February 19, 2022 • 54 mins
Theodore Levin has a lifetime of scholarship in studying music, culture, and spirituality of Central Asia and Siberia. His book on Tuvan Singing opens new understandings of melodies of timbre and musical relations with ecology and the natural world. This episode draws together a rich conversation on hospitality, mimesis, sonic painting, intertwined listening, and the violence of uprooted imaginations.
The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Theodore Levin (00:00):
Help people understand culturally speaking,
(00:03):
who they are, gives them thematerial they need and the and
the sense of selfhood to becomepluralist to become interested
in the culture of others and tofeel that they can be at once
rooted and empathetic.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (00:21):
You are listening to season three of the
music and peacebuilding podcast,a professional development
network at musicpeacebuilding.com Exploring
intersections of peacebuilding,sacredness, community,
creativity and imagination.
Through research and story.
Theodore Levin is a longtimestudent of music, expressive
(00:42):
culture and traditionalspirituality in Central Asia and
Siberia. As an advocate formusic and musicians from other
cultures, he has written books,produced recordings, curated
concerts, and contributed tointernational arts initiatives.
Levin served as the firstexecutive director of the Silk
(01:02):
Road Project, founded by cellistYo-Yo Ma. He is currently senior
project consultant to the AghaKhan music initiative. His
research and advocacy focuses onthe role of arts and culture in
promoting and strengtheningcivil society, pluralism and
cosmopolitanism. At DartmouthCollege, he teaches courses on
(01:25):
world music, Sonic landscapes,music of the Silk Road region,
and a course on the art, scienceand symbolism of musical
instruments. This episode drawstogether a rich conversation on
hospitality, mimesis, Sonicpainting, intertwined listening,
and the violence of uprootedimaginations.
(01:48):
Recordings are generouslyintegrated with permission from
Theodore Levin's archive, andfrom public domain recordings
made by the US National ParkService. I have been a fan of
Ted Levin's work for some time.
And I find much to learn in hisscholarship about how we might
repair our relations with eachother, and our ecological being.
(02:09):
So in your book, 100,000 foolsof God, I was able to read about
your long list of adventures andyour relationship with Central
Asia. And so I think I want toopen by asking about what
tethers you to Central Asia, andwhat brings you back again and
again, in curiosity andrelationship.
Theodore Levin (02:31):
When I graduated from college, I received a
travel fellowship, Thomas Watsonfellowship that allowed me to
spend a year pursuing a projectof my own devising, the only
conditions were that I had toleave the United States for a
year, not work and not go toschool. So I decided to start in
(02:57):
Ireland, and go overland toIndia. And along the way,
looking at music, listening tomusic, and asking myself the
question, is music a universallanguage? That's a question that
I think is out there in ourculture. And I think a lot of
(03:21):
people accept the kind ofdefault answer that yes, of
course, music is aninternational language, because
everyone has music. But I reallywanted to find out for myself,
the extent to which that wastrue. And so I set off and I
traveled in Europe, I went, tooka train across Turkey, bus
(03:46):
across the Iran, a van acrossAfghanistan, and then trains
around India and then later,bought a car with the fellowship
money in Europe and drove itinto the Soviet Union, and all
the way down to the Black Sea.
And, and into the Caucasus, toGeorgia, the Republic of Georgia
(04:08):
and Armenia. And of that wholeyear, the part of the world that
really resonated the moststrongly with me, was Central
Asia. And I have to say thathere I am almost 50 years later,
and I still feel that I'mfollowing up the leads from that
trip that I made in 1973. In1974. I've returned to many of
(04:32):
those places that I visited. AndI've gotten deeply interested in
quite a few of those musics, butthe one that really became the
center of my professionalactivity was music of Central
Asia and that's possibly becauseit was so little known there was
so little known about it outsideof the region. Of course, music
(04:54):
in India has been studied for along time. There's a lot written
about it a lot recorded. It's awonderful music, and I love
Indian music. But it wasn'tclear what I could contribute.
Because there were other peoplewho had been there longer and
gone more deeply into it. But noone from the West had gone
(05:16):
deeply into that music fromCentral Asia. So that's where I
felt I could make acontribution. And that's what
I've done for the last 50 years.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (05:33):
And I think I need to acknowledge in
this interview that he was inlistening to one of the
Smithsonian folkways recordingsof Azerbaijani Mugham. That took
me on an airplane over to Baku,and I just completely fell in
love with the musics there inAzerbaijan. If I returned to
(05:54):
your, to this first book thatkind of describes your travels,
there is, without a doubt,there's a there's a theme of
hospitality through that book.
I'm understanding thathospitality offers a kind of
slowness, that centersrelationship before you get to
listen to the music. And beforeyou get to ask the questions
that you seek. So can you tellus about what you've learned
from accepting kind of alifetime of Central Asian
(06:16):
hospitality?
Theodore Levin (06:20):
Well, it's made me a more hospitable person
myself, I think, because Irealized how very central it is
in human relations. There's aritualized element to it, which
is very strong in Central Asia.
And, and that was sometimesreally concerning, because the
(06:40):
the ritual part of it normallymeant eating a lot of food and
drinking a lot of alcohol.
Before, as you said, Before, youcould really get to the music,
which is what I was there for.
But in general, I thinkhospitality is just such a basic
human need, and also a kind ofhuman impulse, you know, to
(07:04):
welcome strangers to offersuccor or support to strangers.
We see this in our own culture,I think, in times of natural
disasters and catastrophes whenpeople reach out. The thing that
was interesting in Central Asiawas the extent to which
hospitality remains ritualized,I think in, in the United
(07:28):
States, I think we, we think ofourselves, and I believe we
really are very hospitablepeople. But it's informal,
Americans are informal, ourculture is kind of informal.
That's not the case. InUzbekistan, you know, and
that's, I think, in any kind oftraditional culture, that's one
(07:48):
of the things that defines it,the enduring value and presence
of ritual. So many things areritualized in life, you know,
the life cycle, events,weddings, of course, which, you
know, in the United States, youcan do whatever you want, if you
want to get married. That's notthe case. There. There are still
(08:10):
very, very strict formulas.
They've relaxed a little bit inrecent decades, but but still
much stricter than here. And sothe element of being a guest,
the idea of being a guest, insomeone's house also has a very
ritualized aspect, the offeringof food, the acceptance of food,
(08:33):
the drinking of tea, the askingwhether you'd like more tea, all
of these things have a kind ofroadmap. And as the guest, you
have to follow it. So I got usedto doing that. And kind of
pacing myself, I guess, withwith the vodka consumption,
(08:53):
which in those years, this was,I haven't done, I haven't
traveled around rural CentralAsia in recent years. So I don't
know whether the vodka drinkingis still as strong as it was.
But, you know, this was a Sovietcustom. That that was taken over
by the local people there whowere of course, Muslims. And you
(09:14):
know, in in Islam, if you're apious Muslim, you don't drink
alcohol. There are differentviews on that within Islam, and
I know Muslims who do drink, butyou know that the overlay of
Soviet culture in Central Asiaproduced this kind of hybrid
culture in places likeUzbekistan, and what was funny
(09:36):
about it was that the men usedto pour their vodka into
traditional Uzbek tea bowls, sothat they'd be seeking to be
drinking tea, it looked likethey were drinking tea, but in
fact, they were drinking vodka.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (09:52):
And I'm so impressed that you made it
through Uzbekistan as avegetarian, like that's really
impressive.
Theodore Levin (09:58):
That was not easy. i Yes, as I wrote in the
book in Uzbek, there is no wordfor vegetarian. They, they
describe you as a grass eater.
Yes, if you're vegetarian, andI, you know, I faced the same
issue in Tuva. In Siberia, thatthat's even more carnivorous.
(10:18):
Than Uzbekistan, in Uzbekistan,at least there are vegetables,
they grow wonderful vegetables.
In Siberia, really, there aren'tvery many vegetables. It's
Northern, and it's very shortgrowing season. And, and so the
whole diet there is centeredaround meat and dairy. So that
(10:41):
was tough.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (10:49):
So if we transition our conversation
toward Tuva, which is where Iwant to spend a lot of time
today. First, I want to help ourlisteners maybe to suspend some
of our traditional notions ofwhat music is, and what sound
is. So if we start first withpitch and melody, I think you
open up this understanding asyou relate the story, the tuning
(11:11):
of the igil, as the performertold you that he cared most
about tuning the relationshipbetween the strings rather than
the string itself. Um, so canyou talk about some of the
predispositions that Eurocentric music listeners need to
suspend as we start to encounterpitch and melody in Tuvan music?
Theodore Levin (11:32):
If you grow up in the United States, or Europe
or for that matter, just aboutanywhere in the world, music is
all about melody and rhythm.
Those are the elements that thatare worked with, by songwriters
by composers. When you startlearning music, you start
learning melodies, or you startlearning rhythms. But there are
(11:55):
other parts of music that arenot really foregrounded, in
European music, or even in a lotof Asian music, Chinese music,
for example. And that element istimbre. Timbre is one of the
hardest things to describe. Andin fact, it's officially
(12:17):
described by physicists oracousticians is, whatever is
left after you subtracteverything else. So in other
words, it's it's it's the onlyelement of music that's defined
sort of negatively, by what itisn't. It's not melody. It's not
pitch. It's not rhythm. What itis, is the particular color.
(12:41):
That's that's a metaphor, ofcourse color. But it's a useful
one. If you think about howwould you know the difference
between two differentinstruments, say, an oboe and
clarinet that are playing thesame note the same pitch at the
same loudness or amplitude?
(13:04):
Well, the way you'd know thedifference is by their timbre
that means the color of thesound that particular qualities,
physically speaking, thearrangement of the harmonics, in
the harmonic series, or therelative amplitude or loudness
of those harmonics that give thesound its particular color or
(13:26):
quality. Now, that's the qualitythat interests Tuvans, and that
they really tune into, both inlistening and in learning this
traditional kind of music. Sothat was a big lesson for me,
too. You know, when I first gotinterested in Tuvan music, what
I heard, what I focused on waswhat I was used to listening to,
(13:50):
which was these little piecesthat they wrote or that they
composed, using overtones thatwere little melodies, very
simple folk melodies, using fivepitches pentatonic that really
went something like one of thereally well known ones is ya da
da da da da, da da da da, da da.
Unknown (14:13):
[Music Interlude of Artyy Sayir]
Theodore Levin (14:57):
but that's a very satisfying melody, but
that's not really at the core ofwhat that art form is about,
that's kind of a, I think, maybea later development or something
that was sort of a hybrid formof, of Tuvans listening to other
kinds of music and developingthose melodies. What they're
(15:19):
interested in is pure timbre.
They don't need melody, itdoesn't need to have any kind of
melodic coherence to beinteresting for them. And in
fact, it's more interesting,when it doesn't have that kind
of melodic coherence. Like inthe melody I just interested, I
just illustrated. It's puresound. And and what it is, is an
(15:39):
attempt to reproduce the soundsof the natural world that whose
most salient feature I wouldsay, is timbre. You wouldn't say
that the wind makes a melody orthat the sound of running water
makes a melody. You cansometimes infer a kind of melody
(16:00):
in wind and water and of course,composers use those as
inspirations.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (16:11):
The following is a dawn soundscape
from Rocky Mountain NationalPark. Using Levin's frame, I
invite you to listen to themultitimbral soundings of the
music of dawn, the water and acacophony of living.
Theodore Levin (16:55):
Bird the sounds of birds? Well, yes, birds can,
in a way sing bits of melody.
But with these little exceptionsof little snippets of something
we'd recognize as melody. Reallywhat those sounds are, are pure
timbre. It's it's waves, soundwaves vibrating at certain
frequencies. In certaincombinations. There are elements
(17:17):
of noise, what we would callnoise, as opposed to music,
particularly in something likewater or wind. But those are the
sounds that nomads aresurrounded by, day in and day
out. And that really were theinspiration for this kind of
human sound making. So learningto understand that process of
(17:41):
how those natural sounds weretransformed into this quite
amazing art and technique ofusing overtones or harmonics
naturally present in the humanvoice to make this kind of
music. That's what took me awhile to understand. No, it
(18:02):
didn't, it didn't happen rightaway.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (18:08):
Yeah, and I definitely want to move to the
idea of water here in just asecond. And I think it's also
important to note or that youknow, that also, our traditional
understandings of rhythm need tobe suspended. And if I can read
one of your quotes here, yousay, "in pitch centered music
sequences, a pitches progressthrough a form that has a
(18:28):
certain duration, and that movestoward a prepared conclusion.
But it doesn't make any sense toapply this conception of form to
timbral logic, the top shoor,igil shoor, people would play
these instruments for a longtime sitting around the campfire
before the hunt. When they'd goout at dawn, they'd sing and
play the whole night. theeternity of being was part of
(18:49):
the herder sense of time." Canyou talk about this eternity of
being and how this changes thesense of time in music.
Theodore Levin (18:57):
Well, they don't have pieces as such,
traditionally, they don't haveyou know, we we have musical
works, we talk about works,pieces, songs, compositions,
these are all units of music. InWestern cultures. Traditionally,
they didn't have that peoplewould just start singing, these
(19:21):
were spontaneous sort oferuptions of sound in response
to some kind of Sonic stimulusin the environment. They might
go on for a long time, theymight go on just for a little
bit of time, then there would bea break, they might listen some
more to that wind or river orbird, whatever it was, then they
(19:42):
might imitate and sing a littlemore than there would be a
pause, more listening,imitation, but it wasn't bound
by any sense that a piece ofmusic should be X number of
minutes in order to keep thelisteners attention. because
there weren't any listeners,this was music that was really
(20:03):
made for oneself. And for thespirits. These were people who
believe in the presence ofspirits, Earth Spirits, water
spirits, mountain spirits, windspirits, bird spirits, they're
animists, they believe thateverything is inhabited by
spirits. And so really theaudience for the sound that they
(20:26):
make are these spirits andthemselves. So it's not, they
don't have to worry aboutwhether people are getting
bored, whether it's too long,whether it's going to keep
someone's interest. And so thatchanges the whole equation of
what music is, and and how itrelates to time and the
(20:48):
consciousness of time.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (20:56):
Because in essence, it's singing to a
place. And the other thing thatyou talk about is that some of
the most sacred places areRivers Springs or caves or
places where the inner worldkind of comes to meet the
surface level world. Could youintroduce maybe the sacredness
of ee, and how the singing toplace interacts as a sacred act?
Theodore Levin (21:19):
Yes, that's exactly right, that that people
sing to places. And they sing tothe spirits of those of those
places. So if you believe thatthe world is inhabited by
spirits, then the job the taskof music is to make an offering
(21:39):
to a spirit. And those spiritsare our most commonly present in
points of contact between theinside of the earth and the
outside. So a place like aspring would be an obvious place
to go to, to have acommunication with the Spirit.
(22:02):
Fires also have spirits so thatwhen they do shamanic rituals,
which is a way of purifyingsomething, or healing someone,
they they always throw milk inthe four cardinal directions for
the spirits, and they throw itinto the fire, and they say a
(22:25):
prayer to the spirits of fire.
But all of those spiritworshipping or offering rituals
are accompanied by sometimes byprayers or incantations, and can
also be accompanied by singing.
So making an offering to thespirit through song and music.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (22:51):
In three episodes this season, we will
explore mimesis, roughlytranslated as a balance between
imitation and representation,Philosophers in Western and
Eastern traditions, includingSocrates, Plato, Aristotle,
Confucian and other traditionshave long examined artistic
(23:12):
representations and imitationsof forms and ideas. Sometimes,
as Plato warns, art may distortand corrupt perfect forms.
However, I want to leave thatdiscussion aside for a later
podcast on music and violence.
Instead, we look at mimesis asthe building block of
(23:33):
relationship. In this podcastand coming episodes, on Filipino
peacebuilding and the Japaneseshakuhachi. We ask if artistic
imitation and representationmight be entry points to
relationship and ecologicalcare. We begin with
Borbangnadyr, an imitation ofand singing to the sound of
(23:57):
water.
Yes, so I was deeply moved bythe description of Borbangnadyr,
and how this technique emergesfrom a deep sense of listening
to the babbling of a Brook, andhow it's kind of an imitation of
the harmonics of water and whatthat decision is to sing beside
(24:20):
a stream, and in a sense, enterinto a relationship with it. So
maybe, could you start byintroducing us to this idea of
mimesis that you address in thebook and talk about how, how I
think I sense that this is amovement into relationship,
through this imagining?
Theodore Levin (24:40):
Well, mimesis or mimesis it's pronounced
differently, you know, it's aGreek word. And it's a very old
concept. You can you can find itin Plato and Aristotle. And you
know, that they, both of themPlato and Aristotle were
interested in mimesis, as a formof acting on the emotions. In
(25:06):
other words, when you go to thetheater, and you see an actor
acting a part, what, how doesthe actors emotion actually get
transferred to you? What is itthat makes you feel? The the
pain, say? Or the suffering ofthe actor? How does that
mechanism work? And, and thesame question comes with music,
(25:28):
you go to hear something, say avery sad piece. You know,
suppose it's a funeral march?
Why do you feel sad? What is theactual mechanism? Is it? Are we
hardwired? To feel sadness whenwe hear music that's slow? And
that's in a minor key? Or isthat a cultural adaptation? Are
(25:48):
all people hardwired? Do allpeople respond the same way? Or
are there cultures where happymusic, music associated with
say, with happy events,weddings, etc? is in minor keys?
Those are interesting questions.
(26:08):
And it comes down to a lot tothis question about mimesis,
imitation. So when you imitatesomething, some sound in the
world, according to the Tuvans,you're showing respect for to be
able to imitate it or representit, it doesn't mean that you
(26:29):
need to imitate it precisely.
You can't you can't soundexactly like the wind or like
water, but you can represent it.
And when you do that, theirunderstanding of what that means
is, yes, you're forming arelationship with with that
entity, and with that spirit,and you're showing respect to
(26:49):
it. And the sound is acting inyou the sound of the water or
the bird or whatever. Andyou're, you're then sort of
repeating that, repeating thatback. And these, as I traveled
around in Tuva, with with thesesingers, what I saw was that
(27:11):
this is almost like a reflex. Inthem, they'd hear a crow or
something. And right away,they'd want to imitate it. It
was some kind of mimetic reflex.
Children would do that a lot.
They'd imitate domesticatedanimals, the sounds of goats,
and sheep, and cows, sort of topractice, but it seemed, it
(27:37):
seemed culturally ingrained inthem that this was a good thing
to do that this was anappropriate thing to do. I mean,
we, we also have in our culture,you know, these kinds of
stylized animal sounds bah for asheep or woof, woof for a dog or
moo for a cow. But a cow doesn'treally say, moo. Right? That's
(28:03):
our kind of stylized way ofrepresenting it, the Tuvan kids,
by contrast, would actually makethose sounds very, very
authentically. I mean, you youknow, if you try you can pretty
well sound like a cow. Or, youknow, a chicken I mean, there
are people who do these kinds ofanimal imitations very well and
(28:25):
of course, birds, but but the,the children in Tuva were,
somehow they understood thatwhat they, what was interesting
for them, was to try to imitatethose sounds as precisely as
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (28:38):
Cross Haridin and Gercek Swing, wrote
possible.
an article on self construal, orthe degree to which we feel a
sense of interdependence withothers. After reviewing and
summarizing relevant research,they write, quote, imitation may
create a sense of interpersonalsimilarity, or synchrony, which
(29:02):
then greases the wheels ofinterpersonal interaction. In
general, people who are mimickedby an interaction partner, tend
to like that partner, to havegreater rapport with the
partner, and to engage in morepro social behavior." As I
listened to this profound clipof a Tuvan musician, listening
(29:25):
to water and singing back to it,I wonder if this
listening-sounding may be arestorative and reparative path
in times of ecological violencethat require intentions of
interdependence, care, andimitation.
Unknown (30:09):
[musical excerpt of Borbangnadyr]
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (30:36):
I was really interested from the
concept of Tuva when you startedtalking about an encounter in
the 100,000 fools of God, whereyou went to the south of
Uzbekistan and met a gentlemanwho maintained a tradition that
seemed to speak from the sameheritage that had informed the
Tuvan tradition that was morelow toned, that that also
(31:00):
painted Sonic pictures. Andthen, at the end of this series,
you had this wonderful, itseemed like a very sacred 15
minutes with this woman whobrought a jaw harp. And both of
these traditions seem to reallylive. And so can can you talk
about this encounter and howit's part of this, this larger
(31:21):
tradition of sonic painting?
Theodore Levin (31:26):
Well, that tradition of Sonic painting is
very alive in in Tuva. Andreally all over Northern Asia.
And also, by the way, in China,there's a very active tradition
in China of music thatillustrates painting,
particularly landscape painting.
But the little piece of it thatI heard in Uzbekistan was indeed
(31:50):
this lovely woman who played thethe jaw harp or recall the Jews
harp, which is probably acorruption of jaw harp. I just
spoke about the ethniccomplexity of these groups,
Uzbeks, who now we, you know,they they occupy a country
that's known for cotton growingfor agriculture, for some of its
(32:13):
big cities, like Bukhara andSammarkand that were on the Silk
Road. But they were also nomads.
You know, some of the foundersof the Uzbek culture, we're
descendants of Genghis Khan. Sothere's this still this nomadic
element in Uzbek culture that'smost present in this area that I
(32:34):
visited, that you just askedabout it, it's a steppe area,
there's no agriculture there.
It's too dry to grow food orraise crops. So they herd, they
have animals, and the music thatthey play, or perform is also
related to the epic poetrytraditions of the nomadic sphere
(32:59):
of inner Asia of the Cossacks,the Kyrgyz, the Turkmens, the
Tuvans, the Altai, people,Mongols, these are all
historically nomadic groups,they had no had they, they
didn't have books, you couldn'ttake books around on your
horses, your camels, theymemorized everything. They have
(33:20):
phenomenal memory, so long, epicpoems, many times longer than
the Iliad or the Odyssey, thatthey knew by memory that the
reciters knew by memory, andpart of what their music did.
It's related to this idea wespoke about of performing music
for a place, you can communicatewith the spirits of the place.
(33:44):
And you can also describe theplace through sound. So that's
another thing that that they do.
And there are some wonderful, Ihave one wonderful recording
video recording in the book onTuva. That shows a shepherd
sitting on a hill. And he'slooking at a mountain range or
(34:07):
range of hills. And he'svisualizing it, but transforming
the visual impression into asonic Sonic impression. So in
other words, singing the imageof the hills. And that's
something that also is done bythe aboriginal inhabitants of
(34:28):
Australia, with their so calledSong lines. There's this
wonderful book of Bruce Chatwincalled Song lines, where it's
kind of an ethnographic novel.
But this has been welldocumented, they they literally
sing the land in order to makemaps of it. And this is
something along the lines ofwhat the Tuvans do. singing the
(34:48):
land singing, the the the themarkers and the landscapes as a
way of identifying their place.
where they're from, and the landthat they know.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (35:04):
In the chapter on Mimesis, Levin asked
"what the sound of the mountainsis like?" to talented Tuvan poet
and singer Zhenya. Listening tothe sound of the mountains, the
birds and the wind Zhenyaproceeded to sing pulsations of
wind and the gentle grandeur ofthe mountains, he reflected.
(35:27):
"When I go there in the summer,I climb up to the top of a
mountain and look at the endlesstaiga. The part that's close to
you looks green. And as you lookinto the distance, it gets bluer
and bluer. It's a feeling ofendlessness, infinity, I'd stand
on top of a summit. And when youcry out, the sound scatters in
(35:49):
all directions. In my singing, Itried to give the sound of an
echo. When you come to themountains after being in the
city, there's such a silence,you shout, and your voice goes
and goes and then comes back."The following is an excerpt of
(36:10):
that painting of distanceinfinity, color, and silence.
Unknown (37:04):
[Zhenya singing a painting of a mountain]
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (37:25):
Because this is a podcast on
peacebuilding, I think I want totransition to a kind of violence
that I sense, in particular,you, you talk about a kind of
modern violence that I mightdescribe as an assimilated
placelessness in the pursuit ofprogress, particularly within
the Soviet history of some ofthese areas, and in your text,
(37:47):
and whether it be the story ofTuvan music or the Bukharan
Jewish community or stories ofShashmaqam there's an underlying
story of Soviet histories thatdreamed of an imagined national
culture that kind of resultedin, in a kind of a simulated
placeessness so I wondered ifyou might talk about the
dissonance between the imaginednational, and then the rooted
(38:11):
diverse being in place of thelocal and how those, how you've
sensed those coming intoconflict across the history?
Theodore Levin (38:18):
Yes, this is a complicated question. And it's
one that's been written about alot by scholars who have gone at
it from the perspective of ofidentity, social identity,
political identity, differentlayers, multiple layers of
identity, that have been piecedtogether and torn apart and
(38:45):
reconfigured through thistortured history, particularly
in the, in the 20th century, ofthe creation of the Soviet
Union. By through the the forcedamalgamation of, of many
different ethno linguisticgroups, all of whom were
(39:08):
required to assume the identityof what's been called What was
sort of satirically called homoSovieticus, by by the Russian
writers Zinoviev. But this HomoSovieticus, you know, the Soviet
man, the ideal Soviet person,who would have forgotten their
(39:35):
original ethnic identity exceptperhaps for the preservation of
some kind of local traditionsreimagined in a Soviet form.
They have this, this slogan,nationalist in content socialist
in form to describe art andliterature and music in other
(39:57):
words, that you could have musicthat was played say by Tuvan
instruments or Uzbek instrumentsbut the words would be about
collective farms and fulfillingthe five year plan and the glory
of socialism. And so what waslost in all of that was this
strong sense of, of localtradition, particularly local
(40:23):
spirituality because, of course,the Soviet Union was a country
rooted in atheism. I mean, thethe idea was that, as Marx said,
religion is the opiate of thepeople. And so the the hope was
that religion would just witheraway as people adopted socialism
and the progress of socialismand they saw the benefits of
(40:47):
leaving behind what the what theBolsheviks viewed as a
superstition, that is religion.
But that wasn't the way a lot ofpeople saw it. And and so this
tension ensued between, youcould say, forced forced
forgetting of the past, what theSoviet ideology ideologists
(41:08):
called, the struggle with theold or struggle with the past.
So there was forced forgetting.
But there has also been forcedremembering, which is really
this sort of what's happened, Ithink, in the the post Soviet
times where, again, the SovietUnion is now regarded Well, it's
(41:35):
that again, it's complicated,because a lot of what the Soviet
Union did that was viewednegatively in the immediate post
Soviet years is now coming backfor reassessment. It's viewed
more positively. But the forcedremembering now is is about the
glories of these post Sovietnations, and sort of artificial
(41:59):
constructions of their historyand heritage, that are foisted
on people through holidays likeNavruz, which is the Persian New
Years, which is now celebratedall over Central Asia, by
different ethnicities, wherethey recount the you know, the
(42:23):
history of the of these peoplesreally, I have to say,
falsifying certain elements ofhistory,
to to present the idea that,that these that there is some
kind of direct lineage comingfrom the far distant past that's
(42:43):
led through history to thesepresent day nations as sort of
coherent ethno linguisticgroups. So part of what I've
been trying to do in my own workis really challenge those, what
I would call ethno nationalistassumptions, or constructions
(43:05):
rather, they're not assumptions,challenge, ethno nationalist
constructions of history, whichI think are can be very harmful
to one's sense of identity,because let's face it, all of us
are the products of migrations,of intermingling, of very
(43:25):
complex social histories, thatas we now are beginning to
acknowledge in the United Stateshave some very unsavory elements
in the past. And that's not onlytrue of United States, it's true
of pretty much all of the world.
You know, there was slavery inCentral Asia. There was slavery
in the Middle East. There wereall kinds of forced migrations,
(43:52):
forced exiles, mass,enslavement, mass imprisonment
of whole populations, all ofthese movements, vast
demographic movements, led onestep at a time, to the
ethnicities and the, the kindsof social groups that we have
(44:13):
today. So when you begin toscratch the surface of those, it
gets complicated, very, veryfast, and the kind of simplistic
national identities and subnational identities that are
reified through culture andthrough music and through let's
call it heritage management.
(44:37):
Today, are our attempts reallyto erase that past and, and to
make, to construct ethnolinguistic identities that are
congruent with politicalboundaries? In other words to
reinforce the identity of nationstates? But of course we know
(45:00):
that that doesn't always work,and that the borders of ethno
linguistic groups are notcongruent with the borders of
states, they're rarely so howcan they be? So that's where you
get a lot of the the tensionsnow, not only in Central Asia,
but of course, all over theworld, you know, where you find
(45:22):
these tensions between theboundaries of states that says,
you know, you such and such anethnic group you are, you know,
you are, whatever, you know,your, your, your citizens of
this country, but those peoplesay, No, we're not citizens of
your country, our ethnicity, ourroots are somewhere else, you
have no right to tell us, youknow, so these, these are the
(45:44):
kinds of things that are playingout and, and music, you know,
music might seem a long way fromthat kind of political
conversation. But it's notbecause music as a as an element
of expressive culture is verymuch related to to the idea of
identity of, you know, thelanguage you sing in the kinds
(46:04):
of musical forms that youconsider your own, the the kinds
of, of repertoires and stylesthat you consider your own the
kinds of consinguinities orcultural relationships that you
might have with people youconsider your, your ancestors or
(46:25):
people you consider your kin,your near kin. All of those
things can come in conflict withthe attempts of politicians to
tell you know, you're this oryou're that. So that's what's
kind of in a nutshell beingplayed out. Now, I think, with a
lot of these, these socialmovements.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (46:58):
So your latest text, the one that is an
incredibly thorough examining ofthe musics of Central Asia with
so many different co authorsadding chapters to that book
that's been funded by the AghaKhan, if I'm saying that
correctly. In one of the finalchapters of that book, when when
you talk about like the intentof this project, you say "that
(47:20):
the book was envisaged first andforemost as a way to introduce
students in Central Asia totheir own regional musical
heritage, on the theory thatwhen people feel secure in their
own historical and culturalidentity, they create a strong
base for the development of apluralist worldview that
embraces the coexistence ofother different identities," can
(47:41):
you can you talk about thisproject and how that's in line
with what you just talked about,about trying to embrace and
affirm that sense of pluralistidentity?
Theodore Levin (47:51):
Yes, I think that they they go hand in hand,
as I wrote that, you know, the,the pluralist the Cosmopolitan,
is, is the person who has aninterest in other people and
their and their cultures. Butthat interest, I think, has to
(48:11):
be supported by a firm sense ofwho one is, and what what one
comes from culturally speaking.
So by helping, you know, a lotof a lot of people everywhere in
the world can't trace theirancestry back more than a
generation or two, you know,I'm, I'm one of those too, I
(48:33):
mean, I, my generate my ancestrydisappears into the Nazi death
camps. Two generations back, Iknow very little about my
family. And, and I think that'strue of quite a few people in
the world for various reasons.
It's not that they're notinterested. But there were
(48:55):
migrations, there weregenocides, there were all kinds
of things. So to try to helppeople understand culturally
speaking, who they are, givesthem the material they need and,
and the sense of, of selfhoodthat they need to become
(49:17):
pluralist to become interestedin the culture of others and to
feel that they can be at oncerooted and empathetic with with
other people in other cultures.
So, this music of Central Asiabook is part of a much larger
project that's been ongoing for20 years now. That's part of the
(49:40):
Agha Khan Development Network.
That's a large multinationaldevelopment network that was
established by His Highness theAgha Khan, who is the spiritual
leader of the Shia IsmailiMuslims. And that's a group of
(50:00):
around 15 to 20 million Muslimsspread around the world now who
regard him as their their Imam,their spiritual leader. And what
the Agha Khan views himself asdoing and his community as doing
through this work of which I'mapart and my projects are a part
(50:23):
is, as he's put it, realizingthe social conscience of Islam
in the contemporary worldthrough institutional action.
And that institutional action isthe Agha Khan Development
Network, and its variousagencies and programs, among
which is the Agha Khan musicprogram, which has sponsored
(50:43):
this textbookthe Agha Khan believes very
strongly in the power ofculture, and interestingly in
the power of music, as a kind ofsocial bond to help create
community. And so for him andfor the work we do, music is
(51:06):
there as a way to help buildcommunity to help young people
feel their own culture feel thatthey're a part of something
that's larger than themselves,that that's older than
themselves, and that will existafter they leave this world. And
it's also a way of providing alivelihood for musicians to
(51:27):
perform their own music. And tohave it heard by people both in
their own culture and around theworld. Thanks to these CDs that
we put out with the Smithsonianand the textbook and you know,
tours we've we've had an activeor until COVID active concert
(51:49):
touring program of musiciansfrom the region, all of those
that are our attempts to helpboth disseminate this music and
strengthen it as an element of
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (52:05):
As we close this episode, I embrace
community.
the love of poetry that is sodeeply held in Central Asia,
constructing a poem from theideas in this podcast.
When we find ourselves in thecompany of roaring waters,
nearby creeks, the poetry ofleaves in the wind, may you wrap
(52:30):
your arms, embracing sounds toenter the marrow of your being.
Pull closer, we are in sacredspace, the hospitality of here.
Let us sing to this place andlisten, sing and listen until
(52:52):
exchange entwines. Coloring ourimpermanence in pressing
necessities of relation. May wesing and listen. Songs that
caress weave embrace, tangles ofcare, winding roads across
mountains, rivers, caves,valleys to a presence of being
(53:15):
here.
Special thanks to Theodore Levinfor his time expertise and his
generosity in grantingpermissions for the audio files
used in this episode. His textalong with Valentina Suzkei, is
(53:35):
titled, where rivers andmountains sing, sound music and
nomadism in Tuva and beyond.
links to related episodes,references and related sound
files, videos and resources arefound on our website. For
related episodes, I encourageyou to listen to Theodore
Levin's student Tyne AngelaFreeman, or to an earlier
(53:58):
episode with Dr. Dan Shevock, aleading scholar and eco literate
music pedagogy. If you enjoyedthis podcast, I encourage you to
leave a review on Applepodcasts, such that others may
find this space. Thank you somuch for the generosity of your
time in leaving your review.
(54:20):
This is the music andpeacebuilding podcast hosted by
Kevin Shorner-Johnson. AtElizabethtown College, we host a
master of music education withan emphasis in peacebuilding.
thinking deeply we reclaim spacefor connection and care. Join us
at music peacebuilding.com
Help people understand culturally speaking,
(00:03):
who they are, gives them thematerial they need and the and
the sense of selfhood to becomepluralist to become interested
in the culture of others and tofeel that they can be at once
rooted and empathetic.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (00:21):
You are listening to season three of the
music and peacebuilding podcast,a professional development
network at musicpeacebuilding.com Exploring
intersections of peacebuilding,sacredness, community,
creativity and imagination.
Through research and story.
Theodore Levin is a longtimestudent of music, expressive
(00:42):
culture and traditionalspirituality in Central Asia and
Siberia. As an advocate formusic and musicians from other
cultures, he has written books,produced recordings, curated
concerts, and contributed tointernational arts initiatives.
Levin served as the firstexecutive director of the Silk
(01:02):
Road Project, founded by cellistYo-Yo Ma. He is currently senior
project consultant to the AghaKhan music initiative. His
research and advocacy focuses onthe role of arts and culture in
promoting and strengtheningcivil society, pluralism and
cosmopolitanism. At DartmouthCollege, he teaches courses on
(01:25):
world music, Sonic landscapes,music of the Silk Road region,
and a course on the art, scienceand symbolism of musical
instruments. This episode drawstogether a rich conversation on
hospitality, mimesis, Sonicpainting, intertwined listening,
and the violence of uprootedimaginations.
(01:48):
Recordings are generouslyintegrated with permission from
Theodore Levin's archive, andfrom public domain recordings
made by the US National ParkService. I have been a fan of
Ted Levin's work for some time.
And I find much to learn in hisscholarship about how we might
repair our relations with eachother, and our ecological being.
(02:09):
So in your book, 100,000 foolsof God, I was able to read about
your long list of adventures andyour relationship with Central
Asia. And so I think I want toopen by asking about what
tethers you to Central Asia, andwhat brings you back again and
again, in curiosity andrelationship.
Theodore Levin (02:31):
When I graduated from college, I received a
travel fellowship, Thomas Watsonfellowship that allowed me to
spend a year pursuing a projectof my own devising, the only
conditions were that I had toleave the United States for a
year, not work and not go toschool. So I decided to start in
(02:57):
Ireland, and go overland toIndia. And along the way,
looking at music, listening tomusic, and asking myself the
question, is music a universallanguage? That's a question that
I think is out there in ourculture. And I think a lot of
(03:21):
people accept the kind ofdefault answer that yes, of
course, music is aninternational language, because
everyone has music. But I reallywanted to find out for myself,
the extent to which that wastrue. And so I set off and I
traveled in Europe, I went, tooka train across Turkey, bus
(03:46):
across the Iran, a van acrossAfghanistan, and then trains
around India and then later,bought a car with the fellowship
money in Europe and drove itinto the Soviet Union, and all
the way down to the Black Sea.
And, and into the Caucasus, toGeorgia, the Republic of Georgia
(04:08):
and Armenia. And of that wholeyear, the part of the world that
really resonated the moststrongly with me, was Central
Asia. And I have to say thathere I am almost 50 years later,
and I still feel that I'mfollowing up the leads from that
trip that I made in 1973. In1974. I've returned to many of
(04:32):
those places that I visited. AndI've gotten deeply interested in
quite a few of those musics, butthe one that really became the
center of my professionalactivity was music of Central
Asia and that's possibly becauseit was so little known there was
so little known about it outsideof the region. Of course, music
(04:54):
in India has been studied for along time. There's a lot written
about it a lot recorded. It's awonderful music, and I love
Indian music. But it wasn'tclear what I could contribute.
Because there were other peoplewho had been there longer and
gone more deeply into it. But noone from the West had gone
(05:16):
deeply into that music fromCentral Asia. So that's where I
felt I could make acontribution. And that's what
I've done for the last 50 years.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (05:33):
And I think I need to acknowledge in
this interview that he was inlistening to one of the
Smithsonian folkways recordingsof Azerbaijani Mugham. That took
me on an airplane over to Baku,and I just completely fell in
love with the musics there inAzerbaijan. If I returned to
(05:54):
your, to this first book thatkind of describes your travels,
there is, without a doubt,there's a there's a theme of
hospitality through that book.
I'm understanding thathospitality offers a kind of
slowness, that centersrelationship before you get to
listen to the music. And beforeyou get to ask the questions
that you seek. So can you tellus about what you've learned
from accepting kind of alifetime of Central Asian
(06:16):
hospitality?
Theodore Levin (06:20):
Well, it's made me a more hospitable person
myself, I think, because Irealized how very central it is
in human relations. There's aritualized element to it, which
is very strong in Central Asia.
And, and that was sometimesreally concerning, because the
(06:40):
the ritual part of it normallymeant eating a lot of food and
drinking a lot of alcohol.
Before, as you said, Before, youcould really get to the music,
which is what I was there for.
But in general, I thinkhospitality is just such a basic
human need, and also a kind ofhuman impulse, you know, to
(07:04):
welcome strangers to offersuccor or support to strangers.
We see this in our own culture,I think, in times of natural
disasters and catastrophes whenpeople reach out. The thing that
was interesting in Central Asiawas the extent to which
hospitality remains ritualized,I think in, in the United
(07:28):
States, I think we, we think ofourselves, and I believe we
really are very hospitablepeople. But it's informal,
Americans are informal, ourculture is kind of informal.
That's not the case. InUzbekistan, you know, and
that's, I think, in any kind oftraditional culture, that's one
(07:48):
of the things that defines it,the enduring value and presence
of ritual. So many things areritualized in life, you know,
the life cycle, events,weddings, of course, which, you
know, in the United States, youcan do whatever you want, if you
want to get married. That's notthe case. There. There are still
(08:10):
very, very strict formulas.
They've relaxed a little bit inrecent decades, but but still
much stricter than here. And sothe element of being a guest,
the idea of being a guest, insomeone's house also has a very
ritualized aspect, the offeringof food, the acceptance of food,
(08:33):
the drinking of tea, the askingwhether you'd like more tea, all
of these things have a kind ofroadmap. And as the guest, you
have to follow it. So I got usedto doing that. And kind of
pacing myself, I guess, withwith the vodka consumption,
(08:53):
which in those years, this was,I haven't done, I haven't
traveled around rural CentralAsia in recent years. So I don't
know whether the vodka drinkingis still as strong as it was.
But, you know, this was a Sovietcustom. That that was taken over
by the local people there whowere of course, Muslims. And you
(09:14):
know, in in Islam, if you're apious Muslim, you don't drink
alcohol. There are differentviews on that within Islam, and
I know Muslims who do drink, butyou know that the overlay of
Soviet culture in Central Asiaproduced this kind of hybrid
culture in places likeUzbekistan, and what was funny
(09:36):
about it was that the men usedto pour their vodka into
traditional Uzbek tea bowls, sothat they'd be seeking to be
drinking tea, it looked likethey were drinking tea, but in
fact, they were drinking vodka.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (09:52):
And I'm so impressed that you made it
through Uzbekistan as avegetarian, like that's really
impressive.
Theodore Levin (09:58):
That was not easy. i Yes, as I wrote in the
book in Uzbek, there is no wordfor vegetarian. They, they
describe you as a grass eater.
Yes, if you're vegetarian, andI, you know, I faced the same
issue in Tuva. In Siberia, thatthat's even more carnivorous.
(10:18):
Than Uzbekistan, in Uzbekistan,at least there are vegetables,
they grow wonderful vegetables.
In Siberia, really, there aren'tvery many vegetables. It's
Northern, and it's very shortgrowing season. And, and so the
whole diet there is centeredaround meat and dairy. So that
(10:41):
was tough.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (10:49):
So if we transition our conversation
toward Tuva, which is where Iwant to spend a lot of time
today. First, I want to help ourlisteners maybe to suspend some
of our traditional notions ofwhat music is, and what sound
is. So if we start first withpitch and melody, I think you
open up this understanding asyou relate the story, the tuning
(11:11):
of the igil, as the performertold you that he cared most
about tuning the relationshipbetween the strings rather than
the string itself. Um, so canyou talk about some of the
predispositions that Eurocentric music listeners need to
suspend as we start to encounterpitch and melody in Tuvan music?
Theodore Levin (11:32):
If you grow up in the United States, or Europe
or for that matter, just aboutanywhere in the world, music is
all about melody and rhythm.
Those are the elements that thatare worked with, by songwriters
by composers. When you startlearning music, you start
learning melodies, or you startlearning rhythms. But there are
(11:55):
other parts of music that arenot really foregrounded, in
European music, or even in a lotof Asian music, Chinese music,
for example. And that element istimbre. Timbre is one of the
hardest things to describe. Andin fact, it's officially
(12:17):
described by physicists oracousticians is, whatever is
left after you subtracteverything else. So in other
words, it's it's it's the onlyelement of music that's defined
sort of negatively, by what itisn't. It's not melody. It's not
pitch. It's not rhythm. What itis, is the particular color.
(12:41):
That's that's a metaphor, ofcourse color. But it's a useful
one. If you think about howwould you know the difference
between two differentinstruments, say, an oboe and
clarinet that are playing thesame note the same pitch at the
same loudness or amplitude?
(13:04):
Well, the way you'd know thedifference is by their timbre
that means the color of thesound that particular qualities,
physically speaking, thearrangement of the harmonics, in
the harmonic series, or therelative amplitude or loudness
of those harmonics that give thesound its particular color or
(13:26):
quality. Now, that's the qualitythat interests Tuvans, and that
they really tune into, both inlistening and in learning this
traditional kind of music. Sothat was a big lesson for me,
too. You know, when I first gotinterested in Tuvan music, what
I heard, what I focused on waswhat I was used to listening to,
(13:50):
which was these little piecesthat they wrote or that they
composed, using overtones thatwere little melodies, very
simple folk melodies, using fivepitches pentatonic that really
went something like one of thereally well known ones is ya da
da da da da, da da da da, da da.
Unknown (14:13):
[Music Interlude of Artyy Sayir]
Theodore Levin (14:57):
but that's a very satisfying melody, but
that's not really at the core ofwhat that art form is about,
that's kind of a, I think, maybea later development or something
that was sort of a hybrid formof, of Tuvans listening to other
kinds of music and developingthose melodies. What they're
(15:19):
interested in is pure timbre.
They don't need melody, itdoesn't need to have any kind of
melodic coherence to beinteresting for them. And in
fact, it's more interesting,when it doesn't have that kind
of melodic coherence. Like inthe melody I just interested, I
just illustrated. It's puresound. And and what it is, is an
(15:39):
attempt to reproduce the soundsof the natural world that whose
most salient feature I wouldsay, is timbre. You wouldn't say
that the wind makes a melody orthat the sound of running water
makes a melody. You cansometimes infer a kind of melody
(16:00):
in wind and water and of course,composers use those as
inspirations.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (16:11):
The following is a dawn soundscape
from Rocky Mountain NationalPark. Using Levin's frame, I
invite you to listen to themultitimbral soundings of the
music of dawn, the water and acacophony of living.
Theodore Levin (16:55):
Bird the sounds of birds? Well, yes, birds can,
in a way sing bits of melody.
But with these little exceptionsof little snippets of something
we'd recognize as melody. Reallywhat those sounds are, are pure
timbre. It's it's waves, soundwaves vibrating at certain
frequencies. In certaincombinations. There are elements
(17:17):
of noise, what we would callnoise, as opposed to music,
particularly in something likewater or wind. But those are the
sounds that nomads aresurrounded by, day in and day
out. And that really were theinspiration for this kind of
human sound making. So learningto understand that process of
(17:41):
how those natural sounds weretransformed into this quite
amazing art and technique ofusing overtones or harmonics
naturally present in the humanvoice to make this kind of
music. That's what took me awhile to understand. No, it
(18:02):
didn't, it didn't happen rightaway.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (18:08):
Yeah, and I definitely want to move to the
idea of water here in just asecond. And I think it's also
important to note or that youknow, that also, our traditional
understandings of rhythm need tobe suspended. And if I can read
one of your quotes here, yousay, "in pitch centered music
sequences, a pitches progressthrough a form that has a
(18:28):
certain duration, and that movestoward a prepared conclusion.
But it doesn't make any sense toapply this conception of form to
timbral logic, the top shoor,igil shoor, people would play
these instruments for a longtime sitting around the campfire
before the hunt. When they'd goout at dawn, they'd sing and
play the whole night. theeternity of being was part of
(18:49):
the herder sense of time." Canyou talk about this eternity of
being and how this changes thesense of time in music.
Theodore Levin (18:57):
Well, they don't have pieces as such,
traditionally, they don't haveyou know, we we have musical
works, we talk about works,pieces, songs, compositions,
these are all units of music. InWestern cultures. Traditionally,
they didn't have that peoplewould just start singing, these
(19:21):
were spontaneous sort oferuptions of sound in response
to some kind of Sonic stimulusin the environment. They might
go on for a long time, theymight go on just for a little
bit of time, then there would bea break, they might listen some
more to that wind or river orbird, whatever it was, then they
(19:42):
might imitate and sing a littlemore than there would be a
pause, more listening,imitation, but it wasn't bound
by any sense that a piece ofmusic should be X number of
minutes in order to keep thelisteners attention. because
there weren't any listeners,this was music that was really
(20:03):
made for oneself. And for thespirits. These were people who
believe in the presence ofspirits, Earth Spirits, water
spirits, mountain spirits, windspirits, bird spirits, they're
animists, they believe thateverything is inhabited by
spirits. And so really theaudience for the sound that they
(20:26):
make are these spirits andthemselves. So it's not, they
don't have to worry aboutwhether people are getting
bored, whether it's too long,whether it's going to keep
someone's interest. And so thatchanges the whole equation of
what music is, and and how itrelates to time and the
(20:48):
consciousness of time.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (20:56):
Because in essence, it's singing to a
place. And the other thing thatyou talk about is that some of
the most sacred places areRivers Springs or caves or
places where the inner worldkind of comes to meet the
surface level world. Could youintroduce maybe the sacredness
of ee, and how the singing toplace interacts as a sacred act?
Theodore Levin (21:19):
Yes, that's exactly right, that that people
sing to places. And they sing tothe spirits of those of those
places. So if you believe thatthe world is inhabited by
spirits, then the job the taskof music is to make an offering
(21:39):
to a spirit. And those spiritsare our most commonly present in
points of contact between theinside of the earth and the
outside. So a place like aspring would be an obvious place
to go to, to have acommunication with the Spirit.
(22:02):
Fires also have spirits so thatwhen they do shamanic rituals,
which is a way of purifyingsomething, or healing someone,
they they always throw milk inthe four cardinal directions for
the spirits, and they throw itinto the fire, and they say a
(22:25):
prayer to the spirits of fire.
But all of those spiritworshipping or offering rituals
are accompanied by sometimes byprayers or incantations, and can
also be accompanied by singing.
So making an offering to thespirit through song and music.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (22:51):
In three episodes this season, we will
explore mimesis, roughlytranslated as a balance between
imitation and representation,Philosophers in Western and
Eastern traditions, includingSocrates, Plato, Aristotle,
Confucian and other traditionshave long examined artistic
(23:12):
representations and imitationsof forms and ideas. Sometimes,
as Plato warns, art may distortand corrupt perfect forms.
However, I want to leave thatdiscussion aside for a later
podcast on music and violence.
Instead, we look at mimesis asthe building block of
(23:33):
relationship. In this podcastand coming episodes, on Filipino
peacebuilding and the Japaneseshakuhachi. We ask if artistic
imitation and representationmight be entry points to
relationship and ecologicalcare. We begin with
Borbangnadyr, an imitation ofand singing to the sound of
(23:57):
water.
Yes, so I was deeply moved bythe description of Borbangnadyr,
and how this technique emergesfrom a deep sense of listening
to the babbling of a Brook, andhow it's kind of an imitation of
the harmonics of water and whatthat decision is to sing beside
(24:20):
a stream, and in a sense, enterinto a relationship with it. So
maybe, could you start byintroducing us to this idea of
mimesis that you address in thebook and talk about how, how I
think I sense that this is amovement into relationship,
through this imagining?
Theodore Levin (24:40):
Well, mimesis or mimesis it's pronounced
differently, you know, it's aGreek word. And it's a very old
concept. You can you can find itin Plato and Aristotle. And you
know, that they, both of themPlato and Aristotle were
interested in mimesis, as a formof acting on the emotions. In
(25:06):
other words, when you go to thetheater, and you see an actor
acting a part, what, how doesthe actors emotion actually get
transferred to you? What is itthat makes you feel? The the
pain, say? Or the suffering ofthe actor? How does that
mechanism work? And, and thesame question comes with music,
(25:28):
you go to hear something, say avery sad piece. You know,
suppose it's a funeral march?
Why do you feel sad? What is theactual mechanism? Is it? Are we
hardwired? To feel sadness whenwe hear music that's slow? And
that's in a minor key? Or isthat a cultural adaptation? Are
(25:48):
all people hardwired? Do allpeople respond the same way? Or
are there cultures where happymusic, music associated with
say, with happy events,weddings, etc? is in minor keys?
Those are interesting questions.
(26:08):
And it comes down to a lot tothis question about mimesis,
imitation. So when you imitatesomething, some sound in the
world, according to the Tuvans,you're showing respect for to be
able to imitate it or representit, it doesn't mean that you
(26:29):
need to imitate it precisely.
You can't you can't soundexactly like the wind or like
water, but you can represent it.
And when you do that, theirunderstanding of what that means
is, yes, you're forming arelationship with with that
entity, and with that spirit,and you're showing respect to
(26:49):
it. And the sound is acting inyou the sound of the water or
the bird or whatever. Andyou're, you're then sort of
repeating that, repeating thatback. And these, as I traveled
around in Tuva, with with thesesingers, what I saw was that
(27:11):
this is almost like a reflex. Inthem, they'd hear a crow or
something. And right away,they'd want to imitate it. It
was some kind of mimetic reflex.
Children would do that a lot.
They'd imitate domesticatedanimals, the sounds of goats,
and sheep, and cows, sort of topractice, but it seemed, it
(27:37):
seemed culturally ingrained inthem that this was a good thing
to do that this was anappropriate thing to do. I mean,
we, we also have in our culture,you know, these kinds of
stylized animal sounds bah for asheep or woof, woof for a dog or
moo for a cow. But a cow doesn'treally say, moo. Right? That's
(28:03):
our kind of stylized way ofrepresenting it, the Tuvan kids,
by contrast, would actually makethose sounds very, very
authentically. I mean, you youknow, if you try you can pretty
well sound like a cow. Or, youknow, a chicken I mean, there
are people who do these kinds ofanimal imitations very well and
(28:25):
of course, birds, but but the,the children in Tuva were,
somehow they understood thatwhat they, what was interesting
for them, was to try to imitatethose sounds as precisely as
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (28:38):
Cross Haridin and Gercek Swing, wrote
possible.
an article on self construal, orthe degree to which we feel a
sense of interdependence withothers. After reviewing and
summarizing relevant research,they write, quote, imitation may
create a sense of interpersonalsimilarity, or synchrony, which
(29:02):
then greases the wheels ofinterpersonal interaction. In
general, people who are mimickedby an interaction partner, tend
to like that partner, to havegreater rapport with the
partner, and to engage in morepro social behavior." As I
listened to this profound clipof a Tuvan musician, listening
(29:25):
to water and singing back to it,I wonder if this
listening-sounding may be arestorative and reparative path
in times of ecological violencethat require intentions of
interdependence, care, andimitation.
Unknown (30:09):
[musical excerpt of Borbangnadyr]
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (30:36):
I was really interested from the
concept of Tuva when you startedtalking about an encounter in
the 100,000 fools of God, whereyou went to the south of
Uzbekistan and met a gentlemanwho maintained a tradition that
seemed to speak from the sameheritage that had informed the
Tuvan tradition that was morelow toned, that that also
(31:00):
painted Sonic pictures. Andthen, at the end of this series,
you had this wonderful, itseemed like a very sacred 15
minutes with this woman whobrought a jaw harp. And both of
these traditions seem to reallylive. And so can can you talk
about this encounter and howit's part of this, this larger
(31:21):
tradition of sonic painting?
Theodore Levin (31:26):
Well, that tradition of Sonic painting is
very alive in in Tuva. Andreally all over Northern Asia.
And also, by the way, in China,there's a very active tradition
in China of music thatillustrates painting,
particularly landscape painting.
But the little piece of it thatI heard in Uzbekistan was indeed
(31:50):
this lovely woman who played thethe jaw harp or recall the Jews
harp, which is probably acorruption of jaw harp. I just
spoke about the ethniccomplexity of these groups,
Uzbeks, who now we, you know,they they occupy a country
that's known for cotton growingfor agriculture, for some of its
(32:13):
big cities, like Bukhara andSammarkand that were on the Silk
Road. But they were also nomads.
You know, some of the foundersof the Uzbek culture, we're
descendants of Genghis Khan. Sothere's this still this nomadic
element in Uzbek culture that'smost present in this area that I
(32:34):
visited, that you just askedabout it, it's a steppe area,
there's no agriculture there.
It's too dry to grow food orraise crops. So they herd, they
have animals, and the music thatthey play, or perform is also
related to the epic poetrytraditions of the nomadic sphere
(32:59):
of inner Asia of the Cossacks,the Kyrgyz, the Turkmens, the
Tuvans, the Altai, people,Mongols, these are all
historically nomadic groups,they had no had they, they
didn't have books, you couldn'ttake books around on your
horses, your camels, theymemorized everything. They have
(33:20):
phenomenal memory, so long, epicpoems, many times longer than
the Iliad or the Odyssey, thatthey knew by memory that the
reciters knew by memory, andpart of what their music did.
It's related to this idea wespoke about of performing music
for a place, you can communicatewith the spirits of the place.
(33:44):
And you can also describe theplace through sound. So that's
another thing that that they do.
And there are some wonderful, Ihave one wonderful recording
video recording in the book onTuva. That shows a shepherd
sitting on a hill. And he'slooking at a mountain range or
(34:07):
range of hills. And he'svisualizing it, but transforming
the visual impression into asonic Sonic impression. So in
other words, singing the imageof the hills. And that's
something that also is done bythe aboriginal inhabitants of
(34:28):
Australia, with their so calledSong lines. There's this
wonderful book of Bruce Chatwincalled Song lines, where it's
kind of an ethnographic novel.
But this has been welldocumented, they they literally
sing the land in order to makemaps of it. And this is
something along the lines ofwhat the Tuvans do. singing the
(34:48):
land singing, the the the themarkers and the landscapes as a
way of identifying their place.
where they're from, and the landthat they know.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (35:04):
In the chapter on Mimesis, Levin asked
"what the sound of the mountainsis like?" to talented Tuvan poet
and singer Zhenya. Listening tothe sound of the mountains, the
birds and the wind Zhenyaproceeded to sing pulsations of
wind and the gentle grandeur ofthe mountains, he reflected.
(35:27):
"When I go there in the summer,I climb up to the top of a
mountain and look at the endlesstaiga. The part that's close to
you looks green. And as you lookinto the distance, it gets bluer
and bluer. It's a feeling ofendlessness, infinity, I'd stand
on top of a summit. And when youcry out, the sound scatters in
(35:49):
all directions. In my singing, Itried to give the sound of an
echo. When you come to themountains after being in the
city, there's such a silence,you shout, and your voice goes
and goes and then comes back."The following is an excerpt of
(36:10):
that painting of distanceinfinity, color, and silence.
Unknown (37:04):
[Zhenya singing a painting of a mountain]
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (37:25):
Because this is a podcast on
peacebuilding, I think I want totransition to a kind of violence
that I sense, in particular,you, you talk about a kind of
modern violence that I mightdescribe as an assimilated
placelessness in the pursuit ofprogress, particularly within
the Soviet history of some ofthese areas, and in your text,
(37:47):
and whether it be the story ofTuvan music or the Bukharan
Jewish community or stories ofShashmaqam there's an underlying
story of Soviet histories thatdreamed of an imagined national
culture that kind of resultedin, in a kind of a simulated
placeessness so I wondered ifyou might talk about the
dissonance between the imaginednational, and then the rooted
(38:11):
diverse being in place of thelocal and how those, how you've
sensed those coming intoconflict across the history?
Theodore Levin (38:18):
Yes, this is a complicated question. And it's
one that's been written about alot by scholars who have gone at
it from the perspective of ofidentity, social identity,
political identity, differentlayers, multiple layers of
identity, that have been piecedtogether and torn apart and
(38:45):
reconfigured through thistortured history, particularly
in the, in the 20th century, ofthe creation of the Soviet
Union. By through the the forcedamalgamation of, of many
different ethno linguisticgroups, all of whom were
(39:08):
required to assume the identityof what's been called What was
sort of satirically called homoSovieticus, by by the Russian
writers Zinoviev. But this HomoSovieticus, you know, the Soviet
man, the ideal Soviet person,who would have forgotten their
(39:35):
original ethnic identity exceptperhaps for the preservation of
some kind of local traditionsreimagined in a Soviet form.
They have this, this slogan,nationalist in content socialist
in form to describe art andliterature and music in other
(39:57):
words, that you could have musicthat was played say by Tuvan
instruments or Uzbek instrumentsbut the words would be about
collective farms and fulfillingthe five year plan and the glory
of socialism. And so what waslost in all of that was this
strong sense of, of localtradition, particularly local
(40:23):
spirituality because, of course,the Soviet Union was a country
rooted in atheism. I mean, thethe idea was that, as Marx said,
religion is the opiate of thepeople. And so the the hope was
that religion would just witheraway as people adopted socialism
and the progress of socialismand they saw the benefits of
(40:47):
leaving behind what the what theBolsheviks viewed as a
superstition, that is religion.
But that wasn't the way a lot ofpeople saw it. And and so this
tension ensued between, youcould say, forced forced
forgetting of the past, what theSoviet ideology ideologists
(41:08):
called, the struggle with theold or struggle with the past.
So there was forced forgetting.
But there has also been forcedremembering, which is really
this sort of what's happened, Ithink, in the the post Soviet
times where, again, the SovietUnion is now regarded Well, it's
(41:35):
that again, it's complicated,because a lot of what the Soviet
Union did that was viewednegatively in the immediate post
Soviet years is now coming backfor reassessment. It's viewed
more positively. But the forcedremembering now is is about the
glories of these post Sovietnations, and sort of artificial
(41:59):
constructions of their historyand heritage, that are foisted
on people through holidays likeNavruz, which is the Persian New
Years, which is now celebratedall over Central Asia, by
different ethnicities, wherethey recount the you know, the
(42:23):
history of the of these peoplesreally, I have to say,
falsifying certain elements ofhistory,
to to present the idea that,that these that there is some
kind of direct lineage comingfrom the far distant past that's
(42:43):
led through history to thesepresent day nations as sort of
coherent ethno linguisticgroups. So part of what I've
been trying to do in my own workis really challenge those, what
I would call ethno nationalistassumptions, or constructions
(43:05):
rather, they're not assumptions,challenge, ethno nationalist
constructions of history, whichI think are can be very harmful
to one's sense of identity,because let's face it, all of us
are the products of migrations,of intermingling, of very
(43:25):
complex social histories, thatas we now are beginning to
acknowledge in the United Stateshave some very unsavory elements
in the past. And that's not onlytrue of United States, it's true
of pretty much all of the world.
You know, there was slavery inCentral Asia. There was slavery
in the Middle East. There wereall kinds of forced migrations,
(43:52):
forced exiles, mass,enslavement, mass imprisonment
of whole populations, all ofthese movements, vast
demographic movements, led onestep at a time, to the
ethnicities and the, the kindsof social groups that we have
(44:13):
today. So when you begin toscratch the surface of those, it
gets complicated, very, veryfast, and the kind of simplistic
national identities and subnational identities that are
reified through culture andthrough music and through let's
call it heritage management.
(44:37):
Today, are our attempts reallyto erase that past and, and to
make, to construct ethnolinguistic identities that are
congruent with politicalboundaries? In other words to
reinforce the identity of nationstates? But of course we know
(45:00):
that that doesn't always work,and that the borders of ethno
linguistic groups are notcongruent with the borders of
states, they're rarely so howcan they be? So that's where you
get a lot of the the tensionsnow, not only in Central Asia,
but of course, all over theworld, you know, where you find
(45:22):
these tensions between theboundaries of states that says,
you know, you such and such anethnic group you are, you know,
you are, whatever, you know,your, your, your citizens of
this country, but those peoplesay, No, we're not citizens of
your country, our ethnicity, ourroots are somewhere else, you
have no right to tell us, youknow, so these, these are the
(45:44):
kinds of things that are playingout and, and music, you know,
music might seem a long way fromthat kind of political
conversation. But it's notbecause music as a as an element
of expressive culture is verymuch related to to the idea of
identity of, you know, thelanguage you sing in the kinds
(46:04):
of musical forms that youconsider your own, the the kinds
of, of repertoires and stylesthat you consider your own the
kinds of consinguinities orcultural relationships that you
might have with people youconsider your, your ancestors or
(46:25):
people you consider your kin,your near kin. All of those
things can come in conflict withthe attempts of politicians to
tell you know, you're this oryou're that. So that's what's
kind of in a nutshell beingplayed out. Now, I think, with a
lot of these, these socialmovements.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (46:58):
So your latest text, the one that is an
incredibly thorough examining ofthe musics of Central Asia with
so many different co authorsadding chapters to that book
that's been funded by the AghaKhan, if I'm saying that
correctly. In one of the finalchapters of that book, when when
you talk about like the intentof this project, you say "that
(47:20):
the book was envisaged first andforemost as a way to introduce
students in Central Asia totheir own regional musical
heritage, on the theory thatwhen people feel secure in their
own historical and culturalidentity, they create a strong
base for the development of apluralist worldview that
embraces the coexistence ofother different identities," can
(47:41):
you can you talk about thisproject and how that's in line
with what you just talked about,about trying to embrace and
affirm that sense of pluralistidentity?
Theodore Levin (47:51):
Yes, I think that they they go hand in hand,
as I wrote that, you know, the,the pluralist the Cosmopolitan,
is, is the person who has aninterest in other people and
their and their cultures. Butthat interest, I think, has to
(48:11):
be supported by a firm sense ofwho one is, and what what one
comes from culturally speaking.
So by helping, you know, a lotof a lot of people everywhere in
the world can't trace theirancestry back more than a
generation or two, you know,I'm, I'm one of those too, I
(48:33):
mean, I, my generate my ancestrydisappears into the Nazi death
camps. Two generations back, Iknow very little about my
family. And, and I think that'strue of quite a few people in
the world for various reasons.
It's not that they're notinterested. But there were
(48:55):
migrations, there weregenocides, there were all kinds
of things. So to try to helppeople understand culturally
speaking, who they are, givesthem the material they need and,
and the sense of, of selfhoodthat they need to become
(49:17):
pluralist to become interestedin the culture of others and to
feel that they can be at oncerooted and empathetic with with
other people in other cultures.
So, this music of Central Asiabook is part of a much larger
project that's been ongoing for20 years now. That's part of the
(49:40):
Agha Khan Development Network.
That's a large multinationaldevelopment network that was
established by His Highness theAgha Khan, who is the spiritual
leader of the Shia IsmailiMuslims. And that's a group of
(50:00):
around 15 to 20 million Muslimsspread around the world now who
regard him as their their Imam,their spiritual leader. And what
the Agha Khan views himself asdoing and his community as doing
through this work of which I'mapart and my projects are a part
(50:23):
is, as he's put it, realizingthe social conscience of Islam
in the contemporary worldthrough institutional action.
And that institutional action isthe Agha Khan Development
Network, and its variousagencies and programs, among
which is the Agha Khan musicprogram, which has sponsored
(50:43):
this textbookthe Agha Khan believes very
strongly in the power ofculture, and interestingly in
the power of music, as a kind ofsocial bond to help create
community. And so for him andfor the work we do, music is
(51:06):
there as a way to help buildcommunity to help young people
feel their own culture feel thatthey're a part of something
that's larger than themselves,that that's older than
themselves, and that will existafter they leave this world. And
it's also a way of providing alivelihood for musicians to
(51:27):
perform their own music. And tohave it heard by people both in
their own culture and around theworld. Thanks to these CDs that
we put out with the Smithsonianand the textbook and you know,
tours we've we've had an activeor until COVID active concert
(51:49):
touring program of musiciansfrom the region, all of those
that are our attempts to helpboth disseminate this music and
strengthen it as an element of
Kevin Shorner-Johnson (52:05):
As we close this episode, I embrace
community.
the love of poetry that is sodeeply held in Central Asia,
constructing a poem from theideas in this podcast.
When we find ourselves in thecompany of roaring waters,
nearby creeks, the poetry ofleaves in the wind, may you wrap
(52:30):
your arms, embracing sounds toenter the marrow of your being.
Pull closer, we are in sacredspace, the hospitality of here.
Let us sing to this place andlisten, sing and listen until
(52:52):
exchange entwines. Coloring ourimpermanence in pressing
necessities of relation. May wesing and listen. Songs that
caress weave embrace, tangles ofcare, winding roads across
mountains, rivers, caves,valleys to a presence of being
(53:15):
here.
Special thanks to Theodore Levinfor his time expertise and his
generosity in grantingpermissions for the audio files
used in this episode. His textalong with Valentina Suzkei, is
(53:35):
titled, where rivers andmountains sing, sound music and
nomadism in Tuva and beyond.
links to related episodes,references and related sound
files, videos and resources arefound on our website. For
related episodes, I encourageyou to listen to Theodore
Levin's student Tyne AngelaFreeman, or to an earlier
(53:58):
episode with Dr. Dan Shevock, aleading scholar and eco literate
music pedagogy. If you enjoyedthis podcast, I encourage you to
leave a review on Applepodcasts, such that others may
find this space. Thank you somuch for the generosity of your
time in leaving your review.
(54:20):
This is the music andpeacebuilding podcast hosted by
Kevin Shorner-Johnson. AtElizabethtown College, we host a
master of music education withan emphasis in peacebuilding.
thinking deeply we reclaim spacefor connection and care. Join us
at music peacebuilding.com
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.