Lastly, while I played audio clips at the presentation, to stay out of legal trouble with copyright holders, in this article I'm going instead to refer to discography, or in a few cases, point to Google and YouTube. There will be one MP3 clip in the article of an excerpt from a work that is not available commercially in any form.
So sit back, pretend you're sitting in a crowded room with about sixty other people on rather uncomfortable conference room chairs, and let's go on a musical trip together.
The Presentation (sort of)
Hi. My name is David Carrico. The conference schedule says the topic for this session is what will music look like after the Ring of Fire. I'd rather talk about the much more interesting question of what will music sound like after the Ring of Fire.
This is a very challenging topic. What I'm going to present to you now is my opinion of the kinds of things that could be happening within a generation or two of the Ring of Fire event. Just so you'll know, my bachelor's degree is in music theory and composition, which is an intensive study of how music is built and how to create musical forms and effects. That included a lot of study in what musicians call form and analysis, which means the study of how music was written in past eras, so that we can see how other composers wrote music, and either follow suit or go different ways, breaking rules. So I do have some reasons for my opinions, but they are my opinions, not demonstrated fact.
I have a couple of caveats about this presentation. First, this is limited to my opinion, to my ability to conceive of what directions musical trends might go. Second, since it is an audio presentation, complete with sound clips, it is limited to my ability to find musical examples available today that are kinda sorta maybe like the things I hear in my head.
I have quite a few audio clips. They are mostly excerpts of themes from various pieces, but there are two pieces that I will play in their entirety. I did try to take the clips from the beginning of each piece, but there are some where I had to take a sample from the middle of the piece in order to get the sound I need for this presentation. Some of the examples will consist of a comparison between a piece as it was actually written by composers in our time line versus a performance of the same music but in a different style or different instrumentation that will reflect directions the down-timer musicians could go. Some of the examples will just be indications of musical changes that could happen. And some of them will be things that I know are going to have an impact, but I'm not sure what the ramifications will be.
Okay, so think about what happened. The down-timers got 369 years' worth of world music and musical development dumped in their laps with the Ring of Fire. How are they going to react?
It will probably not be like anything we can think of. We are so used to thinking of music as a linear spectrum, of going from A to B to C to D. They're not going to do that. They got 369 years of world music dumped on them all at once. They're not going to explore all of the Baroque era music first, then move on to the Classical era music, and so on. To them, it's all one big pot of music, and every spoonful they pull out is going to be different. They'll be mixing things up in ways we haven't even dreamed of.
This won't be like the technological development arc. With a couple of minor exceptions, there won't be the need to make tools to make tools to make tools to make widgets. 98 % of all up-time musical instruments can be made by 1640.
Within two generations they'll be going "I want that instrument and that instrument and this musical style and that kind of chord progression." They'll be going in every conceivable direction at once.
There are three big factors that will influence musical development in the New Time Line:
New Instruments or highly changed existing instruments, such as:
Piano
Clarinet
Low brass, like baritone horns and tubas/sousaphones
Saxophones
Modern Bassoons
Putting Boehm key system on existing woodwinds like flutes, oboes.
Mature guitars
Banjo
Modern percussion of all types
Musical forms, new and highly changed
Jazz, with its African influences
Rock of all types
Rap
Mature classical styles
Symphonies
Sonatas
Operas
Choral music
Fugues, quartets, concertos, etc.
Country music, both bluegrass and country rock
Musical ensembles
Large groups
Symphonies
Choirs
Differences in how the voice is used in producing music
I want to try and give a hint, a flavor, of what some of those sounds might be like. Of course, since I can only sort of conceive what that will be like, and since I'm not a genius of a performer, I can't create it for you. Instead, I've had to scout along the fringes of our current musical environment, searching for things that are kinda sorta similar to what I think might occur in the future of 1632.
So here we go. These won't be in any particular order.
This first piece was written by Johann Sebastian Bach sometime between 1722 and 1742.
Prelude and Fugue V in D Major BWV873, from The Well-Tempered Clavier Book II. My sample was taken from CD 160 142 in the Vienna Master Series put out by Pilz, entitled The Well-tempered Clavier Vol. 2/II, Christiane Jaccottet, harpsichordist
But in the post-Ring of Fire era, around 1680 you might hear something like this.
Fugue No. 5 in D Major, from Jacques Lossier plays Bach, Telarc CD 83411, Jacques Lossier, pianist
That's the same musical theme in both pieces. But the second time it's done in a very jazzy style. Different style, different instruments.
(I think it was here I got a question as to whether or not the instrument makers of 1632 could build a piano. As I recall, the questioner was concerned about the big steel or iron harp that helps keep the soundboard together. The answer is yes, but the stickiest point won't be the harp. It will be the steel wire needed for the strings.)
And then there's this one:
http://jaymestone.com/albums Allemande from the French Suite No. 6 BWV 817 by Johann Sebastian Bach, written between 1722 and 1725. From Jayme Stone's album, Room of Wonders. (Buy his music.)
It is canon in the story The Sound of Sweet Strings in Ring of Fire III that sometime in 1635-6 Claudio Monteverdi published a Sonata for Banjo and Continuo. I think it would have sounded a lot like this piece. And I think that the banjo will have a big impact on the down-time musicians.
Sometime in the 1680s, if you were in a tavern in Amsterdam, you might hear a song like this one:
Long Black Veil, from The Long Black Veil by The Chieftains BG2-62702 RCA Victor.
This piece was written by Johann Sebastian Bach in the 1740s:
Contrapunctus V, from The Art of Fugue — (My excerpt was taken from Bach — The Art of Fugue put out by Archiv Produktion, performed by Helmut Walcha, who was considered to be THE authority on Bach in his generation.)
But post-Ring of Fire, you might have heard this:
Contrapunctus V from Bach — Die Kunst Der Fuge put out by Classic Production Osnabruck, LC 8492, cpo 999 058-2, as performed by the Berliner Saxophon Quartett.
Saxophones give a very different sound to this piece, and would have really attracted the down-timer musicians.
It was at this point that I said that I think that post-Ring of Fire the saxophone will become the second national instrument of Scotland. I have this vision of the massed saxophone players of all the Scottish military regiments being led in parade by the pipers of the Highland Scottish regiments.