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Eurocentric Methods To Describe Black Music Fall Short
Efforts to notate music using traditional, Western methods are inevitably destined to fail because such methods are incapable of completely capturing the emotional essence of African-derived music, according to a scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
"For a substantial portion of the black world, music is not a rationalized or intellectual type of experience. There is logic and order to their music, but that order tends to transcend traditional notions of symbolism; you can't symbolize that order using a Eurocentric, analytic nomenclature that was designed to analyze European classical music. So we need new ways of interpreting and analyzing black music," says Earl Stewart, an assistant professor of Black Studies at UCSB.
A composer by training, Stewart has begun developing a new vocabulary to describe the nuances of black music that defy accepted notational methodology and terminology. In his forthcoming book, tentatively titled "African American Music: An Introduction," he presents an array of original terms and concepts, including "plexus," Rhythmic concrescence," and "rhythmic contention."
"Most African-derived vernacular styles have that I call a plexus, an interactive network of events with dual aspects. One...