One of the pages on this blog features words from the masters. These masters are Caribbean music practitioners who whave all contributed significantly to their respective genres. Just click on the link above. It will have constant updates.
Peace
https://stefanwalcott.com/words-from-the-masters
Here is the second part of the Aural History of Calypso, 1950s to present. Enjoy and subscribe to the YouTube for more music-culture-music, you will not be disappointed.
This article was published on http://www.cwn5.com in April.
“Tessanne won the Voice!” That was what my wife screamed to me as the results from Season 5 of the American reality show, The Voice were announced. Tessanne Chin, the Jamaican reggae-rock fusion singer who produced the wonderful album In Between Worlds, had won. Wow! I thought to myself with an unmistakable uneasiness. Why worry? Well The Voice to me has proven to be, as we say in the Caribbean, a bit of a sweet talker and like most sweet talkers, their intentions are not always the best.
The Voice, for those (un) fortunate enough to avoid this particular reality offering,
is a televised, season-long music competition which involves singers blind auditioning for coaches. If the auditions go well then the contestants get to choose which of the coach’s teams they will join, in the hope of that coach helping them facilitate their dream of mesmerizing the viewing public and winning the competition.
The benefits of winning this competition are obvious and since conquering on Season 5, Tessanne’s public profile has exploded globally. She has performed at the White House, courtesy of an invitation from the Obamas no less, signed to talent firm ICM, which deals with artists as from Al Jarreau to Pamela Anderson, and headlined more Caribbean festivals in the past year since winning The Voice than Sizzla and Machel Montano combined. In addition, she has an album coming out on Universal Republic Records with contributions from hit writers Toby Gad and Dianne Warren.
Sounds good doesn’t it, especially for an artist who has been heavily involved in the pop music business for a number of years like Tessanne was. To me, not quite and while I am hopeful, being an early Tessanne fan, I am also very wary for the following reasons:
The past winners of The Voice, and they have been a few now, have not gone on to garner much mainstream success. Unlike, American Idol, no one from The Voice — winners or otherwise — has managed to crack the Billboard pop charts. As Dave Holmes, television host and reality-TV recapper told The Daily Beast, “It’s like people win The X Factor or The Voice and enter the Witness Relocation Program.” Funny and true and only the ardent pop culture buffs can actually name all the winners from The Voice.
According to Helienne Lindvall, the Voice in its Scandavaian version, makes the contestants, not only the winners, sign contracts where the production team get 50% of all their earnings. This not only relates to future earnings but past earnings including royalties and publishing. It is a 360 deal worthy of the worst gangsters of the old music industry. According to Lindvall, this is not only on the Scandanavain show and various national versions, like the American one, make the contestants sign similar contracts. What does this possibly mean for Tessanne? This means that The Voice production team will probably get:
After reading this I hope that you understand my concern. Hopefully however, it will work out for her financially and artistically, especially given the fact that her sister, Tami Chin Mitchell, who apparently has experience with the label machinery is joint managing her. So as a fan from her In Between World days with its monster track Hideaway, I wish her all the best. I sincerely hope that on this new journey the industry pitfalls will not consume her and she can buck the trend and prove there is indeed a musical pot of gold at the end of the Voice rainbow.
This article was published on http://www.cwn5.com in April. Since then Tessanne has released her debut album on the Universal label to a very lukewarm reception. See link below.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/entertainment/Tough-love-for-Tessanne
This story continues to unfold.
The wide genre known as calypso has been a major part of the Crop Over festival in Barbados since its inception.
Here is part I of a video that traces its aural history in Trinidad. Unlike most Calypso history documents that I have come across, this one actually has music. Enjoy and educate yourself, in fact, enjoducate yourself!
Here it is below.
Subscribe to my channel if you like what you see so you won’t miss part II.
*Oh yeah and here is the slide presentation from it in case you want to teach this or have really great parties.
Hello,
Here is another PowToon looking at how the Carnival music industry machine works this time looking at the role of music competitions.
Hello,
The video below is part of a series which looks at the Carnival/Crop Over music industry machine. This one speaks about new artists. Enjoy!
For those of you that have never heard of Bashment Soca, it is one of the most divisive forms of Soca coming out of Barbados, and thus Crop Over; people either hate it or love it, or in some cases hate themselves because they love it.
Bashment Soca, like many other types of Soca, does not have a clearly defined date of creation, because as I have argued, a genre only happens when others start imitating the prototype recording.
In this case, the prototype recording was “Hard Wine” done in 1996 by Lil’ Rick, who at the time was known primarily as a Bajan Dancehall performer and DJ*.
From this recording a number of traits become clear:
As this prototype was copied due to its overwhelming popularity, artists too copied the subject matter (wukking up) and added another one of their pressing issues, drinks. Here is Fraud Squad:
We can once again see the strong use of Bajan dialect and the generally “odd” harmony. Here is another classic Bashment Soca hit, “Boom Tick Tick.” It sings about dancing, wukking up, which Hard Wine did and it is also mixed very raw in comparison with other professionally produced songs.
In summary, most of these Bashment Soca songs are from the early 2000s and it is my view that it is a sub-genre that is quickly disappearing as Bashment Soca artists get more “musical” (see Gorg ). However, for better or worse, it remains one of the clear sub-genres of Soca to come out of Barbados. **
* The input of Eric Lewis and his work with MADD was also important. Lewis employed heavy use of Bajan dialect throughout his compositions see “Tribute to Grynner.”
* * See my Stabby post to come for another example of Bashment Soca in action!!!
There have been a number of notable deaths this year and in Caribbean music none more significant than the recent one of Juan Formell.
As this blog’s readership is made up of mostly English speakers, (the global stats indicate this), many of you may have not heard of Juan Formell before.
Formell was the founder, composer, arranger and leader of the most popular post-revolution music group ever to come from Cuba, Los Van Van. This group, which has been around since the late 1960s is to Cuba what Bob Marley is to Jamaica, Kitchener to Trinidad, Blades to Panama and Red Plastic Bag to Barbados. If you doubt me, take a brief look at minute 20 when they managed to get 270 000 people to a concert in Santiago de Cuba.
In short, Formell was immense. Thanks for the music Juan, a Caribbean music great. Music aLive, now and forever more, Amen!
As the title shows, this post is intended to diminish the absolute abuse of musical terms which happens every Crop Over.
Unlike some, I am not against non- musicians engaging in musical discussion, I actually quite enjoy the debates.
However, pretending to use musical terms to sound knowledgeable when you don’t have a clue what they mean is not cool.
So here are some definitions of common musical terms so you (I) can have a more enjoyable Crop Over season.
1. Instrumentation is the texture of musical sounds in a performance and here is a list of instruments commonly seen or heard on Crop Over/Carnivals stages:
Here are instruments not heard on Crop Over/Carnivals stages:
2. Rhythm/Time
Rhythm is a common musical term. In its strictest definition it is sound across time. In other words, once sound is played by whatever instrument and time passes (which it will) it displays rhythm. So for example, the bass guitar player plucks a string and whatever pattern or notes he is playing form a rhythm. The other more common use of rhythm refers to the beat and the way that beat is organised. So for example, the calypso beat is referred to as the calypso rhythm and that rhythm is played by the drums. What must be remembered is that each individual instrument has a rhythm which in turn combines to create an overall rhythm (beat).
3. Melody
Melody is the standout sequence of pitches heard in a song. Melodies are the things that you remember in your head and sing in the shower. At Crop Over and all over the world, it is the thing lead singers produce when they sing. In addition, instruments which produce pitch also play melody. So in a calypso tent band for example, in the areas where the singer stops singing, a band chorus happens where the trumpets or saxes take the melody.
4. Harmony
Harmony happens when two or more pitches are played at the same time. This is a very musical concept and musicians spend a lot of formal and informal education dealing with this area which can get very complex. At Crop Over, the keyboard, bass guitar and guitar provide the harmonic bed. In calypso bands that have horn sections, harmony is also provided when the different horns, trumpet sax and trombone, play different notes together.
5. Key/Pitch/Scale
These terms are probably the most misused in Crop Over by non- musicians. The understanding of key, believe it or not is based on harmony and even though many people do not understand harmony, they definitely perceive key. However, perception and being able to explain it are two different things and the following terms heard frequently this time of year, all refer to key in some way (these terms are in Bajan dialect for my international audience).
What people refer to when they make these statements is the relationship between melody and key centre. A key centre is established through harmony or through the melody itself where certain notes create a ‘home base.’ What is also created is a set of notes which ‘should’ be heard. When someone is out of key, it means that they don’t accurately hit the notes which should be heard. What usually makes this worse is when this person sings with musical accompaniment, as these instruments hit the right pitches leaving the singer sounding even more ‘out there.’ This is of course the science behind it and perception of pitch is done quickly by those good enough to hear the home base and accompanying right notes.
So that is it. Feel free, in fact, be compelled to use this information throughout the season and don’t hesitate to shout me back here if you want any further clarification. Also, pass it on to your friends having carnivals this summer, like those in St. lucia and Grenada…this is the only way we can stop the abuse!
In Peter Wade’s book, “Music, Race and Nation,” he makes the observation that many of the Caribbean and Latin-American countries have very similar types of “national music.”
I never realized how similar they actually were until I read this, and with the intervention of that great illustrator, YouTube, I was able to see this as well in living html video.
Here they are:
First up is this lesser known Big Drum style from Cariacou.
Also bearing some similarity to this is the Tambú tradition from Curacao.
Not to be left out, here is Bomba from Puerto Rico with none other than Big Bird in attendance.
From the South American continent, here is festejo from Peru.
This list can go on and on, not indefinitely of course as the region is limited, but we can also add merengue tipico from Dominican Republic,gwo ka from Guadeloupe and Rhumba from Cuba. All of them are:
In short, it is ironic how these expressions which are so closely linked to parochial nationalism are less unique than the states which promote them like to say. In fact, there is a strong argument for a Latin American and Caribbean culture over a nationalist one, but alas, difference is far too appealing, but don’t they look similar?
stefanwalcott.com 