Scholarly record

THE REFLECTION OF THE BASE SOUNDВ’S PHENOMENA OF THE CIVILIZATION IN THE STRUCTURE OF MUSICAL TEXT (THE SOUTH-EAST ASIA AND THE FAR EAST EXAMPLES)

E. Vasilchenko, S. Pyshnova, J. Kirsanova, I. Cherkasova

Abstract

Behind the limits of this paper, we would like to single out the factors, in which the specific features of the vertical perception in the sound-music are most brightly reflected at the level of civilizational commonness. Figuratively speaking, the vertical aspect of the music text is capable of symbolically reflecting the model of the world specificity, formed within the framework of this or that civilization, and also the ways and character of people’s orientation in the surrounding world. The most indicative in this respect are the so-called multivoiced, multi-setting musical organisms among which we will most often have to turn to the Javanese gamelans and the Chinese ceremonial orchestras. Thus the Javanese gamelan symbolically represents two-, three and five-member classification of the space vertical structure. Permanently fluctuating sounding of the gamelan specially reflects the process of «sound location» of the universe where the sound like a tuning fork reveals the concentration of the cosmic energy in the ether, its flows and ebbs. In ceremonial orchestras of ancient and medieval China the moment of acoustic correspondence of instrument sounding is obviously of little importance; much more important was (by the religious-philosophic and ideological doctrines, first of all the Confucian and Tao-Buddhist) the symbolic representation in the orchestra of all the elements of the universe. The set of gongs in gamelan plays the role of a «family». And members of a family are connected by blood relations, i.e. they are made of the same alloy and have a parent – a blacksmith (empu gending). The musicion in gamelan is viewed as something secondary in respect to the instrument, something following its will, as the manipulator for the physical producing of sounds on the instrument, and its status is determined not by the technical qualification, but the degree of sacredness of his instrument. The character of sound-filling of the surrounding world, building up of a sounding with vertical addressing is closely connected with the peculiarities of the formed in this or that cultural system of special types of places for music-making, the idea of which was dictated not only by the acoustic specificities of the nature’s surrounding, but also by some ethical and symbolical principles.

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