343 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2023
    1. like tsaba tsaba, its musical traits reveal it as being more of ahybrid, sub-genre of the original styles of South African jazz: marabi, African Jazz and kwela.
    2. characteristics commontomuch South African jazz,such as short repetitive motivic melodies, basslines and drum grooves.
    1. What separates mbaqangafrom previous styles is the straight beat. Previously urban black music was rhythmically swung in general.

      seems to contradict other definition (straight beat)

    1. As Chapter One pointed out, ‘South African jazz’ derives from the amalgamation of transnational (mainly American) jazz and indigenous South African musics. Although this stylehas many ‘dialects’, there is some conceptual consensus regarding elements that historically came to signify a South African jazz sound. These include marabi (with its distinctive I-IV-V chord progression), mbaqanga (this was especially felt in the importance of the rhythmical drive and interest and repeating harmonic progressions, rather than the other formal attributes Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za85 of mbaqanga itself), ghoema or indlamu, amongst others. One of the ways in which Shepherd, Dyer and Makhathini connect with the South African lineage of jazz, and a sense of place therefore registers in th eir work, is through the incorporation of these elements in certain songs or tracks
    2. Apart from mbaqanga and marabi, other styles also developed due to the amalgamation of local styles and American jazz. One of these is Cape jazz, which Coplan (2013) describes as follows: I use the term ‘Cape jazz’ knowingly, because the Mother City has its own characteristic style, strongly indebted to the American tradition starting with African-American minstrelsy, but mixed with old indigenous rhythms and melodies, mission Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za12 hymnody, ‘Malaysian’ choral music, and Afrikaans Coloured ghoema parade band music. (Coplan, 2013:56)Cape jazz also bears influences from moppies (up- beat Malay choirs) and langarm, as well as music played by bands from the Muslim community (Ansell, 2005:70). A telling characteristic of Cape jazz is the ghoema beat (see Figure 1.3), which Johannes (2010:35) describes as:a low pitch on every beat within the bar of music which gives the music its driving quality with the higher pitch playing a syncopated pattern to complement the singing and prevailing syncopation of ghoema music (Johannes, 2010:35).Figure 1.3Ghoema beat(from Johannes, 2010:35)This influence is more noticeable in the music of Cape Townian musicians such as Abdullah Ibrahim or Robbie Jansen, although it is also regarded as an important element of jazz in South Africa. Marabi, mbaqangaand ghoema rhythms are markers in the broad style known as South African jazz

      see p 12 for the ghoema rhythm

    1. Like that of its antecedents, the harmonic base of mbaqanga is the cyclical repetition of four primary chords. Short melodies, usually the length of the harmonic cycle, are repeated and alternated with slight variations, and call-and-response generally occurs between solo and chorus parts. The characteristics that differentiate mbaqanga from previous styles are a driving, straight beat, rather than swung rhythms; melodic independence between instrumental parts, the bass and lead guitars providing particularly strong contrapuntal lines; and electric rather than acoustic guitars and bass guitar

      definition

  2. Apr 2023
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  4. Feb 2023
  5. Jan 2023
    1. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/01/18/1139783203/what-makes-songs-swing-physicists-unravel-jazz-mystery

      Spaces in both language, text, and music help to create the texture of what is being communicated (and/or not).


      Link to Edward Tufte's latest book in section entitled "Spacing enhances complex meaning, encourages slow, thoughtful reading":

      <small><cite class='h-cite via'> <span class='p-author h-card'>KevinMarks</span> in #meta 2023-01-19 (<time class='dt-published'>01/19/2023 11:32:19</time>)</cite></small>


      Link to Indigenous astronomy example of negative spaces (like the Great Emu)

  6. Dec 2022
  7. Oct 2022
  8. Sep 2022
    1. antshrike Aug 14, 2017ReportEdited 5 years agoreferencing There Goes The Neighborhood! (CD, Album) CCD79506Wow, did Gary Bartz unwittingly predict 9/11?The title of this is "There Goes The Neighborhood!"…the cover photo shows Bartz with the World Trade Center looming in the background…and the very last piece is titled "Flight Path"…eerie...

      Eerie indeed!

  9. Aug 2022
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  12. May 2022
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  15. Jan 2022
  16. Jul 2021
    1. Billy: And jazz helped me discover that because it's like a chain. African American people help each other out through their music, that helped other people out, that helped me out. Eventually I took my friend out of a heroin addiction because of that, because of the music. And I started crying when he told me. He was like, "Dude, I just wanted to thank you because you took me out of my heroin addiction." I actually did something. So that music was really important for me. It gave me an identity.Anita: So, you were attracted to African American blues and jazz?Billy: Yeah, because my brother was listening to it and so I'm like, "Dude, what are you listening to? This is weird We usually listen to rock." He's like, "Man, this is called blues, bro. This is a really cool music, and it has to do with African American people back in the day and it tells the story of America."Billy: So, I just looked into it and I became obsessed with it. I couldn't stop. Once I discovered Louis Armstrong, that was just it. I could not stop playing jazz and so yeah, in North Carolina, I was just feeling kinda crappy and that music came at the perfect time.

      Time in the US, Pastimes, Music; Feelings, Despair, Hope

  17. Jun 2021
    1. Anita: So, you said you wanted to start off by singing a song?Billy: Yeah, well I’ll sing a song. [Singing] “Well I guess you wondering where I'd been. I searched to find the love within. In my world only you make me do for love, girl, what I would not do. My friends wonder what is wrong with me, but I'm in a daze." Alright. That's it.

      Time in the US, Pastimes, Music, Playing, Favorite

  18. Apr 2021
    1. Binstock: You once referred to computing as pop culture. Kay: It is. Complete pop culture. I’m not against pop culture. Developed music, for instance, needs a pop culture. There’s a tendency to over-develop. Brahms and Dvorak needed gypsy music badly by the end of the nineteenth century. The big problem with our culture is that it’s being dominated, because the electronic media we have is so much better suited for transmitting pop-culture content than it is for high-culture content. I consider jazz to be a developed part of high culture. Anything that’s been worked on and developed and you [can] go to the next couple levels. Binstock: One thing about jazz aficionados is that they take deep pleasure in knowing the history of jazz. Kay: Yes! Classical music is like that, too. But pop culture holds a disdain for history. Pop culture is all about identity and feeling like you’re participating. It has nothing to do with cooperation, the past or the future—it’s living in the present. I think the same is true of most people who write code for money. They have no idea where [their culture came from]—and the Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.

      This is a great definition of pop culture and a good contrast to high-culture.

      Here's the link to the entire interview: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bbm%3A978-3-319-90008-7%2F1.pdf

  19. Oct 2019
  20. Oct 2018
  21. Jul 2017
    1. The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s is billed as the “first major museum exhibition to focus on American taste in design during the exhilarating years of the 1920s.”

      Would love to see this!

  22. Jun 2017
  23. Feb 2017
  24. Jan 2016
    1. The simplest way is to just have the melody played down the octave. This gives you a strong sound. It’s not the most interesting, but it works

      Baritone sax

    2. Notice that the interval between the top two voices is always a 3rd or 4th. This is ideal and correct for the traditional style. It is possible to have a major 2nd in this range but I try to avoid it; in the next octave up it may even sound like a mistake. A minor second should be totally avoided if you are going for a traditional sound
    3. This is where you maintain the shape of the chord (same interval structure) and move it under the melody

      Technique called "Planing"

    4. It is handy to think of the 9th as replacing the tonic.
    5. There is another option to consider when harmonizing the tonic chords. If you wish to create a really traditional sound, a la Glenn Miller, then use 6th chords instead of major 7th chords
    6. There are a few ways to harmonize this F, but the most common method (and my default) is to use a ‘passing diminished.’