ACHAR LASKEWICZ,
Theoretical Work
Paper presented at the International Summer Congresses for Structural and
Semiotic Studies, Imatra, Finland, June 10-16, 1995.
ZAUM:
words without meaning or meaning without words?
Towards a Musical Understanding of Language
The primary purpose of this paper is to outline the background to current
research I am involved with in exploring the communicative function of music.
According to my own experience in learning something of the ritual-based
performance traditions of other cultures, I have long realised that 'music' is
much more than simply the sound it makes:
it is a complex cultural occurrence that is involved with many different levels
of interaction. The basis for this theoretical work can be traced back to an
experimental music-theatre composition of my own creation that was completed in
1993. This composition adopted musical sound poems from the Russian avant-garde,
the purpose being to extend traditional attitudes to the use of text in the
theatre. This was to have more theoretical implications than I at first had
realised, and in the context of this paper the social and theoretical
significance of the avant-garde for music communication theory will be explored.
It will be demonstrated that models taken from linguistics are limited in
providing an access to the communicative nature of 'music', although language
itself can perform similar functions to the 'musical experience.' This analogy
is used to extend traditional definitions of music to include all types of human
cultural behaviour. The ultimate goal will be to present suggestions for a new
music communication model that will have practical application for a larger
context than simply western 'art' music. This will involve a rethinking of the
ways the experience of 'music' can be interpreted in the context of the complete
cultural experience, and the poetry of the Russian avant-garde will be able to
help us along this path.
As a composer of experimental music-theatre interested in exploring musical
structures hidden within language, and music as a communication system within
culture, it would be helpful to define what is meant by the term 'experimental
music-theatre'. According to Mauricio Kagel, a major exponent of this relatively
new genre "New Music-Theatre is not a stylistically fixed form of theatre
existing alongside others, but rather the application of musical thought to the
elements of theatre-words, light and tone-colours and tempi", and is based
on the concept that "musical completeness can be conveyed even with the
residue of a plot."1 As a consequence of this, the New Music-Theatre is
involved with the dissolution of traditionally accepted boundaries within the
performance world-ballet, opera, stage-play and concert music to name a few-and
is a term that can be linked to avant-garde art movements which have
deliberately reacted against these conservative distinctions.
In my case the movement towards searching for a 'musical structure' within
language was borne out of a dissatisfaction with the sort of symbolic
environment I was provided with in my education and in social life, beginning
with the language and extending to all elements of the culture. I was drawn to
musical communication as written/spoken language was for me a symbolically
insufficient means of expression, although I gradually came to realise that my
alienation extended also to the musical world that was forced upon me in the
context of my education: the western musical tradition was presented to me as if
it was only system I could use to understand musical experience. The symbolic
world connected with western musical traditions seemed insufficient and out of
place, and I was led to try and create my own 'musical' languages based on
totally contrasting conceptions of musical experience that were wantonly
borrowed from other cultures; comparable to the Russian avant-garde whose work
will be discussed in this paper.
The decision to become a composer, then, was more than simply an expression of
an interest in music, it was an expression of an interest in communication in
the complete context of this concept. The only solution to my alienation from
the limitations of spoken language was a movement towards a form of musical
language which could communicate structures directly, not having to go via the
inconvenient medium of words. The practical expression of my compositions has
been accompanied by a desire to find a theoretical
language that could help me to understand and communicate to others precisely
what it is that my music-theatre is trying to communicate about the musical
experience. This resulted in a realisation that the initial negativity that had
resulted in a creative storm of 'new theatre language' forms could actually be
used in a positive way to help develop a theoretical dialogue for music in
culture, extending a more traditional western perspective that is to a large
extent only capable of encompassing western conceptions of a sound-based music.
This paper concerns my encounter with the Russian avant-garde and the
implications that the work of Russian avant-garde poetry could have on our
perceptions of language and music, as expressed in an experimental music-theatre
composition in which traditional notions of theatrical language are thrown into
reverse in order to present a contrasting vision of musical communication.
First a questioning of some long held musical myths. According to the Oxford
Dictionary music can be defined as the "art of combining sounds of voice(s)
or instrument(s) to achieve beauty of form and expression of emotion; pleasant
sound."2 The western avant-garde musical tradition has successfully turned
this definition inside out by saying that music is not necessarily about
'pleasant' sounds, echoing in the theories of Adorno who preached for a new
music which would be used as a tool to represent social dissatisfaction.3 This
may have been a step in the right direction, although the notion of music as a
strictly aural experience remains a strong western attribute, connected to other
distinctions separating creative forms into different categories. According to
Robert Kaufmann "the Western distinction between music and dance helps but
little in understanding African music because in African musical cultures it is
irrelevant. Movement patterns transcend these two spheres."4 In many
non-western cultures, including Indian and Indonesian cultures, there is simply
no distinction between music and dance, just as in the regional languages of
Indonesia there is simply no word that defines music as a discourse on its own.
John Blacking, a music theoretician who is famous for his theoretical
explorations involved with ethnomusicology, expressed his knowledge by saying
that "'musical intelligence' cannot be defined in strictly acoustical
terms, and that although its most characteristic and effective embodiment is in
music-making, it is a basic intelligence prompting many kinds of action."5
With this definition, music is defined as a way of thinking and experiencing
reality, and can be expressed in social life in any number of different forms.
Music is, therefore, no longer restricted to any form of aesthetic distinctions,
but rather a particular way of thinking and communicating. At this stage I would
like to posit that 'musical' experience is a complex social one involving an
array of interactions between 'musical' and other levels of cultural experience:
music does not exist in a vacuum but is inextricably bonded to cultural life in
ways that we are perhaps not even aware.
So how does this relate to the Russian avant-garde? The title of the
music-theatre composition which will be discussed in this paper is ZAUM, which
is a word used by a group of extremist Russian avant-garde artists who became
known as the cubo-futurists. The term was actually 'invented' for use in poetry
that had no translatable 'meaning'; words were used that could not be found in
the officially recognised dictionary. The use of altered or enhanced language
was at that time not entirely 'new', and the cubo-futurists were certainly
influenced by the symbolist poetry that preceded them, but the surprising factor
is the remarkable amount of ways in which this type of poetry was to manifest
itself during such a brief artistic period (beginning around 1910 and ending
around the time of the Russian revolution some seven years later). Traditional
conceptions of language bound within the strict confines of grammar and the
connotation of socially indoctrinated meanings were completely 'turned inside
out' as represented by the title of one of the famous books published during
this period called 'Mirskontsa' or 'The World-Backwards.'6 The tired language
left behind by the symbolists was considered unsatisfactory for the new poetic
communication, and traditional concepts of sound and meaning were completely
rethought. This led to the creation of 'Zaumni Yazik' or 'trans-sense language'
that was later to be abbreviated to simply 'zaum.' Armed with zaum,
the futurists were to change the face of poetry by introducing non-referential
sounds that could nevertheless be enjoyed 'by themselves', an attitude
previously confined to music. This was an untranslatable language; one that
would supposedly communicate directly with the subconscious; one that would
transcend all traditionally accepted kinds of discourse; one that could only be
brought about in such a time of political, social and economic turbulence. In a
manifesto presented in one of their early books, the cubo-futurists presented a
demanding programme for the deconstruction of traditional language which was to
find its complete expression in zaum. Below is a selection from this
manifesto:
- We have ceased to look at word formation and word pronunciation according to
grammar rules, beginning to see in letters only the determinants of speech. We
have shaken syntax loose.
- We have begun to attach meaning to words according to their graphic and phonic
characteristics.
- We have abolished punctuation, which for the first time brings the role of the
verbal mass consciously to the fore.
- We think of vowels as space and time; consonants are colour, sound and smell.7
With this manifesto the door was opened to a new dimension of poetry, one in
which the emphasis was no longer on meaning but rather on the 'sound' of the
poetry. The painter-turned-poet Alexei Kruchenykh (1886-1969), who was to become
the primary theoretician for the group, wrote that: "words are in chains,
subordinated to meaning. The futurists have invented a language which is free,
transmental and universal."8
The resulting texts in their total rejection of traditional language are
unfortunately inaccessible for the audience of today; they don't provide useful
language-based footholds to connect the reader with the inner meaning of the
text, leading one to suggest that the texts have reduced cultural significance.
The title of this paper poses the question: does zaum poetry use words
without meaning, or does zaum poetry create a meaning-based context (or structure)
in which the words are of little significance but the structure itself is of
paramount importance for the transferal of meaning. In my experience the second
choice aptly refers to the significance of zaum texts and is our first
connection with musical meaning. It is clear that the ZAUM texts are only
'meaningless' from a very restricted linguistic-semantic perspective; these
language creations, like musical formations, are only meaningless in that they
cannot be directly translatable into a more logically accessible language form.
In a historical context they played a very meaningful role, acting as tools with
which traditional society was brought into question. They did this by
questioning the way in which language in the form of literature had been used to
express 'meaning', reacting against the stifling literary conventions, although
this use of zaum was to be quickly extended to other art forms, acting
ultimately to question the structure of the society itself. The symbolic load of
the western avant-garde musical tradition can also be viewed in the same
context. The reaction against conservative musical traditions resulted in the
creation of cacophonous sound happenings that were to make an important comment
on the stifling rhythmic and tonal conventions of classical music which seemed
to have little significance in the contemporary world. This level of music
pragmatics in which the social significance of musical experience is explored
will quickly reveal itself to be only one level on a multi-levelled
communication structure.
The poems that were to come under the title of 'zaum' were to reveal a number of
exciting surprises that went further than simply an avant-garde reaction to
conservative literary traditions: sound in the form of words was used to
communicate totally different concepts uniting the language experience with the
musical as never before had been experienced. Probably resulting from influences
taken directly and indirectly from eastern art and philosophy where ritual
symbolism and mysticism still play an important role, a magical, even mystical,
concept of language was explored. Livshits, a member of the futurist circle
came to the conclusion that "we should recognise ourselves as Asians and
rid ourselves of
our European Yoke."9 This resulted in an exploration of the essence of the
communicative experience which included the musical structures embedded
somewhere within the logic of language and the 'illogicality' of music. At this
point I would like to posit that the cubo-futurist texts provide us with an
entrance into new theoretical terrain. These artists tried to do something quite
extraordinary with language: to subvert culturally defined language structures
and communicate directly with a part of the subconscious connected with
'musical' experience. Experimental music-theatre is also involved with this
deconstruction represented by the rejection of traditional western musical
thinking which states that music is restricted to aural experience. It is also
interesting to note that my own alienation from western musical traditions led
similarly to encounters with 'eastern' culture in the form of Indonesian and
Indian music and dance: these forms presented an extended insight into the
musical experience. By forming a musical composition with as a basis these
cubo-futurist texts as musical material, I was hoping to make the first steps to
extend this theoretical dialogue.
The text based nature of these apparently 'musical' creations seemed a logical
starting point for the formation of this dialogue. My approach to the Russian
texts had been largely influenced by later theoretical developments that were to
see the extension of language into the context of communication systems within
'culture'. On this level, music moves onto the same plane as language because
they can both be conceived as being 'artificial' communication systems created
within a culture to perform functions for the purpose of signification, and
music therefore is open to analysis from a similar theoretical source. This is a
strong conceptual tool in a development of cultural theory, but remains on its
own insufficient to encompass music, largely because musical experience remains
'untranslatable' into any type of language discourse. Kristeva has already noted
that the communication models emerging from semiotics are useful only for
analysing "those social practices which subserve such social exchange: a
semiotics that records the systematic, systematising, or informational aspect of
signifying practices."10 Despite the fact that it is problematic to view
music under the same theoretical light as language, a model taken from
linguistics may be of use: as a part of 'generative' or 'universal' grammar
generally attributed to Chomsky, who suggested that language is a result of the
expression of a 'biologically endowed faculty', a model for language was
presented in which universally applicable 'mathematical structures were used to
understand linguistic expression. This was a linguistics divorced from semantics
that concentrated on the cognitive realisation of language as thought processes,
one in which "the formal, syntactic mechanism of the recursive whole of
language"11 is realised. According to Kristeva, "Chomsky claims to be
more of an analyst of psychological structures than a linguist"12 which
could be of interest to us in discussing a musical model: could it be said that
the differing expressions of musical traditions are only different on a surface
level, that the thought processes that affect the way music is perceived and
understood are essentially shared by all humans? Could 'music' be a basic
expression of internal processes?
This possibility is explored in the context of the music-theatre composition
ZAUM which uses a selection of the cubo-futurist texts to create a
'music-language' that only has meaning in the context of the composition itself.
During the process of the work, elements from traditional theatre discourses are
'illogically' recombined as dictated by the musical structure; all of the events
within the work are only 'meaningful' in this musical context. Through this
adoption of a musical structure that affects the way the performers act and
interact with one another on stage, it is suggested that Blacking's 'musical
intelligence' could have a greater impact on social life than is currently
recognised. Perhaps it could be said that 'musical thinking', in its expression
of naturally occurring internal structures, affects the way we think, behave and
interact with others.
The poetry of three of the primary zaum poets has been integrated:
Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922), Alexei Kruchenykh (1886-1969) and Vasily
Kamensky (1884-1961). Each had their own individual attitude to the use of zaum,
presenting contrasting but equally valid concepts which resulted in the
production of different poetic styles. For Khlebnikov poetry was not an end in
itself or a 'realistic' description of reality, but a means of exploration and
discovery of language and new forms. Khlebnikov dreamed of creating a universal
language of pure concepts clearly expressed by speech sounds, and his quest
resulted in the exploration of chants, spells and ritual languages. Kruchenykh
was to become the primary supporter and theoretician of zaum, which he
saw as a leading mode of expression. He believed that zaum language was
"demanded by the confused character of contemporary life and served as an
antidote to the paralysis of common language."13 This was a reaction
against the obsession with meaning, reason, psychology and philosophy presented
by the conservative literary traditions. Vasily Kamensky presented an
alternative emphasis through his use of zaum: after stating that language
by its existence as sound was essentially a form of music: he asserted that
poets should have complete freedom in choosing their own path for poetic
communication. A literary critic involved with the cubo-futurists wrote that
"perhaps none has felt the sound as an aim in itself, as a unique joy, as
Vasily Kamensky."14
The zaum texts themselves are presented in the performance in a manner
that seems at first to be illogical or absurd, remaining faithful to
cubo-futurist theatre. As such, the performance acts to parody traditional forms
of western theatre that rely on restricting coding systems, and observers have
likened the composition to an expression of the restriction of life in a
communist society. On a deeper level, the more complex nature of zaum
language is explored, the seeming illogicality giving way to a broader
discussion of the relationship between language, sound and music; something that
concerned all the zaum poets, no matter how different the results were. A
performance is created in which all theatrical and musical elements have the
potential to be meaning-bearing vehicles in a language based on mathematical or
'musical' structures; theatrical 'events' are presented in which five characters
move, speak and react to musical and vocal sounds coming from a prerecorded
tape. These five 'characters' are without any sort of individual identity:
beginning as empty shells, the musical language that structures their somewhat
limited existence is 'learnt' by the performers during the composition.
The complete ZAUM work is a full scale three-movement composition, each of the
separate movements adopting the zaum poetry of one of the three poets.
The complete duration of the composition is around one hour, each of the three
movements lasting about twenty minutes. The zaum texts form the
structural basis for the composition, uniting both the gestural, the vocal and
the sound-based communicative forms. The three movements of the work are linked
together by a narrative concerning the learning of this 'music-language' by the
characters. This language, as limited as it may seem to the audience, is the
only tools that the characters have to perceive reality. Zaum-1, the first
movement of the composition, begins in a state without language, only silence
followed by noise and darkness, a complete absence of structure. As the work
develops, musical sounds become linked with vocal sounds and movements, and the
performers become totally engulfed in the process. Gradually this complete
immersion is reduced, and the music begins less and less to structure the vocal
sounds and the movements. Designed to represent the abstraction of sound from
meaning in spoken language resulting in the arbitrary nature of the sounds we
now use, by the end of the first movement, words and sounds initially steeped in
primordial and ritual significance, are stripped of meaning and are presented as
obsessive gestures. In Zaum-2, the sound-movement language developed in Zaum-1
is adopted by the performers in order to represent the restriction of the
symbolic load of western theatrical conventions and on a deeper level a
dissatisfaction with socially indoctrinated communication systems, whether that
be music or language based: an expression of the avant-garde reaction against
cultural enforcement. Zaum-3, the final movement, attempts to move beyond the
binds of traditional theatre language. A rhythmic 'dance' language is created
that in the process of the development becomes gradually redundant, leaving
finally the music and the movement to communicate alone. The intended symbolic
purpose of this division is a representation of music as much more than simply
an aural experience, but a force that affects the way we think and act, one in
which when provided in the context of a cultural experience provides freedom and
unity that is not attainable in any other way.
The first movement of the composition presents an exploration of Khlebnikov's
attitude to zaum poetry. Khlebnikov believed strongly in the almost
'magical' power of vocal sounds both to signify and even affect the world in a
way beyond signification. This certainly connects with an ancient attitude to
language where vocal sound itself was believed to have deep mythical
significance. According to Kristeva the work of Khlebnikov "threaded
through metaphor and metonymy a network of phonemes or phonic groups charged
with instinctual drives and meaning, constituting what for the author was a
numerical code, a ciphering, underlying the verbal sign."15 Characteristic
of Khlebnikov's work is an attempt to construct a language of hieroglyphs from
abstract concepts, sometimes called the 'stellar' or 'universal' language. In
the composition, a text taken from a Khlebnikov zaum poem is used in
which the poet strives for a direct connection between sound and meaning:
Goum. Goum.
Oum. Oum.
Uum. Uum.
Paum. Paum.
Soum of me Soum menh
And of those I don't know I tex, kogo ne zna]
Moum. Moum.
Boum. Boum.
Laum. Laum.
Cheum.16 Ceum.17
In this excerpt a ritual-like state is evoked by the use of the "oom"
sound group which is translatable as 'mind' or 'sense' from Russian. Khlebnikov
formed this new vocabulary by combining this sound with various other syllable
groups, assigning his own 'state of meaning' where the new words have a natural
connection with universal concepts. Khlebnikov's belief in a connection between
meaning, sound, music, colour and emotion is brought to expression in the
composition: on stage chanting of the text is accompanied by an inevitably
recurring musical structure and a cyclical movement series in which the
performers are totally engulfed. It is important to note here that the quest for
such a 'universal' language was not restricted to Khlebnikov or even the
cubo-futurists. A great deal of avant-garde art in the twentieth century has
been involved with a search for this ur-sprache, this 'musical'
communication which subverts the arbitrariness of verbal languages and
communicates directly with ur-structures present in the subconscious. Innes,18
in his discussion of the connection between ritual and the avant-garde, wrote
that "beneath variations in style and theme there appears a dominant
interest in the irrational and primitive" which has been involved with the
exploration of "subconscious levels of the psyche" and experimentation
with "ritualistic patterning of performance." According to Hugo Ball,
the primary poet and theoretician of the Dada movement "the classical
tradition obliterated from language the unexplainable, mystical properties of
sound, and it has fallen to the avant-garde to rediscover and appropriate
it."19
One can not help making a connection between Khlebnikov's zaum and a form
of thinking in which 'musical intelligence' is brought into action. Bateson has
suggested that "algorithms of the unconscious are coded and organised in a
manner totally different from the algorithms of language."20 It has been
suggested "that these deep and unconscious codings of culture deal not with
content but with pattern. The foundations of art-templates of symmetry and
pattern, of rhythm and harmony, the bases of poetry and music and metaphor-may
lie in realms of mind and brain that are relatively inaccessible to systematic
analysis and relatively impervious to logical dissection and formal
description."21 Zaum-1, in adopting texts by Khlebnikov, is involved with
the gradual transferal within language from such a 'musical state of meaning'
that was dreamed about by artists such as Khlebnikov, to the language of today
consisting of sound symbols arbitrarily connected to meanings.
We move now to the second movement of the composition. Alexei Kruchenykh played
a particularly significant role with regard to the theory and use of zaum
language. He thought that the conservative literary traditions placed serious
limitations on poetic imagination, invention, verbal play and spontaneous
intuition and suggested that the 'emptier' the poetic imagination, the more
creative and fruitful the poetic result: "the penetration of the mysteries
beyond the rational world."22 Vocal material taken from a fragmentation of
one of Kruchenykh's zaum poems sets the boundaries for the language
invented for use by the characters. This poem employs Slavic vocal sounds and
therefore distantly alludes to the Russian language, even though the poem itself
uses no 'words' that can be found in a dictionary. This example also
demonstrates the integration of the text in a graphic format, where the words
are almost indistinguishable from the other designs.
cerzhamelepyeta
cenyal ock
rizoom
melyeva
alik a levamax
li li lyoub byoul23
In the context of the composition, this poem is deconstructed and an artificial
language is formed in which vocal sounds recorded on tape are arbitrarily
connected to movements on the stage. The recorded voices appear at first to be
commanding the performers to move when simple syllabic vocal sounds become
represented on the stage by simple movements such as the raising of an arm or
the turning of the head. A 'semiotic code' is created on the stage, where the
audience is deliberately directed into recognising a new, be it limited, 'stage
language.' Ambiguity is presented by the contrast between the symbolic nature of
the language when it appears that the sounds act as movement commands, and the
indexical nature of the sounds on tape which set up an intrinsic relationship
between certain sounds and certain movements. The sound in itself becomes the
movement, and a sound-based movement composition is performed. A point of
development is reached where 'movement words' are formed by the syllabic Russian
fragments, and each performer has a specific movement 'word' which he or she
must perform as the text is spoken:
Vzzzz MY! MY! MY! MY! WI! MY! MY! MY! MY! OV
[Vzzzz Me! Me! Me! Me! Zhi! Me! Me! Me! Me! OV]
It is interesting to note here that the sound 'vz' implies an upward movement,
which in the context of the Zaum-2 forces the right hand of the performer into
the air. The performers become 'puppets' to the language, continually repeating
the simple movement series as dictated by the recorded texts. This is a direct
representation of a feeling of being 'trapped' within a language system, and is
one which unites the alienation I have experienced from my own language and
culture, and the extreme avant-gardism of the cubo-futurists: the restricting
literary conventions of the time left one without a personal voice, the
'languages' with which the poets were provided were rejected outright and new
languages were presented in their place. My intention, however, in the second
movement of the composition was twofold. In addition to demonstrating the
restrictions of language that bring about avant-garde behaviour that resulted in
the creation of zaum language, 'music' can be seen as providing a similar
level of restriction, even when viewed in its sound-based form. By observing and
listening to the phenomenon of contemporary popular music in social action, one
cannot help noticing that the movements performed by the dancers are not simply
culturally determined manifestations, but are dictated within the structures of
the music itself; one does feel like a 'puppet' within the music. This is
certainly true of Indonesian and Indian dance music which only allows certain
movement patterns to occur within its structures. According to Kealiinohomuko
dance is seen as a "multi-dimensional cognate to music," suggesting
that its performance brings about "a variety of physiological changes"
and creates "innumerable side-effects through a complex of
interaction." Since dance and performance of sound are considered in many
cultures to be a basic expression of the same experience, one could be led to
suggest that music even in our culture could have similar physiological or
psychological affects. This opens the discussion to the suggestion of an
essential connection between performance patterns and human behaviour, and leads
directly to the last section of the composition.
Vasily Kamensky played an important role as a Russian futurist, being
responsible for the development and elaboration of certain avant-garde poetic
techniques. Following the premises of Russian cubo-futurism, he attempted to
break down language and reconstruct it in a totally new form. He became
interested in phonic instrumentation, and in particular with the possibilities
offered by onomatopoeic procedures which became represented more and more often
in the form of musical structures. The structure of the third movement, in
adopting some of the attitudes to language characteristic of Kamensky, uses the
rhythms behind the text to structure the musical development within the
composition. A dance-music-language is created by extending the following
musical zaum poem by Kamensky, which in a semantic context is entirely
'meaningless':
Sound Poem from Vasily Kamensky:
Zgara-amba Zgara-amba
Zgara-amba Zgara-amba
Zgara-amba Zgara-amba
Amb. Amb.
Amb-zgara-amba Amb-zgara-amba
Amb-zgara-amba Amb-zgara-amba
Amb-zgara-amba Amb-zgara-amba
Amb. Amb.
qar-qor-qur-qir tsar-tsor-tsur-tsir
Cin-drax-tam-dzzz. Chin-drax-tam-dzzz. 24
A coherence between verbal sounds and movements within a musical structure is
clearly recognisable in forms of Indian dance. Bharatanatyam, a South-Indian
temple dance form, as with almost all Indian dance forms, uses a language known
as 'bols' which communicates information to both the dancer and the musician. A
'bol' is commonly translated as a mnemonic syllable. It is taken to signify a
letter or group of letters roughly similar to the sounds produced by the impact
of the dancer's feet on the floor, or the drummer's varied handiwork on the
drums, functioning to dictate movements and foot stamping sequences to the
performer and at the same time drumming patterns to the musician. Here the
syllabic sounds bring about the dance performance. The following example is
taken from a performance of Bharatanatyam.
ta lang goe ta ka ta dhin ghi nha thom
ta-tay -tay ta-tam
ki-ta-ta-ka ta-tay -tay ta- tam
ki-ta-ta-ka tam dhé tham
tay ta thay
tam dhé tham
tay ta thay
ta tay ta ha
dhi tay ta ha
dhi dhi tay
dhi dhi tay
dhi dhi tay
dhi dhi tay25
This 'language of rhythms' is used primarily to structure the parts of the
performance which involve only abstract dance and music, which are known as
'nritta'. According to an Indian theoretician discussing nritta meaning
is transmitted through the "detail of relatedness between the bols of a
pattern - perhaps mere limpid succession, or the build-up and release of a
tension, or even the projection of a single syllable in a kind of wedge in the
flow of rhythm."26 Saxena goes on to say that this abstract 'world of
dance' cannot be compared to the world of everyday existence; "but there is
nothing to prevent our taking it as yet a world in its own right."
During a performance of 'nritta' a dance-music world is created in which
abstract musical structures suggesting tension and release are played out; in
which the dancer always returns to a central position of balance. One could
suggest that this 'abstract' dramatic expression is more than simply a beautiful
and athletic display of physical prowess and musical virtuosity, but an
important musical experience in which basic structures within the mind are
brought into cultural form. Here the musical experience is a complex one
involved with the simultaneous occurrence of language, movement and instrumental
music, in addition to that level provided by its entirety both to the performer
and the audience.
In Zaum-3, the text by Kamensky is extended into such a dance language in which
the movements of the performers become dictated by the rhythmic sounds of the
text, just as musical lines develop beneath the sounds of the voices. The
composition reaches its most complex when all five performers are involved in
the music-dance performance, bringing to life the 'dance texts' recited at
different speeds but combining to form a symmetrical whole. All the characters
perform together in an entirety that allows for simultaneous performance of
different rhythmic levels, which despite their differences are bonded together
by the larger repeating musical structures. In performance of Indonesian music
and dance, this binding of different levels of complexity into a whole allows
for a kind of unity which is not immediately perceivable in performances of
western classical music, reflecting in a unique way an 'unspoken' cultural
unity, one that is expressed through the structures within the music and the the
nature of the instruments which allow for the inclusion of different levels of
musical proficiency: everyone can, and is expected to participate in some form.
The analogy presented by the last movement of this composition is intimately
involved with a concept of musical meaning whereby a close bond is presented
between musical structures and a feeling of complete involvement in a given
social structure; a realisation that one is involved in a system that is shared
by others. From my own experience in performing Bharatanatyam, the dancer
becomes completely engulfed by the text, music and movement which he or she
performs, both physically and mentally and this acts as an analogy for this
cultural enclosure. On a symbolic level, the use of sound elements to control
the actors like puppets during the performance functions not only to demonstrate
the restrictions of these cultural 'languages', but to suggest that 'musical'
structures hidden in the subconscious underlie human 'cultural' behaviour and
affect the way we think about and experience reality. In the context of this
paper I would like to suggest that music is an essential part of social
existence, being a cultural expression that has symbolic value both to the
individual because it is an expression of internal structures, and to the
culture because it can be used creatively in a cultural context to provide
unity.
I would like to conclude by returning to the Russian zaum texts. As
demonstrated in this paper, these musical texts are 'meaningful' on many
different levels and have provided us with some new theoretical possibilities
from a musical context. On a personal level, I have realised that there is a
strong relationship between the cubo-futurists' avant-gardistic rejection of
traditional language forms which resulted in the adoption of zaum with my
own theatre work which reacted against that division within culture that inform
us that 'music' fits into a certain mould. As demonstrated to me by the physical
experiencing of music and dance forms from other cultures, I am aware that the
way music is actually experienced is merely a cultural creation, and my move
towards a new type of music-language was a natural step to take in a clear
dissatisfaction with my own culture. As a consequence of this we can see that
musical experience need not only be viewed from the perspective of aural sound,
that music can, in fact, be extended to include many different types of cultural
experience. Music as the expression of culturally accepted sound structures may
be the most common way that a musical understanding is produced for general
consumption in society, but it can not be considered the only way to experience
music. Using this as a given it is possible to try and lay the groundwork for an
extended communication model.
At the end of the journey that makes up the music-theatre composition Zaum we
are left with a number of different levels within which musical meaning can be
viewed, spanning from the ways in which music affects our everyday social
existence to a deeper level in which music is considered as the expression of
structures within the subconscious that affect our thought processes. It is
possible to grade these levels on four planes, beginning with the surface level
and moving on each descending level further into the realm of 'musical'
thinking:
(1) On a surface level, music interacts with social life affecting our everyday
existence in many different ways. This spans from uniting us with a certain
cultural group or simply demonstrating that we belong to a certain social class.
(2) Music provides a structural bed in which other social and ritual functions
can take place. This stresses the importance of viewing music within a wider
cultural context. On this level, interaction between music and other discourses
could be examined. This would include the role of musical experience in dance
and ritual, as well as the ways language is used in combination with music to
help make the musical experience accessible to those involved.
(3) The musical environment provided by our culture surrounds us and influences
our behaviour. Careful cultural crafting designs it in such a way that it can be
used both to restrict behaviour, as well as helping to provide one with tools in
which these cultural expressions help one to encompass reality.
(4) Musical experience can be said to be a direct cultural expression of
structures within the subconscious of every individual, forming an important
tool for both self-understanding and for the understanding of ourselves within
culture.
Encompassing these levels of music experience into a usable theoretical model is
the primary goal of my new research project which is involved in exploring the
role of music in the life of the Balinese. By examining the complex role that
music plays in other cultures, the intention is to develop a theory that will
have significance also to the complex role of music-in all its possible
appearances- in western society. At this point it is impossible to present any
definitive statements regarding such a music-communication model, although I
would like to add at this point that new streams of thought influencing the
music of today can help point us in the right direction. It can be sensed that
contemporary 'classical' music is being influenced in two major areas:
(1) a move towards the influence of popular music (exploration of cultural
structures), and
(2) a move to express different types of structure in music-such as DNA or
quantum theory-that are not created within the context of cultural experience
(exploration of natural structures).
These observations help me to form two major divisions in which music can be
considered:
(1) The importance of music in relationship to other cultural structures. This
involves an exploration of the importance of music in ritual, dance and theatre.
This theoretical standpoint begins with the assumption that ritual theatrical
events act largely as symbolic expressions of cultural needs; complicated
meaning-based structures in which music can be seen as only playing a role in
combination with other communication systems.
(2) The importance of music as a biologically structured way of thinking.
This area of exploration is involved with how we 'think' musically, and is
concerned with musical structures that exist in our subconscious. It is more
concerned with music as a direct expression of biological structures than as an
expression of cultural systems. In this way, it is involved with the type of
structures that music communicates.
Kristeva has also encountered these two dimensions in her studies of semiotics.
She suggested that a possible way for semiotic theory to develop would open
itself to influences both from the conscious and the unconscious world, in which
'meaning' is considered in terms of the signifying process itself rather
than the more traditional sign-system analogy, resulting in influences provided
by "on the one hand bio-physiological processes" and on the other hand
"social constraints."27 The collision between these two levels as
viewed from the perspective of musical experience will certainly be an important
dimension of my research, representing a general level of controversy in
contemporary cultural/anthropological research. To what extent is our musical
knowledge culturally based and to what extent is it inherent and biological? To
what extent is musical experience an expression of cultural values and to what
extend it it a deeper expression of 'musical' thinking? How can we compare these
two contrasting levels of human-cultural experience? Where does culture end and
music begin?
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