Theft! A History of Music - James Boyle

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Dude Descending a Gravity Staircase 7 So, that guy said you were the expert. Is this one of those legal answers? when was the first time someone listened Depends what the definition of “Is” Is? to a song and thought It was something “I did not that could be owned…? sample songs with this woman!” Well, that depends on what you mean by “It” and what you mean by “owned.” Actually, no… AUG 08 380BC 10 E 10 AUG 08 2016 10 10 OCT 26 1985 01 21 8 When We think of music, we think of It as “frozen.” In CDs or MP3 files… …Or tapes, vinyl, shellac… wax cylinders. 9 Well, there are other ways of “recording”… So until music could be ones that use mechanically recorded, It humans as the was all just an experience? playback Something that couldn’t device… be owned, any more than a smell or a…laugh? Take sheet music. Notation records music Look for later playback. down there… A brilliant Idea - It’s the musical equivalent of the Invention of writing! That's where our story begins. Even the mythical beasts! Someone It’s almost Jungian, though watched Scott McCloud would argue… way too much Fantasia… 10 That Is a competition between different musicians. Scholars think the Greeks saw them as a sporting event… Hellenic Yeah, Idol! Battle of the Bands, BC!! Disney-fied So are history and he we seeing can’t drive… the birth of notation? 11 the earliest notation we know That’s a hymn to Apollo. of comes from long before this - The marks above the letters Indicate the 1400 BC In Mesopotamia. But … melody. hold on. I need to land by that stone down there. This Is a 2nd Century CE Roman scroll of a Greek song. But It gives us an Idea of what Greek music was like. So the Greeks certainly had notation, though We used to think we’d It seems to have been never know how these used Infrequently - as tunes sounded - now, some a historical record of scholars think they can songs, not something make a pretty good guess. musicians used every day. He really Is an expert! A little know-It-all, though… The small symbols above the text are notes; the lines, the rhythm. So sing It for us, then. 12 qq and I will sing the song of e q I will hold a bow before your feet, se the Kastalian nymphs… z e s I will taste s eof s your hair… z Probably a love song… …Written by someone who has been dust for 2000 years. 13 Eerie-sounding. Like a Gregorian chant Cough one minute and an Indian raga the next… Ahem… Well… I wonder If I could use that on my first album!? “Lawyer Turned Rock Star!” So what about the Not so far as answer to our we can tell. It might sell question? We’ve Remember, In Starbucks and got notation. Did notation wasn’t Whole Foods, that mean people used that much… I guess. owned songs? 14 THY BROTHER, THIS ILL-STARRED ORESTES WHO SLEW HIS MOTHER! Take the playwright Euripides… YOU THINK THAT'S BAD? THERE'S THIS GUY OEDIPUS… …GO POUR ROUND CLYTEMENESTRA'S He wrote There’s a fragment TOMB A MINGLED CUP OF HONEY, MILK, the music from Orestes. AND FROTHING WINE… for his But much plays. less music than text survives. In practice, most …Makes So there’s no Indication music appears It harder that there was any sense to have been to say, of “ownership” of music. generated by “mine!” Improvisation around common Fame and themes… attribution, yes! Property control? No! 15 So no regulation of music…? …And changing musical tradition was the most dangerous Are you kidding? thing of all. Plato The Greeks thought said that “musical that some musical Innovation Is full forms were just of danger to the too dangerous. whole state.” Too emotional. He wanted It banned. OH YES. IT STARTS WITH AND WHERE DOES IT END? GROSS IMMORALITY, "JUST A LITTLE MIXING SOCIAL UNREST, FORNICATION…EVEN DANCING!!! OF THE DORIAN AND THE PHRYGIAN MODES''… 16 “This is the point to which, above all, the at tention of our ruler s should be directed, -- that music and gymna stic be preserved in their original for m, and no innovation m ade. They must do their u tmost to m aintain them intact. And when any one says that m ankind most regar d ‘the newest song which the singer s have,’ they will be a fr aid that he m ay be pr aising, not new songs, bu t a new kind of song; and this ought not to be pr aised, or conceived to be the meaning of the poet; for any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State, and ought to be prohibited. So Da mon tells me, and I can Quite believe him; -- he says that when modes of music change, those of the State always change with them.” [Plato, The Republic --Eds.] 17 Remember that to the ancient Greeks music was part of a set of universal forms… …A deep logic of the universe which combined geometry and sound, ethics, politics and beauty. I’ve wondered Look at a string Why would about that. Instrument. Halve spatial …To our the length of proportions musical the string, the correspond so scale? note goes up perfectly… an octave. 18 A Brief Snippet from Greek Music Theory The Greeks used familiar concepts such as The Greeks also had unique concepts such as “notes” that corresponded to a particular the “Tetrachord,” which was a basic musical pitch, and “Intervals” - the space between unit, like the octave today. notes - which Pythagoras derived from mathematical ratios. A 2:1 ratio makes the If these were Interval of A tetrachord Is vibrating guitar an octave! a group of four strings, the second pitches. The outer would sound an pitches are fixed octave higher than and always span a the first: “perfect fourth” - the space between the first two notes of “here… Comes the Bride” or of 1:1 “Auld Lang Syne” A “PERFECT FOURTH” (“Should…Auld…”) 2:1 = An octave higher Greek Tetrachords DIATONIC CHROMATIC ENHARMONIC DIFFERENT INNER NOTES MADE THREE KINDS OF tetrachords  1 1 ½ 1½ ½ ½ 2 ¼ ¼ RT @Apollo the second string Is a little sharp… “tetrachord” meant “four strings,” and they were used for tuning Instruments like the lyre and kithara. Greek theorists combined tetrachords to make different scales or modes (the Greeks used the terms “harmoniai” and “Tonoi”) that determined the notes you would hear In a piece of music. 2 DIATONIC TETRACHORDS Medieval church modes borr0wed the greek names, but they were actually different. Ptolemy’s Dorian Mode 19 Greek philosophers thought the modes could affect a person’s character. Plato only approved of the Dorian and Phrygian modes, which were associated with courage and temperance. (Aristotle was slightly more forgiving.) From Plato’s From Aristotle’s “The Republic” GREEK MODES “Politics” “Warlike, to sound the “Produces a moderate note or accent which and settled temper… a brave man utters In all men agree that the hour of danger and the Dorian music Is the stern resolve” gravest and manliest.” DORIAN “To be used…In times of peace and freedom of action, when there Is no pressure of necessity… “Inspires enthusiasm… when by prudent conduct Bacchic frenzy and all he has attained his end, similar emotions… are not carried away by his better set to the success, but acting Phrygian than to any moderately and wisely other mode.” under the circumstances, PHRYGIAN and acquiescing In the event” “Soft or drinking harmonies”; “drukenness and softness and “Enfeeble[s] Indolence are the mind” utterly unbecoming the character of our guardians” LYDIAN I bet Glaucon would agree to a state ban of Instruments that I knew this allow Innovation! would happen! There remain then only Control hardwired the lyre and the harp Into the technology… for use In the city, and It’s “Digital” the shepherds may have rights a pipe In the country. management! 20 Mixing musical forms was actually meddling with the ethos, and the order of the cosmos. It threatened anarchy. So Plato did want some kinds of “sampling” forbidden. But not because of “property rights.” That theme of the need to control music comes up Um, guys? again as we’ll Look over see… there. Where's the car? Gasp It seems we have a new ride! 21 Are you kidding? This Is I feel a Tardis - It’s much bigger like I've Inside than out… Looks a seen this little somewhere small… before... Actually this Is a Type 40 - very old-fashioned - and the chameleon circuit must be broken… OK, OK. I grew up a geek chick. So sue me… Francia - France to us - about 760 AD! We’ve got a date with some monks. Story of my life… And following the trail of notation, our next stop should already be In there. 22 23 I can’t believe I have to wear this thing! Why can’t I be a nun? You think you have Quod erat problems? What are demonstrandum. they going to think If they see me? eMy father beat your father at dominoes… e Pax Vobiscum quoque. 24 ? I studied this place! So this Is the Court of Pippin III, sometimes known as “Pépin Le Bref,” or “Pippin the Short.” Pippin? We’re researching hobbits, now? C’mon! “My father beat your father at dominoes”!? Dude wasn’t tall. I was brought up But he was the daddy Southern Baptist, OK? of Charlemagne. We didn’t do Latin. 25 That Is the Pope’s “School of Singers.” I’m The “Schola Cantorum.” trapped Pope Stephen II In the 8th brought them with him century to visit Pippin. with two lunatics. So what’s the The Church relevance feared music, but to our revered It too. search? St. Augustine said he worried about the pleasure he got singing, but he also thought music could bring sinners to God. The Church scorned Instrumental The School of music, a distraction from the Singers was used to Gospel message. But that wasn’t show congregations their only stylistic rule… how things should sound - part of an attempt to Impose a standard liturgy and standard music. More “fear and longing,” almost like the Greeks. 26 The church was struggling to Impose uniformity, So Innovation Is central control. Everywhere you would hear being forbidden again? the same music, the same liturgy… Don’t remix my mass? …One pope, one Church, one song. They tried to cram this music Into the Greek modes, So beautiful, It but It really doesn’t fit. really does Boethius said… bring peace… This robe has fleas! 27 It wasn’t just a matter of He actually created After this visit, he declared religious orthodoxy. Pippin got the position of “king the roman liturgy and music legitimacy from the church. of the franks” by to be the only official getting the pope to version In his kingdom. bless his election. He even tried to stamp out local rites and music. …A process that Charlemagne Well, It Is easy to continued. Interesting. So overclaim. Nothing In Charlemagne’s Holy Roman history Is simple. But, Empire Is partly built on yes, that was a small musical orthodoxy? part of building a religious empire. 28 Were there official musical scores that everyone had to use? GUIDONIAN HAND Not at first. The Irony was that notation had died out. It had to be reinvented - which It was over the next hundred years or so. And a lot of scholars think… …That It was Invented to exert control! To make sure people were all singing the same tune. Literally! I never thought of notation as a technology of Look…notation Is just useful. control. That's It's going to get reinvented. But remarkable. yes, part of the impulse for this reinvention was to control musical drift across time and space… A lot simpler to send a scroll, than an entire choir… 29 Though It’s not …At first, It was simple But notation helped people clear how precise signs like this above the experiment, Innovate… the notation was… words to Indicate whether the tune went up or down. …And then preserve and transmit tunes they’d created. The era of Courtly Another unruly love! That’s where technology, eh? Well, It seems like a we are arriving now. history of unintended Courtly consequences. Methods love!! of control… Unruly? …That undermine themselves. That’s the History of music too, maybe. Troubadours and jongleurs! Odes to unfulfilled desire! 30 “A true lover considers nothing Yes… good except what he thinks will courtly please his beloved. Love can love… deny nothing to love.” That’s so That’s sweet! Capellanus’ De Amore. Of course, he also claimed all women were shallow, envious, and slanderous, and advised taking peasant women by force, If the urge came upon you. Sounds like a There are times when I think feminism I am serious. People real prince. goes too far. And times when I think who romanticize this stuff It doesn’t go nearly far enough… should read It first. 31 how come It was all men singing Actually, there were female about women? Didn’t they let women troubadours, they called them be troubadours? “trobairises.” In the late 1100s and 1200s they were writing and performing music for the aristocracy of what’s now France. What, like a bunch of 12th century Joni Mitchells? z s qhqsz They paved Occitan, and put up a parking s s lot… A chantar m’er de so qU’ieu Non volria… Well, you can laugh, but they were actually pretty Important In terms of We are family - Western secular CONTESSA I got tro-bai- music; they’re the DE DIA rises with me… first female composers that we know of. Some things You go are just girls! heresy. 32 Do I always Much Nice… have to dress nicer… like this? I’d say Tee hee! Ahem. Where are we, It was and when? getting 1467. to be a France. habit. Though the Ideas of courtly love have been around for OVER 300 years… 33 That song Is over 300 years old, even Actually, a lot of …Boasting about his now. Joyfully, I set myself to love, William’s songs exploits…In one song by William the 9th of Aquitaine. William would have the he pretended to be mute, the Troubadour they called him. “explicit lyrics” so two ladies would label even today. think he couldn’t reveal I like the Idea of all He was fond of… their secrets. Then… these songs about pure romance…MUSIC today Is just so crude! Made Snoop DogG look like a choirboy. Enough!!! OK, so our generation didn’t Invent dirty lyrics. Is that the point of this trip? …And music Is one of the battlegrounds. The early Church didn’t agree with the Ideas of courtly love. yET The troubadour thought LOVE for his lady made him nobler. It wasn’t just temptation to sin… I’d say that we’re looking at a culture war… Hmm… 34 It Is beautiful! zz ee hqs qe e s e e s Haunting… s se q ee qehes eh s That’s Molinet’s ThESE Oroison a Nostre guyS take Dame - The Prayer to THEIR dates Our Lady. This must be to church! the first performance. The funny thing Is, the first and last lines of each verse are s z actually taken from popular songs…secular songs. Shhh!! e pleasant z q brunette, q Soothe me, sweet ehe just below THE… h Strange to describe the s Well, s Sorry… Virgin Mary as a “sweet, that line STOP! We’ll end pleasing Is striking - this translation brunette.” the popular right there, thank song It Is you. Or this Particular taken from brunette will be goes like neither sweet nor this… pleasant for the rest of Sorry… the trip. 35 The point Is, that our Ideas about both love and RELIGIOUS ADORATION were profoundly shaped by this moment In history… A complete unknown… …And the two-way borrowing In music was part of the conversation. 36 What do you Hm…this mean, part of the swivels! conversation? Oops! The troubadours romanticized their The sensuality lady loves. Some was removed. of that romance But that left seeped Into the transcendent Idealization of love, passing all the Virgin Mary. understanding. Rats In the donjon, plague fleas downtown… Interesting… So the religious composers could borrow tunes and lyrics from those bawdy songs and not feel they were committing heresy. 37