Abstract Book

Society for Ethnomusicology 59th Annual Meeting, 2014 Abstracts
Young Tradition Bearers: The Transmission of Liturgical Chant at an then forms a prism through which to rethink the dialectics of the amateur in
Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Seattle music-making in general. If 'the amateur' is ambiguous and contested, I argue
David Aarons, University of Washington that State sponsorship is also paradoxical. Does it indeed function here as a
'redemption of the mundane' (Biancorosso 2004), a societal-level positioning
My children know it better than me, says a first generation immigrant at the gesture validating the musical tastes and moral unassailability of baby-
Holy Trinity Eritrean Orthodox Church in Seattle. This statement reflects a boomer retirees? Or is support for amateur practice merely self-interested,
phenomenon among Eritrean immigrants in Seattle, whereby second and fails to fully counteract other matrices of value-formation, thereby also
generation youth are taught ancient liturgical melodies and texts that their limiting potentially empowering impacts in economies of musical and symbolic
parents never learned in Eritrea due to socio-political unrest. The liturgy is capital?
chanted entirely in Ge'ez, an ecclesiastical language and an ancient musical
mode, one difficult to learn and perform, yet its proper rendering is pivotal to Emotion and Temporality in WWII Musical Commemorations in
the integrity of the worship (Shelemay, Jeffery, Monson, 1993). Building on Kazakhstan
Shelemay's (2009) study of Ethiopian immigrants in the U.S. and the Margarethe Adams, Stony Brook University
transmission of liturgical chant, I focus on a Seattle Eritrean community
whose traditions, though rooted in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, are The social and felt experience of time informs the way we construct and
affected by Eritrea's turbulent history with Ethiopia. Drawing on thirteen reconstruct history, a phenomenon particularly relevant to commemorations
months of ethnographic research, I examine how the process of musical of past traumatic events. Ethnomusicological studies of commemoration have
transmission from priest to youth authorizes the youth as significant tradition for the most part not viewed historical conflict through the lens of emotion and
bearers. Following Corsaro (2011), I argue that the youth are not merely embodied temporality; and while recent ethnomusicological scholarship on
passively enculturated, but are empowered as leaders through the knowledge conflict has attended to trauma and the body, it has largely focused on present
of and ability to render the liturgical chant and hymns of the Orthodox conflict. This essay examines how the felt experience of time, re-wrought in
tradition. Not only does this research contribute to an understanding of a musical and dramatic commemorations, is crucial in maintaining the
rarely studied diasporic ethnic community in ethnomusicology, but also to a relevance of past events in the present. In Kazakhstan, historical
lesser-studied age demographic. By focusing on the expressive practices reenactments of World War II often take the form of popular war songs and
(Minks, 2002) of children and teenagers, this research highlights the their dramatization on stage. These songs essentially form a chronology of the
importance of youth involvement with music for the preservation of religious war, a narrative string of emotional vignettes that force a collective
and cultural traditions. remembering of traumatic events. Paul Ricoeur proposed that it is through
chronosophy essentially assigning meaning to time that we construct the
Singing the City: Informal Choirs and the Promotion of the Amateur temporal 'architecture' of 'our civilization' (Ricoeur 2004:156). I seek to
at the State's Fingertips in Urban China understand how these temporal structures and narratives are felt and
Ruard Absaroka, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of accepted as history, and, more broadly, how and why the present is interested
London in the past. In examining, through ethnographic research, the role of emotion
and felt temporality in musical, dramatic, and cinematic representations of
Drawing on extensive fieldwork across Shanghai, this paper examines the WWII in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, I hypothesize that the heightened emotions
agency and spatial practices of two kinds of amateur choral group. The first in repeated commemorations are key to bringing past events into the present,
group is typified by choirs that congregate primarily in public urban parks. thereby maintaining their significance.
The second generally meet in Neighborhood Committee Offices (juweihui) or
directly under the aegis of, Sub-district Cultural Bureaux. Both groups Endangering and Empowering: The Personal Politics of a Royal
primarily sing 'revolutionary' songs of their collective youth. I address the Ensemble in Central Thailand
nature of group interaction, and proficiency, and then turn to the municipal- Supeena Adler, University of California, Riverside
level marshaling of informal musical activities to meet wider goals concerning
cultural showcases such as the 2010 World Expo. Forming an essential sonic The khrueangsai pii chawaa (string instruments with Javanese oboe)
backdrop to the better known imperatives and pressures of modern creative ensemble in central Thailand is a unique and highly-regarded ensemble
industries, such generationally inflected but ubiquitous grassroots musical known for its repertoire, tuning, high level of difficulty, and overt and
practice provides poignant insights regarding the underbelly of regimes of exceptionable virtuosity. Khrueangsai pii chawaa is now maintained only by
aesthetic production and regulation in contemporary China, and calls into the Fine Arts Department of the Thai government, and is reserved for very
question many common assumptions about the nature of 'popular' culture. special functions including royal processions and dramatic performances of
This investigation of musical life in the heart of a re-globalized megalopolis royal literature. At present, the well-known master musician khruu Piip
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Khonglaitong directs this ensemble at the Fine Arts Department in Bangkok. Trk Bars, Alebesk and Transnational Aesthetic among Alevis in
Very few musicians are able to participate in the ensemble because he tightly Germany
restricts the number of musicians who can participate, due to its history of Ozan Aksoy, New York University
association with royal authority and the royal musicians who created the
ensemble, including khruu Piip's father. Khruu Piip's tight control endangers There is a sizeable Alevi minority among the predominantly Sunni Muslim
the future of this ensemble while at the same time empowering the elite immigrant groups from Turkey in Germany. One of the key social activities for
musicians who are accepted to participate. As a result, the khrueangsai pii the members of Alevi community has been attending trk bars, musical
chawaa ensemble is rare and kept largely outside of the gaze of ordinary venues that feature folk music along with other kinds of music from Turkey.
spectators and even the Thai classical music community. Based on extended Sanctioned formerly by the Turkish Radio and Television officials, trk,
research in Bangkok from 2008 to 2013, I focus on the uniquely powerful drawing on Alevi musical repertoire along with others, has come to be used as
figure of khruu+i/~ Piip to examine how the power of royal authority a generic term for folk tunes in Turkey. Trk bars, cover-band bars where
functions to keep this musical ensemble endangered by design, so that those performers regularly play a repertoire consisting of traditional and
chosen few who participate maintain strict control over the tradition and contemporary folk tunes, have transcended standard entertainment activities
preserve their elite social status in Thai classical music community. for many immigrant groups from Turkey. Drawing on my ethnography of
trk bar musicians and their audiences in Germany, in this paper I
dr wtunwi (A prayer repeated): the art of Fj singing (90 document how Anatolia or the first homeland has been reimagined and
minutes) recreated sonically and spatially in the trk bars. Some of the most popular
David Aina, Lagos State University songs at trk bars can be classified in a grey area that I call alebesk, a hybrid
genre between arabesk and Alevi music and trk. Alebesk combines an
In a city split between reality and competing aspirations, Fj occupies a arabesk stance, trk, and transnational aesthetic typically associated with
liminal space physically and socially. The bourgeoisie associate it with Islam, Alevis. Alebesk lyrics may also include commentary on social inequalities,
tribalism, illiteracy, petty crime, street violence and poverty, putting it at odds issues related to immigration and urbanization, and longing for places and
with current Governor Fashola's gentrification of Lagos State. A culture of people left behind in Anatolia. In this paper, I lay out the process by which
classism and a history of education emphasizing Western mimicry, e.g. Alevi musicians and audiences in Germany both create and maintain a new
dressing corporate and speaking Queen's English, devalue Fj music, transnational aesthetic embodied in alebesk and at trk bars.
musicians and listeners. Meanwhile, a flourishing of amateurism and
populism in Fj, exemplified by the Fj Musicians' Association of Nigeria Kreuzberg-Neuklln Sessions: Klezmer Music and New Jewish Space
(FUMAN), is revitalizing Fj through free shows in street markets. Recorded in Berlin
in Lagos from 2011-2014, the documentary explores perceptions of Fj music Phil Alexander, SOAS, University of London
from within and without, revealing the dichotomy between Fj as a symbol of
the urban poor and the Big Man-ism of successful artists (Waterman 2002), This paper theorises a new cultural space for klezmer and Yiddish music in
including K-One, Pasuma, and Saheed Oupa. Fj contrasts the corporate- Berlin. In the early 2000s, as the reunited German capital was optimistically
branded Naija Hip-Hop favored by upwardly-mobile Lagosians in positive embracing klezmer's symbolic pluralism, several large-scale civic
ways: Muslims and Christians perform and listen to Fj; women are commemorative projects neared completion, spaces of Jewish memory which
succeeding as Fj singers; Fj uses deep, poetic Yorb, bringing vitality to took rupture and dislocation as their startpoints. Klezmer's ambiguous
the language. The ornamented vocalizations of Quranic chanting (Vidal 2012) straddling of historical imagination and cultural revival raised concerns that
and the poetics of Yorb praise-singing (Barber 1995) form a self-confident the music had become a catalyst for German angst, part of an official Jewish
expression of admiration and respect for others, local community and ethnic discourse of atonement and reparation. Participants themselves articulately
identity. The sixty-minute video is in Yorb with English subtitles. A ten- countered these accusations, and a proliferation of keen amateurs has by now
minute introduction will include detailed acknowledgements including the distilled into a pool of world-class international musicians - including many
role of FUMAN in the documentary's production. Twenty minutes will be Jews - whose overlapping urban musical experience make contemporary
allowed for audience discussion. Possible discussion topics are security risks Berlin one of the centres of a global-Yiddish artistic conversation. To illustrate
during fieldwork and translating/subtitling. this, my paper looks at the rapidly growing jam session in Bar Oblomov, a
fortnightly hub of creative exchange which sits well in the city's
enthusiastically freewheeling musicscape. It is not the first klezmer session in
the city, but its location, performance semiotics and fluidity speak to a new
kind of Jewish space: contingent, performative and playful. Drawing on my
participation as a session regular and alongside interviews with key players,
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the paper explores the cultural resonances of this type of musical contact-zone. styles, working with such influential singers as Sparrow, Kitchener, Shadow,
In particular, I argue that temporary urban spaces like this represent a new Chalk Dust, Stalin, Calypso Rose, and David Rudder, as well as
sort of Yiddish musical behaviour, one which absorbs the contradictions of musician/arrangers Art de Coteau, Pelham Goddard, Ed Watson, and Frankie
revival and legacy and makes Berlin pivotal in an ongoing creative dialogue. McIntosh. Conclusions will argue that modern calypso and soca music evolved
in the context of a constant two-way interchange of musical ideas, practices,
Sounding Portugueseness through Liturgical Art Music in a Brazilian repertories, and styles, as well as the movement of singers, musicians,
Community arrangers, and producers, between the Trinidaian homeland and Brooklyn's
Barbara Alge, Hochschule fr Musik und Theater Rostock West Indian community. Soca, in particular, will be re- envisioned as not
solely a Trinidadian expression, but rather a transnational style to which
This paper looks at the role that liturgical art music in the community of Brooklyn's diasporic community made substantial contributions.
Morro Vermelho (Minas Gerais) plays in the discourse of a Portuguese
identity of the place. It departs from the assumption that this discourse is Embodied Sounds: Musical Culture, Popular Agency, and the Public
influenced by historiography on colonial art music from Minas Gerais, on one Display of Political and Social Power in State Sponsored Festivities,
hand, and the discourse on the Portuguese origin of the festival of Our Lady of in 19th-Century Puerto Rico
Nazareth in which this music is performed, on the other. While there are Noel Allende-Goita, Interamerican University of Puerto Rico
historical contingencies in the link of Morro Vermelho with Portugal through
the encounter of gold in the Brazilian mining regions in the eighteenth This essay deals with the musical culture in Puerto Rico, during its long 19th
century, I argue that the identity narrative is in Morro Vermelho related to a Century, displayed in Central and local governments festivities and the
particular conception of local history that distinguishes it from other places in popular manifestations of celebratory rejoice. A close readings of governments
Minas Gerais and serves contemporary aspirations such as documents, personal memories, and costumbrista literature [literary
patrimonialization, sponsorship and tourism. By naming the local agents of Costumbrism] from 1789 to 1896, on one hand, show the specificities of the
this narrative, I give insight into power relations within the community - public displays of political and social power exercised by the Islands social
power relations that, so I argue further, reflect hierarchies of colonial times, and political elite and, on the other, the popular agency manifested during the
mainly differences between the white, cultured, civilized, 'Portuguese' elite same celebrations. We are able to assess the level of coexistence, within a
and the black, uncultured descents of enslaved Africans. I further point to same cultural context, of the everyday life of popular dances and musical
contradictions in choosing the liturgical art music for the Portuguese identity culture and the capacity, and mechanisms of the social elite and the political
configuration by looking at the discourse on musical mulatism in Minas institutions of, both, the co-option, and the appropriation of the popular
Gerais (Lange 1946) and by showing how this identity configuration creates a culture. The Islands musical genres, -i.e.: the creolized contradanzas, danzas,
space of resistance for certain members of the community. The paper aguinaldos, seguirillas, caballos, old fandangos, new canciones criollas, and
contributes to the discussion of multiple identity configurations within the the Africans and neoafricans candungus, sics, holandeses, danuses, and
national Brazilian territory. others (danced with a variety of drums called bombas)- are presented in these
documents as class and political power embodied sounds. The study of the
Calypso and Soca in the Diaspora: The Brooklyn Connection public displays of the social and political elites exercise of power in state
Ray Allen, Brooklyn College, CUNY festivities, and the popular agency shown in them, has two objective; one, to
broaden our present understanding of a period of time so rooted in Puerto
This paper will focus on Straker's Records and Charlie's Records, two Ricos popular and intellectual imagination, and, second, to reconsider old
Brooklyn-based companies that played a vital role in the evolution of modern beliefs about the Islands musical culture: i.e.: the danza, the aguinaldos and
calypso and soca (soul/calypso) styles in the1970s and 1980s. Granville seises con dcimas, and bomba drums dances.
Straker (a native of St. Vincent) and Rawlston Charles (a native of Tobago)
immigrated to Brooklyn in the 1960s. In the early 1970s each opened a record Team Science and Ethnomusicology: The Community of Voices
store specializing in calypso and catering to Brooklyn's growing West Indian Study and the Interface of the Sciences and the Humanities
population. Over the next two decades they recorded and promoted many of Theresa Allison, University of California, San Francisco
the era's top calypso and soca artists, distributing their records throughout
the West Indies and in Brooklyn where they continue to manage record stores The National Institute of Health, a major funder of health sciences research in
today. As transnational entrepreneurs and cultural brokers, Straker and the US, has begun funding large scale studies led by two or more co-principal
Charles were responsible for the cycling of numerous singers, musicians, and investigators. This trend reflects the growing recognition that it takes a team
arrangers between Trinidad and Brooklyn. In their role as talent scouts and involving more than one discipline in order to do science in the 21st century.
producers they indelibly shaped the sounds of that era's calypso and soca The team itself may include not only scientists, but researchers from other
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branches of the academy. This paper examines one such collaboration, the Geomorphically Organized Sounds and the Symbolic Use of
involvement of a geriatrician/ethnomusicologist in a large cluster-randomized Instruments in the Garhwali Popular Music Industry
wait-list controlled trial of the effects of singing in a choir upon the health and Andrew Alter, Macquarie University
well being of community-dwelling elders in San Francisco. The Community of
Voices study, led by a neuroscientist, uses validated measures and Connections between particular sounds and geographically conceived
established health sciences methodology to test the effects of a year long places/spaces seems to be a recurrent part of many repertoires in different
choral program. Simultaneously, it involves a partnership with community parts of the Himalayas. A number of examples exist in which ritual
organizations to determine the feasibility of integrating choirs into 12 senior repertoires are linked to pilgrimage pathways, to specific spiritual sites or to a
centers across San Francisco. Now that the trial is underway, the project has geomorphic ordering of space through sound. In the North Indian region of
branched out into a qualitative study of well established senior choirs in order Garhwal, these connections are most directly made within wedding
to better understand the role that these groups play in the lives of older processions in which particular repertoire items are mapped against
adults. Following a discussion of the clinical trial, the paper presents a particular landscapes and pathways. Though similar connections between
conceptual framework for the ways in which ethnomusicologists can serve sounds, spaces and places are not nearly so obvious in other musical
pivotal roles as co-investigators and advisors, and particularly of the ways in repertoire, the underlying assumption that sound can reference places
which the early involvement of ethnomusicologists in research design can remains an important undercurrent to practice. When such symbolic
advance the development of mixed methodology research. references are used within popular music idioms, the connection between
sounds and particular places is far more abstract. Yet, the ability of musical
Team Science: The Role of Ethnomusicology in Music and Public sounds to reference the regional location of Garhwal within a broadly
Health Interventions conceived mountainous space seems to confirm to an underlying assumption
Theresa Allison, University of California, San Francisco, Chair Panel that sound and space/place are connected in some way. Consequently, in
abstract conjunction with more obvious regional identifiers such as language, rituals,
deities and costumes, sounds help construct a shared regional identity
During the 2013 SEM pre-conference on music and global health, scholars amongst listeners. This paper examines a selection of popular music songs,
across disciplines presented the results of team science, collaborative efforts films and VCDs from the Garhwali popular music industry and notes a
between ethnomusicologists, public health advocates, not-for-profit number of consistent uses of particular sounds to represent a regional identity
corporations, musicians, music therapists and scientists. Although such and/or a mountainous geography.
collaborations are diverse and frequently effective, the optimal role of
ethnomusicologists in such teams remains unclear. This panel attempts to Voicing Senegalese Hip Hop: A Critique of Prescriptive Research
clarify the roles of ethnomusicologists within public health, patient advocacy Models
and health science research teams. The first paper explores three arts Catherine Appert, Cornell University
interventions: a household hygiene project in Peru, a sanitation project in
India, and an artistic expressive project in a Boston prison, foregrounding the In the year leading up to Senegal's tense 2012 presidential elections, the
role of the ethnomusicologist in each. The second paper examines an American country's rappers mobilized under the banner of Y'en a Marre (we've had
patient advocacy institution, a summer camp for individuals with Williams enough), a movement protesting government corruption. Two years later,
Syndrome and their families. With the ethnographer as researcher, this paper Y'en a Marre still sparks interest from U.S.-based cultural exchange
demonstrates how we can move from patient empowerment and support to a programs, journalists, and researchers. While select Y'en a Marre rappers
nuanced understanding of how to create a pathway to intellectual citizenship have obtained elusive U.S. visas for speaking and performance engagements,
for individuals with WS through music. The third paper considers what many others are weary of the global preoccupation with a movement that has
happens when an ethnomusicologist joins a research team designing a run its course but that continues to over-determine hip hop's trajectory in
randomized clinical trial on the effects of singing in a choir upon community their country. Drawing on ethnographic research in Dakar from 2011 to 2012
dwelling elders. Through an analysis of a health sciences research project, this and again in 2014, this paper evokes the voiced critiques of Senegalese
paper presents a conceptual framework for the roles that ethnomusicologists rappers themselves to examine the profound material consequences of western
can play in music interventions. In particular, we assert that the early and interpretive frameworks on Senegalese hip hop. Highlighting connections
continued involvement of ethnomusicologists in research design can inform between the current privileging of Y'en a Marre and an older, equally
the development of more sophisticated methods of assessing the impact of prescriptive insistence on rappers as modern-day griots, I show how western
music and health interventions. investigators have consistently bypassed widespread, locally meaningful
engagements with hip hop as music to instead find its value in ancient
African underpinnings or contemporary political overtones. As a result,
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rappers often face a polarizing choice between their artistic convictions and focusing on the quality of their music lessons) and expect parents to have
the enticing possibilities of entry into the global narrative of Senegalese hip significant time, energy, emotional, and financial resources to support their
hop. Ultimately, I argue, western interest in Senegalese hip hop has been children's musical pursuits. Both of these models are highly, if not explicitly,
instrumental in transforming a politically inflected musical movement into a politicized, and do not reflect the diverse realities of parenting in Chicago. At
musically inflected political one, where public acts of dissent supersede music the same time, both models take for granted that parents, rather than, for
making as the primary yardstick of hip hop legitimacy. example, schools, should provide for children's music education. This paper
argues for the need to critically analyze the discourse around parents' roles
Dueling Identities: The Cultural Politics of Japanese Immigrant and responsibilities vis--vis music education. It examines first to what extent
Music Making parents should be responsible for providing music education; second, to what
Susan Asai, Northeastern University extent should it be considered a failure if they do not; and third, the ways in
which music education is intertwined with notions of citizenship both in
How did music reflect the Japanese immigrant's attempts to maneuver rhetoric and in practice.
between the ideologies of superiority and expansion of the United States and
Japan in their geopolitical battle over the Pacific around the turn of the Learning More than Music: Competing Ideologies of Music Education
twentieth century? The resulting transculturated identity - zaibei doho Meredith Aska McBride, University of Chicago, Chair Panel abstract
('Japanese in America') - in which Issei envisioned themselves as being both
frontier Americans and imperial Japanese, and their sense of entitlement in Which music is taught to students in school, utilizing which methods? Which
being regarded as honorary whites proved to be delusional in the face of children, from which families, are most able to take advantage? Although
growing American fear of Japan's military prowess and imperialistic questions like these are typically relegated to pedagogy programs or policy
successes. The oppressive and shifting sociopolitical circumstances that debates, such issues are deeply connected to the ways musical cultures are
Japanese immigrants negotiated, particularly in California, shaped the Issei's disseminated. In a time of increasingly privatized arts education, establishing
emergent identity, and their Japanese music making remained a stronghold a scholarly discourse around music education is all the more relevant and
through these changes. This historiographical study of Issei music making in necessary. With this panel, we hope to enhance the Society's capacity to
California illuminates music's purpose as a source for aesthetic enjoyment, a address diverse contexts of music-making and highlight the direct connection
symbol of their cultural heritage, and an acculturative strategy. Performing between the politics of music educational ideologies and the musical cultures
Japanese music underscored Issei ethnic cohesiveness and subverted their they produce. The paper Single Moms and Tiger Moms examines the politics
subordination. Although progressive and well-educated Issei valued and and stereotypes of parents and parenting in the rhetoric of music education
performed Western music, it proved ineffective as an acculturative strategy. administration in Chicago. No Accident of Birth addresses how beliefs about
Music making created an aesthetic and nostalgic space for Japanese the nature of talent influence the educational pathways of music students and
immigrants, but it also framed how they desired to be represented as part of their parents. Our final paper, (Re)membering Haiti, investigates the cross-
the national culture. This pioneering study reveals how the intersection of engagement of parents, teachers, and children in the politics of repertory.
ethnomusicology and cultural politics serves to advocate for alternative sites Here, Protestant antipathy toward vodou has created a moral panic around
in broadening the national culture of the United States. the teaching of mizik klasik (Haitian classical music), much of which draws
upon vodou-influenced Haitian folk music. These three presentations tie
Single Moms and Tiger Moms: The Politics of Parenting in Chicago's together questions of identity, politics, and ideology across divisions of class,
Music Education Programs race, and nation and foreground music education as a critical site of further
Meredith Aska McBride, University of Chicago inquiry.
Parents and parenting have emerged as major concerns for Chicago's wide Performance at the Edge of Tribal in Eastern India
array of music education programs. These programs tend to have specific Carol Babiracki, Syracuse University
visions regarding parents in the populations that they serve, visions that are
heavily influenced by class, race, and gender. Roughly speaking, free and The performative frame of iconic, authentic indigenous (tribal) identity in/of
reduced-tuition programs often portray themselves as surrogate parents for Jharkhand, India has been remarkably stable across performance spaces,
their students, foregrounding self-discipline and notions of citizenship along contexts, and geography. Whatever the regimes of identity politics in play
with instrumental technique. These programs are often framed as responses (global pan-indigenous rights, national unity in diversity state and regional
to parental incapacity to pay tuition and, implicitly, as responses to parental cultural branding, ethnic group and village distinction) the frame is the same:
failure to provide appropriate support and guidance. On the other hand, outdoor, gendered, collective singing and dancing, circling counter-clockwise,
tuition-dependent programs tend not to discuss parenting at all (instead to the exuberant accompaniment of large drums. Other indigenous music,
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such as epic narratives, song-stories, ritual chants, and solo instrumentals, tightknit community, the patriarch of the Trinidad Rada family is currently
have not made the cut to public icon status. This paper presents two Henry Antoine, great-grandson of the original founder, who currently splits
contemporary cases that trouble the edges of that hegemonic, performed, his time between Montreal and Trinidad. Mr. Antoine is one of only three
indigenous identity in Jharkhand. In the first case, a troupe of musicians who master drummers in the tradition still living, making the future of the religion
have been denied official tribal status successfully crosses into tribal somewhat precarious. Drawing on materials including my interviews with Mr.
performance territory, and in the second, young tribal innovators break out of Antoine, field recordings of Trinidad Rada music, and my related research on
the circle to challenge tribal (and non-tribal) performance tropes. Together, music of the Trinidad Orisha religion, in this presentation I present the Rada
these two cases expose the neo-colonial underpinnings of iconic tribal culture of Trinidad in transnational context, giving attention to previous
performance and the dueling forces of globalization that battle at its edges: scholarship on Dahomey-derived music and culture elsewhere in the African
pan-indigenous identity politics on the one hand, and neo-capitalist economics diaspora, in Cuba, Haiti, and Brazil. Topics discussed in the presentation
on the other. include the comparative dominance of Yoruba Atlantic traditions; historical
patterns of population movement through 19th century African imperial
Musical Expression and National Identity in U.S. World War II Sites warfare, transatlantic slavery, indentured labor, and emancipation; and the
of Japanese American Forcible Civilian Containment role of free Africans - rather than slaves - in developing African traditional
Alecia Barbour, Stony Brook University religion and music in the Americas. Viewing the Rada Atlantic as a single,
integrated unit of analysis, while remaining focused on the Trinidad case as a
Over 110,000 Japanese Americans - two-thirds of whom were native-born U.S. point of reference, this paper makes connections between music traditions
citizens - were incarcerated in federally managed Relocation centers in this often treated as isolated practices, with the aim of sharpening our
country during the Second World War. Several thousand others were interned understanding of history and culture in the Atlantic world more broadly.
as Enemy Aliens in separate facilities. With an emphasis on the governance
of separated families and civilian populations who were transferred between Re-thinking Existing Paradigms in Afro-Caribbean Ethnomusicology
programs and jurisdictions during the Second World War, I detail specific Ryan Bazinet, John Jay College, Chair Panel abstract
instances of music making and music listening from sites of Japanese
American incarceration under the administration of the War Relocation This panel of four papers, each about a different Caribbean island, addresses
Authority and Wartime Civil Control Administration, and from specific topics that have generally existed at the periphery of Afro-Caribbean
internment camps for Enemy Alien internees that were overseen by the ethnomusicology, either because they are poorly understood or because they
various agencies of the Enemy Alien Control Program. I collectively consider do not fit comfortably into existing paradigms. Two of the papers focus on neo-
these sites as those of forcible civilian containment. Building upon Dahomean Rada music, first in Trinidad, then in Haiti. Rada groups are
preliminary ethnomusicological scholarship that demonstrates musical considered highly African, but are curiously overshadowed by - and sometimes
expression in these places to have been prevalent and important, and lumped in with - the Yoruba, who are generally approached as the locus
informed by education scholarship that contends the relocation and classicus in studies of New World Africanisms. The other two papers - on
internment centers featured an emphasis on nationalistic re-education Jamaican Revival music and on sacred-secular hybridizations in Afro-Cuban
processes in formal school settings, I contribute further analyses, and argue music - investigate crossovers between the religious and profane musical
that musical expression in America's World War II sites of Japanese American realms, suggesting productive ways of thinking about the fluid space between
civilian containment was consistently politically charged for camp those categories. Revival music has been marginalized in the scholarship on
administrators. Offering examples from civilian containment facilities in both sacred and secular music, perhaps owing to its relative lack of
Arizona, California, New Mexico, and New York, I conclude that Africanisms and its ostensibly limited influence on Jamaican popular music.
administrative perceptions of the interned and incarcerated civilians' religious The final paper, which examines the blurry boundaries between the sacred
and national values were central to the ways in which these administrative and secular realms in various genres of Afro-Cuban music, confronts the
listeners evaluated and sought to actively impact the American-ness of resistance of musical scholarship to genres that are difficult to categorize.
forcibly contained civilians. Taken together, these four papers continue to complicate notions of
authenticity and purity that are still commonplace in African diaspora culture
Music in the Rada Atlantic: A View from Trinidad studies. However, they also reconsider taken-for-granted categories of analysis
Ryan Bazinet, John Jay College and call into question the divisions we often rely on in our field. Iconoclastic in
various ways, these papers have the potential to extend and diversify
This paper takes as its starting point the poorly understood Rada people of Caribbean music studies.
Trinidad, a group originating with a free Dahomean settler named Robert
Antoine, who migrated to Trinidad from West Africa in 1855. A small,
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Tobacco Use and Vocal Timbre in Tuvan Throat-Singing: Preliminary epistemological grounding might inform a new challenge to traditional
Observations constructions of I and thou or us and them. Additionally, I ask how the
Robbie Beahrs, University of California, Berkeley Rastafari movement offers a set of unique perspectives on postcolonial
identity, constructions of nationality and race, and creative strategies of non-
Tobacco smoking has been shown by voice pathologists to affect vocal fold violent resistance. The uniquely Rastafarian style of linguistic inversion, of
physiology and cause audible changes to voice quality (Damborenea 1999). which I-and-I is central, begins to suggest how identity is negotiated and
Despite the undeniable health risks of cigarette smoking, anecdotal accounts expressed through music and verbal creativity.
by singers in many music traditions have linked tobacco use with effects to
short-term voice quality that are perceived as aesthetically desirable for Women in Fieldwork: Ethnomusicologists Sexed and Sexualized
certain performance situations. In this paper, I explore some of the effects of Julie Beauregard, Oregon State University
tobacco consumption on perceived vocal timbre as it relates to the practice of
Tuvan khmei throat-singing. I use a combination of three different Over the last three decades anthropologists and ethnographic researchers in
approaches. First, I draw on ethnographic work with Tuvan khmeizhi related disciplines have written self-reflexively about the sexual component of
(master throat-singers from the Tuva Republic, Russia) and international fan- fieldwork with increasing regularity (Gable, 2011; Loftsdottir, 2012; Newton,
practitioners regarding subjective observations of cigarette smoking's under- 1993; Rubenstein, 2004; Willson, 1995), though a long history of silence is also
acknowledged role in the production of specific vocal timbres judged as acknowledged (Altork, 1995; Warren & Hackney, 2000). A wide range of topics
aesthetically desirable. Secondly, I use audio recordings of two lifetime has been approached, such as sexual desires of the ethnographer (Dubisch,
smoker/non-smoker performers to compare three parameters of acoustic vocal 1995), difference between researchers' and subjects' coding of sexual identity
sound most often linked with smoking in the scientific literature. Thirdly, I (Conaway, 1986), and sexual violence or rape (DeWalt & DeWalt, 2011;
discuss observations from my own experiences training with and without Moreno, 1995; Warren & Hackney, 2000). Although studies of gender's role in
using tobacco before competing in the VI International Khmei Symposium ethnomusicological fieldwork exist, discussion of the sexual aspect of fieldwork
in Kyzyl, Tuva (2013). Through a synthesis of preliminary observations about is almost nil (Beaudry, 2008; Cooley, 2003). To date, Babiracki (2008) and
cigarette smoking and its relationship with khmei throat-singing, I hope to Shelemay (1994) provide the only relevant, though cursory, examples. This
open up new angles for voice and music research that accounts for substance paper fully theorizes the sexed and sexualized woman ethnographer, a
use in connection with cultural notions of health, taboo/stigma, performance physical as well as intellectual [person], situated within musical fieldwork
enhancement, as well as perception of altered voice quality. (Markowitz, 1999, p. 162). The predominant dynamic of the female
student/researcher working with a male teacher/subject, ways in which
I-and-I Vibration: Performing Commonality and Difference in women ethnomusicologists may be sexed and sexualized in the field, and the
Rastafarian Music and Language impact of these factors on relationships in the field, music learning, research,
Benjamin Bean, Goucher College and researcher safety are examined. As professional identities honed within
the confines of American academe necessarily shift when entering the field, a
In the spirit of their anti-colonial heritage, Rastafarians collaborate in sexually neutral researcher stance can longer be assumed. Implications for
articulations of their movement through Nyahbinghi chants, reggae music, ethnomusicology are discussed including means of vulnerability reduction,
and a sacred conversational activity known as reasoning. Participants in transparent reporting, and ethical considerations.
these discussions exchange sounds - ideas, scriptures, proverbs, and quotes
from prominent figures in the movement - as a means of simultaneously English Lessons from Eminem: Gender and Hip Hop in Vietnam's
proclaiming individuality and seeking group cohesion through open dialogue. Globalized Communities
The concept of word-sound power - that music and verbal communication Lisa Beebe, University of California, Santa Cruz
carry vibrations affecting the material and spiritual universe - elucidates the
centrality of I-and-I to Rasta cosmology. Considering musical and Hip hop, a musical practice rooted in the racial and class struggles of the US
conversational word-sound power as highly significant activities within the in the 1970s, is now globalized to the point that musicians from diverse
movement, I explore how notions of vibration and utterance relate to national backgrounds engage the style to express local priorities and gender
perspectives on individuality and the I. Through a phenomenological lens, I identities. As Vietnam's top female rapper, Suboi consciously manages her
examine recent interviews along with my previous research in Jamaica and image, performing a careful balance of tough hip-hop tomboy and feminine
several years of immersion in the Philadelphia reggae scene as a professional pop star. Besides Eminem and Foxy Brown, Suboi cites her experiences
musician, focusing on perceptions of cultural expression and identity. Inviting growing up in urban Saigon as her primary influences. Through a careful
participants to speak from individual experience in dialogue with the reading of two of Suboi's music videos--Run (2013) and Cht Ring Ca Ti
ethnographer and other interviewees, I focus on how I-and-I as an (My Quality, 2010)--this paper investigates how Vietnamese rappers
7
incorporate elements of hip-hop from the United States such as graffiti and discuss foundational insights from the phenomenological tradition, examine a
breakdancing with urban Vietnamese aesthetics to represent youth rebellion few of the approaches to it taken up by scholars in our field, and suggest some
and cosmopolitan awareness. Switching lyrically between Vietnamese and of the ways in which ideas from the tradition can be put to work in
English and timbrally between rapping and singing, Suboi mediates between ethnomusicology today. While phenomenology has multiple, sometimes
multiple gender codes of American hip-hop and Vietnamese popular culture. contradictory, strains, a common thread running through much of this work is
Including diasporic Vietnamese perspectives from my field work, I draw upon an emphasis on the corporal and social nature of the subject--the notions that
these two music videos as a starting point to form a framework for lived experience is essentially, not contingently, embodied and that, while
understanding how Vietnamese hip-hop, while invested in a Vietnamese one's experience of the world is always one's own, that world is a public world
identity, operates on a transnational scale. and the fact of a personal subjectivity presupposes a social world of others.
The paper will show how phenomenological ideas about embodiment and
Mozart at Qalandiya Checkpoint: The Politics and Aesthetics of a sociality unite the varied approaches that scholars in our field have taken to
Palestinian Musical Intifada ethnographic work and illustrate how their insights into temporality, the
Nili Belkind, Columbia University body, and performance offer powerful new perspectives for ethnomusicology.
The paper will also suggest how a phenomenological orientation squares with
The quintessential Palestinian experience... takes place at a border, an contemporary approaches to subjectivity from critical studies and illustrate
airport, a checkpoint...it is at these borders and barriers that the six million the utility of a phenomenological ethnomusicology for research on the politics
Palestinians are singled out for 'special treatment,' and are forcefully of culture.
reminded of their identity, writes historian Rashid Khalidi (1997: 1). This is
perhaps most salient in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (oPt), where A Cultural History of Drumset Proliferation: Case Studies from New
spatial mobility is governed by physical checkpoints staffed by armed soldiers Orleans to Cuba and Trinidad
and an insurmountable bureaucratic paper trail required for obtaining passes, Matthew Berger, Prescott College
visas, permits, and residencies from the occupying power. Hence, the 'barrier'
frame is not only a major preoccupation but also a deeply embedded signifier Few American innovations have had as far-reaching and profound an impact
of identity in people's psyches, bodies, and sense of collectivity. With the on the world's music as the drumset. First used in the United States in the
decline of armed struggle in the aftermath of the second intifada (2000-2005), late 19th century and developed extensively throughout the first half of the
expressive culture - including music, theater, film, etc. - figures more 20th century, the drumset (also known as a drum kit, trap set, or trap kit) is
prominently in constructing Palestinian collectivity through projects of now an international cultural icon. From early jazz and Louis Armstrong, to
resistance, nation-building, and international diplomacy. Such activities are African American blues and gospel, to rock and roll pioneers like Chuck Berry
often framed colloquially as cultural intifada. This paper details a and the Beatles, punk music, hip-hop, Trinidadian calypso, salsa in Cuba,
performance by the Youth Orchestra founded by the oPt-based Al-Kamandjati South African jive, Eastern European klezmer, Japanese pop, and much more,
music conservatory at Qalandiya checkpoint. Established by the Israeli the drumset has played a central part in the evolution of music around the
security apparatus to control the movement of Palestinians between the West world. Although the origin and general history of the drumset have been
Bank and Jerusalem, Qalandiya is a daily passage point for thousands of explored, there is a lack of scholarship addressing the details of individuals,
Palestinians. In this performance, the orchestra re-territorializes the groups, and circumstances responsible for its proliferation. Many important
checkpoint as a Palestinian space by confronting its disembodied surveillance players and proponents of the instrument are underrepresented or entirely
technology with embodied, collective sonic power. Beyond confronting the un-credited. This study traces lesser-known aspects of early drumset history
brute hierarchies established by the occupation, the orchestra challenges the and development in New Orleans and illuminates the details of how, when,
national, social, and moral orders that undergird its logic. and by whom it was incorporated into the music of Cuba and Trinidad. The
proposed presentation (requiring minimal table space and no additional
Phenomenology and Contemporary Ethnomusicology audiovisual equipment) will use written material, photos, transcriptions, and
Harris Berger, Texas A&M University audio examples played through headphones to highlight the spread of the
drumset and demonstrate how existing percussive practices in Cuba and
Since the 1970s, a variety of ethnomusicologists have engaged ideas from Trinidad were adapted and applied.
phenomenology, an intellectual tradition that seeks to ground philosophy and
social research on a rigorous analysis of lived experience. Despite the
importance of phenomenology for social and cultural theory, and despite the
prominence of many of its ethnomusicological adherents, phenomenological
approaches are still far from mainstream in our discipline. This paper will
8
Thinking in Mbira: A Longitudinal Cross-Cultural Musical Study Screening and Discussion: Banjo Romantika
Paul Berliner, Duke University Lee Bidgood, East Tennessee State University
This presentation grows out of a forty-year interdisciplinary project involving Banjo Romantika (2013, 65 min) is a collaborative documentary joining a
the author and Zimbabwean mbira expert Cosmas Magaya (and associates) in decade of ethnographic fieldwork and a filmmaker's insight; the film is an
documenting the mbira repertory and its creative practices. I discuss the intimate, observational portrait of people making bluegrass music in the
methodology underlying the studys collaborative research and various Czech Republic. With historical context for Czech engagement with American
challenges associated with interpreting musical vocabulary and culture, BR illustrates the domestication of bluegrass through the communist
transformational processes in an oral tradition in which innovation is an period and after the 1989 velvet revolution. Czech bluegrassers today--
inherent feature of performance. Rooted in my earlier studies of mbira music projects by amateur pickers, master musicians, artisans, etc.--imaginatively
and jazz improvisation, and drawing on the wealth of new mbira scholarship, re-create bluegrass music and the banjo. BR includes concert footage of groups
the project is concerned with the analysis of Shona mbira music (its forms, like Druh Trva and Relif, interviews with banjo innovator Marko ermk
creative processes, and aesthetic values), with documentation of its practices and luthier Zdenk Roh, pub jams and a visit to a Czech bluegrass festival.
of transmission, and with cultural preservation. My collaborative work with The framing device, a concert featuring musicians from Tennessee performing
musicians pursuing the goals of scholarship (ethnography and music theory), Czech songs, leads viewers to in-between spaces in which the differences
pedagogy, and music advocacy/activism has resulted in a multi-volume, between Czech and American become blurred. The sounds and stories of
mixed-genre book that includes musical texts, sound recordings, video this film allow us to consider where music belongs and how it can connect us
excerpts, and analysis (The Art of Mbira, U. Chicago Press, forthcoming). This in ways that we might not expect. The introduction of the film (15 minutes)
paper samples the representational model developed over the course of the will highlight issues of territory and ownership, (Whose IS this music?) and
study for Magaya and his associates repertory and improvisational practices, will also address the opportunities and difficulties involved in fieldwork and
and discusses the challenges of addressing the projects multiple goals. afterwork/post-production collaborations between a documentary filmmaker
and an ethnomusicologist. The discussion after the film (20 minutes) will
Kindie Pop: Distinction and Domesticity in the US Independent introduce some of the representational issues that have come up in screenings
Childrens Music Scene of the film in the Czech Republic and open the floor for audience feedback.
Tyler Bickford, University of Pittsburgh Total presentation time: 100 minutes.
Ethnomusicological studies of childrens music-making have emerged as a Hear What You Want: Sonic Politics, Blackness, and Racism-
growing field of study in recent years, establishing that children around the Canceling Headphones
world are important participants in musical production, consumption, and Alex Blue, University of California, Santa Barbara
participation. But in many large-scale societies with commercial culture
industries, music produced by adults is a dominant form of childrens music. In 2013, Beats By Dre began a partnership with creative think-tank
While research has established that children are important social and musical Prettybird to launch commercials promoting their new product, Beats Studio
agents, it is equally important to understand how adults actively define and Headphones with Adaptive Noise Canceling. Spots showing prominent
circumscribe that agency in their interactions with and ideologies about athletes Kevin Garnett and Richard Sherman withstanding and silencing a
children. To better understand the ideologies that inform adult music-making barrage of racially-charged questions and insults displayed the agency
for children, this paper examines the recent growth of independent childrens bestowed upon the user: the ability to cancel out the haters and enter a
music in the US over the last 15 years, in a movement recently termed kindie personal, musical zone while in a bellicose public space. Given their content, it
(kid + indie). Working from interviews with dozens of childrens music is hard to hear these commercials and claim an objective colordeafness. They
artists, producers, and professionals, as well as analyses of music recordings force viewers, regardless of race, to identify with--or, at the very least, to
and observations of performances and industry gatherings, this paper recognize--the black male athletes facing racial scrutiny. Promising the power
identifies two contradictory values that structure kindie music: on the one to Hear What You Want, the ads are not just selling headphones--they are
hand kindie musicians are deeply invested in the value of childhood, family, monetizing black identity and the power to ignore racism for an audience that
and domesticity, and on the other hand they strongly privilege musical value has not necessarily lived these experiences. What complications arise from the
and discerning taste. While these values are not necessarily opposed, I argue sale of a musical technology that is assumed to be neutral, but actually carries
that within the kindie community they exist in profound tension, such that multiple social, cultural, and racial implications? While scholars in
the pursuit of musical value is continually seen as a movement away from ethnomusicology, sound studies, science and technology studies, et al, have
child listeners, while adults are established as the legitimate arbiters of taste written at length about cultural uses of technology, in this paper, I nuance
and childrens preferences are repeatedly marginalized from childrens music. these conversations and turn the focus to the racial coding of sound, space,
9
and music technology. By drawing on work done by Josh Kun, Mack Hagood, development and dissemination of sample-based musical innovation. Drawing
Alexander Weheliye, and others, I will demonstrate that the Beats by Dre on ethnographic field research conducted among electronic musicians in
headphones are but one of the most recent occurrences in an enormous Santiago, Chile, this paper analyzes a series of experimental musical
pantheon of highly racialized music technology. productions and collaborative social interactions directly related to the share
economy supported by Creative Commons, as well as to the free culture
Afro-Diasporic Interstitial Space: A Preliminary Exploration of the ideology commonly associated with it. It further considers these developments
Blurred Boundaries between Sacred and Secular in Afro-Cuban in relation to the theoretical contributions of Creative Commons founder
Music Lawrence Lessig, in order to draw distinctions between what he defines as the
Rebecca Bodenheimer, Independent Scholar read-only culture of the past, marked by passive consumption and
professionalization, and the read/write culture of the future, wherein
Sacred-secular border crossings within expressive practices have been technology and open-source networks present unprecedented opportunities for
pervasive among Afro-diasporic communities since the beginning of artists to creatively engage, recycle and contribute to the mediated
transatlantic slavery, a phenomenon that scholars have attributed to the soundscape that surrounds them. This discussion concludes by examining
absence of Enlightenment-derived notions of rationalism and dualism within musical exchange in the Commons as part of a more open and inclusive public
African epistemologies. While the hazy boundaries between the religious and sphere, in contrast to the commercial culture paradigm.
profane realms have been explored in relation to several Afro-diasporic musics
such as hip-hop and reggae, Cuban musicology has maintained categorical Creating the Jbaro Aesthetic: Creolization and Popularization of the
distinctions between the two. This paper aims to situate Cuban music-making Seis
within a larger Afro-diasporic framework that recognizes little distinction Jaime Bofill Calero, Conservatorio de Musica de Puerto Rico
between the sacred and secular realms - what I refer to as Afro-diasporic
interstitial space - and to challenge the validity of the separation of Afro- The seis represents the largest corpus of Puerto Ricos creole music. Originally
Cuban music into these categories.With the larger goal of expanding this the 19th century music and dance of the rural peasant, known as the jbaro,
paper into an in-depth study, I will briefly examine examples of sacred-secular the seis eventually became part of the commercial wave of ethnic music
musical hybridizations within three Cuban practices: timba (contemporary recorded during the early 20th century by companies such as Victor and
dance music), hip-hop, and the music that accompanies the cajn de muerto, a Columbia. The commercialization of the seis peaked during the 50 s and 60s
religious ceremony honoring dead ancestors. Notwithstanding my belief that a as jbaro musicians diversified the genre into the complex of styles we know
shared epistemology inspires sacred-secular border crossings across different today. During this period jbaro musicians were also recording a wide array of
sites of the African disapora, I also want to explore how the Cuban case is musics including popular 19th century salon and Latin American folk styles
unique owing to the states shifting ideologies vis--vis religion in recent such as the bolero, fox trot, guaracha, plena, tango, joropo, milonga, danza,
decades. In 1991, the government decriminalized religious practice, a policy and mazurka, all of which greatly influenced the jbaro seis. Although modern
that resulted in increased public displays of religiosity. Examining the sounds and foreign influences made their way into the seis, jbaro musicians
imbrication of the sacred and secular realms is thus particularly productive in managed to maintain a unique creole flavor, which is a hallmark of the genre
the contemporary moment, as it signals a more general rearticulation of today. Using historical, ethnographic and analytical methods, this study
socialism in post-Soviet Cuba. briefly demonstrates the process of creolization of the seis during the 19th
century and the transformation of this folk music into a popular idiom thanks
Sharing Sounds: Musical (Re)Creativity in the Era of Creative to the mass media during the 20th century. Although jbaro music is
Commons commonly romanticized as the folk music of Puerto Ricos heartland, this
James Bodiford, University of Michigan paper reveals the ways in which popular culture has shaped the traditional
jbaro aesthetic.
With recent advances in digital music production software, the power to
sample and creatively manipulate sound in all its constituent forms has never Island Sounds: New Perspectives on the Exchange of Folk, Popular
been more simple, efficient and accessible for the common musician. Yet, as and Elite Music in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean
this technological capacity expands, its full creative potential has been stifled Jaime Bofill Calero, Conservatorio de Musica de Puerto Rico, Chair Panel
in the commercial arena by what many artists see as an out-of-date and abstract
overbearing system of copyright protection. This paper examines the
emergence of Creative Commons licensing, though which content producers This panel examines the exchanges and intersections between the realms of
customize default permissions for the re-use, re-mixing, and/or sampling of the folk, popular and art music of Puerto Rico through the varied
their material, as an alternative, non-commercial path forward in the methodological lens of four Puerto Rican scholars. Although all four
10
presentations discuss topics related to traditional Puerto Rican musics such as Sung Poetry Beyond Poetics: Comparative Perspectives on Cultural
the rootsy seis and aguinaldo or salon styles such as the aristocratic danza, Performance, Memory, and Community
their ethnographic, historical, and geographical perspectives vary greatly thus Andrea Bohlman, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chair Panel
complementing each other and creating a more holistic view of the abstract
implications these musics have within Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.
Particular attention is given in two of the papers to one of the most iconic but The connection between music and poetry is palpable in many cultural
least studied musical traditions of the island known as jbaro music. The first contexts around the world. In many places, repertoires of sung poetry play an
paper examines the impact of the US recording industry on the jbaro music especially critical role at moments of community formation when people's
aesthetic, while the second deals with influence and recreation of jbaro styles individualities and bounded subjectivities recede and are washed over by a
in Colombia's popular music scene. Our third paper contextualizes jbaro as sense of being part of a community, be it national, ethnic, postcolonial, or
well other Puertorican musics (i.e.: danza and bomba) within the feasts and otherwise. Sung poetry is valued not only for its poetics but for its association
public celebrations of the 19th century as representations of social class and with social memory. By singing poems, musicians and other social agents
political power. The final paper of the panel analyzes early twentieth century transform poetry into cultural performance. And yet most studies of music and
views of gender relationships and masculinity through the ethnographic music poetry fixate on formal analysis and a discussion of pure aesthetics. The
recordings of John Alden Mason (1914-15). It is our aim through this panel to contributions to this panel seek to transform the scholarly discourse on music
demonstrate that Puerto Rican music is an experience not only shared on the and poetry by shifting the terms of engagement to sung poetry's expediency--
island by different ethnicities and social classes but also throughout the that is, its uses by social agents for particular ends--in the many overlapping
greater Caribbean region. processes of community-building that characterize social life in late
modernity. Attending to performance, as a ritualized event in space and time,
Let's Sing Poetry: Historical Returns and the Collective in can be a fruitful method for deducing how music and words extend into the
Contemporary Polish Singer-Songwriter Practice cultural sphere, serving as a bridge between poetic content and the domains of
Andrea Bohlman, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill social memory and identity. Based on fieldwork in Morocco, Italy, Poland,
Russia, and Israel/Palestine, the panelists employ a comparative ethnographic
The genre of poezja piewana --sung poetry--cohered in Polish musical culture approach to demonstrate how people imagine and contest notions of
in the 1970s. As a diffuse practice it has been nurtured across diverse venues, community by conceptualizing, framing, and performing poetry as music.
from established cabaret cellars to state sponsored festivals to clandestine
domestic salons, loosely assembled through the shared undertaking Reverend James Clevelands Peace Be Still in the Midst of the Civil
performing the poetic through music. Though earmarked as Polish through Rights Era Tempest
generic designation, the tradition's repertories and performance styles have Will Boone, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
been crucial in configuring its communal performance settings as sites of
translation, whether amongst languages, vocal timbres, or artistic media. In On September 15, 1963 four young African American girls were killed in a
the process of performing these relationshipss and audiences have approached racially-motivated church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. Four days later,
the genre as an invitation to debate the challenges of community and civil during a live recording in a black church in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, an 11-
society. Between public and private, the singer-songwriter culture was long year-old girl named Geraldine Griffin sang lead on I Had a Talk With God; a
celebrated as a connecting fabric for factions of the Polish opposition to state track that would be included on the bestselling gospel album of the Civil
socialism precisely because of its ability to corral an international musical Rights era, Peace Be Still by Reverend James Cleveland and the Angelic
repertory and to encourage disconnected musical voices to share the stage. Choir. While news reports about the Birmingham bombing described one
Triumphalist narratives of the Solidarity movement in Poland, for example, version of reality for black Americans--rife with terror, violence, and hatred--
position select authors as paragons of musical politics. Building upon my the sound of Griffin's confident and empowered 11-year-old voice, coming
ethnographic fieldwork in Poland, I ask how contemporary practitioners and through the speakers in approximately one million African American homes,
their publics contest enduring narratives of political heroism and leadership perhaps suggested a different, more hopeful, version of reality. This paper
projected through musical poetics. I argue that today poezja piewana offers a examines the album Peace Be Still in its historical context, and applies the
space for individuals to revisit and revise collective pasts, building upon the concept of the Spirit-filled imagination--an idea developed in the course of my
translation and revision processes at the heart of the dispersed practice. years of fieldwork in contemporary African American churches--which focuses
Facing the challenges of the New Europe, these communities reject a attention on the ways that musical practice functions as a medium through
dominant academic and popular discourse on post-socialist culture as which people negotiate existential struggles. I argue that, despite the fact that
nostalgic to perform anew a politics of civil society in sung poetry. James Cleveland rarely--in speech or lyrics--offered explicit social or political
commentary, his recordings--which combined an unwavering faith in a God of
11
deliverance with a celebration of black culture--communicated hope and Indian dance and music were also important topics in orientalist discourse,
empowerment to African Americans living in a world marked by what Martin particularly after [the British music critic] William Stafford noted in his
Luther King, Jr. called a great deal of frustration and despair and confusion. History of Music (1830) that there is no doubt but all learning and science
came originally from the [E]ast. His influential colleagues Gottfried Wilhelm
New Voices in Auckland's Indian Performance Scene Fink and Franois-Joseph Ftis were also convinced that everything
Alison Booth, Auckland University of Technology originated in the East. Most importantly, the 'real' Bayadres - five devadasis
from Thiruvendipuram who performed all across western Europe--were as
This paper examines young, educated recent migrants from India who are celebrated in the late 1830s as Ravi Shankar in the late 1960s.
producing representations of a new and globalised India through the
production of live performance events in New Zealand. These migrants grew The Color of Sound: Timbre in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
up in a post-liberalisation India where global popular culture was increasingly Sydney Boyd, Rice University
part of an Indian sound and media-scapes that includes commercial FM radio,
cassettes and satellite TV in which music, reality, and youth culture What does it mean to hear color? As its title suggests, Ralph Ellison's Invisible
programming are prevalent. Their events challenge the cultural performance Man (1952) focuses largely on achieving visibility for the black body, yet its
environments and conventional notions of identity established by earlier structure is so audibly laced that it suggests sound is not something we simply
generations of Indian immigrants. These events are transcultural, hear. Bookended by Louis Armstrong's So Black and Blue, Invisible Man
transnational and diasporic nature; they define alternative understandings of curiously locates the body in sound. Consequentially, the body's visibility
Indian identity through their choices of event content, venue, and production relies on its attachment to a voice. Defined as the color of a sound, timbre
practices. For these producers and performers hip hop and rock are as much a assigns a visual element to what we hear. We can use timbre to engage in the
part of Indian identity as sitar or bharatanatyam. This research demonstrates critical conversation about sound in Invisible Man and explore what it means
the shifting patterns of cultural flow (Hannerz, 1997) within an increasingly if the color of sound denotes race. While ample critical attention has been
globalised popular Indian culture. This phenomenon asserts its growing spent on music in the novel, timbre rarely enters critical vocabulary, and
importance in Auckland's cultural production market via live performances those who do use timbre as a theoretical term to discuss race do so to argue it
and its media attention. This study presents recent ethnographic data works as type of racial signifier. As such, timbre introduces a paradox in
collected through interviews with producers and performers in Auckland who which neither the embodied nor the disembodied black voice ideally attaches
represent this growing global, transnational Indian performance culture. The to the black body. Timbre fosters a meeting of the body and the black voice,
case studies demonstrate a range of cultural perspectives and individual allowing us to confront the suspended black body in Ralph Ellison's novel and,
understandings of India as a place they have lived, visited or vicariously in turn, infer the corollary of its location. This essay uses timbre to investigate
experienced through family and the virtual world. These findings document the disembodied black voice in Invisible Man asking, finally, what it means
the cultural perspectives and creative endeavours of new 'global India' not to see color, but to hear it.
performers and producers in Auckland's cultural performance scene.
Wal-Walanginy (Breathing/Singing): Revitalizing Aboriginal Music of
Europe's Bayadre Craze Southwestern Australia
Joep Bor, Leiden University Clint Bracknell, University of Western Australia
Historian Thomas Trautmann writes in his excellent Aryans and British India Cultural, linguistic and musical vitality is regarded as key to Indigenous
that British Indomania 'did not die of natural causes' but 'was killed off.' In people's health and wellbeing. Aboriginal people descended from the original
this paper I'll demonstrate that Indomania reached its peak in the 1830s. For speakers of Noongar, an ancient endangered language of southwestern
it to be 'killed off' a stronger drug was needed than Charles Grant's perverse Australia, have signalled the need to consolidate regional song idioms in order
paper about the moral depravity of the Hindus, and the equally perverse to assist in a crucial process of language revival. Although Noongar people
History of British India (1817) by James Mill. British attitudes towards India constitute the largest Aboriginal cultural group in Australia, Noongar songs
were divided. On the one hand, missionaries and evangelistic politicians have been critically overlooked in all previous studies of Aboriginal Australian
strongly attacked Hindu idolatry and the 'obscene songs' and 'filthy dances' of vocal music, which have focused primarily on central and northern areas of
the bayadres and nautch girls. On the other hand, these 'votaries of pleasure' the continent. As a so-called 'native' researcher operating in the nexus
were very much in vogue among European tourists in India, and inspired between archival research and repatriation, applied ethnomusicology and
numerous poets, painters, choreographers and composers. Daniel Auber's cultural sustainability, I have analysed and reconstructed a range of archival
opera-ballet La Bayadre (1830) or The Maid of Cashmere was as much a hit song texts for repatriation to Noongar people via the Wirlomin Noongar
in France as in Britain and the USA and caused a genuine bayadre craze. Language and Stories Project, a community-driven language maintenance
12
organisation. Analysis of Noongar vocal music highlights the centrality of song expressive capacity of this three-piece wooden flute, which hinges in part on
in Noongar culture and indicates the existence of a distinctive regional style, its ability to emulate the human voice, implicated in at least four bodies of
which is intrinsically linked to language, land, identity and story. While a full evidence: mythological tales about the instrument and its properties; tales in
musical revival is unlikely, the consolidation of Noongar musical traditions which the kaval serves as dramatic protagonist, communicating with humans,
has inherent potential to positively impact Noongar cultural sustainability nature, and cosmological figures; the replication of lyrics and vocal styling by
initiatives. This ongoing project suggests future strategies for kaval-ists in improvising accompaniments for or renditions of songs; and tales
ethnomusicologists working with Indigenous communities. The increasingly told by the kaval itself through improvised, purely instrumental shepherd's
endangered state of traditional music in southwestern Australia, and the melodies that, I hypothesize, are indicative of an older sonic ecology in which
paucity of Indigenous music research in the region necessitate a pressing and music, nature, and spiritual belief were closely entwined. Drawing upon
urgent need for this study. ethnographic research conducted with Bulgarian kaval players since 1988, I
will provide a brief, comparative analysis of such melodies, demonstrating
The Role of Language and Gender in Competing Conceptions of how, through their ornamentation techniques, they narrate the shepherd's
Trinidad Parang as Sacred or Profane soundscape, guide and tell stories about his flock, and illuminate specific
Danielle Brown, Independent Scholar qualities of spirituality and musical beauty that are in turn associated with
the mystical and sonic appeal of bells. I will also contrast my findings with
The twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago is well known for its pre- similar Yrk genres to invite discussion concerning whether the Bulgarian
Lenten carnival festivities - particularly its calypso and steelband traditions. melodies might belong to a larger, regional sphere of Aegean or Black Sea
Lesser known but equally vibrant are Trinidads Christmas traditions, rooted agrarian aerophone practices.
in a Spanish-language custom known as parang (Sp.parranda), a musical
genre and performance practice in which groups of musicians travel from Articulating Whiteness in Portuguese New Orleans, 1840-1880
house to house singing Spanish-language songs that reflect the countrys William Buckingham, University of Chicago
historical connection to Spain and Venezuela. Once a male-centered genre, in
recent years women have come to dominate traditional Spanish-language Ethnographic studies of processional traditions have explored the power of
parang performance, with an emphasis on religious texts. In contrast, their musical bodies moving through urban spaces to articulate identity and
male counterparts have gravitated towards English-language fusions that ideology. This paper explores these issues, while contributing to an
blend parang with various local genres, such as soca and chutney, and whose understanding of the mutability of such processes through its diachronic
text is often secular. Some of the lyrics of these hybrid songs are filled with historical scope. Drawing on conventional historical methods with an
sexually suggestive double-entendres that are more associated with Trinidads ethnomusicologist's attunement to relationships of space, music, and politics, I
carnival ethos than Christmas, and which some feel are sacreligious. explore the heretofore unexcavated musical history of the Portuguese
However, my research suggests that parang is a conflation of several musical immigrant community in nineteenth century New Orleans. Contracted by
styles, both sacred and profane, and that secular displays of machismo were a labor recruiters to work on sugar plantations in the 1840s, by mid-century
crucial aspect of traditional Spanish-language parang. Yet, such secular Louisiana's Portuguese immigrants rapidly rejected their interstitial and
aspects of the tradition, which were ripe with colorful language, are all but precarious racial categorization and associations with plantation labor as they
forgotten in Trinidad as most Trinidadians are no longer proficient in abandoned the sugar parishes and migrated to New Orleans. They established
Spanish, and parang performance has been adapted to the stage for benevolent societies that staged extravagant ritual processions through the
competitions where religion, femininity, and proper decorum are emphasized. streets of New Orleans, accompanied by military fife and drum bands and
Nonetheless, these profane masculine songs were an integral part of the brass bands. Through these performances, adapted from the dominant culture
parang tradition, and are now (perhaps) revived through contemporary while articulating both a Portuguese character and a broader white Catholic
English-language parang. immigrant identity, Portuguese New Orleanians were able claim their own
space in the city and achieve inclusion in the dominant white racial category.
Bulgarian Acoustemological Tales: Narrativity, Agrarian Ecology, and Following the revolutionary upheavals of the Civil War in New Orleans, these
the Kaval's Voice musical performances of identity and belonging, boosted by a second wave of
Donna Buchanan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Portuguese immigration in the 1870s, continued to be deployed to assert white
privilege, now as a weapon in the violent backlash to Reconstruction-era
In Bulgarian organological lore, expressions such as The kaval speaks as it politics and assertions of freedom and dignity by New Orleanians of color.
plays suggest that kaval players do not simply play tunes, but sing and speak
through their instruments. In this paper I wish to explore the conjoining of
narrativity and the kaval's voice in tales both literary and musical. I find the
13
Emotion, Ethics and Public Intimacy: Popular Music Performances in complicate our interpretation of contemporary affiliations, I aim to explore the
Andean Peru domain of sound that is linked not to a genre or an ensemble, but to
James Butterworth, Royal Holloway, University of London underlying concepts of cosmology and power.
This paper focuses on the emotional and ethical conventions surrounding Auditory Histories of the Indian Ocean: Hearing the Soundworlds of
performances of the popular-folkloric huayno genre in Peru. Huayno's cynical the Past
songs of love gone sour provide emotional catharsis as well as spectacular Julia Byl, King's College London, Chair Panel abstract
entertainment and its star performers are appreciated simultaneously as
therapists and artists. First, I examine the aesthetics of emotion in huayno Scratching the surface of contemporary traditions in India and the Malay
performances: that is, how emotion is ordered, given meaning, performed, and world often requires some kind of engagement with the historical point in time
ascribed beauty and value. Second, I consider how the process through which that originally endowed them with significance--a Buddhist dynasty, the
emotion becomes value-laden is closely bound up with issues of morality and spread of Islam, a colonial policy. Yet although the past may be present in a
ethics. I argue that audiences evaluate singers not only in terms of the particular performance or composition--a wayang, a dhrupad--or in the
feelings and misfortune that they perform but on the basis of the ethical work testimony of traditional practitioners, the past that is accessible from the
they appear to enact in dealing with pain, suffering, and moral conundrums. I present is very different from the soundworlds of the past themselves, as they
suggest, in turn, that demonstrations of such ethical work have aesthetic were experienced and understood in their own time and terms. Ephemeral
implications, such as in terms of word-choice, vocal timbre, and bodily gesture. sounds from before the era of sound recording are unrecoverable, and native
More broadly, I highlight how the songs and stage-talk at live huayno events aesthetic assumptions can fall between the cracks of the colonial archives,
articulate recognizable tropes about romance, work, money, family, and making historical musical research challenging. Yet such information is
drinking, which index private, yet generic, emotional and ethical struggles among the most important for documenting musical vitality. Rehearing 19C
and help to structure public intimacy (Berlant 1998; 2008 Dueck 2013). While gamelan or Hindustani music is hard enough--even more so the less
I intend to analyze the particularities of these performance events I aim to documented traditions we will examine in this panel. How might we set about
emphasize the parallels with 'sentimental' genres elsewhere, such as in Nepal recuperating past soundworlds? And how might the intervening years have
(Stirr 2013), in Egypt (Stokes 2007), in Turkey (Stokes 2010), and Japan distorted their resonances? This panel uses archival sources to investigate
(Yano 2002). these questions in Mughal India, colonial Singapore, the music halls of
Penang and Madras, and turn-of-the-century Sumatra. It aims to explore the
Notes in the Margins: Sumatran Religious Hybridity and the Efficacy musical subjectivities of the people living at these junctures of space and time,
of Sound while setting out the practical considerations and creative thinking required
Julia Byl, King's College London for ethnographic engagements with past soundworlds.
The recuperation of the musical past of Southeast Asia is an inherently Unity in (Spite of) Diversity: Tensions and Contradictions in
sketchy project. Looking for evidence of music before the modern age often Performing Surinamese National Identity
means paying attention to the world of magic, to weighty letters, theological Corinna Campbell, Williams College
arguments, and the performance potential of diagrams scrawled in the
margins of bark books. The link between religious and musical practices is In Suriname, the genres and creative forums that have been most effective in
especially important to those in the interior of North Sumatra: the Christian building a general sense of communitas (Turner 1974) have included many
Toba Batak make up one of largest religious minorities in predominantly cultural imports, among them reggae and dancehall, B-boying and street
Muslim Indonesia, and recent scholarship has focused on how Toba music dance, and pop ballad competitions modeled after talent competitions in North
expresses a distinctly Christian identity. This subjectivity was engendered by America and Europe. These genres and forums are not considered the cultural
missionary work in the late 19th century, and has only grown stronger in the property of any of the country's major ethnic groups (Hindustani, Creole,
modern era. Yet a closer investigation of historical texts--written in Javanese, Maroon, Amerindian, Chinese), and thus can be seen as belonging
vernacular and colonial languages--reveals a prolonged and multi-faceted to no one group any more or less than the others. Without the issue of
Toba engagement with multiple religious traditions, including Islam, differentiated cultural ownership at the forefront, social boundaries are more
Buddhism, and Hinduism. As a primary motivation for religious conversion is easily soluble. As useful as these cultural imports may be in unifying the
a desire to better harness the supernatural world, these texts open up populace, they are of little use in constructing national identity. In their place,
alternative ways to look at religious belief, expressed in the inscription and sociocultural difference is often promoted as the factor that unites the
performance of mantras, scriptural quotations, and cosmological diagrams. In Surinamese population. This paper delves into the multiple and often
addition to recovering a picture of religious hybridity in Sumatra that may contradictory ways in which ethnic diversity and ideas of social unity shape
14
the experience and expression of nationalism in Suriname. I ask, in what music become an important symbol of the resistance movement. Because he
ways is 'unity' represented in various national culture projects? Do these was outspoken about the apartheid system and its effects on his country, he
representations reflect the ways in which the Surinamese population manages became the voice for the resistance movement in Namibia, and was expelled
to achieve a communal ethos in the course of daily life? What are the causes from Namibia for fifteen years. While he was in exile Jackson performed his
and consequences of the disconnect between staged performance and the anti-apartheid, resistance songs in refugee camps, at rallies, and political
population that is purportedly represented therein? Through analyzing song meetings. The lyrics Jackson chose for his songs advocated equality, freedom,
texts and staged performances, I examine the strategies and social codes and independence. In this paper I will discuss the context and influences
through which ideas of nation are sounded and embodied. which resulted in Jackson becoming the musical voice of the struggle. As we
memorialize Nelson Mendela for being symbolic of the anti-apartheid
Clear is the Guests Eye: Popular Music and National Aspirations in movement in South Africa, Jackson Kaujeua has become the musical symbol
Iceland for freedom and independence in Namibia.
Kimberly Cannady, Victoria University
Music under Control? So Paulo's Anti-Noise Agency in Action
Over the past decade, musicians, music and tourism industry workers, and Leonardo Cardoso, University of Texas at Austin
the government in Iceland have increasingly supported popular music as a
viable national export. Today the Icelandic government is directly involved in In 2011, the World Health Organization announced that noise pollution is now
funding and supporting local popular musicians through grants and travel the second biggest environmental threat to public health around the world.
subsidies. The burgeoning tourism industry in Iceland strongly promotes local Whereas the major culprit in environmental noise has been traffic noise, so-
popular musicians and music festivals both at home and abroad. At the same called community or leisure noise also continues to grow, raising concerns
time, the government and the larger nation remain deeply devoted to the about quality of life - particularly in major urban centers. In this paper I
preservation of a cultural heritage predicated on historical legacies of Viking discuss how the city of So Paulo has been dealing with community noise.
settlement, sagas and other medieval literature, and even active purification Drawing from archival and ethnographic research conducted at the city's anti-
of the Icelandic language. In this presentation I argue that despite an noise agency, I discuss how notions of nuisance and public health have
otherwise dominant emphasis on historical cultural elements, popular music affected musical activities in the city. The first part of the paper offers an
has become a new form of national culture in Iceland. I relate this semi- overview the municipal legislation, considering the socio-political context in
nationalization of popular music in Iceland to the country's 2008 economic which the citys two noise ordinances emerged in the 1990s. In following the
collapse as well as long-held historical national aspirations. This presentation controversies surrounding both ordinances, I show how debates on noise
is based on multi-sited research across the Nordic region, including a year of control are enmeshed not only in public health and environmental issues, but
fieldwork in Iceland between 2011 and 2012. I draw on interviews I conducted also in religious rights, nightlife economy, and youth behavior. In the second
with musicians, politicians, music and tourism industry workers, as well as part of the paper I discuss the relationship between the anti-noise agency and
historical research and contemporary ethnography. I also build on recent three common sources of noise complaints between 2005 (when the anti-noise
research from lafsdttir (2008), Dibben (2009), Bohlman (2011), among agency started to act more forcefully) and 2012. The three sources are: (1) the
others, in their explorations of music and nation in Icelandic and larger city's upscale nightlife district, (2) the evangelical churches that deploy
European contexts. This research contributes to ethnographic approaches to powerful amplifiers for musical performances during religious services, and (3)
the study of popular music, particularly within a peripheral European region, the youth street parties that take place in poor suburbs. With this
and studies of music and nationalism. comparative map of anti-noise enforcement I show the ambiguous ways in
which music is inscribed in anti-noise law enforcement.
Jackson Kaujeua, the Musical Voice of the Struggle in Namibia
Myrna Capp, Seattle Pacific University Regulating Space, Regulating Sound: Musical Practice and
Institutional Mediation in So Paulo, Brazil
Namibia, formerly known as South West Africa, after colonization by the Leonardo Cardoso, University of Texas at Austin, Chair Panel abstract
Germans, became a South African Protectorate. South Africa extended its
apartheid policies to South West Africa and became a military occupier. This panel discusses a range regulatory processes that mediate musical
Because of South Africas harsh policies and injustices, in 1966, SWAPO practices in So Paulo, Brazil, a global megacity. In line with recent
(South West Africa Peoples Organization) turned to armed struggle. After a scholarship on the relationship between cultural production and policy
devastating war, Namibia achieved independence from South Africa in 1990. making, we describe how different musical agents alternately seek, dispute,
Based on research conducted in Namibia in 2008-2009, this paper examines and circumvent institutional mediations within a complex urban environment
the work of Jackson Kaujeua, Namibias leading popular musician, whose partially organized through the state. The first paper examines the operations
15
of the city's anti-noise agency in widely varying sonic and socioeconomic Excavating the Subaltern Past: Theories and Methods in Historical
environments, relating the agency's regulatory procedures to discourses about Ethnomusicology
cultural scourges and public health. The next paper details how musicians and James Revell Carr, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, Chair Panel
cultural producers have developed new administrative competencies in the abstract
context of So Paulo's many state and semi-state cultural institutions, in
which a proposal process called the edital has become a standard channel of As ethnomusicologists continue to grapple with the musical legacy of
cultural policy. The final paper discusses an underground venue that foments hundreds of years of colonialism and imperialism, more scholars are
heightened social and musical sensibilities by seeking to elide these same recognizing the importance of historical research in understanding a post-
policies and institutions, which nevertheless frame its operations. On a micro colonial world. The old adage tells us that history is written by the victors,
level, this panel offers particular case studies for examining the effects of the but twenty-first century ethnomusicologists are making efforts to uncover the
democracy-oriented cultural policies implemented in Brazil over the last voices of the subaltern, the subjugated, the marginalized, and the colonized,
decade. More broadly, the panel speaks to questions concerning the excavating alternative histories that complicate the received understanding of
relationship between institutions, aesthetic circulation and notions of the past inscribed by prior generations of scholars. Research of this sort does
collectivity and cohabitation in cities -- the living context of more than half the not simply tell us about the past, but can have important repercussions for
world's population. By exploring regimes of musical production, circulation, political and social issues in the present. This roundtable will explore the
and control in one city from differing yet overlapping vantages, we both map possibilities and the pitfalls of undertaking historical ethnomusicology with
the mutual mediation of music, civil society, and the state and contribute to subaltern subjects, discussing a variety of methodologies, practicalities, and
urban ethnomusicology. theoretical frameworks that have been utilized in recent work. Panel
participants represent research on a wide range of geographic areas and socio-
Music, Intermediality, and Ritual Improvisation in a Ghanaian cultural issues, including African-American vernacular music and the Civil
Charismatic Church Rights movement, devotional song for Catholic saints in Brazil, syncretic
Florian Carl, University of Cape Coast music genres of native Hawaiians, representations of gender transgression on
the American popular stage, nationalism in Japanese music education, and
Charismatism is the fastest growing strand of Christianity in Ghana. Since the music of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Each of these scholars will
the late 1970s, neo-Pentecostal churches have been mushrooming particularly discuss their efforts to negotiate differences between radical postmodern
in the southern part of the country, transforming not only the religious subjectivities and the compelling desire to understand objective, empirical
landscape, but Ghana's public culture more generally. Based on extensive truth. Through these disparate case studies, the panelists will propose
ethnographic field research, this paper explores the nexus between media approaches that can help other ethnomusicologists navigate the contested
culture, congregational musicking and ritual improvisation in smaller terrain of history and uncover obscured perspectives and previously untold
Charismatic congregation in the southeast of Accra, Christ Victory Ministries narratives.
International, where music-making and dance often take up more than half of
the time of Sunday services. Expanding on existing theories of ritual and Neurodiversity and a Path to Citizenship: An Ethnomusicological
improvisation, a particular focus of the paper is on congregational dance Exploration of Music and Williams Syndrome
performance, where ritual improvisation is perhaps most eminent. By evoking Alexandria Carrico, Florida State University
stylistic elements and incorporating dance moves from a variety of mostly non-
religious performance and media contexts, congregants create specific forms of Williams Syndrome (WS), a genetic condition associated with cardiovascular
intermediality that enable them to negotiate and test the ethical norms and disease and challenges in spatial-motor development, is described in medical
boundaries of the community and sometimes also to challenge existing power literature and discourse as an intellectual disability. In an important effort to
structures. It is in congregational musicking that Charismatic beliefs and strengthen the Williams community and combat stigma, the Williams
values are expressed and reaffirmed as a form of lived theology. At the same Syndrome Association annually sponsors a 3-week summer camp in Grand
time, Charismatic ritual opens up an improvisatory space within which Rapids, Michigan, for people with WS (ages 6-35) and their families. This
congregants can divine new ways how to behave and how to relate towards paper extends from ethnomusicological fieldwork conducted at the Grand
each other as well as to God. By scrutinizing these and related issues, the Rapids camp to an exploration of the role of musical performance in increasing
paper contributes to the study of music and ritual and, more specifically, to the cultural visibility of individuals with Williams Syndrome. I focus on an
the growing field of the ethnomusicology of Christianity. event that took place at a nearby piano bar, during which one of the young
adults from the camp was invited by the house band to perform onstage.
Examining the cathartic effect of this performance, I consider the empowering
and enlightening capacities inherent in the spontaneous co-creation of a
16
musical culture that emerges at the borders of neurodiversity and number of pieces in the repertoire that call for kapamipidaw. The practice of
neurotypicality. My discussion and interpretation of this event lead to a kapamipidaw can only be performed when there is a musical space for a non-
critique of the predominant medical paradigm of disability, which stresses playing hand or hands to twirl a beater; in this sense, gaps in the music are
disorder over ability. I then propose an alternative paradigm that privileges filled with graceful twirling, and, in some cases, acrobatic juggling of the
musical, ethnographic, and ethnomusicological perspectives to frame WS as a player's beaters. In this paper, I argue that kapamipidaw is more than the
difference of ability, or diffability, rather than as a dis-ability. Through this practice of entertainment for the audience, but is in fact a performative
ethnomusicological lens, music serves as a path to citizenship for people with element embracing the essence of playing the Maguindanao kulintang.
WS and other so-called intellectual disabilities. This moves us toward the Using Butocan's (2008) tripartite model for playing kulintang--playing the
replacement of the label dis-ability with that of capability, enriching societys kulintang successfully depends upon self-relaxation, self-creativity, and self-
understanding of and appreciation for human diversity. entertainment--in conjunction with indigenous psychologist Virgilio
Enriquez's (2008) viewing of kapwa--the inner self shared with others--as a
Not Afro-Beat: The Hegemonic Possession of A Musical Genre core Filipino value, I postulate that kapamipidaw exceeds audience
Aaron Carter- ny, Ohio State University entertainment and is a manner in which central aspects of Filipino-ness are
performed, realised and visualised through shifting kinetic activities that fills
Synchronous movements for African independence and American civil rights time unoccupied by sonic elaborations.
emboldened each other, inspiring a global flourish of black popular music.
Fla Kuti is celebrated in literature and media but his contemporaries are The Sacred and the Profane: The Role of the Harrq and Raissn
largely forgotten. According to Waterman (2002), Afro-beat music was Sufi Orders in Preserving the Heritage of Andalusian Music in
associated almost exclusively with one charismatic figure. This is reinforced Tetun, Morocco
by Moore (1982), Olaniyan (2004) and others. Nigerian journalist Tam Fiofori Hicham Chami, University of Florida
and the multiple-author blog afrobeat, afrofunk, afrojazz, afrorock, african-
boogie... tell a different story. In 1960s Lagos, a nascent musical movement Very little scholarly consideration has been given to the role played by
formed fusing Highlife and African-American popular music, fortified by Moroccan Sufi orders in maintaining and preserving the country's revered
James Brown's 1970 tour of West Africa (Emielu 2013). In the 1970s, the genre: al-la al-Andalusiyah. However, multiple fleeting mentions in written
corruption and violence of Obasanjo's regime was confronted by music, accounts and numerous references in oral testimonies allude to the symbiotic
catapulting Fla to stardom and silencing gn Bucknor (Atane 2014). Fla relationship between the sacred and the profane: the tradition of Sama' in the
bought press coverage to advance his political and cultural views (Olaniyan Moroccan Sufi ethos and the music of al-la (Guettat 2000, Abdellah 2005,
2002) while other artists with similar musical styles presented a more benign Davila 2006). Founded in the mid-19th century, the Harrq and Raissn
pan-Africanism. gn Bucknor, Orlando Julius and Peter King contrast Sufi orders in the northwestern Moroccan city of Tetun are prime examples
Fla's narrative. All are still living. All fused Highlife and African-American of this mutually beneficial interconnection. This paper asserts the existence of
music. Fla must be credited with raising the profile of African music, but this a variety of strategies by which these two Tarqas have mediated in solidifying
positive impact is diminished because Afro-beat became more of a brand than the Tetun-based style of Andalusian music, hence guarding against further
a genre. Two years of fieldwork in Lagos, including interviews with the artists, erosion of Morocco's musical legacy. In addition to their regularly held Sam'
reveals an alternate history of 1960s-70s Lagosian music. Julius claims and Amdh gatherings--religious by definition--these Tarqas champion the
origination of Afro-beat; King focused on instrumental music and now organization of Andalusian music soires during which they allow and even
nurtures young musicians; Bucknor was intimidated out of protest. Analysis encourage the usage of stringed instruments (rather than abiding by a literal
of recordings shows the development of, and individual contributions to, post- and well-established Muslim approach of banning all but percussive ones) and
Highlife music. readily mix Sufi poems with Andalusian secular muwashshahte. The
perpetuation of al-la al-Andalusiyah's technical, theoretical, and
Hands of Filipino-ness: Beater Twirling in Maguindanao Kulintang performative gnosis has been potentiated through techniques of exclusivity
Larry Catungal, University of Hawai'i at Manoa (Doubleday 1999; Lengel 1995), the time-honored Hfda (memorization) mode
of transmission (Loopuyt 1988), and the pivotal Tetun 'Ulemas' (religious
Whilst some percussion traditions employ stick twirling as a sign of scholars') brave--and somewhat unexampled--live-and-let-live attitude toward
showmanship, such as snare drummers in a drumline, musicians in the music and dance (Guennoun 1884).
Maguindanao kulintang tradition (a gong-chime tradition from the Southern
Philippines) express their Filipino-ness through selected moments of
kapamipidaw, or beater twirling. According to Ma'am Aga Mayo Butocan--
respected master kulintang musician and teacher--there are only a select
17
Polyphonic Excess and the Mexican Valona: Xich, Guanajuato, A Staging Overcoming: Disability, Meritocracy, and the Envoicing of
Case Study Dreams
Alex Chavz, University of Notre Dame William Cheng, Dartmouth University
Utilizing the concept of polyphony both as it applies to music-structure and in A quadriplegic Iraqi orphan with a gorgeous tenor voice, an armless pianist
the dialogic sense proposed by Mikhail Bakhtin (and subsequently applied to who plays with nimble toes, a virtuoso kite-flier with epilepsy, and a
linguistic analysis), this paper explores syncretic expression in the Mexican breakdancer with arthrogryposis: just a few among numerous sensational
valona, an understudied musical form. Attention is given to the huapango portraits of disability spotlighted on today's reality-television competitions.
arribeo variant with a focus on the heterogeneity of musical and poetic Ever since this entertainment genre took global flight at the turn of the
elements that constitute its multi-voiced performance. From the use of millennium, it has capitalized on token appearances by contestants with
asymmetrical time signatures to the bundling of syncopated violin and vocal conspicuous impairments. Narratives of overcoming on these programs deliver
melodies, and the a capricio improvisation of glossed dcimas, the valona comfort food to the millions of viewers who consume this feel-good
contains within it meta-signals and strategies of performance that carefully programming as part of their weekly media diets. My paper explores how
coax and orchestrate its complex polyphony. Drawing on personal performance reality singing competitions across the world manufacture, stage, and exploit
experience and fieldwork in Xich, Guanajuato, I outline how this lush, spectacles of disability and overcoming with appeals to principles of musical
creative and necessarily excessive process simultaneously emanates from and meritocracy. As a pervasive--but rarely interrogated--organizational force in
reinforces vernacular theories of performance-practice crucial to the vitality of contemporary capitalist societies, meritocracy teases utopian notions of
the form. nondiscrimination: blind orchestra auditions, double-blind academic peer-
reviews, need-blind college admissions--it is neither incidental nor
Building (con)Texts, (in)Forming Performance: Producing coincidental, I argue, that metaphors of (sight) impairment abound in
Contemporary Mexican Son descriptions of antiprejudicial procedures. Blind auditions represent the core
Alex Chvez, University of Notre Dame, Chair Panel abstract conceit of NBC's The Voice (2011- ), which I investigate via archival studies of
auditionees' draconian contracts (Warner Horizon Television, 2013),
This panel attends to the building of contemporary contexts of enactment interviews with contestants, and recent theoretical interventions in
and reception that inform the practice of Mexican son. Drawing on Richard ethnomusicology and disability studies (the recuperation of sentiment, the
Bauman's work on the production of performance, panelists explore the locus sensorial turn, exceptionalist ontologies of sound, and academic work as call to
of aesthetic behaviors, forms, and values enacted across a range of social justice). By lending an ear to reality competitions' affective currencies, my
settings that constitute the making of the music, dance, and poetic project illuminates the connections and collisions between disability's gritty
conventions that typify the jarocho and arribeo varieties of Mexican son. realities and meritocracy's glossy ideals in musical media of late modernity.
From this vantage point, particular attention is given to the interplay between
tradition and innovation and how this dynamic builds the sociological and Tibet in Song: A Personal Journey
axiological resonances of these musics at various levels--from the vernacular Ngawang Choephel, Guge Productions
everyday to transnational consumptive practices. Indeed, the respective
communities of listeners and practitioners of these musics have been Tibet in Song (2010), while celebrating traditional Tibetan folk music, also
confronting issues of cultural continuity and change amidst the challenging journeys into the past fifty years of Chinese cultural control inside Tibet. The
pressures of urbanization, globalization, and immigration for several decades-- second presenter is the director, an ethnomusicologist and former Tibetan
processes that have critically shaped son's performance and transmission over political prisoner, who weaves a powerful story of the local Tibetans
time. And while these social and political-economic circumstances are often performing their working songs, songs about family and the beauty of the
elided in the conventional narratives of Mexican nationalist aesthetics--those land. These scenes, shot prior to the presenter's arrest and sent across to
which reify these musical practices as unmodern in order to brace essentialist India, are juxtaposed against startling footage of the early days of the Chinese
claims that position them as repositories of the national character--this panel invasion and a concise explanation of the factors leading to the Dalai Lama's
takes up the challenge of examining the shifting flows, migrations, and flight into exile in 1959. The documentary includes songs the presenter
circulations of their performance. Ultimately, the panelists make a case for encountered during field research and in prison which ironically became a
Mexican son as a vernacular site of quotidian expression where identities have new learning center of lost Tibetan songs. Tibet in Song provides an
been and continue to be negotiated through the use of expressive-cultural unvarnished look at Tibet as it stands today, a country reeling from Chinese
resources that build forms of contiguity between present-tense expressions brutality, yet willing to fight for its unique identity. Tibet in Song is directed
and their antecedents. by the presenter, and contains both his original music and folk songs sung by
18
native Tibetans. The, Chair Panel abstract of the session has a cameo role in decentralized soundscapes. On the surface, El Baile Alemn might appear to
the film as well. lampoon Kraftwerk's Teutonic veneer and dehumanized, machine-driven
aesthetic. However, I argue that Schmidt's border-crossing and genre-bending
When Kungfu Meets Yueju: Cantonese Opera and the Chinese music exists in a postnational space where composer, artist, and listener are
Freemasons no longer part of the same cultural context, but instead occupy a new and
Kim Chow-Morris, Ryerson University shared space. Looking at El Baile Alemn as a multi-layered site of
contestation, I consider how Schmidt's adoption of multiple personae call
Cantonese opera (yueju) has entertained Chinese communities in Canada issues of genre naming, authenticity, identity, and colliding stereotypes, into
since the 1870s (Johnson 1996; Matthews 1947), spreading east from the question. I also read Schmidt's work as a meta-commentary about the global
earliest theatres in Victoria, British Columbia to diasporic Chinese flow of localized musical traditions which are co-opted and marketed around
communities in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal the world, mirroring a similar flow of peoples and capital around an
and beyond. Today, lavish performances are supported by largely increasingly decentralized world.
underground amateur singers and professional instrumentalists, yet include
frequent transnational collaborations with much-feted opera stars from the Performing Rurality: Sung Poetry, Memory, and Imagination across
homeland. Despite the ubiquity of the genre across Canada and the United the Mediterranean (Morocco-Italy)
States (Riddle 1983; Rao 2002), scant attention has been paid to the network Alessandra Ciucci, Northeastern University
of connections between these early Cantonese opera groups and the Chinese
Freemason (Cheekungtong or Hongmen) association, which some describe as a Abidat rma--a musico-poetic genre traditionally performed by all-male
fierce kungfu club and others as a benevolent association. While Cantonese ensembles entertaining wealthy patrons during hunting expeditions -has
opera is steeped in plots that romanticize imperial figures and undergird recently been transformed into a mass mediated genre performed at private
Confucian virtues such as loyalty to one's masters, North America's Chinese and public celebrations and circulated through cassettes, CDs, DVDs, and the
Freemasons successfully plotted with Sun Yat Sen to overthrow Manchu Internet in Morocco and abroad. In the early 1990s, as Moroccan migration to
imperial reign during China's Qing dynasty, using opera fundraisers to help southern Europe began to intensify, abidat rma became the expression of
finance their rebellion. Based on individual and group interviews, participant choice of a young generations of male migrants from central Morocco caught
observation, video and audio analysis, concert programs, and archival between the reclamations of a local rural culture, their desire to be part of a
material on the Chinese Freemason brotherhood, this paper will examine the modernity, and their displaced masculinity in the increasingly tense context of
relationship between the growth of Cantonese opera across Canada and the European labor migration politics. This paper explores how a specific rurality
Chinese Freemasons brotherhood. In so doing, I elucidate connections between is played out in a post-colonial transnational context and, more in particular,
the development of this vastly popular musical entertainment of the diasporic the role of rurality in challenging and reshaping ideas about modernity, the
Chinese community and the organization that once helped to overthrow the Mediterranean, and in reconfiguring the boundaries of power between North
imperial government of China, highlighting ongoing multivalent transnational Africa and Europe. It is in this context that I examine how the poetic language
and transregional socio-musical influences. and sound of abidat rma are imbued with locality, how this sung poetry gives
voice/sound to this conflict of transformation, and how it articulates the
Cumbia along the Autobahn: Rhizomatous Identities and affective and sonic lives of a young generation of male Moroccan migrants at a
Postnational Music Production transnational level. I plan to investigate these issues through historical and
Jennifer Chu, Yale University ethnographic work in Morocco and Italy, to engage in an ethnography of
poetry in which I analyze a poetic language whose images, sound and gestures
In 2000, Emperor Norton Records released El Baile Aleman, a tribute album are inseparable in performing and experiencing abidat rma.
of Kraftwerk's greatest hits performed as salsas, rumbas, cumbias, merengues,
and cha-cha-chas. Although the album cover features Seor Coconut, a suave Reciprocal Renegotiation: Gender-Integrated Balinese Gamelan
Latin American bandleader, it is actually the creation of Uwe Schmidt, a Elizabeth Clendinning, Wake Forest University
German electronica producer. Schmidt has performed under nearly seventy
aliases, creating works that represent each character's musical style and Study and performance of gamelan music in Bali, Indonesia, has traditionally
personality. His constant contextual shifts in terms of musical materials and been a male domain. Over the past twenty years, there has been a growing
multiple identities as a musician point to processes of deterritorialization. public interest in Bali in maintaining women's-only ensembles that perform
Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari's idea of rhizomatous identities, or for local cultural events, tourists, and competitions. These groups nevertheless
identities as dispersed networks of linked nodal points, one can see the great are often perceived to be less capable than male-only ensembles and often
extent to which recent technologies have had an impact creating newly receive less intensive training. In a society in which gender-based social roles
19
are still strongly prescribed, gender-integrated gamelan groups have been prisoners, this paper examines how music became a mode by which women
almost unheard of within a Balinese context. While gender integration is the activists expressed their fight against both the racist government and the
norm for gamelans outside of Indonesia, gamelans in Bali have historically oppression of women, combining a rich stock of traditional freedom songs with
only featured male leaders serving as expert players within women's groups, a specific women's musical repertory to communicate a female perspective on
or female musicians as novelties within men's groups. That trend is slowly the struggle and their prison experiences. First, the role of women in the anti-
beginning to change. In this paper, I closely examine the formation of one apartheid movement will be considered to show how music was used as an
Balinese village gamelan ensemble that is explicitly gender-integrated. identity for female activists. Second, music-making in black women's jails will
Drawing on observation of and interviews with musicians and non-musicians be discussed, focusing on how it provided a means of resistance to harrowing
within this community, this paper examines community motivations for conditions, of entertainment with organized singing competitions, and of socio-
founding the ensemble and players' individual motivations for playing with political commentary on racial and sexual harassment considering the
this specific group. I focus on how gender is renegotiated through the difference in treatment between male/female political prisoners according to
assignment of leadership roles within rehearsal and performance, how the constructions of Afrikaaner womanhood and gender norms versus
development of a leadership hierarchy both challenges and reaffirms revolutionary ones. Lastly, the experiences of white female prisoners are
traditional Balinese gender roles, and community perceptions of these gender compared for their imports of colonial musical styles and appropriations of
negotiations. Contextualizing this case study within the broader Balinese black protest music, ultimately transcending political, linguistic and racial
performing arts scene, I address the challenges and potential for the differences. This model of women's musical resistance raises broader
development of further gender-integrated Balinese gamelan groups in Bali. questions for ethnomusicological research into music and women's rights,
trauma, and gender politics in the context of oppressive patriarchal regimes.
A New Multidisciplinary Method for the Analysis of Timbre and
Sound Culture for the Japanese Koto Raising Their Voices: Gender and Pedagogy in Balinese Youth Arja
Angela Coaldrake, The University of Adelaide Bethany Collier, Bucknell University
Timbre is an important but elusive component of the performance of any The bulk of ethnomusicological scholarship on Balinese performance relates to
musical instrument. The tools for its analysis and understanding remain the globally popular, male-dominated gamelan tradition. Recognizing that this
under-developed. This paper outlines a new multidisciplinary method to narrative marginalizes women's voices, several important studies address
address this issue with reference to the tonal colouring of the Japanese koto, gender issues in Balinese music (Bakan 1999; Downing 2010; Susilo 2003):
(13 string zither) and its performance. The method employs digital auditory these works generally preserve the focus on instrumental traditions and
tools, finite element analysis and advanced acoustic methodologies from the highlight the changing role of women and girls in gamelan contexts. By
sciences in combination with standard methods of musicology and contrast, relatively little critical attention has centered on Balinese vocal
performance studies. It discusses how it is now possible to show the origin of music, an arena in which women traditionally have a prominent role: here,
the timbre components in the structure of the instrument, the influence of the related discourse on gender, sexuality, and the female body is largely absent,
wood and grain orientation and the impact of different plucking techniques on even from the most important studies on this topic (Dibia 1994; Herbst 1997;
sound production. Finally, it argues that this new method leads to a deeper Wallis 1980). One site for examining these issues is arja, the operatic form of
understanding of timbre and its origin which has the potential not only to Balinese dance-drama. Two important factors make arja a particularly rich
expand our knowledge of the relationship between instrument construction area for exploration: first, arja casts are typically dominated by female
and sound production, but also lays the foundations for more nuanced performers, making them powerful fora for the projection of women's voices.
discussion and notation of the sound culture of musical instruments in Japan Second, the recent resurgence of youth arja groups empowers older, seasoned
or elsewhere. female performers to train a new generation of young women. While arja can
further bind girls and women to traditional gender norms, I show that
You've Struck a Rock: Music as Resistance in the Women's Anti- contextualized performance experiences and a modernized pedagogical process
Apartheid Struggle and Female Jails effectively impact women's capacity to reshape dominant discourses on
Janie Cole, Music Beyond Borders tradition, sexuality, and identity. Integrating perspectives from recent
ethnographic research with established theories on gender, voice, and the
Music was a critical form of resistance in the apartheid prisons of South body, this paper argues that the pedagogical process in youth arja is a
Africa. But while there are many accounts by male prisoners of its use, productive site for negotiating tensions between Balinese adat (customary
especially by those held on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela, no research practice) and contemporary culture.
has been done on the quite different experiences of female political prisoners
under the regime. Drawing on first-hand interviews with surviving female
20
Let My People Never Lose La Clave: Ismael Rivera and the Mourning numerous independent sources that predate and postdate the invasion. A
of Voice sketch of the musical lives & practices of Mauritian slaves is included.
Csar Coln-Montijo, Columbia University
Ethnomusicology, Music Information Retrieval and Big Data
Ismael Maelo Rivera (1931-1987) is praised as a worshipful figure by salsa Stephen Cottrell, City University London
fans throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Maelo's music became
inscribed in the aural tapestry of barrios throughout the continent between The application of Music Information Retrieval (MIR) techniques to large
the 1950s and the 1980s. It was his death, however, that transformed him into recorded corpuses of music beyond the Western traditions, taken at face value,
a type of cult figure often associated with political struggles, racial issues and appears to run contrary to many of the principles which ethnomusicologists
spiritual practices among lasting groups of devotees that have since coalesced have long held dear. Culturally decontextualised, and with all the problems
throughout the region. Acknowledged as the preeminent singer-improviser in that attach to specific recordings serving as single instantiations of otherwise
salsa by his peers and fans, Maelo lost his voice in the final years of his life diverse musical traditions, the large-scale computerised analysis of such
due to a heart disease that affected his vocal chords. For him, nonetheless, the recordings risks appearing to return the discipline to its comparative
reason for his vocal disappearance was the death in 1982 of his beloved friend musicology roots. Nevertheless, some studies have been undertaken over
and musical companion, Rafael Cortijo. Cortijo took la clave with him Maelo recent years as part of what is sometimes termed 'computational
used to say, and thus his impossibility of singing thereafter. In this paper, I ethnomusicology'. What is gained is the possibility not only of the kinds of
will think through ideas of the voice, the self, and friendship as articulated in technologically-enhanced analytical exactitude which computers can provide,
Maelo's narrative on vocal loss. Why the connection between la clave and the but also of large-scale comparative analyses both within and across cultures.
voice? Why the relation between the labour of mourning and the impossibility These offer, for example, the prospect of revisiting on a more scientific basis
of singing? Maelo often said he had embodied the beat of la clave. How to earlier debates about human universals in music-making, in addition to the
think then the relation between his heart, his throat and Cortijo's death? more usual traits of pitch or melody extraction, semantic categorisation and
Ultimately, I will think through Maelo's most remembered refrain, let my similar. Thus far, however, MIR studies have generally concentrated on
people never lose la clave asking what possible histories of dispossession and individual recordings or small collections, which do not comfortably facilitate
struggle can we hear in Maelo's (lost) voice? large-scale comparisons. This paper will review some of the latest work being
undertaken in the MIR field in relation to global music traditions, and
Slaves, Music, and Ruse in the Anglo-Dutch Invasion of Mauritius consider the problems and possibilities such approaches present. It will also
(1748) report on the latest results from an ongoing government-funded UK research
Basil Considine, Boston University project - the Digital Music Lab - which seeks to apply MIR techniques to
musical Big Data, specifically focused on music beyond the Western traditions.
In 1748, a massive Anglo-Dutch war fleet arrived off the coast of the island of
Mauritius in the southern Indian Ocean. Mauritius was the most important Metal Rules in Bangalore: Masculinity and Social Mobility in Indian
French colonial possession in the Far East, home to a strategically located Heavy Metal
port and a major nexus of military power. It was also almost entirely Chloe Coventry, CalArts
undefended, with most of its forces fighting in India and only a small garrison
of raw recruits left on the island. After several days of military action, Heavy metal music has been performed in India since the 1970s, when British
however, the enemy fleet departed and left the island unconquered. As the heavy metal was a potent source of inspiration to a small audience of upper-
British fleet records were later lost in a hurricane, the cause of this defeat has and middle-class rock fans in the country. Today metal shows by both
been largely unexplained by naval historians, who have made vague and international and local bands attract young people drawn in part by the
unsubstantiated claims about tides, schedules, and ruses. This paper music's cathartic sociality. Metal fandom often begins in college, where
investigates the Anglo-Dutch invasion of Mauritius using a combination of students forge tastes and form bands that perform in school festivals and
ethnographic research, contemporary British accounts, and newly discovered competitions. This intersection of higher education and musical involvement is
sources in the French colonial archives. A key finding is the discovery and not coincidental. In contrast to its working class origins in the west, metal
confirmation from multiple sources that a sophisticated musical ruse was fandom in India signifies an upwardly-mobile, socially modern form of youth
employed to deter the Anglo-Dutch invasion. Hundreds of imported plantation identity that dovetails with the promises of higher education in India's
slaves from Africa and Madagascar were used to mimic military drum signals globalized economy. A heavy metal education is not available to everyone,
and impersonate a massive military force - a ruse that required so high a however. The genre is especially distinctive for norms that prescribe
degree of musical ability and training that 19th century British and French authentic fandom and for its homosocial, male audiences who participate in
historians both dismissed it as impossible, but which is confirmed by gendered discourses that define metal in opposition to pop and film music - a
21
distinction that also devalues female fandom. Drawing from a year of diasporic and Near Eastern traditions of improvisation, I will bring a critical
fieldwork in Bangalore and analysis of the scene's online discourses, this ethnographic perspective to bear upon issues of improvisation, community,
paper explores how metal fandom and performance engenders aspirational and social practice, to elucidate the manner in which cultural differences
and mutable forms of identification through the renegotiation of pre-existing shape the political meanings of extemporaneous music-making. Ultimately, I
mores of class and gender. I claim that Indian heavy metal is the locus of a argue, a cross-cultural focus on the particular pedagogical practices through
particular type of education in which masculinity and upward mobility which improvisational forms are learned and understood in specific social,
intersect in the specialized arena of a globalized musical genre. historical, and geographic contexts reveals the varying scope and significance
of the role that conceptions of musical freedom - especially as globally
Negotiating Reciprocity: A Transcultural Gift Economy in the disseminated through the transnational circulation of African American
Transmission of Tibetan Buddhist Ritual Music paradigms - play in empowering artists to imagine and realize utopian socio-
Jeffrey Cupchik, St John Fisher College sonic communities through improvisational interaction.
This paper explores the transcultural gift economy at work in the The Fragility of Culture: Manifestations of Gender and Modernity
contemporary musical transmission between Tibetan Lamas and their non- Within the Dangaura Tharu Sakhya-Paiya Naach
Tibetian disciples of Buddhist Vajrayana (Tantric) rituals that originate in Victoria Dalzell, University of California, Riverside
Tibetan and Himalayan regions. The context of the transcultural transmission
of the eleventh-century Tibetan-Buddhist Chod ritual is relevant to gaining an Nepalese culture and society has experienced fast-paced change over the past
understanding of cross-cultural dynamics, beliefs and expectations around sixty-five years as the country has experienced modernity primarily brokered
giving/receiving lineage teachings of musical healing rituals in the current through development, and has had several experiments with democracy, the
global ecumene. Marcel Mausss insights in his most renowned most recent of which seeks to politically and culturally include previously
anthropological work, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic marginalized ethnicities. Against this background, the Dangaura Tharu--a
Societies, are employed in unlocking the concept of reciprocity in the minority group indigenous to the Dang Valley, located in the southern mid-
transcultural giving process involved in the musical transmission, study and western region of Nepal--seek to position themselves as modern (read:
performance of the Chod ritual. Melodies, rhythms, instruments, and educated), but culturally distinguished by long-held traditions perceived as
performance traditions are passed on between elder Tibetan Lamas and their unique to their group. The sakhya-paiya naach--a religious song-and-dance
non-Tibetian disciples, who vary in their cultural expectations about gift genre performed primarily by unmarried Dangaura Tharu women--is located
giving and reciprocity. In this dynamic, entrustment is negotiated in the at the nexus of discourses concerning modernity, tradition and identity within
master-disciple relationship, based on the Lamas request that disciples Dangaura Tharu communities. In this paper, I examine sakhya-paiya
preserve a tradition by studying it closely, and the disciples agreement to do performances as highly discursive spaces that explore and debate even as they
so. have come to define what it is to be a young Dangaura Tharu woman. While
the sakhya song is traditionally orally transmitted, Dangaura Tharu women
Jam Locally, Think Globally: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on the now bring their literacy skills (obtained through formal education) and
Politics of Improvisation available technology (specifically cell phones) to learn and pass on the sakhya
Scott Currie, University of Minnesota epic. Participation in this musical performance provides one avenue for these
young women to obtain the coveted identity of being modern albeit culturally
Ethnomusicology's embrace of the emergent field of improvisation studies has aware. Additionally, this genre's inclusion in local competitions and folk
raised the issue of how to address a significant overrepresentation of African- festivals as representative of Dangaura Tharu traditional song-and-dance
American avant-garde jazz and European free-music scholarship, often further allows young Dangaura Tharu women to participate in multiple
premised upon an allegorical understanding of the phenomenon as a musical translocal discourses and create their own vision of modernity.
analogue for counter-hegemonic political dialogue and action. While my own
ethnographic research has indeed found these broadly Attalian conceptions The Folk by Committee: Interdisciplinary Negotiations Fieldwork
widely, if by no means universally, shared among free/jazz artists on both Practices and Constructed Identities in Government-Sponsored Folk
sides of the North Atlantic, even a cursory survey of improvisational traditions Music Collecting in the 1930s
from Africa to Asia raises serious questions about the cross-cultural validity of Mark Davidson, University of California, Santa Cruz
this axiological perspective. Obvious counterexamples of improvisational
traditions with elite pedigrees in courtly or high-status devotional traditions Beginning in the mid-1930s government fieldworkers equipped with
hardly offer compelling evidence of anti-imperialist or egalitarian social instantaneous disc recording machines canvassed the nation in search of
impact over the centuries. Accordingly, drawing upon my studies of African folklore including folk music for the purpose of documenting the lives of
22
ordinary U.S. citizens during the Depression. Through programs such as the literature has thus far focused almost exclusively on black men and, partially
Federal Music Theatre and Writers' Projects and the WPA Joint Committee due to the relative absence of women in brass bands, neglects to view gender
on Folk Arts collectors such as Herbert Halpert Zora Neale Hurston Stetson as a category of analysis. This presentation seeks to introduce gender as a key
Kennedy and Sidney Robertson collected thousands of songs that were element to brass band research by studying the only current exception to male
dominance in this musical genre, an all-female brass band called the Original
subsequently deposited in the Archive of American Folk Song (AAFS) at the
Pinettes Brass Band. Existing on the peripheries of a marginalized brass band
Library of Congress. Among the people overseeing and counseling these community, the case of the Pinettes offers different insight into the
fieldworkers were Benjamin A. Botkin George Herzog John and Alan Lomax reconfiguration of tradition as a means of creating community. I will argue
and Charles Seeger each of whom had strong opinions on the nature of the that the Pinettes subvert gender norms by introducing female gendered songs
work they were doing. Through the use of primary source materials and into their repertoire and appropriating canonical brass band songs with
archival research as well as contemporaneous and more recent scholarship on misogynistic lyrical content. In doing so, they have circumvented the male
the function and utility of folk song collecting this paper examines the gendered meaning of brass instruments and created an alternative all-female
complex relationships among these principal characters the intersections and brass band community that seeks to inspire and empower young women in
divergences among their fieldwork philosophies and the role that the Archive New Orleans.
played in shaping folk song collection practices--and folk identity--in the
Sounding Citizenship in Southern Africa: Malawian Musicians and
United States in the 1930s and beyond. the Social Worlds of Recording Studios and Music Education Centers
Richard Deja, University of Illinois
Vraiment le Blues: Milton Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfes
Really the Blues in Postwar France, 1946-50 During my stay in Malawi in 2013 there was much deliberation for the
Celeste Day Moore, University of Chicago drafting of a national cultural policy. A variety of expectations arose including
preservation of cultural heritage, improving socio-economic development, and
My proposed paper investigates how jazz criticism, record sales, and defining a national identity. In the course of working with Malawian
performance facilitated new racial identities and inventions in postwar musicians around this time in both South Africa and Malawi, the idea of
defining expressive practices in terms of country of origin frequently surfaced.
France. The paper will focus on the memoir Really the Blues , which
Many musicians and fans lamented what they believed to be a lack of a
recounted the life of Milton Mezz Mezzrow as a voluntary Negro. Given Malawian musical identity, where others described Malawi as having a rich
Mezzrow's claims to have crossed the color line in reverse, the memoir has cultural heritage. Some, cognizant of the interplay between neighboring and
been a central text in jazz history as well as in studies of race and racial distant countries within Africa, added that Malawi is situated amidst cultural
passing in the United States. However, what has remained unknown is the crossroads and has many composite expressive forms. Whether it is an issue of
memoir's particular resonance in postwar France, where it was translated and nationalist strategies or cultural branding, there is a tenacity and ongoing
published in 1950 as La Rage de Vivre . In France, Mezzrow's claims to have challenge of conceptualizing subjectivity at a national level that seems to
become black through jazz had a different kind of social and intellectual ignore the full range of geographic scales at play. Much scholarship on
resonance, in addition to guaranteeing huge profits in record and book sales. transboundary phenomena does not fully outline a framework with which to
consider the notion of nested scales of cultural formations and the complex
In accounting for the memoir's success, I focus on the work of his collaborator
overlapping disjuncture of cultural flows. I draw from David Unruh's notion of
Bernard Wolfe and the role of his translators Marcel Duhamel and Madeleine social worlds and William Hanks' work on communicative practices to
Gautier, who promoted the book in a wide range of intellectual and cultural examine two sites of cultural convergence - recording studios and music
spaces. Finally, I situate this memoir's claims about racial passing in the education centers - in order to address the question: How are polities of
particular social and political climate in postwar France, which had been varying cultural influence interacting to shape individuals' understanding of
transformed by the violence of war, the growing specter of American power, themselves as citizens within the spaces between the local and translocal?
and anxiety about the future of the French empire. Against this backdrop,
Mezzrow's claims to have become African-American through jazz offered a Who Should Perform in Public?: Gender and Nationalism in Odishan
new way to imagine racial and national identity at a moment when these Performing Arts
same categories were in flux. David Dennen, University of California, Davis
Street Queens: The Performance of Gender in the Brass Bands of New Scholars have shown how elites in nineteenth- and twentieth-century India
Orleans strived to make Indian performing arts more palatable for middle-class
Kyle DeCoste, Tulane University audiences. Enfranchising the middle class, however, often meant
disenfranchising traditional practitioners, who under colonial influence came
The musical traditions of New Orleans are largely patriarchal. As the to be disdained as relicts of a feudal past and negatively associated with
predominant sonic signifier of New Orleans, the brass band amplifies this
prostitution. By focusing on performing arts in Odisha, this paper contributes
gender bias more than any other musical medium in the city. The brass band
23
to a new perspective on this process. Since the eighteenth century the Curating Archives, Repertories, and Scholarship Together: A Digital
privileged class of public performers in Odisha consisted of South Indian Humanities Perspective
Telugus - especially female singer-dancers. Under the fervent regional Mark DeWitt, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
nationalism of the late nineteenth century, these performers would experience
a double discrimination: not only were they associated with a disgraceful Many folklorists and ethnomusicologists still like to think that they are
social practice, they were considered foreign and thus not suitable carriers playing some role, large or small, in preserving traditional culture, yet how
for a distinct local culture. The first consequence of this was the rise of well does this assumption hold up over time? In traditional music archives
gotipua troupes, young boys who sang and danced dressed like Telugu worldwide, sound and video recordings are deposited, catalogued, and
women. Though widely popular these troupes too began to be perceived as preserved. In a parallel realm, scholars publish articles and books on
vulgar by elite society because of the dancers' retention of eroticized gestures. traditional repertories, sometimes using archival recordings. The scholarship
Meanwhile, the new media and institutions of early-twentieth-century cities is preserved on library shelves and in some cases digitized or reissued for
allowed upper-caste men to pursue respectable performing careers. In seeking wider dissemination, and an archive's catalog might incorporate those
elite acceptance for their forms, they rigorously distanced themselves from publications. Much of the scholarship is gradually forgotten as intellectual
Telugu culture. By constructing local performing arts as national and fashions change, yet the transcriptions of tunes and songs contained therein
classical, they were then able to attract new generations of middle-class boys may, with editorial oversight, still be of value. This paper considers two older
and girls. Through tracing this trajectory, this paper illuminates the complex publications on French folk song, one based on field recordings deposited in a
interplay of gender and regional nationalism in the construction of local museum that has since closed and one based on songs transcribed directly to
performing traditions. paper live from singers in the 1930s. From these case studies, I look to recent
work in the digital humanities for ideas on how older research like this can be
Crossing the Professional Line: Hmii 'Amateur-Performers' in curated more effectively and at the level of the individual repertory item. I
Inner Mongolia, China propose an integration of older approaches such as the archive catalog, the
Charlotte D'Evelyn, Loyola Marymount University annotated bibliography, the tune index, the discography, and the critical
edition into an online research platform that would better make repertories in
In Inner Mongolia, China a vibrant market for Mongolian music has all of their representations more evident to the public and at the same time
facilitated musical careers of many ethnic Mongols who would otherwise create a space where new music and scholarship can appear.
pursue music as a hobby. Practitioners of hmii 'throat singing' have had a
particularly easy time transitioning from amateur enthusiasts to successful Presidents Roundtable: Expressive Culture, Alternative Justice and
performers, notably after the 2009 designation of hmii as Intangible the Problematics of Reconciliation
Cultural Heritage of China by UNESCO. Much to the chagrin of Mongols in Beverley Diamond, Memorial University, Chair Panel abstract
the nation of Mongolia, hmii as it is performed in China today was virtually
unknown in Inner Mongolia until the late 1990s and can be attributed to In recent years, musics complicit, negotiative or resistant relationships to
teaching and transmission efforts made in the 1990s by Odsuren Baatar, conflict and violence have been extensively theorized and studied
teacher and 'hmii ambassador' from the nation of Mongolia. Students of ethnographically (Pettan 1998, Ritter and Daughtry 2007, Morgan OConnell
Odsuren not only appeared on the application video to UNESCO, but also and Castelo-Branco 2010, Fast and Pegley 2012). Our panel will address two
became performers and teachers of new generations of hmii practitioners - a issues that have had relatively little attention in these recent
fact that has only further intensified 'Outer' Mongols' antipathy toward their ethnomusicological studies. First, how do music and other expressive practices
neighbors. Today, hundreds of young people in Inner Mongolia approach function in systems of alternative or restorative justice and how do these
hmii as enthusiasts, largely unaware of its politically-charged terrain, and customary practices of law relate to civic legal systems or, as Cheyfitz (2011)
only later find themselves in positions as urban stage musicians, cultural argues, point to the limits of capitalisms imagination? While there is a
heritage representatives, or national competition contestants. In this paper, I growing literature on music and human rights, (e.g., Weintraub and Yungs
examine the hmii explosion in Inner Mongolia and trace the modes of 2009) most investigate violations of cultural rights rather than local cultural
training and the artistic career trajectories of three prominent hmii modes of asserting and resolving rights issues. Second, how might
performers in the region. I illustrate how representatives of hmii in China contemporary critiques of the concept of reconciliation inform our discipline,
navigate heated national and international claims to heritage while pursuing particularly given the prevalence of under-theorized discourse about musics
previously inaccessible paths to professionalism. capacity to nurture cross-cultural understanding. At a point where Applied
Ethnomusicology is growing rapidly, how might a more sophisticated
investigation of these issues avoid replicating hegemonies of helper and
helped? How might we explore further what Araujo, Shanks and others have
24
articulated: that conflict is inherent in any society and must be acknowledged language traditional and popular music, with the cassette and digital
as a precursor to resolution? Our panelists will include Sylvia Nannyonga- revolutions enabling small-scale producers. Moving into the digital age, artists
Tamusuza (Makerere University, Uganda), Jessica Schwartz (University of and producers are faced with the challenges of how to deal with new markets:
California at Los Angeles), Barry Shank (Ohio State University), and Samuel how to make a living in the face of digital piracy, how to disseminate ones
Araujo (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). work, while on the other hand enjoying increased empowerment via
technology. In the packaging of Ladakhi pop music, we are presented with
Playing the Cow's Tail: Space and Shape Analogies in South Indian shifting cultural self-images. Contemporary representations of tradition and
Rhythmic Design ethnic identity in popular music give contrasting depictions of regional life
Fugan Dineen, Wesleyan University versus global modernity. Analysis of music and videos reveals a semiotic
vocabulary aligning Ladakh with other Himalayan regions. At times these
Musical time in karak music, bharatanatyam dance, and related genres is lack direct connection to traditional roots, but still assert regional identity
realized through the interplay of two temporal models: ta and phrase. Six through the use of Ladakhi language, locations, and cultural values.
specific spatial analogies, falling under the rubric of yati, are key to the
conceptualization and execution of phrase-shapes within ta. In this paper I Popular Musics in the Himalayas: Commodification, Constructed
focus on the cross-domain analogic processes through which yati are Regional Identities, and Global Technologies
conceptualized. I then consider how yati are realized through within-domain Noe Dinnerstein, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, Chair Panel
analogies as recited solkau, or its correlates in drumming, melody, and abstract
dance. Yati-s, temporal designs following geometric shapes, are drawn from
culturally located source domains. Gopucca yati, for example, translates from Himalayan societies have been commonly depicted as being remote and non-
Sanskrit as cow's tail. The graphic shape of this yati is funnel-like, technological cultures that preserve traditional life-styles, arts, and language.
representing the bovine caudal appendage. Artists create specific rhythm In reality, areas such as Nepal, Tibet, Garhwal, and Ladakh, connected as
analogs--as solkau or its correlates--according to these shapes. In the case of they are to large political/cultural entities like China and India, have become
gopucca yati, phrase lengths decrease as the composition unfolds. Conceptual part of globalizing culture through increased infrastructure: transportation,
solkau structures created according to yati shapes are then kinesthetically technology, and mass media. This panel examines manifestations of popular
realized--as recited syllables, drum strokes, dance steps, or as the rhythmic music in these regions, looking at regional particularities and identities,
phrasing of melody--within the metric framework of ta. The analogic national and local markets, and the rising problems surrounding new media
processes by which yati moves from cultural knowledge to personal creativity and distribution. Among the issues discussed are the history of local music
and back to public meaning (in performance), emphasize visual reasoning. As industries, history of commodification, the impact of nationalism on regions,
graphic image models, yati-s enable musicians, dancers, choreographers, and representations of geomorphic spaces in sound, and the evolution of musical
listeners to cognitively organize syllabic structures as meaningful rhythmic styles.
action. These actions are realized through oral/aural, visual, and kinesthetic
time analogies. While yati-s are embedded in deeply situated cultural and The Sounds of Buddhism in Myanmar: Dhamma Instruments and the
structural schema, artists continually reimagine them in new and innovative Cultivation of Divine States of Consciousness
rhythmic designs. Gavin Douglas, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
The Rise and Fall (and Rise?) of Ladakhi Popular Music Participation in musical events in the Theravada Buddhist world is deemed
Noe Dinnerstein, John Jay College inappropriate for devote laity and for those who have taken monastic vows.
Scholars of Theravada musics have reinforced this rhetorical divide between
This paper examines the development of Ladakhi popular songs, starting with the sonic practice of monks and the art and popular music of the secular world
neo-traditional lu soma (new songs), through the evolving landscape of mass by highlighting the seventh Buddhist precept that implores monks to abstain
media. Ladakhs remote location, sparse population, and lack of capital and from dancing, singing, and music. Despite this divide, Buddhist monasteries
infrastructure have posed special problems in the growth of music markets and pagodas in Myanmar tend to be very noisy places that contain a wide
and production facilities. Since the inception of All India Radio, Leh in 1971, variety of layered bells, gongs, chants, and prayers sculpting the sonic
the tiny Ladakhi minority has been subjected to a tidal wave of Bollywood, environment. This study examines the soundscape of Buddhist social space
and Western popular music. The cassette revolution soon followed, bringing and argues that these sounds are essential to understanding the lived practice
with it access to Nepali and Tibetan popular music as well. This led to native of Buddhism. I will begin with the construction of gongs, bells, and a variety of
melodic styles being supplanted by syncretic models. Nevertheless, mass dhamma (dharma) instruments in a blacksmith community of southern
media have also allowed for the development and dissemination of Ladakhi Mandalay. Following these instruments to the pagoda and the monastery, I
25
will show how they are used to mark the acquisition and the distribution of what is familiar and unfamiliar. Queerness disrupts and reorders social
kammic (karmic) merit and in the cultivation of particular states of mind, or relations and familiar paths, creating disorientation, putting other objects
what the Buddha referred to as the Brahma Viharas, the divine dwelling within reach that at first appear askew. The presence of trans identified
places of the mind. This presentation will include a variety of audio and video people in certain musical spaces, along with aspects of queer life itself, can
examples and interviews with blacksmiths and Buddhist monks. seem disorienting. In this paper I argue that the music of Leitham and
Stevens mediates, influences, articulates, or is articulated by, their trans
Staging Swissness: Local and Academic Discourses of Authenticity in subjectivity. Specifically, I utilize queer phenomenology to relate the
the Cultural Tourism of Appenzell, Switzerland relationships between the music, these artists' musical environments, and
Andrea Douglass, Boston University their identities. The artists reorient the music environments they perform in;
they create alternative performance spaces while simultaneously upholding
A recent increase in tourists to cultural events in Appenzell, Switzerland has the traditions of jazz and traditional country music as well as adding new
expanded performance opportunities for traditional music ensembles. These dimensions of meaning to those music genres.
ensembles generally have two approaches--on the one hand some have a
historically informed performance practice while others are innovative yet The Subtle Protest of a Passionate Art: Flamenco as Protest Music
original (as one ensemble's website claims), also termed the new folk music Tony Dumas, College at Brockport, SUNY
(Bohlmann 2011). Ethnomusicologist Max Peter Baumann ascribes the terms
purism and syncretism to the historical and new folk music, respectively. All protest music is political music, but not all political music encourages
This bifurcation in performance practice results in a discourse of authenticity positive social change. Some political music may celebrate repressive regimes
in the Appenzeller music community. Not only is the term authenticity an and reinforce a status quo, while other music may incite or agitate. In the
issue in the local music community, it has long been a complex, problematic flamenco community, there is a debate about whether or not flamenco itself is
issue in tourism studies. In 1973 Dean MacCannell introduced staged a form of social protest - a debate spurred by the recent death of Pete Seeger.
authenticity to tourism studies, which is useful in discussing the staged Several scholars claim that flamenco's political sentiment is too invisible,
aspects (both visual and sonic) of the traditional Appenzeller performers. More subtle, or personal to qualify as protest music. Although this certainly
recently sociologist Ning Wang has divided authenticity in tourism into three characterizes much of flamenco's repertoire, it does not speak to the full
categories: objective, constructive, and existential (1999). Constructive breadth of flamenco's subject matter, e.g. labor issues expressed in miner's
authenticity, based on negotiated meaning, aligns closely with the discussion laments, the dissent of flamenco's anti-Franco Left, and recent flash mobs
of authenticity in the Appenzell and applies to John Urry's tourist gaze. The materializing in Spain's banks. Examining flamenco's history, lyrics, select
tourist gaze (Urry 2011) refers to the phenomenon that tourists are performances, and contemporary social media, I reveal how sentiments of
searching for clichs and concurrently the local community is performing protest and dissent form the core of flamenco's ethos. Working from R. Serge
stereotypes expected by the tourists. I expand the tourist gaze to include Denisoff's model of protest music, I contend that flamenco has encouraged
what I call touristic listening, meaning that tourists have expectations of activism (magnetic protest) and identified the marginalizing social conditions
what they will/want to hear as I discuss the findings of my ethnographic of Andalusia's working-and-underclass (rhetorical protest). Its dance, music,
fieldwork in Appenzell, Switzerland in 2012 and 2013. song style, and performance context always embody dissent, yet flamenco is
not limited to its function as a form of protest. It remains both an expression
The Reorientation of Identities in Jazz and Traditional Country of deep personal emotion and a public display of unity, often in the same
Music: Queer Phenomenology and Trans Identity performance.
Randy Drake, University of California, Santa Barbara
Ali Farka Toure, Mali, and the Blues
How do we become oriented in times of disorientation? Orientations involve Lucy Duran, SOAS, University of London
different ways of registering the proximity of objects and others. If, as Sara
Ahmed has informed us, we have a specific take on the world, a set of views Although the blues is widely assumed to be a wholly U.S. American genre, the
and viewing points, some of which are in turn validated through social and quest for its African roots still fires the imagination of many. Mali has become
cultural practices and institutions, then what happens when those viewpoints a popular focus in this story since the 1990s, yet relevant scholarly research
do not align or orient themselves with others around us? This is a question remains limited. This paper re-examines the well-known role of Farka, whose
transsexual jazz bassist Jennifer Leitham and transsexual traditional country blues-like sound and global encounters made him a cult figure within 1990s
artist Joe Stevens have grappled with throughout their musical careers. world music. While Kubik (1999) recognises the importance of Farka in the
Ahmed notes that the work of inhabiting space, and the ways in which social transatlantic blues story, his argument that the Malian musician copied his
relations are arranged spatially, involves a dynamic negotiation between contemporaries across the Atlantic is flawed by inaccurate or incomplete
26
information. Although the now ubiquitous label (Mali) desert blues did interdependency between the Caribbean and United States, in which the
originate with Farka marketing campaigns, he famously denied copying or socio-cultural politics of each resonate throughout the region. The rapid
even having access to blues recordings until he had already established his spread of Protestant beliefs into the Haitian middle and lower classes has
style, as recordings by U.S. American bluesmen were not in wide circulation in increasingly made Vodou a contentious topic for children and adults.
Mali before the 1980s. A farmer from Niafunke, Farka drew mostly on Repertory that draws extensively from elements of the Vodou ceremony
traditions of the peoples in the middle Niger valley, often citing their pre- necessitates difficult choices and cautious negotiations between an array of
colonial griot pieces as original blues. Has the blues been merely emulated by contemporary beliefs and a heritage of mizik klasik. My research in three
Malis biggest musicians in a bid to claim it as their own, as argued by Kubik? music schools, based in the cities of Cap-Hatien, Jacmel, and Port-au-Prince,
Or are there pre-colonial Malian forms at the root of U.S. American blues, as has evinced that repertory choices influence ensemble participation. I assert
world music aficionados assume? Based on decades of Malian research, this that the programming of Vodou-inflected music opens a site of cultural debate,
paper nuances the Black Atlantic framework by elucidating how stories about one that has ramifications for the entire repertory's treatment. The
charismatic individuals like Farka have eclipsed rich data available from engagement or rejection of mizik klasik (re)members Haiti's autobiographical
Farka himself and lesser-known musicians in neighbouring regions. narrative at the essential stage of student identity formation, establishing
contemporary rules for a space with new national identities.
The Music and Dance of Japanese Geisha - Kouta and Koutaburi
Yuko Eguchi, University of Pittsburgh Repatriating Childhood: Returning Musical Memories of Childhood to
Venda Communities in South Africa
The geisha (literally, art person) devote their lives to mastering various Andrea Emberly, York University
kinds of Japanese traditional performing arts. Among them, kouta (small
songs) and koutaburi (dance of small songs) are musical and dance genres Whilst the field of ethnomusicology is increasingly concerned with issues
created by women and primarily preserved in geisha artistic culture for the surrounding repatriation and the extensive ethical and community
past century. As part of my dissertation research of geisha arts, I became the considerations involved in returning materials to cultural heritage
disciple of two former geisha in the Asakusa entertainment district of Tokyo: I communities, there has only been peripheral consideration of how repatriation
studied kouta singing and shamisen under Toyoseiyoshi Kasuga and might impact the lives of children and youth represented in archival
koutaburi dance under Yoshie Asaji. From them, I received my kouta name (a collections. Ongoing shifts in our approach to conducting ethnographic
type of degree) in March 2012. In this 1.5 hour workshop, I will first briefly research with children and young people encourages increased collaboration
explain the backgrounds of kouta and koutaburi and then proceed to lead a that must be addressed when framing issues of repatriation that centre on
hands-on dance session in which participants learn the basic way of sitting, materials collected from children and young people. Working with materials
bowing, standing, and walking as well as two beginner level koutaburi dance collected from Venda children and young people in South Africa in the 1950s
pieces. The participants are encouraged to wear comfortable clothes and a pair by ethnomusicologist John Blacking (whose collection is housed at the
of clean white socks. The goal of this workshop is to provide participants a University of Western Australia), this paper will examine ethical and
chance to learn the aesthetic theory behind geisha music and dance and to methodological considerations for repatriating materials that document
examine how such concepts are expressed through movements in practice of childhood, including issues such as informed consent, changing methods for
geisha dance. documentation of childrens lives, and the return of historical childhood
materials to research subjects who are now adults. Blackings field recordings,
(Re)membering Haiti through Mizik Klasik including video, audio and photographic materials, and extensive
Lauren Eldridge, University of Chicago documentation and analysis, form the basis for an exhibition of materials at
the University of Venda based on the lives of the young children he
Mizik klasik, a term that encompasses traditional melodies and Haitian art documented. An exploration of the materials and the methods for a
music repertory, often contains references to Vodou practice, an aspect of collaborative exhibition of the Blacking Collection will be used as a case study
Haitian culture that many Protestants find discomforting. This paper explores to examine issues surrounding ethnomusicological research that involves the
the strained relationship that many contemporary Haitian students and return of archival records of childhood to communities of origin.
parents hold with mizik klasik inclusive of references to Vodou. Vodou is an
indelible portion of the nation's history, and even some detractors
acknowledge its seminal role as a catalyst for independence; however, it has
not emerged unscathed from a long-standing smear campaign with foreign
origins against Afro-descendent religious practice. The web of inaccurate
information regarding voodoo is explicit evidence of the cultural
27
Free Nelson Mandela, Sack Peter Botha, Sack Margaret Thatcher: The Thought-language-hand Link: Evidence from Music
Nigerian Reggae Music and Musicians in a Post-Apartheid Era Transmission and Implications for Musical Thinking
Austin Emielu, University of Ilorin, Nigeria Gina Fatone, Bates College
Much of the studies on Nigerian popular music have focused almost Among cognitive linguists, there is debate about the origins of speech and the
exclusively on Highlife, Juju, Fuji and Afro-Beat. Reggae music which hand gesture that accompanies it. One position about the relationship
developed as mainstream popular music in Nigeria between the 1970s and between these two, unlike semiotic modes (one static and conventional, the
1990s has been largely ignored. Beginning with the release of Sunny Okosuns other imagistic and idiosyncratic) is that they are inseparable, forming an
Fire in Soweto in the early 1970s, Nigerian reggae had a three-point thematic imagery-language dialectic that functions as a single expressive unit (Goldin-
agenda: free Nelson Mandela, sack the ruling governments in South Africa Meadow 2003, Kendon 2004, McNeill 2005, 2012). In his recent book How
and in Britain. With the freedom of Mandela, the end of the tenures of the Language Began: Gesture and Speech in Human Evolution (2012),
British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher and that of South Africa's Peter psycholinguist David McNeill theorizes that speech and gesture co-evolved via
Botha, all in the early 1990s, Nigerian reggae music came to a cross-road. an adaption he calls Meads Loop: a twisting of mirror neurons that allowed
What happened to these 'freedom fighting' reggae musicians and their music one to experience her or his own gestures as if they were coming from someone
in the years after Apartheid? Were these reggae musicians true 'believers' in else. As posited by McNeill, a thought-language-hand link resulted from this
the course of freedom in South Africa or they were merely musicians doing adaptation, bringing the imagery and social meaning of ones own gestures
their own thing? How were the ideologies which these reggae songs into the same area of the brain that orchestrates speaking and gesturing,
propagated sustained in the years after Apartheid? This paper which is part of creating a speech-gesture unity that was naturally selected. In this paper,
an on-going conversation and study, examines these key issues from the drawing on video illustrations from a cross-section of instrumental music
ethnomusicological perspective of 'continuity of change' and from the lessons, I suggest that in the context of face-to-face musical transmission we
perspective of music and ideology. Among other things, this paper explores the find not only evidence of thought-language-hand synchrony, but that a
relationship between ideological change and musical change. thought-music-hand unity comes into relief. I aim to 1) locate musical
transmission - the person-to-person transfer of a specialized form of non-
Buddhism and the American Avant-garde: Chinary Ungs Aura (2005) linguistic thought - within a more generalized human utterance system as
Yayoi Everett, Emory University elaborated by cognitive linguists, and 2) promote further consideration of what
a thought-music-hand link may tell us about teacher actions and the
Post-World War II trends in avant-garde music have moved beyond reductive multilectic of musical experience.
cultural binaries and exotic paradigms. Situating Cambodian-American
composer Chinary Ungs compositional practice in this context, this paper The Grammys Don't Operate on Aloha Time: The Grammys, Ki
elucidates the musical expression of elements of the oldest surviving branch of Ho'alu (Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar), and Kanaka Maoli (Native
Buddhism, Theravada, in Ungs 2005 work, Aura (for two sopranos and Hawaiian) Silencing
chamber ensemble). A nexus of syncretism is the instructions for the Kevin Fellezs, Columbia University
instrumentalists to vocalize words from Pali (the Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical
language of Theravada Buddhism), Khmer, English, and Spanish - as well as The Grammy Award for Best Hawaiian Music Album was awarded for a brief
pure phonemes (rather than words). This move is intended by Ung to seven-year period from 2005 until 2011. During that time, not a single
reference the vocal traditions of Southeast Asian music as well as to register a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) musician won the award, unleashing a
reaction against the hyper-sensitized allegiance to musical notation among controversy over the definition of indigenous Hawaiian music and whose
avant-garde practitioners. Specific Buddhist concepts are key to an recordings might best represent Hawai'i. It also highlighted a long history of
understanding of Aura, such as Chaw Pean Raingsei or radiating light (the Hawaiian cultural appropriation and exploitation by the music industry that
circular illumination around the head of Buddha), which symbolizes infinite continues to affect Kanaka Maoli musicians. Given the small local Hawaiian
compassion, and Shunyata or emptiness; these concepts are clarified through market, the temptations of breaking into the larger continental US market -
timbral analysis. Of particular significance in this work is Chaw Pean as well as the larger global market - motivated the initial campaign to form a
Raingsei, which is also the end point of a narrative arch which begins with separate Hawaiian Grammy award. However, despite early enthusiasm for
Sathukar or sacred propitiation and moves to earthly suffering and chaos the Grammy award, Hawaiian musicians began to disavow the award as non-
(Rain of Tears), and Neak Paen or the sacred site of healing in Angkor, Hawaiians and instrumental k halu (Hawaiian slack key guitar)
Cambodia. A more universal message lies in the composers intention for the recordings dominated the winnings. Many Hawaiian musicians and critics
performance of Aura to be regarded as a ritual commemorating the suffering began questioning Grammy voters' familiarity or willingness to engage with
caused by natural disasters and wars beyond the Buddhist context. Hawaiian language vocal recordings. Indeed, Hawaiian slack key guitar
28
recordings are not nearly as popular as other types of Hawaiian music in the heritage and remains a valued aspect of identity for many people of Eastern-
Hawaiian Islands. In my paper, I trace the outlines of this controversy to European descent. It may seem strange, then, that Cleveland-based Frankie
think through the ways in which Native Hawaiian musicians labor within a Yankovic (1915-1998), dubbed America's Polka King in 1948, spent his
context that not only appropriates elements of Native Hawaiian music culture career attempting to divorce the polka from its multicultural roots. Yankovic's
that is most amenable to the tourist trade while ignoring important elements homogenized American polka style was consistent and precise, erasing the
altogether but that also rewards non-Native Hawaiians rather than Kanaka influence of distinct regional expressions of the genre in favor of a generalized
Maoli. sense of old-world nostalgia. This paper seeks to define Yankovic's style in
comparison with the more traditional bandleaders Li'l Wally Jagiello and
Silence, Loss, and the Limits of Intangible Cultural Preservation and Whoopee John Wilfahrt to explore the ways in which ethnicity is absorbed
Conservation and transformed by the American popular music industry. Building on the
Kevin Fellezs, Columbia University, Chair Panel abstract work of musicologist Paula Savaglio and cultural theorist Ann Hetzel Gunkel,
I argue that, while Yankovic may have tried to sterilize the polka, it remains a
There are discursive and material limits to any effort applied toward the vital and relevant component of several ethnic communities precisely because
preservation of intangible culture. Collecting voices, documenting songs, and it acknowledges its ethnic musical past while encouraging future growth and
archiving as much as possible, are the conventional means of attending to change.
cultural loss. This panel is not only concerned with those activities but
addresses the collective, contemporary obligations that can be heard - or not Songs for the Pure Sinhala Fraternity of Sri Lanka: Sunil Santha's
heard - in native Pacific and Caribbean songs and voices. While we often think Career and Compositions
about music and other forms of soundings as aiding cultural cohesion, how do Garrett Field, Ohio University
we think through silence and silencing as voices and musical traditions are
being put under erasure through complex, often global systemic processes, Partha Chatterjee hypothesized that the most powerful, creative, and
while ensuring that traditional means of preservation remain effective? How historically significant project of South Asian colonial-era nationalism was to
can we listen for the silent counterpoints that structurally accompany more fashion a 'modern' national culture that [was] nevertheless not Western
dominant voices or musical histories as openings, as spaces between the (1993: 6). In this paper I demonstrate how beyond the West, the powerful
notes? Through a philosophical mediation on techniques of quietness and influence of North India was a major factor in the history of music-and-
transformation and complementary case studies that span the intimate nationalism in Sri Lanka. I focus on the Sinhala-language songs of composer-
experience of vocal loss, the regional politics in the confrontation between vocalist Sunil Santha (1915-1981). Santha was a member of the Hela Havula
traditional musicking and a global music industry, and international (Pure Sinhala Fraternity), an organization of poets, lyricists, and writers who
diplomatic expectations of cultural programming and indigenous performance, aimed to purify the written Sinhala language according to the grammar of
this panel provides insight into how musical ethnography, historiography, and classical Sinhala literature composed between the thirteenth and seventeenth
analysis cohere to reconstruct musical moments of silencing. In a critical, century. Hela Havula members disdained North Indian musical influence
deconstructive move, the panelists situate silence, or networked processes of because they rejected the putative origin story that the Sinhalese had
loss, in the presence of sonorous struggles--with the market, within the body, descended from a North Indian prince named Vijaya. They contended that the
or between policy-makers--and offer new frameworks for re-conceptualizing real roots of the Sinhalese were with the Helas the indigenous islanders. In
and reconfiguring binaries of loss/silence and preservation/soundings in the this paper I reveal how Santha shared the objectives of the Hela Havula
Pacific and the Caribbean. because he strived to rid Sri Lankan gramophone and radio music of North
Indian influence by drawing upon Western harmonies and instruments, and
Frankie Yankovic and the Ethnic Sterilization of American Polka secondly, composed song lyrics with grammatical features of classical Sinhala
Music literature.
David Ferrandino, University at Buffalo, SUNY
In Relation to Whom and Why? New Perspectives on South Asian
Polka is, as Charles Keil argues in his 1992 book Polka Happiness, an Music and Nationalism
inherently paradoxical medium. While combining many global traditions, Garrett Field, Ohio University, Chair Panel abstract
polka can only exist and thrive in the context of a local scene. Though
commonly associated with peasant folk origins, polka did not become part of During the last decade, scholars of South Asian music have shown how the
the musical traditions of Polish-, Slovenian-, German-, and Czech-American colonial encounter inspired nationalist elites to classicize certain Indian art
immigrants until after they arrived in the new world. Polka always has been a forms, a process that involved transforming the aesthetic and social
modern urban phenomenon yet also contributes to the preservation of cultural dimensions of performance genres in relation to Western art forms. Focusing
29
on reform projects overlooked in these studies, the members of this panel seek Professionalization and the Emergence of Canadian Bluegrass in
to illuminate how musicians and intelligentsia reshaped regional art forms in the Toronto-Area Bluegrass Scene
relation to intra-South Asian relationships. The first paper investigates the Mark Finch, Memorial University of Newfoundland
effects of nationalism and shifting gender ideals on public performance in
Odisha. It demonstrates how, by the late colonial period, upper-caste Odishan Professionalization is often viewed as a process that erodes the integrity of
men came to be valued as performers above Telugu singer-dancers that grassroots cultural scenes (Rosenberg 1986). Examining local bluegrass in
Odishan elites stigmatized as prostitutes. The second paper examines the 1970s Southern Ontario, this paper argues that as scenes coalesce, constructs
early-twentieth-century reformation of Bengali padavali-kirtan. It reveals of authenticity and sincerity are not necessarily undermined, but rather
that the nationalist elite, in collaboration with rural musicians, published reshaped. During this period an infrastructure for local bluegrass emerged as
padavali-kirtan song anthologies that underscored the genre's relationship to enthusiasts congregated in scene spaces (e.g. music shops, venues, festivals)
Sanskrit aesthetic theory but also valorized the improvisation of colloquial and actively promoted the genre through semi-formal organizations. Within
Bengali texts. The third paper explores the career of the Sinhalese composer- these contexts, scene participants formulated evaluative criteria that
vocalist Sunil Santha (1915-1981). This paper focuses on how he strived in the generally privileged conceptions of American bluegrass culture rooted in
1940s to rid Sri Lankan gramophone and radio music of North Indian married understandings of regional character and musical authenticity. I
influence by creating songs with an emphasis on Sinhala-language lyrics and build on Brinner's (2009) observation that fluid cultural scenes have the
Western harmonies and instruments. The panel concludes with a discussant, potential to evolve into organized and highly productive art worlds (Becker
who will highlight key themes and comment on the papers' broader 1981) by considering how dominant aesthetic values and regional
implications for understanding music and nationalism in South Asia. conceptualizations persist, transform, and ultimately shape this transitional
process. After a historical overview of the scene's early development, I
Sung Poetry and Communal Sentiment in Israel: Genre, Event, and consider the increasing professionalization of bluegrass in Southern Ontario
Memorial Practice focusing on the expanding festival circuit and proliferation of homegrown acts.
Michael Figueroa, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill These developments were influenced by a growing interest in supporting
domestic culture in post-Centennial Canada. Indeed, the national discussion
Poetry is embedded in a great number of cultural practices in Israel, including around defining and promoting Canadian culture augmented and challenged
the naming of streets, erection of monuments, printing of currency, public local scene discourse. Rather than describe a linear momentum towards
rituals of commemoration, and most of all music. Poetry and popular song professionalization, I argue that the messiness of cultural scenes pervades the
come together in a variety of mediated forms: radio, television, recordings, and ensuing, more concrete art worlds in ways that reflect local concerns, shape
live performances. Since the early 1970s, musical settings of poetry professional networks, and accent the instability of prevailing genre
transformed a customary division of musical labor into a field of cultural constructs.
production, employing a new genre label (shirei meshorerim) and serving as a
mode of aesthetic distinction within the burgeoning rock movement. This Of Makers and Manifestos: Working with Sound in the Maker Age
aesthetic development coincided with sweeping economic and political changes Lauren Flood, New York University
in Israel during the 1970s. Today, shirei meshorerim are part of the memorial
repertoire programmed during events dedicated to the transfer of social This paper analyzes the transformative impact of the global Maker Movement
memory, such as festivals and holidays; occasions for communal singing are on the transnational labor of musicians, sound artists, and inventors in New
ritualized as social events organizing the calendar year. Drawing on my York City and Berlin. The movement purports to revolutionize creativity and
ethnographic fieldwork in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the Galilee region, I the means of production through a do-it-yourself approach to science,
explore experiential and interpretative aspects of singing poetry together in technology, and the arts. Emerging from the legacies of electronics hobbyism
Israel, accounting for how moments of social recognition are ritualized as and punk/DIY music scenes, the resulting sonic practices of this technological
musical events outside of, but nonetheless constitutive of, social relations in vernacular blur the lines between work and hobby (as unpaid productive
everyday life. I show how communal participation in singing poetry is rooted leisure), often fluctuating based on external influences such as rent prices,
in ethical discourses--of self and other, individual and collective--that are artist fellowships, and government-sponsored arts policies. Given the recent
critical to constructions of national belonging. Ultimately, I argue that poetry growth of hackerspaces and startup culture in these two cities, tensions
achieves its social potential when poetics and poetic content are given musical arise between the DIY ethos of underground music, the possibilities of open
form. source technologies, and the potential for commercial entrepreneurship. Who
is listening, who is building what, and what is at stake in making a living by
anticipating the sounds of tomorrow? Beginning with New Yorks annual
Maker Faire as a contemporary reimagination of the mid-twentieth-century
30
Worlds Fairs, I explore ethical quandaries about the utilitarian value of music audible in their repertoire and stylistic choices, the tradition's flexible style
posed by my interlocutors to reveal the roles of work and hobbyism in their parameters--including tune variability and fiddle improvisations--promote a
creative outcomes. As a result of changes in the music industry and broader culture of individual musical agency that is recognized globally as a marker of
economy coinciding with the rise of the movement, I argue that Makers locate madelinot traditional music. In the light of the increasing global visibility of
musics value in its ability to shape future technical workers, who harness the the islands' traditional musicians, as well as the transnational networks
science behind the sounds in hopes of rendering themselves employable. within which they work, this paper examines the motivations behind, and
expectations of, creativity in contemporary practice that have come to
Within and Without the State: A Central American Focus on Global characterize musical expression in this community. Moreover, I assess how
Phenomena sociocultural and environmental factors cultivate a culture of creativity and
Jack Forbes, University of Florida, Chair Panel abstract individual agency within the traditional music idiom. Building on
anthropological models of cultural improvisation in response to social and
This roundtable discusses case studies from Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, technology change (Volkman 1994) and as a means of enacting social
and Guatemala, centering on the state apparatus and the flows of relationships (Magrini 1998), my analysis illustrates how island musicians are
music/musicians within and without bureaucratic institutions, discursive responding to the rapidly changing socioeconomic conditions in their
practices of nationalism, regionalism, and localism, and connections to communities, and how their responses reflect a collective desire to be
transnational markets. With 2014 marking the respective 20th and 10th acknowledged in broader political and musical contexts.
anniversaries of NAFTA and CAFTA, what are the musical consequences of
expanding and contracting movements of state power? If musical production Technological Factors Conditioning the Socio-political Power of
was marked by popular nationalist movements in the early to mid twentieth Music in Cyberspace
century, what phenomena are we witnessing coming from the turn of the Michael Frishkopf, University of Alberta
twenty-first? This panel aims to address such concerns, providing a regional
focus for transnational and transcultural processes, theorizing the state Over the past two decades, the power of computer-mediated, networked
beyond structuralist formations, and sparking new dialogues about the musical communications (text, image, audio, video) to induce broad social and
current place of Central Americanist research in global context and in the political transformations has exponentially increased. What is the impact of
discipline of ethnomusicology. Two presenters on Nicaraguan and Honduran technology on this socio-political power of music in cyberspace? Conventional
music will discuss the respective roles of Garfuna and Miskitu music in ethnomusicological wisdom holds that music's power derives from socio-
national cultural politics and transnational movements. Another pair will cultural context, more than musical sound per se. In this paper, I focus
analyze the presence of Panamanian msica tpica in both state-funded instead on music's technological context as consistently conditioning music's
folkloric performances and in marketing by the national brewery industry. social impact across social and cultural boundaries. My paper unfolds in three
Presenters on Guatemalan music will explore the institutionalization of the parts: (1) I develop a typology of computer-mediated musical communications
marimba de concierto style in both the educational system and state systems and protocols, differentiating principal factors, including topological
bureaucracies, and the emergence of the popular music industry and markets connectivity (e.g. social networking); multimedia capability; latency and
of both employment and patronage within the marimba orquesta scene. throughput; synchronousness; self-representation; sensory immersion; privacy
Following the presentations, the organizer will moderate discussion among (vs. surveillance); and freedom (vs. censorship and control). (2) I assess the
the audience members and presenters, examining a broader vision of the state social implications of these factors, with reference to system/protocol instances
in direct and indirect practice. as they have emerged over time (e.g. e-mail, html/http, YouTube, blogs,
Twitter, Facebook, BitTorrent, Second Life), and their differences in effecting
Improvising on the Margins: Agency, Tune Variability and Cultural real-world social changes through musical communication (e.g. in the, 2011-13
Improvisation in Acadian Traditional Music Egyptian revolution). (3) Finally, I present our own system, Folkways in
Meghan Forsyth, Memorial University of Newfoundland Wonderland (FiW), as an ethnomusicological cyber-laboratory for controlled
ethnomusicological experimentation. FiW provides a technologically
There is a popular belief in les les-de-la-Madeleine of Qubec that the configurable, immersive virtual reality where multiple users, represented by
rhythmic pulse of a fishing boat engine can be felt in the lilting cadence of the avatars, interact (via text and audio) inside a giant cylindrical map, on whose
islands' traditional music. Nestled in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, this small surface Smithsonian Folkways tracks (audio, image, and metadata) are
archipelago boasts a vibrant tradition of music-making that blends French visually and audibly embedded. By varying parameters and observing
Acadian, Scottish and Qubcois traditions, reflecting the intricate web of interactions, we can begin to understand the impact of technological factors on
influences and cultural alliances that define the lived experiences of its music-mediated social formations in cyberspace.
Acadian inhabitants. While Madelinot celebrate a rich musical lineage that is
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Landscape is Not Just What Your Eyes See: Battery Radio, the protect the unique character of bioregions and the expressive culture produced
Technological Soundscape, and Sonically Knowing the Battery in these spaces. These three presentations unpack the socioenvironmental
Kate Galloway, Memorial University of Newfoundland sound of specific geographic locations, illustrating the regional specificity of
sonic geography. We ask: What does sound communicate to listeners about
In 2013 sound and radio artist Chris Brookes (Battery Radio) launched these spatial- and temporal-specific environs? Building on a reinvigorated
Inside/Outside Battery, an iPhone app that geographically positions and interest in local sonic heritage and its musicalization in bioregional expressive
guides participants through sound while in the Battery, a heritage culture, this panel presents ecomusics as sonic monuments that mark
neighborhood in St. Johns (Newfoundland). Inside/Outside Battery is a sonic socioenvironmental perspectives.
mobile technology that engages participants in multisensory emplaced
storytelling. Through narration, poetry, storytelling, music, and field Women Music Makers of India Conference the Journey
recordings, Inside/Outside Battery sonically excavates the relationships Rita Ganguli, Independent Scholar
among personal narrative, place and sonic experience. Brooks employs the
radio arts to explore sonic-spatial collaborations, and position the built and After the demise of my guru, Begum Akhtar, in 1974, I suddenly faced the
natural spaces of the Battery as sites of play, exploration, preservation, and challenge of performing at numerous soirees. My repertoire of traditional
heritage. Inside/Outside Battery is form of arts-driven ecotourism that senses Thumri, Dadra, Ghazal, etc. was falling short in number. Being frequently
place (Feld and Basso 1996), performs nature (Szerszynski, Heim and recommended for concerts, I realized I needed more compositions. This led me
Waterton 2003), and stimulates multisensory ludic activity as listeners to research and document our Indian musical tradition, during which I
explore their surroundings. Though, the activities of its citizenship exhibit realized that predominately women known as Tawaifs practiced and nurtured
ecological irony (Stoddart 2011), a detachment between abstract values and these traditional forms. In this presentation, I reflect on my journey
embodied behavior - an environmental values-behavior gap - as participants culminating in the five-day Women Music Makers of India Conference I
celebrate the heritage landscapes of St. Johns while simultaneously organized in 1984, which featured performances by seventy-five surviving
contributing to urban growth, convenience, and gentrification. In this Tawaifs. 'Tawaifs' were the elite female community influential in music,
presentation I consider the following: How do the sonic intersections of dance, theatre, film, literature, and etiquette. In the process of creating an
landscapes and cityscapes produce multifarious listener responses? How are official classical culture in post-independence India, several such art forms
past and present histories of place expressed, recorded, and remembered fell into neglect, forcing many Tawaifs, their teachers, and their accompanists
through detailed and affective sensory experience? Employing practice-based underground. Tawaifs became popularly perceived as prostitutes, a perception
ethnography and interdisciplinary ecomusicology, I examine how site- and legitimized by the ultimate new music patron, All India Radio, who banned
time-specific soundscape documentary technologies engage their performance. This confluence of puritanical Hindu state, Victorian
socioenvironmental knowledge. Inside/Outside Battery activates the sonic morality, and colluding 'Ustads' annulled Tawaifs' creative expression and
ecologies of hearing and the multiple modalities of emplaced sounds spatially economic freedom, negating that their accomplishment benefited the entire
experienced in the Battery. musician community.On International Women's Day 1975, supported by the
organization Kaladharmi, I organized the first- ever music conference for
Affective Environments and the Bioregional Soundscape Tawaifs, with twenty musicians performing. In 1980 Ford Foundation
Kate Galloway, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Chair Panel abstract awarded me a fellowship, supporting my research on Tawaifs' music culture.
My work included included restoring and preserving 200 hours of rare music
This panel engages with the affective bonds (Guy 2009) forged between and organizing the 1984 Women Music Makers conference.
listeners and environments. We present three divergent perspectives
concerning environments that sound and compositions that express sounding The Creative Hustle: Surviving Precarity in Berlins Electronic Dance
environments. Sonic expressive culture has the potency to reveal how people's Music Scenes
attitudes towards the environment have changed, and composers can utilize Luis-Manuel Garcia, University of Groningen
the cultural markers of music to express awareness and sociocultural
environmental perspectives. In particular, we bring to ecomusicology an Since the turn of the century, Berlin has grown into a European epicenter for
intensified bioregional perspective (Lynch, Glotfelty, and Armbruster 2012) in creative industry labor and, over the same period, it has become a global hub
order to articulate how bioregional expressive culture contributes to the for the electronic dance music (EDM) industry. This has brought with it a
cultural memory of specific places through sonic narrative, and the constant flow of EDM-affiliated people to Berlin, making a mess of distinctions
remembrance of site-specific acoustic heritage. Bioregional thought proposes between tourism, business travel, artistic career, and labor migration. Often
that human identity may be constituted by our residence in a larger combining multiple careers as DJs, producers, journalists, agents, label
community of natural beings-our bioregion-and we should celebrate and managers, promoters, graphic designers, sound engineers, bar staff, and so on,
32
waves of musical migrants have been coming to Berlin to participate in a sponsorship has been both sought and accepted at the Casa, while the use of
creative labor market that is deeply shaped by neoliberal logics of freelance bureaucracy-heavy state-administered cultural funding remains largely out of
entrepreneurialism, flexible labor, and income precarity. This paper examines the question. This paper explores the creation what one Mancha regular called
the ways in which these techno-migrants have coped with the labor a small universe of heightened social intimacy in relation to the Casas
explicit elision of institutional structures of spatial, sonic and financial
conditions of Berlins EDM scenes, using ethnographic interviews to illustrate
governmentality in So Paulo. Specifically, I argue that the evolution and
strategies and ideologies of survival. Of particular interest are the ways in continued self-positioning of the Casa do Mancha as an unregulated space
which a romantic idealization of neo-Bohemian precarity among these musical makes possible the creation of infrastructures of musical circulation based on
migrants supports a sense of artistic authenticity - all the while rendering the shared aesthetic affinities. I thus consider the ways values about modes of
destabilizing conditions of the creative industry easier to tolerate. In this organizing musical production arise in relation to both aesthetic concerns and
sense, this paper also illustrates how musicians and music-industry perceptions about music's expediency within particular social and political
professionals adapt established modes of urban musical labor to new practices and institutions.
configurations of the creative economy.
Sound and Silence in Festivals of the French Revolution: Sonic
Making Music Work: Creative Livelihoods in Urban Settings Analysis in History
Luis-Manuel Garcia, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Chair Rebecca Geoffroy-Schwinden, Duke University
Panel abstract
Scholars have oft overlooked how sound and orality organized experiences of
It is not only the product of musical labor that is caught up in circuits of the French Revolution (1789-1799), a period championed as the success of
capital, but musical labor itself. This has become all the more so in the literacy in Western culture. In his Essay on the Origin of Languages (1781),
increasingly fluid, flexible, deregulated, and volatile markets of current-day
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a contested forefather of ethnomusicology, asserts:
neoliberalism, where people and jobs travel as quickly and as broadly as
commodities themselves. The papers in this panel examine how music is made words are written and not sounds. However, by listening between the lines of
to work for (and against) its practitioners and producers, serving as a form of archival documents we might develop a new, sonic understanding of the
livelihood that often runs up against bourgeois-bohemian ideals of artistic life. revolutionary experience. Sound performed and transmitted knowledge in
Spanning metropolises with starkly contrasting economic and cultural Enlightenment Paris, and as listeners negotiated meaning around various
histories (New Orleans, Berlin, New York, Calcutta), these papers probe the sonic markers, they also developed a common social archive of sound, an
queasiness that often arises in music scenes when financial gain intersects archive they would mobilize and mold during the revolutionary decade.
with activities more often associated with leisure and personal expression. Orality played a concomitant role during the Revolution, when in 1791 the
Ever since the creative class (Florida 2004) became a category of popular decision to rely only on oral rather than written testimony in jury trials
imagination and debate, the creative industry has become a site of speculation
transformed an abstract and textual public into one of flesh and blood
and exploitation for businesses, urban planners, and bureaucrats, bringing
musical labor into confrontation with pressing issues of urban poverty, (Mason 2004, 39). This paper mobilizes musical, vocal, and environmental
gentrification, flexibilized labor, and job precarity-all compounded in turn by sound as an analytical tool for approaching archival and primary source
the oft-exploitative labor conditions of the entertainment, leisure, and tourism documents from the French Revolution. Employing techniques and materials
industries. Within this complex nexus of norms, forces, and values, this panel from an ethnomusicologist's toolbox including musical transcriptions, ear-
tracks how work mediates between romanticized notions of musical creativity witness accounts, musical performance practices, and performer testimonies,
and the pragmatic concerns of economic survival. this paper approaches documents sonically to elucidate the contrasting
(dis)organization and experience of revolutionary festivals from 1790, when
Small Universes: The Creation of Social Intimacy through Aesthetic hopes were still high for a peaceful resolution to Revolution, and from 1794,
Infrastructures in So Paulos Underground
after thousands of French citizens had been guillotined for political crimes
Shannon Garland, Columbia University
during the Terror (1793-1794).
This paper discusses a music venue in So Paulo, Brazil, called the Casa do
Mancha, or Mancha's House. Until 2012 the actual residence of musician Django's Tiger: Tradition and Transformation in Jazz Manouche
Mancha Leonel, the Casa do Mancha offers a small, intimate space for the Ben Givan, Skidmore College
performance of indie bands from around Brazil and beyond. Situated on a
quiet residential street within a bohemian bar district, the Casa do Mancha Jazz Manouche , a contemporary musical genre originally inspired by the
lacks any type of permit for operating its modest PA system, for selling the European Romani guitarist Django Reinhardt (1910-53), provides a fruitful
beer and mixed drinks from the kitchen-turned bar, or of paying relevant case study for exploring the conceptual transformations and contradictions
taxes on the five to ten dollar entrance fee, cash only. Performing bands must
inherent within any invented tradition., This paper's point of departure is
finish playing by 10pm, and the audience vacate by 11pm, to keep within So
Paulo's noise ordinance laws and stave off police attention. Private Reinhardt's original composition Django's Tiger which today's musicians
33
typically perform with slightly different harmonies from those heard on the questions about transnational and transcultural musical exchange and the
guitarist's original 1946 recording. Consequently, an informant declared that sociocultural impacts of jazz performance.
the original version now sounds wrong a considerable irony given that Jazz
Manouche players typically regard Reinhardt's own music with extraordinary The Colors of Catholic Songs: The Manipulation of Timbre in the
reverence. The musical discrepancies in question, which stem from a Construction of Musical Communities in Andavadoaka, Madagascar
mishearing, are indicative of a significant change in Jazz Manouche's modes Marissa Glynias, Yale University
of transmission. Musicians once learned mainly by imitating Reinhardt's
recordings; Django's Tiger's customary chord changes are today based on his In the coastal village of Andavadoaka, Madagascar, the genre referred to as
1946 melodic improvisation rather than on its underlying harmonies. Since Catholic songs is sung with a diverse range of tone colors. While this genre
the 1990s, however, Jazz Manouche has increasingly spread via oral includes both liturgical and popular songs, the tunes are performed anywhere
transmission and electronic media. Nonetheless, the history of Django's and everywhere, and are songs that everyone knows by heart (Astuti 1995).
Tiger suggests that the principal dissimilarities between today's idiom and But not all spaces are created equally, nor are they colored equally, as the
Reinhardt's own music are not musical but ontological and epistemological: various activities that take place in these spaces necessitate a range of
evanescent improvisations have been transmuted into fixed pieces and expressive timbres. In focusing on two such contexts, a Sunday morning
individual stylistic idiosyncrasies have become classicized orthodoxies. church service and an evening from the wake of a young man, I examine the
Especially revealing are the moments when these conflicting epistemologies role of timbre in constructing two distinct vocal aesthetics; while the church
have tangible musical consequences, such as when contemporary Jazz context prioritizes a cohesive vocal aesthetic, in which a full-bodied sound is
Manouche guitarist Adrien Moignard attempts to replicate the melody of supplemented by collectively and uniformly performed stylizations, the
Reinhardt's original Django's Tiger solo against the modified contemporary context of the wake exhibits a diverse set of individual vocal improvisatory
harmonies, an endeavor that has to be abruptly truncated to avoid yielding practices, which are bounded within a timbral aesthetic of nasality and
musical incoherence. harshness. I argue that these performed vocal aesthetics play an integral role
in the formation of musical communities in church and wake singing. In the
Jazz in France: Race, Aesthetics, and Politics church, the homogeneous sound creates a musical and social community in
Ben Givan, Skidmore College, Chair Panel abstract which singers actively participate and raise their voices in praise together.
While individual voices are both heard and praised in the wake context, their
Over the course of the twentieth century, the transnational diffusion of jazz unanimous performance of hiri masake, or ripe singing, aids in the
has raised crucial questions of race, identity, and musical style. Such issues formation of a musical community in which a performer's personal emotional
have been highly salient in France, where this Afrodiasporic idiom has experience embodies the collective grieving of singers and non-singing
circulated as a powerful cultural force for almost as long as in the United participants alike.
States, where it originated. Recent scholarship has begun to unravel the
complex system of national ideologies, racial prejudices, and aesthetic Samba in Japan: Articulating Place and Community through Song
preferences surrounding the music's French reception (e.g. Jordan 2010, Drott Rachel Goc, University of Wisconsin - Madison
2011, Fry 2014). This panel advances this research field with three papers
that take complementary perspectives on jazz in France. The first paper's On the last Saturday in August every summer since the late 1980s, the
focus is literary and historical, confronting the transatlantic translation, Asakusa neighborhood in Tokyo, Japan becomes the staging ground for a
republication, and reception of Really the Blues , a notorious memoir of racial spectacular samba parade. The parade includes thousands of performers from
self-invention by the white American clarinetist Mezz Mezzrow. The second Japan, Brazil, and other countries, and over a half million in-person
paper addresses the legacy of another key mediating figure: Django spectators, with many more watching on domestic television. This paper
Reinhardt, the Manouche Gypsy whose retrospective influence on the examines the vibrant samba community in Japan, with a focus on the context
contemporary Jazz Manouche genre broaches complex questions of aesthetics and process of composing an enredo, carnival parade song, for the 2013
and the invention of tradition. The third paper deals with current political Asakusa parade. This analysis is grounded in the 12 months I spent as a
questions surrounding Jazz Manouche's growing influence in France, as the member of the bateria, instrumental section, of a samba school in Kansai,
idiom becomes a medium for cultural activism among Manouche musicians Japan in 2012-2013. Throughout Japan, dedicated samba fans and performers
and their allies. Together, these papers analyze historical and contemporary devote vast amounts of time, money, and resources to this music genre. These
narratives about French jazz, illustrating the processes that shape various musical communities are examples of affinity cultures, where people build
kinds of identities within and beyond the nation-state. In tracing the valuable social and emotional connections to music and cultures with which
development of particular jazz milieus in France, this panel opens up they may not have had previous associations. (Slobin 1993, Shelemay 2011).
The enredos themselves provide valuable insights into how participants build
34
connections to an international samba community, and imagine their role and drove their recordings and film appearances. A detailed look at these stars
the role of Japan within that community. Through the lyrics and music of an demonstrates how they both undertook complex negotiations to create music
enredo, escolas often describe their hometown and describe members' feelings that encompassed elements seen as traditional and modern in order to adhere
towards their escola and country. By focusing on the creation of an enredo, to predominant nationalist ideologies of the time. However, rather than
this paper locates samba, a global popular music, within local scenes to accusing present-day violinists of painting an inaccurate picture of the past, I
consider what it means to write a Japanese samba composition. am interested in the ways that they employ these oppositional
characterizations in order to perform their own musically and socially diverse
Sounding the Silent Image: Uilleann Piper as Ethnographic Object in and multifaceted identities. The violin has a complex history in Egypt that has
Early Hollywood Film infused it with various musical potentialities and symbolic resonances. Here, I
Ivan Goff, New York University ask how contemporary Egyptian violinists use depictions of past players in the
service of their present subjectivities.
An evening of revelry and dancing in a New York mansion is depicted in the
remarkable climactic scene of the silent, romantic comedy Come On Over Music Producers in So Paulo's Cultural Policy Worlds
(1922, Goldwyn, dir. Alfred Green). An old, blind uilleann piper - a recent Daniel Gough, University of Chicago
immigrant - is ushered into the social gathering to perform. In the context of
Hollywood storytelling, this simple caricature effectively functions as a device This paper examines the role of a specific type of musical agent -- the producer
that pictorially frames narratives of modernity in an Ireland-America binary -- within So Paulo's institutionally mediated music scene. Drawing upon
defined by peasant-bourgeois and rural-urban stereotypes. The particularity of research in policy anthropology, I argue that cultural policy practices have
this characterization - starkly reminiscent of a nineteenth-century created new sets of relations in So Paulo's music scene. I connect the
iconography of the indigent, itinerant piper and parallel depictions in emergence of free-lance producers to the specialization of policy instruments
contemporaneous Irish-American literature - poses a broader question as to and bureaucratic procedures in So Paulo's cultural infrastructure. In this
the absence of equally valid and historically accurate representations such as paper, I will present a brief overview of the various channels through which
'gentleman' or 'gypsy' uilleann piper. I consider the chosen representation in musical performance is institutionally mediated in contemporary So Paulo
this film as a product of a broader imagination fueled by local color fiction of before describing how contemporary cultural policies influence the job
the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. I reflect on the origins and description(s) of the such producers. In particular, I explore how the cultural
implications of such ethnographically-inflected representations of Irish edital, or proposal writing process, has become the defining policy procedure
traditional music in early twentieth century popular culture and address how in So Paulo's music scene, and the implications of these new kinds of
this cinematic image can be understood as an 'ethnographic object' as opposed technical knowledge for musicians and musical production. I draw upon
to a simplistic iteration of a generic 'folk' or 'exotic' marker. Come On Over participant observation in cultural policy training seminars as well as
evidences how, long before sound recordings are available in widely interviews with musicians and professionals in these areas in order to
circulating culture, the uilleann pipes were indexed visually in the popular describe how musical labor has shifted as a result of these policy instruments.
imagination. More than simply illustrating visual indexicality however, this The concluding section of this paper will examine some of the consequences of
paper suggests how an 'aesthetics of ethnography' may infuse the sound these policy trends for musical life in the city.
objects of historical ethnomusicology.
Knowledge and Power in Early Ethnomusicology
Present Narratives Versus Past Projects: Egyptian Violinists of the Katie Graber, Otterbein University
1940s and 1950s as Embodiments of Tradition and Modernity
Lillie Gordon, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Olivia Bloechl issued an intriguing challenge when she claimed, we are not
used to granting ancestors, gods, or spirits agency in our histories (Bloechl
From the perspective of most present-day Egyptian violinists, their two most 2008:15). She, Gary Tomlinson, and others have investigated how particular
esteemed predecessors of the 1940s and 1950s embody opposite poles of a ways of knowing the world have affected the absorption of Others into
tradition-modernity spectrum in violin playing. While contemporary players Western musical history. Extrapolating from their work, I argue that when we
tend to see themselves as existing or aspiring to exist between those poles, probe the edges and intersections of knowledge formation we can uncover
they comfortably invoke Anwar Mansi (1922-1962) and Ahmad al-Hifnawi issues of power and control in our disciplinary histories. The lives and
(1916-1990) as prime examples of modernity-infused and tradition-focused relationships of early ethnographers Francis La Flesche and Alice Fletcher
playing respectively. In this paper, based on fifteen months of ethnographic provide an interesting case study: La Flesche was an Omaha ethnographer
fieldwork conducted in Cairo (2008-2010) and intensive media analysis, I who worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. and Alice
contrast present narratives about these past violinists with the projects that Fletcher was a white anthropologist who relied on Francis La Flesche for
35
much of her early work. At least two events or situations prove discomfiting in catalyzing street protests against austerity; others asked if it heralded the
the literature about La Flesche and Fletcher's careers. The first is that return of cano de protesto (protest song), a genre politically salient in the
Fletcher adopted La Flesche as an adult (an Omaha practice), and their living years directly preceding and following the 1974 revolution. This paper draws
together resulted in much gossip. The second was La Flesche's belief that on long term ethnographic research in Portugal and on my recent research on
improper work with sacred Omaha objects and rituals had resulted in his the circulation and social histories of select musical vocalizations of protest in
father's leg amputation and his later death. These two unrelated situations the contemporary Portuguese context. I situate these vocalizations in relation
have been glossed over in biographies and histories of anthropology. Using to articulations of protest across multiple domains (on the streets, in
affect theory and postcolonial theory, this paper proposes to explore these parliament, on-line) and in relation to emerging styles of protest more globally
collisions of worldviews in order to generate a new experience of difference, writ in order to understand the role of musical vocalizations in rendering
sameness, and history - and new perspectives on how our discipline produces these domains permeable. I theorize register as a mode of voicing (including
knowledge. vocal placement, timbre, and intonation) and as an affective orientation, one
that demands and catalyzes a particular kind of response. Building on
Hegemony Reconsidered: Padavali-Kirtan's Cosmopolitan and interdisciplinary scholarship on the mobility of expressive cultural forms and
Vernacular Registers in Colonial-Era Kolkata literature in ethnomusicology that argues for the salience of vocal production
Eben Graves, University of Texas at Austin and style to the shaping of social life, I argue for the efficacies of register for
understanding the political and affective trajectories of song.
In his critique of the project of cultural nationalism in India's colonial period,
Partha Chatterjee focuses on the hegemonic nature of mediation in the Completing the Symbiotic Circle: Audience Participation in New York
nationalist elite's fashioning of national cultural forms (1993). He argues that City's Downtown Music Scene
the hegemonic status of the nationalist elite resulted in a transformation of Tom Greenland, A. Philip Randolph High School
popular cultural expression into a sanitized form that was carefully erased
of all marks of vulgarity, coarseness, localism, and sectarian identity. In this Musical performance is often presumed to be a one-way transmission, from
paper I re-examine the elite-subaltern relationship in colonial Bengal in the the impulses of musicians to their audiences, including both other musicians
realm of early twentieth-century padavali-kirtan performance and discourse, and non-performing audience members. But how passive are listeners? In
suggesting that members of the nationalist elite did not completely efface what ways do they communicate to performers--through vocal and kinesthetic
markers of localism and sectarian identity. Specifically, I investigate the responses, through body language, even through the length and intensity of
relationship between University of Calcutta Professor, Khagendranath Mitra their silences--to become, in effect, collaborators in the collective act of music-
(1880-1961), and rural kirtan musician, Pandit Nabadwipchandra Brajobashi making? In this paper, based on ten years of ongoing fieldwork in New York
(1863-1951). I show that their collaborative effort to reinsert this genre into City, I consider the role of audience participation in the city's free-improv
the listening habits of Kolkata's urban elite emphasized both cosmopolitan scene, focusing on a core group of long-term, highly dedicated fans of live
and vernacular facets of the genre's theory and performance practice. In the downtown music--including Judy Balos, Richard and Roberta Bergen, Peter
case of the former, they reemphasized the genre's connections with Sanskrit Cox, Steve Dalachinsky, Bruce Gallanter, Margaret Davis Grimes, Manny
aesthetic theory through the editing and publication of padavali-kirtan song Maris, Bruce Morris, Yuko Otomo, and Irving and Stephanie Stone--as well as
anthologies, and, in the case of the latter, they stressed the importance of the the musicians that play to/for/with them. Using qualitative analysis based on
genre's colloquial improvisatory akhar texts. I argue that the construction of formal interviews and casual conversations with these participants, I
Bengali cultural nationalism thus relied on cosmopolitan and vernacular demonstrate how both musicians and active concertgoers consider the act of
markers of performance, thus presenting a divergent reading of the nature of listening to be an inherent and indispensible element of the performance
the hegemony that influenced elite-subaltern relationships in the case of gestalt, an art form unto itself. More importantly, as violinist Mat Maneri
padavali-kirtan. observed at a 2013 memorial concert held for Peter Cox, noble and profound
listeners such as Cox complete this symbiotic circle of life that binds and
Registering Protest: Voice, Precarity, and Assertion in Crisis Portugal bonds improvising musicians and improvising audiences. As such, this
Lila Ellen Gray, University of Amsterdam research continues in the trajectory of symbolic interactionalists like Howard
Becker, providing additional evidence of and arguing for the mutuality of live
In January 2011, in the context of financial crisis and escalating musical intercommunication.
unemployment in Portugal, the young band Deolinda performed a song about
the desperation of their generation (Que Parva que Sou [How foolish I am]).
It circulated through social media and some of its phrases moved into
parliament, recontextualized as reported speech. Some credited the song for
36
The Tribal Sounds of Sal Tlay Ka Siti: Alex Boy's Africanized Youngstown's local music scene promotes collective memory through the
Covers and Mormon Racial Dynamics representation of past events and struggles within the city's history,
Jeremy Grimshaw, Brigham Young University engendering a catharsis from which the city may progress while providing an
Ali Colleen Neff, College of William and Mary example of how citizens in other deindustrialized American cities can imagine
a promising future.
British-American singer Alex Boy's Africanized covers of pop hits have
garnered a wide internet following. The first of these, a 2012 realization of How Can We Live in a Country Like This?: Music, Talk Radio, and
Coldplay's Paradise, has tallied 23,000,000 YouTube hits; the most recent, a Moral Anxiety in Northern Ghana
version of Let it Go, from Disney's Frozen, tallied half that many in five Karl Haas, Boston University
days. Typical of Africanism packaged for an American audience, the
African-ness of these realizations is highly stylized, despite Boy's actual The evidence of the previous decade's development and economic growth can
Nigerian heritage. In his Paradise cover, Boy's singing alternates between be found throughout Ghana, manifested in major infrastructure projects, a
English, Yoruba, Swahili, and African-sounding scat. The video for his booming middle class, boutique stores, and the President's Better Ghana
version of Lorde's Royals shows Boy wearing various styles of tribal face Agenda. This drive for improvement transcends the political and economic
paint. And in several videos, Boy is shown playing hand drums and wearing spheres, extending into moral and religious arenas. In Northern Ghana, urban
fur, feathers, and plants. But another complicated dynamic informs his work: and rural soundscapes are sites of ethical and moral contestation, where
Boy is one of only a few prominent black Mormons in the U.S. and his Islamic and Christian religious leaders, secular talk show hosts, and
perception and popularity within American Mormon culture are bound traditional and popular musicians lament the moral decay of modern times,
inextricably to his church's racial history. Until 1978, black members were each offering their own version of the way forward. On the airwaves, PA
excluded from the church's lay priesthood. Since the lifting of the ban, a systems downtown, and mp3s played on mobile phones, listeners are implored
younger generation of Mormons has struggled to reconcile their desire for to alternately to change their ways, hold fast to their culture, look to the past,
assimilation into a diverse American mainstream with their faith's and cast off tradition for a better future by locally produced pop songs,
segregational past. This paper will explore how Boy's Africanization project religious and secular radio hosts, and cultural experts. Analyzing Dagbanli
not only embodies America's continued and complicated fascination with an popular song texts, public and recorded religious exhortations, and radio talk
exoticized African Other, but also specifically responds to the desire among a shows, I argue that these moralizing discourses are produced and consumed
younger generation of Mormons for a kind of racial expiation. as part of a larger pattern of community and personal improvement, fitting
within the national project of development and betterment, tapping into a
Stuck in Ohio: The Representation of Local Identity and Collective sense among Ghanaians that life is not what it ought to be. At the intersection
Memory in the Youngstown Music Scene of sound studies and development studies, this paper opens new avenues of
Sara Gulgas, University of Pittsburgh exploration by highlighting links between local conceptions of development
and the moralizing discourses of music, religious sermons, and talk shows,
Youngstown, Ohio, which has undergone many changes to its landscape over placing both discourses within the same frame of betterment and
its 218 year lifespan, has been known for its agricultural amenities, steel improvement.
production, above average crime rates, and poverty. This research aims to
discover how a city's landscape affects the music that is created and performed Poetry of the Senses: Transformations of Poiesis
within it and in turn, how local artists influence the culture and thus the Tomie Hahn, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
construction of its landscape. Little ethnographic research in America
describes the changes in cityscape due to deindustrialization and Can poems, as artifacts from or about fieldwork, reflect our multisensory
regeneration, how those changes affect local musicians and the city, and how orientation to our experiential encounters? This presentation juxtaposes
musicians choose to represent that cityscape. Interviews with members from Kristevas process of writing as analysis with concepts drawn from research
The Zou (a local indie band) and Crookit (a local rap group) as well as their in embodied cognition on multisensory learning to ask: How might
respective audience members were conducted in order to research local incorporating poiesis creative making foster a processing of experience? How
ideologies, how they are shaped by the city's past, and how they affect local does poiesis contribute to new paradigms of discourse, recontextualisation
music and the formation of local identity. The music of The Zou and Crookit is (Linell), and practice-based research? The sensory turn in the sciences and
influenced by and associated with Youngstown as local ideologies, such as a humanities offers a dynamic third space - a space that offers empirical
hardened positivity, working class values, diversity, and democratic ideals approaches to incorporate creative methodologies with artistic practices. The
that were shaped by the presence and loss of the steel industry, are present sensory turn has profoundly disrupted hierarchies of research and creative
within the lyrics, the timbre, and the promotion of collective memory. practice, often destabilizing clear identities of practice-based arts and
37
research. The sensory turn challenges researchers and artists to discover World Cup. This paper explores the production of a New South African sound
multiple ways for displaying experience, or data as a means for situating in the 1995 version of the Rugby World Cup anthem World in Union. This
knowledge? (Haraway). This presentation proposes that mixed-media, arrangement is compared to earlier and subsequent versions to shed light on
multisensory activities stimulate an intellectual and creative awareness that the musical negotiation of tradition and modernity in a postcolonial world. I
can provide new insights into ethnographic material. Specifically, how explore the implications of an empire singing back? by considering the
contemporary forms of media-rich poetic genres - including videopoetry, sound significance of the original melody (Gustav Holsts Thaxted) in the newly
poetry, poetronica, visual poetry - might offer alternative approaches for post-apartheid South African context, and discuss the impact of this sonic
processing and expressing ethnographers experiences in the field. How might intervention into discourses of global sportsmanship as performing a free-
creative, multisensory explorations inspire ethnographers to shift perspective, market level playing field. The mobilization of a cross-racial, pop music
teach differently, and offer new insights into their work? aesthetic is analyzed as an index of a transnational vision, while the
relationship of this aesthetic to pan-Africanism in other performances of
Deconstructing Hierarchy in the Traditional Performing Arts of South African sports music demonstrates the work that the music of national
Japan: A Musical Discourse of Kamigata Rakugo pageantry continues to play as South Africa navigates the sometimes
Catherine Hallett, Australian National University conflicting interests of 21st century regional and global loyalties.
Rakugo, the art of staged comic storytelling of Japan, is generally classified as Song and Slogan in Israel's African Refugee Conflict
and perceived by audiences to be an oral tradition performed without Sarah Hankins, Harvard University
significant musical accompaniment. Music is nevertheless an indispensable
component of the Kansai rakugo tradition. The literature on Kansai rakugo January, 2014 - Tel Aviv is rocked by a political demonstration of historic
documents the presence of theme songs and sound effects, and states that the proportions: some 30,000 Sudanese and Eritrean refugees, most of whom
music comprising these components derives from traditional Japanese music reside in Israel only semi-legally after dangerous crossings through the Israel-
genres. The significance of music and the centrality of those who perform the Egypt border region, gather to demand a voice within Israel's public sphere.
music are, however, neglected in the literature on the tradition. The field of This event, marked by speeches and music, is the largest pro-refugee action to
Kansai rakugo has therefore been inadequately documented. To address this date, but is not the first. Since the mid-2000s, Israeli society has been
lacuna I conducted ethnographic research on music in Kansai rakugo in 2011 embroiled in heated debates over the socio-cultural implications of a growing
and 2013. My research reveals the presence of two parallel musical discourses African presence, with many citizens branding East Africans as a threat to
that are negotiated by storytellers and musicians: they are the official Israel's identity as a modern Jewish democracy. Concurrently, refugees and
discourse as documented in the literature, and the unofficial musical discourse their supporters have undertaken an increasingly visible, audible push for
that comprise musics such as foreign and popular musics. In exploring the improved civic status. Amidst explosive activity, music and sound emerge as
ways in which and reasons why storytellers employ either the official or powerful tools for pro- and anti-refugee collectivities. As politicians lead
unofficial musical discourse in their performances, I analysed how the role of Zionist chants in Parliament and public parks, Sudanese performers sing of
the master or apprentice storyteller or musician in the discrete performance war and migration; Eritrean players jam in basement venues; and NGOs blast
spaces (on-stage and off-stage) of the theatre shapes the play of power and Afro-diasporic musics during fundraisers and marches. Grounded in
determines hierarchy. I argue therefore that in the rakugo of present-day ethnographic participant-observation with Tel Aviv's musician-activists, this
Kansai, the hierarchy in the traditional performing arts should be disengaged presentation explores the political functions and affective dynamics of music
from directionality. The connection between performance space and role of and sound in fractured urban Israeli spaces. Sonics affect listeners at somatic
performers is of importance to re-evaluating hierarchy in musical traditions. and cognitive levels simultaneously, facilitating unified action amongst
enormous crowds, or feel-good experiences that potentially mitigate political
The World in Union: Creating a New South African Sound for the 1995 antipathies. Unfolding within a popular musical culture deeply linked to
Rugby World Cup national identity, this soundscape demands attention as a key factor
Nicol Hammond, University of California, Santa Cruz influencing the refugee conflict's outcomes and its significance to Israel's
longstanding discourse surrounding Otherness.
The 1995 Rugby World Cup represented South Africas re-entry onto the world
cultural stage after a decades-long sporting and cultural boycott that many
credit with ending apartheid. But while sporting prowess and a demonstration
of the countrys economic potential were the primary arguments in favour of
awarding the event to South Africa, ultimately it was the creation of popular
support for the new icons of the nation that convinced locals of the value of the
38
The Fortunes of Failure: Neoliberal Transformations of Musical within Michel Foucault's carceral archipelago, a cluster of penal and non-
Labor at Angola Prison penal institutions that dissipate penal practices. The archipelago of the
Benjamin Harbert, Georgetown University twenty-first century is characterized by new prison labor practices and new
prison economies. Music as a practice binds incarceration to notions of
Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola has enjoyed the distinction of being rehabilitation, self-expression, and mental health while providing public
one of the most musically significant prisons in the United States. Leadbelly, forums for prison administrators and prisoners alike.
Freddy Fender, Charles Neville, and James Booker are some of the musical
notables that have done time there. But Angola also enjoys another The Musical Lives of Processions
distinction. In 1952, Collier's Magazine dubbed the institution the worst David Harnish, Bowling Green State University
prison in America detailing shocking penal practices. A major investigation
had followed an incident in which 31 inmates slashed their achilles tendons, Processions serve myriad purposes worldwide and can be considered moving
protesting poor treatment. The national attention ushered in a brief period of theatres as actors, ritual attendants, clowns, musicians and others traverse
reform at Angola. The new penology of the 1950s entered the prison, through selected space often wearing varied and colorful costumes and
introducing rehabilitative practices that hinged on inmate self-organization. working to promote or subvert the social order or to transform space, time and
Music flourished. Inmate-run music education programs, a radio station, and location. The sound element - marching or other loud processional music to
a prison magazine supported a network of musicians who toured makeshift activate political or spiritual indices - moves groups forward, defines their
venues on the 18 000 acre prison farm. Today, profiteering national missions and announces their significance; a general rule is that the more
information companies, religious groups, and local organizations have forged instruments and ensembles and the louder the music, the more important the
partnerships with the prison, encroaching on spaces developed by self- procession. Though some state-sponsored processions stand alone, most
organizing musicians in the 1950s. Put in a historical narrative, an processions constitute one public part of a larger event, such as a festival. This
ethnography of today's musical world at Angola reveals how musical practices paper discusses the phenomenon of processions and music generally, then
have adapted to the neoliberal turn in prison management. These changes examines them at Hindu Balinese temple festivals and cremations and
become clear when looking at music as a particular form of labor that offers explores the series of processions at one event, the Lingsar Festival on Bali's
degrees of career, self-sustenance, and community-building. This paper neighbor isle of Lombok. The actors in Lombok are migrant Hindu Balinese
compares three prison spaces in which musical labor has changed: the annual and Muslim Sasak (the indigenous inhabitants). Underlying the social
prison rodeo, the low-wattage prison radio station KLSP, and private dynamic is the fact that Hindu Balinese ruled over Lombok for 200 years
consumption through designated mp3 players. while Islam became the inspiration for Sasak resistance, and both Hindu and
Islamic reform movements have been forces for change in processions and all
Cross-National Perspectives on Prison Music in the Neoliberal Era other ritual events. The festival processions, once intended to create and
Benjamin Harbert, Georgetown University, Chair Panel abstract sustain ethnic unity (conflated as agricultural fertility) through music and
ritual implements now also embody counter narratives and sociopolitical
Prison songs collected by John and Alan Lomax in the 1930s are an important tensions over ownership. Processions, both political and spiritual, are public
part of the history of ethnomusicology and folk music studies. The music barometers for measuring socio-religious and political change.
produced by today's inmates is a part of our time--entangled with global
trends of mass incarceration, privatization, rehabilitation, and Internet Rumours and the Changing Sounds of Uyghur Religiosity:
retributionalism. Since the 1990s, the effects of neoliberalism have been felt in The Case of the Snake-Monkey Woman
prisons worldwide. Prison populations are growing in all five continents. The Rachel Harris, SOAS, University of London
world prison population is at a historic high of nearly 11 million--roughly the
population of Tunisia or the Czech Republic. Refreshing critical issues of Over the past few years, the region of Xinjiang in China has been caught in a
incarceration and globalization, this panel offers a new comparative lens for spiral of rising religiosity, police crackdowns, and interethnic violence between
prison studies that links ethnographic and theoretical perspectives on prison Muslim Uyghurs and Han Chinese, a situation which is widely blamed by
music across organizations in the United States, Britain, and Aotearoa New state media on online Islamic extremist propaganda. In this remote region
Zealand. Together, the papers reveal global trends as well as national which is rather effectively shielded from international media attention, there
differences explained by cultural, technical, political, and legal factors. The are particular problems with the dominant state narratives and lack of
expanded ethnographic sites of each paper trace musical practices beyond the credible alternative voices. As the political scientist David Panagia argues, an
walls, examining relationships not only among incarcerated peoples, but also exclusive focus on reasoned debate misses the wider picture of political life
among arts organizations, profiteering businesses, and indigenous and creates a de facto partition between those who can and cannot speak,
communities. These perspectives show how music can become the interstices between appropriate and inappropriate sounds (2009). How might a focus on
39
alternative ways of listening disrupt the dominant narratives and enable new career by drawing upon interviews to contextualize his creative process, his
understandings of changing patterns of religiosity and the rising violence in professional and personal connections to the Detroit hip hop scene, his place
the region? This paper focuses on inappropriate sounds: examples of religious within the growing number of Deaf rappers worldwide, and his personal vision
media which operate beyond text? to capture the popular social imagination for his art form. Additionally, by annotating and transcribing Forbes' music
and challenge social norms in often disturbing ways. Recent work in the video performances, a rhythmic analysis of his multi-modal flow shows the
Anthropology of the Middle East explores how online forms of imagery and ways that his hands and his voice create a polyphonic texture that reflects his
vocal performance accessed by Muslims shape new forms of religious sociality musical training as a drummer and his bilingual education.
and impact upon religious structures of affect (Hirschkind 2012). Developing
Hirschkinds approach to sound and religious affect, I trace the paths of one Musical Mobility: Recreational Music-Making with Mobile Devices
video as it travelled across different media platforms across the Xinjiang Trevor Harvey, The University of Iowa
region in 2012, provoking powerful affective responses and accruing
conflicting layers of meaning. In recent years, consumer-oriented music-production software, together with
the social networks of 21st-century Internet technology, has mobilized
A Strain of Music Stole by Me: The Strategic Use of Music in Two recreational, amateur, and self-described non-musicians, enabling the
Early Nineteenth-Century Irish Novels realization of musical imaginings and the transcendance of previously isolated
Andrea Harris Jordan, University of Chicago home-based musicians. Even more recent technological developments in
mobile computing have further altered the contexts in which technologically-
In The Wild Irish Girl by Sydney Owenson and The Milesian Chief by Charles oriented recreational musicians conceptualize, create, and share musical
Maturin, two early nineteenth-century novels, music is used strategically experiences and expressions. Mobile music-making apps (musical games,
throughout the works to enhance the emotional impact of Irish national virtual instruments, and multi-track recorders for Apple's iOS or Google's
aspirations. Although no scores are included in either and only a few song Android platforms) have become an important part of the rapidly growing
lyrics in the former, descriptions of music and its effects on the characters mobile software market. While conventional categorizations within Western
play an important role in both. Music, particularly highly emotional music, is musical culture have generally delineated between musician and non-
a key marker of Irishness in these works, a trope that reflects a long history of musician, the automation of musical technique via digital devices has raised
perceived connection between Irish people and music. While plots take questions regarding musical performance, creativity, and musical identity.
different turns, both novels employ characteristics of the national tale, Just as the democratizing effect of digital technology has become a common
bringing the English protagonist and symbolically the reader into sympathy theme in Internet studies, technology designers and developers have promised
with the Irish, largely through the mediation of music. Through this affective to make the creative process of music-making, in the words of Apple, Inc.
connection, the Irish cease to be Other but rather demand attention and easy and affordable for everyone, offering non-musicians increased
respect on their own terms. I argue that Owenson and Maturin employ participatory possibilities. Drawing upon musical examples and interviews
musical description and tropes of a Gaelic past strategically to promote a with both professional and recreational musicians, this paper investigates how
unique Irish heritage in a British colonial context. Reflecting on how this kind mobile devices, such as the iPhone, are viewed as transformative technologies
of cultural nationalist work continued to impact perceptions of Ireland that can mediate musical creativity and, thus, offer a promise of socio-musical
throughout the nineteenth century, I raise questions of the role of intellectuals mobility.
in large-scale identity formation. I employ methods of historical
ethnomusicology as I consider the authors, their times and contexts, their Ritualizing Hegemonic Masculinities and Homosocial Theology
audiences, reception, and cultural relevance. Additionally, I reflect on the Through Music Ministry at Mars Hill Church in Seattle
musical sources available to the authors that may have influenced their Maren Haynes, University of Washington
literary descriptions of music.
Seattle megachurch Mars Hill's founder and lead pastor Mark Driscoll claims
Sean Forbes: Detroit-based Deaf Hip Hop Christianity has become in large part a feminine religion. You walk into the
Cole Harrison, The Ohio State University church, sea foam green, decaf... dude in a sweater vest talking about his
feelings. He asserts he is the self- appointed leader of a heterosexual male
Sean Forbes is a Deaf rapper whose goal is to bring deaf and hearing backlash to the feminization he perceives in Seattle and U.S. Christian
audiences together through the marriage of lyrics, music, and sign language. culture, describing Jesus as a prize- fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a
His live shows feature vibrating floors, live musicians (deaf and hearing), sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. The church's
video screens with lyrics, and most importantly his unique flow, in which he music ministry, however, draws heavily from aesthetics in Seattle indie rock,
simultaneously voices and signs his rhymes. This paper presents Forbes' a genre predicated on shaking up accepted ideas about gender norms (Oakes
40
2008). How does the indie rock music ministry at Mars Hill reconcile with examine a series of case studies regarding nationhood, taking place over
Driscoll's hypermasculine Jesus? Analyzing dimensions of Mars Hills worship several hundred years. The panel's central question is: how have
through the lens of post-structuralist ritual theory (Bell 2008), I explore how representations of music and sound worked to shape contemporary
dimensions of Mars Hill's doctrine and leadership structure produce a understandings of group identities and historical events? The first paper
normative gender hierarchy predicated on a hegemonic masculinity (Bird examines the role of sound, orality and print culture as organizing principles
1996) and homosociality (Kiesling 2005). Employing Cusick (1999) and that informed historical narratives of the French Revolution, focusing
Halberstam (2007), I show how dimensions of music performance privilege specifically on revolutionary festivals in 1790 and 1794. The second explores
masculine-coded instruments and vocal range. I situate this within discourses the strategic use of music in early-nineteenth-century fiction to establish a
of authenticity in Christian worship (Ingalls 2008) to argue that Mars Hill distinct Irish identity in the context of British imperialism, proposing again
suppresses female/feminine performance techniques and creativity. I contend that the intersection of print and sound provided fertile ground for generating
that discourses and practices in Mars Hill's music ministry preclude women nationalist sentiments. The third looks at the Portuguese population of mid-
and non-normative men from performing fully authentic worship. nineteenth-century New Orleans, demonstrating how the community's
ritualized public processions used sound to advance particular discourses of
Cyber-mobilization, Informational Intimacy, and Musical Frames in racial identity. Finally, the fourth paper analyzes the heyday of folksong
Ukraine's EuroMaidan Protests archives in the United States during the Great Depression, illustrating the
Adriana Helbig, University of Pittsburgh role of intellectuals in shaping national and cultural identities by collecting,
publishing, and archiving musical culture.
Social media has played a crucial role in shaping the EuroMaidan (Euro
Square) anti-government protests in Ukraine. Twitter and Facebook provided The Memory of Media: Autoarchivization and Empowerment in 1970s
new sources of information, helping mobilize and shape the protests, Jazz
influencing how individuals made decisions to participate. Social media, Michael Heller, University of Massachusetts, Boston
perceived by protesters as a trusted source of information, in opposition to
government-controlled media outlets, helped foster degrees of informational In his essay The Media of Memory: The Seductive Menace of Records in Jazz
intimacy not only among people in Ukraine but among EuroMaidan History Jed Rasula calls for a critical reevaluation of the use of commercial
supporters worldwide. Similar to the 2004 Orange Revolution when Ukrainian recordings in jazz studies. Although records serve several important functions,
citizens protested the outcomes of rigged presidential elections, music played a the piece argues that their existence is inextricably tied to market forces, and
significant role in framing the EuroMaidan movement and rallying that they fail to account for the more ephemeral movements, influences and
supporters. Many musicians active in the 2004 Orange Revolution community networks that influence music's changing meanings over time.
participated in the EuroMaidan as well. However, unlike in 2004, when the While Rasula's focus lies primarily in the commercial sphere, this
majority of Ukraine's population did not have Internet access, social media presentation will extend the conversation into the realm of amateur
has served as the primary source of information for EuroMaidan. In addition recordings by examining musician-recorded tape collections made during the
to the public concerts that prevailed during the Orange Revolution, social 1970s. Spurred by the increasing affordability of amateur-grade equipment,
media helped disseminate EuroMaidan's intimate musical moments in real the jazz world saw an explosion of such practices during this period, a
time: women huddling together and singing in the cold, a protester playing on phenomenon Brent Hayes Edwards has called autoarchivization (Edwards
an outside piano in front of riot police, a piano jam session by candlelight in a and Rasula 2008). Rather than treating such materials as passive objects of
protester-occupied government building. This presentation highlights study, the hybrid role of their artist/archivists allows scholars multiple
EuroMaidan's musical framings and analyzes how social media enhances opportunities for considering the collections in terms of the processes of their
offline political mobilization. emergence, asking how acts of self-recording contributed to broader musical
and social goals. Drawing from six months of collaborative fieldwork with
Sonic Articulations of Nationhood Since the 18th Century musician-archivists, the presentation will discuss multiple motivations
Michael Heller, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Chair Panel abstract underlying self-recording, including historical, pedagogical, commercial and
experimental functions. The paper concludes by arguing that autoarchiving
Music has often been analyzed as a crucial component in developing national practices during this period can be productively read against cotemporaneous
identity/ies (Turino 2003, Wade 2000, Stokes 1994). In various ways, sonic movements promoting musician-empowerment through the creation of
culture emerges in dialogue with social and political processes, continually independent record labels, performance venues, educational initiatives and
constructing, resisting, and reconstructing forms of individual agency and collective organizations.
group dynamics. This panel will use methodologies from historical
ethnomusicology, archival research, literary analysis and sound studies to
41
Living (and Dying) the Rock and Roll Dream: Alternative Media and Water Sounds: Distance Swimmers and Ecomusicology
the Politics of Making It as an Iranian Underground Musician Niko Higgins, Columbia University
Farzaneh Hemmasi, University of Toronto
In this paper, I present my research about the discourse of the sounds of
In the contemporary Iranian context, the term underground musician swimming by drawing from phenomenological accounts, journalistic coverage
generally refers to young people making popular music without the of swimmers and open water races, and interviews with distance swimmers.
governmental permits required to engage legally in this activity. It is not In addition to being a source of sound, how is water a catalyst for sonic
uncommon for underground musicians to be fined or jailed, a situation that production that is heard but often unsounded? The soundscape of swimming is
necessitates employing a combination of online and on the ground maneuvers infinitely varied, not just by the sounds of water and breath, but also by the
to reach fans and still avoid official detection. Dire economic conditions and sounds intentionally supplied by the swimmer. Various examples include
challenges to expression have motivated many musicians to attempt to move inventions of rhythmic patterns to accompany the repetitive arm, leg, and
to the relative freedom of the West. This trajectory was most famously head movements and ambient sounds of water and breath as well as the
depicted in Bahman Ghobadi's Cannes-winning Nobody Knows about Persian unsounded singing of popular music verses, choruses, or song fragments.
Cats (2009), a semi-fictional film which, remarkably, aided in the real-life Swimmers also use their bodies as musical instruments that play the water
migration of its main actors, themselves active underground musicians. Once by constantly adjusting tempo, dynamics, timbre, and form with adjustments
abroad, underground musicians such as those depicted in Ghobadi's film have in their swimming speeds, the forces of their exertion, the catches of their
related their experiences to high profile media outlets and, I suggest, shape hands and feet on the surface of the water, and choices of swimming strokes.
their self-representation in ways that contribute to a larger narrative of the Swimmers create, inhabit, and change this sonic environment in ways that
Global South's liberation through American popular music. But what does reveal an unexplored link between music and sound, listening and music-
making it look like on the ground? My paper will discuss underground making, and acoustics and place. This paper locates the distance swimmer as
musicians after their dream of migration has been realized, and the role of an important resource for offering crucial insight into the relationship
media representation in conveying (or not) their experiences. I am especially between water, sound, music, swimming, and water conservation politics and
interested in Yellow Dogs, a band featured in Ghobadi's film, whose members both draws from and extends recent work in the field of ecomusicology.
were murdered in Brooklyn, NY, in 2013, and whose burial in an elite artists'
cemetery in Tehran was the source of much controversy in the Iranian press. Smi Popular Music, Indigeneity, and the Transforming Politics of
Gender
Tracing the Emergence of Son Jarocho in California: 1940s-1950s Thomas Hilder, University of Hildesheim
Alexandro Hernandez, University of California, Los Angeles
This paper is about the politics of gender in the popular music of the Smi, the
Son jarocho is an Afro-Mexican music whose emergence dates back to indigenous people of northern Scandinavia. Gender has been key to Smi
approximately four hundred years ago in southern Veracruz, Mexico. With mobilisation, from the first pan-Smi Assembly in Trondheim in 1917, to
attention to the sites of its development in the 20th century, California, I continuing debates in the move towards Smi political and cultural self-
argue, has been critical to the music's dissemination, cultivation, and creative determination within and across the Nordic states. An important arena for the
renewal outside Mexico. Along with audio and visual examples, this transformation of notions of gender has been Smi popular music, which
presentation traces the early history of son jarocho in that state with a emerged as part of a wider movement of Smi cultural revival since the 1970s.
primary focus on the 1940s-1950s. Context is given to the initial presence of Often drawing on the formerly suppressed shamanic vocal tradition of joik,
the music in California via Andrs Huesca, a professional harpist and film Smi musicians have assisted in articulating a Smi identity, strengthening
performer who's malleable approach to son jarocho merged with jalisciense- language, and reviving alternative epistemologies. Central to my analysis is
esque sounds (Cruz-Barcenas 2007). My focus then shifts to the late 1950s, the Norwegian Smi musician Mari Boine, who, through her outspoken
when ensembles such as Conjunto Papaloapan and Los Tigres de la Sierra politics and exploration of different musical styles, has achieved global
formed in Los Angeles and in Palo Alto. The latter was directed by Timothy stardom on the world music scene whilst remaining highly respected within
Harding, a labor historian, staunch Leftist (who spent his early academic the Smi community. In particular, I investigate how her music and
career under surveillance by the FBI), and seminal figure in cultivating the philosophy challenges the patriarchy and hetero-normativity of imposed
son jarocho at California universities since the 1950s. In contrast, Conjunto Christianity, enables the revival of traditional Smi notions of gender and
Papaloapan emerges as a working-class son jarocho group based in East Los sexuality, and assists in articulations of indigenous environmentalism. My
Angeles that performed primarily to make a living. These little-known paper is based on ethnographic research I have been conducting in the Nordic
histories are woven together as part of the story of son jarocho as a peninsula since 2006. By drawing on postcolonial feminist and queer theory
contemporary transnational music practice. (Desai 2001; Hirvonen 2008; Kuokkanen 2009), I highlight how Smi popular
42
music reveals the wider challenges and potentials of indigenous politics within are work, requiring expenditure of time as well as mental, physical, and
and beyond the Nordic peninsula, and argue for the continuing relevance of material resources. Since musicians' time and resources are limited, economic
postcolonial feminist perspectives for ethnomusicology. motivators can be crucial enablers of creativity. In this paper, I draw on
extensive comparative fieldwork conducted in Los Angeles, Cape Town, and
Performing and Resisting Hegemonies of Gender and Sexuality Helsinki to examine how professional musicians negotiate their desire to be
through Music creative with economic incentives and restrictions. These include composing
Thomas Hilder, University of Hildesheim, Chair Panel abstract original but conformative work for film and television directors, improvising to
unlistening audiences at corporate gigs, appeasing fans at tribute concerts,
This panel explores the ways in which hegemonies of gender and sexuality are plagiarizing oneself for branding an individual sound, carving out creative
performed and resisted through music. Feminist and queer space through grants, and circumventing institutional restrictions through
(ethno)musicologies have long argued that categories of gender and sexuality alternative media channels.
are deeply embedded in practices and discourses of music making,
performance and consumption. Much effort has gone into bringing into focus Ethnicity and Cultural Narrative in Xylophone Music
the role of women and sexual minorities, alongside a concerted attempt to Brian Hogan, Independent Scholar
reveal the underlying power dynamics of persistent heteronormative
patriarchy in many musical historical and cultural contexts. More recently, This presenters discussion retraces the construction of ethnicity in the
scholarship has investigated constructions of masculinity, intersections of Northwest, framing xylophone music as a re-inscription of culture and self in
gender and sexuality with class, 'race' and nationalism, and gender in relation the context of powerful historical currents of external influence.
to issues of sexual violence, inter-ethnic conflict, and the AIDS epidemic. This
panel engages with and contributes to such debates by focusing on diverse Cultural Passivity or Cultural Competence: Social Bias in Childrens
contexts of popular music in three different geographical settings - the USA, Musical Learning
Canada and the Nordic countries. On the one hand, panelists analyse music as Karen Howard, University of St. Thomas
a means of consolidating dominant models of masculinity and homosociality,
and reifying forms of misogyny and homophobia. On the other hand, panelists Children navigate the sensitive and complex social constructs of prejudice,
highlight other types of musical performance as articulating feminist and stereotype, and discrimination starting in early childhood. Music education
queer politics, destabilising categories of sex and gender, and voicing issues of presents children with an opportunity to unpack these difficult and polarizing
sexual discrimination. Linking the papers are particular concerns for the subjects through deep interaction with the socio-cultural as well as sonic
legacy of music genres and traditions, notions of religious 'authenticity' and features of selected repertoire. This paper explores a strand of an
revival, and intersections with the politics of postcolonialism. Overall, the ethnographic study at an urban primary school with a group of 5th grade
panel seeks to reveal the potentials and contradictions of music that can students and their music teacher as they worked through a 15-week
reinscribe or fracture hegemonies of gender and sexuality. curriculum featuring music from five musical cultures from the African
diaspora (Ghana, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Civil Rights Era in the Southern U. S.
Economic Motivators and Inhibitors of Musical Creativity: Cross- and Contemporary Hip-Hop culture in the U.S.), Over the course of 52 lessons,
Cultural Perspectives on Urban Professional Musicians the children learned, performed, and created music steeped in history that
Juniper Hill, University College Cork provided ample opportunity to examine social bias. The project illuminated
the negative attitudes and beliefs connected to the specific genres, as well as
Many musicians report a deeply felt intrinsic motivation to be creative -- an the social power that allows these perceptions to create disparate outcomes
internal drive that often conflicts with the tremendous social pressures to and disadvantages for individuals or groups.
conform. Psychologists Deci and Ryan (2002) propose that the more
internalized a motivational factor is the more powerful its impact on one's Living Diversity: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Childrens Musical
behavior will be, while the more external the motivator the less impact it will Practices
carry. It follows that the most external of motivators -- money -- should have Karen Howard, University of St. Thomas, Chair Panel abstract
little impact on a musician's motivation to be creative. Indeed, this perspective
is supported by the romantic Western myth of the suffering creative genius The musical environment of children takes many forms in and outside of
who will undergo all manner of misery and poverty to realize his internally formalized educational settings - informal musical play alone or with friends
driven artistic vision -- a perspective that coincidentally (?) legitimizes or family, private lessons, public performances, or formalized school
prevailing Neoliberalist attitudes that the arts need not be funded. In instruction. Research has shown school music to be considered separate or
contrast, as many practicing musicians are deeply aware, creative activities unrelated to the rest of children's musical preferences and experiences.
43
Ethnomusicological studies related to children have featured children's implications of music and nationalism are tied in the materiality of the
musical interactions outside of school music - on the playground, during free berimbau. Galm's notion of a symbolic cultural product goes beyond the
time at home, at community functions or traditional events, or in private materiality of an instrument and extends to the embodied and disembodied
lessons. Little has been written about the culture of formalized school music. practices of capoeira. A century after the codification of capoeira in Brazil,
These papers present three different examinations of programs aiming to close capoeira schools have proliferated major metropolitan areas in the North
the gap between formal school music and the larger picture of children's America and Western Europe. As a result, the Afro-Brazilian martial art has
musical identities. Studies were conducted on the work of three music become more about the consumption of a cultural product and less about the
facilitators working within the culture of children's music in school settings. process of participation. Moreover, capoeira has become a product of larger
Through exploration of gender dynamics during the group composition Western institutions such as the health industry and multicultural or
process, examination of social bias via music from the African diaspora, and diversity initiatives. Drawing on Marxist theories of commodity, this paper
construction of effective ear-opening strategies for children, this panel adds investigates the ways universities, dance studios, and athletic organizations in
new perspectives to the existing body of work regarding what children are North America have shifted capoeira from an activity focused on participation,
capable of socially, culturally, and musically. into a commodity focused on production and profit in the late 20th and early
21st centuries. My paper analyzes the process of commodification of capoeira
Re-Member Me: Rebirthing the Self through Musical Practice in a in North America by focusing on participants, teachers, and public reception of
U.S. Womens Prison the martial art. This case study in the reception of capoeira contributes to the
Emily Howe, Boston University larger global narrative, further demonstrating how nationalism is exported to
audiences in the United States.
American scholars, community organizers, and politicians have long struggled
to explain how a nation that calls itself the land of the free could also be If Women Are Drumming Like This, I Doubt They Can Cook for Their
home of the world's highest incarceration rate. Of the more than 200,000 Husbands: The New Phenomenon of Women's Drumming in
women who occupy U.S. prisons, the majority are serving time for non-violent Southern Ghana
offenses, and nearly three-quarters have symptoms of a current mental health Julie Hunter, SUNY Potsdam
problem. Women of different ages, from different backgrounds, serving
different sentences for different crimes, are treated without regard for these While social convention, and a taboo on women's drumming, have historically
differences, and are given limited opportunities for self-expression or personal deterred women from learning to perform hand and stick drums in southern
exploration. In an effort to investigate incarcerated women's ability to engage Ghana, since the late 1980s, there has been an emergence of female
in a liberatory form of musical practice, the presenters co-initiated a drummers, and music associations that support the practice of women's
participatory music program at a U.S. women's prison in 2012. Since then, the drumming. With the changing social, political and economic climate in West
presenters have been collecting data in the form of songs, poetry, artwork, Africa since independence, and a national Women's Movement that spread
journal entries, and external evaluations as a form of participatory fieldwork. across the country in the 1980s, this highly gendered male role has gradually
The participants' reflections on the relationship between music, identity, shifted to include many skilled female performers. Today, female drummers
memory, and community shed light not only on music in prison life, but also and drumming groups are based in a number of towns and villages including
music as a means of personal reinvention, meditation, and escape from daily Accra, Klikor, Cape Coast, Axim, Sunyani, and Anlo-Afiadenyigba, and have
routine. Using portraiture research methodology (Lawrence-Lightfoot 1983), been featured at a range of national festivals and events, such as the Klikor
the presenters will share their data sensitively, with the permission of Habobo's appearance, and representation of the Volta Region, at the
participants, and in keeping with research guidelines for dealing with Inauguration of Ghanaian President John Atta Mills in 2009. Building on
marginalized populations. As one of very few attempts to document and ethnomusicologist James Burns' insightful research on Ewe female singers
understand the role of music in the lives of incarcerated women (Harbert and dancers, I will explore the rise of women's drumming, and the unique
2013), this study will contribute to scholarship examining women's creative lives, experiences, and artistry of female Ghanaian musicians, through the
identities within marginalized settings. lens of the several contemporary groups. Based on my dissertation, and
continuing fieldwork, I will provide examples from recordings, interviews, and
Exporting Capoeira: Nationalism and Commodity in the United States video to support my discussion of key issues connected to this development
Ashley Humphrey, University of Pittsburgh such as popular beliefs about women's drumming, audience reception, the
process of musical learning and transmission, drumming challenges with
In his 2010 book, The Berimbau: Soul of Brazilian Music, ethnomusicologist men, and the political implications and patronage of women's drumming.
Eric Galm suggests Brazilian national identity is symbolically located in the
Afro-Brazilian art of capoeira and more specifically, the berimbau. The
44
Local Ainu Song, Global Indigenous Power: Claiming Indigenous panel seeks to draw out meaning in cultural negotiations through musical
Rights through Music Making in Ainu Mosir and Beyond spaces.
Justin Hunter, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Singing Songs of Hope for a New Nation: Norberto Tavaress Musical
For over 140 years, the Ainu of Japan have faced colonization, assimilation, Visions for Democratic Cape Verde
discrimination, and loss of ancestral homelands. Indigenous people around the Susan Hurley-Glowa, University of Texas at Brownsville
world have seen the same fate and the issues are far from settled. The Ainu
were shocked in 2008 when the Japanese government abruptly reversed a When world music superstar Cesria vora died at home in Cape Verde in
centuries-old policy and proclaimed the Ainu as the Indigenous people of 2011, there were initially no plans for a state funeral for her. In contrast,
Japan. Though seemingly positive, the motives remain suspect. Native to when Cape Verdean American musician Norberto Tavares died in poverty in
northern Japan, the Ainu refer to their ancestral lands as ainu mosir , quiet New England in 2010, a government decision was quickly made to fly his body
place where humans dwell. Much of Ainu song centers on ainu mosir with home for a heros burial. Tavares is now recognized as a visionary and highly
descriptions of animals, land, and spirits, but some view ainu mosir as a influential artist whose choice of words and musical styles provided meaning
space in which all Indigenous people live in harmony with the land. and direction to Cape Verdeans since independence from Portugal (1975).
Considering these songs as texts (Hanks 1989), I examine how a subtext of Music served as a catalyst for this revolutionary change, and still figures
Indigenous rights could expand these localized songs to speak to a global prominently in the cultural reconstruction and assertion of Cape Verdes new
scale. In this paper I explore the contexts, meaning, and usage of Ainu song to national identity. Like some other rare songsmiths cross-culturally, Tavares
speak out for global Indigenous empowerment both in ainu mosir and could move his people and influence public policy through his sometimes
beyond. The Ainu have participated in global Indigenous movements since the nostalgic, sometimes angry musical messages. His funana songs clearly show
1980s and often use music as a way to express respect and share experience. the influence of African revolutionary theorist and agriculturalist Amilcar
Though the Ainu songs speak of the local (ainu mosir), broader themes Cabral and Nelson Mandelas ideas as he took on racial inequality and
develop when presented in global (international) spaces (i.e. Indigenous celebrated Cabrals vision for a new, agriculturally sustainable island nation.
summits, cultural exchange programs, etc.). Silent no more, the Ainu use the In funana style music, he and others fused the roots button accordion sound
power of music to connect to others and to fight for Indigenous rights for all with an idealized, pastoral Afro-Cape Verdean identity. Like in other regional
who dwell in quiet places. accordion styles, the funana accordion acquired special symbolic meanings
tied to place and ethnicity. Based on extensive extended fieldwork with
Framing Indigeneity through Musical Spaces in Asia: Local Politics, Tavares, this paper contextualizes the images and stylistic references in his
Global Movements, and Cultural Negotiations works using a biographical approach to ethnography and presents a portrait of
Justin Hunter, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Chair Panel abstract Tavares as a poet, nationalist composer, humanitarian, and culture bearer.
In 2007, the United Nations approved the Declaration on the Rights of Ethnology, Ethology, and Cognition: On Expressions of Sadness and
Indigenous People (DRIP), which sought to bring legitimacy to claims of Grief
Indigeneity on a global scale. However, local governments have accepted this David Huron, Ohio State University
declaration with varying degrees of fervor. This panel looks at Asia to examine
four contexts in which Indigeneity is negotiated through the use of music, both Studies by the World Health Organization imply that sadness and grief may
locally and globally. In much of Asia, the term indigenous is still in flux and be universal human experiences (WHO, 1983, see also Sartorius et al. 1980,
here we specifically center on examples from East and South Asia. In Taiwan, Jablensky et al. 1981). However, cognitive and psychological research suggests
stereotyped Indigenous identities are used by some as a source of that sadness and grief have different origins and that sadness expressions
empowerment to create an island centric, albeit globalized, discourse through should exhibit higher cultural variability than is the case for grief expressions
performance. On the other hand, tribal (Indigenous) identities in Jharkhand, (Huron, 2012). This appears to be consistent with ethnographic studies related
India are so stereotypical that some choose to break the mold to find power to music and with psychological research on music-related sadness. That is,
through new expressions. In Nepal, the idea of Indigeneity came much later the cognitive and ethological research appears to converge with ethnographic
and only after radical political changes swept the nation. The Indigenous studies related to music. For example, music-like grief expressions share a
Gurungs use music as a space in which to negotiate their Indigenous number of commonalities as exemplified in the lament and sorrow-songs
identities and social belonging in village communities. The Ainu of Japan are literature (Feld 1982, Abu-Lughod 1986, Urban 1988, Seremetakis 1991, Mazo
quite active in global Indigenous movements and use local musics to reach out 1992, McLaren 2000, Wilce 2000, Nenola 2002, Gamliel 2007, Magowan 2007).
and fight for rights with Indigenous groups around the globe. These case However, expressions of sadness (as opposed to grief or mourning) are much
studies provide a look at the complex framing of Indigeneity in Asia as this more variable. For example, Western-enculturated listeners exposed to
45
traditional Hindustani devotional music are apt to incorrectly characterize it important part of a child's development. Thus, without any prior rehearsals or
as sad sounding.? In this paper, it is proposed that there is a notable direct instruction, the Bizing children perform Takai in celebration of a
convergence between musical ethnography, music cognition, and behavioral newborn child entering the community.
ethology with respect to sadness and grief. In particular, the signal/cue
distinction in ethology provides a useful starting-point for less polarized and Amnesia and Anamnesis: Voicing an Alternative Modern Christian
more nuanced conversations regarding the role of biology in cultural Subjectivity in South Korea
expressions. Bo kyung Blenda Im, University of Pennsylvania
Styling Gender: Solo Movements in Salsa Dance What ideals of modern subjectivity are articulated in songs of faith? This
Sydney Hutchinson, Syracuse University paper examines the intervention of gospel music group Heritage Ministries in
Janice Mahinka, The Graduate Center, CUNY the South Korean soundscape. In his ethnography of Korean Presbyterians in
Seoul, cultural anthropologist Nicholas Harkness (2014) demonstrates how
Although media representations of salsa typically focus on its partnered the clean voice, that is, singing in the bel canto Western classical style
aspects, solo movement is an important component of many salsa dance (sngak), has come to symbolize South Korea's spiritual enlightenment and
traditions. These movements are performed as a section within the ethnonational progress. Yet, while sngak is a key component of upper- and
overarching partner dance and are important not only for allowing individuals middle-class urban Protestants' musico-liturgical repertoire, practices that
to personally express themselves but also for the ways in which they occur outside authorized Sunday morning time-spaces deserve critical
contribute to the gendering of participants. Salsa dancers routinely present attention. Such musical practices voice countermelodies that sound against
specific bodily motions as either masculine or feminine, and gender-specific the teleological narrative of Enlightenment modernity. This paper
dance classes--usually ladies' styling, but sometimes men's styling--have demonstrates how Heritage Ministries re-negotiates the sounds of black
grown increasingly popular since the mid to late 1990s. In this participatory American spirituality to articulate an alternative modern Korean Christian
workshop, we will teach basic steps used in solo salsa dancing as well as subjectivity. Heritage, whose sonic signature is clearly distinguishable from
specifically gendered ways of elaborating these steps. Our teaching draws the clean style of sngak, has since 1998 insistently promoted a musical style
upon information gathered through participant-observation, interviews, and that differentiates itself from the authorized sounds and ethics of Korean
salsa media. We will conclude by encouraging participants to engage in Protestant worship. By reading multiple primary sources alongside secondary
dialogue about gendering in this and other forms of social dance. literature ranging from Korean historiography to Caribbean theory, this paper
demonstrates how Heritage Ministries counters the amnesia, or collective
Performing the Elders: Apprenticeship of Children of the Bizing misremembering of colonial modernity, by promoting the anamnesis, or
Lineage in a Dagbamba Takai Performance collective remembrance of suffering. By re-historicizing the heart-mind
Habib Iddrisu, University of Oregon complex (mam), Heritage facilitates a confrontation with and embrace of
multiple aspects of modernity at a crucial juncture in Korean history.
When a new child is born in a traditional Dagbamba home, an ululation is
performed to announce the arrival of the baby to the community. The number From the Struggle for Citizenship to the Fragmentation of Justice:
of intermittent ululations performed by a female member of the family, Reflections on the Place of Dinka Songs in South Sudans
identifies and announces the gender of the baby: four for a girl and three for a Transitional Justice Process
boy. This announcement sets the tone for a community celebration that will Angela Impey, SOAS, University of London
occur one week after the birth of the child when the child will be presented to
the community and given his or her name. On the afternoon of the naming The eruption of violence in South Sudan in December 2013 assumed an
ceremony, the children of the Bizing lineage precede their elders to drum intensity that few could have anticipated, setting back development in the
Takai to call people to the celebration. Although the children's performance of country by decades and exposing internecine conflicts that had long been
Takai may seem to be purely entertainment for one who witnesses it the first obscured by the civil war with (the previously north) Sudan. Allegedly
time, for a cultural insider, these performances have many layers of social and instigated by the interests of top-ranking politicians, the uptake of violence by
cultural importance. In great part, this is a rare opportunity for the children, ordinary citizens made particularly evident the extent to which post-
who typically observe the elders performing but do not participate, to practice Independence peace and reconciliation - previously touted as the governments
and perform. This presentation explores the nature of apprenticeship and foremost agenda - has been manipulated as a tool of control. This paper
learning by observation in Dagbamba music and dance. Learning across the examines the transitional justice discourse in South Sudan and challenges its
globe comes in a variety of forms. But, many cultures found across Africa are inclination to adopt the punitive courtroom-based reparation process - as
built from strong oral traditions where learning by observation is an promoted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and implemented by
46
comparable post-conflict scenarios in Africa - by examines the role of songs musicians. Formerly known as parranda, a Christmas caroling tradition, the
and embodied performance as locally embedded instruments of citizen parang string band and its Christmas-themed festival series are held
engagement, truth-telling and reparation. In so doing, it argues that in their seasonally from mid-September to mid-December as a staged competitive
capacity as public hearings, songs offer a productive mechanism for the performance. Based upon several extended research trips, including a full-
disruption of conventional frameworks of narration, listening and year's study and performance among Trinidad's Spanish Creole community, I
understanding, opening discursive spaces for the expression of multiple public will discuss the Divina Pastora festival, its longheld rituals of devotion and its
positions and forms of agency. However, while songs recount individual, clan connection to parang. I will combine an analysis of oral histories, media
or community memories and wisdoms within the context of culturally discourse and performance, to analyze the connections between modes of
legitimate expressive spaces, they equally reveal potentially incompatible religious devotion and performance in the Spanish Creole community. I
rejoinders to social justice, forgiveness and inclusivity, thus undercutting the propose that the symbolic transfer of religious power, through the concept of
validity of a monophonic framework of conflict and reparative outcomes. sacralized transferrence, has shaped the role of religious devotion in
Trinidad's parang performance. As younger generations of parranderos
Performing the Coon in Contemporary South Africa increasingly invoke religious devotion in parang performance, they strengthen
Francesca Inglese, Brown University the need to unpack suggestions of religious power within Spanish Creole
festive culture.
Minstrel troupes have been a feature of public life in Cape Town since the
mid-1800s, when white and later black American minstrels toured South Rethinking Historicity: Towards a Genealogical Ethnomusicology
Africa and left indelible marks on the musical practices of Cape Town's Michael Iyanaga, Federal University of Pernambuco
creolized ex-slave population. Since its inception, minstrel practice has been
viewed variously as a site of compliance and resistance, linked to larger This paper considers how musical ethnography can serve as a historical
anxieties over the ambiguous position of coloured South Africans (who make methodology for the study of unofficial, silenced, and subaltern histories. As
up the vast majority of participants) and problematic transnational such, this paper theorizes an ethnomusicology that is less historical than
repertoires of racial caricature. In January 2014, shortly after Mandela's genealogical, in the Foucauldian sense. In recent decades, ethnomusicologists
death, over 40 000 minstrel troupe participants paraded through Cape Towns have shown a propensity to treat historicity in a subjective (i.e. mutable)
city streets in colorful silk costumes to celebrate Tweede Nuwe Jaar, also sense. This conceptualization of historicity treats the past as a selective truth
known as the Minstrel Carnival. In the carnival and subsequent musical which only exists, or at least only matters, as it is recalled, and therefore
competitions during the month of January, troupes publicly performed social implicitly privileges historicity as narrative (i.e. what is said to have
and political critiques, but also drew on representations of racial unity in happened) over historicity as socio-historical process (i.e. what happened, in
honor of Mandela, all refracted through minstrelsy's comedic corporeality. an empirical sense). But the past can never be entirely unhinged from an
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with minstrel troupe participants between empirical reality. After all, the past always leaves an array of traces, from
2011-14, I address how the visual, sonic, and embodied remains of a colonial buildings and mass graves to ritual forms and choreographies. Drawing
and apartheid past are continually resignified in the present. Through a close theoretical material from work in ethnomusicology, anthropology, history, and
analysis of the music and dance repertoires of minstrel participants, in performance studies, and introducing data from my own ethnographic and
particular the bodily movements of drum majors and performance stylings of historical research in Brazil, this paper argues that the ethnographic study of
coon singers I show how minstrel practice reveals a fluidity between modes performed behaviors, when coupled with more conventional historical
of cooperation/resistance and mimicry/disavowal as participants reconfigure methodologies, can reveal unofficial histories that have been socially and
citizenship, belonging, and difference in contemporary South Africa. historically silenced by processes of colonialism, domination, or trauma.
Indeed, taking seriously the Bourdieusian notion that history is stored in the
Parang and the Divina Pastora Festival: The Role of Religious body, aesthetic perceptions, habitual acts, etc. this paper proposes rethinking
Devotion in the Expression of Spanish Creole Musical Performance ways in which musical performance can embody and thus communicate
Amelia Ingram, Wesleyan University specific historical musical knowledge which is neither emphasized nor
acknowledged by the musical agents themselves.
Festivals are one of the most visible expressions of ethnic identity in Trinidad,
and religious festivals are a vital part of Trinidad's festive culture. Every May,
Trinidad's Catholics make a pilgrimage to the Divina Pastora festival, held in
the village of Siparia. While participation in the Divina Pastora, or Divine
Shepherdess, festival has diminished over the years, it is still considered to
be a source of religious power among Trinidad's Spanish Creole parang
47
Doener Murders, German Schoolyards, and the Emergence of weapon in the war of risk assessment. These responses become normalized as
National Socialist Hip-Hop they enter our soundworlds through video, games, and military training
Margaret Jackson, Florida State University exercises, heightening our levels of paranoia and our tendencies to essentialize
others.
In 2004, a coalition of anonymous, loosely-organized German right-wing
extremist groups, or Freie Kamaradschaften, produced the first Project Alaturka/Alafranga: Turkish and Sephardi Refracted Alliances and
Schoolyard CD. A sampler of hatecore and neofolk music, the free CD was Self-Definitions in Ottoman and Neo-Ottoman Music
distributed near schools to attract teens to neo-Nazi gatherings. Inspired by Maureen Jackson, University of Minnesota, Chair Panel abstract
heightened publicity following national outrage to the CD's propaganda, the
Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (German National Democratic This panel engages with the interplay of East-West, Ottoman-European, and
Party, or NPD) began using popular music to recruit members through the 'alaturka'-'alafranga' conceptualizations as they pertain to music-making in
production of annual schoolyard CDs. In this paper I examine the musical the late Ottoman empire and post-Ottoman states of Turkey and Serbia. Even
politics of the hip-hop crew n'Socialist Sound System (NSS), introduced to a as the geographic breakdown of such constructs is underway (for example,
broader public on the NPD CD, Against the Stream? (2011). NSS use hip-hop Mediterranean Studies), these historical and shifting rubrics held and
to celebrate ethnic German unity while criticizing contemporary German hip- continue to hold traction in areas of European economic colonialism in the
hop scenes dominated by migrant and post-migrant hip-hoppers. The eastern Mediterranean. This panel coheres around Ottoman musical forms
emergence of Nazi rap coincided with media revelations of the Bosphorus refracted through their distinctive region from the late 19th to 21st centuries.
serial murders, or Doener murders, that took place in Germany between 2000 Making a Musical Living: The Versatility of a Mediterranean Jewish
and 2006. The primary targets of these attacks were ethnic Turks, Composer analyzes the European musical activity of a master Jewish
particularly small business owners and greengrocers. The largest ethnic musician in terms of economic profitability and political complexity fitting
minority in contemporary Germany, Turks number more than 2.5 million uneasily into historical narratives of the patriotic and European-leaning
residents; they are also the most recognizable representatives of hip-hop Ottoman Jew. Ottomanism Revived: Jewish Musicians and Cultural Politics
culture in the country. In this light, the NPD Schoolyard CDs emerge not only in Turkey explores Jewish engagement in cultural politics through changing
as recruiting tools, but also as claims upon sonic primacy in German urban musical spaces for off setting religious discrimination and ethnic prejudice.
landscapes that extend beyond the Neue Bundeslaender to the established Orientalism/ Occidentalism and Nested Alterities: Refracting identities in
migrant communities of the Western states. Turkish Art Music 1920 - 1940 offers a semiotic analysis of hegemonic
discursive formations in the emergence of the genre Turkish classical music
Music, Violence, and Responses to Risk in mid-century Turkey. The Revival of Ottomanism among Belgrade's
Margaret Jackson, Florida State University, Chair Panel abstract Sephardim focuses on the cultural politics of unique Neo-Ottomanist
repertoires in the context of the European Union today. Situated at the
Connections between violence and music in the contemporary world are often intersection of history, music, and politics, the panel as a whole argues for the
subtle, complex, and multifarious. Violence can serve as a catalyst for human fertility of diverse theoretical approaches to the Oriental-Occidental
creativity, just as it can be a force for silencing creative practices. It can maim complexities of Ottoman and post-Ottoman music-making.
and it can cleanse. Indeed, whatever its context, violence is never inert - it
contains within it the demand for a response, reaction, or even retaliation. In Making a Musical Living: The Versatility of a Mediterranean Jewish
each of these papers, violence connects to the heart of musical creativity while Composer
provoking a diverse set of institutionalized responses. Each researcher deals Maureen Jackson, University of Minnesota
in some way with assessments of cultural risks, of forces viewed as morally
questionable or as serious threats to social order. At its core, risk is disruptive, By the end of the 19th century the eastern Mediterranean port city of
a threat to stability that weakens the roots of human relations and that Smyrna/Izmir projected an image of Parisian cosmopolitanism with its newly
radiates out in multiple directions. The cultural and historical particularities renovated port and its touring operas, orchestras, and theatrical troupes from
of these four case studies provide the participants with opportunities to Western Europe. The Ottoman court, moreover, had patronized European
explore the methodological range of contemporary scholarship on music and music, musicians, and teachers at the palace over fifty years earlier. The local
violence, particularly dealing with risk and affect theories. The practice of Jewish community also followed Westernizing trends through, for example,
female genital cutting (FGC) and the presence of those deemed ethnically Alliance Isralite schools promoting an Enlightenment education with
impure, as in the case of ethnic Turks in Germany or ethnic Japanese in European, rather than Ottoman, musical programs. This paper will explore
WWII-era United States, have inspired systematic, institutionalized responses the work of a local master Jewish musician, Santo ikar (1840-1920), whose
aimed at controlling threats to cultural security in which music has become a facility in both European and Ottoman theoretical systems exemplifies the
48
mixed musical environment of the port and Ottoman urban centers as a ESL: English as a Sacred Language in German Evangelical Worship
whole. By accenting the economic over the ideological, the study will Music
investigate ikar 's European-style musical activity, including a polyphonic Deborah Justice, Syracuse University
patriotic song, as all in a day's work of a practicing musician under Sultan
Abdlhamid II (r. 1876-1909), in the context of related pro-imperial media of Protestantism has been in Germany since the Reformation, but over recent
the period, and within an economically struggling community. The European decades, a new strain of international evangelicalism has been challenging the
style of such compositions and ikar s wider intellectual relationships, countrys centuries-old religious institutions. Outside groups - and now their
moreover, reflect a less straight-forward Westernization or Ottomanism local German off-shoots - are promoting an international evangelical aesthetic
attributed to fellow-Jews in historical scholarship, as his work and social life that is changing German Protestant worship. Rather than being an American
simultaneously intersect with new Turkish music and opponents to the post-WW2 legacy, much of this new evangelicalism comes from transnational
reigning sultan. In the end, this paper interprets the multifaceted music- postdenominational groups with roots in the English-speaking world, such as
making of Santo ikar and his Jewish community as the profitable versatility Hillsong (originally based in Australia), Vineyard (based in the United
of working musicians and as clues to more complex political lives than States), and Campus Crusade for Christ (also US-based). The combination of
previously recognized. music, language, and theology has spurred a domino effect of interrelated
changes: from causing Germans to increase their physical involvement in
Baraka's Blues People at 50: Race, Rhythm, and Views in the Study of praise to changing the linguistics of worship. Although sermons are in
African American Music Culture Today German and the liturgical lingua franca is German, in many of these new
Birgitta Johnson, University of South Carolina, Chair Panel abstract German congregations (substantial percentages of which are not fluent
English speakers) sing roughly half of their praise songs in the original
Last year marked the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the late Amiri English. How does English language music play a key role in this foreign style
Baraka's Blues People: Negro Music in White America. A watershed text on of Christianity being perceived as modern and desirable in Germany? What
African American music and cultural expressions in the United States, Blues values does this linguistic blend promote?, Based on field research in multiple
People did not emerge from within the field of ethnomusicology but has Franconian congregations since 2009, this paper suggests that English-
impacted the study of African American music by ethnomusicologists. Just as language German worship practices hold modern, cosmopolitan cache while
Herskovits' The Myth of the Negro Past encouraged ethnographic research of also reinforcing links to imagined communities of global evangelicalism. As
African cultural retentions, Baraka's Blues People emerged when music such, this paper explores the social and theological impact of evangelical
scholars were beginning to assert broader claims about the essence and English as a sacred language in native German congregations.
cultural relevance of African American music in American society as a whole.
Baraka posited that the history of African Americans is embedded in their Ideologies of Language in New Settings of Sacred Music
music and expressive culture; Blues People examined that history through the Deborah Justice, Syracuse University, Chair Panel abstract
lenses of performance culture, spirituality, sociology, and commodification.
Ethnomusicologists used Blues People to expand multidisciplinary approaches The translation of sacred music to new settings is not always an easy matter.
to the study of African American music and have continued the conversation Christianity has always been a religion of evangelization, and increasing
Baraka initiated. This roundtable will include five scholars who represent transnational flows have accelerated its spread into new global contexts. Yet,
various trajectories of theoretical thought and applied scholarship that have Christian evangelizers often have limited control of how Christian expressive
emerged in the wake of new black music genres, previously understudied practice translates and develops in new settings. Our papers examine the role
subcultures, and shifting social and racial climates in America. The position of language in the development of Christian musical practices in disparate
papers and subsequent discussion will include research topics such as the settings. In particular, we explore how ideologies of language influence
analysis of black literature through the lens of hip-hop aesthetics, community language choice in local musical expressions of faith. Panelist one shows how
networks among black classical instrumentalists and composers, masculinities rap provides an unexpectedly neutral medium providing Navajo neo-
and critiques of heteronormative theology in gospel music performance, Pentecostals a genre that blends languages, while also creating a modern
independent soul music scenes, and challenges to music and worship in the alternative to traditional music associated with medicine-man chant of non-
post-Civil Rights Black Church. Christian rituals. Panelist two examines the role of English-language music in
the (re)Christianization of Germany by foreign evangelical post-
denominational groups. Many well-heeled young Germans take an
Anglophone stance on the music as both a cosmopolitan piece of international
culture and a link to global evangelicalism. Panelist three argues that shifts in
gender roles, and current debates regarding the use of English instead of
49
Spanish lyrics in Trinidad parang, reflect different conceptualizations of the are then mystified as to why the part was not included in the nineteenth-
genre as sacred or secular. The spread and development of a world religion century books, and wonder what low-voiced women sang, if not alto. Scholars
like Christianity depends on local communities. These communities identify have thus far not addressed these questions. This paper is an initial
with core elements of Christian practice, yet develop particular ways of exploration of why the alto disappeared from tunebook singing in the South,
nurturing it. The cases discussed in this panel suggest new ways of but was then added to twentieth-century Sacred Harp revisions. The answer
understanding language choice in music, and the aesthetic opportunities and pertains to the age, gender, and voices of those who were singing alto, as well
challenges of Christian localization. as the role of married women in each place and time. The part was not always
associated with women, and the resurgence of the alto is tied to the new
Returning the Musical Treasures of My Mothers Clan: Repatriation prominence of the female voice in the sound and style of twentieth-century
and Kinship in Buganda Sacred Harp.
Damascus Kafumbe, Middlebury College
Performance Practice of the Birifor Xylophone
Although the Baganda people of south-central Uganda are a patrilineal group, SK Kakraba, Independent Performer/Scholar
in this society, ones matrilineal clan is a source of cultural, social, and
political power. There is a general belief that bajjwa (clanswomens children) This presenters discussion outlines cultural principles governing the
have special powers to neutralize spells, dispel invisible problems, and performance of xylophone (gyil) music at Birifor ritual events. Through
terminate supernatural consequences of breaking cultural norms among performance, this presenter will demonstrate repertoire emphasizing gender
matrilineal kin. Within the Mushroom Clan, this power often grants bajjwa and societal associations.
access to the most sacred and secret traditions of the Clan. This includes
information about the Kawuugulu clan-royal drums, which the Clan has Partner Dancing: An Ethnotheory
historically used to meet their political needs and to perform some of their David Kaminsky, University of California, Merced
hereditary duties in the Ganda kingship. In this paper, I will examine the role
that my status as a mujjwa (sing.) in the Mushroom Clan has played in my While studies of social partner dances like tango, lindy hop, and salsa have
documentation and repatriation of Kawuugulu clan-royal traditions. In come into their own in the past few years, they have thus far been
addition to giving me access to historically guarded information, the status handicapped by the lack of a cohesive theoretical language to describe certain
has obligated me to return all research materials and assist with the basic operating principles that they all share. Existing systems for analyzing
construction of a structure where they can be archived and accessed by dance and movement (e.g. Labanalysis) were developed around
members of the Clan. While recent fears that modernity might displace presentational dance forms, and thus privilege the individual body as it
Kawuugulu practices and traditions have played a role in the Clans approval interacts with empty space and outside viewers. In social lead-follow partner
of the first in-depth study of the drums? history and political importance, my dancing, however, these types of interaction are of minor significance
matrilineal ties to the Clan have made the study possible by granting me compared to tactile communications between leader and follower, regulation of
access to this information and reminding me of my responsibility to ensure space between improvising couples on a crowded floor, and the entrainment
their protection and future use. and synchronization of dancers to music. Labanalysis and other stage-oriented
analytical systems are thus of limited use in these contexts. Fortunately,
The Gravest of Female Voices: Women and the Alto in Sacred Harp professional partner dance instructors have developed their own vocabularies
Sarah Kahre, Florida State University for imparting this specialized knowledge to their students. This paper
proposes a systemization of those vocabularies for use by dance scholars, a
The four-part harmony associated with Sacred Harp singing today was also new ethnotheory based on fieldwork with instructors who teach partnering
standard in the early tunebooks of eighteenth-century New England. As techniques across multiple genres. The resulting systemic theoretical
tunebook singing and publishing spread to the frontiers during the nineteenth language will allow scholars of partner dancing to address with far greater
century, however, composers largely stopped writing the counter, the part sophistication how their common subjects of interest--gender hierarchies and
modern singers call the alto. As a result, B. F. White's original Sacred Harps sexual dynamics, embodied reimaginings of class, racial, national, and ethnic
primarily contain tunes in three-part harmony. The alto was re-popularized in identities via social dance practices, and the relationship of gender and sexual
the early twentieth century in revised versions of the Sacred Harp, beginning politics to those reimaginings--are embedded in the very physical principles of
with W. M. Cooper's first revision in 1902, in which an alto was added to all the dances they are studying.
three-part tunes. Although there was some initial resistance, the part became
ubiquitous by mid-century, and strong low female voices play an important
role in the Sacred Harp sound even in the earliest recordings. Modern singers
50
Telephone, Vacuum Cleaner, Couch: Senses and Sounds of the the nottusvara sahityas and the kritis of Dkitar (and the Karnatic music
Everyday in Postwar Japan tradition in general) and analyzes the status of this repertoire of music in
Miki Kaneda, Boston University today's Karnatic music performance tradition.
Everyday sounds, spaces, and technologies drew the attention of many Secret Lives of the Sitar: New Perspectives on a Musical and Cultural
experimental musicians in 1960s Japan as sites for artistic investigation. On Icon
the surface, the resulting performances and recordings appear to be absurd, or Max Katz, College of William and Mary, Chair Panel abstract
nonsensical. Yet, the prevalence of objects and sounds of the everyday in
Japanese experimental music in the 1960s suggests that forays into the Since the mid-twentieth century, the sitar has served as a worldwide icon
everyday were interventions--not just extensions--of ways of sensing and representing the aesthetic grandeur and historical depth of India's classical
making sense of the rapidly changing material and social conditions during a musical traditions. Within ethnomusicology, the sitar has been embraced by
volatile decade in postwar Japan. This paper is an historical and ethnographic successive generations of researchers, inspiring a substantial scholarly corpus.
examination of how the everyday became part of the sonic practices of Yet this panel's papers argue for a re-examination of conventional ideas about
intermedia, a transnational multimedia artistic genre that attracted the instrument, illuminating secret lives of the sitar from three different
experimental Japanese musicians such as Shiomi Mieko, Group Ongaku, and perspectives. Questioning received notions of the sitar's classicism, the first
Yuasa Joji. I analyze intermedia as a collective, cultural practice and paper reveals the centrality of the instrument to nineteenth-century urban
assemblage of sites, sounds, and technologies that connected the artists to popular musical traditions, arguing that much of the sitar repertoire today
broader cultural forces in the 1960s. Using case studies that focus on the actually flows from distinctly non-classical contexts. The second paper
shifting role of women's work and domestic space, I argue that the everyday presents a history of the sitar since the 1960s from the perspective of a sitarist
was hardly a neutral site. A common description of intermedia is that it who has witnessed a half-century of musical and cultural change, offering
transcends or transgresses disciplinary and institutional boundaries. But reflections on the dilemma of creating an individual musical voice amidst the
in order to negotiate those boundaries, intermedia first identifies and chaos and contradictions of a global musical field rife with internal politics.
amplifies them. In this sense, an ethnographic examination of creative Turning to the contemporary marketplace, the final paper examines the
processes in intermedia can add to a richer understanding of sensory and culture of instrument manufacture, investigating the nationwide network of
aesthetic limits that articulate what precisely was at stake in everyday life in laborers, craftsmen, and businesspeople involved in today's sitar trade, and
1960s Japan. thus illuminating the behind-the-scenes world of material production on
which the musical tradition depends. Taken together, the papers of this panel
The Indo Colonial Music of Muthuswami Dikshitar (1775-1835) challenge conventional notions of the sitar as a stable symbol of Indian
Kanniks Kannikeswaran, Univeristy of Cincinnati classical culture, highlighting instead the popular roots, global ambitions, and
material economies of the instrument and its music today.
Two hundred years ago, when the East India Company colonized India,
Muttusvmi Dkitar, one of India's foremost composers in the orthodox Sitar Business: Notes on the Life of Instrument Manufacture in North
Karnatic Music tradition wrote Sanskrit lyrics to thirty nine Irish/Scottish India
and other tunes that arrived with the British. The result is a largely unknown Max Katz, College of William and Mary
and eclectic genre of music that defies any form of classification. Known
collectively as nusvara shityas, these compositions are lyrically rooted in North Indian classical music has been the subject of intense
the paradigm of sttra and are in praise of deities enshrined in various ethnomusicological study for nearly half a century, yet little has been written
temples in South India. The lyrical content of these compositions bears about how, where, when, and by whom its instruments are produced. My
remarkable fidelity to the South Indian Sanskrit song writing tradition. A paper begins to address this lacuna in the literature through a focus on the
comparison of the nusvara shitya repertoire with the Old time and sitar, investigating the behind-the-scenes world of the instrument trade in
Appalachian music of the USA reveals the presence of shared tunes. Thus, North India. Initial field research reveals that the vast majority of sitars made
although the indigenization of colonial tunes in urban and rural South India in India today are cheap and low-quality instruments intended for export
in the 1800s is a rather obscure footnote in Indian musical history, it is part of abroad where they will serve as display items: icons of Indian culture. Yet the
a wider story of the transportation and acculturation of tunes across three creation of even such marginal instruments depends on a large and complex
continents during the colonial period. This presentation features a live network of individuals responsible for the many stages of material acquisition,
demonstration of the key nottusvara sahityas and parallel kritis along with a design, production, and transportation. Shifting our understanding of the sitar
narrative on the historical context and the source of the original European from its role in the grand raga tradition to instead focus on its life as a
tunes. This presentation also shows the sharp contrast in approach between commodity in the global marketplace, my paper illuminates the hidden world
51
of the sitar trade, introducing the laborers, craftsmen, factory owners, and Muslim culture, which is mapped to both Arabness and Malayness. It is
deliverymen who populate this vast yet unacknowledged dimension of the through these fields, I further posit, that the gambus and its music, which are
North Indian music tradition. so closely tied to the Arab world, have become potent emblems of Malay
identity. This paper, with attention to the lesser-studied area of Malaysia in
Biography as Methodology in the Study of Okinawan Folk Song U.S. ethnomusicology, contributes to current scholarship on performance and
Kirk King, University of British Columbia Muslim experiences in Southeast Asia (e.g. Rasmussen 2010, Rasmussen and
Harnish 2011, Daniels 2013) to further show that music forms an integral
Okinawan min'yo (folk song) is an ancient yet living tradition that thrives part of localized Muslim experiences in the region.
today in Okinawa, in mainland Japan, and in the world music scene across
the globe. Often called the grandfather of Okinawan min'yo, Kadekaru An Analytical Approach to Harmonized Bulgarian Village Style
Rinsho (1920-1999) was one of a milieu of WWII-era musicians who produced Repertoires
the earliest commercial recordings of min'yo, defining its sound for future Kalin Kirilov, Towson University
generations. The war in the Pacific ravaged Okinawa and decimated a third of
its population. Kadekaru himself was shot and taken prisoner while serving The music of Bulgaria is an excellent example of a complex musical tradition
as a Japanese soldier in Micronesia, and a certificate of his death was issued which combines Middle Eastern makams, pentatonic scales, diatonic modes,
in 1944, though in fact he survived and returned to Japan a year later. His regional microtonal structures, and major/minor collections. This presentation
hometown was later annexed by one of the many American military bases that traces the formation of a unique harmonic system found in Bulgarian village
- still operational - now occupy a fifth of Okinawa's landmass. Memories of music by analyzing trend-setting pieces from the repertoire. Due to the
war, death, trauma, displacement, survival, and political and social amalgamation of scales and modes, the Bulgarian harmonic system developed
domination still weigh heavily on the minds of Okinawans, who fear being a gradually starting from integrating primary triads, through vertical
target of future military aggression, and whose protests remain ignored displacements and chord substitutions, to borrowing progressions from
during negotiations over their homeland by global powers. I examine how the modern jazz. At the beginning of the 20th century, Bulgarian musicians began
experience of war and militarism have informed the identity and musical experimenting with harmonic accompaniments by adding bass lines and
practices of Okinawan musicians from Kadekaru's time until today, referring chordal progressions to preexisting village style repertoires. Recordings from
to my fieldwork in Okinawa and interviews with associates of Kadekaru and the 1940s-1950s illustrate harmonic preferences towards primary triads but
other important figures in the Okinawan music scene. This presentation also also highlight the establishment of chordal vocabularies for makams such as
makes a case for the utility of biographical research - a burgeoning but still Hicaz. During the 1960s-1970s, tambura players further expanded village
contentious methodology in recent ethnomusicology. style harmony by adapting progressions by ear from arranged ensemble folk
music. The 1980s is a period in which there was a strong influence of the
Contemporary Malay Muslim Identities and Arab Aesthetics in Bulgarian wedding style pioneered by Ivo Papazov and his band. In terms of
Malaysian Performance Institutions harmony, village and wedding styles from this period are difficult to separate,
Joseph Kinzer, University of Washington since most tambura players also played guitars in wedding bands. Recordings
from the 1990s illustrate far more advanced harmonic vocabularies in
Exploring processes of transnationalizing and localizing tradition, this paper comparison to recordings from the previous decades. This is due to the fact
uses Pierre Bourdieu's fields of cultural production to examine the that most tambura players in the 1990s had higher musical education and
contemporary displacement and (re)institutionalization of Malay musical expertise in a variety of musical styles such as the wedding style, rock, and
heritage with particular emphasis on music played on the gambus, a lute that jazz.
closely resembles the Arab 'ud and in Malaysia simultaneously evokes
Arabness, Malayness, and Muslimness. Drawing on field research in Bulgarian Harmony, African Polyphony, and Carnatic Rhythms:
Malaysia, I explore ways in which gambus music is preserved, taught, and Analytical Approaches to the Sound Aspects of Three Musical
transformed through institutions, including an arts conservatory, the ministry Traditions
of culture, performing arts festivals, and individuals who institute creative Kalin Kirilov, Towson University, Chair Panel abstract
choices through study, teaching, and performance. I show that by altering
abstract traditions, institutions as new fields of reception bridge and create This panel consists of three analytical case studies of musical repertoires from
new authorities on cultural heritage formations (Bourdieu 1993). Exploring three separate continents. Each paper offers a different methodological
institutions as fields, I identify the Arab aesthetics invoked in teaching Malay approach, and focuses on a different musical element. Taken together, the
musics. I argue that these fields in effect create new, dynamic, and conflated papers on this panel provide a unique glimpse into the opportunities,
identities in Malaysia that are based on transnational and localized ideas of possibilities, and limitations involved in analyzing non-Western musics. The
52
panel raises important questions about the use of Western analytical tools for Musical Analysis of Bul-Fakir Music
indigenous repertoires, the role of fieldwork in musical analysis, and the emic Benjamin Krakauer, Emory University
versus etic distinction as it relates to analytical methodologies. The first paper
gives a confident analysis of harmony by a researcher born in the Bulgarian Scholarly discussions of Bengali Bul-Fakirs generally concern aspects of
culture, but who subsequently embraced Western analytical tools. He argues esoteric spiritual practice and philosophy, the expression of this philosophy
that they persuasively illuminate how Bulgarian music works. Without any through song texts, or, more recently, the relationship of lay Bengalis to Bul-
direct contact with the members of the musical culture it examines, the second Fakirs. With the exception of Capwell's 1986 monograph, there has been little
paper applies concepts and tools from Western melodic contour theory to scholarship addressing Bul-Fakir music through the lens of musical analysis.
Susanne Frniss' (2006) transcriptions of a polyphonic divination song from In this paper I address Bul-Fakir musical features that have gone largely
the Aka people of Central Africa, modifying and expanding upon the unexamined in previous literature, and many of which reflect changes to the
conclusions she reached through her direct experiences in the field. The third tradition in recent decades. I begin by discussing melodic diversity in the
paper represents the findings of an ethnomusicologist whose analyses of contemporary Bul-Fakir repertoire, emphasizing the incorporation of
Carnatic rhythmic structures reveal remarkable numerological and elements drawn from other Bengali musical forms. Next I discuss the roles of
zoomorphic relations to Hindu philosophy. polyrhythm and participatory discrepancy(Keil 1987) in creating animated
rhythmic textures. In addition to conspicuous shifts of meter, I also analyze
Ritualizing the Past: Archives, Heritage, and Ceremony instances of metrical ambiguity and elasticity of phrasing utilized by vocalists
Ryan Koons, University of California, Los Angeles and percussionists. Next I discuss how various instrumental combinations in
contemporary Bul-Fakir music emphasize different latent characteristics of
Although seemingly inexorable, time is a cultural construct. In indigenous the music. Finally, I highlight the use of neutral intonation in a variety of
communities, however, contradictory temporal constructs often coexist. melodic modes. I suggest that this feature reinforces the notion of Bul-Fakir
Beginning with the assumption that narratives of the past and present can music as an unrefined form performed by untrained musicians, and also
only exist in how they are conceptualized in the present, I analyze two bolsters a sense of the music as an authentic form of spiritual expression. By
conflicting constructions of time at Pvlvcekolv (pronounced Palachicola), a highlighting remarkable and idiosyncratic elements of Bul-Fakir music in its
Muskogee-Creek Native American community. Especially during ritual songs contemporary forms, my research demonstrates the vitality and complexity of
and dances, linear time (typical to Euro-American culture, history, and a musical tradition that is consistently overshadowed by its esoteric song
archival practice) and cyclical or circular time (typical to indigenous texts.
ceremonialism) juxtapose and clash. But they can also be made mutually
beneficial, as when tribal members document ceremony in order to create an Meeting a Hunter at the Coastline: Times, Spaces, and Indigeneity
archive. Additionally, like temporality, one can only construct and in Contemporary Taiwan
contextualize the value of materials held by archives and other heritage Yuan-Yu Kuan, University of Hawaii at Manoa
institutions in the present. Combining my ethnographic fieldwork with
history, heritage theory, archival practice, and indigenous methodology, I In 2013, a concert Meeting a Hunter at the Coastline featuring two Taiwanese
investigate concepts of time at play when Pvlvcekolv sings and dances its way aboriginal musicians was held as one of the performances in a series
through ceremony, and the heritage-based motives that prompt this celebrating the grand opening of the Songyan Eslite Bookstore in Taipei's
contemporary indigenous community to question and combine temporal Xinyi district - Taiwan equivalent of Manhattan. The initial issue of the
constructs. Further, I examine how and why Pvlvcekolv fetishizes and inters bookstore's magazine Times: Cultural Fusion and Live Experience explains
documentation of ritual events that take place on cyclical time in an this space will be the Chinese huaren diqu's flagship station for the cultural
institution (the archive) built on the assumption of linear time. This project creative industry. The bookstore is beside to a former Tobacco Factory built
results from eight years of ethnography with this Florida-based tribal town, by the Japanese colonial government in 1937. Thus the timing, goal, and
including collaborative archival creation, ceremonial locale of this concert raise a series of issues about indigeneity in Taiwanese
participation/documentation, oral history, and archival study. Based on this politics as the island's political battleground expands to include Taiwanese
research, in this paper I explore the complex relationships that arise when aborigines. Taiwanese inhabitants have been portrayed as uncivilized and
ceremonial music and dance interact with heritage activities. primitive historically first by the Chinese scholar Chen Di and subsequently
by the Dutch, Spanish, and Japanese colonial ethnographers. However, these
stereotypes are less valid, given the cited concert and the current political
reality, which constitute a case of how indigeneity figures in Taiwan's current
political-cultural landscape. From the lens of these two aboriginal musicians,
this paper examines the ways in which meanings from different times and
53
spaces are appropriated and re-presented. I argue that stereotypes of citizenry to engage in political action across national boundaries. This paper
indigenous Taiwanese now become a source of empowerment allowing will examine the ways in which Rara Ti Malis, one of Logane, Haiti's oldest
indigenous people to construct an island centric, albeit globalized, discourse and most politically-active Rara bands, uses sound recordings to reach and
through performance. In this case, Taiwan's cultural encounters, colonial mobilize their overseas constituencies by means of encoded musical and
memories, urban modernity and globalization constitute a strategically woven textual messages. Such messages not only allow diaspora Haitians to
fabric of meanings for personal and political gains. participate in an international exchange of musical commodities, they also
promote active participation in local Haitian politics and religious activities.
Transcription, Analysis, and Improvisation: The Mbira Dzavadzimu
Jennifer Kyker, University of Rochester Rusyn, Ukrainian, or Both?: Picking an Identity at the Festival of
Culture of Slovakia's Rusyn-Ukrainians
Exceptionally well represented in the scholarly literature, transcriptions of Sarah Latanyshyn, University of California, Santa Barbara
Zimbabwean mbira dzavadzimu music span over a century, dating back to
German traveler Carl Mauchs initial transcription of three mbira songs in In June 2013, I attended the 59th Annual Festival of Culture of Slovakia's
1882. Approaches to mbira transcription have varied widely, from the Rusyn-Ukrainians. Held each June at the festival grounds perched atop a
conventional Western staff notation used by Mauch to the type of hillside overlooking Svidnik, Slovakia, and adjacent to an open-air museum
mathematical modeling more recently developed by scholars such as Klaus- featuring a recreated Ukrainian village, this festival provides a locus of
Peter Brenner and Martin Scherzinger. Yet these diverse approaches almost intersection for Slavs professing Rusyn, Slovak, and Ukrainian cultural and
universally share a common limitation, in that they offer but a single iteration national affiliations - performers and attendees alike. In recent years,
of a cyclical pattern subject to intensive processes of repetition, variation, and northeastern Slovakia has been the scene of a rebirth of Rusyn cultural and
improvisation during performance. In this paper, I suggest that musical national identity, a phenomenon distancing itself from Rusyn-Ukrainian or
analysis based in the transcription of full mbira pieces, rather than a single Ukrainian identities professed by the area's Eastern Slavs. Why, then, does
cycle, offers a critical way forward in understanding mbira music. As a point the festival at Svidnik persist in following the formerly prevalent Rusyn-
of departure, I offer a full transcription of a solo performance of the song Ukrainian paradigm? Is Svidnik an example of the peaceful coexistence of the
Nhemamusasa played by Musekiwa Chingodza. My analysis touches upon two affiliations? What role does Svidnik, as both a real and imagined place,
various aspects of Chingodzas performance, including relationships between play in these cultural negotiations? Taking as a model the work of
mbira parts and voice lines, moments of transition between alternating ethnomusicologists Timothy Cooley and Louise Wrazen on the transnational
section of relatively stable cyclical patterns, and the importance of the lowest music-culture of the nearby Podhale region of Poland, in this paper, I ground
register of the mbira in improvisatory playing. I close by reflecting on the my observations of the 2013 Svidnik Festival in a discussion of the
challenges inherent in transcribing full performances of musical traditions intersection of theories of place, nostalgia, and what this could mean for the
that, like the mbira, are based in the interaction of multiple, interlocking lines growing Rusyn movement. Drawing also on Edward S. Casey's
within a cyclical structure. phenomenological idea of being-in-place, as well as Barbara Kirshenblatt-
Gimblett's work on tourism, this paper engages previous scholarship in the
Sonic Tourism in Haitian Rara fields of anthropology, historical musicology, philosophy, Slavic studies, and
Michael Largey, Michigan State University sociology. Ethnomusicologists and Slavicists alike may gain insight into the
complicated discourse on festivals, identity, and place in East-Central Europe
For Haitian tourists, the sound of music not only evokes feelings of home, and beyond.
but also creates a sense of national connection, what anthropologists Nina
Glick-Schiller and Georges Fouron call long-distance nationalism, that Folk Music Collection Pamphlet and Ethnomusicological Fieldwork
allows diaspora Haitians to participate in Haitian life despite living abroad. I in Mid- and Late- Twentieth- Century Mainland China
suggest that one specific action that long-distance nationalists take to enact Ho Chak Law, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
their connections to their homeland is to consume the sounds of Haitian Rara
through what I call sonic tourism. Specifically, Haitian Rara bands extend First printed and circulated among researchers affiliated with the Music
the local performance of Rara to Haitians abroad through the circulation of Institute of Chinese National Academy of Arts in 1963, the 98-page Folk
Rara audio recordings that create an ongoing connection between Haiti and Music Collection Pamphlet (Minjian yinyue caifang shouce, hereafter FMCP)
the Haitian diaspora. By participating in this transnational economy, diaspora was a collaborative effort of four second-generation conservatory-trained
Haitians are, to quote Glick-Schiller and Fouron, working to reconstruct Mainland Chinese ethnomusicologists. Based on the concurrent politicized
Haiti. Sonic tourism goes beyond establishing a connection between Haitians guidelines on art as well as their hands-on field experience and academic
at home and abroad; it provides a means for the Haitian transborder training, FMCP established the principles and methods that systematized the
54
folk music collection conducted by cultural workers. Apparently a product Using a Phylogenetic Approach in Ethnomusicology: What about the
adhered to a specific cultural and political environment, the original authors Evolution of Musical Gabonese Heritage?
of FMCP nevertheless decided to revise FMCP in 1983, seven years after the Sylvie Le Bomin, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle
death of Mao Zedong, in response to the new state-commissioned compilation Evelyne Heyer, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle
of multi-volume Chinese Folk Song Anthology (Zhongguo minjian gequ Guillaume Lecointre, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle
jicheng) and Chinese Folk and Ethnic Instrumental Music Anthology
(Zhongguo minzu minjian qiyuequ jicheng). The revised version of FMCP was Music is one of the major traits that is part of our cultural identity. Nothing is
published by Beijing-based Culture and Art Publishing House in 1986, and it known about the mechanisms of its transmission and evolution in a non
instantly became the standard text of ethnomusicological fieldwork in written context, even though this certainly corresponds to the major part of its
Mainland China. This paper scrutinizes how communist ideology remained evolution. Here we focus on orally transmitted music in a large set of
influential in sustaining folk music traditions in Mainland China, as reflected populations from Africa. Musical systematics and categorization were used to
in the structure and content of the published FMCP. FMCP's proposed method develop a method for coding musical characters based on the analysis of the
of folk music classification and documentation suggest how the conservatory transcriptions of 200 songs from gabonese populations known for their rich
discourse and the official vision of ethnicity came into play. FMCP also cultural diversity. Using a phylogenetic approach on this material, we can
demonstrates a cultural-specific employment of music notation, photography, accurately represent the diversity of central african music. The high
and audio recording in ethnomusicological fieldwork, in which such consistency of trees showed that vertical transmission plays a key role in
employment manifests various aspects of Sinification, Westernization, and shaping musical diversity and particularly for internal musical characters.
cultural translation. Contrary to what was expected, our work reveals a strong congruence between
musical character transmission and rules of descent: musical data clearly
Music and Mind: A Panel Sponsored by the Cognitive cluster populations in two groups, matrilinear versus patrilinear.
Ethnomusicology SIG
Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson, Brigham Young University, Chair Panel Family Sense and Family Sound: Home Recordings and Greek-
abstract American Identity
Panayotis League, Harvard University
As the domain of music cognition establishes broader and deeper inroads into
the field of ethnomusicology, it is no surprise that contemporary research In this paper, I consider home recordings on magnetic tape made by members
directions build on many of the most important and fundamental topics in of a musical family of Greek immigrants in Lynn, Massachusetts over the last
modern psychology, with impact into how we can better understand the role of sixty years. For the musicians who made them and relatives who have
music-making in human development and life-cycle experiences. As new listened to them for more than half a century, these reels are more than just
technologies in bio-evolutionary DNA mapping, brain-scan activation, records of musical activity: they are sonic and material sites of emotional
evolutionary psychology, 3-D printing, and big-data processing (just to name a valence, nodes of personal and musical relations, and a means of engaging the
few) allow us to explore human behavior across time and space in ways never senses to craft both a sense of family and a recognizable family sound.
before imagined, how can the ethnographic study of music, musical behavior, Drawing on the work of Bruno Latour and other proponents of actor network
and musical meaning draw upon these burgeoning fields for new research theory as well as the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I explore the
directions and new research tools, and of course, vice-versa? This panel's ways in which these tape recordings themselves enter into dialogue with other
proposed papers help us examine how ongoing research on the following aspects of this community's musical material culture to reveal past musical
central questions, simultaneously contemporary and classic, in the field of practices, shape contemporary ones, and produce ideas and memories about
modern psychology can address interesting and important issues in the musicians who made them. I also argue that many of the performances on
ethnomusicology: 1. What is the role of emotion in human relationships, and these tapes - from traditional island dances to versions of Greek popular songs
how is it expressed in cultural context? 2. What is the relationship between recorded shortly after the release of the commercial recordings - are the site of
music, language, and non-oral/aural human communication? 3. How do amateur immigrant musicians engaging in imaginative dialogue with
children acquire culturally and socially appropriate musical knowledge and professional artists in the homeland: an early example of do-it-yourself 'remix'
skills - the tradition - and how can we track the development and use of culture, a sonic assertion of Greek-American identity, and a willful,
musical information over time? The proposed panel narrows this question to minimalist subversion of the international recording industry's imposition of
the expression of grief and sadness, the role of gesture in human musical orchestration and recording techniques, all made possible by the empowering
communication, and children's acquisition of culturally and socially materiality of reel-to-reel tape.
appropriate musical behavior.
55
Entre Dos Mundos: Contrapuntal Rebellions in the Music of Piata place in languages, the arts, migration, and trade. In a cultural milieu which
Protest is conspicuously modeled after the West - Western music education was
Jonathan Leal, University of North Texas combined with the teaching of traditional musics only in the 2000ssharpleys
Buddhist practice and belief exemplify bidirectional transfer between
In their high-octane, genre-defying compositions, Piata Protest, a self- Buddhist-Chinese and American cultural spheres in Singapore.
proclaimed mojado punk band based out of San Antonio, TX, amplifies tejano
and American punk musics in ways that complicate traditional notions of Global Buddhist Syncretism: Tibet, China, Singapore, California
Chicana/o identity. Their gritty, bicultural sound and impassioned, bilingual Gavin Lee, Duke University, Chair Panel abstract
lyrics raise questions about the harmonies and dissonances that emerge when
musicians fuse different forms of oppositional consciousness: namely, those Recent studies have expanded the sites for the study of Buddhism-centered
distinct modes of thought encapsulated by of Tejano and American punk. In practice, which now include monastery and temple as well as popular music
this presentation, I assert that analyzing Piata Protests sound as a complex consumption and even the American avant-garde. Examining a number of
counterpoint of oppositional rhetoric affords us insight into San Antonios cases across the globe, this panel focuses on contemporary Buddhist musical
sonic landscape, as well as prompts us to question why and how tejano and practices that are characterized by syncretic expressions in which different
punk are converging with vigor in the twenty-first century. By analyzing tenets of Buddhist philosophy or music are combined, sometimes with popular
Piata Protests studio recordings, live performances, and recent interviews or contemporary classical music. Today, the site of the most intense cultural
along sonic and rhetorical axes to engage larger cultural and political foment has shifted from more or less contained practices to accelerating
forcesstructures against which many Chicana/o youth share a deep desire to cultural transfer on different regional, national and global scales. This panel
rebel. In effect, I posit that Piata Protests sonic fusion not only equips us to examines transfer to and from Buddhism-centered cultural practices in Tibet,
unpack how contrasting yet complimentary narratives of rebellion inform China, Singapore, and California. Musical transmission between Tibetian
contemporary Chicana/o youth identities, but also prompts us to engage the Lamas and their non-Tibetian disciples is examined as an economy of gift
implications of pairing two different models of sonic opposition - Tejano and exchange. A study of the musical practice of Buddhist monasteries in China
American punk - together in one enunciation of contemporary Chicana/o reveals syncretism between different sects, which is negotiated through
identity in South Texas. By amplifying these contrapuntal rebellions discourses that are anchored in Chinese/Tibeto-Mongolian and rural/urban
embedded in Piata Protest's work, I aim to promote a nuanced divides. Emptiness (2002) by Singaporean citizen John Sharpley draws on
understanding of Chicana/o identities informed by the grit and gritos of San Buddhist texts and Western and Chinese string instruments, exhibiting
Antonios multicultural sonic landscape. bidirectional cultural transfer. Aura (2005) by California-based Cambodian-
American composer Chinary Ung reflects the syncretic nature of avant-garde
Global Cultural Transfer in Singapore music which expresses Cambodian-Buddhist tenets such as Chaw Pean
Gavin Lee, Duke University Raingsei or radiating light.
In 2002, John Sharpleys sixteen-movement Emptiness premiered in Intercultural Listening in Elliott Sharpes Then Go, for Pansori and
Singapores state-of-the-arts concert hall, The Esplanade Theaters on the Bay. 16 Intonarumori
Drawing on the analysis of syncretic developments in music and music Yoon-Ji Lee, New York University
education, and interviews with the American-born composer (now a
Singaporean citizen), this paper conducts a study of global interculturalism, The purpose of this presentation is to work on a question that has come up
instantiated in one of the worlds most cosmopolitan cities, in which the during research for my dissertation, which is about Korean-Western
population comprises 40? non-citizens. Combining extracts from Tao Te Ching, intercultural music in the New York avant-garde scene. The question concerns
the Heart of Wisdom sutra, and Zen poems, as well as Chinese and Western a new kind of intercultural listening afforded by works such as Elliott Sharpe's
string instruments, Emptiness is an expression of cultural transfer in a global Then Go, for traditional Korean P'ansori singer and 16 Italian futurist
site where English is the official language for government, business, and intonarumori. Such a listening is attuned to both Koreanness and modernism,
education. Rather than being treated as standing apart from the syncretic, and focuses on their intertwinement in song. For instance, one might
Buddhist-influenced Taoist religious practices of the Chinese population, the concentrate on how the fragile Korean emotional complex han, marked by the
work is to be regarded as one among many forms of hybridity occurring at and P'ansori voice, is affected when transposed into a steely futurist environment.
between different cultural scales, as evinced in multiple genres including In my presentation I will elaborate my own intercultural listening of three
traditional and popular musics. In addition to representing a wide range of very different performances of Then Go: one by a traditional Korean (though
Buddhist-related texts, the work also incorporates Buddhist chant and not P'ansori) singer, and the second by an authentic P'ansori singer; excerpts
Western art music styles as part of the hybridization process that also takes of these will be played from CD. The third performance will be done live at the
56
conference, by a Western singer (and digital intonarumori). I will talk about those involved in the jazz manouche circuit, I discuss the empowering
my immediate response in an open way, and hopefully in conversation with prospects of Manouche cultural activism, as well as the futility of such
the SEM community. I want to explore how my own intercultural listening - endeavors in achieving tangible political outcomes. Through music and other
as both a Korean musician studying and working in America, and as a media, musicians address issues such as the lack of recognition of Romani
composer (and not primarily an ethnomusicologist) - might compare with and suffering in the Holocaust, the denial of basic rights to gens du voyage
differ from others'. Hopefully this will also contribute to broader discourse (travelers), and the quotidian hostility they face as internal Others in
about intercultural music and its mysterious listening perspectives. France. These examples indicate a resolve by Manouches to determine for
themselves how they are publicly represented. This paper opens questions
The Impact of India's Female Performing Artists and Widows on about the efficacy of activism and whether, especially in the case of non-verbal
European Operas and Ballets, 1810-1858 expressive practices, performances not overtly framed as political
Tiziana Leucci, Centre d'Etudes de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (CEIAS, CNRS- interventions can constitute cultural activism.
EHESS)
Moving a Stage into a Garden: The Commoditization of Kunqu Opera
From Marco Polo (c.1298) onwards, both India's professional courtesan in China
dancers and singers (called bailadeiras by the Portuguese and bayadres by Da Lin, University of Pittsburgh
the French) and the Hindu widows (Sat) who sacrificed themselves on their
deceased husbands' funeral pyres, have attracted the attention of European This paper examines the process of transforming Kunqu Opera performances
travelers, traders, missionaries and military men. In their journals and into cultural commodities, and explores new values and meanings generated
memoirs we find literally hundreds of descriptions of the dancing girls of in this process of commoditization. The commercial development of the
India, some of which are lively eyewitness accounts that provide valuable centuries-old Kunqu Opera in the new millennium has been characterized by
ethnographic information. Back home these accounts inspired poets, new performance contexts. In 2006, the pioneering production company Polo
composers and choreographers to cast the bayadre's theatrical features on Arts produced an abbreviated version of the classical play The Peony Pavilion
the European stage. First immortalized in a ballad by Goethe (1797), the in a 600-year imperial granary, and the production achieved great economic
Indian dancer-widow became one of the early tragic Romantic heroines. In my and critical success. This commercial model was quickly adopted by many
paper I'll deal with the genesis and construction of the bayadre's character in Kunqu Opera troupes and entrepreneurs who mounted their own garden-
the nineteenth century, particularly during the period 1810-1858. I'll focus on versions (yuanlinban) and pavilion-versions (tingtangban) of classical
the works of Etienne de Jouy, Gaetano Gioja, Eugne Scribe, Filippo and Kunqu plays. These non-typical settings have become the norm for
Marie Taglioni, Andr Deshayes, Jules Perrot, Thophile Gautier, Grard de contemporary Kunqu Opera. Why would a Kunqu play become a commercial
Nerval, and Hector Berlioz. I will analyse their reactions to the fascinating success after it was moved out of the theater? Based on three months of
but strange Indian music and dance performances they attended either in fieldwork in China (2012-13), my study shows that modern-day consumers are
India or in Paris and London (at the Great Exhibition in 1851), and the impact attracted to the spectacular buildings, stage sets, and ambiance of these new
these exotic musical and choreographic traditions had on their own operas settings rather than the elements that define Kunqu, namely, singing, poetry,
and ballets. gesture, and movement. I contend that Kunqu performances in these neo-
theatrical settings constitute a commodity context (Appadurai 1986), a social
Just a Caravan: Cultural Activism and Jazz Manouche in France arena in which a Kunqu performer's labor has become a commodity. Drawing
Siv B. Lie, New York University on two projects that moved their stages from theaters into gardens and
historical attractions, I will describe how this new commodity context has
When you're onstage, you're idolized. And when you leave the stage, you generated new values and meanings for Kunqu performers, producers, and
become once again just a caravan., This statement by Angelo Debarre, famed audiences.
guitarist in the jazz manouche genre based on the recordings of Django
Reinhardt, reflects a sentiment shared by many of my Manouche (Western Analyzing Mbira Music
European Romani or Gypsy) interlocutors: that they are appreciated only as David Locke, Tufts University, Chair Panel abstract
interpreters of jazz manouche and otherwise despised or victimized.
However, certain Manouches use their cultural capital as performers to The social transformations, deep history, and tonal and rhythmic richness of
criticize such hypocrisy while valorizing the musical and non-musical qualities the mbira dzavadzimu tradition have made it a particularly rich site for
of their communities. This paper explores the possibilities and limitations of research. Scholarship in this area is blossoming today with both new
jazz manouche performance as a means of cultural activism for France's approaches and summa contributions from respected senior figures. The panel
Manouche communities. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in France among is intentionally constituted to enable discussion of our subject from different,
57
yet complementary, subject positions. The first presenter, a born-in-the- Que Viva Cristo Rey!: Mexican Cristero Corridos as Sources of Oral
tradition culture-bearer, discusses the adaptation to Chimurenga-style guitar Historiography and Memory of the Post-Revolutionary Cristero Wars
of traditional musical patterns played on the mbira. The second, a skilled Teresita Lozano, University of Colorado, Boulder
American mbira player, points out that most prior musical analyses have
dealt with structures within one musical period of the ever re-cycling music In 1926, while the post-Revolutionary Mexican literati and political elite
and uses an in extenso transcription to illustrate the value of studying under the leadership of Presidente Calles deliberated on national arts and
complete performances. The third speaker, an experienced theorist of various music for propagating new nationalist ideology in the National Congress,
cyclic musical styles, advances an hypothesis about rhythmic structures that several communities in West and Central Mexico were constructing contrary
suggests connections among disparate musical traditions based on musical nationalist ideas based on a Mexican Catholic identity encoded in ballad
structures. Last, a pioneer in mbira studies shares findings from a (corridos) compositions and disseminated through communal singing. For
longitudinal study concerned with modeling the mbira repertory and its these Cristeros (an identity adopted by these Catholic communities),
creative practices. The panel hopes not only to contribute to increased Presidente Calles' anti-clerical laws were eradicating their well-founded
understanding of mbira music but also to embody the value of engaging in identity. Cristero corridos shape an oral historiography and create a series of
ethnomusicological inquiry with a variety of paradigmatic approaches and a narratives that depict governmental oppression of Catholic identity, Cristero
blend of scholarly identities. martyrdom, and political events that framed the insurrection of La Cristiada,
the armed rebellion of the Cristeros against the Mexican government that is
Sorondongo Influenciado: Afro/Canarian Silence and Improvising rarely discussed even in contemporary scholarship. In their transference and
Breaks transmission of cultural memory, the corridos transform from ballads to
Mark Lomanno, Swarthmore College unofficial versions and critiques (Chew 2006) of historical events seen by those
who regard their performance as an archive of society. Drawing on Carol
Taking its title from Germn Lpez's 2009 album, Silencio roto (Broken Muller's application of musical text and performance as archives of historical
Silence), this paper examines the musical history and historiography of the meaning (2002) and Kay Shelemay's discourse on the relationship between
Canary Islands through the song form known as the sorondongo, regarded as music, memory, and history (2006), and examining specific Mexican Cristero
one of the oldest in the archipelago and speculated to date to the pre-colonial corridos, this paper suggests that the corridos constitute repositories of
era. Referring to its marginalidad nacida de su antigedad (marginality cultural and historical memory of La Cristiada. This paper argues that the
borne from its antiquity), Canarian musicologist Manuel Gonzlez Ortega current appropriation of Cristero corridos to the inherited memory and social
suggests that, especially because of its uncertain origins and a wide range of struggles of post-Cristiada generations within and outside of Mexico creates a
interpretative performance practices, the sorondongo occupies a peripheral transgenerational collective Cristero experience.
space among both local musical and research traditions. This paper examines
the work of several contemporary Canarian musicians who--through The Norm and Diversity: Contradictions in Constructing Taiwanese
references to diasporic connections in the Caribbean, North Africa, and Opera as a National Culture
Andalusia--appropriate and re-work this marginality in order to formulate Joy Lu, Wesleyan University
alternate identities in contradistinction to the Spanish state. Because many of
them draw on jazz performance practices, I discuss these artists and their This paper explores the ways in which Taiwanese opera is molded through the
musico-cultural improvisations via the break, as it appears in Ralph nations construction of a unique Taiwanese culture. Koa--hi (, literally
Ellison's The Invisible Man and as theorized by African American scholars song-drama), literally song-drama) has become the emblematic representative
Albert Murray and Fred Moten: as a conceptual space disposed to subversive of Taiwanese culture and is regarded as a national treasure. The English title,
action yet open to diversity. As with the sorondongo, the invisibility of the Taiwanese opera, is used to denote this significant status. Before the 1980s,
Canary Islands within Western academic discourses is perpetuated through however koa--hi was considered vulgar and politically unsuitable, variously
trenchant ahistorical generalizations and scholarly oversight. This paper too Chinese, too Japanese or too Taiwanese. Nevertheless, koa--his well-
celebrates the destabilizing potential of improvisatory musical practices--and adjusted character allowed it to prosper with the people. During fieldwork in
those musicians who break silences--to redress such elisions in the hopes of Taiwan between 2010 and 2013, I noticed the contradictions inherent in
creating space for the continually marginalized and those who struggle to be shaping koa--hi into the national culture. Its free, changeable, folk and fusion
heard. features were considered to be symptomatic of an undisciplined, inartistic
hodgepodge. Moreover, koa--hi was developed from folk tunes that originated
in southeastern China, marring its pure Taiwanese heritage. So how does one
locate the tradition of koa--hi? How does one deal with these contradictions
and turn a vernacular, regional opera into a prestigious, national one? This
58
paper investigates these questions from a musical viewpoint. I first introduce form the composition of most gushe within Persian music. The three
koa--his development and reputation before the 1980s. I then analyze how structures participants will learn are: Persian poetry and structures for
since the 1980s a specific performer, Liao Chiung-Chih, and her crying tone Persian poetic meter called aruz; the unique art of Persian vocal improvisation
were chosen as a model of koa--hi. Finally I examine the way that diversity called tahrir; the specific cadential figures that come at the end of a gushe or
in koa--his music is appreciated as a defining characteristic of Taiwans between two gushes, called forud. Participants in this workshop will learn how
culture. I propose that the above approaches - setting the norm and to use singing and poetry recitation to create aruz and tahrir, and they will
emphasizing diversity - are used to distinguish Taiwanese tradition from see how these structures differ from the instrumental forud. Once a sense of
Chinese culture. all of these elements is established, this workshop will move on to apply these
three structures to performing various gushes from different dastgahs of
The Anatomy of a Gushe: Core Structures and Their Performative Persian music. Participants will learn how these structures both contribute to
Origins in Traditional Persian Music and limit improvisation in different gushes, and the extent to which they
Ann Lucas, Boston College remain similar and change from dastgah/avaz to dastgah/avaz.
The gushe has been described in many ethnomusicological writings as a Raising the Red Violin: The Birth of Chinese-Style Violin Music
primary structure for realizing the larger modal construction of a during the Cultural Revolution
dastgah/avaz during an improvised performance of traditional Persian music. Yawen Ludden, University of Kentucky
Though ethnomusicologists often focus on gushe as a very small aspect of
performance, gushe embody many structures that are key to the overall Many scholars from East and West describe the period of the Cultural
structure of a dastgah/avazs performance. This workshop will explore the Revolution (1966-1976) as a music famine. They claim that music creativity
gushe via active performance practice in order to show participants how these was hampered by censorship and other restraints and that Western style
small melodic structures play a large role in determining performance music was totally banned. Yet that time saw the rise of a hybrid music style
structure.This workshop will teach and explore the melodic structures that combining Chinese and Western music elements in the so-called model
form the composition of most gushe within Persian music. The three works, which included various Western genres, such as symphony and piano
structures participants will learn are: Persian poetry and structures for concerto. Based on primary materials, personal experiences, and first-person
Persian poetic meter called aruz; the unique art of Persian vocal improvisation interviews with performers and composers, this paper focuses on the rise and
called tahrir; the specific cadential figures that come at the end of a gushe or development of violin music during the Cultural Revolution. The overall
between two gushes, called forud. Participants in this workshop will learn how trajectory of this paper traces the sources of this violin music, while
to use singing and poetry recitation to create aruz and tahrir, and they will examining the goals and motivations of its creators. Under a broad socio-
see how these structures differ from the instrumental forud. Once a sense of cultural and musical context, this paper offers a glimpse into the reception,
all of these elements is established, this workshop will move on to apply these transformation, and impact of Western-style violin music in early 1970s
three structures to performing various gushes from different dastgahs of China. By adapting familiar melodies from folk tunes and revolutionary songs,
Persian music. Participants will learn how these structures both contribute to this violin music inherited a musical language that communicated with the
and limit improvisation in different gushes, and the extent to which they masses and gave voice to their emotions. Such practice reveals a hybrid model
remain similar and change from dastgah/avaz to dastgah/avaz. that was sanctioned by the government, complying with Chair Panel
abstractman Mao's socialist art policy to make foreign things serve China.
The Anatomy of a Gushe: Core Structures and Their Performative Furthermore, emulation of the model works resulted in the incorporation of
Origins in Traditional Persian Music performance techniques derived from Chinese instruments, thus enhancing
Ann Lucas, Boston College, Chair Panel abstract the sonority of the violin. As part of a new repertoire of Chinese proletarian
music, these works are still widely performed in China today as Red
The gushe has been described in many ethnomusicological writings as a Classics.
primary structure for realizing the larger modal construction of a
dastgah/avaz during an improvised performance of traditional Persian music. A wayang of the orang puteh?: Theatres, Music Halls and Audiences
Though ethnomusicologists often focus on gushe as a very small aspect of in High-Imperial Calcutta, Madras, Penang and Singapore
performance, gushe embody many structures that are key to the overall David Lunn, King's College London
structure of a dastgah/avaz's performance. This workshop will explore the
gushe via active performance practice in order to show participants how these After the music is over, and the performance is done, we often can only
small melodic structures play a large role in determining performance imagine what actually took place in the space shared by performer and
structure. This workshop will teach and explore the melodic structures that audience: even a recording gets us only so far. In times absent recording, and
59
in places and traditions absent systematic musical or lyrical notation, the functioned as a tool for the assemblage of communities and the exploration of
required imaginative leap is even more demanding, but not always impossible. creativity throughout the continent and beyond. Building on scholarly debates
The music halls and theatres of the colonial cities of South and Southeast Asia in ethnomusicology, anthropology, and African studies, this panel seeks to
played host to a huge variety of local and travelling performers and examine various ways that popular music continues to shape political horizons
performances in the high-imperial period (here, c.1880-1920). Moreover, these in postcolonial West, East, and southern Africa. Working across the
performances were not contained within the halls: the diverse audiences Anglo/Francophone divide and traversing regional specificities, this panel lays
ensured that what was heard within moved into the streets and vernacular the groundwork for a comparative analysis of African popular musics that
performance traditions of the local populations. Drawing on prior scholarship recognizes certain unifying factors of African postcolonial experience without
emphasising the crucial role played by European theatrical performances in ignoring the particularities of local cultural forms. The first paper draws on
the development of Indian Parsi Theatre, as well as voluminous fieldwork in contemporary Bamako, Mali, to make a case for Afropolitanism
contemporaneous accounts of plays, concerts, and operas, this paper explores as a useful model in the comparative analysis of urban popular musics in
the theatrical soundscapes of four Imperial cities at the turn of the 20th Africa. The second presenter focuses on audiovisual productions in Kampala,
century, the interactions between them, and the evolution of theatrical and Uganda, in order to show how music not only reflects but actively shapes the
musical performance styles in these crucibles of cultural and creative social conditions of contemporary urban existence. The third presenter
diversity. examines the movement of popular music within and beyond Africa and
invites us to re-think orthodox ethnomusicological theories of circulation. The
Watch Your Tone!: African Popular Music as Illocutionary Act final paper considers the popular music aesthetics that emerge through the
Charles Lwanga, University of Pittsburgh encounter between Zulu ngoma dancers and entrepreneurial cultural brokers
in post-apartheid South Africa. In shaping aesthetic practices, these cultural
In 2011, Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) boss Jennifer Musisi evicted brokers effectively constitute the very cultural terrain on which those
8 500 vendors from the streets of Kampala. In protest, and as a means of aesthetic practices depend.
survival, the unemployed vendors resorted to robbery and violence.
Subsequently, Ugandan popular music star and ghetto president Bobi Wine Fieldwork at the Fringe: Collaboration or Socioeconomic and
released a song and accompanying video Tugambire Ku Jennifer (Please Cultural Co-dependence?
Talk to Jennifer on our Behalf) that expressed criticism of Musisis policies. Amie Maciszewski, Independent Scholar
The song was condemned by the KCCA and, as a result, several radio stations
were instructed not to play it. The music video re-enacts scenes of street Working with members of the tawaif (courtesan) community in North India,
vendors being evicted from their places on the streets. In this paper, I employ my mission is to raise awareness outside the field about these women's
the notion of performativity to analyze the text, images, and music in the cultural resilience in spite of the profound human rights issues they face. Over
video. By performativity, I refer to the mechanism through which verbal the years, as cognizance has increased among the mainstream, awareness-
utterances do and perform what they say, a phenomenon that John Austin raising has transformed into the realization to either participate in or
(1975) calls an illocutionary act. By performing the eviction of the streets undertake collaborative projects that might directly affect change in
vendor, Wine is speaking to Jennifer on the vendors behalf. As an community members' lives. Here I problematize the notion of collaboration in
illocutionary act, the eviction in the video performs a call to action against the the field with the intention to affect change in research consultants' lives,
heavy-handed top-down policies of the city government. Drawing on fieldwork questioning whether, in the process, socioeconomic or cultural co-dependence
with vendors, city authorities, popular music fans, as well as Bobi Wine enters into the relationship. I explore these issues through an ethnography of
himself, I elucidate how the audiovisual assemblage in Wines video a recording project I conducted during the summer of 2011 in Bihar. The
intervenes in and shapes the social conditions that it simultaneously reflects. I intention of this project was to record the music of a young hereditary singer,
discuss the videos effects on musicians, vendors, and city authorities and youngest daughter in a musical matrilineage, members of the tawaif
conclude that performativity provides a productive way for analyzing popular community there, with whom I have associated since 1996. Through narrative
music in post-colonial Africa. and video footage, I explore the interaction of the musicians--the singers and
their various accompanists--as well as the recordists involved in the project,
Popular Music in Africa: Towards a Comparative Sonic Cartography with me and with each other. I analyze their attitudes regarding, among other
Charles Lwanga, University of Pittsburgh, Chair Panel abstract things, my financial means, immediate pay vs. long-term relationships, and
hopes for fame. I examine issues such as repertoire choices as conscious self-
Since the penetration of popular forms of expression in Africa, music has representation and dynamics among all those involved: the singers,
played an important role in cultural, economic, and political spheres of life. accompanists, recordists, family member observers, and myself.
Mediating individual and collective senses of being, popular music has
60
Keeping Tabs: Alcohol in Country Music's Cultural Economy protest songs--pithily describe his premise, in keeping with the spirit of anime
Marion MacLeod, University of Chicago songs. He also appears live at music festivals and demonstrations, where his
friendly presence alone sends an antinuclear message. Finally, musicians
Most professional musicians will attest to the strong economic association choose to release recordings in cyberspace to eschew music-industry
between alcohol and performance. Musicians are regularly paid in drinks, censorship or copyright issues. Hence, cyberspace allows musicians and
offered drinks as a courtesy, or given a percentage of bar sales in addition to citizens to air their views and connect with like-minded people--but it also
set fees. In North America, most live venues sell alcohol. This contributes to facilitates vicious attacks and the propagation of false rumors.
the overall revenue of a given performance, but, as currency, alcohol's value is
incredibly variable. Music and alcohol enmesh performers, patrons and Sound Networks: Socio-Political Identity, Engagement, and
audience members in ideas of social credit where participants see one another Mobilization through Music in Cyberspace and Independent Media
as employees, bosses, examples, foils or friends. As a result, the worlds of Noriko Manabe, Princeton University, Chair Panel abstract
Fiske's fandom (1992) and Bourdieu's cultural economy (1984) intersect.
Through alcohol-centred gestures, people invest and accumulate capital. Social networks and independent media have played crucial roles in recent
Resources are distributed unequally and distinguish between the privileged social movements, providing alternative viewpoints to mainstream media and
and the deprived. Unlike cultural capital, however, alcohol in musical a space in which citizens can discuss issues, connect with global movements,
environments is not typically convertible into economic capital. Acquiring it and mobilize for on- and offline action. Alternative media is particularly
will not enhance one's career nor facilitate upward mobility. Its dividends lie crucial when citizens perceive the government to be oppressive or
in the pleasures and esteem of one's peers in a highly restricted taste untrustworthy. In such circumstances, the sound of musical performance can
community. Bourdieu's model has been adapted using class, gender, race, and stir emotions, such as anger or sympathy, inducing political action. This panel
age as axes of subordination, typically affording greater discrimination to the discusses the roles played by music in cyberspace and independent media in
dominant than the subordinate. Using musical genre as my axis, I propose forging identity and spurring political action. One paper presents an overview
that genres with subordinate aesthetic roots (country, folk, bluegrass) use the of the ways technology conditions the socio-political power of music in
circulation of alcohol to create nuanced shadow economies in contemporary cyberspace, with Folkways in Wonderland as a cyberworld case study.
performance contexts. These economies share operational features with Another speaker contemplates the role of social media and music in propelling
cultural economies, but also construct identities that put alcohol-dependent and framing the ongoing EuroMaidan protests in Ukraine. A third paper
structures into social circulation. discusses the importance of anonymity--prevalent in Japanese cyberspace--in
overcoming the spiral of silence, and the emergence of anonymous protest
Countering Spirals of Silence: Protest Music and the Anonymity of music, including that by Monjukun, a cherub-faced cartoon character on
Cyberspace in the Japanese Antinuclear Movement Twitter, as a key conduit of antinuclear protest messages. The final paper
Noriko Manabe, Princeton University discusses the impact of mass-mediated depictions of success on underground
rock musicians featured in the Iranian film Nobody Knows about Persian
By disseminating information and facilitating discussion, the internet has Cats, who migrated from difficult circumstances in Iran to Brooklyn, where
helped to counter the spiral of silence (Noelle-Neumann), or kki, which they found both freedom and a tragic end. Together, we interrogate the
restrains citizens from speaking against official or majority views. Two discourses and practices of social transformation surrounding both music and
characteristics of the Japanese internet have supported this function. First, media in conjunction with their limits and their real-world applications.
the preponderance of mobile internet usage has aided intensive tweeting,
twitcasting, and U-Streaming of antinuclear protests and performances as The Intermediate Sphere in North Indian Music: Between and
they happen, broadening participation to those not present and making the Beyond Folk and Classical
protest music repertoire familiar to demonstrators. Second, the Japanese Peter Manuel, John Jay College and the Cuny Graduate Center
covet anonymity in cyberspace to a much greater degree than other
nationalities (Ishii). Many antinuclear songs are uploaded anonymously to In discourse about traditional music in North India, the notions of 'folk' and
avoid reprisals. Pseudonymous antinuclear avatars populate Twitter, the most 'classical' continue to be widely used, and if defined adequately, may continue
successful of which is Monjukun--a cherub-faced cartoon personifying the to serve as handy categorizations in spite of their sometimes problematic
accident-prone Monju reactor, and a parody of yuru-kyara (local mascot). With socio-musical baggage, contested nature, and inapplicability to many music
a personality and life story that bear similarities to Japanese anime Astro Boy genres, especially modern ones. In this presentation I posit the existence of
and Doraemon, Monjukun has grown a franchise that includes several books what could be called an 'intermediate sphere,' comprising a heterogeneous set
and regular newspaper columns, delivering useful information on nuclear of traditional music genres that, in different ways, share features with both
power and radiation with cuteness and bite. His songs--a unique take on folk and classical realms as conventionally characterized. In particular, if the
61
'classical' is traditionally distinguished by the presence of explicit theory and time, since the 1990s Romani brass from Serbia has achieved enormous
by dependence on elite patronage, one can identify a substantial body of music international fame through the films of Emir Kusturica and the music of
genres which are informed by a certain degree and sort of theory--which may Goran Bregovi and Boban Markovi. I argue that local brass musicians
or may not correspond to that of Hindustani music--and by association with increasingly strive to embody the romantic notions of Gypsy exoticism,
patronage by regional or even rural elites. I suggest five categories in this quirkiness, and passion that they perceive Western audiences desire in order
vernacular or intermediate sphere, and provide brief glimpses of some of their to bolster performance prospects abroad. Romani brass musicians from Vranje
constituents and distinguishing features, viz, (1) light classical music often turn to standardized popular repertoires and strategically adopt
(especially thumri and ghazal), (2) sophisticated professional folksong (such as performative conventions that they perceive to be proven' tactics because of
the music of Langas and Manganiars), (3) rg-based devotional genres the success of global brass stars like Boban Markovi and Goran Bregovi;. At
(including Vaishnav samj gyan and haveli sangit, and Sikh gurmat sangit), the same time, however, local musicians often characterize these same
(4) sophisticated prosody-driven genres (e.g. Hathrasi rasiya), and lastly, (5) strategies as ironic and forced by pointing to their inauthenticity. Local
sophisticated drum music (including Banarsi nagra playing, and the tassa musicians may disparage Bregovi's compositions, criticize Markovi's over-
drumming of Trinidad and selected North Indian sites). I conclude with use of flashy jazz elements, or joke about making themselves look more
observations about historical changes in the status of this sphere in general. Gypsy to market themselves to foreigners. In so doing, they acknowledge
that while they feel pressured to fulfill global visions of Gypsy Brass in order
Eastern Arab Maqam in Performance: The Case of Maqam Bayyati to be marketable abroad, they are also constrained by contrived and limited
Scott Marcus, UCSB frameworks shaped by this commercial, international vision of Balkan Romani
brass.
The rendition of a maqam in eastern Arab music, whether in an improvisatory
taqasim or a pre-composed composition, generally follows a common-practice My People, Here it is: The Transformative Aesthetics of Din
understanding of the rules and features of that maqam. The musician or (Navajo) Christian Rap
composer is not trying to be out there but rather to creatively stay within the Kimberly Marshall, The University of Oklahoma
general understandings of the mode. Beyond the notes of the modal scale, this
understanding includes ways to begin a performance, which notes to The Din (Navajo) of Northwest New Mexico have experienced dramatic
emphasize, intonation issues unique to the maqam, specific ways that religious change in the past 50 years due to the exponential spread of neo-
accidentals are used, use of variant upper tetrachords, common modulatory Pentecostalism. Music plays a central role in the worship and manifestation of
patterns, common melodic motives, and a specific path for moving through the spiritual gifts for Navajo Pentecostals, but their theology of anti-syncretism
mode's many features. This body of knowledge is not generally taught; rather creates unique challenges in the composition of Navajo-language based music
it is absorbed through listening to and watching performances and through in this community. Close ties between music and prayer in Traditional
learning respected repertoire. In the workshop, I will lead participants Ceremonial contexts make it difficult to set Navajo words to melody in ways
through the features of maqam Bayyati, one of the common modes of eastern that dont problematically echo medicine-man chant for believers.
Arab music, including a focus on the dynamic interplay between the existing Surprisingly, Navajo-language Rap music has become an important fixture at
(and minimalist) codified theory and practice. The workshop will have a many reservation tent revivals. Drawing upon ethnographic research with the
hands-on format: participants can bring instruments or participate by singing. Navajo neo-Pentecostal community since 2006, this paper argues that Din
My presentation is based on extensive study in the U.S. and in Cairo and also Christian Rap paves a way for creative new composition in the Navajo neo-
longstanding experience as a performer and instructor of this music. Please Pentecostal community. Using a combination of interviews, live-performance
note: I request a 2-hour time slot. participant-observation, and textual analysis, I focus specifically on the work
of Navajo rapper and minister Poetic Truth. Combining both English and
To Look More, You Know, Gypsy: Embodying and Critiquing original-Navajo lyrics, Poetic Truth projects a redeemed gangsta persona and
Tropes of Gypsyness and Balkan Brass on the World Music Scene emphasizes core neo-Pentecostal values, such as becoming saved and engaging
Alexander Markovic, University of Illinois at Chicago in spiritual warfare. I argue that the works of rap artists like Poetic Truth
successfully navigate theological barriers that have stymied melodic settings
This paper explores how Romani brass musicians in Vranje, Serbia, interpret for decades through the transformative aesthetics of spoken-word poetry.
the musical and performative strategies of musicians who have successfully
tapped the World Music market in attempts to access this potentially
lucrative niche. Although brass music has long been central to family
celebrations in Vranje, post-Yugoslav economic collapse has severely
undermined the earnings and status of local Romani musicians. At the same
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Micky's Rara: Sponsoring and Controlling the Haitian Public Sphere included songs in Armenian and Turkish. Drawing from ethnographic and
Kevin Mason, University of British Columbia archival work with John Bilezikjian and his family, I suggest that while
Bilezikjian's communication with Udi Hrant illuminates a transnational
In September 2013, Haitian President Michel Martelly announced a Rara network largely constructed through diasporic projects and practices
Hebdomadaire (weekly Rara processional) to alleviate stress of the (Brubaker 2005), the artists looked beyond the relationship between what was
population caused by the political climate throughout the week. Earlier in the Armenian and what was Anatolian to address broader ideas of vocation,
year, he doubled the Ministry of Culture's budget for February's carnival creativity, and musicianship.
celebrations to $5 million USD, emphasizing the commercial potential of the
event, and personally removing any artists who did not adhere to the Putting the Zen Back into the Flute: Tying Musical Characteristics to
prescribed carnival ambiance. By sponsoring and controlling major avenues Performance Context
of popular critique, something embedded in Rara and kanaval (McAlister Christian Mau, SOAS, University of London
2002), the President commands what Averill (1994:222) calls the koudjay
politik, or harnessing the charged energy of public spectacles for political Al Faruqi (1983) proposes that the characteristics of religious music may be
gain. Through these public gestures, the president actively embraces the determined by the nature of religion itself. She suggests a continuum with
safety valve theory, whereby peaking political tensions are mitigated by the 'transcendent' religions at one end and 'immanent' ones at the opposite pole.
revelry of public events (Gluckman 1971; Kertzer 1988). Earlier in his career, Her two examples (Gregorian and Qur'nic chants), however, only belong to
Martelly performed as a singer named Sweet Micky who branded his style of 'transcendent' religious traditions and she does not supply anything to
synth-driven New Generation konpa to versatile audiences across class and illustrate musical characteristics of an 'immanent' religious system. Her
color divides in the country. He mastered the carnival stage in this position, omission is filled by Howard (1992), who considers shakuhachi honkyoku a
raising the level of competition among bands and therefore creating a more worthy candidate to exemplify this opposite pole of the continuum. What both
frenzied atmosphere. By situating his 1990 song Micky's Rara in context of these treatments fail to fully account for, however, are the performance
with his contemporary political of public events, this paper will observe his contexts involved in the music they consider. While the Japanese shakuhachi,
performances both as Sweet Micky and as President Michel Martelly to an end-blown bamboo notched flute, has inextricable links to Zen Buddhism,
illustrate how the koudjay provides a vantage point to challenge contemporary the associated repertoire is often heard today in concert or recital type
notions of patronage and state control of the public sphere. situations. That a 'sacred' repertoire can be passively listened to is no doubt
testimony to its value from a purely musical perspective. At the same time,
Learning the Oud in Armenian Los Angeles: Transnational however, questions arise on how the musical characteristics may change when
Musicianship between Turkey and the United States in the Mid- offered in contexts that display it before an audience. Based on fieldwork at
Twentieth Century Myan Temple in Kyoto, this study situates the instrument back within the
Alyssa Mathias, University of California, Los Angeles backdrop a temple and examines the activities of its members, which all
center around the shakuhachi. It argues that context itself is an important
Music from the geographic area now encompassed by the Republic of Turkey determinant of how the music may sound and considers the extent to which
evokes a wide range of meanings throughout the Armenian diaspora. After the this can contribute to the discussion started by Al Faruqi.
violent dispersion of Armenians from the region in the early twentieth
century, Armenians have variously interpreted Anatolian cultural practices as The Sounds of Humor: Listening to Gender on Early Barn Dance
national heritage, links to a distant Ottoman past, or symbols against which Radio
Armenian identity should be defined. In this paper I explore the movement of Molly McBride, Memorial University of Newfoundland
people, sound recordings, instruments, and information between Turkey and
United States Armenian communities in the 1950s and 1960s. I ask how In the 1930s American women radio performers, though generally
individual musicians complicate diasporic narratives of homeland and marginalized, found a voice on live barn dance radio programs. These
hostland as they pursue questions of creativity, virtuosity, and musicianship. programs were significant sites of country music (Malone 2010) that mixed
In particular, I examine the education and early career of Los Angeles theatrics, music, and old time values to create a nostalgic sonic world
Armenian musician John Bilezikjian, who found inspiration in the music of (Peterson 1999, McCusker 2008). Though listeners most often heard yodeling
Turkish-Armenian oud master Udi Hrant Kenkulian. Letters between the two cowboys or fiddle breakdowns, scholars (Malone 2003, Jones 2008) have noted
artists reveal Bilezikjians deep admiration for Udi Hrant as an innovative the ubiquity of humor on all programs. Humorous country music gave female
instrumentalist, singer, composer, and improviser. Additionally, photographs performers a unique platform to narrate their status as second-class citizens.
and set lists from Bilezikjian's childhood band show Udi Hrant's influence on The improvisational nature of comedic performance allowed women such as
Bilezikjian's oud technique, performance attire, and repertoire, which An't Idy, Lily May Ledford, and Minnie Pearl to assert their worldviews
63
(Gilbert 2004). Performing humor elicited laughs, but it also conveyed is echoed in Ken McLeod's description of college football's soundscape, white-
meanings about women's often-marginalized experiences. The sounds of dominated hard rock, heavy metal, and country music--in addition to
humor from these women are not only the delivery of a joke or song; they are marching bands. This paper posits musical segregation in college football by
the sounds of marginality. In the context of early barn dance radio, these exploring three trends in case studies from institutions representing the
sounds are often heard through the sonic body. I examine archived nation's five largest collegiate athletic conferences during the 2013 season.
performances of the aforementioned women, to understand the ways in which One, university marketing departments allot time for players' music (read:
the sonic markers of the body--hollerin', foot-stomping, or raspy singing-- music by black performers) before a game begins, while music during and
integrally shaped the sounds of marginality. I address how female performers following gameplay is directed towards the largely white audience in the
both drew on and contested stereotypes of region and ruralness, gender and stands. This allows marketing departments to create a separate space for hip-
age through music that created richly layered meanings but that has not hop and rap from the white-dominated selections utilized during gameplay.
previously been recognized in the scholarship on barn dance radio. Two, marketing and athletic departments employ music as a means of
misrepresenting their institution to high school recruits. For instance, playing
Contact, Contestation and Compromise: Sound and Space in 19th- hip-hop throughout a recruit's visit because university officials believe the
Century Singapore white culture at their school does not attract top players. Three, the marching
Jenny McCallum, King's College London band, a European military ensemble, continues to be the musical embodiment
of the sport, reinforcing perceptions of white strength in football culture
A letter-writer to the Straits Times in 1859 asks whether the police are 'deaf despite modern player demographics. While some positive indicators of change
[or] blind ... that they allow a monster nuisance ... in the shape of the Chinese are emerging, these three trends demonstrate that segregation remains firmly
theatre to continue the discordant noises, miscalled music, until two o'clock in intact in college football culture.
the morning'. Such complaints illustrate the lively traces of listening and
reception preserved in textual sources, even when precise details of musical Returning Bikindi's Songs to Post-Genocide Rwanda (a Confession)
production were never recorded, either in writing or on disc. Indeed, reception Jason McCoy, University of North Texas
is central to understanding the role of sound in mediating inter-community
relations in the diverse yet divided society of 19th-century Singapore. A This paper presents an ethically murky case study involving the informal
meeting-point of migrants from China, India, the Malay world and Europe repatriation of the political music of Simon Bikindi to post-genocide Rwanda.
among others, this was a space where musical traditions and contrasting In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Bikindi composed a number of songs that
ontologies of sound collided. This paper proposes two ways in which sound were later incorporated into a propaganda campaign used to incite the
functioned in this context: as a form of contact between parallel communities genocide of the Tutsi minority. Bikindi now resides in a United Nations
and as an arena for the contestation of space and rights. Sound put spatially prison, and his songs are de facto censored in Rwanda. Ethnographic research
and culturally distinct communities into contact in unique ways through its on my part concerning the reception of Bikindis songs nevertheless revealed a
ability to penetrate visual and spatial barriers. Sound also became a source of desire among some Rwandans to own and listen to them again. A few
conflict when the British administration attempted to impose regulations on requested recordings, placing me in the awkward position of being an agent of
sounding practices according to its own concepts of acceptable behaviour. This repatriation against the governments and much of the populations wishes.
paper argues that the vigorous efforts of Singapore's Asian inhabitants to Considering the subtext of neo-colonial paternalism enshrined in my
defend their sounding traditions and evade control demonstrate the ownership of and their lack of access to the songs, I gave in to these requests.
significance and usefulness of sound in the context of a divided colonial city, Anecdotal evidence will illustrate the ethical conundrum I confronted and
and that the British did not always have the upper hand in this process of pose important questions regarding ethical issues other foreign scholars may
contestation. face when working with highly contested cultural materials.
This is Ghetto Row: Musical Segregation in American College Sounding Neoliberalism in the Richmond City Jail
Football Andrew McGraw, University of Richmond
John McCluskey, University of Kentucky
In this presentation I outline a sonic ethnography of the Richmond VA city
A historical overview of college football's participants exemplifies the racial jail, focusing upon the spring 2014 transition from its old facility to the new
diversification of American culture from the late 19th century to the 21st. Richmond Justice Center. Beginning in July 2013 many residents living in
However, the sport's audience remains largely Anglo-American. Gerald Gems the old facility coalesced around a recording studio established by the author
maintains that football culture reinforces the construction of American in the facilitys small education room, the only non-monitored space, dubbed
identity as an aggressive, commercial, white, Protestant, male society. This the sanctuary by residents. The old building incorporates dorm-style housing,
64
open acoustics, windows, partial surveillance and opportunities for male- Navigating the Hype Machine: Music Blog Aggregators and the New
female collaboration in education programs. Following Wacquant (2009) I Musical Gatekeepers
combine materialist and symbolic perspectives to analyze both the physical James McNally, University of Michigan
differences between the facilities and the content of their residents? musical
performances as embodying the social changes wrought by neoliberalism. In the past decade, music blog aggregators have played an increasingly
Neoliberal trends towards general surveillance, social atomism, the retraction prominent role in the contemporary American popular music sphere. Far and
of social welfare and hyperincarceration of the poor are built into the new away the most widely used of these is the aggregator Hype Machine. Founded
larger facility where residents will be paired in windowless, acoustically in 2005, Hype Machine indexes music and writing from more than 800 music
isolated cells, continually monitored through total, computerized surveillance blogs from around the world. Hype Machine regularly collects the music these
extending to education spaces where male-female interaction will be websites provide and posts it on hypem.com, where users can view and
disallowed. Neoliberal hypermobility of capital, economic deregulation and interact with a constantly updated stream of recently uploaded, playable
generalized social insecurity linked to the erosion of stable wage work is music, as well as a brief quote from and link to the website that wrote the
symbolically present in residents? musical expressions, overwhelmingly original post. Today, it integrates its web application with services such as
concerned with experiences of poverty. As a form of community building, iTunes, Twitter, and Spotify. Despite the central role music blog aggregators
musical interaction in the sanctuary of the old facility has become a context play in American musical life, however, the ethnomusicological scholarship on
for working through the feeling of generalized fear both within and without the subject is limited. Drawing on interviews with independent editors,
the institution. It remains to be seen if this nascent musical community will writers, musicians, and regular users of Hype Machine itself, my paper seeks
survive the transition to the new facility. to construct an ethnography of the structured social space (Bourdieu 1998:
40) created by music blog aggregators. I address the ways they alter the way
Tasting the Names of God: Gender, Timbre and Sufi Bodies musicians alter the content and promotion of their music, as well as the ways
Peter McMurray, Harvard University they change users' listening habits. I argue that they have dramatically
altered contemporary musical discourse, production, and consumption. I
On Friday nights in the Berlin district of Wedding, a small group of Cerrah conclude with a discussion of the ways in which music blog aggregators both
dervishes gather in a rented apartment flat for a weekly zikr ceremony. live up to and fail to fulfill their promises of creating a more diverse,
Mostly first- or second-generation immigrants from Turkey, these dervishes' communitarian, and democratic public sphere.
zikr ceremonies are typically described as communal recitations of various
names and attributes of God. But Cerrahs themselves have a more expansive Unraveling Vocal Timbre: Analyzing the Multivalent and Ineffable in
view of this sonic practice, describing it as a kind of tasting which highlights Sound and Voice
both the particularities of vocal timbre and the multiple sensory modes Eve McPherson, Kent State University at Trumbull, Chair Panel abstract
engaged during zikr, including tasting, but also listening, touching, smelling,
and proprioception, more broadly. An ecology of rituals, all closely related to Perception of timbre is shaped by many interconnected factors -- social,
zikr, has emerged to discipline these sensory engagements: sohbet discourses cognitive, linguistic, acoustic, to name just a few. However, these influences
with the head of the group (or baba); yearly pilgrimages over Easter break to are often more ambiguous and malleable in humanly voiced sound, prompting
visit their sheikh in Susurluk, Turkey; and for Cerrah dervishes in Turkey listeners to respond to vocal timbre subjectively and affectively. In acts of
(but not in Berlin), mek, a weekly musical rehearsal in which new forms of vocal production, singers may not always be aware of the mechanisms they
recitation and bodily movements are taught. Not surprisingly, in this ritual employ or why they make certain performance decisions. Consequently,
entrainment of body and voice, the performance of gender is foregrounded and analysis of vocal timbre must be approached from a variety of angles and draw
shaped in a variety of ways. While women are able to become dervishes, they on interdisciplinary methods in order to achieve even a rudimentary
are consistently placed at the sensory periphery of ceremonies: present but understanding of what is culturally (de)valued or made meaningful in any
invisible and, crucially, inaudible to the male participants, foreclosing the given context. This panel presents four ethnomusicological approaches to
possibility of certain recitations. Timbre thus stakes out certain biopolitical analyzing vocal timbre. The first paper deals with comparative timbres and
boundaries through sound, as men perform piety through timbral virtuosity vocal techniques of Malagasy Catholic songs in two ritual contexts, exploring
while women approximate silence. the ways in which musical communities are created and sustained through
timbral aesthetics. The second paper compares the vowel timbre of Arabic and
Turkish languages in Islamic recitation and its influence on affective
response. The third paper approaches timbre in relation to melodic
improvisation, expanding on urban and rural interpretations of Mongolia
long-song. The final paper examines the role of tobacco use in altering
65
perceived voice quality and producing aesthetic effects in Tuvan throat- Participating from a post apartheid vantage point in the politics of cultural
singing. Using different case studies, this panel attempts not only to present heritage and indigeneity, cultural brokers shape popular aesthetic practices
multivalent approaches to the analysis of timbre, but it also identifies timbral while constituting the cultural terrain itself. In their participation in such
vocality as a soundworld which transcends semantics, in which vocalized politics prevalent in the global South and that arise out of postcolonial
sound plays a significant role in cultural and social meaning-making. experience, post apartheids ngoma artists offer a comparable case study to
popular musicians elsewhere who seek to produce globally legible African
Voicing the Sound of a Secular God: A Comparison of Vowels and voices.
Timbre in the Turkish and Arabic Language Calls to Prayer
Eve McPherson, Kent State University at Trumbull Music and Legacies of Resistance in South Africa's Incomplete
Transition to Freedom
In 1932, under the Turkish Republican agenda, the Arabic-language call to Louise Meintjes, Duke University, Chair Panel abstract
prayer was reconceived as a means to Turkicize the soundscape and classical
Arabic was replaced with modern Turkish. A primary goal of this change was I have walked that long road to freedom... But I have discovered the secret
to remind listeners that Turkey was secular, modern, and, as much as that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills
possible, free from Ottoman and Arab influences. However, Turkish recitation to climb. - Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom Edward Said (1994) argues
was met with public protest, with some scholars arguing that this edict was that resistance against colonialism seldom appears in the singular: primary
perhaps the most disagreeable of the secularist reforms. After all, in the origin resistance is followed by subsequent waves of resistance that characterize the
story of the call, the words were delivered directly in Arabic from the Angel struggle for ideologies in the post-colonial state. Said's argument is
Gabriel. Moreover, in a related recitation art, stories from the Prophet's time increasingly resonant in continuing struggles for equality, reshaped through
recount that it was the beauty of the recited Qur'an in Arabic that, in some the rhetoric of transformation and demands for service delivery in South
cases, caused conversion to Islam. So, when the Turkish Republic altered the Africa. This panel proposes a palimpsest view of resistance in music, showing
language of recitation from a sacred to a mundane one, it is not surprising how past repertoires and performance practices are drawn into different
that people took offense. However, along with being offended at the language, contexts, layering new meanings onto past practices, but also imbuing the
I argue that it was the altered vocal timbre itself that may have been present with resonances of the past. It problematizes the pastness of
unsettling. When Turkish was substituted for Arabic, the vowels were apartheid and resistance suggested by watershed moments like 1994's
changed and vowels dictate basic elements of timbre. Hence, while the state democratic election, observing the rearticulation of past struggle narratives in
argued that changing the language to the vernacular encouraged a more present musical practices and repertoires. It reinterprets notions of
complete understanding by the populace, the populace rejected this resistance as both political and material, exploring music's capacity to
proposition, in essence asserting that meaning was in sound, not in language. articulate aspirations and facilitate South Africa's thwarted transformation.
In this paper, I compare vowel structures and examine the ways in which Key questions this panel seeks to address include: How are narratives of past
timbre evokes affective response. struggles musically reinterpreted in new contexts? What is the relation of
historical and present-day musical practices to sources of power in the
Post-Apartheid Cultural Brokerage on the World Music Circuit contexts of oppression and marginalization? What is the potential of musical
Louise Meintjes, Duke University practices to address the long-term political and material barriers to the
realization of principles of freedom and equality?
I will consider the encounters of the Umzansi Zulu Dancers ngoma troupe
with aspiring South African cultural brokers. Who are the men who seek out Epic (Slam) Poems: Metamodern Griot Traditions on the Fringe of
entrepreneurial relationships with Umzansi Zulu Dancers, what are their Senegalese Hip Hop
aesthetic investments, and what is at stake for Umzansis artists in the Juan Carlos Melendez-Torres, Independent Scholar
processes of negotiation? I draw on my ethnography of Umzansis studio
recording sessions in Johannesburg, of the visits of scouts and filmmakers to Over the course of its 25 years of existence in Senegal, hip hop's practice in its
Umzansis rural Zulu community, and of troupe leader Siyazi Zulus capital city of Dakar has evolved into what could be considered one of the
cultivation of these encounters. Umzansis struggle for a mediated creative world's first truly metamodern musical cultures. The constant shift between
voice reveals some of the practices and thinking behind small-scale brokering traditional tropes (e.g. usage of Wolof proverbs, sampling of griot instruments)
arrangements in the circulation of Zulu sounds. In their searches for means of and contemporary memes (e.g. struggling against economic adversity in the
empowerment, men variously positioned in South Africas under-resourced banlieue and references to media-constructed U.S. rap lifeworlds) in hip hop
communities navigate among affective and curatorial discourses about the performance mirrors a characteristic alternation of artists' attitudes between
past and entrepreneurial and ethical representations of the future. a modern earnestness for sociopolitical change and a postmodern cynicism
66
regarding the potential for art to effect that change. I posit that many hip hop the driving experience. Numerous studies concerning the history and
artists in Dakar, slam poets in particular, rather than aligning themselves development of car radio detail the processes by which the mechanical aspects
with the oft-repeated trope of griots-as-rappers, instead place themselves as of radio became more and better suited for use in the car. Yet within the scope
contemporary poets who draw explicitly on a combination of traditional epic of these studies, the questions addressed are so focused on the problem of how
poetry and post/colonial aesthetics to create a unique and novel metamodern that there is hardly any mention of the other great question: why. Why was
positionality with respect to their artistic practices. This discussion draws on radio first imported into the car? And why, in spite of well-grounded concerns
14 months of ethnographic fieldwork on Senegalese rap (known as Rap regarding the threat of distracted driving or mechanical mishap, did it rise to
Galsen), where I also worked with the first slam poetry collective in Dakar such prominence in American life? Expanding upon current scholarship
and the creator of a new genre termed litterapure. The novel approaches that regarding mechanical manipulations of spatiotemporal environments, I argue
these slammeurs take to combining music and declamatory poetry exemplify that the conditions individually brought about by the radio and the
unique engagements with the intersection of the traditional and the automobile mutually reinforced one another: both worked together to alter the
post/colonial in a hypercontemporary performative context, and open the door perceived passage of time and space for their users. Given that these
to a new line of inquiry into the role of traditional expressive culture in developments directly reflect similar developments that occurred with the
shaping urban arts on the fringe of Rap Galsen. invention of older travel technologies such as the railroad half a century
earlier, the application of radio to the car can be seen as just one more
Working in a Police State: Western Ethnomusicologists in Cold War manifestation of the new spatiotemporal paradigm gripping the post-
Romania industrial West in the first half of the twentieth century.
Maurice Mengel, Syracuse University
Building the Future through the Past: The Revival Movement in
This paper focuses on Western ethnomusicologists who published on Romania Iranian Classical Music and the Reconstruction of National Identity
during the Cold War period and their conflict with the Romanian state, asking in the 1960s and the 1970s
how this conflict was represented in their research. Based on a comparison of Hadi Milanloo, Memorial University of Newfoundland
this body of publications with similar studies on other Southeastern European
countries, both from the Cold War and postsocialist periods, I suggest how Rapid changes in Iran's sociopolitical structure since the 1950s put the
Western research on Romania was exceptional. For example, during the Cold concept of Iranian identity through a new phase of negotiations involving
War Western researchers' publications typically downplayed political issues, both the Iranian government and intellectuals who endeavored to reconstruct
particularly the effects of the Romanian state and its cultural policy on the a national identity based on conceptions of a modern Iran (Mirsepassi 2000,
practice of folk music and its research. As a consequence there has been little Broujerdi 1996). While these negotiations have been the subject of academic
investigation of the new traditions that emerged in Romania as a result of study, research on the relation between the revival movement in Iranian
socialist policies. Drawing on my reading of research from the Cold War classical music and the reconstruction of Iranian identity in that era is sorely
period, as well as on recent interviews with some of these researchers, I lacking. Drawing on government source documents from the 1960s and
explore the factors that led to the relative omission of the political sphere in archival interviews with Iranian musicians who were engaged in revival, this
this body of work. Did the researchers perceive themselves to be in conflict paper explores how Iranian's extensive efforts to reconstruct their identity led
with the state? In what ways did they experience pressure? Did Western to an Iranian classical music revival in the 1960s. Building on Livingston's
researchers knowingly avoid politics - perhaps to protect their Romanian model of revival movements (1999), I demonstrate that While their
partners in the field? Were there other factors at work on this side of the Iron interpretations of Iranian identity were contradictory, Iran's patriarchal
Curtain, related to the larger East-West conflict that similarly pressured them government and the (mostly left-wing) modern intellectuals inadvertently
into writing in a particular way? Based on the Romanian case, I suggest worked together to pave the way for the revival movement and, later, enabling
hypotheses to describe a paradigm shift from Cold War ethnomusicology to it to flourish. The former did so by supporting revivalist activities financially
postsocialist ethnomusicology. and the latter by providing the movement with an ideological basis. My
analysis reveals how the revival movement's association with national identity
As Time Goes By: Car Radio and Spatiotemporal Manipulations of the enabled the revived music to become the mainstream genre in Iran, a
Travel Experience in Twentieth-Century America positioning which did not change for nearly three decades.
Sarah Messbauer, University of California, Davis
Since its invention almost a century ago, the car radio has come to be found in
over ninety-five percent of vehicles on the road. Radio programming is tailored
to suit a mobile audience, and many listeners view it as an essential part of
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Lying Your Way To The Truth: Music, Ethnography, and the Limits of realm of the concert hall. In this regard, the paper seeks to build a case that
Honesty the sitar's history of popular use is a fundamental and under-recognized part
Stephen Millar, Queen's University Belfast of its social and musical legacy.
On February 15th 2013 the Society for Ethnomusicology's Board of Directors Puerto Rican Jbaro Music in the Colombian Caribbean Region
approved a Position Statement on Ethnographic Research and Institutional Errol Montes Pizarro, University of Puerto Rico
Review Boards, its first change on ethical considerations in fifteen years. It
was primarily concerned with establishing the value of oral consent in the The people of the Colombian Caribbean region (la costa) have historically
field and simplifying the review stage for research to gain ethical approval: struggled for recognition in the countrys nationhood discourse that constructs
many issues remain. The ethnomusicologist's approach to the study of music the national culture as mestiza (a mixture of Spaniard and Indigenous
creates a specific set of ethical and methodological challenges. Yet, implicit elements), which leans more to whiteness. In that discourse the costa is
within the SEM's guidance on ethics in fieldwork, there is a tension between constructed as mostly black and backward and its population has always felt
researchers being honest about their reason for studying a given culture and powerless vis--vis the political elite from the interior highland. Beginning in
how that culture chooses to represent itself under observation, particularly if the sixties several musical genres from the non-Hispanic Antilles and the
its members feel uncomfortable or challenged by the researcher's motivations. African continent began to make their way in the musical taste of the people
The SEM's guidelines state the ethnomusicologist should maintain an honest from the lower class strata in the costa. At the same time Puerto Rican jbaro
relationship with their subjects, yet this approach, while morally music became extremely popular in this region of Colombia to the point that
commendable, seems ineffective in studying certain musical cultures. This songs interpreted by Puerto Rican jbaro singers like Odilio Gonzlez and
paper will focus on the tension between the moral and intellectual difficulties others were and still are considered as anthems of Barranquilla and
of accurately representing a musical culture, with specific reference to three Cartagena de Indias. To this day jbaro music is the favorite genre to be
case studies: Indian music in apartheid South Africa (Pillay, 1994); the played during Christmas in both cities. Jbaro music has also been
transmission of Indian musical culture by a Western researcher (Kippen, incorporated in the repertoire of some of the champeta singers. In this paper
2008); and my own research on sectarian music in Scotland. The paper takes we will analyze the presence of jbaro music in the Colombian Caribbean
issue with the claim that ethical behavior in the field is obvious or a matter region and also how it has been in a sense africanized in the context of the
of common sense (Nettl, 2005:202), and seeks to further problematize notions champeta.
of truth in ethnomusicological research.
Uploading Matepe: The Role of Online Learning Communities and the
Rogue Sitar: Popular Music and the Sitar in the 19th Century Desire to Connect to Northeastern Zimbabwe
Allyn Miner, University of Pennsylvania Jocelyn Moon, University of Washington
Zachary Moon, Independent Scholar
Over the past decade scholarship on India's classical music has looked beyond
standard narratives to seek out forgotten and suppressed streams of social In February 2008, a user named B. Jakopo self-published the song
history, focusing especially on the disenfranchisement of courtesans and male Andidenha on YouTube, thereby creating the first online public video
Muslim vocalists. Instrumental music as well, and in particular the tradition featuring matepe, an mbira type of the Sena/Marembe peoples of
of the sitar -- celebrated as the epitome of North Indian classicism -- has a Northeastern Zimbabwe and adjacent areas across the Zimbabwe-
more complicated history than has yet been told. We are familiar with the idea Mozambique border. Jakopo's post sparked the development of matepe's
that hereditary professionals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries online presence and the growth of dialogue between musicians in Zimbabwe,
applied their sophisticated repertoire to the sitar, and even taught some of it Japan, Europe and North America. This developing interest in matepe music
to new generations of non-lineage players. But the sitar also thrived in the cultures have in part been fueled by concerns for a tradition in decline, as
hands of low-status accompanists and other non-elite players: throughout the voiced by Andrew Tracey and John Kaemmer (1989). This paper focuses on
late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries it was the premier parlor virtual public resources such as YouTube videos, online forums, and
instrument in households across urban North India. Though its influence Zimbabwean-music focused listservs, not only as means to access and engage
remains unacknowledged, this popular context produced a new, non-elite with matepe music online, but as grounds to pursue real-time social
repertoire that fed the classical sitar tradition. This paper explores the diverse relationships between matepe players both locally and translocally. To
sources of sitar music through a study of now-forgotten vernacular texts of the understand this process, we discuss the convergence and integration of online
late-nineteenth century. These Urdu-language books, including such treasures and off-line learning communities based on specific online learning resources
as the Sarmya-i 'ishrat or Resource of Pleasure contain substantial (Wellman et al. 2001, Waldron 2011, 2012). The concurrent development of
material from which to develop a new understanding of the sitar beyond the real-time relationships and virtual resources complicates recent discussions in
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the larger Zimbabwean-music community regarding the inverse correlation Music as a Space for Identity, Interaction, and Escapism among Gay
between social ties and internet learning. To address these concerns, we build Men in Special Period Havana
on Jeff Todd Titon's analogy of sustainability (2009) and investigate the role of Moshe Morad, SOAS, University of London
online learning resources in collaborative mechanisms of sustainability. The
authors draw upon their field work in Nyamapanda, Zimbabwe as well as This paper explores the relationship between music and gay identity in
their experiences learning matepe from various on- and offline sources. Havana during the perodo especial, an extended period of economic
Kaemmer, John. 1989. Social Power and Music Change among the Shona. depression starting in the early 1990s, characterised by a collapse of
Ethnomusicology 33: 31-45. Titon, Jeff Todd. 2009. Music and Sustainability: revolutionary values and social norms, and a way of life conducted by
An Ecological Viewpoint. The World of Music 51: 119-138. Waldron, Janice. improvised solutions for survival, including hustling and sex-work. A thriving,
2011. Conceptual Frameworks, Theoretical Models and the Role of YouTube: though constantly harassed and destabilised, clandestine gay scene has
Investigating Informal Music Learning and Teaching in Online Music developed in Havana. During eight different visits between 1995 and 2007,
Community. Journal of Music, Technology and Education 4: 189-200. the researcher became absorbed in the scene, created a wide social network,
Waldron, Janice. 2012. YouTube, fanvids, forums, vlogs and blogs: Informal attended numerous secret gatherings--from clandestine parties to religious
music learning in a convergent on- and offline music community. rituals--and observed patterns of behaviour and communication, and the way
International Journal of Music Education 31: 91-105. Wellman, B. Quan- the scene changed and evolved. The researcher discovered the role of music in
Haase, A. Witte, J. & Hampton, K. 2001. Does the internet increase, the Havana gay scene as a marker of identity, a source of queer codifications
decrease, or supplement social capital? Social networks, participation, and and identifications, a medium of interaction, an outlet for emotion and a way
community commitment. The American Behavioral Scientist 45: 436-455. to escape from a reality of scarcity, oppression and despair. He argues that
music plays a central role in providing the physical, emotional, and conceptual
Music and Higher Education: Exploring New Perspectives spaces which constitute this scene and in the formation of a new hybrid gay
Robin Moore, University of Texas at Austin, Chair Panel abstract identity in Special-Period Havana. Recent publications about Cuban music in
the Special Period discuss race and gender, but hardly deal with
Music curricula in most universities and conservatories today require homosexuality, whilst researches on homosexuality in Cuba hardly mention
fundamental revision. The current model for performance-oriented education music. The research presented in this paper fills this gap and brings to light
dates largely from the mid-nineteenth century when far fewer students had musical spaces in Cuba from a queer ethnomusicology perspective.
access to university education and elitist, hierarchical notions of good and bad
music contributed to the establishment of a canon of elite works. Over the past Children's Music Learning and Social Development in Northern
150 years, Western societies have become markedly more diverse, yet music Ethiopia: A Culture and Cognition Perspective
curricula have not adapted accordingly. A chasm currently exists between the Katell Morand, University of Washington
kinds of applied music taught in music schools and the music most students
identify with or hear each day. The proposed panel creates dialogue among In recent years, a number of studies have started to bridge the gap between
professionals from various fields including ethnomusicology, musicology, ethnomusicology and cognitive psychology and neuroscience, providing new
music education, and music administration with the goal of suggesting insights on topics such as emotion or trance. What happens during the
guidelines for a more inclusive, dynamic, and socially engaged curriculum of formative years of chilhood, however, has not yet been a focus of attention;
study. Specific topics to be discussed by panelists include: an overview of and while the importance of early musical exposure has long been emphasized
existing literature on curricular reform; reflections on the most progressive by ethnomusicologists (Blacking 1967, Berliner 1994), the actual process of
changes taking place at U.S. liberal arts colleges; strategies for circumventing enculturation, which is largely implicit and difficult to observe, has been little
restrictions imposed by U.S. accreditation agencies such as NASM and studied. For answers, one can only turn to scholars of developmental
maintaining diverse offerings in the face of budget cuts; efforts in Canada to psychology of music (Trehub 2003, Hannon & Trainor 2007), and the light
expand teacher education programs so as to be more inclusive; reform efforts they shed - despite numerous limitations - on the fine processes of music
underway in the European Union to redefine national priorities for music acquisition and its significant effect on emotions, empathy and social skills.
learning throughout higher education; and attempts in Brazil to integrate This paper thus argues for a study of music learning combining both
multiple components of music curricula (research and training, curriculum ethnomusicogical and cognitive perspectives. It presents the case-study of
and outreach, secondary and tertiary education) inspired by the writings of Amhara children in a remote area of Northern Ethiopia, where singing,
Paulo Freire and Orlando Fals Borda. learned without supervision, is associated with a wide range of cultural
knowledge such as kinship dynamics, appropriate emotional behavior, or
response to conflict situations. After introducing the local theories of music
learning, their contradictions, and the specific challenges of working with
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unschooled children, I will describe the learning stages and present a series of a primary resource for learning the instrument. Based on ongoing
memory and emotion recognition tests designed to uncover imitation ethnographic fieldwork in Norway, this paper explores the role of recordings
processes. I will then conclude on the link between music learning and social in the transmission and revitalization of the munnharpe tradition. By
development and the importance of its study for our understanding of music. examining where these recordings live, who uses them, and how they
circulate, I will consider both the advantages and potential drawbacks of this
The Small and Micro-music Industries of Tibetan and Exile Tibetan method of transmission. Using the Norwegian case study as a point of
Pop Music: Unpicking Pop Music, Commercialism and Capitalism departure, I will conclude by looking at the impact that different archival and
Anna Morcom, Royal Holloway College, University of London recording paradigms are having on other established jew's harp revivals in
Austria and Sicily.
The crisis in music industries brought about by digital media has seen the
emergence of more and more pop musics that are sustained through patronage Ethnomusicological Perspectives on Open Access Publication
rather than business, or by gift rather than capitalist market economies, as Darren Mueller, Duke University, Chair Panel abstract
recent scholarship has argued. While ethnomusicology still falls short of
anything on the scale of the subfield Economic Anthropology, more With new media technologies, the distribution and publication of academic
sophisticated tools to understand industrial and post-industrial musical research is rapidly changing. Recently, new avenues for scholarly
economies are developing. In this paper, I analyse the connections and communication have been flourishing in our field--examples include the all-
disconnections of pop music and capitalism through a focus on pop music from digital multimedia journal Ethnomusicology Review, self-managed web
exile Tibet and Tibet itself. Tibetan pop music from both inside and outside publications such as Sounding Out!, SEM's Sound Matters and
Tibet has emerged in the last few decades as a result of global capitalism. Ethnomusicology Translations projects, and the 2014 relaunch of Cultural
However, in exile in particular it represents a subsistence economy at best, Anthropology as an open-access journal. Although ethnomusicologists have
and is a long away from being a medium for capital accumulation. This is not recognized the transformative potential of these new forms, questions remain.
just due to piracy, but also to the small size of the Tibetan and exile What social and workflow structures are necessary to make this work
population, dispersed across the vast Himalayan terrains of Tibet, Nepal, sustainable? How do these forms of publication impact tenure and promotion?
India and the entire globe. Using a variety of theoretical models, I explore What is the place of peer review? How can attention to music and sound
ways we can locate such small, non-profitable popular music scenes in global impact the broader discourse surrounding open access publication?
capitalism, understanding the latter as uneven, porous, gapped and Ethnomusicologists, with their dual expertise in sound and culture, are well
contradictory as well as pervasive. This enables us to better refine still positioned to address these questions. This roundtable brings together six
entrenched assumptions that connect pop music, commercialism and music scholars who have published their work in public fora; each creates space for
industries. This is important as more and more music in the world is others to do so as well. Whereas discourse surrounding open-access
mediatised, but, due to technology, smaller and smaller scenes are also being publication tends to focus primarily on technology alone, this panel considers
catered for. the human labor and social structures needed to integrate technology into
scholarly discourse about music. Panelists include the editor of a web-based
Cracking the Code: The Role of Archival Recordings in the Revival of ethnomusicology journal, a tenured scholar who self-publishes extensively
the Norwegian Munnharpe online, a post-doc who helps scholars use digital tools, a Ph.D. candidate who
Deirdre Morgan, SOAS, University of London uses Digital Humanities to create new collaborative research paradigms, a
junior scholar who provokes digital transformations of research and pedagogy,
Unlike the fiddle, which occupies a prominent place in Norwegian traditional and a public-sector scholar who has spearheaded online projects for SEM.
music, the munnharpe is a niche instrument. Resonated inside the mouth
cavity, its techniques are almost completely invisible, making it difficult to Keepers of Tradition: Women in South Korean Traditional Music
learn and even harder to master. Despite these obstacles, the munnharpe Ruth Mueller, Saint Louis University
tradition has managed to remain strong and even thrive in recent years
(Thedans 2011). But how exactly are munnharpe players in Norway cracking Through globalization and modernization, many cultures have seen a decline
the code in the absence of formal teachers, written repertoire, and in the traditional arts. Many governments have created institutions of
mainstream accessibility? A large part of the revival's success lies in the preservation and support traditional artists, however the removal of the these
availability and accessibility of archival recordings (Norwegian Broadcasting arts from popular culture and the subsequent institutionalization has caused
Corporation, Norwegian Folk Music Archive, Agder Folk Music Archive, etc.). significant changes in transmission, study, performance practice and the role
Tracks going back as early the 1930s have inspired new generations of of musician. Post-war South Korea helped pioneer this practice, particularly
players, and virtually every munnharpe player today cites audio recordings as with the Cultural Properties Protection Law of 1962. Prior to this legislation,
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post-war Korea under military rule saw an even greater decline than during Annihilation in God or Just a Party: Sufi Ritual and Performance in
the Japanese Rule. By the late fifties, major universities added traditional Fez, Morocco
arts to previously existing Western classical music programs and traditional Philip Murphy, University of California, Santa Barbara
genres, such as p'ungmul and p'ansori, had become the voice of the nationalist
movement. Fifty years on, the impact of this legislation can now properly be Sufis in Fez combine poetry, melody and movement in order to reach a state of
assessed. Preservation is the meeting point between these processes of decline annihilation in God, where individual consciousness dissolves and tawd (the
and the desire to hold on to the past. As traditional music has been oneness or unity of God) may be truly realized. This occurs during a portion of
marginalized, women are more easily accepted. Furthering the acceptance of private Sufi ritual called ara, which literally translates to presence, and has
women is the association of women as preservers of family traditions. connotations of Divine presence accessed during the ritual. Although this
Throughout patriarchal societies, the process of modernization, private ritual activity is alive, today the ara is no longer strictly moored to
industrialization, and colonial rule often leads to a division between men as private gatherings in Sufi lodges. Due to official government support, new
innovators and women as preservers. Within Korea, as elsewhere, female media, and transnational interest, Sufi ritual circulates through public
musicians have become accepted -- and even predominate -- in fields from performances and appears in a variety of contexts. In this paper I demonstrate
which they traditionally had been excluded. This paper explores the processes how dynamic private rituals and public performances inform one another and
that led to the shift from mostly male to mostly female traditional musicians carry diverse meanings such as a path to annihilation in God, and a way to
within South Korea and the degree to which this shift has influenced celebrate at a party. These may seem to be extremely polarized goals. I argue
traditional music as it is practiced today. The analysis of the South Korean that they are not necessarily so. More specifically I present Sufi ara as an
experience is crucial to understanding the preservation of traditional arts embodied ritual and performance that is used to express and realize both Sufi
within rapidly globalizing societies. and non-Sufi understandings of the Islamic concept of tawd. I draw on
recent scholarship and my own fieldwork in Fez to demonstrate how religious
Mbira as Chimurenga: Guitar Impressions, Performance and rituals and sacred performances exist in a circulatory system where they
Reception of a Popular Music from Zimbabwe continuously inform one another. Boundaries between ritual, performance,
Tendai Muparutsa, Williams College entertainment, and everyday acts are dissolved as Sufism circulates in novel
ways and spaces and impacts everyday worship and public displays of piety
The social transformations, deep history, and tonal and rhythmic richness of for Sufis and non-Sufi Muslims in Fez.
the mbira dzavadzimu tradition have made it a particularly rich site for
research. Scholarship in this area is blossoming today with both new Is Tango Russian/How Russian is Tango?
approaches and summa contributions from respected senior figures. The panel Inna Naroditskaya, Northwestern University
is intentionally constituted to enable discussion of our subject from different,
yet complementary, subject positions. The first presenter, a born-in-the- Plunging into tango with my Columbian instructor, touring Argentine
tradition culture-bearer, discusses the adaptation to Chimurenga-style guitar masters, and an American partner, I entered the Chicago tango scene to find
of traditional musical patterns played on the mbira. The second, a skilled it populated by immigrants from the USSR. A similar story in other American
American mbira player, points out that most prior musical analyses have cities. My participatory fieldwork in Chicago leads a hundred years back to
dealt with structures within one musical period of the ever re-cycling music Russia -- enraptured by futurism, cubism, and supremacism, in the transition
and uses an in extenso transcription to illustrate the value of studying from WWI to its rendezvous with revolution, awash in the tango craze.
complete performances. The third speaker, an experienced theorist of various Russian tango songs fed nostalgia of White Russian immigrants in exile, and
cyclic musical styles, advances an hypothesis about rhythmic structures that expressed lyricism, heroism, and WWII losses in the Soviet Union (Pietr
suggests connections among disparate musical traditions based on musical Leschenko, Vertinsky, Shilzhenko). Utesov, the darling of Soviet Estrada/jazz,
structures. Last, a pioneer in mbira studies shares findings from a featured tango in Russia's first musical comedy, Veselye Rebiata. Among
longitudinal study concerned with modeling the mbira repertory and its Russian/Soviet tango composers, Jews played a prominent role. Perhaps the
creative practices. The panel hopes not only to contribute to increased pining tone of tango echoed longing klezmer tunes, the violin/fiddle
understanding of mbira music but also to embody the value of engaging in dominating many Russian tangos. Perhaps tango's heightened emotion
ethnomusicological inquiry with a variety of paradigmatic approaches and a resonated with Russian urban song (romance); affinity with accordion
blend of scholarly identities. attracted Russians to Argentinian bandaneon. Tango in Russia has been
located at the intersection of jazz, klezmer, romance, accordion, Estrada, and
dance. With the advent of electronic music, disco, rock, and rap, tango moved
into the background. Yet, occupying a very specific niche in Soviet Estrada,
Russian tango remains a part of the soundscape for emigrants from the Soviet
71
land. How and why has tango been transmitted into the life of the middle in order to expose more complex and nuanced dynamics that are so often
class, middle-aged Soviet diaspora in the US? unstated but remain audible in the resultant music. Each paper situates
collaborative circumstances as historically contingent and potentially
Art vs. Aid in the East of Congo ideologically inflected: despite the regional specificity of the interactions, the
Cherie Ndaliko, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill significance of these collaborations lies partially in the ways that they expose
hidden and often conflicted relations between cultures and economies. The
In the east of the DRC, a curious dynamic is quickly gaining momentum: in papers of this panel seek to explore the concrete social realities of these
the face of the deadliest conflict since WWII, many of the international collaborations, while also examining the afterlife of these commodities as
humanitarian organizations that initially came to provide emergency relief they function in the lives of both African and North American consumers.
have started producing songs and musical albums. The stated aim of this
practice is two-fold: first to gain traction with local populations who view Introduction: Women Music Makers in India
humanitarian organizations with suspicion; and second, to support the Daniel Neuman, University of California, Los Angeles
creation of cultural products that, through digital distribution channels, allow
local voices to speak to global audiences. That the latter motivation also Thirty years ago, on September 7th and 8th, 1984, India held its first
establishes a lucrative fundraising platform for NGOs raises certain question academic conference on women music makers, as it was called. This had been
about the ethics of such projects. However, the larger problem is in the a completely taboo subject until then, since the women music makers featured
dynamics of the musical productions themselves. Through a case study of a were singing and dancing courtesans a much stigmatized group, but
recent collaboration between an international NGO and a local cultural centrally important for the history of Indian music in many respects. This
center, this paper builds on the increasingly urgent ethnomusicological conference was particularly important because it was the first time--I believe
engagement with music and conflict by examining what is at stake when anywhere, but particularly in India--that a conference was held celebrating
foreign entities, trained in administering medical and structural aid, begin to the importance of these performers rather than castigating them, as had been
alter a musical landscape. I argue that humanitarian practices often function standard in India for well over a century, as prostitutes.Since that initial
as a form of charitable imperialism, which, like traditional iterations of conference in India there has been, particularly in the last decade, a
imperialism, promotes an insidious relationship between imperial practices significant increase in publications on women music makers in India,
and culture production. I pay particular attention to the influence of power, incorporating the results of both historical and contemporary ethnographic
economics, and cultural bias in these artistic partnerships, how the rhetoric of research. Indeed, two major books have been published on the subject just
humanitarianism diverts critical inquiries into practices of giving voice and since January of this year. But the fundamental significance of all this
silencing, and, finally, what functions the songs and albums ultimately serve research has been the establishment of courtesan performers as proper and
in the respective 'local' communities of their collaborators. important subjects of inquiry, a still sensitive topic in India. I am proposing a
panel with eight individuals that turns out to be exceptionally international. I
Musical Collaboration and Capital in Africa will act as Chair Panel abstract and discussant, and provide a brief (five
Cherie Ndaliko, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chair Panel minute) overview of the conference in India 30 years ago.The following
abstract abstracts from the eight panelists include a heterogeneous set of perspectives,
but all focused on courtesan performers, from both North and South India.
New opportunities and problems in cross-cultural musical collaborations Given the number of speakers (8 plus the Chair Panel abstract briefly), we
continue to arise with the spread of global capital. Collaboration itself is may require scheduling for two organized panels.
increasingly part of marketing strategies--the value of cross-culturally
produced musical commodities lies partially in their status as products Women Music Makers in India
produced through a harmonious and benevolent contact with the Other. Yet, Daniel Neuman, University of California, Los Angeles, Chair Panel abstract
contrary to the hopes of many involved in producing and marketing these
projects, cross-cultural collaboration does not suspend the specific cultural Thirty years ago, on September 7th and 8th, 1984, India held its first
politics of the individuals or organizations involved nor allow for a de- academic conference on women music makers, as it was called. This had been
politicized encounter. Instead, the hybridization that is celebrated in aesthetic a completely taboo subject until then, since the women music makers featured
products is often the result of significant tension in the realm of power were singing and dancing courtesans, a much stigmatized group, but
dynamics and social interactions. As a recent collection of essays on Music centrally important for the history of Indian music in many respects. This
and Globalization points out, collaboration remains a phenomenon deeply in conference was particularly important because it was the first time--I believe
need of further study and theorization. This panel explores multiple anywhere, but particularly in India--that an academic conference was held
paradigms of collaboration - including artistic, organizational, and scholarly - celebrating the importance of these performers rather than castigating them,
72
as had been standard in India for well over a century, as prostitutes. Since where institutional compliance may impact the quality of the findings, narrow
that initial conference in India there has been, particularly in the last decade, its potential significance, or even cause project termination. Based on their
a significant increase in publications on women music makers in India, experienced perspectives, members of the roundtable will discuss ways to
incorporating the results of both historical and contemporary ethnographic effectively communicate the nature of ethnographic performance using
research. Indeed, two major books have been published on the subject just language that is sensitive to institutional ethical concerns in documents such
since January of this year. But the fundamental significance of all this as proposals. More broadly, the insights elicited by the roundtable will expand
research has been the establishment of courtesan performers as proper and the discourse on ethics to offer a range of approaches addressing today's
important subjects of inquiry, a still sensitive topic in India. relevant ethical fieldwork concerns, such as preserving informant privacy,
handling friendships, confronting uncomfortable musical material, and being
Quiet, Racialized Vocality at Fisk University truthful and transparent in analysis. The resulting discussion will present
Marti Newland, Columbia University successful methods for balancing the pursuit of cutting-edge research topics
with the expectations of institutional requirements, and will more generally
Scholarship on the affect of black Americans singing collectively has pervaded consider the meaningful ethical ethnomusicological questions of our day.
narratives of resistance to racial injustice. These narratives include examples
of spirituals that emerged during the enslavement of Africans, freedom songs Cajun Pride
of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as hip-hop vocals of the current David Novak, University of California, Santa Barbara
moment. Aesthetically, scholars describe these vocal expressions as strident
and loud and historicize them in their empowering affect as a characteristic When did Cajun Pride first come into our lives? I remember buying the CD at
of a long freedom struggle. Within the vocal activities at historically black a rummage sale on some distracted afternoon, weeks after our son Gus was
colleges and universities, students and faculty make audible a broader born. It was a casual, accidental purchase and I took the CD home innocently,
aesthetic range of political vocality. This presentation offers an analysis of planning to listen to it when I had the time. I couldnt have known that we
singers' practices of vocal quietness among the Fisk Jubilee SingersR in the would soon be immersed in Cajun Pride; that we would hear it thousands of
context of Fisk University and popular culture. Drawing from fieldwork on the times; that its sound would become the background to our daily lives; that we
campus, literary theory, and vocal anthropology, I examine how vocal would become intimately, irrevocably familiar with the album that became the
quietness and vocal loudness figures in how black college students use leitmotif of Guss second and third years. Why Cajun music? Why this
their voices in political action towards participation in legacies of African recording? For me, the mix of personal and intellectual questions here are
American excellence, recognition as racially black and managing public hard to distinguish. It could be a case study of childhood learning, a
reception of themselves as upwardly mobile citizens. I detail the singing meditation on musical repetitions in everyday life, or perhaps just the starry-
process, choral conducting approaches and goals for audience reception among eyed wonder of a first-time father. In this paper, I unpack my toddler's
the Fisk Jubilee SingersR. This work contributes to articulating the role of obsession with Jo-el Sonnier's 1997 Grammy-nominated album to consider the
genre and higher education in the dynamic politics of racialized vocality in the effects of technological mediation, the role of media in childhood development,
United States. and social discourses about musical taste. Listening to recordings has become
an essential part of becoming a person, from the earliest stages of
Ethical Tight Spots: How Ethnography Can Survive Institutional development -- even when mediation brings modern subjects into complex
Requirements, Maintain Morality, and Still Say Something Relevant identifications with local cultures and musical traditions. And so too with my
Jordan Newman, University of Cincinnati, Chair Panel abstract son, learning to dance to La Valse de Grand Mamou far from the Bayou.
While university music scholars venture voraciously into unfamiliar spaces, Black, White, Blue, or Flower?: Mapping Musical Diversity among the
violent geographies, and mysterious new digital zones, they must navigate Hmong of Vietnam
increasingly strict codes of ethics designed by educational institutions to Lonn Briain, University of Nottingham
create scientific and legal standards for human research. More than ever,
ethnomusicologists today value the safety, security, and rights of their Following independence in 1954, the invention of a national musical tradition
subjects and collaborators, and their own; but how do they elicit genuine on- for North Vietnam demanded the inclusion of compatible features from the
the-ground reflections of music and life experiences with the sometimes- musical cultures of the ethnic minorities living in the region. The first step in
dubious formalities of written permission and meticulously prescribed this creative process was to compile musicological studies of these groups and
investigation demanded by review boards? This roundtable, cosponsored by ascribe musical instruments and styles to particular peoples and localities.
the Student Union section and the Music and Violence special interest group, Hng Thao, a recent graduate from the National Academy of Music in Hanoi,
explores the challenges of fieldwork and research, particularly within topics was sent to H Giang province to study the music of the Hmong people. In the
73
1960s, he produced a series of articles and a book on this musical culture to types of action that are contrary to the instrumentality of the
which were then used by musicians and composers in Hanoi to create understanding of culture as a resource. This paper explores notions of silence
tokenistic Hmong pieces in the style of modern national music. Since that that emerge contra ideas of productive, capitalistic labor and its accompanying
monumental research, however, there have been no attempts to account for political theology. Rather than conservation, such notions of silence often
the diversity of musical styles within the Hmong community. Despite invoke ideas of transformation that are not necessarily tied to a relation
comprising a population of over one million people, a minority of whom reside between cause and effect. This paper explores the interrelationship between
in H Giang, representations of their musical cultures have been reduced to techniques of quietness and transformation and their relevance for the
stereotypes based on this region only. Using comparative musical analysis of redefinition of a political sense of the acoustic. The paper draws from different
my own field recordings and those by the Vietnamese Institute for Musicology, archival and contemporary sources from Latin America and the Caribbean in
I present the first attempt to comprehensively map Hmong musical diversity exploring the political sense of an active cultivation of silence as
in northern Vietnam. This research challenges the simplistic ethnic transformation.
subdivisions currently propagated by Vietnamese anthropologists, which are
based solely on dress color (Black Hmong, Flower Hmong, etc.), and suggests a Ottomanism Revived: Jewish Musicians and Cultural Politics in
more equitable approach to the study of music and minorities in Vietnam. Turkey
John O'Connell, Cardiff University
Sounding the Carnivalesque: Changing Identities for a Sonic Icon of
the Popular This paper examines the chequered fortunes of Jewish musicians at three
Michael O'Brien, College of Charleston moments in Turkish history. First, it looks at the ways in which Jews
embraced the hybrid character of Ottoman citizenship, their music like their
The bombo con platillo (bass drum with mounted cymbal) is a powerful sonic identity being recognised and celebrated in song-text anthologies (after 1865).
and visual icon of three interrelated spaces for performing the popular in Second, it traces the exclusion of Jewish musicians from published collections
Argentina: Peronist political events, soccer fandom, and murga portea, a of musical notations (after 1923) where the nationalist principles informing
heterogeneous art form involving song, drumming, dance, and theatre that Turkism sought to exclude Jewish composers from the canonic record. Third,
has historically been associated with working-class Carnival celebrations. it interrogates the revival of Jewish music on sound recordings that followed
Murga has undergone a renaissance and transformation in the years since its the quincentennial celebrations of the Sephardi exodus from Spain to Turkey
near disappearance during the 1976-83 dictatorship; it has been recognized by (1992). Here, it notes a contemporary interest in Ottoman culture that went
the national and municipal governments as an official form of cultural hand in hand with the rise of an Islamic party in Turkey. Separated by around
patrimony, accruing cultural capital and gaining access to more performance seventy years, each epoch represents different ways in which Jewish
spaces and media venues as a result. The bombo -- an intentionally unruly musicians engaged in cultural politics by providing a musical space for off
and even disruptive sonic implement -- has accompanied all of these setting religious discrimination and ethnic prejudice.
incursions into new spaces and media, with mixed results. While traditionally
bombistas in murgas did not typically conceive of themselves as musicians or Radio Archives and the Art of Persuasion: Preserving Social
of their instrument as musical, bombistas in these new social contexts operate Hierarchies in the Airwaves of Lima
in an intermediate space between the musical and the un-musical. Some have Carlos Odria, Florida State University
adapted their instruments and playing techniques to better fit in small
popular music ensembles, while others celebrate the cheap construction In this paper, I focus on radio and musical programming as a social technology
materials, low-fi timbre and punishingly loud sonority of the traditional that enables hegemonic Peruvian groups to spread and reinforce dominant
bombo, invoking the disruptive power of the street even in small venues and ideas about race and class. I show how race/class subtexts are articulated
recording studios where it is at odds with the aspirationally cosmopolitan through the customization of radio playlists and sonic aesthetic concepts in
musical aesthetics of their collaborators. This paper explores the sonic and the airwaves of Lima. I argue that mainstream radio programming has
performative dimensions of the bombo's contested and changing roles as a become a mechanism by which Peruvian media investors persuade and control
popular icon of the carnivalesque. the musical preferences of socially disparate audiences in this city. The
approach I follow builds upon my understanding of repatriation as a type of
Possible Silences social transaction that is carried out between dissimilarly positioned agents.
Ana Maria Ochoa, Columbia University Through this lens, I seek 1) to engage the discussion of repatriation practices
in a broader conversation about the role of economic profit and sociopolitical
Silence is not only a metaphor for loss of acoustic and political belonging. influence within broadcasting industries and 2) to better contextualize
Silence is often conceived as well as a creative practice of quietness that leads tentative answers to key questions addressing the philosophical substratum of
74
repatriation as a social practice, for instance, when repatriation activities are expectation. Statuses and socio-musical roles may be ascribed or achieved:
carried out, what sounds are given back? in which way? and for what social acknowledgement is frequently fundamental, but self-identification can
purpose? In order to address these questions, I present a case study of radio be ambiguous, strategic or opportunistic rather than absolute. We argue that
programming that enacts modes of symbolic coercion and social division in the both new usages of music as a technology of the self, and new divisions of
city of Lima. affective labour in late capitalism, have important implications for the
amateur, the 'real mainstream of musical life in the world' (Nettl 1983). In the
Still Fighting: Musical Reinterpretations of Struggle in Post- light of recent developments of state- and- internationally- sanctioned
Apartheid South Africa mechanisms influencing Intangible Cultural Heritage and Cultural Industry
Austin Okigbo, University of Colorado, Boulder strategies, which value certain musical performance over others, the time is
apposite for a re-examination of complex musical subjectivities and the place
Twenty years after her first popular democratic elections that saw Nelson of the residually neglected 'amateur' in the political economy of music-making.
Mandela emerge as first black president, South Africa still faces challenges
that are forcing new conversations on the meanings of freedom, social and Re-membering the Past in Contemporary Kunqu Amateur Practices
economic justice, human dignity, and human rights in general. Faced with in the PRC
these challenges, which speak to the lingering effects of apartheid, South Min Yen Ong, SOAS, University of London
African people have tended to reminisce and draw from the rich expressive
and folkloric forms that spurred them in the anti-apartheid struggles and are Transmitting Kunqu in the 21st century is complex, political and personal.
reinterpreting them to construct new meanings that speak to their present UNESCO and the Chinese government have adopted initiatives in the recent
post-apartheid experiences. Using choral music examples drawn from two decade to ensure the safeguarding of Kunqu. However, these initiatives seem
separate contexts (the annual Good Friday ecumenical liturgy in Durban and to have been directed towards the nation's professional Kunqu theater troupes
the Siphithemba Choir), and drawing upon Ato Queysons literary theory of and few efforts have been made to recognize and support Kunqu's extensive
calibration as 'that situated procedure of wresting something from the amateur literati tradition and vibrant amateur community respectively. The
aesthetic domain for understanding of the social' (2003, xv), this paper argues term 'amateur' has multiple contemporary meanings within the Kunqu
that the current musical performances comprise new articulations of human community and has evolved throughout the course of the genre's history. The
struggle in a post-apartheid environment, thus echoing late and former divide between the amateur and professional has always been distinct.
President Mandelas 1996 expression of the sense of the new struggle (see Drawing from extensive fieldwork in four cities in China, this paper seeks to
Ndungane 2003:58). In so doing, the paper interrogates the sense of the post- highlight the exclusion of the amateurs from safeguarding agendas, and to
apartheid and freedom in the face of the continued invoking of the songs and raise the awareness of the diverse and important roles that various types of
musical stylistics of the anti-apartheid struggles. amateurs play in the transmission and safeguarding of Kunqu today. I
demonstrate, through the reconstruction of social memory, the historical
Re-evaluating the Amateur in Music-making Practices in continuity of ardent amateur practice, the profound layers of meaning that
Contemporary China these amateurs access through singing Kunqu, and the implications for the
Min Yen Ong, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of genre's musical practices today. I also examine the dynamics of collective
London, Chair Panel abstract cultural remembering and forgetting that have become intertwined in a
political web of representations that seek to regulate, reinstate or recreate
Drawing primarily on contemporary ethnographies of singing in China, the Kunqu's musical identity. By exploring these issues, this paper seeks to
broad aims of this panel are both analytic and synthetic: to refine a typology of explore the contestation of ownership and the complex power relations
amateur/professional musicianship while also updating this stale binary in between the State, professional troupes and amateurs that impinge on social,
cross-cultural comparison. It has long been recognized that apparent cultural and musical capital.
'professional' and 'amateur' distinctions, far from being fixed, often hint at a
complex continuum, along which even the same individuals change position, Anatolian Alterities: Sonic Circulation and Homeland Imaginaries
depending on context or stage in life (Finnegan 1989). The English terms, Michael O'Toole, University of Chicago, Chair Panel abstract
themselves with complex etymologies, have proven historically and
geographically flexible and negotiable, with meaning adhering through use Ethnomusicological studies of music and diaspora have focused attention on
rather than through unambiguous definition (Cottrell 2004). China has a practices of sonic circulation that offer paths of both connection and
unique and contested matrix of associations (Lau 2008) regarding musical disjunction between diasporic communities and imagined homelands. In this
specialism, musical competence, auto-didacticism, self-cultivation, enjoyment, panel, we reconsider and analyze the concept of circulation in diaspora studies
social status, the concept of work, financial reward, and community from the perspective of a single geographic region--Anatolia--that is
75
considered a homeland by several diasporas whose histories have been shaped The Life of a Kpanlogo Drum
by the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of the Republic of Lisa Overholser, New York Folklore Society
Turkey in the early twentieth century. Drawing on case studies from
Armenian, Kurdish, and Turkish diasporic communities in Europe and North This digital storytelling project will trace the life of a kpanlogo drum, a
America, we consider Anatolia as a contested space whose ethnic, musical, and traditional drum of the Ga people in Ghana, from Accra to upstate New York,
religious diversity has historically existed in tension with the development of where it is played and taught by master Ghanaian drummer Zorkie Nelson.
monocultural ideologies of Turkish nationalism. We consider varied practices Drawing on ethnographic field research footage from Accra, Ghana and
of circulation between Anatolia and its diasporas, such as letter-writing Schenectady, NY, this presentation considers the kpanlogo drum as a cultural
between Armenian musicians in Los Angeles and Turkey, the sacred and economic commodity that serves as an important link between Ghana and
pilgrimages of Turkish Sufis in Berlin to their spiritual leader in Anatolia, the United States. Equally important is the consideration of how the kpanlogo
and the reimagining of music venues as spaces of Alevi sociability in drum is used in the American context to carve out a uniquely Ga (as opposed
Germany. Uniting our various case studies is our common effort to ask how to African or pan-African) cultural identity, one that is determined by sonic,
practices of sonic circulation relate to theories of movement, diaspora, and timbral qualities as much as it is by the historical or physical nature of the
displacement in ethnomusicology. We also aim to consider the ways in which instrument. For this presentation, my goal is to present a 3-5 minute digital
diasporic communities imagine and represent their relationship to the same story on a PC laptop display (from a flash drive) that will be continually
geographic region, and what opportunities this presents for sonic circulation looped during the poster session. An accompanying poster will provide
not just between diasporas and homelands, but within and across several contextual information and will highlight the conceptual framework of the
diasporas with shared histories of musical interaction. digital story. I can supply my own PC and flash drive.
My Personal Longing to Tell This Story: Anatolian Music and Language and the Intercultural Mediation of Wadaiko Knowledge
Armenian Silence in Marc Sinan's Hasretim: An Anatolian Journey Benjamin Pachter, University of Pittsburgh
Michael O'Toole, University of Chicago
With compositions that integrate musical and visual influences from a variety
Since the early twentieth century, composers of western art music in Turkey of cultures, and a performer base comprised of people from different
and its diasporas have frequently drawn on the diverse musics of Anatolia as nationalities and cultural backgrounds, the contemporary music genre
a source of musical material and inspiration. Composers in the early years of wadaiko - which emerged in 1950s Japan and is characterized by the use of
the Turkish Republic often regarded the diversity of Anatolian musics as a Japanese taiko as primary instruments - could be described as an
problem to be overcome in creating a national school of composition. More intercultural art form. However, an examination of the manner in which
recently, several composers have more explicitly embraced the pluralism wadaiko knowledge has spread to the United States challenges this
inherent in the cultural, linguistic, and musical diversity of Anatolia. In this perspective, revealing a one-sided, Japan-centric informational flow. Within
paper, I discuss the work of Marc Sinan, a German composer of Armenian and this realm of transmission, status is given to those who can speak Japanese
Turkish descent, who has engaged in several ways with Anatolian musics as a and/or have experience learning and performing in Japan, for they have access
source of creative material, compositional inspiration, and transnational to a wider range of resources than those unable to speak Japanese. This has
collaboration. I focus in particular on Sinans 2010 multimedia composition not only affected what information has been transmitted to performers in the
Hasretim: An Anatolian Journey, which involves multiple forms of United States but has also affected the negotiation of discourses such as
collaboration between musicians in Armenia, Germany, and Turkey. Drawing performance rights and the nature of tradition. In this paper, I shall
on discussions with the composer, fieldwork at the debut performance in examine the role of language in the mediation of wadaiko knowledge in the
Dresden, and analysis of the concert film released by ECM, I discuss Sinan's United States. Beyond examining how the ability or inability to speak
strategies for representing the presence and absence of Armenian music and Japanese has influenced the transmission of wadaiko knowledge, I will
culture in Anatolia, and how Sinan relates Hasretim to his own experiences as explore the impact of language skills on the development of some of the major
a descendent of survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Situating my analysis in discourses used by wadaiko performers in the United States. Taking a broad
ethnomusicological discussions of music and trauma, I discuss the ways in approach to wadaiko studies by considering both musical content and musical
which Sinan creatively reworked his own ethnographic recordings of discourse, with this paper I will demonstrate how linguistic concerns influence
Anatolian musicians, shaping the images, sounds, and narratives of Hasretim musical performance.
to represent Anatolia as a site of both musical abundance and musical loss.
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Modes of Revival and Politics of Transmission in Community re-signification as part of the integrative experiences of the singing, playing,
Performance: Doina and Hora Romaneasca and the Evoking of and dancing of sones jarochos.
Romania in Boulder, CO
Jenna Palensky, University of Colorado, Boulder Reimagining the Community Sound Archive: Cultural Memory and
the Case for Slow Archiving in a Gaspesian Village
The recent trajectory of Romanian ethnomusicology is devoted largely to Glenn Patterson, Memorial University of Newfoundland
discourse on post-communist Romania as a nation in economic and cultural
transition (Pieslak 2010; Ratiu 2007). This discourse frames methods by which Theorizing why certain places are effective carriers of cultural memory,
Romanian music culture has and continues to be reconstructed and adapted sociologist Paul Connerton points to the age before mechanical reproduction:
within Romania, but sidelines traditions that have been transplanted abroad. The handmade world, in which all things were made one by one, was a slow
This paper contributes an alternative voice to preexisting narratives on world... in which ...the term 'building' would apply as much to the memory of
Romanian music and identity, and hinges on the experiential application of the continuing transitive activity of construction as to that of the eventual
ethnomusicology through both the co-founding of the Romanian choir, Doina, product (Connerton 2009). During fieldwork in Douglastown (Quebec) in
and ethnographic work conducted on the Romanian dance group, Hora 2013, I collaborated with the Douglas Community Centre and a colleague to
Romaneasca in Boulder, CO. This combinatory research represents a kind begin developing a community sound archive featuring local home recordings
that is severely underreported in ethnomusicology (Harrison, Seeger 2012), made on reel-to-reel and cassette formats. We developed a proactive archival
and argues that Romanian music and dance ensembles in Boulder fill cultural protocol (Edmonson 2004) that is inherently slow, using community
gaps spurred by cultural memory and nostalgia for Romanian music collaboration to procure recordings and produce digitized collections that are -
traditions. Music enacts an expressive reinforcement of Romanian cultural contrary to traditional archival practices - highly contextualized at the item
identity through community inclusion, which consequently and paradoxically level. This paper explores how the materiality of original carriers intersected
affects the practice and the process of transmission of Romanian music and with our slow protocol to engender rich ethnographic encounters and cultural
dance to Romanians and non-Romanians in Boulder. Therein lies the remembering. How did community collaborators remember during our
balancing act between an imagined Romania through the creation of a archival protocol and how might digitization, by separating recorded sounds
Romanian choir, and the tangible expression of Romania through the process from their physical traces, engender cultural forgetting (Hamid 1998)?
of traditional Romanian music revival in choral and dance music. This Through ethnographic exploration, I seek to broaden proactive archival
research differentiates the imagined and idealized embodiment of Romanian practices (Landau 2012; Gray 1996) to suggest how researchers may
cultural expression through music and dance with the seeming ambiguities incorporate collaboration not only through proactively engaged user access,
and contradictions of maintaining authenticity that arise in this transmission but also while building digital and physical holdings, in this way creating a
and inclusionary cultural practices within these ensembles. community resource that is at once effective and affective, itself a shared site
of production for new cultural memories in dialogue with their audible past.
Florear la Tarima: A Space for Poetry, Music, and Dance within Re-
signified Son Jarocho Practices Gesture in Karnatak Music Pedagogy: Typologies, Ethical
Raquel Paraiso, University of Wisconsin-Madison Constraints, and Cross-modal Interaction
Lara Pearson, Durham University
The son jarocho music of southern Veracruz has experienced a vigorous
revival over the last thirty years, a main goal of which has been to reclaim While there has been significant research on physical gesture in Indian vocal
cultural values embedded in its practice. An intellectual elite invested in performance (for example Clayton 2005, Leante 2009, and Rahaim 2012),
researching the son jarocho-from both musicological and socio-anthropological gesture in pedagogic encounters, particularly in the South Indian Karnatak
points of view-as well as musicians and cultural promoters, have been key in style, has been explored to a lesser extent. The present study addresses this
both reconstructing and, in turn, re-signifying the social meanings of this research gap, employing systematic analysis of interaction in Karnatak vocal
musical tradition. This paper examines such practices of re-signification with lessons to explore the ways in which both teacher and student use physical
a particular emphasis on the musico-practice known as florear la tarima gesture in the learning process. In particular, I ask how non-verbal
(adorning the tarima, or wooden platform atop which dancers showcase their communication is used to overcome blocks in this process, and seek to clarify
patterned steps). Florear la tarima is a practice that symbolically warms up, what is being communicated through gesture at such problematic points in a
or readies, the tarima with improvised poetic dcimas before experienced lesson. Video recordings of lessons given by expert vocal teachers in South
female dancers adorn the tarima with their dancing movements and steps, India are analyzed through transcription and coding of gestures, verbal
after which the popular fiesta, or fandango begins. This paper examines this productions, and musical phrases performed by both teacher and student.
Interviews with the participants, together with the author's experience as a
77
student of Karnatak music provide an interpretive basis for the analysis. The many years in both ICTM and SEM, will present position statements on
findings are discussed with reference to existing gestural typologies, including central issues in the field and how both organizations have addressed them in
Simones, Schroeder, and Rodger's (2013) categorization of non-verbal different intellectual environments. Guided discussion will compare the two
communication in piano teaching, and Clayton's (2005) typology of gesture in organizations, their organizational structures, meetings and publications.
North Indian vocal performance. Finally, the gestural behavior observed is New initiatives for mutually beneficial cooperation will be explored and open
considered in relation to social and ethical constraints on musicians' physical for discussion by panelists and audience members.
movements, and also the potential benefits afforded by such cross-modal sonic,
visual, and kinesthetic interaction. Chanting Community: How the Musical Practice of Kirtan Enables
Pluralistic Spiritual Expression and Functional Communities in the
Ambivalent Cosmopolitanism and a Covert New Old Europe in The United States
Graveyard and Gerry de Mol's Komen te Gaan Andrew Pettit, University of California, Los Angeles
Stephan Pennington, Tufts University
The ancient musical devotional practice of kirtan has been minor feature of
In 2008, Belgian indie video game company Tale of Tales released the short American New Age movements since the 1960s. Kirtan performances held in
art game The Graveyard in which the player guides an old lady down a private homes, yoga studios, churches, theatres, and convention centers across
cemetery path to a bench in front of a Christian chapel. As she sits, Komen te the United States have experienced a surge in popularity mirroring the
Gann a Dutch language contemporary folk song written and performed by explosive growth of yoga as a physical practice. Previous scholarship
Flemish musician Gerry de Mol plays in its entirety. When the song finishes, concerning kirtan focuses on its role disseminating and expressing Hindu
the woman either dies or survives and the game ends. The game creators, nationalism, (Schultz 2013), as a compositional source and stylistic core for
Flemish Michal Samyn and African American Auriea Harvey, present modern Hindustani classical music (Ho 2013) and its contributions to the
themselves as Belgian representatives of an international and cosmopolitan Great traditions of South Asia (Slawek 1988). In this paper I argue that,
modern artistic community beyond nationalism and folk romanticism. Yet rather than presenting a set of unified religious beliefs or an institutionalized
funding for The Graveyard, a game steeped in Flemish nostalgia and haunted hierarchy, contemporary American kirtan performances provide practitioners
by Belgium's complicated WW II history, came from the Flanders Audiovisual the space to worship, develop their own spirituality, and experience individual
Fund which seeks to ensure that Flanders doesn't get flooded by alien conceptions of the divine in a communal, ecstatic setting. While kirtan
culture. The involvement of de Mol- who sings only in Flemish but is valued practice has been enabled by pluralistic Hindu doctrines, its contemporary
by Samyn and Harvey for his work in world music-- marks a similarly mixed American incarnation facilitates an even wider diversity of spiritual and
message. Through an analysis of The Graveyard, I show how Komen te Gaan musical practice. Understanding how kirtan performance simultaneously
a song featuring banjo, kalimba, and New Old European musical inflections, creates community and enables personalized spirituality further illuminates
yet that de Mol insists draws on no specific folk traditions, illuminates a part of the fastest expanding spiritual but not religious denomination in the
practice of appropriating the decontextualized music of an Other as the music US.
of one's own. It also uses New Old Europe flavorings to obscure a much more
conventional nationalism buried beneath a veneer of ambivalent The Kadongo Kamu Styles of Kafeero And Basudde (Uganda)
cosmopolitanism. Dave Pier, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
ICTM and SEM: Ethnomusicology in the International Arena Kadongo kamu means one guitar, but what is really valued by Ugandan
Svanibor Pettan, University of Ljubljana, Chair Panel abstract artists and fans of this genre is not the guitar playing so much as the sung
storytelling. Lexical virtuosity is especially important: ideally, a kadongo
ICTM and SEM are the major academic organizations in the field of kamu singer should never repeat a word in a song, and should be able to
ethnomusicology. ICTM is international in all respects. Its members come surprise and challenge audiences with vocabulary drawn from both a deep
from 89 countries and regions, and since its foundation in 1947 its Luganda traditional language register, and current street slang. The music of
conferences, colloquia, and study group symposia have been hosted by kadongo kamu is designed to showcase this verbal virtuosity, with the basic
universities in countries world-wide. Since its founding in 1955, SEM has been unit of the poetic line being clearly marked in rhythm and melody. Different
a U.S.-based organization with an international membership. SEM is artists have, however, developed markedly different singing/storytelling
officially recognized as the U.S. National Committee of ICTM. This panel will styles. In this paper, I analyze and compare the styles of two of the foremost
discuss the role of both organizations in the field of ethnomusicology in the kadongo kamu singers (both deceased): Paul Kafeero and Herman Basudde. In
past and provide an outlook for the future. Five invited panelists, doing so, I illuminate some of the aesthetic and rhetorical values that have
ethnomusicologists from various parts of the world who have been active for characterized the kadongo kamu genre more broadly. As a Luganda-language
78
singing style of storytelling and exhortation with stringed-instrument his student's release. That helped in a global effort for his release, including
accompaniment, kadongo kamu--a pop genre of the radio and television age-- the work of the International campaign for Tibet, the US Congress, the State
prompts comparisons to traditional Kiganda bardic styles accompanied on Department, the White House, various artists, Students for a Free Tibet,
harps and lyres. Indeed, part of the mystique of the genre for artists and fans various governments, universities and colleges, and the Society for
is that it connects to this older bardic tradition. Revisiting the scholarship on Ethnomusicology, among others, most notably the director's mother. Tibet in
traditional Kiganda singing and instrumental styles, I clarify how two Song raises serious questions about what insider perspectives on music really
historical kadongo kamu innovators both borrowed stylistically from this means -how inside must one be to be an insider, the role of ethnomusicologists
tradition, and departed from it. to preserve music, what traditional means, whether one should participate
in the politics of the other or not, what the implications of participation-
Tibet in Song: A Teacher's Perspective observation are if participation empowers the oppressor, the dangers of
Jayendan Pillay, Tshwane University research in troubled parts of world, and the very purpose of ethnomusicology
itself.
Tibet in Song (2010) celebrates the traditional Tibetan folk music and dance,
despite the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1949. The director, also an Remembering the Srebrenica Genocide: Musical Narratives of the
ethnomusicologist, documented these songs and dances about work, family, Past
and the land prior to his arrest by the Chinese authorities in 1995. He Badema Pitic, University of California, Los Angeles
received an 18 year sentence for espionage and counter-revolutionary
activities. His footage, carried into India by a friend, is juxtaposed against the Nineteen years after the genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia, contested memories
early days of the Chinese invasion. The cultural exploitation and resistance in and narratives of the past are being reflected in both public and private
the arts are foregrounded into a new reality with the songs he learned from spheres of life. Notwithstanding the collective recognition of the devastating
fellow prisoners and his own compositions., , This documentary was preceded consequences of the genocide, different structures of Bosnian society approach
by Missing in Tibet, a video (1998) featuring the Chair Panel abstract and employ its implications in often contrary ways. A growing repertoire of
advocating for his student's release. That contributed toward a global effort songs that commemorate the Srebrenica genocide is not an exception. In a
for his release, including the International campaign for Tibet, the US diverse pool of music dedicated to this tragic event, ranging from classical and
Congress, the State Department, the White House, various artists, Students popular music genres, religious songs, to traditional (izvorna) music, both
for a Free Tibet, various governments, universities and colleges, and the personal and national perspective are being negotiated. In this paper, I will
Society for Ethnomusicology, among others, most notably the director's discuss these contested approaches and implications of the genocide through
mother., , Tibet in Song raises serious questions about what insider their representations in popular and official memory that are opposed to each
perspectives on music really means --how inside must one be to be an insider, other in two distinct musical commemorations: genocide-related repertoire of
the role of thnomusicologists to preserve music, what traditional means, an izvorna group Sateliti comprised of the genocide survivors, and an oratorio
whether one should participate in the politics of the other or not, what the Srebrenica's Inferno which is a part of the official annual commemoration
implications of participation-observation are if participation empowers the ceremony in Srebrenica. By analyzing these pieces, I aim to answer the
oppressor, the dangers of research in troubled parts of world, and the very following questions: In what ways do these works represent the sites of
purpose of ethnomusicology itself. memory? How do they contribute to the commemoration and 'popularization'
of the genocide? What kind of a role do they play in the construction and
Tibet in Song: A Film Screening observance of history and memory? My conclusions are based on
Jayendan Pillay, Tshwane University, Chair Panel abstract multidisciplinary studies of music and memory and extensive ethnographic
research in Bosnia.
Tibet in Song (2010) celebrates the traditional Tibetan folk music and dance,
despite the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1949. The director, also an Avtorskaia Pesnia since 1991 and the Reimagining of The Soviet 60s
ethnomusicologist, documented these songs and dances about work, family, Rachel Platonov, University of Manchester
and the land prior to his arrest by the Chinese authorities in 1995. He
received an 18 year sentence for espionage and counter-revolutionary In the post-Stalin Soviet Union, avtorskaia pesnia or author's song coalesced
activities. His footage, carried into India by a friend, is juxtaposed against the into a recognizable genre and a socio-cultural phenomenon, drawing on a
early days of the Chinese invasion. The cultural exploitation and resistance in range of pre- and post-revolutionary amateur musical and literary practices.
the arts are foregrounded into a new reality with the songs he learned from From the beginning, avtorskaia pesnia was not just a form of entertainment,
fellow prisoners and his own compositions. This documentary was preceded by but also a locus for self-fashioning and community-building--a medium
Missing in Tibet, a video (1998) featuring the second panelist advocating for through which young Soviets (primarily members of the urban intelligentsia)
79
constructed identities and groups of svoi (literally, one's own [people]) that (Re)Defining Belonging after Conflict: German Post-War Musical
simultaneously challenged and supported officially promoted norms and Practices in Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic
values. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, avtorskaia pesnia's fate has Ulrike Prger, Boston University
proved no less complex: some (among them the genre's patriarch Bulat
Okudzhava) have declared it dead, whilst others have promoted its After the surrender of Germany in World War II, approximately twelve
development as popular music (e.g. Garin, 2001)--and still others have recast million German civilians living in Central and Eastern Europe were expelled
its lyrics as written poetry and situated them firmly within the context of mostly to Germany in what R.M. Douglas termed the largest forced population
classic Russian literature (e.g. Sukharev, 2002). Building on work on transfer in human history. About three million of these Germans (also
avtorskaia pesnia as a medium of self-fashioning and community building labelled Sudeten Germans) had lived in Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia
(Platonov, 2012) and on post-1991 collective and cultural memory of the Soviet (todays Czech Republic). But not all Sudeten Germans were expelled. Those
past (e.g. Kuzio, 2002; Etkind, 2009), and drawing on online and offline from mixed marriages had an option to stay, while many skilled Sudeten
ethnographic work with avtorskaia pesnia practitioners and fans, this paper Germans, such as industrial workers, were forced to stay. Assimilation
examines contemporary uses of avtorskaia pesnia a medium for mapping out policies applied by Czech state authorities led to the reframing and even
and contesting competing narratives of the Thaw--and through this, of the role silencing of these remaining Sudeten Germans' cultural practices. Only since
of the old Soviet intelligentsia in mapping a distinctive narrative for Russia's the fall of communism have they been able to revisit and reconstruct their
cultural future. social identity and share their experiences and memories with others. In the
last two years, I collected life stories of over eighty Sudeten Germans living
The Anatomy of a Gushe: Core Structures and Their Performative today either in Germany or remaining in the Czech Republic. I analyze these
Origins in Traditional Persian Music largely unexplored musical narratives of oppression and withdrawal,
Amir Hosein Pourjavady, University of Tehran indifference and fragmentation, and covert continuation, which reveal that the
rise of the Iron Curtain generated new inner conflicts for individuals as they
The gushe has been described in many ethnomusicological writings as a questioned their national belonging. One study participant explained: For
primary structure for realizing the larger modal construction of a decades, we carried Czech nationality, but we want to show that we are also
dastgah/avaz during an improvised performance of traditional Persian music. still Germans. Based on my ethnographic materials, I foreground how
Though ethnomusicologists often focus on gushe as a very small aspect of musical practices enable individuals and collectives to (re)negotiate
performance, gushe embody many structures that are key to the overall transcultural power relations as they rebuild a sense of belonging in their
structure of a dastgah/avazs performance. This workshop will explore the respective post-conflict communities.
gushe via active performance practice in order to show participants how these
small melodic structures play a large role in determining performance Meta-Country: Mediation and Authenticity in Nashville's Nashville
structure.This workshop will teach and explore the melodic structures that David Pruett, University of Massachusetts, Boston
form the composition of most gushe within Persian music. The three
structures participants will learn are: Persian poetry and structures for Having premiered on ABC in October 2012 to critical acclaim and as the
Persian poetic meter called aruz; the unique art of Persian vocal improvisation recipient of sixteen award nominations by February 2014, the hit television
called tahrir; the specific cadential figures that come at the end of a gushe or show Nashville explores the commercial country music industry, albeit from a
between two gushes, called forud. Participants in this workshop will learn how sensationalized perspective, and the role of individual agency within the city's
to use singing and poetry recitation to create aruz and tahrir, and they will cultural hegemony. The television show, already a mass mediated product of
see how these structures differ from the instrumental forud. Once a sense of expressive culture, presents an image of Nashville's country music identity,
all of these elements is established, this workshop will move on to apply these which likewise is the product of what Richard Petersen describes as
three structures to performing various gushes from different dastgahs of fabricated authenticity (Peterson 1997), creating, in a sense, a mediated
Persian music. Participants will learn how these structures both contribute to image of an already mediated cultural phenomenon, or what I term in this
and limit improvisation in different gushes, and the extent to which they context: meta-country., Based upon my seven years of fieldwork within the
remain similar and change from dastgah/avaz to dastgah/avaz. Nashville commercial music industry, this paper explores the intercultural
exchange between the individual, i.e. actual Nashville artists; the artists'
respective mediated identities and their roles as agents within the commercial
country music industry; and television's portrayal of the industry and the
artists as an interconnected network of distinct socio-cultural histories. I
explore consistencies and variances among the aforementioned levels of
cultural representation and highlight how each informs the others. Such
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research reinforces the notion of reciprocity in popular culture, specifically dichotomy between music that celebrates and denigrates women. Bridging
how artists, record labels, audiences, and the mass media are co-creators of from intersectional approaches of hip hop feminism, I examine the dialogic
expressive culture, and emphasizes the process in which each renegotiates its relationship between the possibilities and limitations that are enacted by the
respective identity based upon modes of acceptance and rejection by the co-presence of liberatory and limiting messages about gender and sexuality.
others. First, I present the legacy of gangsta rap in contemporary club rap, paying
particular attention to performances of masculinity in artists' personas. Then,
Country Music Capital: Portrayal, Professionalization and Profit as I provide musical examples demonstrating how the same artists who use their
Practices of Revitalization images to raise awareness about sexual violence as part of a conscious rap
David Pruett, University of Massachusetts Boston, Chair Panel abstract style also construct gendered personas that rely on a misogyny for their
authenticity. Drawing on interviews with artists and participant observation
This panel examines intersections between individuals, local contexts, mass in performance settings, I explore the co-existence of what might otherwise be
mediation, and broad socio-economic narratives associated with country considered antithetical positions. Ultimately, the presentation destabilizes the
music. Each of the papers looks at mediated musical practices that, through categories of commercial and conscious rap, interrogating the ways
their own particularities, identify them locally, yet they are linked by (and messages of gendered power filter into contemporary Canadian cultural
gain identity through) their interrelationship with the commercial country identities.
music industry. This panel explores negotiations around issues of monetary
and cultural economies (and the slippage between the two), the intersections Refiguring Public Culture after Apartheid: Applying while
of commercialism, mass mediation and individual practice and agency, local Deconstructing Culture at Two National South African Arts
venues and the identities they generate and foster, and mainstream media Festivals
depictions and the roles they play in identity formation. The various practices Brett Pyper, University of the Witwatersrand
these papers analyze reinforce common understandings of country music, but
do so selectively and in ways distinct from each other, and conversely often In 2014, the marking of 20 years since the formal end of apartheid coincides
challenge conventional practice. By shedding light on how country music with two major South African arts festivals commemorating their own
practitioners and specific contexts interact, country music is revealed to be respective milestones: the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown celebrates
other than the monolithic entity it is often positioned to be by scholars and its 40th anniversary while the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival (Absa
fans. This panel provides a series of case studies that effectively demonstrate KKNK) marks its 20th annual edition. Festivals like these have become
that country music, while observably a mass-mediated commercial culture, barometers of the refiguring of public culture in South Africa since 1994.
has remained pervasive and powerful music genre. It endures through and Emerging from the settler-colonial experience, they have nonetheless
because of the multitudinous ways it is consumed and re-contextualized in endeavoured to reinvent themselves as vehicles for a non-racial, non-sectarian
specific practices, and through the activities of and interactions between many democratic project. At their best, they help to broaden and diversify the
individual practitioners. By reinforcing and challenging common audience base for the arts and advance local development in regions that have
understandings of the genre constructs with which they are associated, these in the past been marginal to the country's arts scenes. At their worst, festivals
practices become agents of revitalization. can rehearse and celebrate heritage and group identities that have in the past
been deployed to the ends of social separation, they manifest the skewed
access to arts education and professional opportunities that is the legacy of
Re-reading Gangsta: Club Beats, Conscious Style, and Gender in decades of planned cultural discrimination and underdevelopment, and they
21st Century Rap enact the disparities attending newer South African patterns of access to
Liz Przybylski, Northwestern University leisure consumption and state and corporate patronage. Drawing on my
experience of directing the Klein Karoo festival between 2008 and 2013, this
Gritty. Conscious. Dangerous. These are all the descriptors that have been paper will consider the efficacy of some applied ethnomusicological projects
heaped upon contemporary rap music coming out of Winnipeg. These presented at the country's two major national arts festivals, highlighting the
descriptions, and the possibilities and concerns behind them, all connect to the extent to which attempts to apply notions of culture simultaneously need to
gendered performances of artists' personas. From hip hop culture wars to include interrogating the foundational notions on which such interventions
recent public discussions of homophobia, rap music has offered a rich arena are based.
for the examination of gender and sexuality in popular music. Gangsta styles
in particular, vilified for misogynist messages and glorified for their excesses,
became a flashpoint for debates about rap's liberatory possibilities. Canadian
club styles, based on gangsta's legacy, present opportunities to re-think a
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Singing to Resolve Disputes and to Assert Women's Rights: Ateetee, whose advantage? How would Rita and Vidya continue to sustain the Women
an Arsi Oromo (Ethiopia) Women's Sung Conflict Resolution Ritual Music Makers of India today?
Leila Qashu, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Reclaiming the Border in Texas-Mexican Conjunto and Msica
In the constantly changing society of the Arsi Oromo (a subgroup of the Oromo Nortea
ethnic group of Ethiopia), women have limited socio-political power. However, Catherine Ragland, University of North Texas
they have a spiritual institution that is exclusive to them which is called
siinqee. As part of this institution, Arsi women have a spiritual and musical The Rio Grande Valley of Texas, bordering the Northeastern Mexican states of
ritual, called ateetee, which they can use for several purposes, including: Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas, is famously recognized as the birthplace of
childbirth, sickness, scarcity of rain, war, disputes and gender violence. Today modern Texas-Mexican conjunto and msica nortea. However, migration
there is no longer much use for the prayers for men who go to war, but many away from the region since the mid-20th century has relocated the recording
of the other ateetee prayers are used. In times of difficulty, or when women industry and the attention of these genres to larger cities further north in
want to gather, they go near the river or under a specific tree to sing these Texas, California and beyond and south of the border in Mexico. And while
prayers. In the case of gender abuse, when a woman has been dishonoured by fetishized images of border life are still evoked in contemporary songs, most
another person in any way, she can gather with other women in front of the artists have little to no experience with this isolated region. The transition
offender's house to perform this song- and poetry-based ritual, at the end of from a local folk music genre to a transnational popular music phenomenon
which the offender is expected to offer a cow and ask for forgiveness. In this associated simultaneously with the Texas-Mexican, Chicano and Mexican
talk, I will use examples from my fieldwork of different types of ateetee immigrant experience has sparked local concern regarding representations of
ceremonies and the voices of the participants of these gatherings to explore authenticity of these styles. This paper focuses on two Texas border towns,
the origins and the make up of Arsi Oromo women's spiritual rituals and how San Benito and Hidalgo with uniquely distinct approaches to preserving,
they are perceived within their societies. I will discuss ateetee and the siinqee revitalizing and marketing these genres that prominently feature border
institution and how they are used as both a spiritual and societal power and to residents and founding fathers: conjunto's Narciso Martinez and nortea's
uphold women's rights in their society. Ramon Ayala. In both cases, local agents (including Ayala himself) engage in
grassroots reverse-revisionist efforts through makeshift museums, archives,
The 1984 Festival of Women Music Makers of India: Questions 30 festivals and public monuments to reclaim the music for and by border
Years Later residents while also exploiting it as a commodity for intended visitors. While
Regula Qureshi, University of Alberta revisionist studies in popular music tend to focus on previously neglected
periods, styles and artists, this paper explores how abandoned or ignored
This paper relives a historic moment bringing together erstwhile courtesan places of origin, music-cultures and individuals as heirs to a tradition are re-
singers-dancers from across India. Personal documentation and links to inscribing their place in the cultural toponymy of the Mexican musical
seminal participants offer musical and personal information in a nexus of diaspora.
relationships enacting musical, social and gender identities between women
musicians, male accompanists, and women patrons. This entirely Indian event Transnational Spaces and Places of Mexican/ MexicanAmerican
was organized by two progressive women, scholar-musicians fuelled by the Music
goal to revive a unique musical heritage and honor its female artists to Catherine Ragland, University of North Texas, Chair Panel abstract
counter their stigmatized identity--an activist mission long predating SEM.
Serious journals commented about the helpless (becharian) women and their Scholarly debates on hybridization and authenticity enable us to view
vanishing musical treasures; dance however was barely mentioned. Mexican and Mexican American popular music trends as having origins in a
Altogether, the event manifested a milieu of classical elite sensibility for their multiplicity of transnational and trasnscultural sources. At the same time,
art but the stigma of courtesans remains. Seen from today, can studies of these styles are no less hybrid in their construction for being commonly
music as labor offer a new approach for anchoring even art music in the perceived as a manifestation of multiple notions of Mexicanidad as
materiality of the body, including of singer-dancers, thereby diminishing the performed and received in vibrant localized settings. Whether it is Texas-
problematic of class divides? Will class-specific music become more open to Mexican mariachi musicians evoking localized representations of a co-opted
new sounds? The final crucial questions address the Festivals organizers. Mexican tradition or San Antonio youth adapting the Tejano conjunto
Both have been performers and teachers of courtesan repertoire in traditional accordion sound to reflect new working-class aesthetics and meanings to
colonial-modern that could lead to fusing these two social spheres and move border residents reinserting themselves in a multimillion dollar transnational
beyond the colonial hybrid into a global horizon with open access. Then will Mexican music network which began in local garages and makeshift recording
singing and dancing survive as a livelihood or stay parked on YouTube, and to studios to Colombians adopting Mexican-American music as a means for
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asserting notions of Mexican-Colombian solidarity and modernity. Mexican influences of this policy both on the people and places with whom and where
music and the performative settings in which it thrives offers unique ethnomusicologists work and on the methodologies and epistemologies of our
opportunities to explore how cultures meet, are changed and transformed, and field. Keynote remarks by Richard Kurin, Under Secretary for History, Art,
emerge as important representations of local cultural capital. Amid a and Culture at the Smithsonian Institution, who helped to draft the
backdrop of transnational flows across the US-Mexican border via border- international treaty on safeguarding cultural heritage at UNESCO, will serve
crossing migrants, which in turn created a powerful Mexican entertainment as a springboard for brief commentary by four SEM members whose interests
and recording industry, these papers explore how diverse traditions came and work intersect with the ideology and implementation of Intangible
together to develop new cultural formations now recognized as distinctly Cultural Heritage in a variety of world contexts and communities. As former
Mexican and American. Secretary General of the International Council for the Study of Traditional
Music (ICTM), Tony Seeger participated in the UNESCO Masterpieces of the
Devotion, Seduction, and Song: Courtesans in Saint Films Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity program in the area of music.
Matthew Rahaim, University of Minnesota Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco, current president of the ICTM, has
prepared applications for Portugals ICH, has been evaluator of submissions to
While many Hindi films have long depicted courtesans with a patina of UNESCO, and has been advisor to the Portuguese Ministry of Culture on ICH
romantic nostalgia, saint films tell a different story. Drawing on centuries-old matters. Keith Howard, author of Preserving Korean Music, and editor of
hagiographic and folkloric traditions, films about bhakti saints often depict Music as Intangible Cultural Heritage in East Asia, prepared the 2002
courtesans as morally corrupt figures to be converted. This paper investigates revisions of the UNESCO Living Human Treasures guidelines subcontracted
the various ethical subject positions (and attendant modes of subjectivation) by the Korean National Commission for UNESCO. Lisa Gilmans research
posited in these stories, and the complex relationships they enunciate between concerns the politics of cultural promotion and preservation in Malawi by
devotion, seduction, and song. investigating the relationships between UNESCOs efforts, the policies and
implementation programs of the government, and the attitudes and efforts of
Thinking about professional women musicians people at the grassroots level whose cultural practices have been identified for
Vidya Rao, Until June, 2013 with the Institute for Advanced Studies, France safeguarding. Plenty of time will be allotted for comments and questions from
the floor and discussion.
The history of professional women performers has been viewed in different
ways by different groups of people. Writing about women musicians has also The Bos in the Jungle Will Welcome Me In: Music at the National
changed over time. Historically, professional women performers occupied a Hobo Convention
social space distinct from that occupied by domestic women. As recent Graham Raulerson, University of Redlands
research has demonstrated, changes in the way both women and Indian
culture/music were sought to be re-imagined and recast changed the way in Though historians and sociologists have recently taken notice of the
which personal women performers were viewed. These changes, in how continuing existence of hoboes, scholars of music have paid scant attention to
women musicians and their music was perceived, were/are reflected in the hobo subculture since George Milburn's 1930 The Hobo's Hornbook.
writings about women musicians, and the music in which women specialized. Though many have acknowledged the role of hobo song in various popular
This is so for many genres of writing and representationscholarly works, print music repertories, the musical activities of today's hoboes remain largely
media, among them, and also for representations of women musicians in unexamined. In this presentation I offer an introduction to hobo music as it is
literature, film, etc. I will try in this session to trace some of the ways in practiced at the National Hobo Convention, the premiere event of the hobo
which women musicians have been written about and the changes in writings calendar, where I have conducted fieldwork each summer since 2008.
on this subject over the last one hundred years. I will then also discuss some Disturbed by their declining numbers and increasing cultural invisibility,
of the difficulties I faced, and the solutions I found in my own work of writing hoboes in the 1970s began to reshape their culture to emphasize public
about womens music and women musicians in general and also in writing outreach, image management, and the preservation of their past. Today, hobo
about the life and work of my illustrious music guru. musicians enact a major element of this effort at the National Hobo
Convention's nightly Hobo Entertainment concerts. After providing a brief
Ethnomusicology and Public Policy: Conserving Intangible Cultural introduction to the hobo ethos, I explicate the social needs and ideology
Heritage and its Effects on and in the Field motivating the most common types of performance at Hobo Entertainment
Anne K. Rasmussen, The College of William and Mary, Chair Panel abstract events - particularly obligatory performances (songs sung each night of each
convention, usually by the same performers), ad hoc jams (events that coalesce
Our second iteration of the SEM board-sponsored session on Ethnomusicology around either camaraderie or exclusion), and proselytizing performances
and Public Policy engages the theme of Intangible Cultural Heritage and the (typically Christian, Wobbly, or both) - and explain their relation to the
83
concerns of what I have elsewhere termed the hobo renaissance. This listening rooms and returning copies to their communities where people
presentation is intended to initiate a conversation in ethnomusicology about circulate them on their own terms. Copies circulate in informal economies
music's role in the efforts of hoboes and other marginalized transient peoples structured around group listening and collective memory. The sentiment
to adapt their identities to twenty-first century conditions. people invest in these recordings at language lessons and other gatherings
engenders unspoken rules between participants: specifically, that they
Mediating Faith and Devotion: Literary Performance and continue to make copies; exchange them; and (re)perform this music at future
Religious Modernization in Bali events within movements for Ainu cultural revival. How might copying,
Nicole Reisnour, Cornell University exchanging, and learning to perform music from the archive be interpreted as
a critique of notions of musical ownership in post-colonial states? Based on one
The Hindu-Balinese art of mabebasan has enjoyed a surge in popularity in year of fieldwork in Hokkaido and a second trip planned for Summer 2014 this
recent decades, becoming an especially prominent component of Bali's paper situates the actions of Ainu activists within discourses on musical
contemporary soundscape. Following Putra (2009), I use the term mabebasan piracy, cultural property rights, and archival repatriation elsewhere in the
to refer to a handful of vocal arts in which pairs of performers take turns world.
chanting passages of Kawi or Sanskrit-language texts and then paraphrasing
them, line by line, in modern Balinese or Indonesian. Like Qur'an recitation Contemporary Revival Music in Jamaican, Caribbean, and North
elsewhere in Indonesia, mabebasan is performed in a variety of contexts: over American Contexts
loudspeakers during religious ceremonies, in state-sponsored competitions, Dean Reynolds, CUNY Graduate Center
and on popular interactive radio programs in which listeners call in verses
over the phone to be interpreted by the host. In this paper, I situate Revival is an Afro-Christian religion of Jamaica characterized by a synthesis
mabebasan within a broad, state-supported religious reform movement that of European-, African-, and North American-derived belief systems, rituals,
seeks to position texts as the most authoritative source of Hindu religious and texts. Groundbreaking studies of Revival called special attention to this
knowledge, replacing ritual with beliefs at the center of Balinese religiosity. I syncretism in expressive practices featuring music and dance, which include
argue that mabebasan plays an important role in this movement, as it choral and solo singing, processionals, drumming, and possession rites. While
involves large numbers of people in the process of actively performing and much Revival activity today remains in the rural areas where it originated, it
interpreting religious texts, giving dematerialized religious doctrine a has made substantial inroads into urban Jamaica, especially into the poorer
circulating, embodied form. I base my claims on analysis of twelve months' neighborhoods of Kingston, where the music has both influenced and been
experience participating in a mabebasan club, observation of mabebasan influenced by the popular sounds and styles of the dancehall. Relative to some
activities across various contexts, informal interviews and private study with of its counterparts elsewhere in the Americas, however, contemporary Revival
mabebasan performers, as well as a wide-ranging investigation of music has been understudied in the field of Afro-diasporic sacred music. There
contemporary religious discourse and practice in Bali. This research makes an are a number of possible reasons for this oversight, though an important one
important contribution to religious music studies by bringing the latter into may be a relative shortage of Africanisms in both Revival song texts, which
dialog with recent anthropological scholarship on religion, media, and primarily derive from Protestant hymns, and musical styles, which generally
materiality. do not feature a high level of polyrhythmic complexity, compared to its
counterparts elsewhere in the Caribbean and, indeed, Jamaica. In this paper,
Returning Recorded Music from Archives to Local Movements for drawing primarily on fieldwork conducted in Kingston during the summer of
Ainu Cultural Revival 2011, I begin to redress this gap by briefly locating contemporary Revival
Nate Renner, University of Toronto music within Jamaican, Caribbean, and North American contexts, often at
important intersections of sacred and popular musical practices and
This paper considers adjustments that people who identify as Ainu-- discourses. In doing so, I contribute a unique perspective from urban Jamaica
descendants of the indigenous inhabitants of Hokkaido, Japan--make to to the expanding literature on Afro-diasporic sacred music in the Americas.
notions of musical ownership espoused by Japanese archives. Many Ainu
people value copied cassettes and CDs of their ancestors' music for the ability Ethnomusicology and the College and University Music Curriculum
of sounds copied to these media to transmit knowledge of traditional customs Timothy Rice, University of California, Los Angeles
and activate social bonds in movements for Ainu cultural revival. Source
materials for many of these recordings were made by Japanese colonizers in This roundtable assumes that the typical curriculum for music majors today is
the early 20th century. They are kept in state archives, accessible for listening ill-suited to the needs of modern musicians, who will encounter a much more
by the public but technically owned by the state. However several of my complex, interesting, diverse, and stimulating world than the one they are
interlocutors have admitted to stealing from libraries by copying originals in being trained for. It invites ethnomusicologists to report on successes and
84
failures in bringing about curricular change in a variety of institutional Magnetic Tape, Materiality, and the Interpretation of Non-
settings in North America. Before opening up the discussion to all attendees, Commercial Cassette and Reel-to-Reel Recordings from Quebec's
six five-minute presentations discuss how and why music-department and Gasp Peninsula
music-school curricula must be changed and the micropolitical obstacles they Laura Risk, McGill University
have faced as they tried to affect change in their particular institutions.
Specific topics include (1) the potential impact of ethnomusicology on the In The Circulatory Turn communications scholar Will Straw describes how
content of musical study in all areas of higher education; (2) how the mediating technologies and the means by which these technologies store,
ethnomusicology-influenced principles and vision of the 2007 Tanglewood II transmit, translate, and organize texts may affect the contents of those texts
(2010). In this paper, I consider magnetic tape as a material form and ask how
Proclamation require the reshaping of post-secondary programs for the
the physical limitations of tape shape both the recorded sounds and our
preparation and certification of future K-12 music teachers; (3) creating and
interpretations thereof (see Hegarty 2007). As the co-producer of a CD of local
maintaining two parallel majors (Music vs. Music and Culture) at a public historical recordings for the Gaspesian village of Douglastown (Quebec), I
research university; (4) the challenges of moving toward a more ethno-friendly have been tasked with listening to over forty hours of homemade cassettes and
undergraduate curriculum in a private School of Music; (5) alternatives to the reel-to-reels dating from the 1950s through the 1990s. In this paper, I use
single-course ethno requirement in a small liberal-arts college; and (6) these recordings as well as interviews with the recordists, musicians, and
resistance from major music textbook publishers hesitant to embrace their family members to demonstrate how the materiality of tape impacted the
innovative, integrated approaches to music study. This roundtable should lead conception, production, and audio content of these cassettes and reels. I argue
to better strategies and tactics for encouraging and accomplishing change in for two distinct approaches to creating home recordings: on the one hand, a
old-fashioned and out-of-touch approaches to the education of music students recognition of the linearity of the medium and a desire to use that linearity to
in North American schools and departments of music. construct a meaningful and long-lasting listening experience; on the other, a
disregard for the inherent two-dimensionality of tape and the use of sonic
Reflections on Two Classic Works on their Fiftieth Anniversary: layering to create a practical, but ultimately disposable, record of changing
Bruno Nettls Theory and Method in Ethnomusicology and Alan musical interests. Finally, I argue that the emotional weight of cassettes and
Merriams The Anthropology of Music reel-to-reels as physical objects is qualitatively different than that of purely
Timothy Rice, University of California, Los Angeles, Chair Panel abstract digital formats, and discuss the relocation of emotional meaning when a tape
is digitized for preservation or dissemination purposes.
In the first thirty years of its existence, ethnomusicology was the subject of
innumerable attempts to define its nature, methods, themes, theories, and Oxide and Memory: Tape Culture and the Communal Archive
research agenda. In the middle of that period, in 1964, two pioneers of this Laura Risk, McGill University, Chair Panel abstract
nascent field published books that summarized and extended the arguments
of the previous decade and a half: Bruno Nettls Theory and Method in The introduction of the first consumer reel-to-reel recorders in the 1950s
Ethnomusicology and Alan Merriams The Anthropology of Music. In this marked the beginning of an era. With recording technology newly accessible
anniversary roundtable, some leading members of what might be called and portable, tape became the medium on which several generations
ethnomusicologys second and third generation, who entered the field as documented their sonic lives. Although a number of scholars have investigated
students in the years immediately after the publication of these works, reflect the dialectic between music and recording technologies in the twentieth
on (1) how these books affected their early research as students; (2) how these century (Ashby 2010, Sterne 2003, Lysloff and Gay 1996), or used
books influenced developments in ethnomusicology subsequent to their ethnographic methods to study the social value of commercial cassettes
publication; (3) how they would assess the current state of the field in (Greene 1999), few have looked closely at non-commercial recording on tape in
comparison to the frameworks and issues laid out in these books. The the pre-digital era. This panel takes as its premise that the medium of
panelists are Stephen Blum (The Graduate Center, CUNY), Ellen Koskoff recording influences musical content, reception and associated meaning, and
(Eastman School of Music), Bruno Nettl (University of Illinois), Daniel asks how magnetic tape as a linear, tangible, (semi-)erasable format shaped
Neuman (University of California, Los Angeles), Anthony Seeger (University its own use (see Hegarty 2007). The four presentations consider three quite
of California, Los Angeles/Smithsonian), Mark Slobin (Wesleyan), Ruth Stone different tape archives: the home recordings of a Greek-American immigrant
(Indiana University), and moderator Timothy Rice (University of California, family, the autoarchivization practices of 1970s jazz musicians, and the
Los Angeles). cassettes and reels of a dispersed rural community from Quebec's Gasp
peninsula. Drawing on a range of scholarly approaches, including actor-
network theory, communications and media studies, and memory studies, the
panelists describe the recording of oneself, one's family members or one's
community as a step towards larger social goals, a site of musical
experimentation and empowerment, and a physical manifestation of local
85
identity and history. Following Edwards (2007), this panel also argues for activities that include active participation, connection to culture, and units
home recordings as an active claim on recording technology and, by that incorporate many different examples of music (rather than repeated
extension, both a claim on, and a challenge to, contemporary commercial experiences with one piece). In addition, students indicated enhanced interest
recordings. for repertoire that consists of instrumental music rather than vocal music.
A Sonic Historiography of Early Sample-Based Hip Hop Recordings Singing to the Foundations of Empire and Indigenous Ancestors in
Patrick Rivers, University of New Haven London
Dylan Robinson, University of British Columbia
Hip-hop beats are patchworks of reference that chronicle the labor of beat
makers as socially embedded cultural producers that use particular objects of
Like most tourists to London, UK, Tahltan artist Peter Morin's visit in the
technology toward specific aesthetic aims. Kevin Holm-Hudson's concept of
sonic historiography is a useful method to analyze hip-hop's sampling history summer of 2013 included sightseeing. Morin's intention in visiting these sites,
through recordings and technology without making grand statements about however, was not simply to snap a photo of himself alongside the monuments,
the 'meaning' of the use of certain samples. Writing about post-1960s rock, but to sing Tahltan songs to them. These performance interventions acted not
Holm-Hudson asserts that the importation of musical codes--textures, so much as performances for audiences, but as a form of communicating with
compositional techniques, recording ambience--from historical moments in ancestors (both colonial powers and Indigenous ancestors). Morin's reasons for
rock is beyond mere quotation and is fundamental to the style and sound of visiting each individual site resulted in a different strategy of song
subsequent bands and recordings. There is relevance to the idea of sonic intervention. For the British landmarks he visited (Houses of Parliament, the
historiography in the use of samples in hip-hop: which older recordings were Magna the Carta monument, and Buckingham Palace), his singing took the
used, and how the chosen samples were processed by a sampler and arranged form of what he called cultural graffiti. Using his voice to tag these sites
by a beat maker creates evaluative qualifications of style for hip-hop beats. In was an assertion of cultural resilience, and often concluded by Morin declaring
this paper I will explain the specific technical limitations and aesthetic choices We are still here. Other visits to lesser-known Indigenous monuments
made by beat makers from 1986-1990 that transitioned the hip-hop creative (Pocahontas' gravesite and Kwakwaka'wakw carver Mungo Martin's Totem
process to sampling as a compositional practice. The three musical codes that Pole) enacted forms of Indigenous nation-to-nation contact with ancestors.
will be discussed are 1) the type of sample used, 2) the contemporaneous This presentation explores the politics of these ephemeral interventions in the
popular sample source(s), and 3) the type of technology and impact of that public sphere, and situates them theoretically in relation to epistemologies of
technology on the creative process and the subsequent recorded product. song in west coast First Peoples' traditions. Such traditions use song as oral
Ethnographic data and musical analyses through an E-mu SP-1200 and an documents of land title (Delgamuukw vs. the Queen), to honor ancestors, in
Akai MPC 2000XL will be used to show the periodicity of hip-hop beat making
witnessing history, and in healing. As such, song is not merely aesthetic, but
as a musical practice.
rather operates within a performative tradition of speech acts, or in this case
what we might more accurately call song acts that have social and political
Elementary Student Interest toward World Music Listening Lessons
impact in the world.
Christopher Roberts, University of Washington
Merry-Making and Loyalty to the Movement: Conviviality as a Core
Music educators in the United States are working to broaden the musical
Parameter of Traditionalism in Aysn, Chile
canon in educational settings to incorporate lessons of music that represent
Gregory Robinson, George Mason University
diverse genres and cultures. However, for children reared on music from
contemporary popular culture and folk music from the European-American
This presentation shows how priorities and values associated with convivial
and African-American traditions, unfamiliar musical cultures often strike
social experience shape ideologically driven social movements. For several
them, in the words of one fourth grader, as umm, kind of weird., In order to
decades, residents of Aysn, a region in southern Chile, have advanced a
identify characteristics of effective listening lessons with children using music
traditionalist movement that claims a specific repertoire of rural, accordion-
from outside of the typical school music canon, this paper used the frame of
based music from Argentina as a form of local tradition, expressive of both
situational interest, the short-term interest that emerges out of the specific
regional identity and patriotic Chilean sentiment. The primary basis on which
characteristics of the immediate learning environment. Six lesson units of
they stake this claim rests in this repertoire's historic association with the
three classes each were taught to children in kindergarten through fifth
region's first Chilean settlers, reverentially called los pioneros (the pioneers),
grade. All classes were videotaped, and following the lessons, the students
who are remembered as patriotic heroes for the fact that they secured Chilean
participated in interviews and writing exercises in which they identified the
sovereignty in a marginal, underdeveloped area of the republic. The
characteristics of the lessons that were the most and least interesting.
movement to validate this music has concentrated strongly on the notion that
Emergent themes include increased student engagement and interest for
the contemporary use of this repertoire constitutes a solemn form of tribute to
86
the pioneros. However, analysis of the events that celebrate regional whether those non-humans are labeled as nature, objects, voices, or sounds.
traditions, the shared experiences that make up the stock of collective memory Panelists examine how music and sound interact with spaces through
on which the movement is based, and the movement's prioritization of certain performance and protest in Northern Europe and Thailand, how sound and
genres over others, shows that convivial sociability has played a prominent sound-making materials link us to local ecologies and forge social bonds in
role in determining the shape and subject matter of the traditionalist India and Mongolia, and how music affects perceptions of the environment
movement. This presentation draws on works by Hobsbawm (1983), Berlant and fosters commitments to environmentalism in North America and Brazil.
(2000, 2008), Turino (2008), Stokes (2010), and Dueck (2013) to show how Considering these issues from different disciplinary and theoretical angles we
Aysn's traditionalist movement hails an intimate public and how, in turn, examine what a distinctly ethnomusicological framework for these sonic
this public's shared values, assumptions, and priorities have shaped the relationships might be and address ways in which our research can expand
contours of the movement, sometimes in stark contrast to the movement's upon post-humanist theories. Bringing these analytical perspectives together
officially stated objectives. in discussion with our colleagues, we hope to enrich research methodologies
for future studies of sound and music.
The Rhythmic Practice of Carnatic Percussionists: Zoomorphic and
Numerological Expressions of Hindu Philosophy Applied Ethnomusicology: A Roundtable Discussion on Research and
N. Scott Robinson, San Diego Mesa College Careers in the Field
Elizabeth Rosner, Florida State University, Chair Panel abstract
Carnatic vocal and instrumental music of South India features many aspects
of musical expression devoted to Hindu philosophy. Many of the musical The pursuit of ethnomusicology requires a rich multidisciplinary skillset,
instruments, raga, swara, compositions, and lyrics are associated with Hindu which while enhancing academic preparation, also lends itself to career
deities. Numerological and zoomorphic symbolism pervade Carnatic music as opportunities in the broader professional world, including public service,
expressions of Hindu philosophy. South Indias art music tradition is almost community activism, marketing, public relations, museum management, and
entirely based on vocal music. The pervasive use of Hindu philosophy in archival collections and preservation. Acknowledging the diverse career paths
Carnatic vocal music is easily identifiable because of the amount of available to students can enhance the academic experience, and in some cases
iconographical and lyrical evidence demonstrating Hindu devotion. Much of may transform professionals ultimate career objectives. With an increasingly
the instrumental music in the Carnatic tradition is based on vocal composition globalized job market and an ever-changing academy, it is important to create
tying that repertoire to Hindu philosophy as well. In sound-based analyses of awareness of all that ethnomusicology has to offer so that post-graduates can
purely instrumental Carnatic percussion performance practice, recurring realize the many opportunities for which ethnomusicological training qualifies
numerological and zoomorphic phenomena are apparent such as the them. This panel, co-sponsored by the Applied Ethnomusicology and Student
prevalence of bovine symbolism and rhythmic divisions, subtractions, and Union sections, will discuss the variety of career paths available to
additions based on the numbers two, three, and five. In many examples of ethnomusicologists. Additionally, our panelists will address how recent
cadential formulae used in Carnatic percussion music multiple zoomorphic graduates can apply the skills they have acquired during their degree
and numerological phenomena frequently occur simultaneously that can be programs to pursue careers in applied ethnomusicology, a field that has been
interpreted as hyper-rhythm. This paper will demonstrate approaches to recently recognized as central to the field and of increasing importance. Many
music analyses of rhythmic phrasing in Carnatic percussion music that shows young scholars find the process of marketing their strengths and applying for
both evidence of hyper-rhythm and symbolism expressing Hindu philosophy. these jobs intimidating and overwhelming, since these are options rarely
addressed during graduate school. Our panel will serve as a professional
Sound Studies, Ecomusicology, and Post-humanism in/for/with development event, addressing the trend in the current job market and
Ethnomusicology preparing young scholars for employability.
P. Allen Roda, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chair Panel abstract
Exciser c'est pas bon!: Pop Stars and NGOs Voicing the Female
The relationship between humans and their environment, expressed sonically, Genital Cutting/Mutilation Debate Through Song
has been a core concern for sound studies and ecomusicology. This roundtable, Elizabeth Rosner, Florida State University
jointly sponsored by the Ecomusicology and Sound Studies Special Interest
Groups, engages post-humanist scholarship as a link between sound studies Female genital cutting or female genital mutilation remains a highly
and ecomusicology to address critical approaches to sound, nature (in all its politicized practice. What remains equally contested as its eradication, is the
definitions) and their connection to human behaviors. Our roundtable uses language used by activists, and anthropologists to name and describe female
geographically focused case studies based on research in six locations to genital modifications. The terms female genital cutting and female genital
explore the complex sonic interactions between humans and non-humans, mutilation have been used by NGOs and anthropologists to describe this
87
cultural practice, each carrying its own set of assumptions that profoundly The Dancing Queens: Hijra Music and Dance From the Streets to
affect the communities at the center of such debate. Popular musicians come the Stage
to embody this ideological split when they partner with human rights NGOs Jeffrey Roy, University of California, Los Angeles
by appropriating the language and principles into their music. Senegalese hip-
hop artist Sister Fa, has become widely recognized for her work with NGOs Music and dance of India's transgender, gender queer, and hijra (North Indian
which promote female genital cutting abandonment through human rights male-to-female transgender) communities serve vital roles in individual
education and recognize a need for a culturally sensitive, culturally specific identity (trans)formation, empowerment, and social mobility. My paper
approach. Her song L'excision epitomizes this discourse. Malian reggae artist, investigates how music and dance facilitate changing conceptions of gender
Bafing Kul's initiative with NGOs preventing female genital mutilation, identity through a look at The Dancing Queens--Mumbai's professional
signifies images of violence, trauma, and oppression. Kul's appropriation of transgender dance troupe comprised of hijra, non-hijra transgender, gender
the term female genital mutilation and its accompanying connotations is best queer, and kothi (effeminate male) members. The Dancing Queens performs
represented by his song Little Girls of Africa. Each musician becomes a music and dance in various styles, incorporating contemporary Bollywood,
representative for a particular sociopolitical faction established within Western pop, and hijra badhai ('traditional' acoustic street music and dance)
academic and social activism circles, while claiming to give a voice to the performance. In these cases, the troupe recontextualizes and transforms
communities who often go unheard. In this paper, I will provide a comparative informal social practices of music and dance into more formally-organized
analysis of Sister Fa's L'excision with Bafing Kul's Little Girls of Africa to performance spheres with a standard repertoire, stage, and following. My
demonstrate the politics of language, place, and audience that are entrenched presentation explores how the (re)negotiation of traditional and modern
in the music concerning this controversial cultural practice. boundaries of practice--alongside a recent surge in LGBTQ political activity--
facilitates the emergence of a contemporary, hybrid gender queer identity
An Assemblage of Impressions: Navigating Musical Identity in Post- based on individual empowerment. My dissertation will employ video portraits
Soviet Estonia of participants in their own skin, and provide an emic perspective of the
Margaret Rowley, Boston University new roles music and dance play in the transgender community's larger search
for acceptance on the societal scale. While scholars have investigated the hijra
As the Soviet Union's fall allowed scores and recordings from the West to flood community, little substantial English-language scholarship exists on
across the Estonian border, Estonian composers began to write music that performance practices within the larger LGBTQ communities in India. This
differed substantially from that of previous decades. I will argue that Estonian presentation represents a beginning effort to fill this lacuna, and also voices
musical identity under the Soviet Union was formed against the some of the pragmatic concerns and ideological bases of contemporary LGBTQ
governmental structure, with some of its main traits being preservation of worldview.
heritage, resistance against oppression, and conformation to mandates in
order to avoid persecution. By contrast, the identity within of the post-Soviet Music without Borders in the New Germany and Beyond: The Legacy
era allows composers to explore their culture and heritage without fear of of Giora Feidman in the Klezmer-Influenced Sounds of Helmut Eisel
reprimand. Tallinn-trained composer Liis Viira uses two separate pathways to and David Orlowsky
establish her musical identity: first, she draws on traditional Estonian music, Joel Rubin, University of Virginia
particularly regilaul, an Estonian song style that features repetitive
structures, long text, and personal melodic inspiration. Regilaul, especially In 1984, Israeli clarinetist Giora Feidman burst on the German cultural scene
during the Soviet occupation, was a way for the population to connect to an with his appearances in Joshua Sobol's Holocaust play, Ghetto. Germans
Estonian-ness nearly destroyed by Russification; Viira's modern use of accepted with open arms his exaggerated musical style, and political messages
regilaul suggests a connection to both Estonian history and Estonian of forgiveness for the Holocaust and of klezmer music as universal language.
resistance. Secondly, Viira uses Western and world influences not available to Feidman attracted a strong following and mentored the careers of several
Soviet-era Estonian composers. I will draw on Bruno Nettl's work On People protgs, particularly the German clarinetists Helmut Eisel and David
Changing Their Music to show how socio-political factors are allowing rapid Orlowsky. Both have developed significant careers within Germany and
stylistic change in Estonian music. I will also utilize the music of Veljo Tormis internationally since then, beginning with klezmer music heavily influenced
and Arvo Part, the Singing Revolution, and the deep importance of music in by Feidman, with his characteristic refined growls and pianissimo whispers.
Estonian culture to help place Viira in her historical context. Finally, They have since expanded into territories that allow them to either flaunt or
interviews with Viira and score analysis will illuminate Viira's musical voice erase musical Jewishness as the need arises. Eisel and Orlowsky's
within a changing nation. internalization of Feidman's style, and Feidman's explicit licensing of klezmer
to them as interethnic fair use has granted them a coherent marriage of
German and Jewish identities that realizes - whether wittingly or not -
88
Feidman's promise of forgiveness. It has also granted them ownership of an training, equivalent perhaps to the kitchen position of a station chef rather
ethnically-marked musical identity that provides them access to a world music than a busboy, and their job requirements are non-traditional in the sense
scene full of multicultural collaborations: via klezmer they can also make that they must play for their work in whichever worksite they are contracted
claims to jazz, Balkan, and Gypsy musical identities. Finally, they can to appear. But like restaurant workers, hotel maids, and security guards, most
externalize their grandparents' legacy of genocide by collaborating with musicians work non-union jobs that demand flexible hours, offer few or no
classical musicians as klezmorim. In this way they identify themselves benefits, and rise and fall according to the precarities of the market. While the
musically as the ethnic Other of the great German classical tradition, bringing devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 would appear to render New
the story full-circle by putting themselves in the position to grant forgiveness Orleans incomparable to other sites, a reliance on the return of culture-
for the Holocaust. bearers to facilitate recovery actually exposed the inner-workings of the
cultural economy and highlighted longstanding patterns of exploitation that
The Puerto Rican Cuatro In-and-Out of the Island: Hegemonic are endemic to the industry. This case study offers a lens into issues of
Constructions and Diasporic Experiences heritage tourism, commodification and authenticity, festivalization and
Noraliz Ruiz Caraballo, Kent State University exhibition, racial appropriation, music-as-labor, and the value of economic and
social capital, which draw comparison to other cities where music is
The latest U.S. Census Bureau data show that there are 4.8 million Puerto incorporated into the machinations of business and policy.
Ricans living in the mainland United States and 3.5 million residing on the
island of Puerto Rico. If this trend continues, by the end of the decade there is Networks and Negotiations: Music Consumption and Identity among
a likelihood that two-thirds of Puerto Ricans will reside stateside. This Youth in Delhi
unprecedented migration poses new patterns in population settlement and Natalie Sarrazin, The College at Brockport, SUNY
dispersion of both interstate and recent migrants, but it also comes to
represent the impact of location in the development of national identity and Chetan Bhagats book What Young India Wants (2012) and Faveros work on
sociocultural discourses. As Puerto Ricans living in the United States young men in India Dreams (2005), chronicle growing unease among Indian
outnumber those living on the island, the idea of nation defined by Jorge youth concerning unparalleled economic and social change. Young Indians are
Duany as a translocal community based on a collective consciousness of a pressured with negotiating a stable economic future in a world where trans-
shared history, language, and culture becomes more apparent in the national networks and class are increasingly more powerful factors than
cultivation of Puerto Rican musical expressions throughout the United States. traditional caste identities and bonds. Increasingly, music consumption is one
The cuatro, the ten-stringed lute regarded as Puerto Rico's national of the activities in which these tensions play out. Technological mediation
instrument, commonly appeals to a canonized folk music stream rooted on the (social networks, digital devices, Internet radio, etc.), affects existing social
island. This paper discusses the similarities and disparities among cuatro practice, and allows unprecedented access to unfamiliar cultural values and
performance practices in and out of the island to question if both of these sounds, both Indian and global, challenging Bollywoods hegemony. This
parallel cuatro traditions serve two distinct functions. The patterns of paper, based on original research, examines the role of music in the lives of
continuity and change traced by the performance trends, especially among urban, middle class youth in and around Delhis NCR. What is the impact of
young cuatro players, illuminate parallel patterns of identity formation among technology, trans-national and mediated music among Indian youth? How
Puerto Ricans living on the island or abroad. Ultimately, this presentation does music give voice to fantasies and dreams for a stable future? What role
examines how both island-based and diasporic cuatristas are does music play in the development of sub-cultural formations; selves and
reconceptualizing the instrument traditions in the service of distinct notions of potential selves? In what ways does music reconcile discrepancies and
national identity. tensions between tradition and modernity? After identifying the impact,
practices and roll of technology, social networks and consumption, I
New Orleans Musicians as Service Workers hypothesize that the significant presence of mediated music points toward a
Matt Sakakeeny, Tulane University repositioning of the traditional and a move towards the role of making
meaning through listening in overall youth identity formation.
In New Orleans, musicians function as service workers within the cultural
economy. Tourism is the citys largest industry, and live musical performance Ethnomusicological Perspectives on Childrens Musical Frameworks
is a critical part of the cultural matrix that makes New Orleans a desirable Natalie Sarrazin, The College at Brockport, SUNY, Chair Panel abstract
destination. Brass band musicians who uphold the deeply rooted traditions of
the jazz funeral and the second line parade are hired by culture brokers to Children, far from being mere consumers of music, are active agents in
lead processions of tourists through hotel lobbies, convention center halls, or innovating, creating and preserving musical culture. Despite this, children are
French Quarter streets. They are skilled workers requiring highly specialized often underrepresented in ethnographies, with only occasional consideration
89
of their worldviews and relationships. Recent studies such as Campbell and Re-sounding Caribou: Musical Posthumanism in Being Caribou
Wiggins' Oxford Handbook of Children's Musical Cultures (2012), attempt to Erin Scheffer, University of Toronto
reconcile this lacuna. Through use of original case studies, this panel also
addresses ways in which music constructs and negotiates children's realities In the spring of 2003, Karsten Heuer and Leanne Allison set out to follow the
vis--vis their musical preferences, memory, meaning, and identity. In annual migration of the Porcupine Caribou Herd in an attempt to fight the
Repatriating Childhood, the author re-examines fieldwork ethics in the lateral oil drilling endangering the herd's habitat. Heuer and Allison
repatriation of materials from Blacking's seminal Venda Children's Songs document their five month journey in the 2005 National Film Board film and
(1967) research, calling into question the impact of ethnography writ large on a 2006 novel both titled Being Caribou. Throughout the works, the pair
the lives of children and community. Kindie Pop and Cajun Pride delve into contemplates how they must be caribou in order to successfully track the
mediated music and identity in two distinct cultures, focusing on the impact of animals. This points to an underlying posthumanist narrative: if man can
the commercial music industry on children's preferences and tastes: Kindie become caribou then perhaps the boundary between humans and non-human
Pop looks at the adult hegemony and aesthetics of the children's music animals is also artificial (Wolfe 2003, 2009). The idea of permeability between
industry while Cajun Pride, using Bourdieu's idea of musical taste, questions human and animal is echoed in Dennis Burke's score for the film. While
the very nature of identity and sound consumption at the level of external Burke, a Vancouver-based film music composer, tends to favor orchestral
social structures and the individual child's subjective experience. Networks textures with the use of a gamut of instruments from around the world, the
and Negotiations also addresses music in identity development among middle score for Being Caribou employs samples from the northern soundscape and
class youth, based on the assumption that music negotiates identity and social electronic ambient music, highlighting the caribou's braying and the sounds of
positioning as well as the subjective desire of becoming. the wilderness. At the same time, the score is not without its complications, as
Burke frequently adds his own interpretation of indigenous song to scenes in
The Matthew Shepard Murder, Homophobic Violence and Gay the film featuring caribou, conflating indigenous music (and perhaps even
Choruses in the US indigenous people) with the animal and wild. While musical representations of
Kevin Schattenkirk, University of Western Australia animals have long been discussed in musicology, the question of how music
can efface boundaries between human and animal subjects deserves further
Nearly sixteen years after his death, gay choruses in the US continue to exploration. Burke's score for Being Caribou provides an ideal locale to remap
perform music about the 1998 murder of openly gay, University of Wyoming these borders.
student Matthew Shepard. Utilizing a variety of approaches to social
commentary, Shepard-related music often addresses the larger implications of It Hits Your Head and Then Your Feet: Consuming Jazz in Manilas
his murder: the relationship between anti-gay rhetoric, sentiment, and Cabarets
homophobic violence in the US. Drawing from scholarship in ethnomusicology, Fritz Schenker, University of Wisconsin Madison
I examine chorus performances as spectacle-events designed to raise
awareness on issues pertaining to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and During the 1920s, Americans, Europeans, and Filipinos consumed jazz
queer (LGBTQ) community. Chorus performances are often structured to throughout Manila. Rather than simply listening, though, audiences
facilitate outreach, presenting musical commentary without alienating consumed jazz through dance, a practice of embodying and performing the
audiences. However, I contend that Shepard-related performances not only latest movements of modernity alongside other dancers. Cabarets just outside
seek to raise awareness, but also function as a form of social protest. That is, city limits, where male patrons could hire Filipina bailarinas for a dance or
such performances confront audiences potentially complicit in perpetrating more, were among the most popular yet controversial spaces for dancing.
acts of homophobic violence that result from anti-gay rhetoric and sentiment. Consuming music in Manila's cabarets was more than just a way to spend an
For this paper, I draw from my recent fieldwork with US gay choruses in evening, though, it was a way to perform and negotiate the complex racial and
Boston and San Francisco and argue that Shepard-related performances serve gender hierarchies of U.S. imperial ideology. By drawing on archival research
two purposes. First, choruses use the Shepard narrative in performance to from Manila, I argue that the practice of music consumption in Manila's
comment on acts of homophobic violence that continue to occur in the US. cabarets was a highly charged social activity that embodied and involved ideas
Second, Shepard-related performances inform current performance practices about race, gender and empire, all through seemingly innocuous acts such as
and approaches to musical commentary on homophobic violence. Scholarship fox-trotting to Yes, We Have No Bananas. In this paper, I situate music
on public construction of memory, emotion and affect, and social movement consumption in relation to broader issues of Filipino independence and
theory also informs my work. Exploring how gay choruses perceive, and then American empire: dancing to jazz was a way Americans could demonstrate
act on, their role as agents of societal change carries strong implications for their engagement with western modernity while hiring bailarinas on
ethnomusicology. segregated dance floors maintained racial and gender hierarchies that
justified imperial logic. However, consuming music also became a way for
90
Filipinos to demonstrate that they, too, could embody the latest form of U.S. primary criterion for comparison. Based on the Gestalt principle of boundary
popular culture, actions that helped support claims for Filipino self-rule. The salience, the CRA deduces both a basic shape and a variable number of
ways in which audiences interacted with and through music constituted part intermediary levels for a contour by marking peaks and valleys as structurally
of a broader negotiation about empire in the Philippines. significant, and removing passing tones and repetitions in successive stages
until no further reduction is possible. This methodology sheds further light on
Wonders and Strange Things: Practices of Auditory History before the syntactical ordering of variants employed by the Aka in performance,
Recorded Sound which, under this rubric, better conforms to Simha Aroms characterization of
Katherine Butler Schofield, King's College London Aka musical practice and social structure as a simultaneous dialectic between
rigor and freedom (1983, 30; trans. Kisliuk 1998, 3).
How might ethnomusicologists write the cultural histories of soundworlds that
passed into silence long before recorded sound? Auditory history has become a The Silent Music of Matrilineal Kinship: Pacific Musical Challenges to
pressing new interest in both history and ethnomusicology, resulting, for Climate Change, Gendered Representations of War, and
example, in increasingly rich cultural histories of music in late colonial India. Environmental Policy
Yet even our best histories have largely been written with present relevance Jessica Schwartz, University of California, Los Angeles
in mind, limited not to the present, but by the present. If ethnomusicology is
no longer defined by fieldwork (Stokes, 2013), then what are its limits? In September 2013, the Republic of the Marshall Islands Minister-in-
Surveying the field it is apparent that ethnomusicology's boundaries are Assistance to the President, Tony deBrum, was asked about the nation's plans
roundly coterminous with the sound recording--by our ability to hear the to relocate should climate change make life in the islands unlivable.
soundworlds we study. With few exceptions, we write the cultural histories Emphasizing that his people had survived dislocation during World War II
only of what we can conceivably and literally hear in the present day, even and over six decades of nuclear devastation, deBrum denied plans for large-
when we stretch back before recording to cover the longue dure. Yet there is scale migration and stressed, Removing a population from its land is
no valid reason why this should be so. All the soundworlds with which we tantamount to the elimination of an entire people: their language, their
engage have long pre-recording histories, many of them lavishly documented culture. Focusing on a Marshallese musical repertoire that resounds
in text and image--if only we had ears to hear. In this paper I will give a deBrum's sentiment as survivor narrative, this paper investigates how land-
practical demonstration of auditory history in ethnomusicology by doing a based musical knowledge is employed in performances to mark environmental
close reading of a 16C North Indian chronicle. In listening to a text whose shifts and impact international climate change policy. Analyzing this survival
acoustic resonances reveal a world altogether weirder and more wonderful narrative through performances where interplays between cosmopolitan and
than we understand, I hope to articulate why ethnomusicologists should be traditional warfare motifs resound cultural loss and ancestral strength, I
interested in early soundworlds, not for what they tell us about the present, demonstrate the intimate connection between customary oral and kinesthetic
but as worlds unto themselves. movements, rhetoric, and policy-making. Positioned within the Pacific
indigenous rights movement, music aesthetically amplifies the conditions of
Improvisational Syntax and Melodic Contour in Central African possibility within global underdevelopment and crisis (e.g. nuclear, climate
Polyphony change) as bound by imperial ideologies. Thinking through the vocal
Rob Schultz, University of Kentucky techniques and timbral capacities of the coded masculine voice and body
performing in political spaces, I consider the absence of women's wartime
Despite its fundamentally pentatonic disposition, the music of the Aka people musical roles and voices in these productions as part of a gendered
of Central Africa does not operate under any sense of absolute pitch or fixed representation that is intelligible to Western notions of diplomacy but that
interval size. Consequently, Susanne Frniss has surmised, a graphic silences the matrilineal kinship system and a network of gendered violence at
representation [of melody] may be closer to the vernacular conception than the core of ongoing environmental racism and therefore the policy assumed to
transcription in staff notation? (2006, 169). Nevertheless, melodic contour counter these silences
plays no direct role in Frnisss paradigmatic organization of variants for each
vocal part in the song. In her paradigmatic analysis of the diyei or yodel part, Circles, Squares, and Other Beautiful Shapes: The Aesthetics of Tone
of the Aka divination song dikobo damu da sombe the widely dispersed in Taiwan's Sinitic-Language Rap Music
variants b, k, and p are identical in pitch and thus melodic contour, whereas Meredith Schweig, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
variants i and o are substantially different. Their location along the
paradigmatic axis is thus highly counterintuitive in this respect. This paper Among artists and audiences of Taiwan rap, a key measure of MC artistry is
therefore proposes an alternative paradigmatic organization of this material the ability to make musical the undulating contours of the strongly tonal
using Robert Morriss (1993) Contour-Reduction Algorithm (CRA) as the Sinitic languages spoken on the island. Like English-language performers,
91
Taiwan's MCs manipulate vocal pitch to vary the prosody of their phrases, but periods, and these ideological categories have shaped musical practices in
they must at the same time articulate the tones of individual words in order to style, repertoire, and genre formation. How can we move beyond describing
render complex lyrics in Mandarin (four tones), Hoklo (seven tones), and such practices via semiotic analyses to an understanding of how these
Hakka (six or seven tones) aurally comprehensible to listeners. Invoking practices work to shape perceptions and experiences of belonging? Here I
visual metaphors, they assess rap as having a sense of musicality when it follow Anderson, Hobsbawm and other scholars' claim regarding the
evokes smooth and circular shapes, meaning that tonemic inflection foundational work of cultural practices in ethno-national state formation. I
provides semantic comprehensibility, but not at the expense of an overall elaborate on these ideas by linking up Barthes' notion of exnomination by
sense of fluid rhythmic delivery (known in hip-hop parlance as flow). In this which the center disappears from view and thus becomes empowered with
presentation, I discuss the challenges and opportunities inherent to creating Bourdieu's notion of anamnesis of the hidden constant --- hegemonic selective
rap in Sinitic languages, and outline an approach to the analysis of flow in the forgetting of alternatives such that the cultural practices of the center can be
songs of Taiwan's MCs. Drawing on long-term research with the island's rap taken for granted and unmarked. I demonstrate these processes at work in the
community and the works of linguist-composer Chao Yuen Ren, musicologist musical practices and theoretical discourses that were deployed in the
Kofi Agawu, and music theorist Adam Krims, I argue that the aesthetics of creation of Turkish Art Music in the 1920s - 1940s. These examples show how
language tone figure significantly in the creative process of making Taiwan state agencies, intellectuals, teachers and bureaucrats managed musical
rap. Moreover, as I will show, the artists most highly evaluated by their peers practices to support the creation of an ethno-national Turkish Art Music
play on the porous borders between speech and song, challenging listeners to through the semiotic condensing of nested alterities--- a concept modified from
discern where linguistic signification ends and music begins. Bakic-Hayden. In this way, state-informed musical practices created a sonic
and hyper-marked other by which the newly-dominant self could be
All Our Music Comes from Outsiders: The Influence of New Ideas of proposed, and then disappear from view as an uncontested norm. I examine
Music Ownership on Suy/Ksdj Musical Life this process through evidence from articles, theory books, encyclopedia
Anthony Seeger, University of California, Los Angeles entries, radio programs, record catalogues and recordings from this period.
This paper discusses some of the results of the arrival of legalistic ideas and Perceptions of The Contemporary Jazz Voice as Instrument, and
language about music ownership on central aspects of the musical, artistic, Politics of Aesthetics, Authenticity, Gender and Race
and economic life of a group of Brazilian Indians known in the literature as Tamar Sella, Harvard University
the Suy but who now prefer to be called Ksdj. Today, their ideas about the
fundamental trajectory of their history and their musical performances might Instrumental and vocal jazz have long been separated by different repertoires,
be classified as theft or piracy. Yet they have no word for piracy and the musicians, and audiences. Discourse around Esperanza Spalding and
word for theft is not used to describe obtaining music from other beings. Gretchen Parlato, two successful contemporary jazz singers, however,
Brazilian copyright legislation has only recently been brought to their incessantly bridges this gap. The women themselves, their peers, and the
attention, largely as the result of an advertisement for sandals they made media, compare the vocalists to instrumentalists and their voices to
with the Brazilian supermodel Giselle Bundchen. The Ksdj tell their instruments. Such descriptions extend through jazz past, and include Louis
history as a series of acquisitions or adaptations from other beings. In the Armstrong's conflation of singing and playing, and Ella Fitzgerald's scat
mythical past they took fire from the jaguar, maize from the mouse's river, revolution. In this paper, I ask: what exactly do critics and musicians mean
and adapted names, naming ceremonies, and body ornaments from different when they describe singers as instruments, and what do they stand to gain by
Indian groups. More recently they adapted the material culture and learned to doing so? I use Spalding's and Parlato's music and the discourse around it to
perform the music of several nearby Indian tribes, and obtained songs from examine the various ways the instrumental-ness of jazz vocalists is perceived.
natural species. This paper examines shifts in language and concepts related Building on the linguistic theory of entextualization, I address the (re)use of
to performing the music of others and the impact of these on their musical an instrumental jazz repertoire, particular harmonies, and improvisation.
performances based on data collected since 1971, recent publications by Building on previous work on the human voice, I probe the notion of 'hearing
Brazilian scholars, and a planned 2014 field trip. instrumental-ness' when discussing vocal techniques such as the de-emphasis
of consonants, an increased attention to timbre, and, most prominently, the
Orientalism/Occidentalism and Nested Alterities: Refracting distancing from language with the use of vocables and foreign lyrics.
Identities in Turkish Art Music, 1920 - 1940 Reviewing the discourse on Spalding and Parlato, I show that impressions of
Sonia Seeman, University of Texas at Austin instrumental-ness deeply intertwine with politics of aesthetics, authenticity,
gender and race that surround jazz vocalists and voices. Instrumental-ness
The deployment of orientalist/occidentalist categorizations has been an runs against embedded perceptions of jazz singers as commercialized,
intrinsic part of identity negotiation in the late Ottoman to Turkish Republic inauthentic, female, and often, white, and thus acts to validate the singer, in a
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scene dominated by notions of maleness and blackness, as authentic, and active participant in the hoary tradition of the North Indian sitar as it
good. encounters a new set of global imperatives.
Popular Music and the Port City: Jazz Performers Working the Gypsy Klezmer Dialectics: Jewish and Romani Traces and Erasures
Calcutta Gramophone Industry, 1920s-1940s in Contemporary European World Music
Bradley Shope, Texas A&M University Carol Silverman, University of Oregon
This presentation will outline the work of foreign and domestic jazz musicians Music plays a key role in guiding audiences to interpret historical and
in the gramophone industry of Calcutta, and trace the industrys importance contemporary traces of Jews and Roma. This paper engages the dialectic
in marketing jazz performers across the subcontinent. Almost all scholars of between East European Romani music and Klezmer music in the current
the gramophone industry in India have commented on the gramophones role world music scene, both live and digital. In the last twenty years Balkan
in the development of an expansive Indian popular music economy in India Gypsy music has become a staple at festivals and in DJ remixes;
(Arnold 1988, Ferrell 1993, Hughes 2002, 2007, Jha 2009, Kinnear 1994, simultaneously, Klezmer music has been revived and popularised. These
Manuel 1988, Shope 2014, Qureshi 1999, Weidman 2003). But less studied is scenes overlap in Western Europe (and to a lesser extent in the US) in groups
the industrys influence on the success of jazz orchestras. As a city important such as the Amsterdam Klezmer Band, and in digital remixes by DJ Shantel
to colonial commerce along a busy waterway, Calcutta boasted a creative and DJ Tommi. To analyse why Gypsy/Klezmer is becoming a common digital
industry for the production and dissemination of gramophone discs fusion tag, I compare representations of Jews and Roma as cosmopolitan
throughout South and Southeast Asia, and jazz musicians recorded and subjects and objects. I explore the discursive work that Gypsy and Jewish
produced hundreds of jazz discs there between the 1920s and the 1940s. The musics accomplish in the present-day European political climate that is
industry was crucial to the financial success of jazz orchestras, and performers simultaneously multiculturalist and increasingly xenophobic. I contrast the
were keen businesspeople, recording and selling music from popular position of Jews as absent others who are historically present to Roma as
Hollywood films to support their livelihoods and to create a demand for paid too present others who are historically absent. Yet as policy makers and
live performances. I argue that jazz musicians created an effective marketing world music marketers create sites for Roma and Jews in the European
and advertising strategy though labor in both live venues and the recording multiculturalist imaginary, these two categories become elided. Ironically, as
industry. To this end, this paper will comment on the studio work of jazz audiences grow, more and more performers are neither Jewish nor Romani.
trumpeter Chic Chocolate, and how his efforts propelled him to the status of a Through fieldwork with various categories of performers, I thus investigate
star performer known throughout India. claims of ownership and appropriation, and argue that the specificities of
Romani and Jewish music, identity, ethnicity, and history are erased precisely
A Life in Sitar: An American's Fifty-year Odyssey through the as the Gypsy Klezmer genre becomes more popular.
Shifting Soundscapes of Indian and Global Music
Brian Silver, International Music Associates The New Old Europe Sound: Contemporary Engagements with
Jewish and Gypsy Musics
Though an icon of Indian classical traditionalism, the sitar has actually been Carol Silverman, University of Oregon, Chair Panel abstract
at the center of radical cultural and musical changes since the 1960s both
within and outside South Asia. In this paper, the author draws on his own The New Old Europe is the sound of Eastern European Klezmer and Romani
fifty years of experience as a sitarist to reflect on the challenges and music as performed and consumed primarily by Northern, Western, and
contradictions of pursuing an individual musical voice within a tradition that Central European non-Jews and non-Roma. Panelists explore this
demands veneration of the past and yet requires ceaseless innovation to phenomenon, along with strategies of obfuscation, fusion, and historical
survive into the future. In particular, the paper traces a series of cultural and reimagining that thwart potential repatriative claims on those sounds by their
musical transformations that reshaped the world of the sitar in the latter half Jewish, Romani, and other Eastern European originators. The music builds on
of the twentieth century. These changes include the popularization of the romanticization of itinerant Jewish and Romani lifestyles in an imagined
instrument on a global scale, the reification and politicization of distinct Eastern Europe landscape. Its dominant aesthetic, perhaps best exemplified
playing styles, and finally the proliferation of new performance strategies in in Goran Bregovic's soundtracks to Kusturica's films, is one of a dirty sound
pursuit of diverse audiences, including collaborations with non-Indian of unbridled wildness and freneticism. The papers in this panel are concerned
musicians in defiance of traditional genres and the embrace of new media with the social and political functions of this music in a number of contexts in
technology to preserve and propagate the art. The author offers the valuable contemporary Europe. The New Old Europe Sound may permit white
perspective of a musician who has witnessed these changes first hand, an Europeans to suppress their privilege by allowing them to inhabit the lives of
marginalized Others who are both subaltern and claimably European, both
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exotic and (in some cases) white. It allows people whose ancestors perpetrated genre since the early 1960s, Waljinah now faces the reality that her iconic
or did little to stop the Holocaust to separate themselves from that history by voice, an expression of her own identity and an entire genre, has
identifying with its victims. Its affiliation with Jews and Roma allows deteriorated in recent years. Her inability to technically produce the sounds
participants to distance themselves from the anti-immigrant right, at the (in terms of timbre and register) she's accustomed to, has altered her
same time that it reduces anxieties over Muslim immigration by establishing repertoire and identity as a performer, also creating uncertainties in her life,
New Old Europe as a domesticated, controllable form of Easternness. Case especially as an artist who has relied on live performances as a source of
studies of West European performers are drawn from Belgium, Germany, income and status. Using the trope of voice here to apply to the literal singing
Sweden, UK, and Holland; several papers also examine how Romani and voice and a metaphorical voice of agency, I explain how Waljinah has
Jewish musicians negotiate this terrain. attempted to overcome a loss of voice by altering her creative process and
incorporating spirituality through Islamic practice into her daily life.
Katajjaq: Between Vocal Games, Place and Identity
Raj Singh, York University Afropolitanism and Africanist Ethnomusicology in the Twenty-First
Century
Katajjaq: Between Vocal Games, Place and Identity Throat singing is a Ryan Skinner, The Ohio State University
specific type of vocalization that produces two or more notes, textures, or
timbres simultaneously. Performed amongst the Inuit community of Canada, The idea of Afropolitanism has received a great deal of critical attention of
throat singing is an integral component of cultural heritage. Katajjaq (pl. late, variously recommending and rejecting its use as an empirical marker
katajjait), a Nunavik Inuit term, refers to women's vocal games and the and conceptual tool in African studies. In most definitions, Afropolitanism
accompanying throat singing involved in its communal performance. Despite refers to a concurrence of the urban and global in (and out of) contemporary
the fact that ethnomusicologists have examined Inuit vocal games in relative Africa, to a mode of identification emergent from what urbanist AbdouMaliq
detail, additional inquiry of its effects on identity is needed.This paper will use Simone has called the worlding of African cities in the twenty-first century.
ecomusicology as a theoretical framework in the study of katajjaq in an For some, Afropolitanism intersects with themes of continental renaissance,
attempt to discover how sonic environments help to produce katajjait. creativity, mobility, circulation, and exchange, bound to an ontological
Furthermore, interviews with Inuit throat singers will help to provide insight rejection of extant modes of (post) colonial being-in-the-world. For others,
and address the following lacunae: What are the reasons for learning katajjaq Afropolitanism reinscribes reductive and stereotyped ideas of African-ness
within the Inuit community? How does katajjaq reflect the connections now coupled with the aestheticized subject positions and commoditized
between the Inuit and their surrounding world? How does place (or local cultural styles of a diasporic and urbane African elite. In this paper, I join this
environment) affect music making and Inuit cultural and ethnic identity? How conversation about the possibilities and pitfalls of a new keyword in the
does katajjaq shape environment and how does environment shape katajjaq? Africanist lexicon, drawing on my research into popular music and urban
By addressing these questions, I hope to add to the field of ecomusicology and culture in contemporary Bamako, Mali. Moving from my particular interest in
address how an ecomusicological approach can inform our studies of how the multiple social positions and existential projects of musical artists in an
music negotiates place and culture. In addition, I hope to address how humans African city to more general trends in popular musical practice in (and out of)
function within their culture and environment and how they develop, Africa, I present Afropolitanism as a useful - albeit controversial - model for
maintain or change their identities. the comparative study of urban African expressive culture, and popular music
in particular. There are musical echoes throughout representations of the
Re-sounding Waljinah: Aging and the Voice in Indonesia Afropolitan, resonances that ethnomusicologists should both critically
Russ Skelchy, University of California, Riverside interrogate and empirically investigate. This paper aims to encourage such
ethnomusicological interventions in (and out of) Africa today.
Music scholars have for some time now been interested in the cultural
meanings of the human voice as an instrument and a medium of expression. Ankilam Affect: Western Music and Dance in South Indian Devadasi
As Ruth Hellier suggests, listening to the singing voice as a creative act and Repertoire
process provokes and activates memory and perception, enabling an encounter Davesh Soneji, McGill University
(conscious or unconscious) with self and others (Hellier 2012:3). This paper
examines how this process evolves and changes over the course of a singer's This paper maps the presence of Western music and dance practices in the
lifetime. Focusing on Waljinah, one of Indonesia's most renowned vocalists, as repertoire of Tamil speaking courtesans (devadasis) through the nineteenth
a case study, I examine how age has impacted the relationship between her and early twentieth centuries. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, the
singing voice and identity--both in physiological vocal expression and creative systemic presence of Western music at the Tanjore court enabled bold cultural
process. As a vocalist who has spearheaded developments in the keroncong experiments with music; on the one hand it brought a number of Western
94
instruments and Western melodic forms into South Indian concert music, on projects remain a mystery. In this regard, we know much about the Turkish
the other hand it produced markedly distinct forms and practices that stood musical nation-building project, which is based on westernization, and the
outside the canonical courtly genres of performance. This type of new art - reaction to this process, such as arabesk (Stokes, 1992); however, we do not
sometimes colloquially glossed in Tamil as kilam or - English art - know how this project has been negotiated in local contexts. This paper
encompassed a large number of genres and performance styles, ranging from focuses on the effects of the Turkish musical nation-building project in zmir,
Waltz dancing to experiments with mixed English-Telugu language songs the third largest city in Turkey and the symbolic castle of westernization
meant for performance by courtesans. This kind of experimentation inserted and modernization in the country. The City Orchestra of zmir Metropolitan
devadasis into a new field of cultural forms and attitudes that staged, the Municipality, run by the local government, functions as a social structuring
transformative capacities of colonial modernity. But for devadasis the horizons apparatus, aimed at the construction of the modern and western citizen
of this modernity were bleak. The embeddedness of the colonial modern in through music, in accordance with the music policies of the early republican
aesthetic forms coincided with public challenges to the social legitimacy of period. In this context, the municipality employs the technique of polyphony
devadasi identity. These cultural forms carried with them the potential for the to modernize its citizens. At the same time, the orchestra has decentralized
emergence of the modern citizen-subject. This opportunity could only be seized from the republican values by internalizing popular aspects such as pop,
by middle-class women who mobilized the flexibility and modernity of these arabesk, and Turkish art music, which have been delegitimized by the ruling
forms by reworking them to nationalist ends, and not by devadasis, who were elite. The orchestra calls this symphonic pop, a practice that they argue
framed by the state as archaic emblems of a degenerate, embarrassing past. allows them to reach out to all of the citizens and modernize them all via
western music. This paper focuses on how the Turkish musical nation-
The Indigenous Voice on the Revolution Stage: Freak-Cabaret and building project has been negotiated in zmir and how the City Orchestra has
Hutsul Rock on the Euromaidan produced symphonic pop in order to construct a modern and westernized
Maria Sonevytsky, Bard College society.
This paper considers the influence of Hutsuls, indigenous Carpathian Give Me Some Water and I'll Sing You a Song: Analyzing the
mountaineers, on performances that took place during the Kyivan Professional-Amateur Disaster Song Dialectic
Euromaidan revolution of 2013-14. Positioned on the borderlands of Heather Sparling, Cape Breton University
southwestern Ukraine and marginalized by the Ukrainian political
establishment, Hutsuls have come to represent a quintessential ethne. Long On October 23, 1958, seventy-five miners died in Springhill, Nova Scotia.
romanticized for their vibrant folk music, close-to-nature ritual life, and fierce Miraculously, Maurice Ruddick was rescued more than a week after the
independence, Ukrainian popular musicians of the post-Soviet era have often disaster. As Ruddick emerged from the mine, a reporter asked the singing
used Hutsul influences in attempts to invent a particularly Ukrainian miner, as he was dubbed, for a song. The reporter published Ruddick's
language of popular music. When massive protests erupted in Ukraine's response: Give me some water, and I'll give you a song. Bill Clifton, a
capital city in November of 2013 to challenge the corrupt regime of the current Virginia bluegrass singer, was touched by the comment and contacted
president, musical performances became an integral part of the revolution, Ruddick for his story. Within 24 hours, Ruddick sent Clifton a poem, which
and many Ukrainian musical luminaries performed on the stage erected in Clifton and fellow musicians modified - with Ruddick's permission - into a
central Kyiv. Hutsuls featured in numerous musical performances as both song later recorded and released as Springhill Disaster. This story
physical presences and as an idea utilized to further stoke the convictions of illustrates an unusual partnership between professional and amateur
protesters. This paper focuses on two musical acts: the Dakh Daughters, who songwriters. But disaster songs such as Springhill Disaster are hardly
call their act freak-cabaret, and the obscure--but legendary--Soviet-era rock uncommon, whether by professionals or amateurs. In this paper, I will analyze
band The Hutsuls, who reunited on the Euromaidan stage. I assess how the relationship between commercial and amateur disaster songs, with a focus
invocations of Hutsuls on the Euromaidan work to consolidate a certain kind on disaster songs of Atlantic Canada from the early twentieth century until
of contemporary national imaginary, one that both historicizes and projects the present. Within the popular music industry, it is possible to find disaster
potential future modes of being Ukrainian. songs among nineteenth broadside ballads and in the 1930s country music
event song trend, and later in the folk song revival of the 1950s and the
Conducting the Society through Symphonic Pop: The City Orchestra repertoire of the emerging singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 70s. Not
of zmir as a Social Structuring Apparatus surprisingly, popular disaster songs were influenced by folk ballads, and folk
Onur Sonmez, CUNY Graduate Center songs changed in response to popular music trends. But which particular
aspects of commercial and amateur disaster songs became influential, at what
The relationship between extensive nation-building projects and music has point, and why?
long been researched by social scientists. However, the local results of those
95
Live Music and the Renegotiation of Public Space in 'Post'- 'creative class.' Accordingly, distinct 'world' drumming traditions have become
Revolutionary Egypt essential to corporate team building exercises, raising a new set of questions
Darci Sprengel, University of California, Los Angeles that challenge claims for the subversive value of drumming for anti-neoliberal
dissent. In contrast, this paper argues that casserole processions from Buenos
Mini Mobile Concerts (MMC) is a grassroots initiative started in Alexandria, Aires to Montreal have proven particularly effective due to their semiotic
Egypt shortly after the Egyptian revolution in 2011 by local musicians and evasion of musical genres and cultural drumming traditions, emphasizing
activists who aim to bring improvisatory music from private spaces to the noise and social disruption over musicality and groove.
public street. It consists of small groups of two to four musicians holding
impromptu concerts and jam sessions on busy street corners, an act that prior TG Lurgan: Web 2.0 and Its Implications in Contemporary Irish-
to the revolution would have led to their arrest by police. By bringing live Language Music
music performance from official venues to the popular street, the artists Erin Stapleton-Corcoran, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
involved in MMC intend to extend art and creative expression to this space,
change people's relationship to the street, and transform the street into a safe During the last decade, free streaming video sites such as YouTube.com and
community space that belongs not to the police or government, but to the Vimeo.com have provided a means for amateur musicians to perform for new
people. In my paper, I will demonstrate how MMC is deeply intertwined with publics and audiences within a virtual, democratized cultural space. In this
Egypt's contemporary social environment to argue that it has powerful presentation I will examine Ireland's TG Lurgan, a channel broadcasted on
implications for challenging class and gender relations as well as music's YouTube and Vimeo. TG Lurgan branded-videos are produced by Coliste
traditional role in greater urban society. Musicians involved in MMC aim to Lurgan, an independent Irish-language immersion summer school for teens
further the goals of the recent revolution by serving working-class located in the Conamara Gaeltacht. Featuring professionally-produced music
neighborhoods far from the city's center. In this context, female musicians videos of current pop songs translated into Irish as well as newly-composed
stake claims to public space through music making, challenging the cultural works in Irish, almost all performers featured in the videos are comprised of
norms discussed by Karin van Nieuwkerk in both the music industry and students, staff, and teachers from Coliste Lurgan. Irish language immersion
public sphere. Drawing on eleven months of field research conducted between schools have long utilized music translation and performance as a teaching
2010 and 2013, this research sheds light on some contemporary music tool, and subsequent performance of these pieces for one's peers and members
practices in the Middle East outside the realm of mainstream pop music. of the immediate Irish language community serves as a rite of passage for
students in attendance. However, the scope of TG Lurgan's popularity is
(Anti)Neoliberal Musicking: An Inquiry into Drumming for Political unprecedented, with the most popular videos garnering several million
Protest viewings only months after their release. In the final section of this
Daniel Stadnicki, University of Alberta presentation I will discuss whether or not the TG Lurgan project offers a
sustainable model for promoting the Irish-language in general and the
This presentation will investigate the history, role, and significance of contemporary Irish-language music scene in particular.
collective drumming practices at recent political demonstrations, focusing on
casserole processions (les casseroles), samba squads, and drum circles during
the Quebec 'Maple Spring' and Occupy Wall Street protests. Drawing from the ERMAGERD GERMELERN! Balinese Music in the Age of Meme
work of Slavoj Zizek, Jacques Attali, and Jon Mowitt, this paper will examine Peter Steele, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
the globalization and politicization of these drumming traditions, exploring
how the dynamics of political enjoyment (Zizek, 1991), genre, and noise are The following paper theorizes the movement of Balinese music-cultural
important factors to consider when analyzing the growing anti-neoliberal ephemera through newly formed transnational networks. Blogging platforms,
'percussive field' (Mowitt, 2002). Since the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, anti- social networks and video steaming services have established new routes for
neoliberal activists have increasingly employed drumming as a means of the circulation of Balinese music. These routes vary immensely in terms of
enhancing political participation. Recent ethnomusicological and folkloric legality and curation as they encompass forms of online piracy as well as
research has recently studied the impact of indigenous drumming traditions amateur and professional forms of 'digital ethnography.' As this technology
in specific political contexts (Lee, 2012; Munro 2010). However, the becomes mainstream in Balinese society, it allows Balinese and non-Balinese
globalization of Brazilian samba squads and drum circles articulate an musicians to exchange and integrate musical ideas with unprecedented ease
unexamined discourse of musical homogeneity in anti-neoliberal dissent. At and generates new forms of intercultural collaboration that are actual and
the same time, the political languages of carnivalesque emancipation and virtual, intentional and accidental. The following paper examines several
subversion are also employed as incentives to foster creativity and Balinese fusion projects that result from these idiosyncratic encounters. Using
productivity in the workplace--core features of Richard Florida's (2012) Dawkin's notion of meme, I discuss the fragmentation, reproduction and
96
variation of Balinese music-cultural aesthetics in contemporary fusion works. that the movement of people and things both within Africa, and between
These virtual encounters allow artists and composers to interact with foreign Africa and other parts of the world, is characterized less by flows and scapes?
musics with limited ethnographic or contextual information. As such, 'creative than by hops, skips, and jumps. Based on fieldwork in South Africa, Namibia,
mishearings' are often catalysts for musical innovation. These unique readings and Cameroon, I show that African popular music moves in convoluted ways,
of Balinese cultural aesthetics in turn generate widely disparate leaping over vast tracts of the continent and landing only at specific sites. If
interpretations of Balineseness and project competing views of Balinese this is so, then it is necessary to replace technophilic notions of musics radical
cultural identity onto a global stage. ubiquity and fluidity with a more balanced and empirically-grounded analysis
that traces the circulation of African popular music in terms of a non-linear
The Anti- Jazz School: Anxiety about the Institutionalization of and jagged topography. I conclude that Africa is not simply an anomalous
Creative Practice at Barry Harris' Workshop case but rather forces us to fundamentally rethink the concept of musical
Alexander Stein, Brown University mobility.
Drawing on recent scholarship that treats charisma as a social relation--as co- The Gumbeh and the Abeng: Sounding the Charge For Jamaican
produced between leader and followers--this paper examines NEA Jazz Maroon Independence
Master Barry Harris' pedagogy in the context of what attendees are seeking to Tracey Stewart, University of Virginia
get out of his workshop. Some seek from Harris a grounding in the tradition,
which they can then use to create something new. Others are ideologically The Gumbeh and the Abeng: Sounding the Charge for Jamaican Maroon
invested in canonical African-American swing and blues-based styles and in Independence The Abeng, a side-blown horn and the Gumbeh, a handmade
the music's connectedness to African-American communities. These square shaped drum, played pivotal roles in the Maroon struggle for
individuals often reject institutionalized jazz education, and seek an authentic independence in Jamaica. When British troops arrived in Jamaica in 1655,
connection to a bygone era that they find in Harris and his pedagogy. I situate Maroons used the treacherous tropical environment to successfully ambush
this latter group of individuals and their valorization of Harris' workshop vis- British military personnel and settlers, employing Abeng playing and
-vis institutionalized jazz pedagogy within the context of broader anxieties drumming as methods of communicating safely, and over great distances. The
regarding the institutionalization of creative practice. Whereas other scholars use of the Abeng and Gumbeh had a significant impact on the trajectory of the
have explored the way in which students and players negotiate what is African Diaspora in the Caribbean; specifically Jamaica. This paper examines
considered to be a paradox in the West--the pursuit of creative practice within the utility of the musical language that Jamaican Maroons spoke through the
a bureaucratic institution, Harris and many of his students evidence this use of the Abeng and Gumbeh in their fight against the British during the
same binary thinking in defining themselves relationally vis--vis Maroon Wars. It also explores the development of each of these instruments
institutionalized jazz education and eschewing institutional affiliation. Harris' from within and beyond Jamaica's borders, and the role that they continue to
alternative, anti-institutional pedagogy and his status as an authentic culture play in the lives of contemporary Jamaican Maroons. During my tenure as a
bearer offer a solution for those wrestling with the same anxieties about Fulbright Fellow to Jamaica, I investigated how the musical traditions of the
modernity. Maroons guided and shaped their identity, and subsequently the identity of
Jamaica. The year that I spent with the Maroon communities afforded me the
With a Hop, a Skip, and a Jump: Notes on the Circulation of African opportunity to interact with Maroon musicians and community elders,
Popular Music conducting interviews, attending musical demonstrations and enjoying
Gavin Steingo, University of Pittsburgh informal conversations with many community members. This paper is a
synthesis of those experiences, conversations, and observations, and
The relationship between music and mobility has long been a central concern advocate's for the acknowledgement of the underrepresented but highly
in ethnomusicology. From early studies of migration and diaspora, to valuable musical and historic contributions of the Jamaican Maroon.
examinations of circulating instruments and recordings, ethnomusicologists
have illustrated the profound ways that music moves between and across Making a Living through Music in Neoliberalizing Nepal
spaces and cultures. Recent studies have engaged innovations in audio Anna Stirr, University of Hawaii at Manoa
technology, from car sound systems and mobile listening devices to P2P file
sharing and streaming platforms. Music, it seems, is more accessible than In terms of economic policy, Nepal is one of the most liberalized countries in
ever, moving at an ever-faster pace in an unimpeded flow. In this paper, I South Asia. But there remains a major gap between official economic policies
argue that while recent interventions have contributed useful insights, several and the inner workings of the largely informal economies that make up
key assumptions about music and mobility run aground when confronted with Nepals music industries. State patronage and other older forms of patronage
sonic practices in Africa. Taking a cue from James Ferguson (2006), I suggest persist even while the global neoliberal economy affects how they can be
97
exercised. And, older and newer systems of music production and profit- stage for three groups from the United States to simultaneously navigate
making both clash and combine. Through all of this, musicians struggle to U.S.-Cuban relations and perform jazz in the context of intercultural dialogue.
make a living, and producers or their equivalents strive to extract some of the These groups included the Will Magid Quartet from Los Angeles, the Friends
surplus value from their musical production. This paper examines how the University Jazz Band from Lawrence, Kansas, and Trio Los Vigilantes from
structures of Nepals music industries, and the related possibilities for musical Austin, Texas. While getting to and playing in the Havana Jazz Plaza Festival
careers, have changed since the first private music companies emerged in the was an expensive and often challenging undertaking for these musicians, it
early 1980s. I compare the popular folk music industry with two different was appealing precisely because of the opportunities for transnational musical
alternative pathways to making a musical living: the mid-20th-century interaction it created. Furthermore, an analysis of the music performed by
version of state patronage that still exists to an extent today; and corporate these and other musicians demonstrates that jazz in the context of the
and NGO sponsorship. With particular attention to the intricate exchange Havana Jazz Plaza Festival cannot be defined by any specific
relationships that make up the popular folk music industry, I examine the instrumentation, aural quality, or musical elements. Instead, the
strategies artists use to make a living through music, and the changing values improvisational dialogue between musicians that takes place within an
that guide them in their choices as neoliberal logics become ever more intercultural continuum where political and cultural differences and
common in Nepal. commonalities are negotiated, battled, allied, and explored defines jazz in this
festival.
Pirating the Pachamama (Earth Mother): Mimesis, Remix and
Distortion in the Bolivian Andes Looking Like the Enemy: Negotiating Risk in Japanese-American
Henry Stobart, Royal Holloway, University of London Musical Performance
Sarah Strothers, Florida State University
Certain rural communities in the central Bolivian highlands perform new
songs and melodies each year to ensure successful production; old ones are Following the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan in December of
considered unable to do anything and are dubbed qayma (insipid) in the 1941, U.S. President Roosevelt issued an order calling for the relocation of
indigenous language Quechua. As if to mix the gene pool, the new music for over 120 000 Japanese-Americans living in the United States. Known as
the year is acquired from exogenous sources, such as other groups or Executive Order 9066, this policy was enforced to prevent any further attack
territories, and the act of collecting it referred to with the verb q'iwiy -- to on American soil by the threat of Japanese spies. The Japanese-Americans
(re)mix or stir. This paper considers juxtapositions between these rural had to continue their lives behind barbed wire with constant supervision by
practices and the use of rural music by commercial artists - with greater or military officials. Despite destitute living conditions, social clubs were
lesser claims to indigeneity. When and by whom is copying or imitation developed in many of the internment camps. Music was an important aspect
acceptable; when is it plagiarism or identity theft? What is acceptable to these clubs and was an integral role in the construction (or deconstruction)
(re)mixing or recycling, what is unacceptable distortion? These questions and of the identities of the internees. In this paper, I will focus on the musical
contexts are further complicated by exceptionally high levels of media activities at the Manzanar Relocation Center in Manzanar, California. By
piracy. As in the quotation in the title -- vendors accused of piracy by applying Ulrich Beck's and Joost Van Loon's risk society theory as well as
recording artists sometimes, in return, accuse recording artists of pirating the Erving Goffman's notion of social stigma, I argue that the music performed at
music of the countryside -- the native music [which] forms the basis for these camps served multiple functions for the incarcerated. For example,
folklore groups and electronic groups. music was seen as a risk by signifying loyalty to the enemy while in other
situations, music was used to portray Americanization and demonstrate
The Havana Jazz Plaza Festival as a Space for U.S.-Cuban Musical patriotism. More importantly, I will use music as a lens to discuss how
and Political Dialogue elements of risk were constructed through preconceived notions of race, war,
Tim Storhoff, Florida State University and the media. Ultimately, I will illustrate how music became as a factor of
risk, blame, a force of resistance, and a tool of transnational embodiment.
The Havana Jazz Plaza Festival has been a space for U.S.-Cuban musical
interaction since 1985 when Dizzy Gillespie first appeared at the event. While The Sound of Affective Fact
there have been many transformations in the festival and U.S.-Cuban Matthew Sumera, University of Minnesota
relations since its debut more than thirty years ago, it continues to be a major
draw for jazz aficionados around the world, and the number of U.S. In his essay The Future Birth of Affective Fact Brian Massumi develops a
participants has been on the rise since Obama relaxed the travel ban and critique of governmental power based on the idea of affective fact--a concept in
created opportunities for legal travel to Cuba. In this paper, a discussion of which the possibility of future threat is used as affective rationale for
the 2012 festival's programming and design shows how the festival set the preemptive, often military, action. Such action, however, is not intended to
98
prevent threat. Rather, Massumi argues, preemption brings the future into professional female entertainers, taledhek. Expanding on women's
the present. It makes present the future consequences of an eventuality that participation in gamelan, the second paper analyses the emergence of mixed-
may or may not occur, indifferent to its actual occurrence. This paper gender gamelan ensembles in Bali, and demonstrates current negotiations of
explores the sounds (in the form of music, sound effects, and the blurring of past and present gender roles within these contemporary ensembles. The
the two) of such affective fact as they have been imagined and created across a third paper enlarges the discussion of women's participation in traditional
range of post-9/11 media. Specifically I examine the ways in which threat is East Asian musics by correlating the diminishing cultural status of traditional
sounded in feature films, video games, and DIY viral videos. My goal, in so South Korean music genres to the expansion of women's opportunities to
doing, is to explore how such sounds define an affective platform for the participate in these art forms. Together, these papers expand
perpetual-inevitable of armed conflict and preemptive strike. In so doing, I ethnomusicological scholarship by addressing women's positions in the
locate the role of music as a central driver in America's military normal, and I preservation and innovation of traditional music genres during times of rapid
argue that such sounds are not about war as much as they are a part of it. social change and expanding global interconnectivity. A discussant will help to
highlight key themes across the papers.
Using Poetry to Teach Ethnographic Fieldwork
Jeffrey Summit, Tufts University The Battle on the Vibes: Politics of Race and Gender in Jazz during
the 1950s
In Shadows in the Field, Barz and Cooley write Fieldwork is experience, and Yoko Suzuki, University of Pittsburgh
the experience of people making music is at the core of ethnomusicological
method and theory (2008: 14). But how do we prepare our students to talk African-American jazz pianist/vibraphonist Terry Pollard (1931-2009) was
about experience and go deep in their discussion and analysis of issues at the discovered by legendary vibraphonist Terry Gibbs (b. 1924) and performed in
core of what has been described as the new fieldwork where experience is his band from 1953 to 1957. The band was extremely successful, appearing at
the primary site for knowledge (ibid. 12). In Poetry and Experience, Archibald major New York City jazz clubs and touring extensively throughout the US
MacLeish writes about the power of poetry to make sense of experience in and Canada. Newspaper and trade magazine reviews reveal that the highlight
its own terms, not in terms of an equation of abstractions - or a philosophy of of their shows was a vibraphone duet featuring Gibbs and Pollard. Gibbs
abstractions in a book? (1960:69 70). While scholars have used poetry to recalled, a black girl and a white guy battling it out on the vibes always
process and present their own experiences in the field (Kisliuk 2008; elicited a standing ovation from the audience. This paper explores the complex
Hagedorn 2001), in this paper I examine the use of poetry and song lyrics in politics of race and gender in jazz during the 1950s through the case of
my graduate fieldwork seminar to access and discuss a series of ontological Pollard's vibraphone performance with the Gibbs band. In the footage of their
and epistemological issues relevant to ethnographic fieldwork: how we television appearance on the Tonight Show in 1956, Pollard and Gibbs acted
negotiate relationships with the people whose music we study, reciprocity, the out a duet battle musically, physically, and verbally. The exciting musical
stance of the researcher, participant observation, and the meaning of exchange between the two demonstrates their equal mastery of the
experience. Drawing examples from the work of T.S. Eliot, Wendell Berry, vibraphone and of bebop idioms. Through interviews with Gibbs and others
songwriter Josh Ritter, and others, I propose this approach as a way to deepen associated with Pollard, archival research, and a close analysis of the footage,
our discussion of essential issues that ethnomusicologists encounter in I suggest that their performance on stage was a framed space where
ethnographic fieldwork. temporary integration in terms of both race and gender was possible. These
two musicians' musical connections and the proximity of their bodies crossing
Innovators and Preservers of Tradition: Women in Asian Music over the instrument during the duet not only disturbed audiences in the South
Christina Sunardi, University of Washington, Chair Panel abstract but also blurred the boundaries between black and white as well as male and
female that were hard to navigate in 1950s American society.
This panel presents three case studies that outline salient issues relating to
shifts in women's participation in traditional East Asian music genres. The Songwriter's Ball: Gender and Collective Identity in Childrens
Numerous studies have demonstrated the gendering of Asian musical Composition
practices (Weiss 1993, Becker 1998, Williams 1998, Ako 2009, Rasmussen Matt Swanson, University of Washington
2010). This panel builds on this foundational literature by identifying
important turning points in women's roles in specific Indonesian and Korean Children's musical participation in primary schools is often dominated by
music genres and problematizes the gendered nature of these traditions. The adult-directed, large-group activities in which the desired aesthetics are
first paper presents a historical account of women's musical practices in maintained by the teacher. What happens when children are instead given the
Javanese gamelan, illustrating the significance of the reconfiguration of opportunity to form and direct their own musical groups over a sustained time
gamelan music as high art for influencing the stylistic development of period? This paper considers a songwriting project at a Seattle elementary
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school in which 14 different student-led bands of nine and ten-year-olds identities - particularly ethnic groups - onto discreet parcels of land.
worked to assemble an album and a performance of original music. Drawing Noting that, at best, multiculturalism has promoted histories of ethnic
upon five months of observations and recordings, the research reveals the difference throughout the region, and at worst, narratives of landed, cultural
pivotal role of gender and collective identity formation in children's division have legitimized ethnic conflict, ethnic cleansing, and wholesale
collaborative processes. The creative trajectories of the bands under study, erasures of histories of ethnic interaction and cultural syncretism, I ask how
and the numerous break ups and reformations that occurred along the way, ethnomusicology might once and for all move beyond its obsession with
indicate that the establishment of group identity was prerequisite to identity to build a different sort of cultural history. Noting that the
successful musical outcomes. The forging of such social and musical cohesion naturalization of the Cold War area studies paradigm split Africa, the Middle
emerged as closely tied to gender dynamics and their corresponding East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia into distinct spheres of musical
interaction with instrument selection, genre preference, pre-existing circulation, I suggest we not only open up nation-states to their Indian Ocean
friendships, musical background, and the assignment of individual roles. histories, but that we turn the lens on ethnomusicology to consider how the
very idea that music is expressive and reflective of communal history is a
Performing the Prison-Clinic: Kapa Haka and the Redefinition of European-derived notion quite different from indigenous aesthetics
Mori Forensic Psychiatry throughout the Indian Ocean region. How does a consideration of indigenous
Lauren Sweetman, New York University notions of the relations between music and community allow us to build an
ethnomusicology that ceases to reify ethnic divisions? How can a rethinking of
Since the 1980s, health, education, and penal sectors in Aotearoa New musical community allow us to incorporate Indian Ocean connections into
Zealand have undergone a series of neoliberal and bicultural reforms leading national music histories?
to the growth of Kaupapa Mori, by Mori for Mori programming in
mainstream institutional contexts. In forensic mental health, this has resulted The Folk versus the Refined: Sectarian, Ethnic, and Geographic
in the creation of the Mason Clinics Te Papakinga O Tne Whakapiripiri, a Hierarchies in Chinas Buddhist Music
secure unit for criminal offenders with psychiatric issues, whose innovative Beth Szczepanski, Lewis and Clark College
model of care utilizes traditional Mori arts, spirituality, and language as
strategic tools for rehabilitation. In this paper, I examine how a key Attitudes about musical practices in Chinas Buddhist monasteries reveal a
component of Tne Whakapiripiri, the performance of kapa haka, serves as a complex sectarian and regional hierarchy. Buddhism in China is marked by
multifaceted site of negotiation between incarcerated patients, traditional syncretism; practices and beliefs flow easily from one sect to another.
culture, the neoliberal institution, and the broader social world. An icon of However, deep sectarian rivalries remain, particularly between practitioners
of mainstream Chinese forms of Buddhism, such as Pure Land and Chan, and
Mori cultural revival, the music and dance of kapa haka have risen to
practitioners of Tibeto-Mongolian Tantric Buddhism. An examination of how
international fame over the last fifty years, and continue to be the primary
Buddhists and music scholars describe shengguan wind-and-percussion music
form of Mori culture with which individuals engage. Within Tne of various north Chinese monasteries reveals much about the place of each
Whakapiripiri, kapa haka takes on new roles, serving not only as a medical sect in a complex political and cultural hierarchy. In general, musical
intervention but also as a means to restructure the expected boundaries of the practices linked to mainstream Pure Land and/or Chan practice are described
prison-clinic that typically divide clinician from patient, guard from prisoner, as refined and heavenly, while those associated with Tibeto-Mongolian ritual
outside from inside. Through the ethnographic analysis of Tne are described as heavily influenced by raucous folk music. An urban-rural
Whakapiripiris formal and informal performance contexts, I illustrate how divide appears as well, with the shengguan music of Beijing and Tianjin
the practice of kapa haka within the prison-clinic facilitates the formation of a considered more refined than that of rural monasteries deep in the mountains.
new social landscape, redefining what it means to be incarcerated and This paper compares the performance practices of shengguan ensembles in
mentally ill within Western institutional power structures. Tianjin, Beijing, and Wutaishan to explore how musical refinement and/or
rustic folk influence manifest in the music, and to what extent the perception
Islands, Oceans and Non-State Spaces: Music History and the of musical differences results from preconceived notions of a monasterys place
Twentieth Century Postcolony in a social and religious hierarchy. ,
Jim Sykes, University of Pennsylvania
Ukulele Materialities
In this paper, I explore how ethnomusicology and the cultural ideologies of Kati Szego, Memorial University of Newfoundland
postcolonial states neglect the musical impact of seaborne trade and travel, in
favor of what I term a landed musicology. Focusing on the eastern Indian Musical instruments mean (Qureshi 1997); human actors encode them with
significance. While this organological insight continues to carry immense
Ocean region, I argue ethnomusicologists and postcolonial states share a
power, Bates (2012) has suggested new lines of inquiry to explore instruments'
tendency to assume music history consists simply of mapping various
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material agency in the hands of human subjects. This paper traces the Whats in it for me? Fieldwork, Ethnography, and Musical
productive trajectories of the 'ukulele's materiality in the hands of three Collaboration in Senegal
professional, white, female musicians: Del Rey, an American blues guitarist; Patricia Tang, MIT
Victoria Vox, an American singer-songwriter and Eilidh MacAskill, a Scottish
performance artist--each a participant in the most recent 'ukulele revival to The scholarly products of ethnomusicology - from ethnographies to films and
have swept North America and Europe. Outside of Hawai'i and Oceania audio recordings - grow out of close collaborations between the
generally, the 'ukulele is often viewed as limited, either by virtue of its social ethnomusicologist and his/her research associates. However, the complex and
history as a novelty instrument or its close material kinship with the guitar. often political nature of this collaborative process is too frequently ignored,
All three women explore and exploit these apparent limitations. The despite the enormous impact it can have on the resultant ethnography, as well
instrument's diminutive size (compared to guitar), its child-like timbre and as on the musicians themselves. Although ethnomusicologists have long been
ludic associations are used to disarm audiences wary of the elitist sensitive to ethical considerations in fieldwork and considered how we can
connotations of MacAskill's performance art. For Vox, a former guitarist, the give back to the musicians who have given us so much, our work can also have
almost effortless availability of 'complex' chords on the 'ukulele has moved her an impact in less obvious ways. For example, how does the researcher's
to acquire an extended harmonic language, a new song form and soloing presence in the musicians' lives affect the musicians' own status and
chops. Operationalizing concepts from phenomenology such as ghost gesture reputation?, How do musicians benefit from having a book written about them
(Behnke 1997) and gestalting tactiity (Sudnow 1975), this paper also or having a recording of their music produced and disseminated in the West?
examines the ways that the ukulele's morphology opens up fresh sensory- Does the ethnomusicologist inevitably serve as a de facto promoter, manager
cognitive experiences for guitar players like Rey--for example, where identical or marketer of these musicians? In analyzing one ethnomusicologist's
hand shapes on the two fretboards sound differently. experience doing fieldwork in Senegal with griot drummers and mbalax
artists, this paper explores the complex power dynamics that are intrinsic to
Too Hot for Conservative Asians? Eroticism and Class Distinction the process of collaborative fieldwork and ethnography in Africa. In an
in Latin Clubs of Singapore increasingly competitive world of African musicians trying to promote
Shzr Ee Tan, University of London themselves, ethnomusicologists and their work can become unexpected capital
for the musicians with whom they collaborate.
Tango and salsa in Singapore exist in the default imaginaries of eroticized
cultural Others - neither deemed part of mainstream Anglo-American pop The Rough Voice of Tenderness: Chavela Vargas and Mexican Song
genres widely mediated across the island-state, nor integrated into 'world'/ Kelley Tatro, North Central College
folk genres consumed at the margins. Fieldwork in Latin American music and
dance clubs reveals disparities between communities of practice and non- Chavela Vargas (1919-2012) was an unlikely Mexican star. An immigrant
practitioners, with outsiders (mainly non-dancers) objectifying Latin dance as from Costa Rica, she encountered modest artistic success in the late 1950s,
an expatriate-led scene (with tango and salsa conjoined) that provides becoming known equally for her skillful rendering of song forms like the
platforms for the performance of passion and eroticism. In practice, however, cancin ranchera and for her brash persona. In contrast to celebrated male
there exist several overlapping communities of 'insiders' within distinct tango, vocalists who sang in a smooth style, laced with falsetto cry breaks and the
salsa and ballroom-dancing scenes. Dancers and musicians both resist and Mexican shouts that linked them to an idealized rural masculinity, Vargas
exemplify sexually-essentialised projections of Latin culture through the employed a husky and sometimes pressed vocal timbre. Dressed as a man,
construction and maintenance of identities as fans in discursively juxtaposed she drank heavily and lived recklessly, stylizing her performance through
performance activities. This study compares the tango and salsa scenes in sexualized gestures while refusing to switch the pronouns of song lyrics to
Singapore, focusing on how conceptions of Latin culture are embedded within suggest a heterosexual erotics. After a long retirement, Vargas resurfaced in
wider contestations concerning Asian social and sexual stereotyping. My the 1990s, claiming to have been cured of alcoholism by shamans who adopted
investigation also exposes the class dimension to the boundary-marking of her as one of their own. Hailed for her increasingly rough but tender voice, la
separate Latin sub-scenes. Tango, with its higher barriers of entry, is largely Chamana achieved acclaim in Europe and then in Mexico as the last great
patronised by professionals and highly-educated white collar workers. They voice of the golden age of Mexican song. In this paper, I will draw particularly
stake a claim to a sophisticated sensuality in performance through the on a burgeoning literature on voice, gender, and sexuality as I trace Vargass
recreation of a putatively 'authentic' Argentine model. Salsa, by contrast, is complex and shifting reception in her chosen homeland and abroad. Her bold
practised by a broader-based audience that includes itinerant tourists, grass performance later mediated by her broken voice and her association with
roots community clubs and even state matchmaking agencies, each of which indigenous Mexico, Vargas's legacy speaks of the racial and sexual politics
leverages symbolic and physical access to passion and intimacy for their own that constitute national voices within a globalized popular culture.
agenda
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Strident Voices: Material and Political Alignments ethnocentrism provide white activists license to carry on with their cause in
Kelley Tatro, Duke University, Chair Panel abstract the face certain electoral failure.
Recent interdisciplinary scholarship on the voice has investigated vocality not Interrelating African Musical Cycles
only sonically, but also politically, examining the circumstances in which Michael Tenzer, University of British Columbia
specific vocal qualities are chosen, produced, and consumed. Through this dual
focus, scholars have opened up a large range of styles, techniques, and timbres This paper, an exercise in speculative music theory, compares different kinds
to close analysis, while also questioning the characterization of the voice as a of cyclical structures in African music, and hypothesizes deep connections,
natural site of agency and resistance. In four distinct case studies, this panel primarily in rhythm, between some of them. This involves, first, classification
focuses on historically and ethnographically situated examples of strident, of cycles into two overarching categories: 1) those with directed compositional
forceful, or rough vocal styles and timbres, examining the points of contact
process - a sense of motion or change within the cycle; and 2) those without
and disjuncture between the material and the political. Our first panelist
such change, in which a single pattern (such as a time line) fills the whole
explores these ideas in the context of the Republic of Guinea, where hoarse
voices may be preferred over sweet ones as more likely to convey truth. cycle. Focusing on the former type, I depart from a hunch that some such
Turning to the financial crisis in Portugal, our second panelist theorizes vocal cycles, even from mutually distant traditions, and even with different
register to analyze the intersection of protest song and emergent affective numbers of pulsations or available pitch-classes, can be shown to be based on
publics. Our third panelist questions the linking of strident vocal sound with some specific principles of equivalence. The transformations that reveal the
racialized political empowerment by exploring the range of vocal aesthetics relationships are based partly on methods explored in Santa 1999, especially
chosen by Fisk University vocalists. Listening to Chavela Vargas's rough vocal tools the author developed for moving between different kinds of structural
timbres, our fourth panelist examines the role of strident performance in the spaces.?, The analysis juxtaposes the Zimbabwean mbira dzavadzimu
gendering of voices designated as representative of Mexican culture. This traditions Nhema Musasa (kushaura part only) and the recording of Hindehu
panel contributes to voice studies by attending to various affective outcomes from the Central African Republic (Arom 1998). As for the significance of the
generated through a particular field of vocal qualities as part of a broader findings, they are critically considered in light of related previous research by
ethnomusicological investigation into the entanglements of music and politics. Tracey (1970, 1971), Kubik (1988), and Brenner (1997).
A Certain Pattern in the Audience: Music and Implicit Whiteness in The Political Re-tunings of Taiwanese Musicians: Negotiating
Sweden Ethnicity and Nationality in Performances Abroad
Benjamin Teitelbaum, University of Colorado, Boulder Andrew Terwilliger, Wesleyan University
Organized white activism is the most marginalized political cause in This paper analyzes the ways in which Taiwanese musicians choose to
contemporary Sweden. Activists who advocate white solidarity and racial
represent themselves as they perform abroad. I first examine the particularly
purity have had no appreciable electoral success since World War II. In order
problematic confluence of nationalism and ethnicity which overseas
for contemporary neo-Nazi and white separatist groups to justify their
continued existence, they must explain why the population they champion-- Taiwanese must face in representing themselves. Through promotional
white Swedes--appears to roundly reject their politics. My paper explores the materials, repertoire selections, program notes, and on-stage explanations of
ways white activists in Sweden are using music to reconcile this conflict. concerts, Taiwanese musicians must constantly assess the implications of
Based on extensive ethnographic research, I describe a phenomenon whereby describing something as Chinese or Taiwanese. As I witnessed during
these activists suggest that whites, consciously or subconsciously, are seeking fieldwork in Europe, Taiwanese musicians must rectify their wish to appeal to
out occasions where they can congregate in isolation from racial others. Such the entire Mandarin-speaking community abroad, with a desire to assert
gatherings, activists contend, do not announce themselves as racially specific national sovereignty. To better understand this dilemma, I develop a
and thereby absolve participants from the stigma attached to explicit white situation-dependent framework to explain the methods Taiwanese musicians
ethnocentrism. And while various types of events can serve this function, employ in order to negotiating their complicated identities. I propose that
activists claim that Swedish folk music gatherings consistently provide identity is an ever-shifting concept, which is chosen to adapt to ones
opportunity to observe and participate in white Swedish ethnocentrism. In my environment. More specifically, I posit that the Taiwanese musicians
paper I analyze white separatists' commentary on multiple folk music events. examined here navigate their politically complicated positions by expanding
My discussion highlights their interest in the ethnic composition of and contracting the scope of their identities to accord with their situations. I
participants and the role of instrumental music as a medium for voicing then apply my framework to three case studies: (1) a Chinese orchestra
otherwise unarticulated appeals to racial solidarity. I move from outlining touring Europe, (2) a zhongruan (a Chinese lute) player sharing the stage with
activists' understanding of these alleged phenomena to explaining what they a sitar player in the UK, and (3) a dizi (bamboo flute) player in a rock band in
seek to achieve with their observations, arguing that claims of tacit Germany.
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Musical Humanism in the Syrian Revolution: A Study of the Work of Nelson Mandela and the Music of Liberation
Malek Jandali Diane Thram, Rhodes University, Chair Panel abstract
Kelsey Thibdeau, University of Colorado, Boulder
Nelson Mandela once said It is music and dancing that make me at peace
The popular uprisings that engulfed several Arab states in 2011 (aka the Arab with the world, and at peace with myself. He was responding to a
Spring) have spiraled into sustained Civil War in Syria, prompting performance by Johnny Clegg of his popular anti-apartheid anthem
international outcry against the atrocities that have been visited upon Asimbonanga on German television in 1999, and urged the audience to join
civilians, including women and children, in the conflict. On their part, a in as the song was repeated. Mandela recognized that, as music had played an
number of Arab musicians and artists have taken to their trade as means to important role in supporting and motivating those who had fought against
highlight the atrocities, to invoke the principles of human rights, and to colonialism and apartheid, it would remain a significant factor in the post-
advocate for international aid. This paper centers on Malek Jandali, a apartheid era to commemorate the anti-apartheid struggle and to participate
Washington-based Syrian immigrant composer, who by virtue of his roots, is in negotiating the future of the multi-cultural nation locally, and in its
in a unique position to highlight and to respond to human rights violations in relationship to the region and the rest of the world. In this panel we explore
the Syrian Revolution through his music. Drawing on personal interviews the role of music and the musician as a social actor in the struggle against
with the composer and an analysis of three of his works, Freedom Qashoush apartheid, and in the post-apartheid world. We consider jazz and popular
Symphony, Liberty or Death, and Emessa (Homs), this paper argues that music as weapons in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and Namibia,
Malek Jandali's music projects comprise a form of public conscientization music and reconciliation in the creation of a new popular music sound for a
(Freire 2000) in the context of national conflict. Moreover, I make the case liberated South Africa, and the ongoing role of music in the struggle for
that Malek Jandali's musical compositions, taken in light of humanist human rights through the role of choral music in the production of a new
discourse on the potential for music (and expressive culture more broadly) to struggle narrative in contemporary South Africa. These papers all draw on the
espouse humanist values, exemplify a form of musical humanism that uses of music in the struggle for human rights that Nelson Mandela
constitutes the sonic underpinning of his humanitarian project, the Voices of represents, and this panel is dedicated to his memory.
the Free Syrian Children. My work is further informed by recent musicological
scholarship on the relationship between music, conflict, and human rights Representing Shostakovich: First World Music Studies and Cold War
(Peddie 2011). Epistemologies
Nicholas Tochka, Northern Arizona University
Jazz in Service of the Struggle: The New Brighton Story
Diane Thram, Rhodes University He chews not merely his nails but his fingers reported musicologist Robert
Craft in 1962. His hands tremble, he stutters, his whole frame wobbles when
It is common knowledge that jazz was the music of the struggle against he shakes hands. Dmitri Shostakovich was, in most westerners' accounts, a
apartheid in South Africa. Oral history interviews with jazz musicians in Red nervous man: the embodiment of the communist Second World's ramifications
Location/New Brighton (the oldest township of Port Elizabeth) conducted for for artists. But following the 1979 English-language publication of
the ILAM-Red Location Music History Project, reveal that when the ANC Shostakovichs purported memoir, Testimony, a new figure began to emerge.
called on local jazz musicians to play at rallies, they cooperated and Besieged by the totalitarian state, this composer had dared to express in his
performed, even though they were harassed and sometimes even incarcerated works personal truths, albeit covertly. I always felt conductor Bernard
as a result. This paper tells the story of late Soul Jazzmen bassist and Haitink concluded, there was more behind the music than people thought.
vocalist, Thami Big T Ntsele (1945-2013) and his protest compositions, That Competition between the USSR and US determined the post-1945 political
Bastard, Unolali, Teargas and Tears for Sharpeville. Hits performed every order, but it also shaped global orders of meaning, value, and truth. Yet music
weekend at township halls from the late 1960s - 1970s, these tunes with their scholars have not asked how this global conflict shaped (ethno)musicologies.
delivery of improvised lyrics by Big T, served as a consciousness raising This paper presents a genealogy of North American and British
vehicle for local youth. Video recordings from interviews, a SABC radio representations of Shostakovich as a means to begin outlining the effects of
recording of Unolali disguised to avoid censorship, and the tribute to Big T the Cold War on music studies as practiced in the First World.
produced by the Project for the Generations of Jazz exhibition at the Red Shostakovichs invention, I argue, presents a key example of one politically
Location Museum illustrate how New Brighton, a township noted for its salient, if under-examined, archetype: the resistant individual, artistically
excellent jazz artists, was a vibrant center for resistance to apartheid where engaging totalitarianism. Informed by my recent ethnographic and archival
jazz performers contributed significantly to the struggle. Now known as research in Eastern Europe, I locate this archetype as a pivotal figure in Cold
Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, Port Elizabeth is the only city in South War-era music scholarship. I conclude by suggesting that core assumptions
Africa named for Nelson Mandela.
103
present in ethnomusicologists' work on resistance, agency, and politics beg audience members sometimes attribute them to the domain of non-human
reexamination as, in part, products of the Cold War. animals, frequently using this distinction as a basis for undermining the
legitimacy of this form of music making. Though mimetic use of animal sound
Writing Music Histories of Conflict in Post-1945 Europe/Eurasia is not entirely absent from these vocal practices, these attributions seem to
Nicholas Tochka, Northern Arizona University, Chair Panel abstract occur regardless of its appearance, likely due to the anxiety these practices
trigger by using the voice in ways distinct from those forms of vocality that
Despite the recent turn to questions of music, violence, and war, few undergird the epistemologies of modernity. In my paper, I will discuss the
ethnomusicologists have examined the twentieth century's defining conflict, reactions of performers to such attributions and the roles that mimesis of
World War II, and its principal by-product, the Cold War. In part, this animal sound plays in the practices of various different vocal improvisers.
omission has been methodological, as ethnomusicologists have focused on
music's roles in contemporary conflicts. Incorporating insights from political Musical Hybridity and Mariachi Music: Campanas de America
science, phenomenology, and anthropology, this panel insists on the necessity Jose Torres-Ramos, University of North Texas
of writing new histories of conflict. Each paper situates the affective and
epistemological effects of conflict on music within longer historical trajectories. In order to broaden the critical scholarship on mariachi, this paper will
In doing this, we seek to expand current ethnomusicological perspectives by examine the hybrid development of mariachi, particularly through the artistry
theorizing the musical dimensions of those ideological ruptures, legacies, and of Campanas de America. Renowned as one the first nationally recognized
struggles so often left in conflict's wake. Specifically, we consider the politics Mexican American mariachi ensembles, and yet alternately accepting-
of researching and performing music vis--vis the rise--and fall--of a bipolar rejecting being labeled as a mariachi Campanas has traversed the cultural
world defined by the mutual antagonism between the capitalist First World boundaries of traditional mariachi expression combining a broad spectrum of
and state-socialist Second World. Two panelists examine how Cold War American and Latino American influences, representing a growing
politics influenced the production of (ethno)musicological knowledge since transformation of mariachi in the United States. Music hybridity has played a
1945, focusing on Western ethnomusicologists' work in state-socialist Romania prominent role in the discourse on cultural experience in US/Mexico relations.
and North American music scholars' representations of Soviet composers. Two Formative research has examined the politics behind the histories of
panelists explore WWII's legacy in shaping musicians' experiences and displacement, dispossession, acculturation, resistance and transculturation
memories, presenting Germans' musical constructions and reconstructions of effecting the development of hybrid musical expressions. The mariachi
identity before and after the parting of the Iron Curtain and Kazakhs' post- tradition, although retaining very strong links to Mexican American culture,
Soviet musical and dramatic commemorations of World War II. More broadly, has curiously been poorly critiqued remaining on the periphery of critical
this panel contributes an ethnomusicological perspective to a growing scholarship. Within the cultural imaginary of national identity, mariachi is a
interdisciplinary body of literature on representation, memory, and ideology in strong signifier of Mexicanidad and thus largely reified as a public display of
postwar Europe. Mexican performative aesthetics. Although research has examined mariachi
transnationalism in the US (Jquez, 2005; Rodrguez, 2006), much attention
Voices Against Modernity: Reception of Extra-Normal Free Jazz has been paid to historical development, transmission, and gender. Yet, the
Vocality recent explosion of mariachi, especially in Southwest Texas, is producing a
Chris Tonelli, University of Guelph growing hybrid culture, characterizing a more diverse Mexican and Latino
American experience. The contrast between Campanas' artistic recordings and
This paper will explore the discrepancy between the ways performers and their livelihood as a working-mariachi illustrates the intersection of cultural
audiences interpret and experience the use of extra-normal vocal sounds in identity appropriation, commodification, aesthetic, authenticity and
contemporary free jazz/free improvisation communities, and the differing ownership.
claims about authenticity that arise from these tensions. In exploring this
issue, I draw on interviews I have conducted with contemporary vocalists Recollecting: Cultural Precedents for Repatriation and Dissemination
including David Moss, Shelley Hirsch, Pamela Z, and Paul Dutton, among of Recordings in the Kimberley, Western Australia
others. The accounts of such performers can help us expand upon recent Sally Treloyn, Melbourne Conservatory of Music
scholarship by Mladen Dolar (2006), Freya Jarman-Ivens (2011), and Ana
Maria Ochoa (forthcoming) on notions of voice under and outside the Repatriation of recordings from archival and private collections to
epistemologies of modernity. One of the principal themes to emerge is a communities and countries of origin has emerged as a growing preoccupation
tension between the human and non-human associations with particular vocal of many ethnomusicologists. This is nowhere more the case than in Australia
utterances. Despite the fact that all of the sounds under discussion are where the return of materials to families and cultural heritage communities
produced by human bodies - and are experienced as such by performers - has become almost ubiquitous in current ethnomusicological research on
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endangered Aboriginal dance-song traditions, motivated by: a desire to engage Affect Inherited: Redefining Pontic Sense of Belonging through
in research guided by reciprocity, social justice, responsibility and cultural Parakathi Singing
equity; to document knowledge about recorded songs and practices; to Ioannis Tsekouras, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
stimulate discussion and memories of historical events, people and practices;
to stimulate and revive cultural practices; and, in order to support efforts to The Pontians or Pontic Greeks, descendants of the 1922 Greek refugees from
sustain and safeguard endangered intangible cultural heritages. However, Black Sea Turkey, have developed a dynamic self-representation that has
digital heritage items and the metadata that guides their discovery and use affected the Greek national imagination and Greek-Turkish relationships.
circulate in complex milieus of use and guardianship that evolve over time in Staged performances of Pontic folk dance and music are central in Pontic
relation to social, personal and economic relationships and contexts. identity politics. They constitute the main venues for the presentation of
Ethnomusicologists, digital humanists and anthropologists have asked, what Pontic cultural heritage to the broader public. However, Pontic music refers to
of the potential for digital items, and the content management systems a multitude of musical practices that are not necessarily suitable for
through which they are often disseminated, to complicate the benefits of presentation onstage. Parakathi describes a practice of dialogical participatory
repatriation? This paper, presenting outcomes from a three-year project, singing that takes place in the private sphere among friends and family, away
balances the anxieties of an ethnomusicological task against narratives from from the stage, large public events, and folkloric festivals. Parakathi is
three generations of cultural heritage stakeholders in the Mowanjum associated with casual everyday sociality and an agrarian way of life.
community (Kimberley, Western Australia) on the cultural precedents for Although it gradually declined due to urbanization after 1960, in the last
discovering, receiving, sharing, and learning from recordings of song. It decades parakathi has been at the center of a Pontic revival movement.
throws light on the complex social and cultural contexts in which repatriation Revivalists define parakthi against Pontic music professionalism and folkloric
takes place, when songs are 'recollected' from the collections of archives and performances, as a spontaneous, sincere, deeply affective, highly artistic, and
researchers. authentically Pontic way of music making. In this paper I will describe the
challenges facing the contemporary parakathi practitioner and provide a short
Yam Kim-Fai, a Female Husband: Constructing Masculinity and analysis of how the discursive formations of ethnicity, tradition, nationalism,
Consuming Emotional Intimacy in Cantonese Opera and cosmopolitanism that inform Pontic identity politics relate to the
Priscilla Tse, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign parakathi revival.
The practice of women playing male leads has a relatively long history in Making Andean Music: Craftsmanship, Sound Ecology, and Social
Cantonese opera [Yueju] in Hong Kong. Resulting from the prominence of all- Life in a Peruvian Instrument Workshop
female companies before the prohibition of coed companies was repealed in Joshua Tucker, Brown University
1933, this practice of cross-dressing performance still continues today in Hong
Kong. Yam Kim-Fai (1913-1989), a signature figure among male Instrumental craftsmanship remains understudied within ethnomusicology,
impersonators, was so admired by her predominantly female fans that the notwithstanding classic, idiosyncratic accounts like Merriam's ethnography of
press responded by granting her the titles of Female Husband [n zhong drum making or Berliner's integrated study of the mbira. This lacuna is
zhangfu] and Opera Aficionados' Lover [ximi qingren]. Based on popular unfortunate, since scenes are shaped by the manual skills, available material
tabloid magazines, (auto)biographies, and ethnographic research conducted in resources, and socioesthetic inclinations that instrument makers deploy in
Hong Kong in 2012 and 2013, I will study how her performances and personal their work. Its persistence is moreover surprising given the rise of thing
life were depicted between the 1930s and 1960s. By contextually highlighting theory in parallel disciplines, and its promise for our understanding of the
and silencing her biological sex, gendered identities, and various interpersonal objects that constitute musicians' trade tools. Echoing Bates's recent call to
relationships with both men and women, popular media played a crucial role reinvigorate instrument studies via STS and actor-network theory, I draw on
in constructing an alternative but legitimate and safe masculinity for female my apprenticeship with an Andean luthier to demonstrate that instrument
fans to consume. In fandom, fans' emotional connection with their idols is not workshops act as key sites of sociomusical mediation. Focusing on the
just personally experienced by individuals, but, more importantly, stimulated elaboration of a single part - the headstock of the indigenous chinlili - I treat
by and circulated collectively through both popular media and fan attendance three aspects of the workshop's workaday culture, suggesting how insights of
at performances. Fans make sense of their personal feelings about the material culture studies, environmental anthropology, and actor-network
performers and performances through their participation in these discourses. theory might be harnessed to shed new light on the relation between sound,
This paper will shed light on how these discourses simultaneously opened a nature, and human society. First, I show how luthiers' embodied memory of
channel for homoerotic desires and disciplined fandom. premodern techniques engages contemporary demands, revealing ongoing
histories of labor and lore that resonate beyond the workshop itself. Second, I
show how their facility with materials circulating in the local economy makes
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luthiers a key node of translation between the domains of natural ecology and of Ainu people hide their Ainu ancestry from society: their friends, co-workers,
sound ecology. Finally, I describe the shop as a space of encounter between and sometimes from extended family members. Passing as a Japanese is
different socioesthetic milieux, wherein the sonic traces left by visiting complicated by a social system dictated by prevailing notions of homogeneity.
performers interpenetrate via the ever-growing knowledge base of the master This film explores how Ainu performers assert a multicultural presence in
luthier himself. Japan and expose the internal colonial past by carrying on the post-war
human rights recovery movement. It is no accident that three of the Ainu
Dratakh Chelik: Transmission of Structure in Interior Athabascan performers are children of key Ainu human rights activists from the 1960s
Singing and 1970s. The project incorporates interviews and performances from the
Siri Tuttle, University of Alaska Fairbanks Ainu tonkori players with subtitles, footages of Ainu community events, and
Hkan Lundstrm, Lund University interviews with scholars living in Hokkaido who have conducted critical
research on Ainu culture. Length of film: 50 minutes. Introduction/discussion:
The Tanana Athabascan language of Alaska is today represented by the 10-20 minutes.
Minto-Nenana dialect, spoken only by people from Minto. Vocal music remains
an important part of the cultural life of Minto and the elders are still engaged Cold, Crisp, and Dry: Inuit and Southern Concepts of the Northern
in musical composition and documentation. Memorial songs that are made in Soundscape
honour of persons who passed away and are performed at ceremonial feasts or Jeffrey van den Scott, Northwestern University
potlatches are of particular cultural importance. Certain memorial songs are
remembered and performed at later potlatches as well. Thus the Minto The Canadian North fits precisely into Robert L. Thayer Jr.'s (2012) definition
repertoire includes songs dating back to the early 1900s. In this presentation of a bioregion, as a unique place definable by its natural and human
we apply musico-linguistic methodology to three questions regarding Minto environment. In interviews conducted during the winter of 2013-14, Inuit of
memorial songs. We consider the role played by form, both musical and Arviat, Nunavut, identify the North in language consistent with Thayer's
linguistic, in the composition and memoribility of songs. We also address the (2004, 2012) life-place noting their strong affective bonds (Guy 2009) with
relationship of song form to the transmission of the composing tradition. the land. Increasingly, however, this land becomes not only their own, but
Musico-linguistic methodology integrates linguistic and musicological representative of Canada in its assertion of sovereignty over the Canadian
approaches including analysis of word structure, vocables and poetics in Arctic Archipelago. Musicians, then, embrace the arctic as a creative space in
relation to rhythm, melody and embellishments in performance. We claim that attempts to answer the question of what it is to be a Canadian composer,
the form of memorial songs reflects a framework that makes possible joining a long line of European intellectual thought which exoticizes the
composing new memorial songs, remembering them in performance and northern limits of their imaginations. Caroline Traube offers that composers
singing them in a public and collective context. Against this background the represent the musical north through the use of cold, dry sounds: metallic
current situation of the memorial songs will be investigated, taking into flutes, piercing harmonics from stringed instruments, and the avoidance of
account the current use and performance of traditional memorial songs, the warming vibrato. In this paper, I contrast the representations of the sound
state of the practice of composing memorial songs and the role of memorial of the north in compositions such as Schafers Snowforms and North/White
songs in the transmission of Minto culture and language to the younger and Jean Coulthards Symphonic Images: Visions of North with the concept of
generations. the sound of the North from its inhabitants. Despite the vastly different
experience of - and limited collaboration between - Inuit and composers of the
Fretless Spirits: Ainu Tonkori Musicians European art music tradition, the two cultures share many elements of the
Kumiko Uyeda, University of California Santa Cruz sonic North: those related to the cold, crisp, and dry celebrated both in
European folklore and in Inuit daily life.
The tonkori's transformation from an obscure fretless zither to a vital
instrument representing Ainu indigeneity was a process carried out by key Cosmopolitan Virtuosity, Cultural Capital, and Representations of
tonkori musicians that began after WWII in Japan and continues presently as Africa in Bla Flecks Throw Down Your Heart
part of an Ainu cultural resurgence. My documentary film chronicles the David VanderHamm, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
experiences and world-views of four tonkori musicians; how they have come to
dedicate their life to play the tonkori, and how identity is negotiated and This paper examines the musical collaborations in Throw Down Your Heart -
altered by being an Ainu tonkori player. Each musician articulates a unique a Grammy-winning album and documentary film in which banjo virtuoso Bla
perspective about their personal connection with the tonkori instrument; they Fleck brings the banjo back to Africa in order to collaborate with African
speak on the spiritual nature of their bond and how it forms a strong musicians. Though the rhetoric of return is used to give the project a patina of
attachment with their ancestors. The connection is also sociopolitical, for 95? naturalness, I argue that it is virtuosity that serves as cultural capital to gain
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access to musical traditions, and virtuosity further structures the traditional performance practice, while bringing key metric differences into
collaborations and their subsequent representations in recorded media. focus. The presenters will explore themes of how xylophone music conveys
Fleck's virtuosity is constructed as specifically cosmopolitan--defined by cultural history along gendered lines within sacred and secular performance,
stylistic mobility and cross-cultural musical ease--and here the concept of of how personal narrative and cultural proverb are communicated through
Africa as a site of origins provides the more fixed or natural Other against musical performance, of the expansion of traditional repertoire through
which Fleck's mobility can be established. Through an analysis of successive generations of musicians, and of the re-inscription of tradition in
performances and the politics of collaboration I theorize cosmopolitan musical ritual context. The discussion closes with a consideration of the
virtuosity as a reflection of the neo-liberal dream of the autonomous, impact that these themes have for the study of African music and the mapping
meritocratic individual able to cross boundaries by virtue of skill. Fleck's of cultural difference in African contexts.
attempts to challenge the acknowledged white southern stereotype so often
associated with the banjo come to rest on a stereotype of Africa as the It Arrived by Train! From Carrilera to Corridos Prohibidos:
aesthetic continent, as this cosmopolitan virtuosity reinforces and in some way Mexicanness, Mass Media, and Musical Identities in Colombia
depends upon the American cultural fiction of Africa. The problem of Patricia Vergara, University of Maryland
cosmopolitan virtuosity thus is common to many cross-cultural projects, where
the imagined and the actual impinge upon each other, and concrete social This paper examines three moments when particular Mexican musical styles
actors making music together encounter the cultural schema and appealed to specific social groups in Colombia, igniting new music scenes:
representational practices that threaten to distort or mask the meanings of msica de carrilera in the 1940s -50s, corridos prohibidos in the late 80s and
their actions. 90s, and, more recently, Colombian msica nortea. As most groups and
musicians that became referential models for the localized Colombian styles
Navigating Compositional Form and Structure as an Accompanist were Mexican-Americans, or had careers and lives based in the US, this study
Michael Vercelli, West Virginia University explores how notions of Mexican identity and culture indexed in the music
that motivated Colombians have nonetheless been continuously shaped and
This presenters discussion concentrates on the accompanying musicians role reshaped within the context of Mexico-US crossings of people, ideas, and
within the Dagara and Birifor xylophone traditions. Similarities and economic goods. Looking at specific social, political and economic contexts that
differences in performance technique, compositional structure and ensemble underlined musical migrations within a Mexico-US-Colombia nexus, I hope to
interaction will be demonstrated through performances with the other contribute an added perspective to studies of musical performance generated
presenters on this roundtable. within a Mexican transnational space (Simonett 2001; Hutchinson 2007;
Ragland 2009; Madrid 2011), and, broadly, to discussions of translocal music
Revealing Difference Where Sameness is Strength: A Dialogue of formations in which musical mobility happens independently of significant
Birifor and Dagara Xylophone Music movements of people (Waxer 2002; White 2008; Rios 2010). A seminal topic
Michael Vercelli, West Virginia University, Chair Panel abstract also framing this discussion is the crucial role of changing industrial and
mass-media technologies in the fashioning of Mexican-inspired trends in
The Northwest of Ghana is home to several distinct yet overlapping cultural Colombia, from the multi-sited operations of pioneer recording companies
traditions of recreational and ritual xylophone music. In an attempt to Victor and Columbia, the expansion of Colombian railroads, and far-reaching
foreground xylophone music in a country primarily known for its southern Mexican radio and cinema industries since the 1930s to the rising of digital
drum traditions, recent scholars have emphasized the shared aspects of technologies and musical piracy.
musical and cultural practice between Dagara and Birifor peoples. Bringing
native and non-native scholar-musician perspectives into dialogue, this Masculinities and Gender Relations in the John Alden Mason Puerto
performance roundtable reveals that there are key musical and cultural Rican Music Collection, 1914-1915
differences between Birifor and Dagara xylophone traditions, differences often Hugo Viera, Metropolitan University of Puerto Rico
obscured by the colonial imposition of ethnicity in the region. This ninety-
minute roundtable features four presenters who will perform and discuss Puerto Ricans have been using music, and in particular popular music, to
funeral xylophone (kogyil) and festival xylophone (bogyil) repertoires. The amuse themselves, celebrate their glories, and vent their sorrows and
presenters will identify the foundational compositional concepts behind each happiness. More often than not music has served to express ideas of love and
tradition, including specific ensemble interactions, programmatic themes, gender relationships, of courtship and of the need of a sexual and emotional
speech surrogation, and the importance of individual style and improvisation. partner. In this regard, popular music opens a unique window into the lives of
The performances feature traditional drum and percussion accompaniment, the illiterate and marginalized masses that passed away without leaving any
highlighting the rhythmic structure and ensemble communication of traces in the historical record. In this paper I set to explore popular music as a
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system of socialization in which ideas, roles, and expectations of masculinity communities and their music making, whereas more recent scholarship has
and gender relations are represented. To do so I will engage in a textual and moved towards employing biographical approaches with exceptional
discourse analysis of the Puerto Rican music collected by John Alden Mason musicians, thus valorising individual achievement. Does this shift in
between 1914 and 1915. Mason, an anthropologist commissioned by the New ethnomusicology scholarship in some ways resemble journalistic priorities in
York Academy of Science recorded in situ one of the best and most complete the popular music industry? This panel discusses selected charismatic
music collections of the period. Moreover, an overwhelming majority of the individuals who are widely credited with genre formations in three
musical pieces are comprised by what would be considered romantic or contrasting locations in Cape Verde, Mali, and Reunion Island. Despite these
amorous songs. In this study I will map out Puerto Rican masculinities as sites' striking social, political, historical, and musical differences, parallel
themes emerge. Each charismatic musician (big man) has shaped local
they were performed in popular songs. I contend that popular music offered a
popular consciousness in terms of nationalisms, roots, religious belonging
safe venue to both reaffirm and challenge traditional patriarchal images of
and/or genre formation. However, what is obvious to the musicians themselves
masculinity in Puerto Rico, revealing in turn, a more complex and is that the less visible (big sounds) of lesser- or unknown musicians, whose
heterogeneous masculine world on the island. musical mastery and imagination can transform the music of a generation as
well as sounds of the international stars, frequently slips the attention of
Maloya: An Indian Ocean Narrative with Black Atlantic Sounds scholars and journalists. While big men studies routinely tap into discourse
Amanda Villepastour, Cardiff University generated by the stars and their marketing machines (i.e. what is said and
seen), big sound studies with the side, backing, and/or amateur musicians
In the French Indian Ocean island Reunion, maloya music emerged from its necessarily call on a deeper and lengthier engagement (what is heard and
heterogeneous population descended from European settlers, Malagasy and analysed).
Mozambican slaves, and Indian indentured workers. Comprised of cyclic call-
response singing accompanied by driving percussion and a musical bow, Thinking through Music and Resistance During Apartheid: The
maloya has become emblematic of African-ness and creole nationalism. Train Song as a Trope
Following its appropriation by the Parti Communiste Runionnais in the late Stephanie Vos, Royal Holloway, University of London
1950s, the French government banned maloya until 1981. Political activist
and artist Danyl Waro is now maloyas most famous global icon and has The train as a trope in apartheid resistance songs was memorably inscribed in
spearheaded its post-80s cultural and musical reconstruction. Scholarship has Makeba and Belafonte's rendition of Mbombela (1965) and Masekela's
focused primarily on maloyas rich social and political history as well as its Stimela (1974), while more recent compositions like Zim Ngqawana's
relationship to ancestral ritual practices. Also of interest is the tension Migrant Worker Suite (2008) draws the metaphor of the train into the
between maloya as a creole nationalist symbol that draws from imagined slave present, and expands the narrative of departure to also reflect on the idea of
musics, and its contemporary stylistic hybridity, which has imported Black return. This paper argues that South African musical expressions of exile
Atlantic pop musics of resistance including reggae, samba and afrobeat. Yet subsume earlier narratives of labour migration, and are folded into continuing
technical studies of maloya that delve below its surface structures are lacking. reflections on liberation in turn. Through a diachronic reading of the trope of
The earlier influence of Afro-Cuban music on maloyas development appears to the train in these music examples, I will suggest performance as an important
have eluded many scholars and musicians themselves, which is surprising theoretical frame to understand how these songs, which do not explicitly
given its ideological resonance with post-revolutionary Cuba. Incorporating reference exile or resistance, are nevertheless consistently understood as
2013/14 conversations with key musicians, this paper considers the very politically subversive. This will be done by commenting on performance
visible presence of Waro (as charismatic creole separatist icon) against the contexts of the long-playing record (Makeba and Belafonte), the protest rally
embedded aural presence of highly influential (though less visible) musicians (Masekela), and the practice of improvisation as enduring commitment to
who are also shaping maloya, including Puerto Rican congalero Giovanni liberation (Ngqawana). In contrast to the train as symbol of freedom in the
Hildalgo. Just as heard musicians lurk behind seen stars, musical sounds can blues (Floyd 1988), my analysis of Makeba, Masekela and Ngqawana's train
tell stories often at odds with oral narratives. songs will show the trope of the train in South African resistance songs as
closer akin to that of the slave ship (Gilroy 1993), aligning South African
Big Men versus Big Sounds: Charismatic Musicians and Unsung migration and exile to global discourses of migration as traumatic experience.
Heroes in Four African Musics This palimpsestic understanding of music and resistance during apartheid
Amanda Villepastour, Cardiff University, Chair Panel abstract reveals a complex and lasting entanglement not only with the notions of
modernity and colonialism, but also with liberation.
One charismatic personality will suffice to release a chain reaction. One
virtuoso musician can end up being imitated by hundreds Kubik's statement
(1999) is as pertinent today as in the distant past, and no less true for
unknown musicians than it is for world music's biggest stars. As Ruskin and
Rice (2012) summarize, early ethnomusicology involved the study of whole
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Where are the Men? Gender, Performance and Transition in North and fertility rites accompanied by the gamelan. Though various researchers
Indian Dance have discussed the social role of the taledhek, none has discussed their music.
Margaret Walker, Queen's University Her musical style is characterized by four factors that set them apart from
later female gamelan singers (pesindhen): musical autonomy, playful
Gender issues in historical performance practice in India have by and large sexuality, prominence of songs as opposed to instrumentally dominated
been approached in recent decades through well-placed efforts to re-empower gamelan pieces in their repertoire, and a simple melodic style. Drawing on
female hereditary performers erased from earlier histories. This substantial recordings from the 1920s and 1930s, ethnographic fieldwork with aging male
work by Post, Manuel, Qureshi, Bor, Maciszewski and others has contributed gamelan musicians and taledhek, and information from literary sources, I
to increasing and overdue recognition to the women we now call courtesans or
analyze the musical characteristics of the early taledhek's style and how those
tawa'ifs who performed as singers and dancers in previous centuries. Yet,
musical elements shifted when some taledhek started to perform in the courts
there are other accounts that maintain that North India dance was originally
a male tradition, and that the women appropriated the art of hereditary men in the early 20th century, where they encountered the elevated pesindhen
who danced and told stories. A study of dance in iconography and travel bedhaya (sacred court dancers), the concept of adi luhung, which re-figured
writings seems at first to show only women, the 'nautch girls' of many colonial gamelan music as high art, and Dutch colonial notions of morality. In the
accounts, and male dancers appear to be entirely absent. A closer courts, the taledhek's prestige as a sacred/sexual being was eviscerated, at the
examination, however, does indeed reveal descriptions and depictions of male same time that her status, defined by aristocratic ideas of refinement (alus),
dancers, but they are cross-dressers, dancing boys, and male courtesans. In increased. As they attempted to imitate powerful upper class women to gain
this paper, I explore the place of male transgendered dance in North India, prestige, they lost their autonomy, both social and musical. All of these
analysing its presence in historical sources and drawing on the work of changes ushered in a virtual revolution in gamelan musical style, a style that
Banerjee, Vanita, Chatterjee, Krishnan, and Morcom. I then move to is still with us today.
theorizing what role the colonial British might have played in the
'disappearance' of these men from the history of dance, allowing the account of A Counterfeit More Original than the Original, or, the Case of the
the devotional story-tellers to be privileged. Wixrika (Huichol) Grammy Nominee Who Pirated Himself
Nolan Warden, University of California, Los Angeles
Delhi, Awadh and the Raj: Transitions in North Indian Performance
Practice This presentation analyzes the curious career of guitarist Samuel Lopes,
Margaret Walker, Queen's University, Chair Panel abstract known as El Brujo (The Witch), and his counterfeit musical group that
became more original than the original. Formerly a member of the Grammy-
Indian music's claim to ageless ancient practice has been challenged in recent
nominated Huichol Musical, a group comprised of indigenous Wixrika
decades by substantial work on musical change and modernity,
(Huichol) musicians performing popular Mexican music, El Brujo was known
postcolonialism, and revival. However, the question of musical transformation
in the pre- and early-colonial periods, and particularly the question of whether for his performance antics and selling his own pirated versions of the group's
change was precipitated by European influence at all, remains largely discs from stage. Ending his contract with the record label in 2013, El Brujo
unexplored. In North Indian music and dance, the century leading up to collaborated with another former member of Huichol Musical to form their
British imperial rule and the beginning of the Raj in 1857 saw significant own group, which they also called Huichol Musical. This counterfeit group
innovation and variation including the emergence of new genres, instruments, played to audiences of impressive size duped into thinking they were seeing
and performance contexts. What role, if any, did the increasing colonial the official Huichol Musical. Meanwhile, the official group suffered a car
presence have on these musical transitions? Were there practices that accident that incapacitated the original bass player, leaving the counterfeit
emerged during this ferment but did not continue into the next century? Were group with more original members. El Brujo has also suffered from
the practices that did thrive ones that were able to adapt the most easily in accusations of piracy, however, as his very identity is impugned as being
response to migrations and shifting patronage? This panel will address these pirated. Despite his nickname, he is not a mara'akame (shaman), his
questions through three case studies supported by new archival research. A Facebook identity was erased by the record label that controlled it, and
respondent will then comment on each study with reference to the overarching rumors circulate that he is not even 100? Huichol. This oddly groups him
questions of musical transitions and European colonialism in North India. with non-indigenous foreigners who are labeled Huichol de pirata because
they dress in Wixrika clothes and claim to be Huichol shamans. Based on
Early Female Gamelan Buskers: Social Persona and Musical Style two years of ongoing fieldwork, this paper takes an ethnomusicological look at
Susan Walton, University of Michigan the piracy of intangibles (music and identity), comparing it to Wixrika
concepts of music ownership and original deities versus copies.
For centuries, professional female entertainers, taledhek, have been Java's
premier buskers, singing and dancing in the streets, in erotic dance parties
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Pirated Indigeneity?: Perspectives on a Discourse of Music who support independence and those that support reunification. But for
Ownership, Use, and Entitlement mainland audiences, Pili must be Taiwanese enough to attract mainland
Nolan Warden, University of California, Los Angeles, Chair Panel abstract audiences while also avoiding political agitation. In this paper I scrutinize
how different musical elements and their cultural implications are
Music piracy and its synonyms have generated ample social debate at least represented in Pilis soundtracks, sound effects and narration. Then I will
since the appearance of the cassette tape, and substantially so since the examine in what ways Pili uses this multi-layered soundscape to develop a
arrival of digital media. This debate has been dominated in the West by the progressive eclecticism in its video shows through which Pili can claim
music industry, journalists, lawyers, and to some extent musicians multiple Taiwanese identities in different contexts for sustaining its business
themselves. Lamentably, there are scant ethnomusicological studies of success.
piracy and how that term is rejected, problematized, or embraced with
caveats in communities where capitalism and music ownership are relatively Labor and Agency in Field Recordings: Theorizing the Archival Turn
recent concepts. Therefore, this panel serves as an ethnomusicological Tom Western, University of Edinburgh
intervention into discourses of musical piracy, counterfeiting, and stealing,
analyzing the terms in Indigenous contexts to add global perspectives to an Ethnomusicology has seen renewed interest in, and increased access to,
otherwise Western legalistic binary. The first paper studies Ainu recordings archival field recordings in recent years: a shift in accordance with a broader
that are stolen from Japanese archives and subsequently distributed in a 'archival turn' in the humanities. Yet although much thought is being given to
gift economy for cultural revival. The second paper studies the influence of what should be done with archival recordings, not enough thought has
Western concepts of ownership upon the lives of Amazonian Indians whose concerned what these recordings actually are--what kinds of labors and
music and history consists of a series of acquisitions from other beings. The agencies went into their making. This paper builds towards a productive
final two papers consider indigenous musicians and pirates from Mexico and theorization of the archival turn. It does so by listening back to a period in
Bolivia who question who is actually pirating from whom, accentuating which a number of the monuments of ethnomusicology were made: the 1950s,
disparate understandings of piracy in rural and urban contexts, and when technologies of magnetic tape and the LP facilitated new practices of
communal versus corporate musical practices. The discourse, then, of music making, editing, and disseminating recordings. Retracing a specific project--
piracy, stealing, and counterfeiting, perhaps becomes less about the Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music--leads important
copyright and more about enacting claims of cultural right, representation, questions to emerge. Why were field recordings made in the first place? How
entitlement, access, and legitimacy. Ultimately, this site of analytical are nations constructed and sounded? What musics get left out? What role do
embarkation may promise further ethnomusicological insights into global institutions play in these stories? In addressing these issues, this paper
concepts of intellectual property and related topics of international examines how the ethnomusicological past sounds in the present: plugging the
relevance. history of the discipline into recent work on recorded music, archive theory,
and sound studies; asserting that new digital listening forums are not
Taiwanese Identity in Flux: Pili Budaixis Progressive Eclecticism in neutralized of the politics of collecting that are compressed into field
Globalized Context recordings; connecting the labor that went into making recordings with the
Po-wei Weng, Wesleyan University labor that recordings perform today.
This paper investigates Pili Budaixis progressive eclectic musical practice Egalit, Fraternit, et Diversit: Negotiating Difference and
through which Pili actively utilizes multifaceted global and local elements to Nationhood through World Music in France
claim various Taiwanese identities in order to save itself from political Aleysia Whitmore, Brown University
interference and gain business success. Pili Budaixi is a form of video martial
arts puppetry that emerged in the mid-1980s. An offshoot of traditional Since the birth of world music in the 1970s and '80s, Paris has been a
Taiwanese glove-puppetry, Pili Budaixi has transformed itself from religiously thriving center for the genre, attracting performers from all over the world,
linked, on-stage performance to a popular culture genre on TV and the silver and especially former African colonies. While African musics have become
screen that integrates media technologies with musical and theatrical sources increasingly popular in festivals and concert series, France has also struggled
as disparate as video games and Hollywood movies. While Pili has well to accept growing numbers of African immigrants. In this paper I examine the
represented the hybridized and globalized Taiwanese culture that frictions and the connections between two conflicting trends: the proliferation
incorporates the traditional and modern, as well as local and global elements, of world music performances and the increasingly racialized rhetoric in
the constant challenge for Pili is seeking a way to claim its cultural and France. Drawing from ethnographic research in Paris and Marseille, I explore
political identities when pursuing larger markets. In terms of the domestic how world music events have become spaces where government officials and
market, Pili has to be flexible enough to find a balance between Taiwanese concert organizers bring together conflicting ideas surrounding national
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identity, equality, difference, and racism. I look at how cultural actors connect Owning the Nation: Realizing the Sonic Possibilities of U.S. Civil War
biodiversity with cultural diversity and cultural sustainability in asserting Brass Music
the need for world music programming, and how they look to simultaneously Elizabeth Whittenburg-Ozment, University of Georgia
erase ideas of difference and promote multiculturalism through world music. I
then examine how the philosophies behind world music impact the practical This paper critically examines the use of American Civil War brass music to
decisions concert organizers and government actors make as they find funding manipulate historical narratives in ways that negate the issue of racial power
for events, invite artists to perform, and curate musics on world music stages. that was the root of this war. In doing so, the music has been framed as a
Building on scholarship on world music, multiculturalism, and cultural policy, retrievable sonic agent of authenticity and a source of social power. One
I look at how music industry personnel, political organizations, and community that contributes to this process consists of a handful of wealthy
government officials incorporate and define ideas of equality, integration, white men who have dedicated a considerable amount of time and money to
nationhood, and difference as they decide how to position themselves, their collecting, refurbishing, and performing Civil War brass music. Their bidding
cultures, and their nation in the flows of musics and cultures around the wars on the Ebay auction website led to correspondence, friendship, and
world. collaboration in what they view as a repatriation of war music to lineal
descendants of Civil War soldiers. These collectors have used their
They Just Live, because They Have to Live: Creating Hope and approximately 1 500 instrument inventory to establish performing ensembles
Opportunity through Music Beyond the Limits of South Africa's and institutionalize this music in prestigious archives. These activities
Transition to Equality highlight two controversial questions pertaining to the preservation and
Laryssa Whittaker, Royal Holloway, University of London return of musical heritage: 1) How has digital commerce impacted, if not
blurred boundaries between relic-hunting and repatriation? 2) If repatriation
Twenty years past South Africa's first democratic election, optimism about the is a concept traditionally limited to returning dispossessed objects to
promise of equality has been eroded by the reality of increasing levels of disenfranchised communities, then what happens when dominant social
economic inequality, limited improvement in opportunities for education and groups appropriate that model? I argue that the preservation and performance
employment, and levels of wellbeing that have failed to increase. Public of musical artifacts enables exclusive communities to control representations
sentiments of unity and determination to effect change were reignited in the of the past, and that the return of Civil War music to white owners privatizes
public celebrations of Nelson Mandela's life and work in December 2013, and polices cultural memory of this war and its aftermath.
notions of hope and opportunity featuring alongside rumblings of discontent
over the nations insufficient progress since Mandelas presidency. Hope and Power, Ethics, and the Repatriation of Music
opportunity are prominent discourses in the work of the Field Band Elizabeth Whittenburg-Ozment, University of Georgia, Chair Panel abstract
Foundation (FBF), a national non-profit organization teaching life skills to
youth in underprivileged communities through music and dance. They are the This panel critically examines four case studies in which the repatriation of
primary dimensions in which participants cite improvement as a consequence music - or the refusal thereof - has been used to police cultural traditions,
of their involvement with the FBF. Understanding material limitations and instill political ideologies, and reinforce underlying power claims. Numerous
their psychological effects as the legacy of apartheid, and the work of the FBF studies have examined socio-political contexts in which the repatriation of
as a type of political grassroots activity at a subpolitical level, I will argue that music is practiced (Seeger 1986; Lancefield 1993; Koch 1997; Toner 2004;
such interventions offer another perspective on notions of resistance. I will Nannyonga-Tamusuza and Weintraub 2012). This panel extends the existing
examine the musical and paramusical activities of the FBF that create body of literature by emphasizing the historically, culturally, and politically
practical opportunities and kindle hope for the future amongst disadvantaged embedded agendas that are often involved in the repatriation of music and
youth, theoretically grounding the discussion in the intersection of the scholarship. The first paper illustrates how, among the Baganda people of
capabilities approach to development (Sen 1999 and 2004) and the critical south-central Uganda, the researcher's cultural insider status impacted his
pedagogy approach to education (Freire 1994 and 1998), and referencing documentation and repatriation of musical artifacts. Expanding on the
scholarship on the South African context of such programs (Devroop 2012, researcher's role in preserving and repatriating music, the second paper
Oerhle 2010, Woodward 2007). wrestles with methodological and ethical issues that may confront foreign
scholars who work with politically fraught material, focusing specifically on
the controversial status of Rwandan musician and United Nations prisoner,
Simon Bikindi. The third paper probes how mass media enlarges the
inevitable power disparities between agents involved in acts of repatriation,
demonstrating how Peruvian radio distributors attempt to control their
audience's musical preferences and influence ideologies of race and class.
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Amplifying the themes of access and authority, the last paper investigates repertoires from a wide geography are easily reconciled and rendered local
how the ownership and revival of U.S. Civil War band music contributes to and cooperative in keeping with notions of urban Ottoman-era Sephardim
disputes about citizenship and social privilege. Together, these papers expand as in dialogue with communities of other cities and in dialogue with other
ethnomusicological scholarship by demonstrating how kinship, commerce, urban religious communities. Musical Neo-Ottomanism, a newly reconstituted
genocide, and mass media produce complex and novel entanglements between embrace of Ottoman heritage, serves as musician response to on-going
music and power. cultural discourse in Serbia. In the 1990s, the Rabbi and Cantor initiated
concert-stage performances to heighten the public profile of the waning Jewish
The Interreligious Turn: Exploring Balinese Gamelan as a Conduit community and to counter political rhetoric that focused on Ottoman
for Social Network Formation oppression and contributed to the marginalization of Belgrade's Muslim
Dustin Wiebe, Wesleyan University community. Now in the 2000s, an eastward glance has become a part of how
these musicians assert what they understand as inherent Serbian cultural
In response to the radically changing social and political landscape of our post values and perceived threats that European Union membership might pose to
9/11 world, new discourses are developing that seek to understand the impacts Serbian culture.
of what are increasingly termed interfaith and interreligious practices.
This paper examines the role of Balinese gamelan music as a catalyst in the A Brief History of Rada Song and Drumming in Haiti
formation of interreligious social networks in Bali. Drawing from theoretical Lois Wilcken, La Troupe Makandal
discourses in material culture studies and social network analysis, I
demonstrate the means by which Bali's Hindu majority relates to a number of Rada music, an art encompassing song and drumming, arguably defines
religious minority groups (particularly Buddhists, Catholics, and Protestants) contemporary Vodou in Haiti. The word Rada likely evolved from Allada, a
vis-a-vis the sustained production of gamelan music. More specifically, I place in present-day Benin and a major supplier to the slave trade during mid-
demonstrate how gamelan instruments function as nexus points within eighteenth century. Although the Congo region superseded Benin and its
interreligious networks, and create shared musical, social, and theological environs as the leading supplier of slaves to the colony by the late eighteenth
discourses that promote tolerance and understanding. Through the century when the Revolution brought the slave trade to an end in Haiti-Rada
ethnographic analysis of festivals, ceremonies, music instruction, and other practice assumed the leading role in the evolution of Afro-Haitian spirituality,
sites of church, temple, and community performance, I illustrate how religious and would continue to do so into the twentieth century, in both local practice
doctrine, local histories, and kinship ties coalesce through music, in turn and in representations of Haiti in international venues. This presentation
leading to new pathways for social and political cooperation. In my analysis I seeks to explain the dominance of the Rada rite in Haitian Vodou over its
position gamelan instruments as a type of spiritual capital (Ramstedt 2008) complementary Petwo (Congo) rite. It considers such historical factors as
that have, in part, directly facilitated new interreligious cooperation that slave-trade patterns (for example, the timing of the arrival of a group within
would not exist otherwise. In arguing for the social life of instruments (Bates the history of the colony), but it additionally studies the structure of Vodou
2012), I demonstrate how networks of musical production can contribute to music to argue for a level of sophistication that would articulate a complete
global efforts aimed at providing non-violent solutions to interreligious and fulfilling spiritual system, one that predated other rites that would
conflict. emulate the Rada. The author's data derive from more than three decades of
work with Vodou drummers and singers from Haiti's West Department, where
The Revival of Ottomanism among Belgrade's Sephardim the Rada rite rules. For ethnomusicology, this study casts light on an
Kathleen Wiens, Musical Instrument Museum important genre from the French Antilles, an area largely neglected to this
day, and it uses a historical approach to make its points.
My case study considers motivations for embracing Ottoman-era repertoire,
and contrasts with case studies in ethnomusicology that point to contentious The City of Syrup Bang Screw: Place as Capital in Houston, Texas'
and at times negative perceptions of the Ottoman musical legacy on former Local Hip Hop Music Scene
Ottoman territory in Europe. I focus on a small group of musicians in Langston C. Wilkins, Indiana University-Bloomington
Belgrade, Serbia, as key persons who adapt and perform Ottoman music in
synagogue and on concert stages. Their repertoire integrates local as well as Over the course of hip hop history, place (street, neighborhood, city) has
pan-Mediterranean and pan-Sephardi repertoire that comes out of Ottoman been a fundamental aspect of an artist's identity. From graffiti-tags to bi-
tradition. The musicians designate two perceived characteristics of Ottoman coastal wars, hip hoppers have actively embodied and expressed their places
society as inspiration for their Neo-Ottomanism: inter-connectedness through of origin. In recent years, however, place-identity has become fluid in hip hop
the flow of culture between cities of the empire, and musical dialoguing culture as artists are increasingly merging local identities or even rejecting
between religious communities in urban settings. From their perspective, place-labels altogether. In this sense, Houston, Texas' hip hop scene is a bit of
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a relic as its artists exhibit an unflinching identification with place. Houston- make sense of what we have experienced in the field, in our process of
based hip hop artists actively include references to places in their recorded analysis, and in our professional work at home. It is that moment of trying to
lyrics, instrumental accompaniment, live performances and music videos. In make sense of experience through analysis - of confronting extraordinary
addition, they often name themselves after places and even wear places on moments - that allows us to engage our most creative sensibilities. It is also an
exploration of the creative moment, set apart from the writing out of linear
their bodies through tattoos and attire. Such references to place are not
ethnography, which forms the basis for this presentation. David McAllester,
simply the result of intimate attachment. Rather, as I argue in this paper, Bruno Nettl, and other ethnomusicologists have expressed themselves in
place functions as cultural capital for these artists as they attempt to attain creative ways; poetry and performance at conferences and in publications have
power within Houston's street culture, local hip hop scene, and national hip been part of who they are as creative scholars. In discussing poetry in
hop landscape. Using sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of field and particular, I will demonstrate its ethnomusicological potential as a means to
capital to interpret my ethnographic data, I will begin this paper by explore not only our prose-defying field experiences that we rarely discuss in
presenting the importance of place in power relations of local street culture. our publications, but also the acts of translation we perform daily in the
Second, I will examine the role of place-identity in the maintenance of the classroom.
reciprocal relationship between local street culture and the local hip hop
Poetry as Transgressive Poiesis in Ethnomusicology
scene. Finally, I will discuss how popular Houston hip hop artists use markers
Sean Williams, The Evergreen State College, Chair Panel abstract
of place to achieve commercial success within the mainstream hip hop
landscape. This session engages ethnomusicologists in a discussion of the potential of
poetry for ethnographic writing and teaching. We interrogate and
Court Music Without a Court: The Circulation of Hindustani problematize the ways in which poetry can deepen our understanding of our
Musicians in Bengal experiences. Because poetry demands that readers process symbols and
Richard Williams, King's College London, University of London meanings, it offers great potential to help us translate and transmit important
experiences from the field. Poetry also stands as a lens that deepens our
Following the devastation of royal courts in north India in 1857 the landscape discussion of the issues that ethnomusicologists encounter in the field and at
home. Poetry is not new to ethnographers; it appears in field notes and
of musical patronage shifted into a complicated phase. While sections of the
published texts, as well as in our work as an expressive cultural medium.
older, aristocratic society retained their role in performance cultures, their Acknowledging that poetry may be viewed as a highly subjective, non-specific
position as arbiters of taste was increasingly undermined by urban elites form of text, the presenters and discussant(s) propose to discuss the varieties
prospering under the colonial regime. This paper charters this landscape in of issues and transgressions that arise through linguistic juxtapositions of
Bengal, beginning with the court-in-exile of Wajid cAli Shah, the last king of prose and poetry. Part of the transgressive nature of using poetry, then, is its
Lucknow, in the suburbs of Calcutta. For the thirty years of its existence this ability to transcend not just the linear nature of ethnography, but also the
court served as a forum for musicians and patrons from upper and north-east concept that poetry is best written (and enjoyed) by those outside our field. In
India. With the death of the king the new networks forged during the royal exploring alternative ways of expressing ethnographic concerns and
entertainments came into fruition, and artists from Awadh went on to perform experiences, each presenter in this panel examines the use of poetry as part of
the fieldwork process in ethnomusicology. Whether it is a pathway for
and teach in provincial Bengal. While this infiltration of Hindustani
understanding the array of experiences in the field, or a means by which we
musicians paved the way for Calcutta's musical reputation, it is also apparent can transmit cultural knowledge through multisensory creative making, or
that 'provincial' patrons played an unexamined role in the trajectory of the raise essential issues in fieldwork for our own students, poetry is fertile
colonial arts. By plotting the footsteps of 'big city' ustads in the countryside, territory for ethnomusicologists.
this paper will examine the import of Awadhi musicians to the history of new-
elite musicology, the middle class monopolisation of musical culture, and the The Bluebird Cafe, In the Round Sessions, and the Figure of the
marginalisation of Muslim musicians. Nashville Songwriter
Chris Wilson, University of Toronto
Managing the Unspeakable through Transgressive Ethnography
Sean Williams, Evergreen State College The Bluebird Cafe has since 1985 staked its reputation on being a
performance space for Nashville songwriters: a venue without rival or
Each of us is accustomed to gathering myriad thoughts and impressions and precedent. Though songwriters are often shadowy figures within the larger
aligning them into prose form. The divide in ethnographic works between transnational country music infrastructure, songwriter performances at the
nonfiction and fiction is a deep one, with nonfiction the clear winner in terms Bluebird have taken on increased importance on a local level, particularly
of publication, lecture content, and pathways to tenure and career success. since the venue's featuring on the prime-time soap opera Nashville. The
The translation of chaotic experience and intellectual exploration into linear Bluebird has become the key site in which Nashville songwriters build
exegesis is a process we value and celebrate. Yet in the earliest stages of reputations and make public what they do more typically in private spaces,
forming that linearity of expression, we easily draw on every tool we have to and broader notions about the Nashville songwriter are largely shaped by the
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venue and its policies. Central to my talk are issues of identity construction of centre for music production in Melanesia. Specifically, these case studies
and by Nashville songwriters at the Bluebird, and how songwriters in exemplify how the indigenous notion of ples (place) underpins the production
performance both endorse and resist the ways that the venue positions them of Lokal music, and dictates the categorizations of Lokal styles. These styles
and their colleagues. I employ Foucault's ideas about surveillance and resemble electronically produced pan-Pacific pop, but are interpreted through
discipline (1977) to frame the strategies and ideologies through which the musical, lyrical and instrumental variants that have origins in highly specific
venue positions songwriters, and discuss songwriter responses to this localised rural Stringband traditions. Lokal music, therefore, holds specific
positioning as tactics as defined by de Certeau (1984). I particularly examine significances among diverse cultural groups that are defined through
performances called In the Round (where songwriters trade songs and stories customary links to ples, despite featuring no obvious signifiers of traditional
in front of audiences). These performances are touristic presentations of the music or culture. From a theoretical standpoint, Lokal music is considered
songwriting community in Nashville, yet demonstrate a fundamental but within an indigenous epistemological framework that prioritises local
seldom recognized aspect of songwriters' work: that it relies on personal theoretical constructs in the analysis of musical culture.
interactions as part of the process of writing successful country songs.
When the Devil Dances Differently: Borderlands, Migration, and
Nepotism, Patronage, Nationalism, and Belonging in the Musical Intangible Cultural Heritage in Arica, Chile
Practices of Macedonian Ethno-Bands Juan Eduardo Wolf, University of Oregon
Dave Wilson, University of California, Los Angeles
In this paper, I discuss the ritual dance genre known as the Diablada (the
Over the last decade, Macedonia has seen a proliferation of independent Devil's dance). As part of the Carnival of Oruro, UNESCO declared this
musical ensembles featuring folk elements (e.g. instruments, repertoires, and expression to be part of Bolivia's Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2001. For
styles) in new configurations and/or in combination with contemporary genres several decades prior, however, the Diablada has also been performed in Chile
such as jazz or electronic music. Most of these so-called ethno-bands have and Peru, leading to accusations that these countries have been stealing and
emerged in Skopje, Macedonia's capital, in an urban renaissance of folk music distorting Bolivian culture. Often these accusers base their charges on a
practices. Concurrently, the Macedonian state has become increasingly limited and selective number of performance markers, disregarding the
powerful and ethnocentrically nationalistic, the government garnering complex local histories of cultural exchange and migration in the south central
support by leveraging public discontent with Greece's refusal to recognize both Andes. Here I compare several versions of the Diablada that I documented in
the cultural distinctiveness of ethnic Macedonians and Macedonia's Arica, Chile in 2009, in different settings with performers who identify in
constitutional name. This paper explores the relationship between the rise of multiple ways. Arica presents a particularly interesting site for comparison
ethno-bands and the growth of this new nationalism in Macedonia, since it lies in the borderlands of the three countries, and its strategic location
interrogating the popularity of ethno-bands' repertoire of folk songs from the as well as relative economic prosperity has attracted migrants from Bolivia,
Slavic Macedonian communities of northern Greece, as well as the depth and Peru, and southern Chile. Close examination of these Diablada performances
efficacy of political networks of nepotism and patronage. Drawing on examples reveals fundamental differences in dancers' attitudes about religiosity that
from ethno-bands Ljubojna, Baklava, and Chalgija Sound System and complicate the idea that these performances are the same expression. Local
interviews with participants in the scene, the paper examines apparent performers, however, may downplay such differences in order to avoid
inconsistencies in ethno-bands' representations of Macedonia, the related disrupting important social and economic networks, a process that reinforces
involvement of Romani musicians in ethno-bands, and ethno-bands' accusations of cultural theft. Using the performance of the Diablada in Arica, I
employment of repertoire as a means of accruing various types of capital. consider how borderlands and processes of migration call into question key
Through bringing the literature on nationalism into conversation with that of aspects of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
practice theory, I argue that though ethno-bands draw on the resources of the
current political environment (and sometimes those of the state), their musical
practices actually distance them from state nationalism and create a space for Performance Practice of the Dagara Xylophone
participants in their scene to maintain alternate ideologies of nation and Bernard Woma, Indiana University
belonging.
This presenters discussion outlines cultural principles governing the
Lokal Music and the Continuity of Traditions in Papua New Guinea performance of xylophone (gyil) music at Dagara ritual events. Through
Oli Wilson, Otago University performance, this presenter will demonstrate repertoire emphasizing gender
and societal associations.
This paper is a summation of extensive ethnographic research on the Port
Moresby recording industry, and examines how indigenous notions of A Uyghur Model Opera during China's Cultural Revolution
belonging and identification, which are embedded in local traditions, manifest Chuen-Fung Wong, Macalester College
through the production of the distinctively Papua New Guinea (PNG) style of
popular music, known as Lokal music. The paper centres on musical case The production of the Uyghur version of The Legend of the Red Lantern (Qizil
studies that highlight operational trends among popular music producers who chiragh; Chinese: Hongdeng ji), one of the eight revolutionary model operas,
operate in PNG's culturally diverse capital, Port Moresby, which is a major in the 1970s marked a crucial moment in the history of musical involvement of
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minority nationalities during China's Great Cultural Revolution (Medeniyet authoritative narratives (scholarly, governmental or popular) or 'panopticon'
zor inqilabi) in at least two important senses. First, played and sung entirely views of conflict or spaces of conflict. Focusing on three regionally diverse case
in Uyghur with musical materials drawn extensively from traditional Uyghur studies where inter-ethnic relations are variously marred by escalating or
music accompanied by a mixed orchestra of Uyghur and European musical ongoing violence, it will examine different ways that alternative modes of
instruments, the opera was itself a carefully controlled experiment for model communication intervene in, disturb or re-order 'coherent' conceptual spaces,
Chinese (Peking) operas be transplanted (zleshtrlp ishlengen) into including narratives, geographies or languages. Arguing that expressive
minority languages and operatic genres, in attempts to further the modalities generate textured understanding of conflict, rather than act as
dissemination of revolutionary messages among minority nationalities and purely resistant or purely 'harmonious', the panel will examine how we make
to advance the principle and practices of socialist realism in minority sense of the cacophony of incompatible narratives and competing voices that
performing arts. Second, to minority musicians involved in the project--many ensue, both vertically (state vs. citizen) and across population groups, as a
of whom had lately been labeled jin-sheytan (demon, Satan) and suffered consequence of rumours, sound leakages and individualized tales. The first
different extent of abuses during the most violent phase of the Revolution in paper in this panel examines the potential for songs to serve as instruments of
the late 1960s--the production of the opera came as a long-awaited truth-telling and reparation in South Sudan; the second paper moves to
opportunity to safeguard their national performing arts via means that are western China, exploring the affective force of underground Islamic media and
often modernist and reformist. This article approaches minority performing the social impact of the rumours they provoke. Finally, a third paper explores
arts during the Cultural Revolution not as disruption, or mere erratic the plaza of Jerusalem's Western Wall as a Foucauldian 'heterotopia', whose
outcomes of misguided cultural policies, but as perpetuation of both the post- porous, fragmented soundscape undoes easy religious and national narratives.
1949 attempt to integrate the Uyghur into the new Chinese nation and a
subaltern sense of cultural modernity that have characterized much of Uyghur Creating Zakopower in Postsocialist Poland
musical creativity in twentieth-century China. Louise Wrazen, York University
The Cantor and the Muezzins Duet at the Western Wall: Contesting The band Zakopower has released four albums in Poland since 2005, winning
Sound Spaces on the Frayed Seams of the Israel-Palestine Conflict awards, topping charts and including North America in tours. Channelling
Abigail Wood, University of Haifa world music sensibilities inwards, the band draws on the folk lineages of four
of its members from Zakopane, southern Poland, to map its distinctive Grale
Alongside the golden Dome of the Rock, which hovers above them, the huge sounds onto a more generic Polish popular music aesthetic. This paper
limestone blocks of the Western Wall are among Jerusalems most visually addresses how the band has been able to achieve such popularity by tracing
iconic sites. Serving historically as a site of Jewish prayer and lamentation, its musicians to their regional roots and to pre-1989 Poland. Drawing on
and of continued tension between Jews and non-Jewish authorities until the Foucault's investigation of the thematics of power, which acknowledges the
conquest of the Old City by Israel in the 1967 war, the Western Wall has long inventions possible in a relationship of power, it suggests that success in
been a consensual icon of Jewish religious and national life. Yet seemingly at postsocialist Poland can be traced to artistic strategies learned during the
odds with the unitary historical narratives and visual imagery within which totalitarianism of the communist period of the 1980s. As acting subjects
this site is constructed in the popular Israeli imagination, an array of (Ortner), Grale musicians (including those associated with Zakopower)
heterogeneous practices continually disrupt and re-order this site. In this navigated this restrictive system musically, creating an alternative. In
paper, I explore the soundscape of the Western Wall plaza as a Foucauldian leveraging their music traditions for economic and cultural sustenance, they
heterotopia, a dense symbolic space which mirrors and refracts discourses of generated an insidious undercurrent of resistance undermining the ideological
the surrounding society, and where the politics of presence, proximity and integrity of a larger political system. With the emergence of the free-market
voice - on an individual, communal and national level - are both built into the economy after 1989, those previously adept at creatively operating in
physical location of the space, creatively embodied and contested by the opposition to the requirements of one system turned their adaptive skills to
individuals and groups who come there to pray. Moreover, if the plaza serves navigate the opportunities now available in another. Locally driven sounds -
to contain this contestation within a bounded physical and visual space, such as those of Zakopower - have now become part of a self-conscious
acoustically, this space is porous. The Western Wall stands on a physical discursive position, creatively manipulated within a broader musical and
border line in the Israel-Palestine conflict; the sound of the call to prayer from political system, where previously they had provided the natural performative
the al-Aqsa mosque directly above leads to sonic juxtapositions which invite means for resistance.
troubled reflections on the nature of space, proximity and belonging on the
fractured seamline of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No Accident of Birth: Suzuki Pedagogy and the Politics of Talent in
a Northern Virginia Violin Studio
Rumours, Sound Leakages and Individual Tales: Disruptive Listening Lindsay Wright, University of Chicago
in Zones of Conflict
Abigail Wood, University of Haifa, Chair Panel abstract The music pedagogy developed by Japanese violinist Shin'ichi Suzuki has
gained increasing prominence amongst American families since his first
This panel explores the notion that listening in on non-rhetorical modalities of influential visit to the States in 1964. One of the most contentious aspects of
sound (song, ritual, bodily practices, silence) may serve to disrupt Suzuki's philosophy is evidenced by the first sentence of his book on music
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education: Talent is no accident of birth. In a country where perceptions of to characterize its societies and performance traditions as static, bounded, and
exceptional ability still adhere to Enlightenment and Romantic conceptions of coherent, overlook individual differences among members within each school,
the natural genius, the ways children are taught music--especially when they and view human action as mere enactment of such rules and standards.
encounter setbacks--often fall back on assumptions about inherent ability. Nevertheless, based on the data obtained through my field research on Oyama
Regardless of current scientific debates about relative levels of inborn Yoshikazu, a member of an iemoto school of Tsugaru shamisen music named
musicality, beliefs about talent powerfully influence how persistently students Oyama-kai, and his associates in Japan, I see the society as made up of a
seek to achieve such perceived musical potential. Drawing upon fieldwork complex set of individuals with different sociocultural backgrounds,
with a prominent American Suzuki teacher and the exceptionally proficient subjectivities, knowledge, personal goals/projects, and thus the capability for
students in her studio, this paper explores how perceptions of talent are agency. In this paper, I outline my own theory of musical agency, drawing on
altered and negotiated as students develop their musical abilities. I argue that the work of social theorists Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, Sherry Ortner,
perceived talent is a privilege that can be gained by families with the means to and William Sewell, Jr. Rather than problematic concepts like culture and
acquire the educational resources to affirm and foster it. Furthermore, I seek society, my study explores individuals and their capabilities (1) to
to tie such perceptions to a larger discourse about talent in American music extensively access actual cultural resources (both human and non-human), as
education: how does the privilege of appearing naturally talented gain their objective structures, (2) to read them in their own ways, and (3) to
students other privileges? The reasons children take music lessons are creatively apply their cultural schemas, as part of their cognitive structures,
manifold and reflective of shifting trends in parenting philosophies and to various situations. Introducing different points of view into the study of
educational values; using Suzuki violin as a telling example, this paper iemoto, this paper aims to facilitate deeper understanding of musical actions
investigates the oft-overlooked place of perceived talent within this discourse. and their formative processes.
Christian Music as a Contact Zone in Post-Colonial Hong Kong From 'Stinky People' to ICH Inheritors: The Transformation of
Yan Xian, Kent State University Amateur Hua'er Singers in 21st-Century China
Man Yang, University of Hawaii at Manoa
On 1 July 1997, Hong Kong was returned to China after a 150-year interlude
as a British colony. This was both a political and cultural transition. This This study examines the impact of intangible cultural heritage (ICH)
presentation will examine the relationship between mainland China and Hong recognition policies on amateur singers who practice a grassroots folksong
Kong in the creation of a Hongkongese identity, through a case study analysis tradition in Northwestern China called Hua'er. This art form was named as
of Cantonese Christian songs, Mandarin hymns and other performance Chinese ICH in 2006 and as UNESCO World ICH in 2009. Based on
practices among the congregation of a chapel at the Chinese University of ethnographic fieldwork, I discuss how the status of Hua'er amateur singers
Hong Kong. My research clarifies the three primary elements characterizing has changed from wuhunren (lit. 'five stinky people', referring to people who
Hongkonese identity, which include an acceptance of Chinese cultural identity are seen as having low morals and lacking in ethical behavior), into state-
coupled with 1. English-colonial education-colonialism; 2. cosmopolitanism- recognized ICH inheritors. Hua'er was traditionally forbidden due to its
globalism-democracy; and 3. traditional Chinese philosophy and ideology. explicitly lewd lyrics, as well as its performative nature which conflicted with
These elements meet in the postcolonial concept of contact zones , defined by local Islamic teachings. Singing such folksongs was, thus, generally forbidden
Mary Louise Pratt as social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and in households and villages, especially among family members of the opposite
grapple with each other. Such contact zones are produced during the process gender. The only acceptable context for performing these songs was during
of dynamic cultural encounters. In my case, the chapel at the Chinese Hua'er festivals, when people gather in remote mountain areas to sing. Under
University of Hong Kong is the social space that demarcates a contact zone a newly-established ICH law, however, designated Hua'er singers are now
between native residents and mainland Chinese immigrants in post-colonial mandated to instruct younger generations, an unprecedentedly
Hong Kong. Music-making activities within this spatial arena are translating professionalized imperative. This gives rise to a paradoxical situation, where
a social, historical and cultural story into sound and congregational behavior. Hua'er singers are still looked down upon by many, yet are required to teach
Through such musical narratives, I will demonstrate how the members of a songs publicly. I argue that this art form's recognition as national and world
little college chapel are using various musical activities as representations to ICH has served not to preserve songs or lyrics, but to buttress state ideals of
articulate Hong Kong's story in a postcolonial context. multi-ethnic harmony in a region known for unrest. ICH recognition is
ultimately a process of canonization for Chinese folk arts, and in this case has
Individual Agency and Duality of Structure: Toward a entailed drastic modifications of lyrics, beliefs, and performance practice.
Reinterpretation of the Iemoto Society
Keisuke Yamada, Independent Scholar YanBian Box: First Documentary on China's Emergent Ethnic
Minority Hip Hop
This paper discusses issues of individual agency arising from previous Min Yang, Wesleyan University
scholarship on iemoto societies. Since its pre-modern times, the iemoto (guild-
like) system has played significant roles in the preservation and transmission The rise of the Yanbian Chaoxian zu (Korean-Chinese or Chosonjok) hip
of musical traditions in Japan. Focusing on describing strict rules and hopscene over the past decade synchronizes and resonates with China's
regulations imposed on their members, many scholarly works on iemoto tend crucial period of hip hopdevelopment from incubation to maturity. Chaoxian
116
zu hip hopartists emerged from an underground music scene in Yanbian Singing Shurankhai into Space: Rethinking the Melodic and Timbral
(located in northeast China and bordering North Korea and Russia) at the end Spectrum of the Mongolian Folksong Urtyn duu
of the 1990s and reached the pinnacle of their careers around the mid-2000s. Sunmin Yoon, Kent State University
The film YianBian Box (2009), the first documentary about the beatboxing
and hip hopculture of China's ethnic minority, visually presents the most The unique features of the Mongolian folk song genre called urtyn duu (long-
exuberant stage of Yanbian Chaoxian zu hip-hop. YianBian Box also became a song) are the techniques by which the melodic line is ornamented through
crucial platform in pushing Chaoxian zu hip hopinto the national spotlight. elongating the vowels in the lyrics. This ornamentation of singing originally
My presentation examines this newly emergent hip hopphenomenon, based on developed from the imitation of animal sounds, since many long-song singers
both the cinematic textual analysis of YianBian Box and on my long-term were originally herders, living out in the countryside. The open steppe, then,
ethnographic fieldwork on the Yanbian Chaoxian zu hip hopcommunities that was their practice room, an environment which created another unique
were represented in this film. In doing so, I suggest that the historical and feature of long-song, the wide range and resonance of the singer's articulation.
contemporary diasporic/migrant memories and experiences of Chaoxian zu - As the majority of singers moved to more urban settings and pursued
as a historically displaced ethnic Korean group in China - have heavily professional performance, these ways of singing were reformulated and
impacted the emergence and development of Yanbian Chaoxian zu hip-hop. I defined as standard techniques of long-song, and many of these have now
argue that the Chaoxian zu hip hopscenes documented in YianBian Box, become diversified and over-sophisticated, leading to a cultural amnesia
which originated from and feed back into real hip hopcommunities, were around what the singing was originally about. In this paper I utilize two
regarded by Yanbian Chaoxian zu hip hopartists as a negotiable space to analytical approaches suggested by Nakagawa (1980) and Levin (2006)
articulate an aesthetic affinity with both their Korean and American and/or regarding the long-song tradition - melodic analysis and timbre-centered
European hip hopcounterparts, and ethnic Chaoxian zu and regional Yanbian perspectives. In my analysis of several song examples, as I revisit
identities. contemporary singers' explicitly defined vocal techniques, I use vocal range
and resonance to analyze the sound spectrum and meaning of vocal timbre in
Tradition in Motion: Contemporary Practices of Traditional the melodic progression of the long-song, in contrast to Nakagawa's melodic
Musicians in Korea analysis. In this way, the paper will also reveal the different philosophies,
Hyunjin Yeo, University of Maryland, College Park perceptions, and techniques that have been established in the two different
music-making contexts of rural and urban Mongolian long-song singers.
Preservation of cultural assets has been considered as an important part of
maintaining the country's legacy in South Korea. As a result of such rigorous Through Erotized Lens: Blackness Encountering Chineseness in
protection, gugak (national/traditional music) has become distant from most 21st Century China
Koreans' contemporary life. Recently, however, many attempts to evolve the Su Zheng, Wesleyan University
traditions from the past into that of contemporary South Korea have been
made among the younger generation of gugak musicians. I contend that this is China-Africa relationship has recently become a hot topic in global political
facilitated by the new, cosmopolitan diversity of Seoul. Focusing on one and economic debates; shadowed are the everyday live experiences and
particular gugak group, Ensemble Sinawi, this paper explores how musicians popular expressions related to the unprecedented people-to-people and
deal with the long-standing traditions, which have been treated like objects in cultural encounters between China and Africa. In particular, confronting
a museum, in Seoul, a global city full of cosmopolitan impulses. Firmly rooted black people and blackness in music in China as well as in Asia has been a
in traditional improvisatory musical genre (sinawi), the group not only little explored area both in pubic discourse and scholarly attention. My
incorporates non-traditional musical elements but also collaborates with presentation will first offer a historical overview on China's official approach
various art genres, demonstrating both the cultural homogenization and towards Black Africa and how that political policy has been reflected in the
cultural heterogenization in today's global interactions (Appadurai 2008). government sponsored cultural exchanges. Next, drawing upon my recent
Moreover, their sense of duty as musicians--to promote gugak in the world fieldwork on African musicians in China, I will discuss and compare two
while being indifferent to a commercialized realm of music--demonstrates a specific songs performed by African musicians in which diverse characteristics
combination of nationalism and Western Romanticism, betraying their of Africans' experiences in China are eroticized and symbolized through
cosmopolitan identity, living in Seoul, South Korea. In short, through personal heternormative romances between the singer and his/her (desired) Chinese
interviews, liner notes, and live concerts and videos, this paper first discusses lover. First is a high life song, My Experience in China, written and sung by
the musical practices under the preservation law, and then examines the a Nigerian Igbo musician, an undocumented migrant based in Guangzhou;
contemporary practices of gugak musicians and their relationship to second is a hip-hop style song, Marry to a Chinese, sung by Sierra Leon pop
cosmopolitan Seoul. singer Mariatu Kargbo based in Beijing, who became a pop star much favored
by Chinese media and audience under her Chinese name Maliya. In the last
part of my presentation, drawing upon critical race theories developed in
several recent anthropological works on Japan's encounter with music of black
diaspora, I will further discuss the role of gender and sexuality in the
emergent field of music and race studies in Asia.
117
How Taiwanese Should I Be? Contesting Taiwanese Identities in

Local, Regional, and Global Contexts
Su Zheng, Wesleyan University, Chair Panel abstract
Since 1949, the people of Taiwan have struggled to build a national identity
amidst questions of sovereignty. Today, this situation has become more
complicated as economic and cultural cross-strait relations flourish in the
shadow of persisting political tensions. For Taiwanese musicians wishing to
convey their own identity with their music, they must discern what is
ethnically and politically Chinese from what is Taiwanese. Furthermore, the
scope of the intended audience must be considered, as Taiwanese artists face
both local, Chinese, and international audiences. In such a politically sensitive
situation, how do the Taiwanese adapt to diverse audiences? Our panel
investigates this ongoing process of identity formation and seeks to increase
visibility on this important topic. To comprehensively accomplish these goals,
we present three diverse situations of Taiwanese musicians negotiating their
national and/or cultural identities. The first paper presents identity in
domestic terms, highlighting Taiwanese Opera (koa--hi; ) and the use
of both its local and Chinese characteristics. The second paper introduces Pili
Budaixi () and the balancing act that occurs when domestic
products are also intended for regional and international distribution. Finally,
the third paper examines how overseas Taiwanese musicians adjust their
performances and on-stage rhetoric, navigating their own political beliefs with
those of their audiences. Through these perspectives: domestic to domestic,
domestic to overseas, and overseas to overseas, we explore the process of
identity formation when promoting a Taiwanese identity in politically delicate
situations.
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Society for Ethnomusicology 59th Annual Meeting, 2014 Abstracts

How Taiwanese Should I Be? Contesting Taiwanese Identities in

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