Ethnomusicology Commons^™

'Ahora Estamos Más Unidos': Claiming Resilience In The Musical And Visual Aftermath Of The El Paso Mass Shooting, Eduardo Garcia

Music ETDs

The El Paso Wal-Mart Mass Shooting on August 3, 2019, prompted swift response from the local community to create artistic spaces of remembrance. This study examines the musical (mariachi and corrido) and visual (altares, murals, and memorials) manifestations present at makeshift and formal memorials for the victims. I analyze how members of the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez borderland situated their artistic work in the aftermath of the shooting. I argue that these artists responded to the attack with symbolic acts of resilience rooted in cultural and collective memory, embodiment of trauma, and the lived experience of corporeal …

Decolonizing And Enriching Opera: A Nigerian Folktale One Act Opera, Miracle O. Amah

Dissertations, 2020-current

Aligned with the decolonial aims of this project, this English and Yoruba language opera promotes an international understanding of African operatic styles which reflect literary, musical, instrumental and dance cultural traditions. This paper addresses some of the issues faced by people of color in the opera world, ways that people of color have been resilient in this genre and ways to enrich the opera world with the aim of decolonizing and deframing the white racial structure. This opera was first performed on March 29th, 2022 and was created as a workshop for performances in high schools, colleges, music institutions, and …

“Started From The Bottom”: The Ascension Of Hip-Hop As A Sonic Art Form, Benjamin Nile Stewart

Theses and Dissertations

For over four decades, hip-hop has been a part of the American soundscape, drawing from influences of jazz, rhythm and blues, disco, etc. Hip-hop is one of the cultural bridges between African Americans and the world. This paper will focus on the artists, culture and its ascent to high art.

Qigang Chen’S Synthesis Of Multicultural Compositional Features In Er Huang, Isaac Reel

Student Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to identify prominent multicultural features of Qigang Chen's piano concerto, "Er Huang." It looks at theoretical aspects borrowed from Chinese practice as well as the practices of Chen's mentor Olivier Messiaen. This thesis then shows how Chen synthesizes those traditions. Chinese concepts discussed are banqiang, gong shift, bian sheng (changed notes) and the specific luogu dianzi (percussion topoi from beijing opera) ji-ji-feng. Messiaenic concepts discussed are motivic recycling and transformation, added values, irregular augmentation and diminution, modalism and rhythmic contrast.

Andy Stewart, Andy M. Stewart, And Exonostalgia: The Draw Of Tartanry And Kailyard School, Sarah Tackitt

Honors Theses

Andy Stewart and Andy M. Stewart are popular Scottish folk and traditional musicians operating at different periods during the development of mass media. Andy Stewart’s career was marked by the introduction of the television into Scotland, and he made his career being compére of the Scottish television show The White Heather Club. After gaining international recognition, viewers and listeners associated his tartanry and stereotypically Scottish humor as representative of his culture and country.

Andy M. Stewart gained international recognition during the folk revival, in which he wrote songs both for his solo career and for the band Silly Wizard …

Echoes Of Home, Hanna Traynham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist discusses her Master of Fine Arts exhibition, Echoes of Home, held at the Tipton Gallery in Johnson City, Tennessee on display March 15 through April 8, 2022. The author provides insight into concepts and influences relating to the creation of the exhibition with perspective on her intimate connection with place and memory.

The exhibit features five installations addressing home, elusive memory, and the change and continuity of cultural traditions over time. The works consist of a series of large-scale wild clay vessels, gestural clay bookends, a wall installation of cups with a line drawing, suspended porcelain slabs, …

The Sounds Of Home: A Composition Portfolio, Paul Gabriel L. Cosme

Music Honors Projects

What does home sound like? I have spent most of my recent life outside my homeland, the Philippines, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, and this question of what home is has become a persistent thought, if not, a necessary inquiry. This composition portfolio attempts to answer that question in three varying pieces. The first, The Sounds of Home, is a string quartet in three movements where each one tells a personal story by invoking Filipino folk and indigenous themes. The second, Commuting in Manila, is a wind septet that sonically emulates the commuting experience in Manila from the …

Misticismo Y Arcadismo En El Villancico Novohispano. Manuel De Sumaya Y Sus Contemporáneos, Luciana Kube Tamayo

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

El siglo XVIII trajo consigo una evolución estilística vertiginosa en todas las artes. La plástica, la literatura y la música confluyen y sirven de soporte a un arte nuevo, el Rococó. La floración churrigueresca está intensamente presente, además de en lienzos y biombos, en el vocabulario de la lírica de la Nueva España; a la vez que se afianzan los modelos religiosos, por un lado, se asientan los modelos pastoriles por otro. En cuanto a la espiritualidad, los modelos se encuentran encajados en la miniatura poética y el ingenio dieciochesco, desbordante de naturaleza y fantasía. En el presente trabajo me …

King Behind Colonial Curtains: Kasilag And The Making Of Filipino National Culture, Paul Gabriel L. Cosme

International Studies Honors Projects

Filipino National Artist Lucrecia “King” Kasilag sought to preserve folk cultures and melded these with her Western training to produce works—scholarly, pedagogical, and compositional—that shaped national music and culture. This thesis is a critical biography that combines perspectives from postcolonial studies, political economy, and musicology to highlight forces that shaped Kasilag’s life while illustrating her successes and shortcomings on national culture. Through this biography, I argue, Filipino national culture must originate from intersectional struggles and negotiation among elites and masses; that this culture is about both resistance and acceptance—a national culture that is syncretic and quintessentially dynamic.

German And Mexican Music In Central Texas: Historical Connections And Present Possibilities, Amy Aline Beckman

Masters Theses

German and Mexican music have a shared musical ancestry due to immigrants interacting since the late 1800s in central Texas. Comparing these genres reveals both commonalities and distinctions regarding style, orchestration, and thematic material. The differences between the genres create cultural boundaries reflecting nationalism that sometimes reinforces racial tension, while the commonalities are opportunities for empathy and open-mindedness through the globalization that occurs from shared musical experiences. While the historical connections between Germans and Mexicans in Central Texas are well-documented, the present-day status and effects of these connections have not been researched thoroughly. This project builds cultural profiles of both …

Mixtape Assignment, Apryl Berney

Assignment Prompts

Context: I designed several assignments to accompany the March 1st symposium “Listen Differently: Black Feminism, Music, and Popular Culture.” One assignment is a Mixtape assignment. It encourages students to apply Dr. Tricia Rose’s analysis of sexual politics from her seminal work Black Noise to popular songs from the last 5 to 10 years. The assignment should help students investigate how songs by women of color, especially Black women, changed since the mid-1990s when Dr. Rose’s critique of hip hop was first published.

La Ricarda, Mestres Quadreny I L'Experimentalisme Musical Català Dels Anys Seixanta: De Com L’Arquitectura Va Esdevenir Música I La Música, Arquitectura, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Eren uns temps magnífics per a la creació: els concerts semblaven obres de teatre i les obres de teatre, concerts. Els músics feien d’actors i aquests havien de fer de músics. I la distinció entre el públic i els intèrprets també es diluïa, si és que no s’eliminava del tot. Els semiòlegs —o són semiòtics?— havien explicat que en tot acte comunicatiu hi havia un emissor, un missatge i un receptor; i precisament d’això es tractava, d’eliminar aquestes distincions. Ah, i en molts casos, tampoc no hi havia escenari, ni sala de concerts.

Everyday Creativity: Singing Goddesses In The Himalayan Foothills, Nadia Chana

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

A book review is presented for Kirin Narayan, Everyday Creativity: Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).

Bodies Of Silence, Floods Of Nectar: Ritual Music In Contemporary Brahmanical Tantric Temples Of Kerala, Paolo Pacciolla

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The Tantric concept of sound (nāda) as universal life-force has seen worldwide diffusion over the last few decades but such a fame does not reflect academic interest in the impact of Tantra on music. Indeed, while a number of essays have been written to demonstrate the contribution of Tantrism to the evolution of Indian religions and culture, its contribution to music has been left largely unexplored.

The word Tantra refers to a pan-Asian religious phenomenon spread over numerous centuries and including a wide number of sects having different and even opposite philosophical and theological approaches which may be …

From Rumi To The Whirling Dervishes: Music, Poetry And Mysticism In The Ottoman Empire, Walter Feldman

Music & Performance in Muslim Contexts

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, whose life and mystical poetry provided the inspiration for the Mevlevi Sufi order, is one of the world's best-known poets.

Yet the centuries-long musical tradition cultivated by the Mevleviye remains much less known. In this deeply researched book, renowned scholar Walter Feldman traces the historical development of Mevlevi music and brings to light the remarkable musical and mystical aesthetics of the Mevlevi ayin – the instrumental and vocal accompaniment to the sublime ceremony of the 'Whirling' Dervishes.

This accessible introduction to the relationship between music and the performative elements of Sufi practice presents the biographies of the …

Music Pedagogy In Venezuela’S Plains: Making Space In Alma Llanera, Elaine Sandoval

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation argues that the process of institutionalizing traditional música llanera (plains region music) education in Venezuela is informed by a hierarchical spatialization of the capital, Caracas, and the historically agricultural- and livestock-producing region known as the llanos, or the plains. Drawing on Lefebvre’s The Production of Space (1991), I argue that the representations of space that have defined the llanos region and música llanera often obscure the lived space of music-making and dwelling in the llanos. This dissertation is based on fieldwork in Guárico state between 2016-2018, where I observed the state-funded Alma Llanera program, which had been …

The World Is Your Pulpit: A Research-Based Performance On The Broder Singers, Amanda Seigel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My capstone project is a research-based performance about the Broder Singers, the first Yiddish actors. They performed primitive musical and theatrical pieces in Yiddish beginning in the mid-19th century in non-theatrical spaces such as taverns and gardens, in Eastern Europe. They were part of a larger movement creating secular Yiddish culture beyond the religiously proscribed expressions of traditional Jewish life. Largely born and raised in traditional communities themselves, they mocked wealthy religious community leaders, utilized gender drag, and compassionately portrayed impoverished people. This white paper explores the context of their work and draws on primary sources such as memoirs, published …

Intro To Jazz, Jon De Lucia

Open Educational Resources

OER Based Syllabus for MUS 145 Intro to Jazz course at City College. Covers the history and development of jazz along with basic music fundamental vocabulary.

The Global Encounter As Communitas: Inter-Pilgrim Musicking Along The Contemporary Camino De Santiago, Hannah Snavely

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

In an effort to provide new ways of theorising pilgrimages as global encounters (White, 2012) and sites of cosmopolitan interactions, I offer a sound-centred investigation into inter-pilgrim musical events that occurred along the Camino de Santiago (Camino), a historically Catholic pilgrimage in northern Spain. This ethnomusicological perspective on the Camino highlights contemporary pilgrim rituals and artistic practices that are frequently overlooked in other Camino scholarship, which tends to focus on historical musics or the tangible arts. On the Camino, music primarily facilitates cross-cultural encounters for pilgrims, though at varied levels of mis/understandings. This paper explores the ways that participatory musicking …

La Musique Dans Les Cultures Tech. La Synthèse Modulaire En Temps De Covid-19, Eliot Bates

Publications and Research

Depuis 1996, la synthèse modulaire matérielle est passée d’une pratique artisanale de fabrication d’instruments de niche soutenue par un petit nombre de musiciens, à un phénomène transnational, une véritable culture tech. Malgré cet engouement, elle n’a pas donné naissance à de nouveaux genres musicaux populaires, et il n’est pas certain que la « musique », quelle que soit sa définition, soit ce qui rassemble les amateurs de synthèse modulaire. Ce texte a deux objectifs : tout d’abord, il présente les résultats d’une recherche en cours menée en ligne et dans plusieurs pays concernant le rôle des objets technologiques dans la …