Siamou Phasing?

Apropos last Wednesday's YUMMA session, Maria posted this video to the YU Mande Music Facebook group along with the question: "phasing?" Strictly speaking, this question isn't about Mande bala music (since the Siamou language in fact corresponds to a Kru classification), but because a diatonic balanyi is being used—atypical for the Siamou, who would more commonly use larger, pentatonic xylophones—I think it is fair to address the question here. (In other words, I think this clip shows Diabaté's adaptation of a Siamou style to an instrument (and tonality) these days much more frequently associated with Mande players. Diabaté himself may not even be Siamou—though I don't know for sure.)

In any case, Maria, the short answer is no. I don't think there is any phasing going on here. Oxford Music Online defines phasing as: "the effect achieved when two instrumentalists or singers perform the same musical pattern at different (slightly increasing or decreasing) intervals of time, moving in or out of phase." (1) The Steve Reich piece Piano Phase (1967) is given as an example. I think of phasing as being analogous to two sets of turning signals, say, yours and those of the vehicle in front of you. At one point, the blinking "lines up" and the signals flash simultaneously, but gradually, they move out of sync, until eventually, they're blinking exactly opposite each other. Then they go out of sync again, until, once again, they become aligned. I don't think any of that is going on in the Diabaté clip. You might be experiencing a multiple (or shifting) perspective... that is, you're perceiving a pattern, and then, because of changes made to the (musical) context, that pattern seems to "flip" on itself, changing the way it sounds before your very, um . . . ears.

The clip is interesting for other reasons, however—and especially so when taken in the context of the broader Kénédougou stylistic region. One player (Diabaté) is clearly leading. He "assigns" the accompaniment pattern to the second player (Dembele), who takes it up and maintains it fairly consistently. Diabaté's improvisations then lead to a new melody within the accompaniment pattern and (at about 0:58 and again at 2:31) Dembele takes up that new pattern so that Diabaté can move on to a third pattern. A similar thing happens here (at 2:38). And when I'm playing pentatonic Sénufo music with Kassoum—also from the Kénédougou region—as the accompanist, at Kassoum's signal, I will move from one pattern to the next, according to a prescribed order. (Come to think of it, I wonder if Diabaté is making them up and assigning them on the spot, or if the two of them are also following a predetermined order of some kind.)

Unless maybe with Soli, we don't really do this "on-the-fly-re-assigning" in our YUMMA sessions. There, the leader will weave in and around several patterns while the accompanist sticks with just one. It could be fun to try some mid-stream pattern re-assigning at our next meeting. I guess we could also experiment with some phasing, but then I think we'd be taking a clear step away from the stylistic characteristics of the broader West African xylophone area.

1. Whittall, Arnold. "phasing." In The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/ subscriber/article/opr/t114/e5139 (accessed April 20, 2012).