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Ethnomusicology Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Ethnomusicology

Singing With A Sanxian: A Study Of The Principal Instrument In Bai Musical Tradition , Christian Stanbrook Dec 2014

Singing With A Sanxian: A Study Of The Principal Instrument In Bai Musical Tradition , Christian Stanbrook

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Bai people, a minority group in the People’s Republic of China numbering at least 1.8 million, are heavily concentrated in Yunnan Province’s Dali Autonomous Prefecture. Music has historically been a significant part of Bai culture, as Bai musicians across the region enjoy performing Baizu diao, or popular Bai folk tunes, in the form of singing or on various instruments. These diao, or melodies, often describe the lifestyle of Bai people and the region in which they live in and are commonly performed on a threestringed member of the lute family called a sanxian. This study uncovers both the history …


“Why Do You Sing To Me?”: A Case Study Of Form And Function Of Children's Songs In The Caribbean Diaspora Culture In South Florida, Finley Walker May 2014

“Why Do You Sing To Me?”: A Case Study Of Form And Function Of Children's Songs In The Caribbean Diaspora Culture In South Florida, Finley Walker

Masters Theses

How does a child gain a musical identity? Music resides in the depths of personhood. Even before birth we are all touched by its power. Music is a language in that it communicates--thoughts, feelings, desires, information, and more. As children grow physically and mentally, they also grow musically. A person's musical development will be directly influenced by their culture and family. The following qualitative study looks at the form and function of children's songs, specifically children's songs from the diasporic Caribbean culture in South Florida. Twenty-one interviews, including 53 participants, were conducted to see how children's songs might play a …


Vodou Value In Haitian Life, Brandi E. Lauer Apr 2014

Vodou Value In Haitian Life, Brandi E. Lauer

Student Publications

Ever since the night of August 14, 1791 at Bwa Kayman, where Boukman Dutty declared war on the French during a Vodou ritual, Vodou has shown its dominance in the Haitian culture (Dominique 103). Along with being a religion practiced across the class boundaries of over six million Haitians, Vodou is a philosophy as well; a way of life for the majority of Haiti. Vodou “brings coherence where there might otherwise be chaos” (Michel 282-283). Used as a common ground for the intermixed Africans in the New World, Vodou has played a key role in the daily life of the …


Musical Influence On Apartheid And The Civil Rights Movement, Katherine D. Power Apr 2014

Musical Influence On Apartheid And The Civil Rights Movement, Katherine D. Power

Student Publications

Black South Africans and African Americans not only share similar identities, but also share similar historical struggles. Apartheid and the Civil Rights Movement were two movements on two separate continents in which black South Africans and African Americans resisted against deep injustice and defied oppression. This paper sets out to demonstrate the key role that music played, through factors of globalization, in influencing mass resistance and raising global awareness. As an elemental form of creative expression, music enables many of the vital tools needed to overcome hatred and violence. Jazz and Freedom songs were two of the most influential genres, …


“Bëggel Sa Réew :” Negotiating Contestation And Citizenship Through Hip Hop Production In Guédiawaye, Dakar, Dylan Mcdonnell Apr 2014

“Bëggel Sa Réew :” Negotiating Contestation And Citizenship Through Hip Hop Production In Guédiawaye, Dakar, Dylan Mcdonnell

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Hip hop cultural production has flourished in Senegal since the early-1980s, especially in Dakar, the administrative and economic capital, since the early 1980s as both a medium of engagement with “global” flows of musical influence and a localized platform for socio-political and contestation and organization. In the past ten years, high-profile rap and hip hop personalities based in communities centered in the banlieues (the disfavored, often impoverished neighborhoods surrounding Dakar) have begun to realize formal structures of professionalization and education in the elements of “urban culture.” This paper focuses on research done at Guédiawaye Hip Hop Center and Association, an …


Rave Culture- A Tale Of Two Scenes, Christopher Mohr Mar 2014

Rave Culture- A Tale Of Two Scenes, Christopher Mohr

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

This article compares two iterations of rave culture through the perspective on scenes as outlined by Geoff Stahl in his essay "'It's Like Canada Reduced': Setting the Scene in Montreal." By applying both communication and sociopolitical theory to the comparison of the original rave scene to that of today's, a vivid understanding of how scenes and subcultures construct themselves- both within and around the cultural environments from which they are born- will become apparent.


Bleaching To Reach: Skin Bleaching As A Performance Of Embodied Resistance In Jamaican Dancehall Culture, Treviene A. Harris Jan 2014

Bleaching To Reach: Skin Bleaching As A Performance Of Embodied Resistance In Jamaican Dancehall Culture, Treviene A. Harris

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how skin bleaching can be understood within the cultural context of Jamaican dancehall. I argue that as a cultural practice, skin bleaching can be viewed as a critique of the concomitant structural inequalities precipitated by colorism, which is a by-product of racism. In proposing skin bleaching as a queer performance of color, I attempt to illustrate the manner in which the lightening of the skin exposes the instability of racism and colorism as socially constructed, discursive regimes. If race and skin color are biological and embodied facts dictated by social reality, then bodies, which are racially marked …


Folkloric Musicians Among The Bugakhwe, Robert Veith Jan 2014

Folkloric Musicians Among The Bugakhwe, Robert Veith

Masters Theses

Increased access to global media by traditional culture in remote parts of Africa has, in many cases, seen indigenous music marginalized in favor of imported forms. In some places, a folkloric tradition thrives, though this music may face extinction if those who practice it do not document their art in a way which can be passed down to future generations. For this project, I recorded seven musician/composers of the Bugakhwe, a Khoisan people group living in the Okavango Delta region of Botswana. Two were given enough studio time to create a complete CD-length set, so as to show off the …