Ethnomusicology Commons^™

Furthering Cultural Understanding Through Music, Sophia Abukamail

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project explores the role that music plays in fostering cultural understanding and equity by discussing the sociopolitical implications of musical collaboration between Palestinian and Israeli musicians. In order to do this, the paper will dive into the history of the conflict between Palestine and Israel, detail instances of musical collaboration between Palestinian and Israeli musicians, show how music is helping to bridge the divide between these two cultures, and examine the intentions and consequences of such collaborations as they relate to music, politics, and society. The purpose of this project is to investigate the ways that music can affect …

The Rosalía Polemic: Defining Genre Boundaries And Legitimacy In Flamenco, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

In 2018, Spanish singer Rosalía attained international popularity with her innovative flamenco-fusion album El mal querer. Within the flamenco world, the Rosalía vogue provoked vehement and ongoing polemics, involving whether or not her music should be regarded as “flamenco,” whether she had the social credentials to be accepted as an innovator, and whether it was proper for her to adopt the persona of a ghetto-girl Gypsy in her hit music video, “Malamente.” These controversies reveal much about flamenco culture, and especially about the tensions inhering to its status as both a concert art form and a traditional idiom embedded …

#Canceled: Positionality And Authenticity In Country Music’S Cancel Culture, Gabriella Saporito

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

From its beginning in film and television and its early adoption by Black Twitter, cancel culture has become a phenomenon in the era of social media. Marked by the popular hashtags #cancel, #canceled, #[InsertNameHere]isOverParty, and #Surviving[InsertNameHere], cancel culture is a practice which involves publicly denouncing and/or shaming a person or company when they do something that is considered offensive or objectionable. It saw a resurgence in the era of #MeToo that has not slowed down in an age dominated by social media presidents and global pandemics. Cancel culture has also seen a recent re-adoption by the political right, which begs …

Fostering Music Performers In The 21st Century: A Contemporary Professional Perspective Toward A New Curricular Agenda For Graduate Study In Music, Andre Januario

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

What if the core curriculum for graduate students in music performance were designed to prepare students to succeed in the world of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

This dissertation offers a hypothetical answer: a structured and systematic academic curricular framework for music graduate students of performance of concert music (especially those in terminal degrees, such as doctoral students), along with music instructors, professional music performers, school administrators, and college professors, seeking to prepare such students for achieving and maintaining a music career more in keeping with the current work environment, especially those skills demanded by the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the …

Christian Worship In Nagaland, Jane Elizabeth Laremore

Masters Theses

Christianity has historically suppressed Naga traditional music and culture, and yet Christian music plays an important role in the construction of Naga identity. A brief history and overview of Christian music in Nagaland including, hymn singing, contemporary Christian music, and revival songs demonstrates how the unique social, cultural and political context of Nagaland has created a generational divide in worship style preferences and the birth of the revival song genre. Snapshots of the life and work of Naga composers further illustrate these themes and provide insight into the incorporation of Naga folk music in Christian worship. While advocates make strong …

Indígenas, Africanos, Roma Y Europeos: Ritmos Transatlánticos En Música, Canto Y Baile, K. Meira Goldberg, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Resumen:

Hace algo más de un año, la Foundation for Iberian Music (The City University of New York), The Center for Iberian and Latin American Music (University of California, Riverside), el Centro de Estudios para la Cultura y la Comunicación (Universidad Veracruzana) y la Universidad Cristóbal Colón convocaron el congreso Indígenas, africanos, roma y europeos: Ritmos transatlánticos en música, canto y baile, el cual tuvo lugar en Centro Veracruzano de las Artes Hugo Argüelles (CEVART) en el Puerto de Veracruz, México del 11 al 13 de abril de 2019. Los artículos que siguen a esta introducción son una selección …

Introducción, Raquel Paraíso, K. Meira Goldberg, Jessica Gottfried Hesketh, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Ahora que escribimos esta introducción para las actas del congreso Indígenas, africanos, roma y europeos: Ritmos transatlánticos en música, canto y baile, (Puerto de Veracruz, México, del 11 al 13 de abril de 2019), es un buen momento para reflexionar acerca del viaje y el proceso que vivimos durante los días del congreso y el resultado escrito que nos deja mientras tejemos los hilos que aúnan los trabajos que ahora se publican. Estos veinte artículos son una muestra del pulso central del congreso, las coincidencias, tendencias e inquietudes intelectuales que reuniones académicas de ese tipo convocan. Si algo la …

Lost In Translation: A Critical Analysis Of The Libretto In Handel's Messiah, Jordan Lehto, Aaron Escamilla, Eden H. Nimietz

2020 Festschrift: Georg Frideric Handel's "Messiah"

Handel’s Messiah is renowned for its lush sound and richly developed message regarding the rejoicing of Christians and the celebration of religion through their faith in a divine savior. Not only is the full oratorio performed by countless ensembles every year, but many scholars have spent months, and even years, poring over its libretto. The conclusions they have come up with regarding the intentions of the librettist, Charles Jennens, have sparked much controversy over the years. Because of Jennens’ personal, religious beliefs, many scholars are concerned that much of his libretto is designed to discredit all other religions and proclaim …

Warfare And Welcome: Practicality And Qur’Ānic Hierarchy In Ibāḍī Muslims’ Jurisprudential Rulings On Music, Bradford J. Garvey

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

While much ink has been spilled by musicologists on the legal standing of music in Islamic jurisprudential scholarship, few scholars have offered as comprehensive a view as Lois Ibsen Al-Faruqi. Thirty-five years after her major works on this issue, this article seeks to reassess her model of musical legitimacy within Muslim scholarship. Al-Faruqi places Qur’ānic recitation at the apex of a unidirectional continuum of sound art, with genres less similar to the recitation of the Qur’ān located progressively further away from it. Based on fieldwork in the Sultanate of Oman in 2015-17 and engaging with recent reinvigorations on the anthropological …

Metta, Mudita, And Metal: Dhamma Instruments In Burmese Buddhism, Gavin D. Douglas

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Bells, gongs, and other dhamma instruments offer valuable insights into the role of sound in Buddhist practice. Participation in musical events in the Theravada Buddhist world is deemed inappropriate for devote laity and for those who have taken monastic vows. The seventh Buddhist precept implores monks “to abstain from dancing, singing, and music,” yet Buddhist monasteries and pagodas are sonically vibrant places that contain a wide variety of layered bells, gongs, chants, and prayers sculpting the sonic environment. This study examines the soundscape of Burmese Buddhist social space and argues that these sounds are essential to understanding the lived practice …

“Radical Protestors”: How Korean Popular Music Created Online Affinity Spaces Of Left-Wing Political Activists: Annotated Bibliography, Anna Mach

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

East Of Ethics: Insight Into The Imperative Nature Of Inclusive Ethnography – An Annotated Bibliography, Malia Odekirk

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What A Music Curriculum Must Look Like In A Post-Racial United States, Ryan Kargoll

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Modes Of Intervention In Alvin Lucier’S I Am Sitting In A Room, Daniel Fox

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Alvin Lucier’s I am sitting in a room (1969) is an icon of experimental music and sound art. The sizable literature addressing the aesthetic and philosophical implications of this piece rarely discusses the performance practice beyond what is indicated in the score itself. This is problematic for two reasons: 1) The meaning that is derived from the piece often hinges not just on what sounds are obtained, but on how they are obtained. 2) Over the past 50 years, changes in the performance practice have altered what constitutes the work: magnetic tape was used until 2000 when it was replaced …

Occitan Musicians, Immigration, And Postcolonial Regionalism In Southern France, Sarah E. Trouslard

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in southern France, this dissertation analyzes contemporary Occitan musical expression in relation to postcolonial immigration. “Occitan” refers to a group of linguistic practices found in the south of France, including Provençal and Languedocien. Throughout this study, I discuss commonalities between postcolonial and regionalist history and theory, shedding light on notions of cultural citizenship that have defined French sociopolitics in recent decades. The historian Herman Lebovics (2004) coined the term “postcolonial regionalism” in reference to the impact of decolonization on regional protest movements in France during the 1970s. During that time, singer/songwriters of the nòva cançon …

The Performance And Patronage Of Baloch Culture Through Music (And Related Arts) In The Eastern Arabian Peninsula, George Murer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a study of Baloch musical—and ritual—idioms as cultivated (and variously innovated, embellished, patronized, and reconstructed) in the relatively prosperous and cosmopolitan urban environments of the coastal Eastern Arabian Peninsula—the third major concentration of Baloch population after Balochistan and Karachi. Due to historical and geographic particulars, the origins of Peninsular Baloch communities lie primarily in the Makran region that extends along the Arabian Sea coast and across the political boundary separating Iran and Pakistan. If musical activities play a significant role in orienting Baloch communities socially and politically, what are the presentational strategies implied in the foregrounding of …

Audience Influence On The Composition, Revision And Interpolation Of Traditional Irish Ballad Narrative, Seán Ó Cadhla

Doctoral

The following thesis critically examines the essential thematic malleability of traditional Irish song narrative, with particular focus on the penetrative influence of the audience on both composer and performer alike. Such narrative fluidity is specifically examined within the context of works narrating attested historical events, output which could be reasonably assumed to adhere to factual and chronological consistency. The research concludes that the audience continuously exerts a powerful cultural influence on the performance space, and further demonstrates the considerable extremes that both composers and singers will routinely embrace in order to satisfy the constantly shifting demands of their audiences, even …

A North Korean Diasporic Community Of Performers, Sunhong Kim

International Programs

The purpose of this study is exploring music’s role to a North Korean diasporic community.

Social Power Of Jazz Festivals, Olga Bekenshtein

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Jazz festivals occur in all parts of the world, small cities and metropolises, urban and rural landscapes, stadiums, churches, streets, and abandoned factories. Being a part of the entertainment industry, they have the potential to impact social change. Jazz festivals help us reconsider notions of identity and community, and their communal experience has the potential to undermine dominant social norms. The industry of jazz festivals is based on Black music and has a history of positive and negative social outcomes. Evaluating festivals through the symbolic meaning of music provides an optic into how festivals marginalize and exploit African American cultural …

Talk This Way: A Look At The Historical Conversation Between Hip-Hop And Christianity, Joshua Swanson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Christianity and Hip-Hop culture are often said to be at odds with one another. One is said to promote a lifestyle of righteousness and love, while the other is said to promote drugs, violence, and pride. As a result, the public has portrayed these two institutions as conflicting with no willingness to resolve their perceived differences. This paper will argue that there has always been a healthy conversation between Hip-Hop and Christianity since Hip-Hop’s inception. Using sources like Hip-Hop lyrics, theologians, historians, autobiographies, sermons, and articles that range from Ma$e to Tipper Gore, this paper will look at the conversation …