In the 1800s, men from China were coming to the U.S. One of the first instances of the cliche Nilsson found was in a show in 1847 called The Grand Chinese Spectacle of Aladdin, or The Wonderful Lamp.Īnd to understand the evolution of this riff, we need to look at the backdrop against which this tune emerged. The latter inspired composers like Claude Debussy, whose work often used the pentatonic scale.īut the "Far East Proto Cliche," Nilsson found, went back even further than that World's Fair. It was home to a range of exhibits, like the human zoo (also known as the Negro Village) and a Javanese gamelan showcase. The French exhibition - along with other world exhibitions that were popular in that time - was where folks exchanged ideas and learned about other cultures.
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The pentatonic scale gained global popularity in 1889, during the Paris World's Fair. "It's worth thinking about the fact that the scale isn't necessarily something we would've been listening to in the United States in a significant way before the end of the 19th century, early 20th." "We get the sense of another culture when we hear the scale," says Nilanjana Bhattacharjya, an ethnomusicologist at Arizona State University. This nine-note tune and its cousins rely heavily on the pentatonic scale, which music from many East Asian and West African countries used. (Some melodies that fit this pattern make no reference to Asia whatsoever - you might recognize it in Peter, Bjorn and John's song " Young Folks.") The definition: "Any melody with this particular rhythmical pattern and whose first four tones are identical" that usually uses a pentatonic scale, Nilsson wrote on his website.
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So he dubbed the similar riffs the "Far East Proto Cliche," based on specific musical characteristics. While digging through American sheet music archives, Nilsson reached a point where the line between references to the riff and very similar ones got blurry.
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This is how Martin Nilsson defines his "Far East Proto Cliche" - the earlier form of the nine-note riff.