Anthropology of Music

"Nonsynchronism," Traditional Music, and Memory in Ireland.

by Steve Coleman

in Memory Ireland Volume 2: Diaspora and Memory Practices Edited by Oona Frawley. Syracuse University Press. 2012, pp. 161-170.

Montevidean Candombe and Murga: Symbolic Expressions of Dissatisfaction and Opposition

by Madelyn Washington

In Uruguay, especially in the city of Montevideo, the contribution from African descendants comprises a major element... more In Uruguay, especially in the city of Montevideo, the contribution from African descendants comprises a major element of Uruguayan national identity: today this contribution is apparent in all events linked to music. The significance, function and symbolic meaning of the Afro-Uruguayan percussive form candombe and to a lesser degree its musical counter genre murga—a male chorus singing in four to six part
harmony accompanied by percussion –is key in visualizing, interpreting, critiquing and reading Uruguayan national culture. The expressions of these music forms during
Montevideo’s Carnival celebrations are important transcultural signifiers on the world stage, serving as a testament to the equality, social peace and racial harmony existing in Uruguay. Nothing could be farther from the truth: socially, educationally and economically the Afro-Uruguayan stands as the nation’s most underserved population. This thesis reveals a story that most Uruguayans wish to forget. Candombe is the
antithesis and direct negation of the pain and exhaustion of coerced heavy labor and murga is a carnavalesque theatrical form devoted to the expression, representation, and critique of Uruguayan social experiences with enormous participation of the popular classes. Accurate articulation of the black Uruguayan resistance to the homogenization of their musical identities and cultural practices is essential to uncovering the conflictive nature of Uruguayan national culture. The display of the Uruguayan national music forms murga and candombe are aesthetic and symbolic modes of production that signal
dissatisfaction with the American-Atlantic history.

My Indian Music Site

by Teed Rockwell

According to Academia.edu, someone just did a search with the question "Are there two Teed Rockwells?". The answer is that there are at least two, but that they all live in the same skin. For those who want to meet the musical one, you can connect to this link to see and hear videos of my Indian music. (Both Hindustani and Bollywood). There are also links to my twenty years of columns as Music Critic for India Currents Magazine.

Economic and Transmission Factors as Essential Elements in the Definition of Folk, Art, and Pop Music

by Gregory Booth

Ágapes urbanos. Una mirada sobre el vínculo entre música electrónica y communitas en la ciudad de Bogotá (Artículo)

by María Angélica Ospina

Published in: Tabula Rasa 2, 2004. Available in: Redalyc

Resumen

En el presente artículo, la autora discute el tema del diálogo entre la experiencia extática... more Resumen

En el presente artículo, la autora discute el tema del diálogo entre la experiencia extática individual y la experiencia lúdica colectiva en torno al consumo de música electrónica entre los jóvenes de clase media y alta de Bogotá, Colombia. A partir del concepto de communitas de Victor Turner y recogiendo algunas discusiones sobre el sentido del trance extático en los sectores seculares, la autora propone algunas vetas para el análisis de la dinámica de la construcción de identidades juveniles en el marco de la tensión entre solipsismo y colectivismo.

Palabras clave: Identidad, culturas juveniles, consumo cultural, música electrónica (techno).

Abstract

In this text, the author discusses the dialogue between individual ecstatic experience and collective ludic experience in electronic music consumption among middle and upper class youth in Bogotá, Colombia. Drawing on Victor Turner’s concept of communitas and on discussions about the meaning of ecstatic trance in secular sectors, the author proposes paths for the analysis of the dynamics of youth identity construction in the context of the solipsism-collectivism tension.

Key words: Identity, youth cultures, cultural consumption, electronic music (techno).

“Gagarin and the Rave Kids: Transforming power, identity, and aesthetics in the post-Soviet nightlife.”

by Alexei Yurchak Алексей Юрчак

in Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev. Adele Barker, ed. Duke University Press, 1999.

An empirical study of normative dissociation in musical and non-musical everyday life experiences

by Ruth Herbert

Now available online,  in advance of publication in Psychology of Music

Dissociative experiences involving music have received little research attention outside the field of ethnomusicology.... more Dissociative experiences involving music have received little research attention outside the field of ethnomusicology. This paper examines the psychological characteristics of normative dissociation (detachment) across musical and non-musical experiences in ‘real world’, everyday settings. It draws upon a subset of data arising from an empirical project designed to compare transformative shifts of consciousness, with and without music in daily life, and the ways in which use of music may facilitate the processes of dissociation and absorption. Twenty participants kept unstructured diaries for two weeks, recording free descriptions of involving experiences of any kind as soon as possible after their occurrence. All descriptions were subsequently subjected to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).

Results suggest that dissociative experiences are a familiar occurrence in everyday life. Diary entries highlight an established practice of actively sought detachment from self, surroundings or activity, suggesting that, together with absorption, the processes of derealization (altered perception of surroundings) and depersonalization (detachment from self) constitute common means of self-regulation in daily life. Music emerges as a particularly versatile facilitator of dissociative experience because of its semantic ambiguity, portability, and the variety of ways in which it may mediate perception, so facilitating an altered relationship to self and environment.

Kibiriti Ngoma: Gender Relations in Swahili Comics and Taarab-music

by Jigal Beez

Kibiriti Ngoma is a Swahili slang expression, which is a espising desciption for a woman with the meaning of... more Kibiriti Ngoma is a Swahili slang expression, which is a espising desciption for a woman with the meaning of „prostitute”. In Tanzania this term became that common in everyday life that it was chosen to be the title of a Taarab song as well as the name of a comic magazine. This article compares the use of the term Kibiriti Ngoma in these two genres of popular art in Tanzania thus highlightening the popuar discourse on gender relations and sexuality in East Africa. Comic magazines and Taarab music as forms of popular culture serve in this article as an analytcal lens to understand social processes.

The older the singer the better!

by Oliver Gerlach

Gerlach, Oliver. 2006. 'The older the singer the better! On the role of creativity in passing down liturgical music from the 19th and 20th centuries'. In: «Papers read at the 12th Meeting of the IMS Study Group “Cantus Planus” Lillafüred/Hungary, 2004. Aug. 23–28», ed. by László Dobszay, 883–891. Budapest: Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

In autumn 2002 fifteen music manuscripts of the early 19th century from Bosporos and Small Asia regions were... more In autumn 2002 fifteen music manuscripts of the early 19th century from Bosporos and Small Asia regions were rediscovered in the collections of the state library in Berlin. Four of them in late Byzantine Round notation before the introduction of the modern notation around 1814, which was invented by Chrysanthos. So these manuscripts can be studied in comparison and offer new insights in the change of notation – as well as in the change of the medial function of the notation.

The notation of the New Method, which eliminated the signs of the Great Hypostases, could be read more easily, but its definite form abandons the freedom of the traditional notation and tends to be very normative. Otherwise a lot of ornaments were not indicated by the new Chrysanthine notation and the singer must have in mind the traditional way of singing in recognizing some passages of the new notation – a knowledge which seems to pass over.

A second step of this study is the analysis of field recordings made by Greek Orthodox singers in the last three decades – 150 years after the reform. Its focus is on the individual creativity that a singer spends on singing out of the modern notation, which is quite in use since Chrysanthos – partially improved by the reintroduction of some Great Hypostases.
The paper is based on philological studies of manuscripts, ethno musicological research and systematic analysis of field recordings (historical field recordings of the phonogram archive Berlin, of the Greek publication series μνημεια εκκλησιαστικης μουσικις edited by Manolis K. Chatzēgiakoumēs and own field recordings).

"The Heavy Mode (ēchos varys) on the Fret Arak" — Eastern Chant in Istanbul and the Various Influences during the Ottoman Empire

by Oliver Gerlach

Paper 02/12/2010, Jahrestagung des Nationalkomitees der Bundesrepublik Deutschland im International Council of Traditional Music (ICTM), Institut of Musicology, Department of Music, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle/Wittenberg

The living traditions of monodic Orthodox chant were going through innovations, as the music theory and its notation... more The living traditions of monodic Orthodox chant were going through innovations, as the music theory and its notation were created starting from 1814. They are the results of a reform finished under the third generation or the “4th music school of the patriarchate” (Istanbul). The reformers, who were called “the three great teachers”, had close relationships with musicians at the Ottoman Court, with musicians belonging to Sufi brotherhoods, and with synagogal singers—a context which Rudolf Maria Brandl called 1989 the Levantine community of traditional musicians (“The Music of the Fanariots”).

The paper is about the performance practice of Greek-Orthodox singers and is focused on the various forms of the diatonic (papadikan) ēchos varys, as they can be found in the living tradition today. It is also an attempt to trace back the theoretical concept of this mode and to answer the question, to what extent the reformers were inspired by traditional musicians of the Levant.

"Aboriginal dances were always in rings..." Music and dance as a sign of identity in the Argentine Chaco",

by Silvia Citro

Co-authored with Adriana Cerletti

Public, Private; Contemporary, Traditional: Intersecting Dichotomies and Contested Agency in Mainline Protestant Worship Music

by Deborah Justice

Published in Folklore Forum, Spring 2010

The current ‘contemporary’/’traditional’ worship music controversy, although cloaked in the guise of novelty,... more The current ‘contemporary’/’traditional’ worship music controversy, although cloaked in the guise of novelty, illustrates how the historical  interplay between embracing and abandoning black-and-white oppositions is unfolding within post-millennial Western Christianity. Over the past forty years, mainline Protestant churches have used worship music to negotiate a culturally-relevant space for themselves within the contemporary reconfiguration of American religious practice. As such, many North American and Western European Christians have come to conceptualize their current religious practices through the ‘traditional’/'contemporary’ dichotomy. Praise-band-led ‘contemporary’ worship contrasts with organ-and-choir-based ‘traditional’ worship in visible and audible ways: musical style, text, instrumentation, dress, and physical space. This ‘contemporary’/’traditional’ binary’s pervasive themes resonate with previous dichotomous models applied to religious study, such as Weber’s routinized/charismatic, Benedict’s Apollonian/Dionysian, Sachs’ logogenic/pathogenic, and sociologist Mark Chaves’ intellectual/emotional. Yet, while current mainline Protestant organizational and expressive behavior resonates with these historical dichotomies, it also moves beyond explanation by any of these theories alone (as well as moving beyond the fundamentally group-defining “us” versus “them” opposition). This paper suggests the public/private opposition as an analytical tool to cut in a slightly different direction against the grain of the oft-dichotomized sphere of mainline Protestant religious musical practice. While no single dichotomy can explain current mainline Protestant practice – subjectively, emergently employing overlapping dichotomies to create and negotiate meaning – the public/private binary probes fundamental points of differentiation.

As It Was In The Beginning, Is Now, and Ever Shall Be?: Church Organists, Community, and Musical Continuity

by Deborah Justice

Published in Pacific Review of Ethnomusicology, Volume 14, 2009

Do local church organists form communities? As ritual specialists, church organists have long played an indispensable... more Do local church organists form communities? As ritual specialists, church organists have long played an indispensable role in facilitating North American and European Christian worship. Despite the diverse musical practices of Christianity, most mainline Protestant Sunday morning organ music falls within a relatively narrow range of repertoire and performance practice. Such musical continuity implies a level of communication between organists. Yet, since most organists work similar hours on Sunday mornings, they only infrequently observe each other during services. What explains the musical similarities? Do organists share educational backgrounds and sources of repertoire? How does musical information travel between organists? How does the contemporary reconfiguration of mainline Christianity impact organists’ sense of community? In this paper, I explore these issues through one basic question: do local organists form a musical community?

Mémoire et jeu d'ensemble: la mémorisation du répertoire musical dans les steelbands de Trinidad et Tobago

by Aurélie Helmlinger

The subject of this research deals with the memory of music in Panorama steelbands competition (gathering one hundred... more The subject of this research deals with the memory of music in Panorama steelbands competition (gathering one hundred players orchestras for the carnival season), trying to explain how seasonal players, playing about one month a year, and sometime beginners, are able to memorise and perform by rote a symphonic-like tune, with a lot of technical constraints, at an extremely fast tempo. The first part of the thesis will expose an ethnographical presentation of the steelbands life and their music, in relation with the characteristic Caribbean bipolar social system. The second part will faces on the fieldwork observations dealing with the memorisation of the repertoire, with some development on the mental image and collective playing. The third part is trying to explore more deeply the hypothesis of an influence of the collective parameter in the performance, and testing the importance of the visual dimension, with an experiment inspired by cognitive psychology.

La virtuosité comme arme de guerre psychologique; La compétition des steelbands de Trinidad et Tobago / Virtuosity as a weapon of psychological warfare; Steelband contests in Trinidad and Tobago

by Aurélie Helmlinger

Après avoir été traversés par des conflits violents, les steelbands se sont construits dans d’intenses rapports de... more Après avoir été traversés par des conflits violents, les steelbands se sont construits dans d’intenses rapports de rivalité où la virtuosité est devenue l’arme essentielle. Encadrés par un système de compétitions nationales, les orchestres s’affrontent désormais à travers la vitesse, la puissance sonore ou les difficultés d’exécution musicale. À une échelle plus locale, les sections — ensembles d’instruments identiques — rivalisent informellement dans des joutes de difficulté d’exécution. Pour les individus enfin, la virtuosité tient notamment à la rapidité de mémorisation du répertoire. Quels que soient les niveaux de sociabilité considérés, on observe que la virtuosité s’exprime principalement dans des innovations et des records quantifiables (nombre de notes à jouer, nombre de décibels, de musiciens, de victoires aux compétitions…), qui permettent d’établir des classements et une hiérarchisation des rivaux propices à la concorde et au renouvellement de l’ordre social.

After having encountered violent conflicts, steelband were shaped in an intense rivalry in which virtuosity had become the key weapon. Within a system of national competitions, bands now compete in speed, loudness or musical difficulties. At a more local level, the sections - sets of identical instruments - informally compete in games focusing on the difficulty of performance. For individuals, finally, virtuosity is particularly the rapid memorization of the repertoire. At any level of sociability, we observe that virtuosity is expressed primarily in innovations and quantifiable records (number of notes to play, number of decibels, of musicians, of winning competitions ...) which allows to establish a hierarchy and a ranking of rivals conducive to harmony and to the renewal of the social order.

Improvised Song in Schools: Breaking Away from the Perception of Traditional Song as Infantile by Introducing a Traditional Adult Practice

by Albert Casals Ibáñez

Co-authored with Jaume Ayats & Mercè Vilar
Published in Oral Tradition Journal, 25(4)
2010

This article revolves around a project aimed at incorporating improvised song into primary school education. Among its... more This article revolves around a project aimed at incorporating improvised song into primary school education. Among its objectives, this pilot scheme aimed to solve the problem of infantilization and the lack of functionality affecting the traditional school repertoire of songs in Catalonia by introducing a hitherto untested genre of traditional song into the official curriculum. The findings obtained in five centers suggest that this traditional form of oral expression through singing obtains positive results in the 10-12- year-old age group, and manages to break free of the clichés about traditional song pre-existing in the school environment.

La cançó amb text improvisat. Disseny i experimentació d'una proposta interdisciplinària per a Primària

by Albert Casals Ibáñez

Doctoral Thesis in Music Didactics
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
2009

The thesis focuses on the analysis of a cultural product of ethnomusical interest - song with improvised lyrics - and... more The thesis focuses on the analysis of a cultural product of ethnomusical interest - song with improvised lyrics - and its possible uses in primary education. The research is restricted to the Catalan context and is clearly orientated towards the field of music didactics. It uses a multidisciplinary approach (music didactics, ethnomusicology, pedagogy) and lays stress on the contrast between theory and praxis (applied research).
The Theoretical Framework documents and discusses the confrontation between the characteristics of the repertoire under analysis (improvised song) and the current situation and needs of the education system and of the didactics of oral language, poetry and song. There is explicit emphasis on the use and the conceptualisation of traditional song from Catalonia.
The theoretical base looks specifically at the arguments that support the interest in implementing programmes at schools focused on song with improvised verses. In fact, research shows that while this type of proposal is a novelty in the Catalan education system it is nothing new in other regions such as the Basque Country.
In this respect, the Theoretical Framework provides elements that have helped to shape the methodology, both as regards the instruments for collecting data and the fieldwork.
The Practical Framework comprises two phases. In the first phase a pilot project is designed for a primary school group of 10-11 year olds, and implemented and analysed. The methodology employed in this initial phase is collaborative action research: the researcher takes on the teaching role and shares planning tasks and analysis with a music teacher and a non-specialised teacher, who play an active part in research development. One of the basis factors for understanding the project is the interdisciplinary (music-language) approach it entails.
During the second phase - the extensive phase - the researcher focuses on a working group that he or she has set up and coordinated. The group consists of eight teachers (music and language) from four different schools. Through this group, similar programmes to the one implemented in the pilot project are guided and analysed, but diversifying the experimentation in relation to three aspects: the target educational age-group (from 8-9 year olds to 11-12 year olds), the predominant mother tongue in the school (Catalan or Spanish), and the school context (population sectors in the school and sociocultural context).
The conclusions highlight the enormous potential of song with improvised lyrics at a primary school level as an integrated tool covering multiple areas of learning: participation and experience in the world of song, oral expression and poetry, development of the personality and performance skills, group cohesion and social integration. More specifically, they specify a model and the most suitable conditions with regard to future use, from the planning of the project to the role of the teachers involved. In relation to this last aspect, the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration is underscored.
Strictly from the standpoint of music didactics, the conclusions suggest that some of the current approaches to the didactics of song require a reappraisal and insist on the need to carry out applied research within the framework of music didactics. All said and done, stress is laid on the need to establish and consolidate links between schools and universities, in order to facilitate the dialogue between theory and practice.

Etnicidad y canción tradicional: Un binomio que políticamente también se juega en la escuela

by Albert Casals Ibáñez

Paper presented in VII Congreso Internacional de la Sociedad Española de Antropología Aplicada
Santander, 2006

Main ethnomusicological theories relate traditional songs to ethnicities, and these ethnicities are used as elements... more Main ethnomusicological theories relate traditional songs to ethnicities, and these ethnicities are used as elements of political claim. The contribution of this investigation is the analysis of these politicized relations in the present context and in the school framework. This study is based on the existence of a taxonomical paradigm defined by a hegemonic power group. This paradigm considers some ethnicities that are supported on their corresponding patrimonies which have been created so as to authenticate them. Once the power group realizes that his hegemony is at risk, then it stimulates part of his patrimony to guarantee his preeminence. An illustrative case is analyzed: the political activation of the traditional song in the Catalan school. The results permit to stress the great patrimonial value of these songs and the importance of the social context in the educational policy.This type of investigation pretends to clarify the relations between politics, culture and education; it pretends to show the creation play of ethnicities in the present school; it pretends to know the policy hidden behind pedagogy. These problems are now in the agenda of the educational anthropology.

Las principales teorías etnomusicológicas relacionan las canciones tradicionales con las etnicidades, unas etnicidades que son utilizadas como elementos de reivindicación política. La aportación de esta investigación es el análisis de esas relaciones politizadas, en el contexto actual y dentro del marco escolar. El presente estudio se fundamenta en la existencia de un paradigma taxonómico definido por un grupo de poder hegemónico. Ese paradigma contempla unas etnicidades que se sostienen en sus patrimonios correspondientes; unos patrimonios que se han creado con el fin de legitimarlas. Cuando
el grupo de poder ve peligrar su hegemonía, activa parte de su patrimonio para asegurar su preeminencia. Se analiza un caso ilustrativo: la activación política de la canción tradicional en la escuela catalana. Los resultados permiten resaltar el gran valor patrimonial de esas canciones y la importancia del contexto social en la política educativa. Este tipo de investigación pretende esclarecer las relaciones entre política, cultura y educación; pretende mostrar el juego de creación de etnicidades en la escuela actual; pretende conocer la política que hay detrás de la pedagogía. Unas problemáticas que la antropología de la educación actualmente tiene sobre la mesa.

The Currency of Collusion: The Circulation and Embrace of the Ethic of Authenticity in Mediated Musical Communities

by Charles Fairchild

Journal of Popular Music Studies, Volume 17 Issue 3, Pages 301 - 323.

While the concept of authenticity has a central analytical place in popular music studies, the intertwined idea of... more While the concept of authenticity has a central analytical place in popular music studies, the intertwined idea of credibility has received less attention. I argue that authenticity and credibility are overlapping, interrelated social constructions, established and maintained within the specific circumstances and cultural work of an unusual kind of cultural intermediary, music presenters at community radio stations. Intended as a response to recent calls for more specific work on the nature of cultural intermediation, I argue that these two crucial concepts, central to the work of cultural intermediaries, have yet to be adequately distinguished. Authenticity and credibility act as social currencies within these organizations. They act as forms of distinction and assessment through which the presentation of various musical materials are filtered and the construction of variously-defined musical communities are made. These concepts work in similar, but clearly distinguishable ways to connect individual subjectivities to wider cultural sensibilities through the collusion of those within the radio station and those involved in an wide range of affiliations with these organizations, relationships which constitute the contours and limits of the stations themselves.

When a Place Becomes a Community: Music, radio and the reach of social aesthetics.

by Charles Fairchild

Transforming Cultures eJournal, Vol 4, No 1 (2009)

What questions do we face when the familiar, informal or semi-formal modes of musical place-making are constituted... more What questions do we face when the familiar, informal or semi-formal modes of musical place-making are constituted instead by formal institutions whose explicit recognition by the state and the market are necessary for their existence and survival? A community radio station is one such institution. Their participants’ primary goal is to enact different ways of producing culture, doing so by constructing a series of social relationships crafted through acts of communication and organisation that define the institution itself. The scholarly consensus has it that the ways of producing culture through community media enact a distinctly civil discourse that challenges traditional notions of cultural belonging, citizenship and the public sphere. The bare, simple fact that the vast majority of programming materials on most community radio stations in Australia is music begs a series of questions about the role of the social aesthetics of music in the construction and maintenance of institutions of civil society. I argue that we can draw out of these institutions the core values of a civil or democratic aesthetics specifically through understanding the type and character of the kinds of relationships that constitute them. Moreover, these relationships present an enticing contrast to the commercial relationships which dominate most of consumer culture.