Ethnomusicology, World Music

The study of music is always to some extent “empirical”, in that it involves testing ideas and interpretations against some kind of external reality. But in musicology, the kind of empirical approaches familiar in the social sciences have played a relatively marginal role, being generally restricted to interdisciplinary areas, such as the psychology and sociology of music. Rather than advocating a new kind of musicology, this book provides a guide to empirical approaches that are ready for incorporation into the contemporary musicologist's toolkit. Its nine chapters cover perspectives form music theory, computational musicology, ethnomusicology, and the psychology and sociology of music, as well as an introduction to musical data analysis and statistics. The book shows that such approaches could play an important role in the further development of the discipline as a whole, not only through the application of statistical and modelling methods to musical scores but also, and perhaps more importantly, in terms of understanding music as a complex social practice.

Facing the Music investigates the practices and ideas that have grown from some five decades of cultural diversity in music education, developments in ethnomusicology, and the rise of ‘world music.’ It makes a case for the crucial role of learning music in shaping rich and diverse musical environments for the twenty‐first century, both in practical terms and at a conceptual level: “what we hear is the product of what we believe about music.” Advocating a contemporary, positive and realistic approach to cultural diversity in music education and transmission, the book takes into account and celebrates the natural dynamics of music, regarding every musical act as an expression of its current contexts in terms of cultures, communities, and underlying constructs, and establishing that “most music travels remarkably well.” In seven chapters that each approach the issues from a different angle, the book gradually unfolds the complexities of learning and teaching music ‘out of original context’ in an accessible manner, and presents a coherent model to approach these, as well as lucid suggestions for translating the resulting ideas in practice. While mapping the various factors that determine all acts of music transmission, it also comes to surprising insights into the nature and preconceptions underlying much formal music education settings across the world, including those focusing on western classical music. Based on an insider's view of both the delights and challenges of music in multicultural societies, Facing the music provides a rich resource for reflection and practice for all those involved in teaching and learning music, from policy maker to classroom teacher.

This book investigates the role that vernacular, barbershop-style close harmony has played in American musical history, in American life, and in the American imagination. Starting with a discussion of the first craze for Austrian four-part close harmony in the 1830s, it traces the popularity of this musical form in minstrel shows, black recreational singing, vaudeville, early recordings, and in the barbershop revival of the 1930s. In his exploration of barbershop, the author uncovers a rich musical tradition — a hybrid of black and white cultural forms, practiced by amateurs, and part of a mythologized vision of small-town American life. This book critiques the nostalgic myths (especially racial myths) that have surrounded the barbershop revival, but also celebrates the civic-minded, participatory spirit of barbershop harmony.

This book explores the complex development of Russian musical life during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It focuses on the Russian Musical Society, which was both unique as a driving force behind the institutionalization of musical life and representative of the growing importance of voluntary associations in public life. Sustained by both private initiative and cooperative relationships with the state, the Russian Musical Society played a key role in the creation of Russia's infrastructure for music and music education. The book's exploration of the broad scope of musical life, including not only the “leading lights” of the era but also rank‐and‐file musicians, teachers, and students, prompts a consideration of the fluid nature of Russian social identity. Although Russian musicians longed for a secure place within the new hierarchy of professions, their social status remained ambiguous throughout the nineteenth century; the traditional reliance on serf musicians and foreigners left lasting scars that drove musicians' efforts to secure both legal rights and social respectability. The increasing visibility of women in musical life provoked acrimonious debates that were, at heart, efforts by male musicians to strengthen their claims to professional status by denying the legitimacy of female participation. At the same time, the successful development of a Russian musical infrastructure salved persistent anxieties about Russia's place vis‐à‐vis its European cultural competitors. Remarkably, the institutions developed by the Russian Musical Society survived the upheavals of war and revolution to become the foundation for the Soviet musical system.

In the wake of the system of sexual slavery for the Japanese military during the Asia-Pacific War (1930-45), survivors in South Korea lived under great pressure not to speak about what had happened to them, although rumors of the so-called “comfort women” system circulated throughout society. Many of these women reckoned with their experiences and forged senses of self within the opacity of song, which allowed them to express themselves precisely without explicitly divulging their pasts. In the process, they created identities and social worlds from available cultural materials. As they sang, each woman became a certain kind of collector, composer, and performer. In the 1990s a movement arose in South Korea to seek redress from the Japanese government and to tend to the survivors in their old age. Suddenly the women found themselves pulled from the margins of society and thrust into the very center of the public cultural spotlight. But the women continued to sing. They sang songs that told the unwritten histories of their lives, that displayed the identities that they had carved out of a lifetime of struggle and hardship, and that helped them forge and maintain relationships with others. And they sang—often in the most public places—about things that remained unspoken. This book, based on eight years of intermittent fieldwork with survivors in South Korea, is an exercise in listening to three women and their songs across the twentieth century and in their present-day lives.

Is there really such a thing as Jewish music? And does it survive as an expressive practice of worship and identity against modernity? This book poses such questions in new and critical ways by surveying a vast diasporic landscape, taking into consideration the many ways music historically witnessed the confrontation between modern Jews and the world around them, from the waning of the Middle Ages until the Holocaust. The book examines the confluence of many styles and repertories as Jewish music: the sacred and the secular; folk and popular music; songs in which Jewish languages — Yiddish, Ladino, Hebrew — survived in isolation and songs that transformed the nations in which they lived. When Jewish music entered modernity, authenticity became an ideal supplanted by composite traditions. Klezmer music emerged in communities cohabited by Jews and Roma; Jewish cabaret resulted from the collaborations of migrant Jews and non-Jews in nineteenth-century Berlin, Budapest, and Vienna; cantors and composers experimented with new sounds. Modern Jewish music was and is varied, and this book is notable for the ways in which the borders between repertories are crossed and modernity is enriched by the shift of Jewish music from cultural peripheries to the center. Understanding the crisis of modernity — the Holocaust and its aftermath — is crucial to the challenge this book poses for understanding music in our own day.

The Louisiana Hayride was broadcast from Shreveport, Louisiana, and reached listeners in over twenty-eight states, luring them to packed performances of the Hayride's road show. By tracing the dynamic history of the Hayride and its sponsoring station, the book reveals the critical role that this part of northwestern Louisiana played in the development of both country music and rock and roll. Sitting between the Old South and the West, this one-time frontier town provided an ideal setting for the cross-fertilization of musical styles. The scene was shaped by the region's easy mobility, the presence of a legal “red-light” district from 1903–17, and musical interchanges between blacks and whites who lived in close proximity and in nearly equal numbers. The region nurtured such varied talents as Huddie Ledbetter, the “king of the twelve-string guitar,” and Jimmie Davis, the two term “singing governor” of Louisiana who penned “You Are My Sunshine.” Against the backdrop of the colorful history of Shreveport, the unique contribution of this radio barn dance is revealed. Radio shaped musical tastes, and the Hayride' frontier-spirit producers took risks with artists whose reputations may have been shaky or whose styles did not neatly fit musical categories.

A symbol of Trinidadian culture, the steelband has made an extraordinary transformation since its origins: from junk metal to steel orchestra, and from disparaged underclass pastime to Trinidad and Tobago’s national instrument. This book looks at the musical thinking that ignited this transformation, and the way it articulates Afro-Trinidadian tradition, carnival, colonial authority, and nationalist politics. The book tells the story of the steelband from the point of view of musicians who overcame the disadvantages of poverty and prejudice with their extraordinary ambition. Literally referring to the poor neighborhoods nestled in the hills bordering Port of Spain to the East, “Behind the Bridge,” used in the title of this book, is also a metaphor for the conditions of social disadvantage and cultural resistance that shaped the steelband movement in the various Afro-Trinidadian communities where it first took root. The book further explores the implications of the steelband’s “nationalization” in post-independence Trinidad and Tobago, and contemporary steelband musicians’ preoccupation with the formally adjudicated annual Panorama competition. In discussing the intersection of musical thinking, festivity, and politics, this book connects questions about the history of the steelband to general questions about the relation between popular culture and nationalism.

Since the appearance of The Bay Psalm Book in 1640, music has served as a defining factor for American religious experience. Music is crucial to the maintenance of the belief systems that account for multiculturalism in American denominationalism. The sacred musics of North America symbolize the unifying factors of worship shaping the historical landscape, and give voice to the diversity that distinguishes the religious experiences as American. This book studies the ways in which music shapes the distinctive presence of religion in the United States and Canada. The sixteen contributors of this book address the fullness of music's presence in North American religion and religious history. Sacred music is considered in the broadest aesthetic sense, from more traditional studies of hymnody to new forms of musical expression, such as ritual in nonsectarian religious movements. Musical experience intersects with religious experience, posing questions about the ways in which Americans, historical communities and new immigrants, and racial and ethnic groups construct their sense of self. This book features an interdisciplinary approach that includes scholars in both musical and religious studies; a broad range of methodologies; historical breadth extending beyond denominational and church studies, and beyond Judeo-Christian traditions; and a comparative study of traditional religious communities and of emerging groups representing multiethnic America.

How do Western images of Africa and African representations of the West mirror one another? This book examines the complex issues involved in the making of modern identities in Africa, Europe, and the US via a study of two striking episodes in the history of black South African music. The first is a pair of tours of two black South African choirs in England and America in the early 1890s; the second is a series of engagements with the international music industry as experienced by the premier choral group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, after the release of Paul Simon's celebrated Graceland album in 1986.