his main items, which are guitars and mandolins. Over the years his workshop at Töysä in South Ostrobothnia has produced ten semi-acoustic electric kantele models, the biggest of them fully-mechanised ones with 33-37 strings designed for professional use.
The kantele hits the media
The public at large has really become aware of the existence of the electric kantele over the past few years, through the models designed and manufactured by Hannu Koistinen of Rääkkylä while working on a development project for the concert kantele. But despite the recognition he has received for his work as an instrument builder and to make the instrument better known, the electric kantele was not invented by him. Nor do the slogans employed in advertising the new electric kantele differ much from those applied to the instruments of Ala-Kuha twenty years ago.
In addition to his pioneering development, Koistinen does, however, enjoy a more favourable climate of opinion than his predecessors. This has to some extent assisted marketing of the Koistinen electric kanteles in the past few years and afforded them greater coverage by the media.
Hannu Koistinen, who began making kanteles in the late 1980s, was originally inspired by the work of his father, master kantele maker Otto Koistinen, from the late 1950s onwards. In addition to improving the technical properties and gaining publicity for the instrument, son Hannu is eager to give it a new image.
“The electric kantele opened my eyes to the need to seek out the dynamic aspects of the instrument, and not just its gentle, beautiful sound. Even so, the instrument alone is not sufficient to change the way people think; because an instrument only really comes to life when people start writing new music for it. I shall be interested to see what turns up, and I'm sure that the electric kantele will, like the ordinary kantele, spread further and further afield in the next few years, and no longer be confined to Finland.”
Folk and World Music
Timo Väänänen
with the "Wing" Catchy design
Just recently, Hannu Koistinen has concentrated on developing a whole range of electric kanteles. Alongside the big electric model, his Wings series of instruments with 5-15 strings played at the neck like a guitar has seen the light of day. Despite the widespread interest aroused by the small kanteles equipped with the microphones of Kimmo Sarja of Kaustinen, the Koistinen flagship is the 39-stringed electric kantele in orange Lamborghini paint that has caught people's eyes with its modern design.
“I've found giving the instrument a new design challenging, and I look on design as a major way of modernising the kantele. Because the design is what gives the instrument its image.”
Kantele artist Timo Väänänen has been in on the development of Koistinen electric kanteles since 1997 and is particularly pleased to see the innovations introduced in the small kanteles.
“The small electric kanteles lower the threshold for players thinking of taking up the instrument. They also work well in an ensemble, where they usually assume the role of a comp instrument. A big kantele is much more demanding to play, and it may not be so easy to accommodate in a band. A big electric kantele covers the same register as keyboards, and the quality of the sound can be altered by various effects, just as on an electric guitar. Even so, there is no clear model for using it in an ensemble.”
The big electric kantele has already become very popular, calling forth various views on the music composed for it.
“Kantele development has reached a very dynamic stage,” says Väänänen. “The instrument has lost none of its diversity and will no doubt continue to make progress under the influence of players and builders. I'm very curious to see how the rising generation of kantele players exploit the potential of the electric kantele. They have a bigger than ever range of instruments to choose from, an open mind on music making, and opportunities for better and better tuition. So I reckon that ten years from now, we'll have come a long way in playing the electric kantele.”
Traditional and new sounds
Thanks to the sound-processing options nowadays available with an electric kantele and modern technology, it is impossible to specify any particular sound ideal for the instrument. In the future, the kantele may travel further and further away from its traditional sound and context.
“The kantele of the future will act as a sound source for increasingly synthetic projects,” reckons kantele builder Hannu Koistinen. “Or at least it has all the potential for this. Yet despite all the processing, I don't think the inherent character and timbre of the kantele sound will really change very much. All in all I believe the kantele has just as much chance of making a go of it in world music as any of the other instruments already being used worldwide by the great stars.”
The electric kantele is a marvellous tool for the player who grasps its full potential, but players' sense of style is also being tested more and more as the sound and the ways this is used expand.
“It's important to understand sound qualities in playing the electric kantele,” stresses kantele researcher-musician Hannu Saha. “Failure to do so will destroy both the instrument and its powers of expression. In this respect there are no ready models to work from; in the long run, experience is the best teacher.”
Saha expects the electric kantele to acquire far greater significance in the future. “Yet it's important to remember that it will never fully replace the acoustic kantele. They are two different instruments, just like the acoustic and electric guitar.”
Growing interest
The publicity afforded the Koistinen electric kanteles has aroused growing interest in the models made by others, too. These others include Ala-Kuha, already mentioned, and Pekka Lovikka, who began making kanteles in 1983 and this spring brought out his own electric kantele.
“At first I wondered why make an electric kantele, but when I looked into it, and having made a few, I came to view the potential and idea in a new light. The very look of the flat kantele helps the player to do away with any restricting images of the instrument and to venture out into new fields and listen to it with a new ear,” says Pekka Lovikka, director of Ylitornion Soitintuote.
According to Lovikka, the flat kantele further permits a new kind of contact between player and audience. Despite the innovations and ongoing trends, Lovikka still views the results with humility and restraint. Despite what may seem to have been major steps forwards, he does not see any real limits to the instrument's development. His works produce electric versions of all his big kanteles, and these will shortly be supplemented by a range of small electric ones.
Like Hannu Koistinen, Pekka Lovikka has faith in the future of the electric kantele, but he has not been at such pains to give the instrument a new shape and image. Instead, he wishes to make the potential of present-day electro-acoustics available as such to interested kantele players. One of the users of the Lovikka 39-stringed electric kantele painted an electric shade of blue is Outi Nieminen, a member of the pioneering world music ensemble Piirpauke and now, with her husband Ismaila Sane, of the Senfi duo devoted to Finnish-Senegalese music.
“The sound box kantele is a precious, magnificent instrument and suitable for almost all kinds of music, but not for amplified ensemble playing. That's why for me, at least, the electric kantele is an invaluable tool,” says Outi Nieminen. “Working as I do in a multicultural environment, I can be an equal member of the band even in a big hall, and still be heard. I would say from experience that the electric instrument is enriching kantele music and, with all the new things it has to offer, bringing it closer to young people. This will not, however, take place of its own accord. Instead, players will need to adopt an even more liberal attitude both to the instrument and to different musical styles.”
Another advantage of the electric kantele is that it withstands changes of climate much better than an acoustic one. The Lovikka Electric Tropical model that has just gone on the market will make life much easier for kantele musicians travelling and performing in various corners of the world.
“The great thing about my present instrument is not only that it can be heard better, but also that I can play it in the frozen north or in Tenerife or hottest Africa and it behaves in exactly the same way,” says Outi Nieminen.
Exports reliant on random contacts
The ability to withstand climate changes greatly enhances the export prospects for the kantele. Pekka Lovikka reckons there would be a considerable demand for Finnish kanteles if only the makers and interested buyers could find one another better than at present. Due to the meagre marketing resources, exports are for the time being still to a great extent reliant on random contacts.
One of the bottlenecks in the export of acoustic and electric kanteles is, in Pekka Lovikka's opinion, the lack of tuition in the large instrument abroad. There is great interest, especially in the United States, but it tends to fall off in the absence of teachers and tuition. The high price of the large kanteles also makes people stop and think before investing in one. As the volume of production and the number of manufacturers increase, the prices will probably fall to some extent, but it is pointless to expect any drastic drop as a result of mass production. The price of a large electric kantele of professional standard at present (2003) varies between €3,800 and €10,000, depending on the model and the maker.
Now that the electric kantele has found its niche in Finland, it remains to be seen how it will fare abroad. But thanks to the sustained efforts of a number of people and the new electric models, the kantele is better equipped to satisfy players' wishes and increasingly varied needs.
© Arto Sirén
Translation: © Susan Sinisalo
___________________________________
Photos:
Pohjonen, Väänänen, Alanko: Aki Paavola
Timo Väänänen: Ilari Ikävalko
Monday, August 28, 2006
Harp Therapy
New York Times
August 28, 2006
Now in the Recovery Room, Music for Hearts to Heal By
By TINA KELLEY
MORRISTOWN, N.J., Aug. 24 — When George Moran woke up on Tuesday, he thought he had died and gone to heaven.
It was not such an outlandish idea. Mr. Moran, 39, a music teacher in Long Valley, N.J., had had a cardiac valve repaired that morning at Morristown Memorial Hospital. During the surgery, his heart had to be stopped for 90 minutes, and he was placed on a heart-lung machine. Soon after, he recalled, there was an attractive woman walking around, playing a small harp.
Luckily, these celestial aspects of the recovery room did not send Mr. Moran into palpitations. Instead, researchers suspect, the gentle arpeggios of the harpist might have helped regulate his heart rate, blood pressure and breathing, aiding his recovery.
Two hours a day, Alix Weisz, a harpist from Chester, N.J., strolls through the hospital’s Cardiac Post-Anesthesia Care Unit to test that premise. The recovery room staff monitors changes in patients’ vital signs every 15 minutes while she plays, and for an hour before and after.
Results will be collected as part of a four-week study, one of several around the country trying to measure the health benefits of music in hospitals.
One research project by a doctor at the Carle Heart Center in Urbana, Ill., has suggested that harp music in particular helped stabilize irregular heartbeats.
With the Morristown study, which is financed by a local trust and still under way, evidence that music helps patients heal there is still anecdotal. But many patients and nurses say they have looked forward to Ms. Weisz’s visits.
“When I was coming out of it, I was filled with tubes — a throat tube, an oxygen tube — and it was very hard to breathe,” Mr. Moran said. “You feel you’re going to gag. The music calmed my body and allowed me to stop thinking about what was going on. It allowed me to feel more relaxed and rested.”
Ms. Weisz has her own guidelines for playing her instrument of peace.
“I try not to play anything recognizable, because there might be an unwanted emotional response, like if I played music a guy broke up with his girlfriend in Atlantic City to,” she said. She relies on chants, lullabies, and Celtic airs and ancient standards from books like “The Healer’s Way: Soothing Music for Those in Pain.”
She plays quietly and slowly, and she said she tries not to glance over at the monitors above the beds, to see if any pulse rates are decreasing. While many of the patients in the recovery room are still anesthetized and unresponsive, she said Mr. Moran had given her the thumbs up while she played.
“Sometimes people say, ‘Wow, I had a feeling I was in a big field,’ and that’s what we want these people to do, to think about where they’re going to be, where they’re going in life, and how this is just an episode,” she said, gesturing at the ashen patients on beds surrounded by intravenous drips and beeping machines.
As part of the study, nurses are also taking note of their own stress levels when the music is playing.
One nurse, Lisa Gingerella, recalled how one of her recent patients was very confused and agitated the day after his surgery.
“Alix came, and he fell asleep, and his blood pressure and heart rate dropped dramatically — he slept all afternoon,” she said, adding that the music also has a similarly soothing effect on her.
“She calms me the heck right down,” Ms. Gingerella said. “I want to take her home, or have her playing in the car on the way home.”
The unit’s nursing manager, Lynn Emond, said she has noticed that her staff is much quieter when Ms. Weisz is playing.
Thomas Kroncke, 55, stayed in the recovery room on Monday after an aortic valve replacement and, like Mr. Moran, has graduated to a regular room. Mr. Kroncke said he noticed how the harpist soothed and quieted the post-op unit.
“You really didn’t notice the hustle and bustle,” he said. “I felt if I could just be feeling this calm and relaxed this soon after surgery, things are only going to get better.”
August 28, 2006
Now in the Recovery Room, Music for Hearts to Heal By
By TINA KELLEY
MORRISTOWN, N.J., Aug. 24 — When George Moran woke up on Tuesday, he thought he had died and gone to heaven.
It was not such an outlandish idea. Mr. Moran, 39, a music teacher in Long Valley, N.J., had had a cardiac valve repaired that morning at Morristown Memorial Hospital. During the surgery, his heart had to be stopped for 90 minutes, and he was placed on a heart-lung machine. Soon after, he recalled, there was an attractive woman walking around, playing a small harp.
Luckily, these celestial aspects of the recovery room did not send Mr. Moran into palpitations. Instead, researchers suspect, the gentle arpeggios of the harpist might have helped regulate his heart rate, blood pressure and breathing, aiding his recovery.
Two hours a day, Alix Weisz, a harpist from Chester, N.J., strolls through the hospital’s Cardiac Post-Anesthesia Care Unit to test that premise. The recovery room staff monitors changes in patients’ vital signs every 15 minutes while she plays, and for an hour before and after.
Results will be collected as part of a four-week study, one of several around the country trying to measure the health benefits of music in hospitals.
One research project by a doctor at the Carle Heart Center in Urbana, Ill., has suggested that harp music in particular helped stabilize irregular heartbeats.
With the Morristown study, which is financed by a local trust and still under way, evidence that music helps patients heal there is still anecdotal. But many patients and nurses say they have looked forward to Ms. Weisz’s visits.
“When I was coming out of it, I was filled with tubes — a throat tube, an oxygen tube — and it was very hard to breathe,” Mr. Moran said. “You feel you’re going to gag. The music calmed my body and allowed me to stop thinking about what was going on. It allowed me to feel more relaxed and rested.”
Ms. Weisz has her own guidelines for playing her instrument of peace.
“I try not to play anything recognizable, because there might be an unwanted emotional response, like if I played music a guy broke up with his girlfriend in Atlantic City to,” she said. She relies on chants, lullabies, and Celtic airs and ancient standards from books like “The Healer’s Way: Soothing Music for Those in Pain.”
She plays quietly and slowly, and she said she tries not to glance over at the monitors above the beds, to see if any pulse rates are decreasing. While many of the patients in the recovery room are still anesthetized and unresponsive, she said Mr. Moran had given her the thumbs up while she played.
“Sometimes people say, ‘Wow, I had a feeling I was in a big field,’ and that’s what we want these people to do, to think about where they’re going to be, where they’re going in life, and how this is just an episode,” she said, gesturing at the ashen patients on beds surrounded by intravenous drips and beeping machines.
As part of the study, nurses are also taking note of their own stress levels when the music is playing.
One nurse, Lisa Gingerella, recalled how one of her recent patients was very confused and agitated the day after his surgery.
“Alix came, and he fell asleep, and his blood pressure and heart rate dropped dramatically — he slept all afternoon,” she said, adding that the music also has a similarly soothing effect on her.
“She calms me the heck right down,” Ms. Gingerella said. “I want to take her home, or have her playing in the car on the way home.”
The unit’s nursing manager, Lynn Emond, said she has noticed that her staff is much quieter when Ms. Weisz is playing.
Thomas Kroncke, 55, stayed in the recovery room on Monday after an aortic valve replacement and, like Mr. Moran, has graduated to a regular room. Mr. Kroncke said he noticed how the harpist soothed and quieted the post-op unit.
“You really didn’t notice the hustle and bustle,” he said. “I felt if I could just be feeling this calm and relaxed this soon after surgery, things are only going to get better.”
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Nubian Musician Hamza El Din (1929-2006)
From the Los Angeles Times
OBITUARIES
Hamza El Din, 76; Musician Popularized North Africa's Ancient Traditional Songs
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
May 30, 2006
Hamza El Din, considered the father of Nubian music who helped expose the sounds of his North African homeland to a worldwide audience, has died. He was 76.
El Din died May 22 at a hospital in Berkeley of complications from a gallbladder infection.
A composer and master of the oud, El Din became known to American audiences in the mid-1960s when he performed at the Newport Folk Festival and recorded two albums for the Vanguard label.
His music drew the attention of such musicians as folk singer Joan Baez, the classical Kronos Quartet and the rock band the Grateful Dead. He collaborated with the Kronos Quartet on the album "Pieces of Africa," and played with the Grateful Dead during its show at the Great Pyramids at Giza in 1978.
Other collaborations followed, including one with director Peter Sellars for a version of the Aeschylus play "The Persians" at the Salzburg Festival. Hamza's compositions also were performed by several ballet companies, including the Paris Opera Ballet and San Francisco Ballet.
Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart called El Din's music "mesmerizing, hypnotic and trance-like."
"Hamza taught me about the romancing of the drum," Hart told the San Francisco Chronicle. "His music was very subtle and multilayered."
El Din, who taught ethnomusicology at the University of Washington, Ohio University and University of Texas, lived for a time in Japan to study the biwa, a Japanese lute.
Born in 1929 in the former Nubian town of Wadi Halfa in northern Sudan, El Din was an electrical engineering student at what is now the University of Cairo when he took up the oud, an instrument similar to the lute, and the tar, a single-skinned frame drum from the Upper Nile.
At the news that his homeland would be part of the area to be flooded by Lake Nasser on the completion of the Aswan High Dam, El Din quit his engineering studies and traveled the region by donkey to warn his people of the dislocation that would come about from the dam project.
He also acquired material for many of his songs. He wrote about love, childhood memories, a wedding and the water wheel in his home village.
By playing the oud, not a traditional Nubian instrument, he found ways to expand the boundaries of his native music.
He returned to Cairo to study Arabic music and later studied classical guitar and Western music in Rome at the Academy of Santa Cecilia.
Since the late 1960s, he has lived much of the time in the Bay Area and toured extensively. He offered quietly intense solo concerts and appeared at major festivals throughout the world. He performed dressed in white robes and wore a white turban.
Critics say his most significant recordings were "Escalay: The Water Wheel," released in 1971, and "Eclipse," a 1982 release. His most recent album, "A Wish," was released in 1999.
El Din's survivors include his wife, Nadra.
OBITUARIES
Hamza El Din, 76; Musician Popularized North Africa's Ancient Traditional Songs
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
May 30, 2006
Hamza El Din, considered the father of Nubian music who helped expose the sounds of his North African homeland to a worldwide audience, has died. He was 76.
El Din died May 22 at a hospital in Berkeley of complications from a gallbladder infection.
A composer and master of the oud, El Din became known to American audiences in the mid-1960s when he performed at the Newport Folk Festival and recorded two albums for the Vanguard label.
His music drew the attention of such musicians as folk singer Joan Baez, the classical Kronos Quartet and the rock band the Grateful Dead. He collaborated with the Kronos Quartet on the album "Pieces of Africa," and played with the Grateful Dead during its show at the Great Pyramids at Giza in 1978.
Other collaborations followed, including one with director Peter Sellars for a version of the Aeschylus play "The Persians" at the Salzburg Festival. Hamza's compositions also were performed by several ballet companies, including the Paris Opera Ballet and San Francisco Ballet.
Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart called El Din's music "mesmerizing, hypnotic and trance-like."
"Hamza taught me about the romancing of the drum," Hart told the San Francisco Chronicle. "His music was very subtle and multilayered."
El Din, who taught ethnomusicology at the University of Washington, Ohio University and University of Texas, lived for a time in Japan to study the biwa, a Japanese lute.
Born in 1929 in the former Nubian town of Wadi Halfa in northern Sudan, El Din was an electrical engineering student at what is now the University of Cairo when he took up the oud, an instrument similar to the lute, and the tar, a single-skinned frame drum from the Upper Nile.
At the news that his homeland would be part of the area to be flooded by Lake Nasser on the completion of the Aswan High Dam, El Din quit his engineering studies and traveled the region by donkey to warn his people of the dislocation that would come about from the dam project.
He also acquired material for many of his songs. He wrote about love, childhood memories, a wedding and the water wheel in his home village.
By playing the oud, not a traditional Nubian instrument, he found ways to expand the boundaries of his native music.
He returned to Cairo to study Arabic music and later studied classical guitar and Western music in Rome at the Academy of Santa Cecilia.
Since the late 1960s, he has lived much of the time in the Bay Area and toured extensively. He offered quietly intense solo concerts and appeared at major festivals throughout the world. He performed dressed in white robes and wore a white turban.
Critics say his most significant recordings were "Escalay: The Water Wheel," released in 1971, and "Eclipse," a 1982 release. His most recent album, "A Wish," was released in 1999.
El Din's survivors include his wife, Nadra.
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