Week 4- Selecting Music with Integrity

Title: Babylon

Performers: Don Mclean and his audience

Culture/Origin: Judaic-Christian Tradition, Pslam 137. 

Orchestration: Voice, Guitar

Reaction: This is the version of "By the Waters" that I am accustomed to singing at Tisha B'av, a jewish holiday in remembrance of the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem.  However, at a reading session at OMEA for the Middle School/Junior High level, I came across a new arrangement of this song, arranged my Catherine Delanoy.  You can view a copy of the score at the website.  In the article we read, "Music That Represents Culture: Selecting Music with Integrity" by Carlos R. Abril, Abril states, "The key [to authenticity] is in determining how much can be lost before the music is no longer a reflection of the culture purportedly being represented."  He also talks about "Cultural Validity."  At the beginning of Delanoy's arrangement of "By the Waters,"  I actually didn't recognize the song.  However, once we got past the beginning section, I realized what the songs was.  At first, I was a little upset by Delanoy's arrangement, but I realized that the song did, in fact, maintain a tone I found appropriate for the song, and while she embellished the beautiful, simple musical lines of the song, the arrangement proves to have excellent teaching tools for middle school students.  Thus, Delanoy kept within Cultural Validity of the song by maintaining an appropriate musical tone, and as long as a music educator looks up the context for the use of the song, that educator will ensure to maintain enough of the musical context to uphold a strong "reflection of the culture purportedly being represented."