NPR goes microtonal

Gang,
Last night on the way home I heard some amazing vocal music on NPR's
All Things Considered. Here is a write up from the NPR web page. You
absolutely *have* to hear a choir of 100+ people all slide down by
what sounds like a 12:11. Listen at 2:30 into the clip for an example.

Prent Rodgers

Pacific Trip Leads to CD by Tahitian Choir

from All Things Considered, Wednesday, September 15, 2004

NPR's Melissa Block talks with sound recordist Pascal Nabet Meyer
about the recording he made on the Island of Rapa Iti in the South
Pacific. Meyer was on a mission to find a culture hardly touched by
the modern age. What he found was a singing style unlike any heard by
the rest of the world: 126 people singing swooping microtonal pitches,
shifting up and down. Other music he recorded on this remote
Polynesian island was music influenced by missionaries, music that
might be heard in a church in South Africa, but their singing still
held their distinctive sound. The recordings are all on a CD by The
Tahitian Choir called Rapa Iti.

I thought you would be interested in this story: "NPR : Pacific Trip
Leads to CD by Tahitian Choir"

<http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=3919685>

This message was included:

Listen to the microtonal glissando by a big choir.

Please click on the headline or the audio icon to listen to the story
using a RealAudio or WindowsMedia player. To download a player or to
find solutions to common problems, please visit NPR's audio help page
at <http://www.npr.org/audiohelp/>.

thats pretty amazing- i bet a missionary left a windup record player there
decades ago and they are imitating the sound of the hymn records as the
player wound down. ;-)

Dante

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Prent Rodgers [mailto:prentrodgers@...]
> Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 9:34 AM
> To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MMM] NPR goes microtonal
>
>
> Gang,
> Last night on the way home I heard some amazing vocal music on NPR's
> All Things Considered. Here is a write up from the NPR web page. You
> absolutely *have* to hear a choir of 100+ people all slide down by
> what sounds like a 12:11. Listen at 2:30 into the clip for an example.
>
> Prent Rodgers
>
> Pacific Trip Leads to CD by Tahitian Choir
>
> from All Things Considered, Wednesday, September 15, 2004
>
> NPR's Melissa Block talks with sound recordist Pascal Nabet Meyer
> about the recording he made on the Island of Rapa Iti in the South
> Pacific. Meyer was on a mission to find a culture hardly touched by
> the modern age. What he found was a singing style unlike any heard by
> the rest of the world: 126 people singing swooping microtonal pitches,
> shifting up and down. Other music he recorded on this remote
> Polynesian island was music influenced by missionaries, music that
> might be heard in a church in South Africa, but their singing still
> held their distinctive sound. The recordings are all on a CD by The
> Tahitian Choir called Rapa Iti.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I thought you would be interested in this story: "NPR : Pacific Trip
> Leads to CD by Tahitian Choir"
>
> <http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=3919685>
>
> This message was included:
>
> Listen to the microtonal glissando by a big choir.
>
> Please click on the headline or the audio icon to listen to the story
> using a RealAudio or WindowsMedia player. To download a player or to
> find solutions to common problems, please visit NPR's audio help page
> at <http://www.npr.org/audiohelp/>.

Hello Dante!
You are correct in the missionary influence. The more traditional music from like islands used such devices in there own highly unusual tunings. Even ancient hawaiian music used some of the strangest scales i have heard. Samoa has similar music to this. and the solomon islands also has this missionary like style. I believed they used it in the film the thin blue line? or red line? This is an older recording though that has been reissued on a newer label, in fact there were two that came out maybe 10 years ago. this is the first and even then it got some noticed..
There is an Albanian group called Tirana which has two CDs out. It is one of the rare times you have "professional" quality singers singing traditional music, this along the lines of maybe Georgian being the closest

Dante Rosati wrote:

>thats pretty amazing- i bet a missionary left a windup record player there
>decades ago and they are imitating the sound of the hymn records as the
>player wound down. ;-)
>
>Dante
>
> >
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Prent Rodgers [mailto:prentrodgers@...]
>>Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 9:34 AM
>>To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
>>Subject: [MMM] NPR goes microtonal
>>
>>
>>Gang,
>>Last night on the way home I heard some amazing vocal music on NPR's
>>All Things Considered. Here is a write up from the NPR web page. You
>>absolutely *have* to hear a choir of 100+ people all slide down by
>>what sounds like a 12:11. Listen at 2:30 into the clip for an example.
>>
>>Prent Rodgers
>>
>>Pacific Trip Leads to CD by Tahitian Choir
>>
>>from All Things Considered, Wednesday, September 15, 2004
>>
>>NPR's Melissa Block talks with sound recordist Pascal Nabet Meyer
>>about the recording he made on the Island of Rapa Iti in the South
>>Pacific. Meyer was on a mission to find a culture hardly touched by
>>the modern age. What he found was a singing style unlike any heard by
>>the rest of the world: 126 people singing swooping microtonal pitches,
>>shifting up and down. Other music he recorded on this remote
>>Polynesian island was music influenced by missionaries, music that
>>might be heard in a church in South Africa, but their singing still
>>held their distinctive sound. The recordings are all on a CD by The
>>Tahitian Choir called Rapa Iti.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>I thought you would be interested in this story: "NPR : Pacific Trip
>>Leads to CD by Tahitian Choir"
>>
>><http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=3919685>
>>
>>This message was included:
>>
>>Listen to the microtonal glissando by a big choir.
>>
>>Please click on the headline or the audio icon to listen to the story
>>using a RealAudio or WindowsMedia player. To download a player or to
>>find solutions to common problems, please visit NPR's audio help page
>>at <http://www.npr.org/audiohelp/>.
>> >>
>
>
>
>
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
> >

--

-Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST

In a message dated 9/16/04 9:39:39 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
prentrodgers@... writes:

I thought you would be interested in this story: "NPR : Pacific Trip
Leads to CD by Tahitian Choir"

<http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=3919685>

This message was included:

Listen to the microtonal glissando by a big choir.

Please click on the headline or the audio icon to listen to the story
using a RealAudio or WindowsMedia player. To download a player or to
find solutions to common problems, please visit NPR's audio help page
at _http://www.npr.org/audiohelp/_ (http://www.npr.org/audiohelp/) .

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the link. That's really something!

Regards,
Andy F.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Prent Rodgers"

/makemicromusic/topicId_7507.html#7507

<prentrodgers@c...> wrote:
> Gang,
> Last night on the way home I heard some amazing vocal music on NPR's
> All Things Considered. Here is a write up from the NPR web page. You
> absolutely *have* to hear a choir of 100+ people all slide down by
> what sounds like a 12:11. Listen at 2:30 into the clip for an
example.
>

***This is particularly amazing since the music is so "harmonic..."
and then swooping down like this...

JP

And here, it seems, is the CD...order yours today!

http://www.a-cappella.com/catalog/world/all-world/p_9226c.html