Current trends of local Western music
Dilmika TENNAKOON
You don’t need to be a musically literate to know about a piece of
music in order to enjoy it. But you may find it more enjoyable if you
know a bit about the story behind the composition and why it was
composed and how it achieves its effect.
Music has certain ingredients. Beat or pulse, rhythm, melody,
structure, harmony, tone colour, and expression are included in a music
composition or in a song. What the music sounds like depends on which
ingredients are used and how they are combined. For instance you could
probably identify a piece of classical music because of the type of
rhythm, how it is structured and the instruments used.
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Ananda
Dabare. Picture by Lalith C Gamage |
Music can be our oldest form of expression. On the other hand music
is a dominant medium more than words. Words in a language are abstract
and its symbols only convey the factual meaning. But music touches our
feelings more deeply than most words. It makes us respond with our whole
being. In other words music is food for the hurt and it’s a heeler for
the soul. Its give us the pulse of life.
Ananda Dabare, a teacher, chamber musician, recitalist, concertmaster
and the conductor of the symphony orchestra of Sri Lanka, spoke to the
Daily News Artscope on current trends in Western Classical music in Sri
Lanka.
It is a common phenomenon that music is a language. But according to
Dabare music is not only a language. “We cannot express our feelings
through words and we cannot find words to deal with human complex
expressions. We have multiple languages in the world but music is one
language for the globe. It’s a deeper than a language and it’s a global
phenomenon.”
Artistic values
Music compositions are always something to be enjoyed. The object of
a piece of music is simply to help people to enjoy music more. He stated
that the message or the composer’s thought which convey to the listener
has to be valuable for the listener. As a result it improves the
listeners’ artistic values. A good artistic piece influence positively
to improve the intelligence of the listeners. On the other hand
listeners too need some sort of intelligence to understand what the
composer communicates through music.
“Musician’s role is not to fulfill the mass needs and their
interests. They should educate the people and influence to improve the
music intelligence and artistic values which is not done by some so
called musicians in Sri Lanka.” he stated.
The goal of the composer is not to create musically illiterate
people. Musicians must mould the listeners. Music composers create what
he wants to the society not what society wants”.
There should be both technical and artistic quality for the music.
There should be musical colours which has their shades as much as red or
blue in painting. Earlier composers used folk music and their
traditional music of their countries in their classical music
compositions to mark their authenticity. They composed on basis of
classical music. But we hardly hear that sort of music compositions in
Sri Lanka according to him.
Since music has a unique power it influences to eradicate the social
clashes of the society and music can be able to give it a voice.
Therefore it is one of the music’s noblest tasks. The story or a message
of a music composition which conveys can feel more real than any
material satisfaction.
However the music’s noblest task is questionable when it comes to Sri
Lankan setting. “The reality is that there are musically illiterate
musicians and singers who provide cheap disgusting, inartistic music
targeting the young generation via Radio stations and Television
channels. As a result by listening to this rubbish, young generation
lacks the knowledge of what is proper music and they think what they
hear is correct,” stated Dabare.
The common argument of the young generation is the fact that the
classical music lacks the strong rhythmic pulse which is a part of the
youngsters’ world. They accuse that it also lacks the beat, lyrics and
they find it difficult to understand what a group of instrumentalists
play. It is true that Western classical music is advance in harmony and
abstract. It is also true that its forms namely sonatas, cantatas,
symphonies are extremely confusing and difficult for the youngsters to
understand. But that is the uniqueness of classical music.
According to Dabare music is a medium which expresses feelings and
ideas which are common to humanity. Classical music is well advanced in
that. The feeling of listening to an orchestra cannot experience from
any other kind of music. Western classical music is unique, glorious and
imperishable.
“We do not only need to listen to classical music. There are certain
techniques and patterns we can grab from other music genres as well.
Artistic values can be found in every genre in music. However it is
important to listen to good, quality music. If the particular music
piece lacks the discipline of art it is impossible to say it contains
the aesthetic values.”
On the other hand since the popular music has become a mass art it
targets the mass audience. Therefore whatever the local pop musicians
create gets publicity rapidly among the mass audience whether it
contains aesthetic value or not.
Popular music has run through each and every corner of the society.
According to Dabare almost every TV channel in Sri Lanka is reluctant to
show even a single western or eastern classical music concert.
Music literacy
He further stated that we are exposed to rubbish music not to the
proper music. Therefore as a result this type of music fails to improve
children’s sensitivity and music literacy.
Classical music is in crisis according to Dabare.
“Since classical music has a scientific basis it has a great
aesthetic superiority. This makes it different from the other genres in
music. In school setting there are few chances to learn music especially
a few chances to learn an instrument to play. There are talented people
in Sri Lanka. The issue is there are lack of opportunists for them to
mould their talents and the opportunities which are available in the job
market also limited.”
Western culture
Due to the fact that the Classical music is an achievement of western
culture it has limited to elites in Sri Lanka and they maintain its
hegemony. Symphony orchestras are performed high culture music by Haydn,
Beethoven and Mozart. Therefore it is popular among elite in Sri Lanka.
“There is a common myth among us that we need English to learn
Western Classical Music. But this is not the truth. When we learn
Western Classical Music in English, Russians and Japanese learn it in
their mother tongue. These can also be the reasons for the decline of
the popularity of Western classical music in Sri Lanka.” Dabare stated.
Serious music like western classical Music contributes to enhance our
sensitivity and humanity. When a performer performs a musical
composition it influences to enrich the personality of the listeners
which does not happen in cheap popular music. Therefore it’s our duty to
show the correct path to young generation to mold their sensitivity and
humanity.
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