In the stоry, "A Wоrn Pаth," whаt hаrdship dоes Phoenix not experience in the woods?
C. Creаting the Music оf the Nа’vi Tо аnswer the next questiоn, you will be asked to read an excerpt from the article “Creating the Music of the Na’vi in James Cameron’s Avatar: An Ethnomusicologist’s Role,” by ethnomusicologist Dr. Wanda Bryant (California Institute of the Arts), who collaborated on creating the sound of Na’vi music as portrayed in the video clip you just watched. If it is true that “music” (the purposeful organization of the quality, pitch, duration, and intensity of sound) reflects the “diversity and depth of human experience,” why does music meant to portray an alien society still sound so "human"? (2-3 paragraphs) Reference at least one (1) additional listening example assigned in the textbook, discussed in class, mentioned in the reading excerpt below, or from your own listening experience in your answer. Your answer should be based, in part, on your reaction to the reading passage below in combination with what you have learned from the assigned readings, class discussion, and your own ideas from outside of class. Begin by Reading the Following Passage from “Creating the Music of the Na’vi in James Cameron’s Avatar: An Ethnomusicologist’s Role,” by ethnomusicologist Dr. Wanda Bryant (California Institute of the Arts) At our first meeting, I played about 20 brief sound samples for [film score composer James] Horner and we discussed their suitability for our purposes. Over the next few weeks, I brought him approximately 250 additional samples. He is quite well versed in non-Western music, so I had to dig deep to find “new sounds” for him. The samples I chose ranged from ten seconds to a minute long. They came from cultures all around the world, illustrating different musical devices, vocal and instrumental timbres, vocal performance techniques and textures, extended instrumental techniques, and song structures. In some cases, the samples were from relatively well known cultures such as India or Sweden. But I also delved into field recordings and the repertoires of lesser known minority cultures. The stranger and more obscure sounds I found, the better. According to Landau, “James was never about accepting the ordinary when the movie called for the extraordinary,” so it was a challenging assignment. Through a process of elimination we came up with 25 workable possibilities, including examples of Swedish cattle herding calls, folk dance songs from the Naga people of Northeast India, Vietnamese and Chinese traditional work songs, greeting songs from Burundi, Celtic and Norwegian medieval laments, Central African vocal polyphony, Persian tahrir, microtonal works by Scelsi, the Finnish women’s group Vârttinä, personal songs from the Central Arctic Inuit, and brush dances from northern California. None was an exact blueprint of what we were seeking, but each had at least one interesting musical device or characteristic that we could utilize. In some cases, it was a timbre that we might hope to mimic; in other cases, it may have been a song structure, an ornamentational style, or interesting intonation. Horner then met with Jim Cameron for his input on our musical ideas. Cameron is a very hands-on director and wants to be kept in the loop about all major decisions. Most of the ideas we presented were dismissed by Cameron out of hand, rejected with appropriately blue language as either too recognizable (“Oh, that’s Bulgarian”) or just “too fucking weird!” Half a dozen examples were approved as possibilities. Our next step was to begin creating alien music that was informed by the timbres, structures, textures, and styles of those samples. In today’s world, there are few musical cultures that have not been heard by outsiders. Musically uneducated ears can now readily identify Bulgarian singing or Indonesian gamelan. Faced with this increasing awareness of global cultures, we realized that no one musical culture would work. Instead, we created a library of musical elements and performance techniques that would eventually be melded into a global mash-up, fusing musical elements from the numerous world cultures we had explored into one hybrid Na’vi style. Combining unrelated musical elements could evoke the “otherness” of the Na’vi without bringing to mind any specific Earth culture, time period or geographical location. Whether consciously or not, Horner was thinking along the same lines as was Cameron. Attributes reminiscent of many of earth’s cultures can be seen throughout Avatar’s story. Screenwriter Alan Kishbaugh commented on many similarities: “The Na’vi phrase ‘I see you’ is not unlike the Hopi saying ‘I manifest you.’ The glottal stops [of the Na’vi language] reminded me of the Quechua language and Navajo. The tree of life from the Norse legend of Yggdrasil, the various emergence myths, the blue skin (Krishna) of those who are holy—so many disparate cultural truths brought together in service to a message for our age” (Kishbaugh 2010). Cameron’s story evokes numerous familiar if unrelated images and concepts. The Na’vi music likewise would eventually exhibit characteristics of several earth cultures.… Only one of our songs made it intact into the film: the lament at the Tree of Souls.12 It was also the only song for which music was written ahead of time. In August 2007, Horner told me: “Jim [Cameron] wants to break with Na’vi tradition and use a very beautiful, stirring, soulful, melody sung by all and understood by all from Oklahoma to South Dakota. A Na’vi ‘Amazing Grace,’ so to speak” (Horner 2007e).13 Horner obliged Cameron’s request, and our singers recorded a lovely melody with Na’vi lyrics so that the actors could sing along. Utralä (a)Nawmayrina’ l(u) ayoeng,a peyä tìtxur mì hinam awngeyän(a) aysangek afkeu,mì punn(a) ayvul ahusawnumì aynarina sezea ’ong ne tsawkeyUtralä (a)Nawmayrina’ l(u) ayoeng,a peyä tìrol m(ì) awnga. We are all seedsof the Great Tree,whose strength is in our legslike mighty trunksin our armsas sheltering branches,in our eyethe blue-flowerwhich unfolds to the sun.We are all seedsof the Great Treewhose song is within us. The melody, although western in its orientation, had been developed from some of our previous experimental recordings. But even this was not as simple as it might sound. When we recorded the song originally, we utilized a heterophonic texture similar to the voices in the film’s opening sequence, mixed with some microtonality, and we allowed the singers to ornament at will. Cameron’s response was that the ornamentation took away from the pureness of the melody. So we re-recorded it in a simpler style. Horner featured Bulgarian singer Radka Varimezova, singing a re-envisioned melody and including limited improvisation and ornamentation. Although Horner and I loved it (and it is included on the soundtrack recording), Cameron considered it too Bulgarian and still too highly ornamented. So we stripped it down, simplified the melody again and recorded a group of us singing in unison. This two-minute long version met with approval. The recording was taken to the set where all cast members sang along. All of that work resulted in approximately 30 seconds of music onscreen. Use these questions to help guide your answer: 1. Are the characteristics of all sorrowful or meditative music universal - or culturally specific? How is the creation of the Na’vi soundscape in “Utralä (a)Nawm” similar or different to David Hykes’ experiments with a more spiritual experience in music with his “Harmonic Opening (Harmonic Chant)”? Are laments like “Amazing Grace” or “Lament for Mary McLeod (Scottish Pibroch)” universally understood the same way by all people in all situations? 2. How do you think you might have approached creating the Na’vi soundscape? Would it be more similar to the ethnomusicologist Bryant’s eclectic approach (i.e., mixing a variety of non-Western and “weird” sounds)? Would it be more similar to the final product as shaped by the producer Cameron (i.e., neither identifiable as a “human” sound nor too “weird”)? Or, do you think you would have done something entirely different? 3. Are there larger issues in play regarding the way that Hollywood tends to use non-Western music to portray exotic, or in this case “alien,” soundscapes? Compare/contrast to what we discussed in class regarding the case study of the Armenian duduk (which appeared in the soundtracks for The Temptation of Christ [1988], Gladiator [2000], and Game of Thrones [2008])? Compare/contrast to other experiences you may have with film scores designed to represent a fictitious place (whether human or non-human) (such as the Cantina scene in Star Wars [1977], Wakanda in Black Panther [2018], or Dune [2021 & 2024], etc.)?