Ayuo


Songs from a Eurasian Journey
VICG 60011 Released by JVC VICTOR on July 24, 1997.
Featuring PETER HAMMILL, DAVID LORD, DANNY THOMPSON, DAVE MATTACKS, AOIFE NI FHEARRAIGH, EPO, YOKO UENO, and others.
Music based on ancient melodies from Japan, China, Central Asia, Persia, and medieval Europe.
Cover Jacket by TADANORI YOKOO

What is civilization? What role did it play in the history of mankind? Even when counting back from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, there is only 5000 years of it compared to 4.6 billion years of earth's history. What happened 5000 years ago to create this life-organizing system known as civilization? The earliest ancient cities show that it was made according to a plan.


Whether it be in ancient Mesopotamia or ancient China, the whole city was conceived as an imitation on earth of the cosmic order with the most important buildings, the temples and the priest-king's palace, as the highest and in the center. From what we know, the inspiration behind civilization seems to be based first on the discovery that there were five visible planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) besides the sun and moon, which moved according to established laws of and the notion that these laws should be the same as those governing the life and thoughts of mankind on earth.


the city was organized architecturally in the design of a quartered circle centered around the priest-king's palace and there was a mathematically structured calendar to regulate the seasons of the city's life.


In ancient Mesopotamia, they measured three hundred and sixty degrees to represent the circumference of a circle and three hundred and sixty days plus five sacred festive days to mark the circle of the year. Five was a sacred number representing the spiritual energy from eternity.


In Ancient China and Japan, the belief that all nature is made from the combinations of the five elements (water, fire, earth, wood, and metal) became an everyday concept. Symbolic relationships are worked out between the five elements with five directions (north, south, center, east, west), five planets, five colors (black, red, yellow, blue, white), the five notes in the pentatonic scale, as well as everything else conceivable was categorized into divisions of five. Cities were build by placing all the houses and people in what would be its proper site according to its relationship with the five directions. For example, because the north was considered to be the gate to the other world, graveyards, outcastes, and buddhist temples were placed there, while the south was considered the human world, and the center where the palace was located was where the major festivities took place.


The music scholar, Takatomo Kurosawa, has written that China probably learned the pentatonic (five note) musical system from the Turks and Persians, who are its western neighbors. In such a way, we are able to unravel the mystery of how the basis of civilization must have spread both east and west. Joseph Campbell, a scholar of comparative mythology, has written extensively that all high civilizations of the world must be ^as the limbs of one great tree. Museums and written history also show us that musical instruments and the knowledge of music theory had also spread both east and west along with mathematics and the sciences. Music and mythology in the early days of civilization were not just entertainment, but had an important role in organizing society by creating the basis of its religious rituals. The physical world which is now explained, as being made from atoms and electrons were formerly explained by names of gods. So it can be said that phenomena such as gravitation, radiation, electrical fields explosions and collisions is a man-made metaphor like tales in mythology. Musicians in those days were the shamans, often acting as the king's advisor, prophet, harpist, poet, and the religious leaders like the druids in ancient Celtic society.


They believed that the architectural designs in nature had to have relationships with the structuring of our spiritual functions. The Chinese philosopher from the third century B.C.; Lu Pu-wei, has written some wonderful words about this. "The origin of music is unknown. But music must have arisen from measurements, based on the laws of the universe.


Ancient musical instruments such as the koto, bouzouki or psaltery are often called ethnic or "folk; instruments, a term that was not used widely until imperialism in the nineteenth century made European classical music seem like the only proper and ;serious; music in the world. But the songs on this album are developed on the fruits of an earlier and more ancient cultural exchange.


From more than a thousand years ago, there was Court music that was created out of an exchange of ideas from the Middle East to the Far Eastern corners of Asia. This album picks up from some of the melodies it left behind.


In Todaiji temple in Nara, Japan, there is an ancient manuscript from about the seventh century ,containing music from Persia, Central Asia, and China that had been popular in the courts of Tang Dynasty, China. Japanese court music known as Gagaku is a development of this music, and virtually all traditional music in Japan uses the music theory behind this as its foundation. The music is written in a tabulator for an instrument called Biwa, derived from the Persian Barbat.


(This same instrument was called Ud by the Arabs, and was brought into Europe, where it became known as the lute.)There is no notation for the rhythms, although the pitch is easier to determine. (when scholars have revived this ancient music, they used the rhythms of Chinese poetry as one of the ways to determine rhythms in the music.)


Much of the melodies are written in musical modes like the mixolydian mode, which can remind one of European medieval music. However, when one begins to read about how Greek modes and Persian music was studied in Spain in the time of Arabic rule, and of how instruments like the lute and guitar also developed in this period, things begin to make sense. This album contains my re-interpretations of melodies from this manuscript as well as other melodies that might have traveled the Eurasian continent. By doing this, I attempt to show how court music were all connected with one another.


The words to ;Arise My Love; contains imagery from the 'Song of Songs' of the Old Testament of the Bible. The Poet's Love is based on a Chinese melody from the Han Dynasty (about 2000 years ago) called 'Wang Chao-Chou'. It was popular in Japan about 1400 years ago, and still seems to be played by court musicians in Japan.


This version is my own new rhythmic adaptation from the seventh century Todaiji manuscript in Nara, Japan. Floating Dream is also from this Todaiji manuscript. This is based on a song that seems to have originated in Central Asia. Songs from Central Asia were very popular in ancient Japan. The words are based on an old story in China and Japan about a traveler that stops one night at a house on the way to the big city, and is given a special pillow on which he dreams what his entire life would be like as a success in the city. When he awakens, he realizes that his ambition for a successful life in the city is meaningless, and he goes back home to find another way of life. The medley that begins from the fourth track Nava to the eighth track Persian Suite" is based on various traditional Persian melodies. Nava is a pattern from the classical mode, Dastgah Nava.


The imagery behind the words that Peter Hammill wrote are all based on sufi literature. "Layla" is the name of a story well known from the Middle East to the western parts of China. Wrong Footed; is a secular poem about embarrassment set to a tune that I had been performing in an ensemble with a Koto player from 10 years back. The original version is included as a bonus track at the end of this CD. Lamias are half-serpent, half-women creatures, named from a character in Greek mythology. The Lamia is a samba arrangement of a Genesis song that appeared on their album 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway'. The surrealistic words remind me of 'A Thousand and One Nights', so I've set it in the image of 'Black Orpheus'.


Tao is based on the Persian Hommayun mode, but is a completely original song. This version was recorded with myself on Bouzouki, Danny Thompson on Bass and Dave Mattacks on Drums. A Magical Lantern Poem; is based on a song from a medieval European manuscript. There seems to be a French version and a German version, both from around the twelve century to the thirteenth century. The melody is created from only 4 notes in one single tetra-chord. This makes it sound like the Koto music in Japan, because much of its music, over the past few centuries, has also been composed using this same tetra-chord. The fact that ancient Greek music, as well as medieval Arabic music, had a music theory based on combining tetra-chords, makes me believe that this melody must have passed onto Europe as a result of the Arabic occupation in Spain. Ellipse was created from combining a well known melody in the court music of Japan called 'Etenraku', with a melody from the medieval European song collection Carmina Burana. In a book by the music scholar, Laurence Pickens, about Sino-Japanese music from about 1400 years ago, he writes that 'Etenraku' must have been played at least eight times faster than the tempo it is now played at. He also writes this music is based on a round dance from Central Asia. Etenraku Jig takes that in mind, and turns it into a jig.


The music for "Air" is also based on the seventh century Todaiji manuscript. The words to this song by Peter Hammill explains the concept of this album, and is therefore the closing theme.