文科段子:藝術類音樂
It may seem strange that we're discussing music from a Broadway production in this class, "The Lion King" especially, since it's based on a popular Hollywood movie. I mean music preformed for Broadway theater in the heart of New York city surely would seem to be in the western tradition of popular music and not have much in common with the music we have been studying in this course, such as gamelan music of Indonesia, or Zulu chants of South Africa, music that developed outside the western tradition of Europe and America. But in fact, musicians have a long-standing tradition of borrowing front one another's cultures.
And this production's director intentionally included both western and non-western music. That way, some of the rhythms, instrument, and harmonies typical of non-western music contrast with and complement popular music more familiar to audiences in North America and Europe, music like rock, jazz or Broadway style show tunes. So I want to spend the rest of this class and most of the next one on the music from the show "The Lion King" as a way of summarizing some of the technical distinctions between typical western music and the non-western music that we've been studying.
Now the African influence on the music is clear. The story takes place in Africa. So the director got a South African composer to write songs with a distinctly African sound. And the songs even include words from African languages. But we'll get back to the African influence later. First let's turn to the music that was written for the shadow puppet scenes in "The Lion King", music based on the Indonesian music used in the shadow puppet theater of that region.