“I don’t want that table,” my colleague said to me. “They’re Canadians. You can take them if you want.”

Before I walked up to the new table to great the customers, I wondered briefly at how she’d instantly judged our customers’ nationality, but it didn’t seem like an important issue then. I had so many other things to worry about: what was the special of the day? What wine was I going to recommend? Was the catch of the day salmon or tilapia? I was in Houston; a rookie waitress in a casual fine dining restaurant, and I had no idea that I’d just been introduced to Jim Crow.

Since the time the civil rights movement first started, restaurants and diners have often been the sites of demonstrations. Novelists and activists frequently make references to the restaurant business in relation with racism. In  “Letter From Birmingham Jail” Dr. King writes, “The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.” Also, in “Notes of a Native Son,” James Baldwin describes how he repeatedly visited a segregated restaurant determined that he be served. Not to mention the climax of the first part of the same essay where Baldwin discovers an uncontrollable rage inside himself as a young waitress refuses to give him any service, and as a result comes terribly close to being lynched by a gang of white people. Restaurants seem to be place of choice for racism to brew.

The restaurant I worked in was not an exception. A few weeks after the scene I recounted in the beginning, I gradually came to realize that the term “Canadian” didn’t have anything to do with Canada; it was a code word that referred to black people. To say the least, I was in a state of disbelief when I first found this out. This was the first time I’d seen someone express hostile or negative feelings towards another person for such and unreasonable thing as skin color. Of course, all this “Canadian” talk was only in the kitchen, and no obvious sign of racism could be detected in the main dining room. Maybe customers would acknowledge that their waiter/waitress seemed a little slow or reluctant, but it could only be recounted as “a lethargic waiter” and not “a racist.” What bothered me even more, was that I learned from other wait staff that the term “Canadian” was not unique to our restaurant, and that it was a common restaurant lingo (at least in the Houston area). It was disturbing to think that racism was prowling so close to every dinner table, and how little people realized this.

Racism in the restaurant is subtle. No one acknowledges that black people aren’t served fairly because of their skin color. The standard excuse is, that “Canadians” are very demanding, disrespectful of waiters, and poor tippers. If that indeed were the description for “Canadian,” it wouldn’t be as disturbing. After all, almost every working human complains about bad clientele, and since a lot of the waiters depended on their tips to pay the rent, the bitterness towards a poor tipper is understandable. But, demanding, disrespectful, poor-tipping white people were never called “Canadians,” and no waiter would express hesitation to wait on a white person. There actually was an ellipse and then a parenthesis after that excuse, and it looked like this: “They’re demanding, disrespectful, and tip poorly…(and they’re black).”

As much as I felt my co-workers trying to brainwash me about “Canadians,” I tried to be pleasant to my black customers. Our restaurant didn’t have a large African-American clientele to start with, but as I became more experienced and waited on more customers of all age, sex, and race, to my horror I found that I was becoming hesitant to wait on black people, too. I’d been raised under the principle that all people are equal and should be treated fairly, so the change in my own attitude was shocking. I felt as if I was a traitor to everything I stood for, and I felt depressed and less confident about myself after seeing that what I thought was such a fundamental and obvious opinion of mine was prone to change.

But, as sad as I was, at that time I felt like there was a difference between people and between races. My black customers did have a tendency to tip poorly. To be fair, there were only few people I encountered who were rude enough to leave a five dollar bill for an over hundred dollar tab. But, being the upscale casual restaurant that my employer was, and after the effort I put into my job, I was used to receiving 20% tips. Thus, 15% percent didn’t make me happy, and 10% seemed outrageous. After a few frustrating incidents of receiving an insulting tip, the “Canadian” stereotype began to form in my mind. The peculiar fact that even the black and Hispanic wait staff acknowledged the “Canadians” created some comfort in me. Even people who knew how it felt to be discriminated saw the same difference that I had seen, and this made my thoughts seem less racist. I was never hostile towards my black customers, nor did I treat them any different from my white customers. But, there was no denying the fact that I was making judgments and preconceptions based on the color of my guests’ skin. That was enough: I was a potential racist, if not one already.

Now that I no longer wait tables, I look back to that time with shame. That summer was a difficult time for me; I underwent many changes in my life, and I was emotionally very unstable. But, whatever reason there is, whatever happened to me during that time, there is no excuse to being a racist. I especially lament my thoughts and actions because I know perfectly well what it feels like to be discriminated. I grew up in Japan where most people acknowledged me as a Caucasian, a racial minority there. I know how it feels to be tagged with difference; how my actions seem to stand out more just because I am different, and how my opinions and differences seem to be blamed on my racial difference. I experienced the same kind of hurt and rage that James Baldwin and Dr. King write about. At times when I wish someone around me could experience what I experience and feel sorry, I quickly deny the thought thinking that I would never want someone dear to me to feel such sadness and solitude. Yet, I had been a candidate of causing the same grief to someone else. It is embarrassing to admit such a thing.

Ironically, I think the term “Canadian” is very appropriate. Racism in the US seems to be the equivalent of nationalism in other countries.  Racists treat black people like “outsiders” in Dr. King’s words. I feel this way because as an “outsider” in Japan, I felt the same things which I read and heard that black people experience in the US. However, unlike nationalism, racism is not about people unable to accept the idea of assimilating and changing; racism is about differentiating and denying a part of the country that is already there, which gives it an ugly twist.

What is to be done about racism? How can all of us go to a restaurant and be received, treated, and served equally? Ever since I left the restaurant, I have been thinking about this issue, and I have been unsuccessful in finding a shorthand conclusion. Nowadays when it is treated as a taboo in society, racism is stealthy and lingers in places where it can’t be easily detected. The restaurant is one place I stumbled upon it, but who knows where else it might be. One thing I did think of is that racism should be taught from a different angle in education. A lot of my friends and young people from my generation don’t acknowledge that racism is still lingering out there. I didn’t either until I saw it right in front of my eyes. Many young people voice doubts about devoting so much time to studying about racism. I think that what we learn in school now, the historical approach to racism, is very important to understand the roots of it, but I also think we need a more up-to-date approach so that students can understand that it still presides, and are alerted of places it could be prowling.

Although I deeply regret the racist I found inside myself, my encounter with racism was a very interesting experience. In the long run, it has made me think about racism and how we can move towards terminating it, with a seriousness I never had before. I also feel a deeper respect towards people like Dr. King or Mahatma Gandhi, who spoke up in the presence of injustice, since now I have a better understanding of how easy it is to mope about and flow with it, and how difficult it is to speak up.

Courtney Swain has a Japanese mother, an American father, and grew up in Japan.   She studied abroad last semester in Greece and is currently in her sixth semester at Berklee majoring in CWP and Composition.

Abstract Lights by Sarah Stinnett

Still Waiting: Asian Americans in Music

by Kevin Luu

America is known as the “land of opportunity,” and people from all around the world admire the supposed equality of U.S. society. Foreigners come searching for the “American dream,” wanting to take advantage of America’s system of “achieving the impossible.” But when one looks at the struggles immigrants had to go through upon arriving in America, one must question if equality has always been an American ethic.

The first Chinese immigrated to the United States during the gold rush in 1848-49 in California, but had no chance to profit from the gold. The Chinese worked as storekeepers, market gardeners, and launderers and grouped together with other Chinese immigrants to form what is now known as Chinatown. Even though the Chinese seemed to be situated, Chinese settlement in the U.S. was not easy. The Chinese would always be willing to work for lower wages, which made the white workers unhappy because it dragged down the pay scale. The westerners also portrayed the Chinese culture and customs – the language, the queues the Chinese men wore, and the food – as strange. The underlying tension between the Chinese and the westerners turned into violence in October of 1871 when two policemen were killed trying to intervene in a gang fight (Spence 212). The unhappy westerners smashed through the Chinatown in Los Angeles, looting shops, burning houses, and beating up any Chinese they found. To make matters worst, in 1882 President Chester A. Arthur signed a bill that “suspended” Chinese immigration for ten years. The bill forced all the Chinese in the U.S. to obtain special registration certificates and banned them from obtaining citizenship. In 1888, President Grover Cleveland proclaimed the Chinese as “an element ignorant of our constitution and laws, impossible of assimilation with our people, and dangerous to our peace and warfare” (Spence 215).

It has been 160 years since the first Chinese arrived in America and a lot has changed since then, but just as the early Chinese immigrants suffered discrimination when they came to America, Asian Americans are still now discriminated against in the popular music industry. When one looks at the faces in this industry, Caucasians, African Americans, and Hispanics are ubiquitous; Asian Americans are highly under-rated and absent. Asian Americans are stars in sports, movies, television, and classical music, but not in popular music. Some say that the racial stereotype of the studious geek holds Asians back from advancing in the popular music industry because Asians are expected to play violin and know kung fu. According to the 2006 Census, Asians make up 4.4% of the population with 13.1 million people, and yet zero are represented on the Billboard’s Mainstream Top 40. Music journalist Oliver Wang describes how the low percentage of the Asian American population in the United States doesn’t set up a big enough market for an aspiring Asian American artist to reach the top (Navarro). But why is it that an Asian American artist has to have only Asian fans?

There have been Asian American artists that have made an impact in the music scene, but very few have risen above the “underground” status. The Mountain Brothers are three Asian rappers from Philadelphia who won the Sprite sponsored Rhymes for the Mind Contest. They went on to record a radio ad for a Sprite commercial and a few commercials for Nike, but the group had creative differences with their label and ended the relationship in 2003. Another Asian hip hop group that got national attention is the Far East Movement whose track Round Round was featured in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. There are also numerous mixed raced Asian Americans in the mainstream music industry like Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park, Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls, R&B singer Cassie, and Allan Pineda Lindo (a.k.a Apl.de.ap) of The Black Eyed Peas, a popular group known for representing Asian culture. The Black Eyed Peas have released a few songs in Tagalog including the hit Bebot and The Apl Song, a song that speaks about Filipino history and the struggles Filipinos go through in America.

It seems as if the roster of Asian Americans signed to major labels tilts heavily toward mixed Asians because of their exotic appeal and the goal of targeting different groups. Paul Kim, a Korean singer who was a contestant on “American Idol,” wrote on his Myspace “I was told over and over again by countless label execs that if it weren’t for me being Asian, I would’ve been signed yesterday” (Navarro). Similar to Kim’s experience, Prohgress of the hip hop group Far East Movement was asked “Would it be easier if you were black or white?” and he responded “Of course it would be a lot easier because there is a track record for black or white artists, [but] for an Asian artist, especially in America, you don’t have a track record…. Like any business, a lot of labels say how can we invest in something that we don’t know any history in?” (Far East Movement)

One of the most well known Asian-American artists, who has opened up many doors, is 26-year-old Jin Au-Yeung. Jin was born and raised in Miami to April and Joe Au-Yeung, two Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong. Jin was introduced to hip hop in the 6^th grade when he first heard LL Cool J’s “Momma Said Knock You Out” and after that, he was hooked. He started listening to artists like Nas, Jay-Z, Wu-Tang Clan, and Mobb Deep and began to freestyle (improvised rhyming) in the 8^th grade. Jin ended up becoming notorious for being the “Chinese kid that be freestyling and battling all the time” (AsiaFinest). Growing up and even till this day, opponents always pull the race card on Jin, but he would use the stereotype to his benefit by saying things like “Yeah I’m Chinese/Now you understand it/I’m the reason why your little sister’s eyes are slanted” (Liu). His creative style and hard-hitting rhymes quickly made him a fan favorite and after high school, Jin decided to pursue his passion and make a career from rhyming.

Jin’s family owned and operated their own restaurant, but despite their hard work and determination the restaurant business was not as successful as they dreamed of. At the age of 20, Jin realized that he was not advancing his career in Miami so he and his family decided to relocate to New York.  Jin quickly began to make a name for himself by dominating open mic battles and selling his CDs on the street. It was through his hustle in New York that he got connected with his manager Kamel of Crafty Plugz. In 2001, Jin landed a spot on BET’s Freestyle Friday on the show 106 and Park, where he won seven weeks in a row and was inducted into the hall of fame. It was during this time that Jin acquired national attention and on his last week on the show he announced he signed a deal with Ruff Ryders, making him the first solo Asian-American rapper signed to a major label. Jin would later release one album with Ruff Ryders called “The Rest is History” and his first single was a song called Learn Chinese. In the hook he repeated “Y’all gonna learn Chinese/When the pumps come out, y’all gonna speak Chinese.”

Jin spoke Cantonese on numerous songs on the album and continued to represent his Chinese culture; “The Rest is History” peaked on the charts at 54. Due to some misunderstandings and disagreements, Jin departed from Ruff Ryders after the release of his first album and continued his career independently. He later landed a spot in the movie 2 Fast 2 Furious playing the role of a car mechanic named Jimmy. He would continue releasing records and battling. The biggest battle Jin has won so far was the 50k power summit freestyle contest which he won back to back years in 2004 and 2005; it was at these battles that Jin gained the nickname 100 Grand Jin (AsiaFinest). In 2007, Jin released his latest album “ABC,” in which he raps in Cantonese and talks about his experiences as an American-born Chinese. Jin has had a solid career in the state, but has had to overcome a lot of frustrating obstacles. He recently moved to Hong Kong to expand his fan base while reconnecting with his family roots.

Tons of American artists like Britney Spears and Brian McKnight will extend their tours across seas to Asian countries because they have numerous Asian fans, but if an Asian artist from a foreign country would come to America, most of the people that would support the Asian artist are Asian people. Most Americans are comfortable with their own culture and are intimidated or scared of other cultures and reject them. This rejection does not allow a market to grow in America for Asian artists, whether they are American or not. Americans have learned to accept music from different cultures such as Reggae, Latin, African, Brazilian, and Afro-Caribbean – but not Asian. Berklee College of Music, the world’s largest music school, offers numerous courses on world music including Afro Latin Rhythms, World Music Ensemble, a Middle Eastern Ensemble, and a Brazilian Rhythms class, but it does not offer one course on Asian music.*** It is subliminal, but Asian culture is discriminated against in music, in schools, and in the media overall. An artist like Jin who represents Asian culture can influence other minorities to be proud of who they are. If more people would open up their minds and hearts to different cultures, someday we can have the equality that many people have died fighting for.

***Editors’ Note:  Professor Alan LeVines has begun teaching a course in Japanese music since this article was originally written in Spring 2009.

Bibliography

“AsiaFinest Jin The Emcee.” Jan 2007 AsiaFinest.com. 15 Dec. 2008 <http://www.asiafinest.com/chinese/jin.htm>.

“Far East Movement – Azn Lifestyles TV.” Nov. 2008. YouTube.com. 15 Dec. 2008 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTEXdXJrx8s>.

Liu, Woo Ling. “Home Boy.” Sep. 2008 Time. 16 Dec. 2008 <http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1843883,00.html>.

Navarro, Mireya. “Missing: Asian-American Pop Stars.” 4 March 2007. International Herald Tribune. 16 Dec. 2008 <http://www.iht.com/article/2007/03/04/news/singer.php?page=1>.

Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China. New York: Norton, 1990.

Kevin Luu is from Las Vegas, NV, and is majoring in Music Production and Engineering and Music Synthesis.

In this current era with the way things are going, it is really easy for us to learn about all the negative things happening around the world and to feel powerless.  Every day that we turn on the radio, open up a newspaper or watch the news, we are bombarded with stories about horrible things being done.  Very rarely do we ever hear any positive, progressive news.  For all the problems that we hear about, it is extremely rare that we hear about solutions for them.  But if I can offer a viable solution to all of our problems with just one word, I’d say, “organize!”  If we organize ourselves as a mass movement, there is nothing that can stop us.  And as musicians who care about these global issues, it is our task to bring music to the forefront of our organizing.  Music has been in the past, and will be in the future, an extremely important catalyst for social change.

So where exactly does music come in?  Everywhere!  At every rally, parade, party, protest or benefit, music should always be there.  Music is what’s going to make this whole revolution fun!  Music is an essential part of all our lives, so it should be present always for this paradigm shift that we’re talking about.  We are also going to need some really catchy, sing-able revolutionary songs that are easy to learn.  In public areas, we need more street music to get random people engaged. Live, social commentary music needs to be everywhere.

We have seen many cases in the past in which music has played a major role in social movements.  I would even argue that for every revolution or social movement, music has always been right there on the front lines.  For example, in the US labor movement of the early 1900s, folk music and labor songs were a crucial tool of the striking workers.  In the 1960s in the US, much the popular music had progressive and revolutionary themes.  Slave resistance music in North and South America gave birth to what we know of today as popular song.  Fela Kuti, Charles Mingus, Bob Marley, Dead Prez, Joan Baez, Peter Tosh, Rage Against the Machine, The Coup, Anti-Flag, Pete Seeger, John Lennon, Public Enemy. One could be here for a while.  But the point is, the stronger the music, the stronger the social movement.

We have to realize that as progressive musicians, we must be organized.  Here in Boston, we created a progressive musicians collective called Activist Music for the People (AMP).  With this collective, we get together once a month for potlucks and check-ins and general socializing.  But we also team up and put on concerts and events, and lend a musical hand to already existing progressive events.  We are also simply a support group for each other. We are like a big family of radical musicians who help each other out.  I think that we need to see more of these types of musician collectives.  Maybe it could be on a regional basis.

In social movements today, we need much more music.  There is so much seriousness about all these issues that we are facing: climate change, imperialism, racism, gender oppression, genocides, sexism, neo-colonialism, globalization, etc.  But the music is there to lighten up our spirits and give us something to dance and sing to. I envision music to be a major part of all progressive events, which, in addition to rallies, protests, and fundraisers, can include direct actions, guerrilla theatre, strikes, picket lines, and press conferences.  It can be brought to any kind of public venue, from farmers markets to city streets!  If the music is fun, dancy, progressive and positive, I can’t think of any place where it wouldn’t fit in.  When I say progressive, I mean that it has a message promoting peace, justice, and a better world for all.

Not only is music going to make everything more fun; more importantly, it will strengthen our movements. Music is a unifying force that brings people from all different backgrounds together.  Let us not forget this. It is our task as musicians to harness this power of music and to use it to help create a better world for all.

Dave Scandurra is a Berklee student and a co-founder of Activist Music for the People (AMP).  He and his band are currently touring Central America on bicycles.

Ithaca, New York has to be one of the strangest cities in America.  It’s most easily recognizable for its schools—Cornell University and Ithaca College.  It is known for its liberalism, its waterfalls and a nationally known music festival called Grassroots.  Much like Boston, most of its population consists of college students. Come summertime, half the city is empty.  Shortly after the students leave, they are replaced a couple weeks later with music festival hippies by the busload that pour in bearing tofu and non-conformity.  Many of these long time non-conformists end up loving Ithaca so much, that they stay. From these travelers eco-friendly communities are created, homeless populations skyrocket and a never-ending Bush protest begins.  It is a very liberal, very white place.  It is a place of acceptance of all ideas except the wrong ones, who are open to all cultures but will never change their own.

This is Ithaca, New York—ten square miles surrounded by reality.

Ithaca has no ethnic roots, but it has culture and community.  It has become its own people, its own society.  Living there throughout my childhood gave me a voice, but a contrived one.  It took me a long time to realize there were more opinions than the Ithacan one.  Though it was all in innocence—I would have never realized this unless I left.  It may come across that I think Ithaca is an evil place full of ignorance.  Though I feel that my views of Ithaca have become slightly soured since my leaving, it was a wonderful place to grow and learn.  What I want to get across more than anything, is how the Ithacan image, the Ithacan knowledge and Ithacan idealism will only seem brilliant when you are in Ithaca.  It’s a world within itself. A place where you can judge and request change from the rest of the world, while losing focus on the local problems at hand.  And just like any culture or society, it does everything with complete confidence that it is the right thing.

Ithaca is a place where people appreciate others and everything they do.  It is an artist’s dream world.  No one is ever satisfied with who is in power, but no one could tell you why he or she are unsatisfied.  I would rather get locked in a public bathroom then get stuck in an Ithacan poetry slam.  They’re in every café and at every protest.  A bunch of awkward, dreadlocked, 15-24 year olds who live at their Mom’s and smoke pot out on the fire escape after the show.  If I had heard one good poem from a single one of these shows I would eat my words.  This is where Ithaca fails my test.  The people’s voice is such a wonderful thing to have, but an educated people’s voice is even better.  We must have confidence in what we believe, but we must know why we believe it.   95% of Ithaca is liberal democrats.  I lived there during 9/11, four years of the War in Iraq, and two elections.  I hated President Bush, and I opposed the War, and I knew it was wrong, yet the few times I came face to face with a Republican I found myself unable to hold any real discussion.  Could this be that I myself was just independently ignorant?  Possibly. I then tried talking with peers, my teachers, co-workers, and even my parents, but they never seemed to say anything different than myself.  “Bush is not our elected President; we went into Iraq under false pretenses; Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks…”  These are all valid points and most certainly had significance, but here, in my opinion comes the problem.  If I went back to Ithaca today, years into the war, and asked my colleagues what their view was, the same ten or so facts would be spouted off.  In my mind, the fact of the matter is that we are still in Iraq, but how can we get out?  Why is no one taking action?  Where did our voices go?  Where did the liberal power that is Ithaca go?  It’s stuck on what happened, not what is happening now.

Maybe it’s the hippie ideal.  Maybe the difference between the War in Iraq and Vietnam is simply the draft.  Is that why people spoke up?  Is that the only reason my parents rioted for change, for their own well-being and safety?  Nothing is wrong with that.  I just always thought there was more to it.  I thought the accepting, equalitarian culture I grew up in was deeper.  I thought Ithaca was deeper.

And it is.  In so many other ways.  Though I wish it wasn’t completely true, Ithaca made me who I am.  It made me a free thinker, an accepting human, and one who truly values my own life and the life of others.  The roots of Ithaca’s ideas are so wonderful, so pure and so important, yet I feel it was lost somewhere along the way.  I think it’s a catch 22.  It’s a focusing on self-improvement while being critical of the people around you.  On a larger scale it is improving Ithaca’s democracy, while having a critical outlook on our nation.  It is hating our government, but not working for change.  It is standing in front of a tank, but moving at the last second.  It is protesting the war in Ithaca, but not in Washington.

That was a real bumper sticker I quoted above, “Ithaca, New York, ten square miles surrounded by reality.”  People don’t have those on their cars because they are bitter—they do it because they are proud. Ithacans are proud of Ithaca.  I agree.   There is much to be proud of, but why are we proud that we refuse reality?  If Ithaca just let reality in, change would finally come.  Ithaca is a perfect contained example of the liberal idea and what needs to change in it.  A fire needs to be lit underneath Ithaca but more importantly America.  I hope someday soon that fire is lit no matter what the cost and this fantastic idea that is Ithaca will spread.  Then people will finally understand the freaky little town for all that it is.  And I will be proud.

Abel McSurely-Bradshaw is currently a student at Berklee.  This essay was written for his College Writing 1 course.

A case for microtonality?

At the crossroads of African American rhythms, microtonal harmonies, and eastern melodic inflections and improv concepts - in other words all the elements that the Greater Boston area has to offer with Berklee as its base – new musical ideas are on the horizon.

Drawing on unique elements of western classical microtonality and ethnic folk melodies organized in a jazz/groove context, unheard of harmonies and counterpoint are possible. What sets this microJam apart from other microtonal music is its method of organization. Unlike the microtonal chromaticism of Julian Carrillo, the athematicism of Alois Haba and the post-Scriabin style of Ivan Wyschnagradsky (all venerable microtonal pioneers in western classical music), this MicroJam is not so much MICROtonal as microTONAL. The emphasis is on microtonal harmony that has a jazz-based modal origin. New harmonic colors can be expressed vertically through the stacking of, for example, an Arabic maqam (a type of Arabic mode) into chords based on 3rds or 4ths over a tonal center – in other words, harmony derived from a microtonal chord scale. This is not done in eastern music traditions or modern classical music. Music from the Middle East and Asia rarely has chordal harmony and in the modern western classical tradition, either tonal centers are avoided or harmony is produced from counterpoint. In our ever-shrinking global village could Global MicroJam be a shape of Jamz to come?

My particular bent is a sound that is raw with simple but rich ingredients like a Gauguin painting – a raw, powerful, extremely colorful mix of eastern and western elements. I was initially attracted to microtonality through “eastern blue notes” – the heart-wrenching pitches in an Arabic call to prayer that are outside of our 12-tone equal temperament just like our very own blue notes that one cannot find on a piano. Most of these scale tone gems are roughly a quarter-, sixth- or eighth tone off of our tuning system. With new microJams (or microGems!) in 24, 36, 48 and 72 note per octave equal tempered systems (and eventually also in just intonation), I would particularly like to feature African American rhythmic innovations from the gospel church and modern RnB. For me, these beats always induce a feeling of inexplicable hope. My Global MicroJamz will highlight African American rhythms in a new way and underline the debt we owe to this craft. Often it seems that Black music is taken for granted and anyone can appropriate anything without giving credit to its creators.

Also, within this Global MicroJam concept I would like to introduce concepts of “open form,” “Seyir,” and “Jor.” Within open form a soloist can cue different sections at will and not be boxed in by a preconceived solo form. Jor is the section from an Indian raga after the rubato introduction (alap) and before the metered composition (gat). Jor is playing in pulsed time recapping the material introduced in the alap. I’ve seen heightened creativity when soloists and rhythm sections are untethered from time signatures and can freely express themselves. Seyir is the Turkish concept of unfolding a makam – a pitch set with melodic rules. These concepts force improvisers to shape their solos, but in a freer manner that still draws on the motifs of the composition at hand.

But why microtonality now? The study of microtones is important. Composers like Schoenberg and Busoni, historians like Robert Morgan (author of “20th Century Music”) and more and more musicians are asserting that our 12-tone equal tempered language is exhausted. It’s a surprising statement Schoenberg made before he invented his 12-tone technique. Also interesting is his prediction that microtonality will establish itself “when its time has come.” I believe the time for microtonality will come once an affordable microtonal keyboard is available along the lines of a Starrlabs keyboard. This will make microtonal harmonies much easier to play and will encourage new microtonal pieces because the keyboard is still an extremely powerful compositional tool.

Berklee could be a real pioneer in this context. After all of my travels and tours in Japan, the US and Europe, communicating with microtonal societies (American Festival of Microtonal Music in New York, the UK Microfest in London) and with composers in Australia and Germany, fans in Thailand and Argentina, and surfing online, I have not come across anyone melding these elements in an improv/groove context. When a new movement or style commences, it is usually outside the academic context, and eventually music schools start to slowly incorporate the new ideas into their curriculum. Here’s an opportunity where Berklee could lead the way with innovative MicroJam classes and could thereby influence the music industry. In the process, Berklee would be helping to create a new musical language reflecting our immediate access to all musics in our ever-shrinking global village.

David Fiuczynski is Associate Professor of Guitar.