Ethnomusicology Commons^™

Tuning Out The Dark: Music As A Defense And Folk Solution, Melanie Kimball

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Music across cultures and throughout history is a tool for engaging with the supernatural. It shares similarities with apotropaic magic. Through research and ethnographic fieldwork, I argued that even in modern times, individuals use music as an apotropaic remedy for fear and negative emotions. These remedies reflect strategies identified by Jeannie Thomas, including companionship, magical substance, neutralization, and displacement. Modern apotropaic music regulates emotions, re-establishes personal relationships, creates safe environments, and provides a means of control.

Contributors used music to combat various negative feelings, selecting genres that matched their emotional needs. In the absence of family and friends, music reaffirmed …

Harmonic Innovators And Cultural Catalysts In American Jazz: The Social Impact And Musical Innovations Of Louis Armstrong In The Real Ambassadors, Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts And John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, Marcia C. Vandervinne

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Abstract This capstone project explores how three landmark jazz works—Louis Armstrong’s The Real Ambassadors (1961), John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (1965), and Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts (1965–1973)—responded to the social challenges of the Civil Rights era while advancing the artistic stature of jazz. Each composition challenged systemic racism through its unique blend of innovation and cultural expression: Armstrong’s performance in The Real Ambassadors used satire to critique American racial hypocrisy; Coltrane’s A Love Supreme presented a spiritual and musical journey grounded in modal development and personal transformation; and Ellington’s Sacred Concerts fused jazz with sacred and classical traditions to elevate …

Filipino Music In The Sphere Of Multicultural Music Education: A Survey Of Preservice Teachers, Lauren Johnson

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore how preservice music teachers (i.e., students who are preparing to become music teachers) viewed diversifying music curricula, specifically regarding music from the Philippines, an archipelagic nation in Southeast Asia. Additionally, this research explored preservice music teachers’ cultural identities and how those identities influenced their beliefs and opinions about teaching. “Culture” was defined by Merriam-Webster (n.d.) as “the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.” Although there is a diverse population of students throughout schools in the United States, limited research has been conducted about incorporating …

Antimelody, Field Recording, Gerakan Musik Eksperimental, Dan Hantu Baru Yang Menolak Hantu Lama Hauntology, Aris Setyawan

Multikultura

This article challenges the traditional definition of music, limited to seven fixed elements: melody, harmony, rhythm, pitch, tempo, dynamics, and texture. The author suggests that all sound can be considered 'sound art,' blurring lines between music and other auditory experiences. In Mark Fisher’s hauntology, modern music is depicted as stagnant, trapped in a neoliberal pastiche that cancels the future by repeating past styles without innovation. However, this article highlights alternatives through experimental music, such as the album ANTIMELODY (2024), which uses field recording to present raw environmental sounds, challenging conventional musical structures. Movements like Jogja Noise Bombing and experimental music …

Horizonte Fronterizo: The Vitality Of Community And Contemporary San Diego-Tijuana Border Art, Ruben L. Loza

Chicana and Chicano Studies ETDs

This research dedicates attention to different examples of music and visual art that encompass contemporary San Diego-Tijuana border-integrated art. By employing a participant-observer approach with the music component and conducting plática-based interviews with all involved artists, this work underlines the vitality of the artworks’ manipulation of the U.S.-Mexico border wall and community as a driving force in the elaboration and growing influence of these projects and pieces. By analyzing how these works act as vehicles for response, light is also cast on greater matters that lie beyond the border zone: propagation of fear, anti-immigrant sentiment, and misinformed anxieties.

Sobre El Arcoíris: The Queering Of Mariachi, Tyician Charles Knight

Music ETDs

Mariachi is an internationally renowned artform and tradition whose history spans over decades and several continents. However, there are many aspects still embedded in mariachi culture that remain problematic; machismo (toxic masculinity), alcoholism, and homophobia to name a few. While there has been an increase of mariachi scholars who have critically examined these issues, mariachi culture itself has yet to address the challenges brought forth by its history of gender discrimination and homophobia and embrace practical changes that would enable the creation of a more equitable environment and further develop this living tradition. This thesis analyzes the trajectory of queering …

Memory, Music, Manuscripts: The Ritual Dynamics Of Kōshiki In Japanese Sōtō Zen, Junko Oba

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

A book review is presented for Memory, Music, Manuscripts: The Ritual Dynamics of Kōshiki in Japanese Sōtō Zen, authored by Michaela Mross, by Junko Oba.

"Kol Mekadesh Shevi'i": A Liturgical Melody Sung At Home, Naomi Cohn Zentner

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This article draws upon the unusual characteristics, origins and prevalence of the melody to the poem "Kol mekadesh shevii" [He who sanctifies the Seventh day] and discusses how it came to be recognized in the past seventy years as a signifier of Ashkenazi pre-Holocaust musical and religious culture and in particular as a sonic marker of liturgical sound, although it was sung at home. The Kol mekadesh melody came over time to represent two vastly different symbolic positions. As a melody adopted from non-Jewish sources bringing new, sometimes controversial sounds into the synagogue, and as a typical synagogal …

La Música Que Nos Une: Prácticas Y Expresiones Musicales Rurales De Tracidión Oral, Rosa Delia Acosta León, Ana Betina Morgante Combariza, Manuel Fernando Merchán Bernal, Juan Manuel Urrego Laurin

Ciencias Sociales, Humanidades y Ciencias Políticas

La Música que nos une surge como una herramienta de mediación cultural concebido como producto del proyecto de investigación Etnomusicología de expresiones musicales rurales de tradición oral cundinamarquesas como elementos de educación y cultura, desarrollado por el programa de Música de la Universidad de Cundinamarca. Su propósito es reconocer y preservar las prácticas musicales de los artistas regionales, así como sus historias de vida para contribuir a la preservación de la identidad cultural de las nuevas generaciones de la región. establecer conexiones significativas entre el material recopilado durante el trabajo de campo, enfocado en las prácticas musicales. de los artistas …

Msh 115 World Music Syllabus, Smee Wang

Open Educational Resources

This course is designed to explore various musical culture in the world. I will introduce ethnic instruments and the distinguishing features, as well as the history and development. This course will cover traditional music and popular music of each region. It offers a general knowledge of non-western music, people and their unique culture. Students will gain a better understanding and appreciation of world music.

Black Sonicism: Cultural Maintenance And Evolution Through New Orleans Bounce Music, Leandrea L. Clay

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

As a form of regional hip-hop, Bounce music operates as an expressive culture native to New Orleans with generational lineages of artists. Black sonicism is a regionally and digitally-sensitive theoretical framework that seeks to conceptualize how Black soundmakers and their audiences create a dialogic relationship through three components: responsive participation, spatial relatability, and expressed ratchetry. I catalog each of these components through three audience formations—origin, scope, and reception—to understand the tensions between Black music, regional identity, and technology. From this project, I propose a theoretical development to consider how Black artists continually pass down communal histories through their music while …

The Interaction Between The Dagda’S Harp And Celtic-Inspired Music, Sixie Chen, Jeanne Sumrall

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

The purpose of this study is to find out the relationship between one of the Irish mythological symbols---The Dagda’s Harp and Celtic-Inspired Music. In Irish mythology, the god Dagda is able to use his harp to cause grief, joy, and sleep to people. The Dagda and his kin escape with the harp in battle against the Fomorians, which gave birth to these three strains of music, which would be played throughout Ireland as well as to the seasons, which sprang from his songs.

Lontas: The Aesthetic Concept Of Mortar Music Of Farmer Community In Turi Village, Indonesia, Dea Lunny Primamona, Bambang Sunarto

Bahasa dan Seni: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Seni, dan Pengajarannya

This research is focused on the phenomena of an aesthetic impression in kothékan lesung performed by a farmer community in Turi Village, Magetan District, Indonesia. This research aims to understand the kothékan lesung as an art system and understand the idiom lontas expressed verbally in their mortar music performance. This research uses an ethnomusicology approach which includes fieldwork and deskwork. The research is sequentially conducted with observation, interviews, recordings, measurements, and studying literature and documents. This article uses Sedyawati’s concept about the art system and Sethares’s concept about the science of sound to analysis data. The result shows that: (1) …

Beyond The Song: Authorship And Production In Australian Independent Music, Matthew Giovannangelo

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

This thesis examines authorship and copyright complexities in the Australian independent music industry, focusing on the evolving roles of producers in music creation. As advancements in technology and shifts in industry practices reshape the music production landscape, traditional definitions of authorship, centred on melody and lyrics, increasingly fail to capture the scope of producers’ contributions. Through qualitative interviews with industry professionals, the study highlights the significant yet often unrecognised influence of producers, examining how their input shapes music and its implications for intellectual property and copyright frameworks. The findings reveal that current systems for allocating and managing remuneration fail to …

Activism Within The Music And Recorded Sound Archive, Julius Tanner

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the integration of applied ethnomusicology within the recorded sound archive of the New York Public Library. The process of repatriating recorded sound through community engagement lead to the development and eventual reparative work of outdated subject headings and other descriptive language within the archive. This thesis also explores how cultural preservation of similar non-physical fields such as naming conventions within linguistics and the development of gastronationalism combats globalization and ultimately colonization.

Islamic Themes In Us Hip-Hop Culture, Anders Ackfeldt

Music & Performance in Muslim Contexts

Explores how Islam is produced in American hip-hop culture by both Muslims and non-Muslims

Islam has been a part of hip-hop culture since it sprang from New York’s street culture in the 1970s. Today hip-hop has evolved into a global artform with a diversity of Muslim Islamic discourses expressed. Using tools from the field of social semiotics, this book examines how Islamic themes feature in US hip-hop culture, maintaining a particular awareness that both Muslims as well as non-Muslims participate in their production.

Anders Ackfeldt analyses a collection of lyrics, sounds and images to show how Islamic themes are featured …

“Women Who Don’T Know How To Stay Married”: The Poetic Afterlives Of The 1927 Bristol Sessions, Aubrey R. Adkins

Honors Theses

This project begins from the understanding that song lyrics can have lasting impacts on the poetic work that proceeds from them, and can and should, therefore, be read as literature. In the cultural context of Southern Appalachia, a historically underserved and academically underrepresented region, this understanding is intertwined with Audre Lorde’s idea that “For women...[poetry] is a vital necessity of our existence.” The women of Southern Appalachia, denied access to particular modes of expression as a result of external circumstances such as poverty and sexism, need poetry, according to Lorde, to take “tangible action” in their lives. What came before …

Floating Signifiers: Ai, Semiotics, And The Crisis Of Meaning In Music, Kehinde Aruwajoye

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This thesis examines how AI-generated music disrupts traditional meaning-making processes in musical expression. Through semiotic analysis (Saussure, Peirce) and cultural theory (Hall), I demonstrate how AI produces technically proficient but culturally hollow compositions, what I term "floating signifiers." Case studies reveal AI's inability to replicate the lived experiences that give music its depth, despite accurate stylistic reproductions. The work identifies three fundamental losses: contextual grounding, authentic hybridity, and historical consciousness. I propose ethical frameworks for human-AI collaboration that preserve music's essential humanity while leveraging algorithmic capabilities. Ultimately, this research shifts the debate from technical possibility "Can AI compose?" to cultural …

Liner Notes On Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music As A Praxis Of Self-Fashioning, Shawn J. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Liner Notes on Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music as a Praxis of Self-Fashioning interprets Black musical performance in identity-making, with a focus on how music and Black trans identity intersect and informs Black trans girlhood. As such, Black trans girls render ourselves legible, i.e. understood without shame or judgment, by constructing our identities through the music by Black women we listen and dance to, or watch and sing. These musical connections affirm the possibilities of Black femme expression. This expression of Black femininity is due to what I call an Afrofuturist affect, by which I refer …

Rhythm Against Poethics, Jayvyn Dacas

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis stages an auto-poetic ethnography that listens to, and moves with, the anterior spaces of Black life. Those murmurs, hums, musical hesitations, and infrastructural vibrations that refuse capture by dominant epistemic regimes. Drawing from Ramon Amaro’s reading of Sylvia Wynter, Katherine McKittrick and Alexander Weheliye’s reflections on sound, Fred Moten’s insights on displacement, and Tendayi Sithole’s attention to the phonographic, the project situates music production as method and unworlding. Through engagements with the 808, sampling, sound systems, and embodied listening across Florida. Spaces like the warehouse, the party, record stores, and community become the work of Black voices, and …