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Thanks for your very interesting reply.
<Basho's own synthesis of Eastern culture was very often absorbed
through more mediated channels than, say, straight from Ali Akbar
Khan, which also happened. Even in one song, it's often frame as a
journeying to the East, mediated by so-called Irish culture or
whatever.>
The relationship to celtic music is quite interesting, because it one of the few forms of western european music that has remained modal.
In the 1950s a debate existed in professional circles as to whether music had innate emotive qualities or not. On one side of the debate was Leonard Mayer's almost clinical approach, Emotion and Meaning in Music (1957) while the other was classical composer Deryck Cooke, The Language of Music (1959). The problem with both of their approaches is that they were analyzing western european art music, based on scales and equal temperament, totally denuded of the natural qualities existing in modal music with just temperament.
<
I believe it's important not to underestimate the power
simple, superficial, passing encounters with Eastern-derived culture
(for example) have to legitimate one's own flights of fancy. That's
perhaps why pioneers are often so separate in their fields from
subsequent innovators... which is all to say that probably the mere
awareness that there was this guy named Basho doing Eastern stuff on
the guitar was influence enough, without having to have any further
encounter or even understanding.>
While passing encounters can indeed be very important, there was an established lineage, as well. Lavezzoli focuses on this quite a bit. Music was a shared experience back then.
In 1964 David Crosby hooked up with a producer named Jim Dickson who offered Crosby free after hour access to a professional recording studio, where Ravi Shankar happened to be recording. Dickson got access to Shankar's sessions for Crosby. When Crosby ran into Jim McGuinn (who he had known in Chicago) and Gene Clark at a club in LA, he invited himself into their band (which became the Byrds) with the bribe of free recording time with a professional producer, and he introduced McGuinn to Shankar's music.
The Byrds shared a publicist with the Beatles, Derek Taylor, through whom they exchanged demo tapes. In August 65 the Byrds toured England and met the Beatles through Taylor. In September, the Beatles visited the Byrds in LA, attending a recording session ("She Don't Care About Time," notable for McGuinn's solo quoting "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring") and a party, memorialized in the song "She Said, She Said," in which the guitar players for the two bands sat in a bath tub jamming with each other, and Crosby told Harrison about Ravi Shankar for the first time.
When the Byrds were touring the US in late 1965 in a motor home, they listened exclusively to tapes of Shankar and John Coltrane as they composed the songs "Eight Miles High" and "Why," recorded in Dec 65 and Jan. 66, and released in Mar. 66.
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band opened some shows for the Byrds in Jan. 66, where they undoubtedly heard 8MH, and in Feb. 66 Michael Bloomfield offered to his band the composition "The Raga," which became "East West." McGuinn had taught Bloomfield how to bend notes when they were both students at the Old Town School of Folk Music, circa 1957-60.
Although not mentioned in the Lavezzoli book, Terry Riley's, and other electronic music composers' projects at Columbia, were actually subsidized from revenue from record sales of Dylan and the Byrds. Before rock became such a huge commercial enterprise, the label actually valued experimental music, whether in the context of the occasional offering of a commercial band like the Byrds, or entire recordings from experimental artists.
<I t
hink, 'raga' as it has become known is not really that esoteric or
exotic an idea; to me, there's nothing particularly odd about moving
up and down the neck in a given scale with given melodic motives, and
some drone to ground it all, which is probably something like how I'd
define it.>
According to Lavezzoli, "'raga' derives from the Sanskrit 'ranga,' which loosely means 'color.' More specifically, it means the feelings or moods evoked by a specific combination of notes. . WHen certain notes are arranged in a particular order, they can affect the human psyche in extraordinary ways." (p. 19).
There is a distinction between the organizational scheme of a musical piece, such as a symphony or concerto or raga, and the emotive color which Indian classical music is evidentally based on. (I'm far from an expert on such things.) When Western European classical music moved from just to equal temperament, it abandoned modes. Modes (which was originally spelled "moodes") are not scales, in any real sense, but one important distinction is that the notes may be identical, the intervals may be identical and indeed the chords may be identical, but the relationship of notes to each other changes.
The notes for D major and e dorian are identical (in an equally tempered system); the distinction is that D major (also referred to an Ionian in Western culture) defines the note, D, or I, as the root or tonic by which the melodic phrasing and chord progressions move, while in e dorian the second note, e, or ii (in the scale) is the note which the melody tends to emphasize.
Even though the notes and intervals making up the "scale" are identical, D Ionian is a "major" mode with a major third; e dorian has a minor third (suggesting a minor tonality) but with a diminished seventh, lacking the leading tone that establishes I as the tonic, and therefore is more ambivalent than either major or minor.
Two examples: (1) compare the Byrds' "Eight Miles High," in d dorian to Leo Kottke's cover, in E major -- the same song, the same notes, but with the former emphasizing the ii while the latter emphasizes the I, for a different "color"; and (2) the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby," which alternates between minor (aeolian) and dorian on the choruses and versus.
<A was kind of shocked by a recent, similar omission in a 3 part, 3
hour long BBC documentary on the history of the Guitar, presented by
the Alan Yentob. The whole things was this weird lazy amble through
guitar fashion, with no mention whatsoever of John Fahey, let alone
Robbie Basho, and I can't even remember any reference to Jansch or
Renbourn, but maybe there was a little on Davy Graham, I'm not sure.
Kind of shocking when you consider Fahey's and Basho's aim to
establish the steel-string as a concert instrument in North America,
and its achievement.>
I have given some consideration to writing a book about instrumental fingerstyle guitar, which would combine history, biography, discography, theory and technique. At least, it's on my to-do list before I die; unfortunately, I have other projects that take precedence.
Thanks for your thoughtful post.
Chuck
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