- Series
- Music around the world
- Air Date
- 1967-01-01
- Duration
- 00:29:24
- Episode Description
- This program focuses on love songs from around the world.
- Series Description
- This series, hosted by Marta Nicholas, presents music from all parts of the globe.
- Subject(s)
- Creator(s)
- Michigan State University (Producer)Nicholas, Marta (Producer)Nicholas, Marta (Host)
- Contributors
- Genre(s)
- Geographic Region(s)
- regions
- Time Period
- 1961-1970
[00:32 - 00:37]
The following program was originally released in 1967.
[00:37 - 00:41]
Of the many types of melodic instruments in the world the flute in its various forms
[00:41 - 00:47]
seems to be the most universal in both distribution and appeal to them.
[00:47 - 00:52]
You know you talk about that you know
[00:52 - 00:53]
that.
[00:53 - 01:01]
Though they could use it in a variety of ways and for many different reasons
[01:01 - 01:07]
all the peoples of the world have a new set of.
[01:07 - 01:12]
Michigan State University Radio invites you now to a program of music around the
[01:12 - 01:17]
world produced and hosted by Martha lookalikes.
[01:17 - 01:18]
Flutes come in all sizes.
[01:18 - 01:23]
Some are so small as to produce only a couple of high shrill note. The one we're
[01:23 - 01:28]
hearing now is not the smallest but it is small enough to be played with only three fingers of one
[01:28 - 01:34]
hand while the drum dangles from the little finger the same hand and is struck with the other hand.
[01:34 - 01:38]
This combination called Tabor and pipe was common in Europe in the Middle Ages.
[01:38 - 01:44]
In this modern example is from Peru.
[01:44 - 01:49]
On the other hand the Indians of Mato Grosso area in Argentina
[01:49 - 01:52]
have double flutes which are no less than seven feet long.
[01:52 - 02:15]
Many flutes including both of those we just mentioned are played by
[02:15 - 02:17]
blowing at one end of the tube.
[02:17 - 02:22]
But there are many other foods that are held at a right angle to the player's body with the breath directed
[02:22 - 02:24]
at a hole in the side of the instrument.
[02:24 - 02:29]
These are often called transverse in the silver flute used in orchestras and bands in this country.
[02:29 - 02:33]
A good example that. The flute we're hearing now however.
[02:33 - 02:38]
Is a still another one knows it's being played with air from the nostrils
[02:38 - 02:43]
instead of the mouth. They're not very common but they are found on all the continents.
[02:43 - 02:45]
This particular example is from the Thames.
[02:45 - 02:56]
Recorders are part of the flute family as well as our various kinds of whistles
[02:56 - 03:01]
arenas Pan pipes. In fact all kinds of wind instruments in which the sound is not
[03:01 - 03:09]
dependent upon the vibration of lips or reeds.
[03:09 - 03:13]
People make flutes out of all sorts of materials clay
[03:13 - 03:18]
metal wood. The sound you hear now is a flute made by
[03:18 - 03:29]
South Africa out of the yard long hollow stalk of the wild cabbage plant.
[03:29 - 03:34]
You may have noticed the sound of the player's voice punctuating the sound of the instrument.
[03:34 - 03:39]
Sometimes this occurs involuntarily when the player is gasping for air or
[03:39 - 03:44]
pushing out the large amounts of air necessary for playing the flute. And sometimes it's done
[03:44 - 03:49]
on purpose. For instance I think that it was done on purpose in the previous example to get a certain
[03:49 - 03:53]
effect.
[03:53 - 04:00]
One of the interesting. Possible on the flute is that the player can get a different sort of tone
[04:00 - 04:02]
by humming while he plays.
[04:02 - 04:07]
Here we hear a herdsman from the Highlands on the eastern border of the Congo
[04:07 - 04:08]
using this voice.
[04:08 - 04:20]
A similar technique of singing while playing is also sometimes used by the choppy women
[04:20 - 04:26]
of Mozambique when they play opera arenas which are as I mentioned earlier branch of the flute family.
[04:26 - 04:31]
There aka arenas are made from the hard shells of a certain kind of wild orange.
[04:31 - 04:35]
I think it's interesting to note the point that it is women who are playing. I
[04:35 - 04:40]
don't know whether or not the men ever play our arena but each society has its
[04:40 - 04:45]
own rules about which activities are acceptable for men to engage in and which activities are
[04:45 - 04:46]
suitable for women.
[04:46 - 04:51]
And this usually extends to the field of music who is allowed to make Handel or
[04:51 - 04:57]
play any particular instrument. Use specific vocal styles or do certain dance steps.
[04:57 - 05:02]
In some cases it might even be a punishable social offense for say a
[05:02 - 05:07]
woman to touch a particular musical instrument or for a man to do a particular dance.
[05:07 - 05:12]
In many cultures the flute is symbolically associated with fertility life and love.
[05:12 - 05:18]
It's been suggested that some of the characteristics of the instrument which might be relevant to
[05:18 - 05:22]
these associations are its shape the quality of the sound being so
[05:22 - 05:27]
similar to the human voice and the fact that the production of the sound is so intimately related to
[05:27 - 05:32]
one's breath. In any case the flute is considered in many cultures to
[05:32 - 05:37]
have a powerful effect and is sometimes reserved strictly for ritual or ritualistic
[05:37 - 05:37]
purposes.
[05:37 - 05:48]
Such was the usage of many of the American Indian tribes. Here we have the song
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accompanying the Sun Dance of the suit the sun dance was the main ceremony the
[05:52 - 05:57]
Plains tribes and had great significance though the details differed from tribe to tribe
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blowing the whistle demonstrates the importance of the ceremony and ensures it
[06:02 - 06:07]
Cassady the flute is bound to be especially powerful because it's made of the bone of an
[06:07 - 06:12]
eagle and mystical power also resided in the Eagle.
[06:12 - 06:17]
A more ordinary kind of flute was used for North American Indian love songs but it was
[06:17 - 06:22]
still assumed that the sound of the instrument had great power that it would literally
[06:22 - 06:26]
as well as figuratively and chant and the which the girl of whom it was directed.
[06:26 - 07:06]
The music of the South American Indians has combined with the Spanish an African musical
[07:06 - 07:11]
traditions with a wide variety of interesting results. In the end these mountains
[07:11 - 07:16]
region of Colombia there developed a dance called go based on the coca
[07:16 - 07:20]
tree and conquest of love and again its flutes seem to best tell the story.
[07:20 - 08:26]
If you heard the program we did on love. You may remember my mentioning that the theme song of
[08:26 - 08:31]
this series is music music around the world. Tills of the down to earth love of the Hindu god
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Krishna for his concert. The MILKMAID Raja.
[08:34 - 08:39]
While implying the spiritual interpretation of love between man and God
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having been raised in a community of words with Krishna himself is said to have played the flute so
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sweet that. Nothing.
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Could resist it.
[08:48 - 08:53]
Even the river stopped flowing to listen. The flute is one of the main symbols of the
[08:53 - 08:57]
art literature drama dance and music.
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Music is also used in reference to the other gods of India. Here it accompanies a woman singing
[09:02 - 09:04]
a song of devotion to Lord Rama.
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The old.
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Man.
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That. Was. That.
[09:54 - 10:04]
Was.
[10:04 - 10:09]
It was the sound of flutes that accompanied the metal of the sect of Turkish Muslim
[10:09 - 10:12]
mystics in their efforts to communicate with the Divine Spirit.
[10:12 - 10:17]
They were commonly called whirling dervishes because accompanied by flute music such as we're hearing
[10:17 - 10:22]
now is closed and hands raised above their tall rounded hats. The left
[10:22 - 10:27]
palm facing New York's in the right palm up toward the sky repeating certain phrases
[10:27 - 10:32]
over and over they slowly spun round and round for hours on end.
[10:32 - 10:35]
The wide hymns of their long cloaks flowing around them.
[10:35 - 11:21]
However flutes are also accompaniment for less serious dances. A few minutes ago we heard a
[11:21 - 11:26]
popular South American dance. Here's a Tartar folk dance. Also a
[11:26 - 11:29]
flirtation. The flute is backed by a joyous heart.
[11:29 - 13:13]
Many interesting intimates are used in Yugoslavian folk music including several types of
[13:13 - 13:16]
flutes. One is a double flute.
[13:16 - 13:29]
Two pipes carved out of a single piece of wood one having three holes in the other hand and.
[13:29 - 13:34]
Two pipes which are often tuned to an interval of the second harmonic pattern to which
[13:34 - 13:38]
most Western ears are unaccustomed but which is a favorite interval in that area.
[13:38 - 14:09]
That double flute is basically a shepherd's instrument. And they also have various sizes of
[14:09 - 14:14]
single flutes. The men play to wile away the time when they're out tending the
[14:14 - 14:18]
flocks and to accompany dances when they're in the village. They also claim that the
[14:18 - 14:24]
music helps to keep the animals calm and signals them when they're to move on.
[14:24 - 14:29]
The long flute playing tradition of the Greeks is amply attested by among other things
[14:29 - 14:34]
numerous illustrations of instruments and players on pottery pieces in that country to the
[14:34 - 14:39]
terrain and economic situation lead to many men spending much of their time alone in the
[14:39 - 14:42]
mountains with their flocks for company and their flutes for solace.
[14:42 - 15:59]
Perhaps because it's relatively easy to make an easily portable yet has a pleasing sound
[15:59 - 16:04]
similar to the pleasantness of human voices the flute is often used as an instrument of
[16:04 - 16:09]
personal expression to create musical extensions of an individual's feelings of
[16:09 - 16:14]
joy loneliness or sadness. In the following selection from Sumatra
[16:14 - 16:17]
the flute accompanies the final sadness that of mourning.
[16:17 - 17:39]
Flute music can also be cheering however. The next election was played by two elderly
[17:39 - 17:44]
Luba men of the Katanga region of the Congo. When asked why they played this kind of
[17:44 - 17:49]
music they answered that they were sad and depressed and they wanted to cheer themselves up and give their hearts
[17:49 - 17:54]
courage. The people who happened to be listening in obviously share their feelings and joined in
[17:54 - 17:59]
spontaneously. It's an interesting style. Evidently indigenous to the area a
[17:59 - 18:03]
thumb piano supplies the background to the flute work seems to me that if American
[18:03 - 18:08]
musicians had had a chance to make extended trips to the Congo in the earlier days of jazz
[18:08 - 18:13]
the techniques of herby man and the other modern jazz flutist might have made less of a splash.
[18:13 - 19:02]
My body you have to
[19:02 - 19:09]
be able to be able to. You.
[19:09 - 19:16]
Don't want to. Go out.
[19:16 - 19:18]
There.
[19:18 - 19:32]
With up good.
[19:32 - 19:33]
Stuff.
[19:33 - 20:19]
Do you want to.
[20:19 - 21:00]
Then has such a large variety of foods that I didn't know where to begin choosing examples. So
[21:00 - 21:05]
I put together a sort of pastiche of a few of the several kinds of Japanese musics to give
[21:05 - 21:07]
you an idea of some of them.
[21:07 - 21:27]
She is a large heavy walled bamboo flute which plays both solo and in
[21:27 - 21:32]
various kinds of ensemble. It often joins with this guitar like show me song which you hear in the
[21:32 - 21:40]
company vocal solos.
[21:40 - 22:06]
The music.
[22:06 - 22:06]
From.
[22:06 - 22:49]
The village group becoming the band's.
[22:49 - 22:51]
Accompaniment for a hero's dance.
[22:51 - 23:46]
Those were from both the folk and the classical style pan. India too has
[23:46 - 23:51]
several kinds of flute music both in the classical and folk traditions. Each area has
[23:51 - 23:55]
its own styles and the various tribal groups scattered around the country have their own distinctive
[23:55 - 24:00]
styles. This lively dances of the tribe in Madhya Pradesh.
[24:00 - 24:50]
From the Turkistan area of Afghanistan we hear a flute playing a melody similar in
[24:50 - 24:51]
style to Mediterranean shepherd.
[24:51 - 25:42]
In Israel where the recorder type flute called in Hebrew College who is considered the
[25:42 - 25:47]
national instrument. Many of the tunes have grown out of a shepherd's feeling for the land.
[25:47 - 25:52]
We're hearing one of the top composers for that instrument named playing one of his
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own compositions called Kineret the Sea of Galilee.
[25:55 - 27:05]
We have a musical interpretation of partridges in the next piece. The Chinese composer
[27:05 - 27:08]
who plays his arrangement of an ancient melody.
[27:08 - 27:59]
Before we begin our last election I invite you to go on a musical whirl of weddings around the world
[27:59 - 28:00]
with us next week.
[28:00 - 28:05]
Our last numbers from Tunisia it's played against Aleut background is a sort of
[28:05 - 28:08]
high society Siloam style of that country.
[28:08 - 29:24]
We have presented music around the world with Martin the worst loser and commentator
[29:24 - 29:29]
and we invite you to be with us again next week at the same time for music
[29:29 - 29:31]
around the world.
[29:31 - 29:38]
You're right I've done my bit but you know.
[29:38 - 29:42]
This program was produced for Michigan State University Radio
[29:42 - 29:46]
originally released in 1067.
[29:46 - 29:50]
The program you've just heard is from the program library of National Public
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Radio.
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