Svanibor Pettan, Jeff Todd Titon (2015) - The Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology (OUP) PDF

T h e Ox f o r d H a n d b o o k o f
A P P L I E D
E T H N OM U SIC OL O G Y
The Oxford Handbook of
APPLIED
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY
Edited by
SVANIBOR PETTAN
and
JEFF TODD TITON
1
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Oxford handbook of applied ethnomusicology / edited by Svanibor Pettan and Jeff Todd Titon.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–935170–1 (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Applied ethnomusicology. I. Pettan, Svanibor, 1960–
II. Titon,Jeff Todd, 1943–
ML3799.2.O94 2015
780.89—dc23
2014041243
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents
List of Figures and Tables ix

List of Contributors xiii
About the Companion Website xix
PA RT I A N I N T ROD U C T ION TO A P P L I E D
Section 1. Applied Ethnomusicology: A Descriptive and
Historical Account 4
Jeff Todd Titon
Section 2. Applied Ethnomusicology in the Global Arena 29
Svanibor Pettan
Section 3. An Introduction to the Chapters 53
Jeff Todd Titon and Svanibor Pettan
PA RT I I T H E OR E T IC A L A N D M E T HOD OL O G IC A L
C ON SI DE R AT ION S
1. Transcending Researcher Vulnerability Through Applied
Ethnomusicology 71
Dan Bendrups
2. Evaluating Values in Applied Ethnomusicology 93
Klisala Harrison
3. Cultural Engagement and Ownership Through Participatory
Approaches in Applied Ethnomusicology 109
Tan Sooi Beng
4. Applied Ethnomusicology and Intangible Cultural Heritage:
Understanding “Ecosystems of Music” as a Tool for Sustainability 134
Huib Schippers
vi Contents
5. Sustainability, Resilience, and Adaptive Management for Applied

Ethnomusicology 157
Jeff Todd Titon
PA RT I I I A DVO C AC Y
6. Advocacy and the Ethnomusicologist: Assessing Capacity,
Developing Initiatives, Setting Limits, and Making Sustainable
Contributions 199
Jeffrey A. Summit
7. Applied Ethnomusicology as an Intercultural Tool: Some
Experiences from the Last 25 Years of Minority Research in Austria 229
Ursula Hemetek
8. Being Applied in the Ethnomusicology of Autism 278
Michael B. Bakan
9. Motivations and Methods for Encouraging Artists in Longer
Traditions 317
Brian Schrag
10. Activist Ethnomusicology and Marginalized Music of South Asia 348
Zoe C. Sherinian
PA RT I V I N DIG E N OU S P E OP L E S
11. Decolonization and Applied Ethnomusicology: “Story-ing” the
Personal-Political-Possible in Our Work 379
Elizabeth Mackinlay
12. Andes to Amazon on the River Q’eros: Indigenous Voice in
Grassroots Tourism, Safeguarding, and Ownership Projects
of the Q’eros and Wachiperi Peoples 398
Holly Wissler
PA RT V C ON F L IC T S
13. The Role of Applied Ethnomusicology in Post-Conflict and
Post-Catastrophe Communities 453
Erica Haskell
Contents vii
14. The Study of Survivors’ Music 481

Joshua D. Pilzer
15. Music and Conflict Resolution: The Public Display of Migrants in
National(ist) Conflict Situations in Europe: An Analytical Reflection
on University-Based Ethnomusicological Activism 511
Britta Sweers
PA RT V I E D U C AT ION
16. Strategies and Opportunities in the Education Sector for Applied
Ethnomusicology 553
Susan E. Oehler Herrick
17. Sounds Humane: Music and Humanism in the Aga Khan
Humanities Project 602
John Morgan O’Connell
18. Intersections Between Ethnomusicology, Music Education, and
Community Music 639
Patricia Shehan Campbell and Lee Higgins
PA RT V I I AG E N C I E S
19. Archives and Applied Ethnomusicology 671
Dan Lundberg
20. The Applied Ethnomusicologist as Public
Folklorist: Ethnomusicological Practice in the Context of a
Government Agency in the United States 709
Clifford R. Murphy
21. Applied Ethnomusicology in China: An Analytical
Review of Practice 735
Zhang Boyu
22. The Problem and Potential of Commerce 772
Alan Williams
Index 803
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
1.1. Tote Tepano, dressed for Tapati festival participation, carrying tape recorder. 81
1.2. Paulis Puriņš (center) with Miervaldis Altments (far left) at a
Christchurch Latvian community celebration in the mid-1980s. 86
2.1. Musical value systems exist in a continuum in complex society
(elaborating Robbins, 2013b). 104
3.1. Community performance Opera Pasar; children performing the clog
dance at the market, 2008. 124
3.2. Siamese in Penang performing the menora at the Heritage
Celebrations, 2013. 122
4.1. Ecosystems of music. 141
4.2. Screenshots from the online survey to identify possible areas of concern
for sustainability on soundfutures.org. 153
5.1. Location of Old Regular Baptist Churches in the Southern
Appalachian region. 183
6.1. Map of Uganda by Dan Cole, GIS Coordinator, Smithsonian National
Museum of Natural History, in Delicious Peace: Coffee, Music & Interfaith
Harmony in Uganda (SFW CD 50417), 2012. 201
6.2. Worship in the Moses synagogue on Nabogoya Hill, Uganda. 206
6.3. The Peace Kawomera Growers Coop sign. 213
7.1. Ruža Nikolić-Lakatos, 1994. 241
7.2. Ceija Stojka, 1991. 242
7.3. Poster for the event from 1990. 246
7.4. Serbian Roma women dancing at the event, 1990. 248
7.5. Ševko Pekmezović, 1995. 252
7.6. Religious backgrounds of immigrants from Turkey in Vienna. 261
7.7. Logo of the Saz Association. 262
7.8. Mansur Bildik playing the saz in Amerlinghaus, June 7, 2014. 263
x List of Figures and Tables
7.9. R-Kan. 264

9.1. Ethnomusicology articles treating ethnolinguistic minority musics. 337
9.2. The Create Local Arts Together (CLAT) methodology. 338
12.1. Digitized archives returned to the Queros-Wachiperi community. Estela
Dariquebe is the only elder still living who recorded with Patricia Lyon in
1964 and 1965. 405
12.2. Two US tourists with three Q’eros, learning about the Q’eros pinkuyllu flutes. 407
12.3. A Q’eros couple sharing music with US tourists from inside an Inca niche. 413
12.4. A young US high school student from a National Geographic student
group tour in Peru learns a Q’eros song. 415
12.5. A Q’eros man gives a “high five” to a US student from a National
Geographic student group tour who has sung a Q’eros song with him. 416
12.6. Estela Dariquebe, Carmen Jerewa, Manuel Yonaje: the three elders of the
Queros-Wachiperi community who remember the traditional songs. 428
12.7. Carmen Jerewa, the only active healer and esüwa singer in the community
of Queros-Wachiperi. 431
12.8. Front Cover, Wachiperi CD: Cantos Wachiperi: Familia linguística
Harakbut, Grupo étnico Wachiperi. Photo of the Queros (Q’eros) River in
the background. 437
12.9. Back cover, Wachiperi CD. CD song contents. 438
12.10. Manuel Yonaje listens to Patricia J. Lyon Wachiperi archive recordings. 442
15.1. The Polyphonie der Kulturen CD cover. 520
15.2. Excerpt from the exhibition flyer with Mandi Lutumba and Nada Müller. 522
15.3. Khaled Arman teaching at the Institute of Musicology in Bern. 523
15.4. Share of migrant communities in Rostock (2004) [6,598 persons = 3.2%]. 526
17.1. A professional dancer at a wedding in Bartang. 605
17.2. A professional musician at home in Khorog. 608
17.3. A praise singer or madahkhan in Khorog. 611
17.4. A Mevlevî sema in Turkey, ca. 1890. 613
17.5. Janbaz Dushanbiyev performing a mortuary dance in Khorog. 616
17.6. Abdulvali Abdurashidov playing the sato in Dushanbe. 619
17.7. Musicians from the Academy of Maqâm in a workshop. 622
17.8. A musician playing a maqamboland in Wahan. 624
17.9. A skylight or chahar khaneh. 626
17.10. Rafique Keshavjee in Dushanbe. 627
19.1. Krišjānis Barons’s cabinet on display in the National Library in Riga. 677
List of Figures and Tables xi
19.2. Wax cylinders from Karl Tirén’s yoik collection in Svenskt visarkiv,
1913–1915. 680
19.3. Polska from Ore, Dalarna, in the FMK collection. Transcribed by Nils
Andersson, 1906. 688
19.4. The music collector Nils Andersson in the home of the fiddler Ante Sundin. 694
19.5. The ladder is an illustration the value scale of FMK. 699
21.1. Finnish Jazz musicians playing at the Financial Street in Beijing. 740
21.2. Folk instrumental ensembles competition held in Jincheng city, Shanxi
province, in 2013. 745
21.3. Villages in Wuan county, Hebei province, joining a local opera
performance during a Taoist temple affair. 745
21.4. A choir holds its regular rehearsal at the Temple of Heaven Park in Beijing
on a Saturday morning. 752
21.5. A choir holds its regular rehearsal at Zizhuyuan Park in Beijing on a
Sunday morning. 753
21.6. Musicology Department students at the Central Conservatory of
Music giving their first public performance at the Recital Hall of the
Conservatory during the World Music Days, 2010. 755
21.7. Foreign professors and musicians visited Quantou village at the
Baiyangdian Lake region, Hebei province, and played folk music with the
folk musicians during the World Music Days in 2007. 757
21.8. The Musical Instrument Exhibition Centre at the Central Conservatory
of Music. 761
21.9. A set of copied bells exhibited at the Musical Instrument Exhibition
Centre at the Central Conservatory of Music. 761
Tables
I.1. Comparative Musicology, Folk Music Research, and Ethnomusicology. 37

2.1. Robbins’s Value Continuum Applied to Music. 100
4.1. “Ecosystems of Music”: A Framework for Understanding Aspects of
Sustainability. 145
7.1. Ethnic Minority Groups in Austria. 235
7.2. Roma in Austria: Major Communities. 241
9.1. Number and Integrality of Gbaguru Enactments, Mono Community. 331
15.1. Track List of the CD Polyphonie der Kulturen. 527
List of Contributors
Michael B. Bakan is Professor of Ethnomusicology and Head of World Music at Florida

State University, Tallahassee, USA. He has published widely on the ethnomusicology of
autism, Balinese gamelan music, and world music pedagogy, and serves as series editor
for the Routledge Focus on World Music series. His current work aims to advance the
epistemological positions of autistic self-advocacy and neurodiversity through musical
engagement and ethnography.
Dan Bendrups is Deputy Director (Research) of the Queensland Conservatorium,
Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. He is known for his work in Polynesia, par-
ticularly the music of Easter Island, and has research interests in traditional music,
popular music, and music diasporas across South America, Australasia, and the
Pacific. He edited (together with Graeme Downes) Dunedin Soundings: Place and
Performance (2011), which was the first book to focus on practice-led music research
in New Zealand.
Patricia Shehan Campbell is Donald E. Peterson Professor of Music at the University
of Washington, in Seattle, USA, where she teaches courses at the interface of education
and ethnomusicology. She is involved in writing and curricular projects pertinent to
Mexican-American musical expressions, the repatriation of Lomax recordings to com-
munities in the Mississippi hill country, and on cross-cultural issues of music, diver-
sity, and education. She is Chair of the Advisory Board of Smithsonian Folkways and
President of The College Music Society.
Klisala Harrison (Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki,
Finland) is the current Chairperson and founding Vice-Chairperson of the Study Group
on Applied Ethnomusicology for the International Council for Traditional Music. She
has co-edited one anthology and published five international, peer-reviewed articles on
applied ethnomusicology method, theory and practice. Dr. Harrison’s areas of ethno-
graphic research include music and well-being, music and poverty, music for theater
and film, and indigenous musics of Canada and northern Europe.
Erica Haskell is an Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of New
Haven, USA She holds a Ph.D. and MA in ethnomusicology from Brown University.
In her research, she has explored the politics of music, applied ethnomusicology, the
involvement of international humanitarian organizations in cultural events and projects
in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the humanitarian intersections between postwar and post-
catastrophe environments.
xiv List of Contributors
Ursula Hemetek is Associate Professor and head of the Institute of Folk Music Research
and Ethnomusicology at the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna,
Austria. The main focus of her research is the music of minorities in Austria, and her
publications in the field of ethnomusicology focus on Roma, Burgenland Croats, and
recent immigrant groups. She is currently Chairperson of the ICTM Study Group Music
and Minorities.
Susan E. Oehler Herrick is an independent educational consultant based in
Cleveland, Ohio, and a part-time faculty member in Humanities at Lakeland
Community College in Kirtland, Ohio, USA. While managing K–12 educational pro-
grams of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and consulting for other non-
profits, Herrick edited a special issue on popular music pedagogy for the Journal of
Popular Music Studies (2009). A specialist in the history of African-American music
and culture, she authored “The Blues in Transcultural Contexts” in the edited volume
African American Music: An Introduction (2006).
Lee Higgins is the Director of the International Centre of Community Music based
at York St John University, United Kingdom, and an Associate Professor of Music
Education at the Boston University School of Music. He has worked on prison and pro-
bation service, youth and community service, and orchestra outreach on four continents
in university, school, and health settings. He is the senior editor for the International
Journal of Community Music and author of Community Music: In Theory and in Practice
(Oxford University Press, 2012).
Dan Lundberg is Chief Librarian and Archive Director at the Swedish Statens
musikverk (Music Development and Heritage Sweden). He is also Associate Professor in
Musicology at Stockholm University in Sweden and Åbo Academy in Finland. Between
2004 and 2007 he held a position as Professor of Music and Cultural Diversity at Gävle
University in Sweden. His main research areas today are music and identity and music
collecting and ideology.
Elizabeth Mackinlay is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the
University of Queensland, Australia, where she teaches Arts Education, Indigenous
Education, Qualitative Research Methods, and Women’s Studies. She completed her
Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology in 1998 at the University of Adelaide and was awarded a sec-
ond Ph.D. in Education from the University of Queensland in 2003. She is currently the
co-editor of the Australian Journal of Indigenous Education (AJIE).
Clifford R. Murphy is the Director of Maryland Traditions, the folklife program of
the Maryland State Arts Council, and is an adjunct lecturer in American Studies at
University of Maryland Baltimore County, USA. He is the author of Yankee Twang:
Country and Western Music in New England (University of Illinois Press) and coau-
thor of Ola Belle Reed and Southern Mountain Music on the Mason-Dixon Line (Dust-
to-Digital) with Henry Glassie and Douglas Dowling Peach. He holds the Ph.D. in
Ethnomusicology from Brown University.
List of Contributors xv
John Morgan O’Connell is Director of the Program in Ethnomusicology at Cardiff

University, United Kingdom. A graduate of Oxford University, he completed his doc-
toral research on Turkish music at UCLA. He has published extensively on the musi-
cal traditions of the Muslim world, acting as a music consultant for the Aga Khan
Humanities Project in Central Asia. He also has a specialist interest in applied ethnomu-
sicology, having completed relevant research on music and conflict in Ireland, Turkey,
and Tajikistan, among others.
Svanibor Pettan is Professor and Chair of the Ethnomusicology Program at the University
of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Initiator and first Chair of the ICTM Study Group on applied eth-
nomusicology, he authored and edited studies in various formats, addressing applied work
in regard to minorities, conflicts, and education. Serving as President of the Cultural and
Ethnomusicological Society Folk Slovenia and as Secretary General of the International
Council for Traditional Music, he actively contributes to the advancement of applied
ethnomusicology.
Joshua D. Pilzer is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology in the Faculty of Music
at the University of Toronto, Canada, and a specialist in the anthropology of music in
modern Korea and Japan. His interests embrace the relationships between music, sur-
vival, memory, traumatic experience, marginalization, violence, and social movements.
He is the author of Hearts of Pine: Songs in the Lives of Three Korean Survivors of the
Japanese “Comfort Women” (Oxford University Press, 2012).
Huib Schippers has a history of some three decades of action research into a wide vari-
ety of aspects of music, including music education, community music, performance,
the music industry, and arts policy. He was the driving force behind the $20 million
World Music & Dance Centre in Rotterdam and the five-year international research col-
laboration “Sustainable futures for music cultures: Toward an ecology of musical diver-
sity.” He is the Director of the, Australia. Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre
at Griffith University in Brisbane. His book Facing the Music (Oxford University Press,
2010) is regarded as a landmark in both music education and applied ethnomusicology.
Brian Schrag is SIL International’s Ethnomusicology and Arts Coordinator, and
founder of the Center for Excellence in World Arts (Dallas, USA), a graduate program
in applied ethnoarts. He has performed sustained ethnomusicological research in the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon, and holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology
(UCLA), an M.A. in Intercultural Studies (Wheaton, IL), and a B.S. in Cognitive
Sciences (Brown University). He actively promotes artistic creativity for healing and
education in communities affected by Huntington’s Disease.
Zoe C. Sherinian is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of
Oklahoma, USA. She has published the book Tamil Folk Music as Dalit Liberation
Theology (Indiana University Press, 2014), as well as articles on the indigenization of
Christianity in Ethnomusicology, The World of Music and Women and Music. She has also
produced and directed a documentary film on the changing status of outcaste drummers
xvi List of Contributors
in India, This Is a Music: Reclaiming an Untouchable Drum, and is in the process of mak-
ing her second film on Dalit women drummers of the Sakthi Folk Cultural Centre.
Jeffrey A. Summit holds an appointment as Research Professor in the Department of
Music and Judaic Studies at Tufts University, USA, where he also serves as rabbi and
Neubauer Executive Director of Tufts Hillel. His research focuses on music, identity,
and spiritual experience, both in the American Jewish community and with Muslims,
Jews, and Christians in Uganda. Since 2002, he has been involved in advocacy projects
in Uganda supporting university education, Fair Trade, and interfaith cooperation.
Britta Sweers is Professor of Cultural Anthropology of Music at the Institute of
Musicology and Director of the Center for Cultural Studies at the University of
Bern (Switzerland). Having studied at Hamburg University and Indiana University
(Bloomington), she was Junior Professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater,
Rostock (Germany), from 2003 to 2009. Her reserach interests include the transforma-
tion of traditional musics (particularly on the British Isles and the Baltic Countries) in
global contexts, music and nationalism, and applied ethnomusicology.
Tan Sooi Beng is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the School of Arts, Universiti
Sains Malaysia, Penang. She is the author of Bangsawan: A Social and Stylistic History
of Popular Malay Opera (Oxford University Press, 1993) and coauthor of Music of
Malaysia: Classical, Folk and Syncretic Traditions (Ashgate Press, 2004). Tan is actively
involved in engaged theater combining music, dance, and drama, aimed at educat-
ing young people and revitalizing traditions among the multiethnic communities of
Penang.
Jeff Todd Titon is Professor Emeritus of music at Brown University Providence, USA,
where for 27 years he directed their Ph.D. program in ethnomusicology. Widely pub-
lished, he is well known as a pioneer in developing phenomenological approaches to
ethnographic fieldwork, ecological approaches to musical and cultural sustainability,
and an applied ethnomusicology based in reciprocity and friendship. In 2015–2016 he
will hold the Basler Chair of Excellence for the Integration of the Arts, Rhetoric, and
Sciences at East Tennessee State University.
Alan Williams is Associate Professor of Music and Coordinator of Music Business at
the University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA. He holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology
from Brown University, and a B.M. in Third Stream Studies from the New England
Conservatory of Music. In addition to published works focusing on his ethnographic
research into recording studio practice, he has a broad range of experience as a per-
former, producer, and record label manager, and currently leads the ensemble Birdsong
At Morning.
Holly Wissler, originally from the United States, is an applied ethnomusicologist resid-
ing in Cusco, Peru. She works in applied projects in cultural and musical preservation
and representation, repatriation and use of audiovisual archives, and indigenous tour-
ism with the Quechua Q’eros of the southern Andes and the near-extinct Wachiperi of
List of Contributors xvii
the Amazonian Harakbut linguistic group. Holly is lecturer for National Geographic
Expeditions and various US university study abroad programs in Peru, and has pub-
lished widely, in English and Spanish, about her work with the Q’eros and the Wachiperi.
Zhang Boyu is Professor of Ethnomusicology at Department of Musicology, Central
Conservatory of Music; Vice-Chairman of Chinese Traditional Music Association and
China’s World Music Association; member of Academic Advisory Board of Humanities
Faculty of Helsinki University (2011–2014). He is the author of five books and over 80
articles in both Chinese and English. His research is cross-cultural and interdisciplin-
ary, focusing mainly on the meanings of traditional musics in their societies.
About the Companion Website
www.oup.com/us/ohae
Oxford has created a website to accompany The Oxford Handbook of Applied

Ethnomusicology. Audio recordings and color photographs, which cannot be made
available in a book, are provided here. The reader is encouraged to consult this resource
in conjunction with the chapters. Examples available online are indicated in the text
with Oxford’s symbol .
The list of sound recordings available online is given below:
Sound 12.1. “Wiquntuy” (pukllay taki—carnival song). Recording: Holly Wissler,

February 2, 2007. Singer: Inocencia Quispe Pinkuyllu: Lucio Chura.
Sound 12.2. “Kapiro” (Welcome song, Great egret). Recording, Holly Wissler, December
10, 2010. Singer: Manuel Yonaje.
Sound 12.3. “Kapiro” (Welcome song, Great egret). Recording, Patricia J. Lyon, July 17,
1965. Singer: Mariano Dariquebe.
T h e Ox f o r d H a n d b o o k o f
APPLIED
Pa rt I
A n Introdu c t i on
to Appli e d
Ethnomusi c ol o g y
Our Introduction to this volume consists of three sections. Although applied ethnomu-
sicology is practiced now in many regions of the world, it has developed differently in
various times and places, just as ethnomusicology itself has. We begin in Section 1 (by
Titon) with a focused statement on applied ethnomusicology as it has developed from
a single representative area (the US), and then broaden out in Section 2 (by Pettan) to a
global perspective, where a greater plurality of voices and viewpoints may be observed,
so that we may end with the understanding that applied ethnomusicology is no sin-
gle field but is instead an ever emergent movement, responding differently at various
times and places, by means of music-centered interventions, to different cultures, his-
tories, needs, and conditions. Indeed, this volume as a whole offers just such a plural-
ity of voices and viewpoints. In addition to discussing histories and developments in
national and global perspectives, particularly in the contexts of the US-based Society
for Ethnomusicology (SEM) as well as the UNESCO-affiliated International Council for
Traditional Music (ICTM), the co-editors also each offer personal perspectives, based
in many years of involvement. Section 3, jointly written by Titon and Pettan, offers an
introduction to the chapters that follow.
We wish to thank many people who have made this work possible. Suzanne Ryan,
music editor at Oxford University Press, supported this project from the outset and
helped us to understand how to shape the volume in conformity with Handbook
expectations. The anonymous external reviewers read perceptively and made many
useful comments and suggestions. For guidance, vision, and support along the path
to applied ethnomusicology, Titon would like to thank colleagues and teachers Alan
Kagan, Mulford Sibley, Charlotte Heth, David McAllester, Dennis Tedlock, Burt
Feintuch, Erma Franklin, Loyal Jones, Elwood Cornett, Kenneth Irby, Maryanne
Wolf, Sandy Ives, Archie Green, Bess Lomax Hawes, and Daniel Sheehy.
Pettan would like to single out Samuel Araújo, Anthony Seeger, and Kjell Skyllstad,
three important visionaries in applied ethnomusicology (among many more), who
continue to inspire his own thinking and doing, and the contributors to this volume,
4 Jeff Todd Titon
with whom it was a true honor and pleasure to join forces in creating this essentially
important Handbook.
Section 1. Applied

Ethnomusicology: A Descriptive and
Historical Account
Jeff Todd Titon
Ethnomusicology and Applied Ethnomusicology

I like to think of ethnomusicology as the study of people making music (Titon, 1989
1992b: xxi–xxii). People make sounds they call music, and they also make ideas about
music. Those ideas form the cultural domain called music. They include what music is
and is not; what it does and cannot do; how it is acquired and how it should be transmit-
ted; what value it has; what it should (and should not) be used for; what it has been in the
past and what it will be in the future; whether it should be encouraged and supported,
or discouraged and repressed; and so forth. Just as music differs among individuals and
social groups throughout the world, so do people’s ideas about it differ, and this has been
so throughout history.
Applied ethnomusicology puts ethnomusicological scholarship, knowledge, and under-
standing to practical use. That is a very broad definition. More specifically, as it has
developed in North America and elsewhere, applied ethnomusicology is best regarded a
music-centered intervention in a particular community, whose purpose is to benefit that
community—for example, a social improvement, a musical benefit, a cultural good, an
economic advantage, or a combination of these and other benefits. It is music-centered, but
above all the intervention is people-centered, for the understanding that drives it toward
reciprocity is based in the collaborative partnerships that arise from ethnomusicological
fieldwork. Applied ethnomusicology is guided by ethical principles of social responsibil-
ity, human rights, and cultural and musical equity. Although some ethnomusicologists
regard applied ethnomusicology as a career alternative to academic work—and indeed,
it can be—it’s not always helpful to make that distinction, because ethnomusicologists
who do applied work are employed both inside academic institutions, such as universi-
ties and museums, and outside them in government agencies, nongovernmental organiza-
tions (NGOs), and client organizations directly. In other words, the place of employment
does not determine whether the ethnomusicology has any application outside the world of
scholarship. What matters is the work itself: how, where, and why the intervention occurs,
and the communities to whom we feel responsible (Titon, 2003; Dirksen, 2012).
Putting ethnomusicological scholarship, knowledge, and understanding to practical
use and terming it applied implies the usual distinction made in the sciences between
An Introduction to Applied Ethnomusicology 5
pure research, or the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake (as it is often called), and
applied research, or knowledge put to practical use. It is possible to minimize this dis-
tinction, claiming that the moment a researcher circulates knowledge within a scholarly
community it is being put to beneficial use. Classroom teaching is of course another
kind of use. Besides, the phrase knowledge for its own sake appears oxymoronic, for
in what sense can knowledge possibly be for its own sake if knowledge cannot logically
be an agent or a self? If all ethnomusicological knowledge is put to use in one way or
another, then the term applied ethnomusicology is redundant. All of this may be so, but
for strategic reasons the editors of this volume find the term useful, in order to highlight
a certain kind of activity and distinguish an ethnomusicology based in social responsi-
bility where knowledge is intended for beneficial use in communities outside the aca-
demic world from an ethnomusicology which is meant to increase and improve the
storehouse of knowledge about music and circulate it among scholars. In the absence of
this distinction, as I will argue later (see below, “Applied Ethnomusicology in the United
States: A Brief History”), applied ethnomusicology has been marginalized or ignored
in the definitions and histories of our field that circulate among ethnomusicologists.
Indeed, examination of ethnomusicology curricula reveals very few, if any, courses
devoted to applied work at the doctoral level. The Ph.D. is a research degree, after all,
and the chief criterion for career advancement in the university remains research that
enjoys a high intellectual reputation among scholars. Fortunately, however, a sense of
social responsibility motivates an increasing number of ethnomusicologists, employed
inside and outside the academic world, who find ways to integrate it into their scholarly
research, and to apply it in the public sphere. Readers who wish to know more about my
personal involvement with, and views on, applied ethnomusicology are invited to con-
sult Titon 2003 and various entries on applied ethnomusicology on my blog at http://
sustainablemusic.blogspot.com.
This volume is not meant as a “how-to” handbook, like the Girl Scout Handbook.
Rather, in keeping with the other Oxford Handbooks in this series, it offers a sampling
of current scholarship related to its subject, with contributions from some leading expo-
nents. Applied ethnomusicology is a field of practice and theory, rather than a disci-
pline with a bounded subject and an established, universally agreed-upon methodology.
A branch of the academic discipline of ethnomusicology, its scope is still expanding.
While its practitioners are in broad agreement over putting ethnomusicological knowl-
edge to use rather than simply pursuing it as an end in itself, we differ in emphasis,
whether in definition, method, or purpose (Harrison 2012). Readers may look here for a
variety of subjects, approaches and models.
Applied Ethnomusicology in Contemporary

North America: A Brief Overview
What kinds of activities are applied ethnomusicologists involved in? Where, typically,
do we intervene in the public sphere? The co-editors of this volume, one active in North
America, the other in Europe, have determined to write about these activities in the
6 Jeff Todd Titon
areas they know best. As I am most familiar with activities in the United States, and the
professional organization based there (the Society for Ethnomusicology, or SEM), what
follows in my part of this Introduction highlights US-based applied ethnomusicology.
I will discuss the history (and prehistory) of applied ethnomusicology, and its reception,
in the United States since the late 1800s. But before sketching that history, I describe
applied ethnomusicology as it is practiced today. What are applied ethnomusicologists
doing now? What are our goals, and how are we positioned within the larger world both
within and outside the academy?
First, we are involved in promoting traditional music, dance, and other cultural
expressions in order to benefit artists, traditions, and communities. Whether under-
taken by ethnomusicologists acting primarily on their own behalf, or whether sup-
ported by cultural organizations, these cultural policy interventions are among the
oldest types of applied ethnomusicology and remain one of the most common, par-
ticularly as directed toward minority, immigrant, and otherwise underserved popula-
tions within developed nations, and among indigenous peoples throughout the world.
Sometimes, but not always, these musics are considered threatened or even endan-
gered. Lately, sustainability has become the generally accepted policy goal, whether the
musics are endangered or not (see Schippers, Chapter 4, and Titon, Chapter 5, in this
volume). Cultural trauma has often been an important motivating factor, particularly
when cultural renewal appears important in the face of political and economic stress
(see Haskell, Chapter 13 in this volume). Examples of these interventions include the
settlement schools in the southern Appalachian mountains, begun more than a cen-
tury ago to promote the arts and crafts of mountain folk culture; the immigrant folk
music and dance programs for children and adults in large cities such as New York and
Chicago, which involved settlement schools and included festivals as well as adult rec-
reation groups and additions to the public school curriculum; national radio broad-
casts undertaken by Alan Lomax shortly before World War II to bring the songs and
stories of ordinary citizens into media circulation; regional and national festivals such
as the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, begun in the 1960s; policymaking and granting
agencies that promote community arts, such as historical societies, arts councils, and
the National Endowments; and NGOs devoted to expanding the creative economy
through musical heritage and cultural tourism, sometimes with a view to recovering
from ecological disasters such as hurricanes, urban blight, and mountaintop removal.
In the twenty-first century, UNESCO has become the major international force in cul-
tural policy, with its treaties encouraging the preservation of what it calls intangible cul-
tural heritage. The United States has not signed these treaties, but outside the United
States many ethnomusicologists are involved with UNESCO activities and indeed, some
North American ethnomusicologists participated in the planning and ongoing review
stages. Ethnomusicologists have worked as consultants, arts administrators, ethno-
graphic fieldworkers, festival presenters, radio and television producers, podcasters and
Internet site developers, educators, facilitators, mediators, writers, expert witnesses,
and in various other capacities formulating and administering cultural policies whose
purpose is sociocultural, economic, and musical benefit. Ethnomusicologists also have
been among those theorizing cultural policy interventions, and have contributed to a
growing critical literature evaluating these practices. Many of the chapters in this vol-
ume comprise a part of this ongoing scholarship concerning applied ethnomusicology.
Another area of practice is advocacy, either on behalf of particular music-makers or
a music community as a whole. Rather than adopting the role of the neutral, objective,
scientific observer gathering information, the applied ethnomusicologist assumes the
role of a partisan, working in partnership toward goals that are mutually understood
and agreed upon. Indeed, the most successful advocacy usually arises after ethnomusi-
cologists have visited and listened to the musicians articulate their concerns and what
they would like to achieve. Seldom has partnership worked when the ethnomusicolo-
gist plays the role of expert and imposes solutions to problems perceived from a dis-
tance, or fails to understand the musical community’s perspective. Advocacy includes
grant-writing on behalf of individuals and communities; writing promotional and
press materials; acting as an agent to arrange performances; facilitating community
self-documentation initiatives; repatriation of recordings and musical artifacts from
museums and archives; political lobbying for arts spaces; facilitating community arts
education projects; researching the history of musical traditions for the community;
acting as an intermediary between cultural insiders and outsiders; long-term planning
for the sustainability of community music cultures; and in general working in partner-
ship and on behalf of musicians and their communities. Advocacy usually arises from
relationships developed over time, when an ethnomusicologist is attracted to particular
musicians or music cultures, visits them for research purposes and returns, and deter-
mines to make a commitment that goes beyond mere study. Academic ethnomusicolo-
gists undertaking long-term fieldwork in a community are well-positioned for this,
but while an increasing number do become advocates, some prefer to remain neutral
observers.
A third area of practice involves education. Often educators themselves, applied eth-
nomusicologists work with other educators designing curricula, and to bring musi-
cians into the schools to demonstrate, teach, and perform; they also facilitate visits to
performance spaces where youngsters may observe and participate in music-making
activities. Music education once prepared youth to participate mainly in the culture of
classical music, or as US academics call it these days, Western art music. As cultural
pluralism and multicultural initiatives in North American schools gained traction in
the last third of the twentieth century, musical pluralism increased, introducing popular
music, jazz, and the music and dance of ethnic communities to the school curricula.
Ethnomusicologists have been active in making musical activities more inclusive, fos-
tering interest in local musical artists and traditions, particularly from newly arrived
cultural and ethnic groups. In this way, music is viewed as a way to increase intercultural
understanding.
Other areas of contemporary practice include peace and conflict resolution; medi-
cine; law and the music industry; libraries, museums, and sound archives; journalism;
and environmental sound activism and ecojustice. Peace-related applications are more
frequent outside North America, but work of this sort has been done in Canada in
8 Jeff Todd Titon
disputes between First Nations communities and the Canadian government, while
music has been an important part of labor and civil rights movements in the United
States since the nineteenth century. Among the projects of medical ethnomusicology
are HIV-AIDS work in Africa, therapeutic work with post-traumatic stress survivors,
and music within the autism community. Legal applications have involved ethnomu-
sicologists testifying as expert witnesses, particularly in music copyright infringement
cases, and work on copyright and intellectual property issues as the question “who owns
culture” becomes increasingly important when money is to be made and cases of exploi-
tation have been documented. Ethnomusicologists have served as advisors to the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a UNESCO-sponsored group attempting
to arrive at laws for protecting intellectual property rights in the international arena.
Ethnomusicologists are contributing to ecological studies of the soundscape, and of
the effects of environmental noise on physiological and psychological health. We are
involved in political action opposing sound pollution, such as noise from ocean ves-
sels and military activities that affect whales, dolphins, and other sea mammals. Applied
ethnomusicologists are contributing to the new discipline of ecomusicology, which
involves music and sound in a time of environmental crisis. Journalists educated in
ethnomusicology bring to world music a broadly informed historical and geographi-
cal perspective. Some are writing for newspapers, magazines, and online publications;
many are active in promoting music, and some are performing musicians ourselves.
Ethnomusicologists working in the music industry serve as consultants, ethnographers,
technical assistants, and producers. Many libraries, museums, universities, and other
institutions maintain sound archives where archivists with ethnomusicological training
offer expertise in acquisition, cataloging, grant-writing, preservation, and outreach.
Since the 1990s, when applied ethnomusicology became a recognizable force within
ethnomusicology, other names have been advanced to describe some of the work that
applied ethnomusicologists do; but they ought not to be confused with applied eth-
nomusicology, which is the covering term.1 Public sector ethnomusicology describes
applied ethnomusicology that is practiced by people employed by public-sector,
taxpayer-funded (i.e., government) institutions such as (in the United States) the
Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Endowment for the Arts,
and state arts councils; and whose efforts are directed to the public at large while often
targeted at particular communities within it. By definition, “public sector ethnomusi-
cology” is unable to include applied ethnomusicology as practiced by those who work in
the private sector, in NGOs such as museums, historical societies, foundations, and var-
ious non-profit organizations, even when part of their funding comes from government
grants; nor does it describe the work of applied ethnomusicologists in corporations and
client organizations. Public ethnomusicology is a better name for this activity, insofar as
it focuses on applications in the public arena. But both terms, public sector and public,
neglect the private sphere and perpetuate an unhelpful distinction between academia
and the world outside of colleges and universities. As I have pointed out, applied ethno-
musicology is practiced by those employed inside the academic world as well as outside
of it. Ethnomusicology appears to be in danger of replicating the same terminological
virus that has infected American folklore studies since the 1980s, one which American
Folklore Society President Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett labeled a “mistaken dichot-
omy” (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1988).
Applied Ethnomusicology: Being, Knowing, and Doing

Some ethnomusicologists are attracted to applied work, and others not so much. Most
ethnomusicologists, I’ve observed, do share certain characteristics, however. Sound
and music are immensely important to the way we orient ourselves. As humans, we are
beings “in the world” through all of our senses, but we are particularly aware of vibra-
tions that come to us as sound. Epistemologically, we feel that knowing sound—and
knowing by means of sound—is essential to being human in the world and is one of the
most important avenues through which to understand the human condition. Certainly
it is our special avenue. Where we diverge, somewhat, is in what we do as a result of this
ontological and epistemological orientation. Some of us are most interested in pursuing
and increasing knowledge about sound and music in the world, the music of the world’s
peoples. This is the usual end of scholarship. Scholars feel a special responsibility to pres-
ent, discuss, debate, and circulate this knowledge among colleagues and students in the
institutional world of universities and professional associations of ethnomusicologists.
Others, those of us who practice applied ethnomusicology, also feel a responsibility to
help put this knowledge to practical use in the public arena; and so either in addition to
our research, scholarship, and teaching within the university world, or instead of it, we
also involve ourselves in interventions into musical communities, for public benefit.
Some 45 years ago Mantle Hood wrote a textbook about the nature of ethnomusi-
cology, but instead of titling it “Ethnomusicology” he named it The Ethnomusicologist
(Hood, 1971). In the Introduction he described an ideal ethnomusicologist’s back-
ground, education, skills and aptitudes, and personality. It was an unusual emphasis for
a graduate textbook in ethnomusicology, but then this was an unusual book, often writ-
ten in the first person, and to some extent reflecting, I think, the California social and
intellectual atmosphere of the 1960s that had also produced public figures like Stewart
Brand and Jerry Brown. Although the influence of personality on an ethnomusicolo-
gist’s accomplishments is not often written about, it is sometimes discussed among
ethnomusicologists, especially when we reflect on ethnographic fieldwork, that rite of
passage in which ethnomusicologists (like their counterparts in cultural anthropology)
traditionally travel to a different, and sometimes strange, culture and while there, try
to learn something of the musical universe among that group of people. It is difficult,
sometimes alienating, even psychologically traumatic, work (Wengle, 1988); and ethno-
musicologists tend to think that certain personality types are better able to accomplish it
than others. Applied ethnomusicologists like to interact with our field subjects, not just
observe them. We feel a desire to give something back in exchange for what we are learn-
ing, and this impulse leads us not only to research but to work directly for the benefit of
those we visit. And so although most ethnomusicologists are in the world ontologically
10 Jeff Todd Titon
and epistemologically in similar ways, we differ somewhat over what we should be doing
with those ways of being and knowing. It should go without saying that applied ethno-
musicologists engage in research and contribute to the growth of knowledge. Our Ph.Ds
are research degrees, after all, and many of us have made substantial scholarly contribu-
tions to the flow of knowledge inside academia. But we also feel a social responsibility to
put that knowledge to use in the public arena.
Applied Ethnomusicology in the United States:

A Brief History
As the co-editors worked on this volume and saw it through an eight-year period of
invitations, proposals, abstracts, essays, reviews, revisions, and yet more reviews and
more revisions, it became increasingly and unsettlingly clear that many US contributors
thought of their work within a local and national context but knew relatively little about
the history, ideas, and accomplishments of applied ethnomusicologists living outside
the United States. Non-US contributors were similarly knowledgeable about applied
work in their spheres of activity outside North America, but generally unaware of the
history, projects, scholarship, and cultural policies generated by applied ethnomu-
sicology in North America. Ideas that had been theorized, practiced, and thoroughly
critiqued in some localities were being introduced in others as if they were newly dis-
covered. More than once, contributors seemed to be reinventing wheels. Many whose
work would benefit from an exchange of ideas with others involved in similar projects
elsewhere were not taking advantage of that possibility. Although we believe that the
reasons for this insularity have more to do with institutional histories and geography
than with any serious divergence over assumptions, approach, and goals, one of the
happy consequences of this volume, we hope, will be to increase the dialogue among
practitioners of applied ethnomusicology no matter where they work, so that each
becomes aware of the ways in which similar problems have been faced, and solutions
attempted, elsewhere, while problems and issues that had not even occurred to some
will become apparent after reading about the work of others. Another consequence
of this insularity, however, was that it became impossible to sketch a unified history
and description of applied ethnomusicology apart from those considerations. For that
reason, in this section I construct a history of applied ethnomusicology in the United
States, related to the growth of ethnomusicology and its professional organization, SEM,
founded in 1955. (Svanibor Pettan writes in Section 2 of this Introduction about the
communities of applied ethnomusicologists associated with the International Council
on Traditional Music [ICTM], and its earlier incarnation, the International Folk Music
Council [IFMC, founded in 1947].) In doing so, I draw on a graduate seminar in the
history of ethnomusicological thought which I led at Brown University from 1988 until
2013. Reflexivity, postcolonial ethnomusicology, efforts to sustain musical genres and
cultures, collaborative ethnography and advocacy, tourism and the creative economy,
archival stewardship and repatriation of field recordings, applications to medicine and
to peace and conflict resolution, proper roles for government in the arts, the place of
world music in education—these are not new themes in our field, but the timing of their
entrances, their reception, and their use in applied work has not been uniform among
the North American, European, Asian, African, Australian, and Latin American com-
munities of applied ethnomusicologists.
Strictly speaking, the history of ethnomusicology began in 1950, when Jaap Kunst
invented the term and it entered scholarly discourse (Kunst 1950). I prefer to think of
the pre-1950 period as ethnomusicology’s prehistory, paying particular attention to the
two disciplines, comparative musicology and cultural anthropology, that combined in
the 1950s as ethnomusicology.2 I find prototypes of US applied ethnomusicology among
nineteenth-century ethnologists and folklorists whose field research in music exhibited
both social responsibility and collaborative involvement with musical communities for
their benefit. Music was an integral part of early folklore and anthropology, not an after-
thought. From the very beginning, scholars writing for the American Anthropologist and
the Journal of American Folklore showed much interest in people making music. The
second issue of the former contained an essay by Washington Matthews (1843–1905) on
a Navajo sung prayer (Matthews, 1888), for example, while the inaugural issue of the lat-
ter featured an article on Kwakiutl music and dance by Franz Boas (1858–1942), the most
influential North American anthropologist of his generation (Boas 1888). Boas’s article
described some of the group’s music, stories, and their ideas and behavior in relation to
them; it contained musical transcriptions, and mentioned his 1886 music collecting trip
with the German comparative musicologist and music psychologist Carl Stumpf among
the Bella Coola. Nothing in Boas’s article might be considered applied ethnomusicology
per se, but Boas undertook a public anthropology project of enormous import in the
early twentieth century when he opposed so-called scientific racism and helped estab-
lish the idea that differences in human behavior result from learned cultural, rather than
fixed biological, traits.
Matthews’s work was aided by a deeply collaborative relationship in which he under-
went Native rituals and may have married a Hidatsa woman. Collaborative relation-
ships in which the parties work toward mutually agreed-upon goals became a hallmark
of applied ethnomusicology, but their roots may be found in people like Matthews, as
well as Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838–1923), whose collaborative work moved
more clearly in the direction of social and economic benefits that would be recog-
nized today as applied ethnomusicology. Fletcher, who became President of both the
American Anthropological Association and the American Folklore Society, as well as
Vice President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, lived with
the Sioux in 1881, and collaborated with an Omaha, Frances La Flesche, whom she took
into her household from 1890 on. Falling ill with a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis
in 1883, she was nursed back to health by her Native American friends, who sang to her
while she lay recovering. Then, she wrote, “the sweetness, the beauty and meaning of
these songs were revealed to me” (Fletcher, 1994: 8). Like the others, Fletcher undertook
ethnographic studies of Native music; but she also worked tirelessly on behalf of Native
American education, integration, and advancement into mainstream culture.
12 Jeff Todd Titon
“Giving back” is the usual term North American ethnomusicologists employ to

identify this reciprocity, which has taken various forms over the decades. However,
Fletcher’s efforts at aiding Native Americans are characterized today as attempts to
Americanize them, a “grievous error in the administration of Native American lands
and peoples” according to a Smithsonian Institution author (Smithsonian: Fletcher).
Ethnomusicologists consider it unfortunate that the Omaha songs she collected were
published with Western harmonization, added to them by the musician John Comfort
Fillmore, who convinced Fletcher that these harmonies were implicit in the Omaha
melodies (Fletcher, 1994). Nonetheless, Fletcher may be understood in her time as a
progressive. The principal alternative to Americanization (or Christianization), after
all, had for nearly three centuries been genocide. And prominent American compos-
ers such as Edward MacDowell were quoting, transforming, and harmonizing Native
American melodies in their musical compositions.
Daniel Sheehy and Anthony Seeger trace the history of twentieth-century pio-
neers in applied ethnomusicology, such as Robert Winslow Gordon, Alan Lomax,
and Charles Seeger (Sheehy, 1992; Seeger, 2006). In terming them applied ethnomu-
sicologists, Seeger, Sheehy, and others combine ethnomusicology’s historical and
pre-historical periods. Certainly, these ancestors would have been called applied
ethnomusicologists if ethnomusicology proper had come into being prior to 1950.
To some extent their work was related to that of early anthropologists such as A. L.
Kroeber and others on endangered Native American languages. The Lomaxes’ folk
music collections were meant for the general public, to supply a kind of people’s
alternative to the art music that was being taught in the public schools. Alan Lomax
insisted that the treasure trove of folk music should be made accessible through
media production, which in the 1940s and 1950s meant radio programs—he produced
dozens of them for national broadcast. He issued an appeal for “cultural equity” that
articulated many of the principles under which he had been operating for decades
(Lomax, 1972). Lomax’s “Appeal” may be the single most often-cited document in the
literature of US applied ethnomusicology. Charles Seeger, Anthony Seeger’s grand-
father, had issued a call in 1939 for an applied musicology that would follow from
government involvement in the arts, a vision in some ways similar to the situation
in China today (Seeger, 2006: 227–228; also see Zhang, Chapter 21 of this volume).
Seeger and his wife Ruth Crawford Seeger, John and Alan Lomax, Herbert Halpert,
Zora Neale Hurston, and others were involved in efforts to encourage folk music (as
the authentic popular music of a democratic society) during the Roosevelt adminis-
tration. These activities, of course, diminished greatly as the United States concen-
trated during the 1940s on mobilization for World War II. But Sheehy concludes that
“there is a tradition of applied thought and purpose that should be included in the
history of ethnomusicology,” as well as “an evolving sense of strategy and techniques
for action that has flowed through this thought and that demands our attention as
ethnomusicologists” (Sheehy, 1992: 329). Anthony Seeger entitled his 2006 essay
“Lost Lineages” in the history of ethnomusicology and, like Sheehy, called for a more
inclusive history of the field.
The usual historical accounts of ethnomusicology in the United States are not so
inclusive: applied ethnomusicology is treated either as a peripheral activity or, more
often, ignored entirely. These mainstream accounts trace ethnomusicology’s roots to
comparative musicology, a scientific project of the European Enlightenment. They do
not pay much attention to its roots in folklore and cultural anthropology. In 1885 Guido
Adler defined comparative musicology as “the comparison of the musical works …
of the various peoples of the earth for ethnographical purposes, and the classification
of them according to their various forms” (Haydon, 1941: 117). Comparative musicol-
ogy began in the latter part of the nineteenth century with the systematization of music
knowledge, which proceeded with the measurable, classificatory, and comparative pro-
cedures borrowed from philology, embryology, and other sciences, generating various
hypotheses concerning origins, growth, diffusion, and function. Aided by the recording
phonograph and efforts of various music collectors, it included the comparative work on
the musical scales of various nations accomplished by the Englishman Alexander Ellis,
and the research of the German Carl Stumpf and others in music psychology (or psycho-
physical science, as it was then called). Comparative musicology was further developed
as a research discipline in early twentieth-century Berlin by Stumpf ’s younger colleague
Erich von Hornbostel, Curt Sachs, and others, with related scholarship accomplished
by Béla Bartok in Hungary, Constantin Brailliou in Rumania, and others in the fields of
comparative musical folklore and the sociology of music.
Comparative musicology arrived in the United States in 1925 in the person of George
Herzog, who had been von Hornbostel’s assistant in Berlin. He went on to study anthro-
pology with Franz Boas at Columbia University, specializing in “primitive music,” as it was
then called. Herzog received his doctorate in 1931 under Boas’s supervision and pursued an
academic career at Yale, Columbia, and Indiana University that lasted until the mid-1950s.
He was recognized during this period as the leading authority on “primitive music.”
Among his students were two of the founders of SEM, David McAllester and Willard
Rhodes. Bruno Nettl, who has written knowledgeably about Herzog’s contributions to
comparative musicology, was another of his students (Nettl and Bohlman, 1991: 270–272;
Nettl, 2002: 90–92; Nettl, 2010: 168). Herzog’s writings exhibited an empirical, scientific
method that required large amounts of reliable data, a high standard to which he held him-
self and others. “All evidence,” he wrote, “points to the wisdom of dispensing with sweep-
ing theoretical schemes and of inquiring in each case into the specific historical processes
that have molded the culture and musical style of a nation or tribe . . . . So little is actually
known … that the main attention of this field [of comparative musicology] is devoted to
increasing that little, and collecting more material before it all disappears under the impact
of Western civilization” (Herzog, 1936: 3). He had learned the importance of fieldwork
and data-gathering from his teacher Boas, and he insisted on that, as well as musical tran-
scription and analysis, from his students. His methods added Boas-styled ethnographic
research to the comparative analysis that characterized the work of Horbostel and the
Berlin school.
A useful summary of comparative musicology, with due attention to Herzog’s
prominence in the United States, appeared in Glen Haydon’s graduate-level
14 Jeff Todd Titon
textbook, Introduction to Musicology (Haydon, 1941). As outlined there, its purpose

was to increase knowledge of the music of the world’s peoples. Academic research
was the means to that end. The work of numerous comparative musicologists, chiefly
European, was described, and their most important publications referenced. But com-
parative musicology soon underwent a facelift. Historical accounts date this to Jaap
Kunst’s book Ethno-Musicology (Kunst, 1950, and two subsequent editions), which
defined ethno-musicology as the study of “all tribal and folk music and every kind of
non-Western art music. Besides, it studies as well the sociological aspects of music…”
(ibid., 1950: 1). Although he is usually credited with inventing the term ethnomusicol-
ogy, Kunst’s argument for the name change rested chiefly on redundancy of the word
“comparative.” All good science, he argued, is comparative in nature; disciplines like
linguistics and embryology had, after all, dropped the adjective for the time being.
His argument was persuasive, and some comparative musicologists began to adopt
the new name, while others who wished to place more emphasis on the cultural study
of music and less on musical analysis welcomed the name change and saw opportu-
nity in it. However, comparative musicology remained the ancestral predecessor for
Kunst and in later US historical accounts of the discipline, chiefly by Bruno Nettl
(1956, 1964, 1983, 2002, 2005, 2010) as well as others. For nearly 60 years these histori-
cal accounts have informed generations of ethnomusicology professors and graduate
students, in the United States and elsewhere. Despite increased theoretical sophisti-
cation and a growing recognition of historical relativism (e.g., Nettl and Bohlman,
eds., 1991; Nettl, 2010; Rice, 2014), different subject emphases by other authors (e.g.,
Hood, 1971; Merriam, 1964), and an enlarged cast of characters (McLean, 2006), these
mainstream histories continue to construct ethnomusicology as a research discipline
almost exclusively centered in the academic world. Applied ethnomusicology seldom
appears; when it does, it usually is treated with some reservations. As long as compara-
tive musicology remained ethnomusicology’s central occupation, applied work would
be marginal at best.
The founding of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) in 1955 not only provided
an opportunity for a new emphasis on the cultural study of music, but might also have
moved applied ethnomusicology to a more central position. Why it did not do so, at a
time when applied anthropology was becoming important within US cultural anthro-
pology, is an interesting question. In large part, as this brief history will show, the answer
has to do with the founding generation’s desire to establish and expand ethnomusicol-
ogy as an academic discipline, on a firm institutional footing, throughout the univer-
sity world. In so doing, they missed an opportunity to integrate applied work into the
agenda of the new Society. It was left for the next generation to do so.
The early period of SEM was, predictably, taken up with debate over the direction
of the discipline. In its first 15 years or so, the SEM journal, Ethnomusicology, was filled
with essays by many leading practitioners who attempted to define the discipline and
influence its course. Research in ethnomusicology’s first two decades (ca. 1950–1975)
has been characterized as falling broadly into two approaches, one musicological and
the other anthropological (Kerman, 1986: 155–181). This is an oversimplification, but
it is useful in highlighting the legacies of Hornbostel and Herzog, which in SEM could
be seen in the work of Herzog’s former colleague Kolinski, William Malm, George
List, Mantle Hood, and Nettl, among others. Their focus was on collecting, record-
ing, transcribing, describing, classifying, analyzing, and comparing music in order to
increase the music knowledge-base and to test theories concerning musical distribu-
tion, diffusion, and acculturation. Like Herzog, most were interested also in the eth-
nographic study of cultural contexts for music (“music in culture”) and in comparing
and contrasting music’s functions within cultures. Unless one thinks of the polymath
Seeger as a comparativist, these comparative musicologists were not represented
among the four SEM founders; but their work was prominent in monographs and
in Ethnomusicology, where they advanced their scholarship and their view of what
ethnomusicology ought to be. They also played a major role in establishing ethnomu-
sicology as an academic discipline at the graduate level in US universities during the
first 20 years of SEM.
On the other side of the debate over the future of ethnomusicology were the
anthropologists, dance ethnologists, folklorists, and various other scholars who
shared an interest in music and had been attracted to the new field. Most prominent
among these were the anthropologists Alan Merriam and David McAllester, both
among the four founders of SEM. Herzog was noticeably absent from SEM’s origins,
and it is worth asking why. Nettl, who writes movingly and generously about Herzog,
observed that Herzog already was behaving erratically in 1952 (he would be hospital-
ized from the mid-1950s onward, with occasional time off, until his death in 1983, for
what we would now call a bipolar disorder) and attributes his absence to this (Nettl,
2002: 90–92; Nettl, 2010: 168; Nettl and Bohlman, 1991: 271–272). No doubt this is
correct; but it appears that the founders also wished to escape Herzog’s dominance
over the field. McAllester reported that as far as he knew, he was the only student
ever to complete the doctorate under Herzog’s supervision. “The campus was littered
with the bodies of failed Herzog students,” McAllester said. Herzog’s habit was to
demonstrate to them time after time that they could not meet his standards. “He
never failed them in so many words,” McAllester continued, “but they had a very
hard time ever getting an appointment with him, and when they finally did, it was
all at such a high level that they felt sort of defeated. If they brought in a transcrip-
tion, it was so bad that he went over it note by note to show them and said, now see if
you can’t, now that you’ve had this practice, do better next time. Then a month or so
later, when they caught up with him again, then the same thing would happen again.”
Rhodes was one of the dropouts, but he was already a full professor at Columbia
and did not need the degree; yet it remained a sore point with him and his friend
McAllester both. Even before Herzog moved from Columbia to Indiana University
in 1948, he had been showing signs of the mental instability that would institution-
alize him (Memorial Resolution, 1983). Herzog was Nettl’s dissertation supervisor
at Indiana, but before Nettl could complete his doctorate, Herzog’s erratic behav-
ior forced him to move to a different supervisor. “Bruno studied with him [Herzog]
when he went out to Indiana, and he [Nettl] had a professor for a father, and so he
16 Jeff Todd Titon
had a strong position,” McAllester said. (Paul Nettl, Bruno’s father, was a professor
of musicology at Indiana University.) “And he [Nettl] demanded another teacher,
and he finished his Ph.D. with Carl Voegelin, the linguist. He left Herzog, but most
of us couldn’t do that. We were with Herzog and it was do or die, and many died”
(McAllester, 1989).
No wonder then, given McAllester’s and Rhodes’s opinion of him, that Herzog was
not invited into the inner circle of SEM founders. At that time they may have been less
aware of Herzog’s illness and decline than Nettl and the others who worked with Herzog
at Indiana. But that must be only part of the answer. The other part is that McAllester,
Merriam, Rhodes, and Seeger wanted to take a new direction, to move away from com-
parative musicology and Boasian ethnography, and toward an ethnomusicology that
would make room not only for a greater variety of authoritative voices but also for
more emphasis on the cultural study of music. Reaching out to scholars throughout
the world, in 1953 the four founders initiated an ethnomusicology Newsletter, and two
years later they founded the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), designed to foster
communication and research in the field. SEM immediately began publishing a journal,
Ethnomusicology, which since its inception has served as the flagship research period-
ical for the discipline. It is worth pausing for a moment to examine what the found-
ers themselves thought they were up to. Nettl, reminiscing about this early period, the
name change from “comparative musicology” to “ethnomusicology,” and the founding
of SEM, recalls that he (and others, he thinks) regarded these events more as a “revival”
of a great scholarly tradition (comparative musicology, which had been all but elimi-
nated in Europe during the Nazi era) than as a revolution (Nettl, 2010: 160–162.).
Inclined toward his teacher Herzog’s understanding of that tradition, Nettl’s subject
position is understandable. Still a graduate student at the time and not directly involved
as a founder, he had nevertheless set his course and was already a major stakeholder in
the new field. His memoirs (Nettl, 2002, 2010, 2013) of this transitional period are both
charming and invaluable, filled with information unavailable elsewhere and required
reading for anyone interested in the history of ethnomusicology. In these memoirs, he
tries to deconstruct the “myth” of SEM’s “grand entrance,” as he puts it, arguing that
its historical significance and the importance of the four founders has been overrated
(Nettl, 2010: 160–165). In retrospect, it is apparent that comparative musicology contin-
ued to exert a strong influence upon ethnomusicology during its first few decades (ca.
1950–1980). But the new Society, the new name, and its founders’ orientation toward
anthropology is a historical fact that signaled a significant and enduring new direction
for the field.
Let me try to reconstruct something of that significance as I believe it to have
appeared to the founders at the time. (In so doing, I rely in part on my conversa-
tions with Rhodes, Merriam, Seeger, and especially McAllester about that period.)
McAllester recalled that after Herzog was finally confined to a mental hospital, he
could no longer exercise his former control over degrees, grants, and publications in
the field. “He became so ill that he had to be in an institution, and then the lid was off
and the Society [SEM] could be established” (McAllester, 1989). For the four founders,
SEM represented a move away from comparative musicology, not simply as an escape
from Herzog’s iron grip, but in establishing a new interdisciplinary field: ethnomusi-
cology. The founders resisted efforts from other Societies who tried to dissuade them
from starting a new Society. The American Musicological Society sent representatives
to their early meetings and “announced that we should not be a splinter group, but
that we should be part of the American Musicological Society . . . . And we said, if we
joined them, the AMS, there were a whole bunch of people that would not be any lon-
ger members. We had folklorists, anthropologists, ethnologists, acousticians, physi-
cists… and they would have dropped out if we had become a part of the American
Musicological Society.” These same scholars likewise would have left SEM had they
allied themselves with the IFMC, McAllester reported. “Maud Karpeles came and
pleaded with us to become a wing of the International Folk Music Council…. Alan
Merriam particularly, well, Charlie Seeger too, they were both very insistent that it not
get into the hands of… the International Folk Music [Council]. So when we started
the society, they [the IFMC] soon got wind of it, and they were very upset because they
had their American branch and they were afraid we would simply split their society
and draw membership away from them…. There were scholars among them, great
scholars among them, but they were not anthropologically oriented. And it just hap-
pened by the way we operated, that the Society for Ethnomusicology began with an
anthropological orientation” (McAllester, 1989). Nettl agreed: “The beginning of the
SEM was deeply rooted in the anthropological background of its most influential lead-
ers” (Nettl, 2010: 143).
McAllester recalled the excitement that accompanied the founding of SEM, along
with the possibilities of new directions for the Society. For Merriam even more than
for McAllester, that direction was to be cultural anthropology. Eventually he termed
this direction “the anthropology of music” rather than “comparative musicology,”
and he lobbied hard for the study of music, not in culture, but as culture, a phrase
(“music as culture”) that Merriam referenced to his earlier “unpublished thoughts”
(Merriam, 1977: 204). According to Merriam, music was not something that existed
within a cultural context; it was culture in the anthropological sense itself, with its
own domain of ideas, behavior, and sonic dimension. Obtaining a full professorship
in anthropology at Indiana University in 1962, Merriam was not only a founder but
a forceful presence in SEM from the very beginning until his untimely death in an
airplane crash in 1980. His area interests were in indigenous musics primarily, Native
American and African. A former jazz musician, he had little use for the study of folk
music, and even less for bi-musicality, about which more shortly. When I taught a
summer session in Indiana’s Folklore Institute in 1977, he invited me to his home a
number of times. He had just remarried, and was in an expansive mood. Relevant for
this historical sketch is the attitude he expressed toward the IFMC. He affirmed that
the founders had refused Maud Karpeles’s invitation to join the International Folk
Music Council rather than form their own Society. Nettl attributed Merriam’s rea-
sons for objecting to the IFMC to “his perception of the IFMC as specifically inter-
ested in music alone, the notion that folk-music scholars were interested in only a
18 Jeff Todd Titon
small segment of the music of any society; and the idea that the IFMC included a
substantial practical component, that is, was in large measure a society of folksingers
and dancers” (Nettl, 2010: 143). Merriam’s views had evolved since then, for in 1977 he
told me the IFMC as a group was insufficiently objective and scientific about music
as a human phenomenon. If they had been, they would have been concerned with all
music, not mainly the oldest layers of music in what were then regarded as folk soci-
eties (Redfield, 1947). And if they had been, they would not have been so concerned
with authenticity and so worried about salvaging this music for archival preservation;
or worse yet, reviving it for a sophisticated urban audience. Merriam took some plea-
sure in noting that Indiana University’s Folklore Institute did not share this attitude
toward musical revivalism; indeed, Richard Dorson, the head of the Institute, had
coined the term “fakelore” to describe it, and on the advice of George List, the senior
ethnomusicologist in the Folklore Institute, Dorson would not permit amateur folk
musicians in their doctoral program to undertake music research unless they had
had sufficient formal training in Western music theory and history to be admitted
to ethnomusicology courses. As Indiana was one of only a very few universities in
the US granting doctoral degrees in folklore, the amount of academic research in US
folk music during the Dorson-List-Merriam era was severely diminished as a con-
sequence. For Merriam, ethnomusicology was revolutionary insofar as it elevated
anthropology to a position of equality with musicology in birthing the new offspring,
ethnomusicology. The ethno- prefix (derived from the Greek ethnos [=people with a
common culture]) firmly established it as a new discipline that was properly part of
“the scientific study of man,” as anthropology had long been defined. Merriam assid-
uously pursued this goal, which he called “sciencing about music” (Merriam, 1964: 25
and passim).
With SEM established on the promise of interdisciplinarity and new directions,
particularly from anthropology, one might have expected that the new organization
would have been hospitable to applied ethnomusicology. Anthropologists had by
then started putting their knowledge to use in solving social problems. John Van
Willigen dates the rise of a socially committed applied or “action” anthropology to
1945, although he notes that anthropologists had for decades previously taken on
community consultantship roles (van Willigen, 2002). But this exciting, albeit con-
troversial, development in anthropology did not cross over into SEM with any success
until decades later. The reasons, in retrospect, are not entirely surprising. To estab-
lish ethnomusicology within the most secure of institutional bases, that is, within
universities, it was necessary to position it as a research science, aiming to increase
knowledge of the music of the world’s peoples. Musicological and anthropological
ethnomusicologists might disagree over the discipline’s emphasis, but they agreed
that scholarship and the production of knowledge were its goals. Applications of that
research in the public arena might be well and good, but the pursuit of knowledge
for its own sake had always been valued most highly in university settings, where it
could be protected from outside forces. In 1950 ethnomusicology itself was a fringe
discipline in the United States, with only a few courses being offered (sometimes
in anthropology departments, sometimes music) and only a few professors avail-

able to advise doctoral dissertations. For ethnomusicology to expand inside the uni-
versity world, professors must succeed in establishing courses, programs (especially
graduate programs), tenure tracks, and recognition of the discipline as a legitimate
academic pursuit. The proven strategy to advance the discipline in the university
world would be through research, emphasizing that study of the music of the world’s
peoples would add to the store of knowledge about human behavior and achieve-
ment. Research “for its own sake” was then, and remains, regarded in the academy
as more elegant, of higher and “purer” disinterested purpose than research driven by
applications. In the arts and humanities, where contemplation of the pure aesthetic
object was required for philosophy, literary criticism, and art history, disinterested
acts of scholarship were experienced as pleasurable in themselves. Eventually, one
could hope, every music department, every music school or conservatory, and every
anthropology department would have at least one ethnomusicologist doing research
and offering music courses with a worldwide scope; and some would have more than
one and would establish graduate programs training future generations of ethno-
musicologists as the discipline would expand. Professionalization of ethnomusicol-
ogy as a research discipline, and with that a need to distance it from well-meaning
amateurs who also engaged in music research, was a second reason. Applied work
might be done by those who lacked the proper scientific attitude and scholarly train-
ing to conduct credible research: missionaries, for example, who had historically put
music to use in attempting to convert indigenous peoples, or amateur collectors who
became partisans on behalf of those whose music they recorded. I believe that a third
reason was the distrust, among this generation of scholars who came of age during
or soon after World War II, of social engineering, whether for political, cultural, or
musical ends. Applied research put to practical use in musical or cultural interven-
tions, despite intended benefits, was something Americans might well oppose, par-
ticularly given the uses to which music was put during the Nazi regime, and was
being put in the Soviet sphere during the Cold War. Many in the previous genera-
tion of US music scholars had been born in Europe and had fled to North America
to escape Nazi persecution and establish a musical scholarship inside the university
world where they would be free from political interference. I do not mean to sug-
gest that a cell of ethnomusicology professors drew up such a plan, but rather that
they were inclined by personality and training to move in that direction. Partly as
a result, in its first two decades, ethnomusicology became more firmly established
as a scholarly discipline; but applied ethnomusicology languished inside the US
academic world.
Merriam was perhaps the first US ethnomusicologist to recognize an applied ethno-
musicology by that name, although he did not favor it. The phase “applied ethnomusi-
cology” did not appear in the SEM Newsletter or journal until Merriam’s 1963 review of
Henry Weman’s African Music and the Church in Africa. Merriam wrote that this book
is “perhaps most accurately described as a study in applied ethnomusicology, for his
principal concern is how African music can be used…” in missionary work (Merriam,
20 Jeff Todd Titon
1963b: 135). Merriam expanded on his comments a year later in The Anthropology of

Music, and it is worth looking at them in detail:
… the ultimate aim of the study of man… involves the question of whether one is
searching for knowledge for its own sake, or is attempting to provide solutions for
practical applied problems. Ethnomusicology has seldom been used in the same
manner as applied or action anthropology, and ethnomusicologists have only rarely
felt called upon to help solve problems in manipulating the destinies of people, but
some such studies have been made [here he references Weman’s book] and it is quite
conceivable that this may in the future be of increased concern. The difficulty of an
applied study is that it focuses the attention of the investigator upon a single problem
which may cause or force him to ignore others of equal interest, and it is also difficult
to avoid outside control over the research project. Although this problem is not yet
of primary concern, it will surely shape the kinds of studies carried out if it does draw
the increased attention of ethnomusicologists.
(Merriam, 1964: 42–43)
Here, as elsewhere, Merriam privileges “knowledge for its own sake.” In criticizing
applied work for its narrow focus, Merriam is appealing to the idea that ethnomusicol-
ogy should study music as a whole; but “outside control” may be viewed as a threat to
academic freedom, while the phrase “manipulating the destinies of people” expresses
that distrust of and distaste for the political and cultural interventions of applied anthro-
pology and, by extension, of applied ethnomusicology.
Several books and articles critique recent interventions, especially those resulting
from UNESCO initiatives to preserve intangible cultural heritage (e.g., Weintraub and
Yung, 2005). But this tradition of critique may be traced to Merriam’s “white knight”
label for those ethnomusicologists who feel called to “function as knights in shining
armor riding to the defense of non-Western music” (Merriam, 1963a: 207). Skepticism
toward applied ethnomusicology is also evident in Bruno Nettl’s histories and descrip-
tions of the field. Nettl, more than anyone else among the founding generation of SEM,
shouldered the responsibility to construct a history of ethnomusicology, something
which he has come to call his “elephant” (Nettl, 2010). The sole active survivor of his
generation of ethnomusicologists, Nettl early on assumed the mantle of spokesper-
son for the discipline, and today he is recognized in the United States and elsewhere as
its elder statesman. As intellectual history is his central concern, he devotes relatively
little attention to applied ethnomusicology. His most influential book, The Study of
Ethnomusicology, treats applied ethnomusicology within the context of applied anthro-
pology: “In the course of the 1950s there developed a concept and a subdiscipline,
‘applied anthropology,’ whose task it was to use anthropological insight to help solve
social problems, particularly those occasioned by rapid culture change in the wake of
modernization and Westernization.” Applied anthropologists also were consulted in
attempts to solve economic problems such as third-world poverty. They advised gov-
ernment organizations such as the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID), on interventions involving democratization, agricultural modernization, and
economic development. Rapid social change and cultural upheaval was the result of the
intervention, not the original problem to be solved. No wonder then, as Nettl continues,
that although “Anthropologists wanted to help [they] frequently ended up offending the
local population and doing what was perceived as harmful. As a result, in the late 1960s
and early 1970s they were widely attacked for doing work of no relevance to social prob-
lems, of mixing in local politics, of spying. Ethnomusicologists shared in this criticism….”
Here, applied ethnomusicologists’ efforts to conserve traditional music and culture are
conflated with applied anthropologists’ efforts meant to aid in the modernization of tra-
ditional culture. The implication is that, like applied anthropologists, applied ethnomu-
sicologists were criticized as offensive, harmful, and irrelevant; and that they barged into
local politics and were accused of being spies. But if this critique of anthro-colonialism
is accurate about interventions meant to bring about modernization and development,
it does not follow that it applies to interventions by applied ethnomusicologists meant
to conserve traditional music. Nettl then balances the critique with a somewhat more
positive view:
the picture [of applied anthropology and ethnomusicology] is not entirely nega-
tive. Some societies are happy to have outsiders come, appreciate their efforts, their
respect for the traditions, and their help in restoring vigor to rapidly disappearing
musics. Persian and Indian music masters are proud to have Western scholars as stu-
dents, for it raises their prestige locally and legitimizes their traditional art in the face
of modernizing doubters. Even so, there is often the feeling that members of the soci-
ety itself, given the right training, equipment, and time, could do it better.
(Nettl, 1983: 297; repeated in the 2nd edition, 2005: 206).
Nettl points out that some ethnomusicologists “espouse fieldwork in which informants
become collaborators, the members of a community being studied in effect becoming
co-collaborators” (ibid.). Yet Nettl’s deep usease with applied work as social engineering
is embedded in the tone and weight of his discussion and in the examples he offers; and
it is apparent where he thinks the majority of ethnomusicologists stand. For the first edi-
tion of this book (1983) this was a correct assessment, but by the second edition (2005)
it was not. Indeed, in a recent interview he acknowledged applied ethnomusicology’s
considerable appeal to a new generation (Fouce, 2014: 1).3
A few ethnomusicologists in SEM’s founding generation were involved in applied
projects during the 1960s and 1970s, yet they did not call it applied ethnomusicol-
ogy. No doubt they thought of these as proper activities for an ethnomusicologist,
but to my knowledge they did not think of them as part of a subfield where research
was directed toward the public interest. Some, most prominently SEM founder David
McAllester, took an advocacy role in educating music teachers and broadening the
kindergarten-through-high school curricula to include examples of the musics of the
world’s peoples. McAllester worked through the Music Educators’ National Conference
to accomplish this goal, and he advised several graduate students in the Wesleyan
University world music program who went in this direction, among them Patricia
Shehan Campbell (see her Chapter 18, coauthored with Lee Higgings, in this volume).
22 Jeff Todd Titon
Another prominent ethnomusicologist in the founding generation, Mantle Hood,

undertook applied ethnomusicology projects in Indonesia. He related the story of his
successful intervention to revive Javanese gamelan gong-making (for the large gong
ageng), which had nearly gone extinct. However, he also reported that his interven-
tion resulted in some unintended, negative consequences. He offered another example,
when he was called on for suggestions to improve gamelan educational practice—what
innovations would he recommend? But here he stepped back from applied ethnomusi-
cology and refused to interfere, thinking that Western influence would not be good for
the tradition (Hood, 1971: 358–371). His major work on ethnomusicology ends with a
section on cultural exchange through music and the arts as part of a program to further
international understanding—putting ethnomusicological knowledge to practical use
for a clear and intended social benefit.
Thus it could be fairly said that SEM’s founding generation concentrated their US
efforts in two areas: first, on research in order to increase knowledge about music and to
circulate it among scholars; and second, to secure an institutional base for ethnomusi-
cology within the academic world. In the latter, they were more successful in the music
divisions of the universities and colleges (variously called music departments, schools of
music, conservatories, and the like) than in anthropology departments. Growth within
music divisions allied the discipline more closely with musicology than anthropology,
and although the SEM founders envisioned a broadly interdisciplinary field with a new
emphasis on the cultural study of music—and achieved this at SEM conferences and to
some extent in the SEM journal, Ethnomusicology—the institutional growth of the disci-
pline favored the musicologically oriented scholars.
Ironically, however, it was not by positioning ethnomusicology as a research science
that institutional growth was achieved; rather, in the last half of the twentieth century
ethnomusicology benefited from a combination of external circumstances that the
founding generation did not foresee. The most important of these were, first, the mete-
oric rise in the popularity of world music among the general public, and especially the
young, which began in the 1960s. Second was the reversal, in US cultural mythology,
from the idea that the nation was a melting pot that produced a single American type,
to the acceptance of cultural diversity and pluralism, which in the field of education
broke the Eurocentric hold on curricula and opened it to a variety of minority voices in
the humanities: literature, fine arts, music, and history. Youth cultures became deeply
involved in alternative musics, including folk music, blues, and bluegrass. World music
began to enjoy widespread popularity, as George Harrison of the Beatles studied sitar in
India, and Hindustani musicians Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar went on extended
annual tours throughout the United States. Recording companies such as Nonesuch
released world music recordings and targeted both indigenous as well as Asian art
musics to an appreciative public. Young men and women turned to world music as
one of many paths toward personal growth. Fueled by the rising popularity of world
music, master musicians from Ghana, North and South India, the Arab world, China,
Japan, and Indonesia soon were in residence as world music performance ensemble
directors at American colleges and universities where ethnomusicologists were already
teaching. Performance was attracting students into the field. Mantle Hood, director of
the Ethnomusicology Institute at UCLA, spearheaded this movement, advocating on
behalf of what he called bi-musicality. Just as serious study of a foreign language could
turn a person bilingual, so serious study of a foreign music could make one bi-musical
and impart a knowledge of that music that was otherwise unavailable. Some senior eth-
nomusicologists tempered their enthusiasm for world music performance ensembles,
however, and for decades they were conspicuously absent at the University of Illinois
and Indiana University. Nonetheless, the possibility that world music might be learned
intrigued many, and some went on to enroll in graduate programs in ethnomusicology,
resulting in more degrees, professors, and programs. By 1970 it was possible to study
ethnomusicology and obtain the doctorate by studying with Hood at UCLA, Fredric
Lieberman at Brown, George List and Merriam at Indiana, Nettl at Illinois, Robert
Garfias at Washington, William Malm at Michigan, and McAllester at Wesleyan,
among other universities. Moreover, those with doctoral training in ethnomusicology
had begun teaching at other colleges and universities, and SEM’s US membership had
increased.
Diversification and expansion of the US college and university music curriculum cre-
ated a demand for professors who could teach the new courses. Within music divisions,
this meant the end of the near-complete domination of Western art music (or classi-
cal music, as the American public calls it). Now popular music, jazz, and the music of
the world’s peoples took their place among the course offerings. Gradually, ethnomu-
sicologists began to realize that they could take a proactive role and convince univer-
sity administrators that one way to accomplish their goal of affirmative action toward
so-called American minority groups (something which ethnomusicologists by and
large supported) was through greater diversity of music offerings, which would also
mean more ethnomusicology hires. As programs and departments were established in
African American studies, Native American studies, Asian American studies, Hispanic
American studies, and the like, it became apparent that the music of American minori-
ties, along with world music, had an important role to play in the expanded curricula.
Of course, ethnomusicologists were far from the only ones to benefit from diversity, cul-
tural pluralism, and affirmative action in the academic world; but while the popularity
of world music has ebbed and flowed since the 1960s, the movement toward greater cul-
tural diversity within US higher education has been persistent.
The folk music revival, rising popularity of world music, and the positive value now
attached to ethnic roots and cultural pluralism brought about a renewed emphasis in
applied ethnomusicology outside the academic world before it had much impact inside
it. Because Alan Lomax embodied this public work in applied ethnomusicology—not
only as a collector, writer, and promoter, but also as an advocate for cultural democracy
and musical pluralism—it is instructive to ponder his encounter with none other than
George Herzog, who also believed in the value of musical diversity and had devoted
his life to the study of folk and “primitive” music. Herzog, as noted, embodied com-
parative musicology in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. After Lomax
had been “Assistant in Charge” of the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library
24 Jeff Todd Titon
of Congress for several years—field-collecting, acquiring from others, and curating

recordings—he decided to move his base of operations, from February through June
of 1939, to Manhattan to obtain “more systematic academic training in anthropology
and in the anthropological approach to primitive and folk music.” He hoped to study
with Herzog and other anthropologists at Columbia, and also “to study music with pri-
vate instructors” (Cohen 2010: 115). A recently published collection of Lomax’s corre-
spondence reveals the encounter with Herzog—from Lomax’s viewpoint, of course—to
have been less than successful. Herzog would not let Lomax into his course, insisting
that he must take his two courses in sequence—primitive music (offered in the fall) fol-
lowed by folk music (in the spring). Herzog would not budge from the requirement. To
Harold Spivacke, his supervisor at the Library of Congress, Lomax then wrote, “I met
a very much surprised Dr. Herzog at Columbia this morning, a Dr. Herzog who told
me that I had made a great mistake in coming to school to take his course this term,
that I should have come next term, should have come next year and for a whole year.
Such a neurotic little academic man you never saw before” (Cohen 2010: 121). Although
Lomax had a marvelous ear, outstanding musical taste, and broad knowledge of folk
music, he had little formal musical education and could be regarded as a well-meaning
amateur in search of professional training. In some scientific disciplines, such as orni-
thology and astronomy, serious work by amateur researchers is highly valued; and in
the early history of science, the majority of natural historians and natural philosophers
were amateurs and proud of it. But Herzog was wary of amateur music research. Their
confrontation, exacerbated by their prickly personalities and strong convictions, can be
understood as a sign of incompatibility between public and academic ethnomusicolo-
gies in an earlier era; today, as mentioned earlier, more practitioners of applied ethno-
musicology are employed within academia than outside it.
Indeed, the growth of US applied ethnomusicology from the 1960s through the 1980s
owed much to Alan Lomax’s continuing influence, his call for cultural equity, the work of
public folklorists, and the establishment of government institutions that supported cul-
tural pluralism within the arts. At the federal level were the Office of Folklife Studies at
the Smithsonian Institution, the Folk Arts program of the National Endowment for the
Arts, and the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress, enlarged from the for-
mer Archive of American Folk Song, which Lomax had directed, and under the aegis of
a new Library division, the American Folklife Center. Regional, state, and, in some cases,
city arts councils also were established, funded in part by the National Endowment for
the Arts, and by the end of the 1980s most of the state arts councils employed at least one
folklorist and a few employed ethnomusicologists (see Murphy, Chapter 20 of this vol-
ume). Folklore in the United States, while conservative in the academic world, enjoyed
a tradition of populist activism outside it. Each of these government agencies employed
scholars as consultants, and some employed them as arts and humanities administra-
tors; thus, a large public outreach and concern for the health of expressive culture within
various US communities was put in place, with a growing number of ethnomusicologists
involved in public folklore, most often as consultants, but sometimes as advocates and
collaborators, doing applied work. Several ethnomusicologists worked as presenters at
folk festivals, their prior fieldwork having identified and documented some of the musi-
cians who performed there. Music was the most prominent among the arts singled out
by public folklorists for identification, documentation, and presentation. As arts admin-
istrators, ethnomusicologists were employed by the Smithsonian Institution (Thomas
Vennum, Charlotte Heth) and by the Folk Arts Division of the National Endowment for
the Arts (NEA; Daniel Sheehy), which also hired numerous ethnomusicologists as con-
sultants to sit on panels recommending funding for various community music projects
as well as for apprenticeships and heritage awards (see Titon, Chapter 5 of this volume).
Bess Lomax Hawes held an informal session at the SEM conference most years during
the 1980s to inform ethnomusicologists of the opportunities for submitting applied eth-
nomusicology project proposals to the NEA. This activity, known in the 1970s and 1980s
as public sector folklore, in the 1990s became known simply as “public folklore,” and
influenced the course of applied ethnomusicology in the United States profoundly.
Academic ethnomusicologists involved in public folklore thus began to think of their
work as applied ethnomusicology, but SEM remained chiefly an organization devoted
to communicating research among scholars. It was not until most of the founding gen-
eration aged and gradually relinquished leadership that applied ethnomusicology was
able to enter SEM in a significant way. But it was not merely a changing of the genera-
tions. A significant change within academia resulted from the growing critique of sci-
ence, fomented by post-structuralist and critical cultural theory, and culminating in the
so-called “science wars” of the 1980s. North American graduate students in ethnomusi-
cology during this period—beginning in the late 1960s—could not help being affected,
as were cultural anthropologists and folklorists. The result, particularly among those
attracted to the study of music as culture, was a turn in ethnomusicology from science
toward cultural critique, from the musical object to the musical experience, from anal-
ysis to interpretation, from explanation to understanding. As a result, US ethnomusi-
cology took a humanistic turn, and the cultural study of music moved to the forefront
until, by the end of the 1980s, ethnomusicology had assimilated the humanistic cul-
tural anthropology of Clifford Geertz, Dennis Tedlock, James Clifford, George Marcus,
Vincent Crapanzano, Paul Rabinow, and others, a far cry from the empirical anthro-
pology Herzog had championed. Much of this ethnomusicological humanism eventu-
ally achieved theoretical expression in the “new fieldwork” (Barz and Cooley, 1996) of
reflexivity, reciprocity, and advocacy. Meanwhile, the scientific ethnomusicologists were
in gradual retreat. A review of the essays in Ethnomusicology since about 1976 shows
the balance point moving in the direction of music as culture rather than as form and
structure. In 2010 the musicological ethnomusicologists came together outside SEM to
form their own scholarly association (Analytical Approaches to World Music) with its
own journal.4
Ethnomusicology’s humanistic turn led a growing number of North American eth-
nomusicologists toward applied ethnomusicology in one form or another—advocating
on behalf of individual musicians, musical communities, and musical life in particu-
lar places. The new fieldwork had become experience-centered, with ethnomusico-
logical monographs such as those by Berliner (1978) and Keil (1979) reflecting this
26 Jeff Todd Titon
first-person turn to reflexivity. Kenneth Gourlay’s 1982 essay in SEM’s journal, “Towards
a Humanizing Ethnomusicology,” offered a theoretical basis for the new direction, along
with a strongly worded critique of Merriam’s insistence on science (Gourlay 1982). In
that same issue of Ethnomusicology, Charles Keil’s essay, “Applied Ethnomusicology and
a Rebirth of Music from the Spirit of Tragedy,” charted a path toward work that “can
make a difference” through “an insistence on putting music into play wherever people
are resisting their oppression” (Keil, 1982: 407). Keil’s 1982 essay caught the spirit of
the postcolonialism that was central to cultural critique in the new anthropology, and
to critical theory in cultural studies. And because applied ethnomusicology did not
become a movement until the era of decolonization, it could (and did) oppose colonial-
ism, orientalism, and other manifestations of the arrogance of Western power, while
answering (if not avoiding) the critiques of colonialism that were being (and that con-
tinue to be) leveled at applied anthropology. Meanwhile, an ever-increasing number of
US ethnomusicologists were becoming involved in public folklore and were realizing
that there was much good work to be done for music in the public arena.
A humanized ethnomusicology thus made it possible for a resurgence of a postco-
lonial applied ethnomusicology, manifesting itself not only in a new fieldwork based
in reciprocity leading to advocacy, but also through institutional gains within SEM.
Applied ethnomusicology went mainstream within SEM during the 1990s. As the pro-
gram chair for the 1989 SEM conference, I invited colleagues from my years in the early
1980s as a consultant for the NEA Folk Arts Program to present papers on a pre-planned
panel. Entitled “From Perspective to Practice in ‘Applied Ethnomusicology,’ ”
the panel included the following presenters and papers: Robert Garfias, “What
an Ethnomusicologist Can Do in Public Sector Arts”; Daniel Sheehy, “Applied
Ethnomusicology as a State of Mind”; Charlotte Heth, “Getting It Right and Passing
It On: The Ethnomusicologist and Cultural Transmission”; and Bess Lomax Hawes,
“Practice Makes Perfect: Lessons in Active Ethnomusicology.” When in 1990 I became
editor of Ethnomusicology, this panel formed the starting point for a special issue
entitled “Ethnomusicology and the Public Interest,” which featured articles by Daniel
Sheehy, Bess Lomax Hawes, Martha Ellen Davis, and Anthony Seeger. This was the first
time that applied ethnomusicology was featured in the SEM journal. In my introduc-
tory article for that special issue, I wrote that ethnomusicology in the public interest “is
work whose immediate end is not research and the flow of knowledge inside intellectual
communities but, rather, practical action in the world outside of archives and universi-
ties” and that “as a way of knowing and doing, fieldwork [which is constitutive of eth-
nomusicology] at its best is based on a model of friendship between people rather than
on a model involving antagonism, surveillance, the observation of physical objects, or
the contemplation of abstract ideas” (Titon, 1992a: 315, 321). Sheehy’s article there began
the process of constructing an alternative history for ethnomusicology in the United
States, one in which applied work was more central (Sheehy, 1992). Hawes was invited
to give the plenary Seeger Lecture at the 1993 SEM conference, and this autobiographi-
cal talk, meant in part to attract listeners to applied work as a calling, was published
two years later in Ethnomusicology (Hawes, 1995). In 1998 Keil, continuing in the vein of
postcolonial critique, called in the SEM journal for an “applied sociomusicology” that,
by reclaiming participatory music-making “for the vast majority,” would help engender
a revolution in consciousness that would overturn the global corporate capitalist world
order and reverse the coming eco-catastrophe as we move toward “sustainable futures”
(Keil, 1998: 304).
At the 1998 SEM Conference, Doris Dyen and Martha Ellen Davis convened a meet-
ing to assess interest in proposing a standing Committee on Applied Ethnomusicology
to the SEM Board. Until that meeting, a single name for this activity had not yet risen
to the surface; among those in circulation then were “applied,” “active,” “action,” “prac-
tice,” “public,” and “public sector” (Titon, 1992a: 320–321). As applied ethnomusicolo-
gists themselves, with experience in the public sector and in the academic world, Davis
and Dyen felt the time was opportune for organizing something more formal to bring
together those with common interests in working for the benefit of musical commu-
nities in the public sphere. Thirty-eight hopeful founders (the editors of this vol-
ume among them) attended, their proposal was accepted by the SEM Board, and the
Committee was established, with a variety of definitions of applied ethnomusicology. In
2000, Dyen and Davis, who had taken on the role of chairs of the Committee, appointed
a deputy chair, Tom Van Buren, and successfully petitioned the Board to recognize the
group as the Applied Ethnomusicology Section. Dyen and Davis stood aside in 2002
while appointing co-chairs Ric Alviso and Miriam Gerberg to join Van Buren, who
stepped down in 2004 in favor of Mark Puryear. Alviso was succeeded in 2008 by Jeff
Todd Titon, Gerberg in 2009 by Kathleen Noss Van Buren, Puryear in 2010 by Maureen
Loughran, and Noss Van Buren in 2014 by Michael Bakan.
During the Committee and Section’s first decade, the co-chairs worked to make the
group a comfortable space within SEM for ethnomusicologists employed outside of the
academic world. To that end, they organized practical panels on non-academic careers
for ethnomusicologists, such as the “Ethnomusicologists at Work” series, organized
by Gerberg; and on strategies for survival both inside and outside official institutions.
Co-chairs Gerberg, Puryear, and Alviso established Section prizes for outstanding pre-
sentations at SEM, and awards for travel grants to the conference. In the new millen-
nium, as applied ethnomusicology has become increasingly popular among graduate
students and welcomed inside academic institutions, the Section has become an SEM
meeting-place and platform for applied ethnomusicologists based both within and out-
side academia. Most recently, the Section has sponsored panels involving themes such
as music and politics, community advocacy, activism and “giving back,” conflict resolu-
tion, ethics, repatriation of artifacts from archives and museums, medicine, the environ-
ment, and social justice. It also sponsors presentations from guests who do not normally
attend the SEM conferences but who have worked in applied ethnomusicology either
independently or in extra-academic institutions. For example, at the 2011 conference,
Debora Kodish, public folklorist and director of the Philadelphia Folklore Project, led a
Section-sponsored discussion among traditional music and dance activists and commu-
nity scholar-practitioners from the African-American and Asian-American communi-
ties in Philadelphia, showcasing a model for ethnomusicologists seeking strategies for
28 Jeff Todd Titon
work in community-based institutions. With 300 members, Applied Ethnomusicology

is now one of the largest and most active among the SEM Sections, exceeded in mem-
bership only by the student and the popular music Sections.
As might be expected of a practical endeavor, theorization of applied ethnomusicol-
ogy lagged behind practice, but recent years have witnessed an increasing number of
publications and events centered on applied ethnomusicology itself. These included an
international conference on applied ethnomusicology organized by Erica Haskell and
Maureen Loughran, at Brown University (Invested in Community 2003), a special issue
of Folklore Forum devoted to applied ethnomusicology (Fenn 2003), a section to devoted
to applied ethnomusicology in an issue of Ethnomusicology Review (2012), and a book of
essays, Applied Ethnomusicology: Historical and Contemporary Approaches (Harrison,
Mackinlay, and Pettan, 2010). Rebecca Dirksen authored an excellent overview of con-
temporary practice, with an emphasis on work by US-based ethnomusicologists, while
Timothy Rice’s book-length “very short introduction” to the discipline devotes the last
two of nine chapters to what is in effect applied ethnomusicology (Dirksen, 2012; Rice,
2014). This Oxford Handbook continues in this vein, offering a cross-section of contem-
porary international work in the field.
Concluding this sketch of applied ethnomusicology in the United States, I do not
mean to dismiss entirely the critique that applied ethnomusicology may be used for
undesirable ends. Knowledge is not innocent; cultural information has a long history of
being put to use for military purposes and colonial conquest. Music used in the service
of a social or musical benefit may turn out to have negative consequences, or what looks
like a benefit to one political entity may be a harm to another. Merriam’s charge that
applied ethnomusicologists are engaged in “manipulating people’s destinies” is one way
of looking at missionary work, for example, and it is a fact that missionaries have put
their knowledge of music to use for that purpose for many centuries. Today, faith-based
organizations such as SIL put ethnomusicological knowledge to use in aiding local art-
ists in indigenous communities, with the goal of a “better future: one of justice, peace,
joy, physical safety, social continuity and spiritual wholeness” (SIL). Other forces are
intervening: corporations, governments, technology, the law, and so forth. Social
responsibility requires social justice, cultural equity, and decolonization. I believe there
is no self-correcting “invisible hand” in the marketplace or anywhere else that would
permit scholars the luxury of research without social responsibility. Nor would scholars
be well advised to accumulate knowledge and then supply it to those who in their igno-
rance would put it to use.
SEM has been slow to adopt a more active role, but recognition of the need for the
organization to enter the larger political sphere has gradually come. For many years,
SEM took the position that while ethnomusicologists were of course free to express
their personal political views, the organization itself must not take a public political
stand. But in 1976 the SEM Newsletter editor refused to print an employment advertise-
ment from a university representing a government that practiced apartheid, an early
harbinger of change. Not long afterward, SEM began endorsing resolutions support-
ing the rights of scholars detained by governments for political reasons, and the rights
of musicians to travel freely internationally. It has passed position statements on rights

and discrimination, copyright ownership and sound recordings, and ethical consider-
ations. Finally, in 2007, in response to a request from the SEM Ethics Committee, the
SEM Board of Directors approved a “Position Statement against the Use of Music as
Torture.” Arising in response to numerous reports of music as part of the torture arse-
nal employed by US military and intelligence agencies and their allies against suspected
terrorist detainees, it reads in part that the Society for Ethnomusicology “calls for full
disclosure of US government-sanctioned and funded programs that design the means
of delivering music as torture; condemns the use of music as an instrument of torture;
and demands that the United States government and its agencies cease using music as
an instrument of physical and psychological torture” (SEM Torture). The position state-
ment on music as torture was a significant step in SEM’s evolution. It recognizes that
ethnomusicologists are citizens of the world with social responsibilities, and that our
professional organization has not only the right but also the duty to represent the profes-
sion’s ethical beliefs and act upon them.
Section 2. Applied Ethnomusicology

in the Global Arena
Svanibor Pettan
An Introductory Vignette
In 1975, a documentary film about hunting, Ultime grida dalla savana (internationally
known as Savage Man Savage Beast) was released. The authors intended to document
the phenomenon of hunting in different spatial and cultural contexts. The viewers can
see not only animals hunting animals and humans hunting animals, but also animals
hunting humans, and finally, humans hunting humans. The scenes in which lions eat a
tourist and in which humans mutilate the bodies of caught humans were received with
particular controversy. The filmmakers Antonio Climati and Mario Morra were film-
ing all the scenes with the clear attitude of detached observers, documenting the mul-
tifaceted footage in the domain of their professional interest and showing no intention
whatsoever to intervene. The basic symbolic standpoint of this film brings up a number
of useful questions concerning the attitudes in the field of ethnomusicology in its both
temporal and spatial contexts, and highlights the stance of intervention in positioning
applied ethnomusicology.5
The stance of the above-mentioned filmmakers reflects the attitude prevalent in the
ethnomusicological mainstream within the past decades, which can be summarized in
the following way: studying music as it is, not as a researcher or anybody else would want
30 Svanibor Pettan
it to be. I vividly recall an example from my doctoral studies at the University of Maryland
Baltimore County, in which the professor pointed out a music producer of an African
music CD, who insisted on removal of those parts from the musical instrument that were
responsible for the production of a buzzing sound. The producer’s opinion was that the
recording without them would be more pleasing to the ears of international audiences,
which would consequently increase the profit expected from the final product. Of course,
such an uninformed and disrespectful intervention into the aesthetics of the musicians
invoked laughter and criticism among the students, with no need for further discussion.
The question, which I considered essential, that is, whether “those who know” (us, the
ethnomusicologists) would actually consider making a step beyond the level of an aca-
demic debate and try to intervene, by providing the ignorant producer who misused his
power over the musicians with arguments against his action, was left unanswered.
The two cases (the film and the CD producer), extreme as they are, raise at least two
useful points:
a. The decision whether to intervene or not has moral implications.

b. In order to be successful, intervention has to be based on knowledge, understand-
ing, and skills.
What Is Applied Ethnomusicology, and What Isn’t It?

As will be discussed later, definitions may vary according to the parameters such as time,
place, research tradition, and individual preference, but the essence is captured in the
wording created and accepted at the 39th World Conference of the International Council
for Traditional Music (ICTM) in Vienna in 2007, suggesting that “[a]‌pplied ethnomu-
sicology is the approach guided by principles of social responsibility, which extends the
usual academic goal of broadening and deepening knowledge and understanding toward
solving concrete problems and toward working both inside and beyond typical academic
contexts.” Characterization of the ICTM Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology that
follows provides further clarification, suggesting that it “advocates the use of ethnomu-
sicological knowledge in influencing social interaction and course of cultural change.”
The introduction to the book Applied Ethnomusicology: Historical and Contemporary
Approaches (Harrison, Mackinlay, and Pettan, 2010) analyzes this definition part by part
and also addresses three common misconceptions about applied ethnomusicology,
which are worth mentioning in this context:
1. Applied ethnomusicology does not stand in opposition to the academic domain,

but should be viewed as its extension and complement.6
2. Applied ethnomusicology is not an opposition to the theoretical (philosophical,
intellectual) domain, but its extension and complement.7
3. Applied ethnomusicology is not an opposition to ethnographic, artistic, and sci-
entific research, but their extension and complement.8
The introductory article to the above-mentioned volume ends with a quotation of

Michael Birenbaum Quintero: “Apply your ethnomusicology or someone else will apply
it for you,” which once again points to intervention as a key notion.
There is a rich myriad of opinions about applied ethnomusicology among ethnomu-
sicologists worldwide, from those who claim that all ethnomusicology is in fact applied,
to those who feel that applied ethnomusicology does not enjoy necessary respect within
the academic discipline and therefore should not be discussed at all. It is easy to agree
with Daniel Sheehy’s belief that “all ethnomusicologists have at one time or another
been applied ethnomusicologists” (Sheehy, 1992: 323). But “applied ethnomusicology as
a conscious practice,” says Sheehy, “begins with a sense of purpose, a purpose larger than
the advancement of knowledge about the music of the world’s peoples” (ibid.). This is
why I started my part of this Introduction with the crucial question of intervention, or in
other words, with the conscious decision-making of a researcher whether or not to step
beyond the mere study of the selected phenomenon and affect the researched circum-
stances. It is the sense of purpose, rather than any specific topic, that defines applied eth-
nomusicology. There are “sensitive topics,” such as, for instance, the roles of music in the
Israeli/Palestinian divide, in which the author of the book (for whatever reason) does
not even mention applied ethnomusicology (see Brinner, 2009), and there are seem-
ingly “neutral” topics, for instance the lullabies in Slovenia, which are from their initial
conceptualization “applied,” thanks to the author’s strategic intention to incite change
with them (for more, see Juvančič, 2010).
There are many more or less known individuals, organizations, projects, and publica-
tions known for promoting the use of music for the betterment of human condition.
Their work, though inspiring, if not rooted in ethnomusicological research should not
be considered “applied ethnomusicology.” Venezuelan musician, activist, economist,
and politician José Antonio Abreu and his El Sistema, Argentinian/Israeli/German
pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim and his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Irish
musicians and activists Bob Geldof (Live Aid) and Bono (ONE Campaign), Musicians
Without Borders, Young at Heart, Studio MC Pavarotti, most articles in the journals
such as Music and Arts in Action and Sounds in Europe are just a few examples, among
many more.
Some ethnomusicologists express concern about the power imbalance in projects
that fit within the realm of applied ethnomusicology (e.g., Hofman, 2010). The title
of my first conference paper on the topic, presented in 1995, started exactly with the
same notion: “Ethnomusicologist as a Power Holder?” The sentence with the ques-
tion mark looks even more bizarre in the light of Deborah Wong’s reminder that
“[e]‌thnomusicology is marginalized in most music departments because its radical
relativism challenges logocentric thinking about music” (2013: 348). In my confer-
ence presentation, based on the work with Bosnian refugees in Norway (see below),
I addressed the issue of power share with the participants in, to the extent possible,
equal, horizontal terms. The (later) article by Samuel Araújo and members of the
Grupo Musicultura (2006), inspired by Paolo Freire’s dialogical pedagogy (1970), is a
good example of the same intention. There is, however, the other side of the coin, which
32 Svanibor Pettan
should not be overlooked. If a certain kind of knowledge and/or access to power hold-
ers in a society for the benefit of the people in need is the comparative advantage of an
ethnomusicologist, and there is a consensus between the interlocutors and the ethno-
musicologist that he or she should use it, I can hardly think of counterarguments. This
is how Antony Seeger benefited the Suyá community in Brazil and Ursula Hemetek the
Roma people in Austria. In Harris M. Berger’s words, one should be aware of the dual
nature of power:
Power is, in one sense, the power to act, the ability to bring forth events in the world.
But because our action is always social—always something we achieve because of
and with others, past, present, future—the potential for domination is inherent, even
ripe, in the entirety of social life, and even the most mundane, equitable, or conviv-
ial practice is informed by larger social contexts and the legacies of domination that
they entail. This is as true of practices of music making, teaching, research or public
sector work as it is of any other kind of activity. Seeing the social life of music as a
domain of coordinated practice that is inherently, rather than contingently, political
is one way of coming to terms with these difficult issues.
(Berger, 2014: 319).
A Personal Stance
Just as Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco did in her Epilogue to the seminal volume Music
and Conflict (O’Connell and Castelo-Branco, 2010), let me add to this Introduction a
personal stance that should define my own position.
In my opinion, every scholar should be free to decide whether to make a step beyond
the usual goal of deepening and broadening knowledge, understanding and skills, and
consciously intervene into the human and cultural environment of his or her research
interest. While doing fieldwork in the 1980s on the East African islands of Zanzibar and
Pemba for my B.A. thesis (University of Zagreb, Croatia) and in Egypt for my M.A. the-
sis (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), my clear intention was to affect the self-focused
folk music research in what was Yugoslavia at the time and to relate it to the much larger
international community of ethnomusicologists, which I was learning about mainly
from the periodicals (Yearbook for Traditional Music, Ethnomusicology, The World of
Music). My goal was clearly not the mere scholarly work based on the data from else-
where in the world, but the conscious intervention into the essence of the discipline as it
was understood in my home country at that time.
Between my B.A. and M.A. studies, I was obliged to serve for a year in the Yugoslav
People’s Army. Following my research interests, I asked the military authorities in
Croatia to be sent to serve in the multicultural city of Prizren in far-away Kosovo, which
was the most politically unstable part of what was Yugoslavia in the early 1980s. After
becoming the instructor for cultural affairs, I came to the position not only to conduct
fieldwork (by using a military tape recorder), but also to take it a step further: to bring
regularly together youngsters from different ethnic communities and fellow soldiers
into a choir. Obviously, research was beneficial to the work with the choir, and contacts
established through the choir activities had a positive impact on my research.
Following the end of my doctoral studies (University of Maryland) in 1992, I was
faced with the dilemma of whether to try to find a position in the safety of American
academia or to return to my disintegrating, war-torn country. I decided once again to
cross the boundary of intervention and use my capacities not only to study “music and
war at home,” but also to explore whether my knowledge, understanding, and skills
could in any way confront the growing hatred and help reducing the suffering of the
people affected by the war. My interlocutors in Croatia were highly unusual for any type
of ethnomusicological inquiry known to me at that time: they included refugees and
internally displaced people, soldiers, people in shelters, representatives of NGOs, radio
editors, producers and sellers of music cassettes under both official and black market
circumstances, members of the diasporas, and nonetheless musicians—amateur and
professional, representatives of diverse musical genres and with diverse political orien-
tations. Popular music was at the forefront, but my research encompassed folk and art
music, as well. What was the essence of my intervention beyond the limits of research?
My ethnomusicology students in both Zagreb and Ljubljana received assignments to
work on joint performances with refugees in refugee camps in order to develop a sense
of compassion and togetherness, and their seminar projects—for instance, one about
music in various local religious communities at the time of political calls for unification
(one ethnicity, one religion, one language, one territory)—clearly aimed for more than a
mere broadening and deepening of knowledge.
Invited to teach for a term at the University of Oslo in Norway in the mid-1990s,
I took the opportunity to implement a project, together with my senior host Professor
Kjell Skyllstad. A few years earlier he envisioned and carried out a project named The
Resonant Community (Skyllstad, 1993), the first case in my experience that had all ele-
ments of an applied ethnomusicology project. In the period from 1989 to 1992 music of
various origins (African, Asian, European, and Latin American) had been successfully
used in some elementary schools in Norway in order to foster “interracial understand-
ing.” Included and affected by this project were the teachers, pupils, and their parents,
for whom teaching kits were created; some of the best musicians from four continents
shared their arts with them. The evaluated and confirmed impact of The Resonant
Community inspired us to put together the Azra project, an innovative proactive
attempt, with the focus on Bosnian refugee musicians and Norwegian music students,
which has been already presented elsewhere (e.g., Pettan, 1996; Skyllstad, 1997; Pettan,
2010), and thus not need to be described here. Therefore, I will dedicate just a few words
to its methodological aspects.
I believe the Azra project fits into what Sheehy refers to as “conscious practice”
and “sense of purpose.” It is a “horizontal” (not “top-down”) project, driven by the
clear wish for intervention by well-intended scholars and their collaborators who
together, in Angosino’s words, “had a concern for using their knowledge for the bet-
terment of the human condition” (Angrosino, 1990: 106). The goals of the project
were as follows: (1) strengthening Bosnian cultural identity among the refugees from
34 Svanibor Pettan
Bosnia-Herzegovina in Norway, and (2) stimulating mutually beneficial cross-cultural

communication between the Bosnians and the Norwegians involved. The project was
envisioned as a triangle consisting of three principal domains: research, education, and
music-making. Its realization was carried on in four stages: (1) recognition of the prob-
lem and definition of the goals and basic strategies; (2) collection and analysis of data,
plus refinement of the strategies; (3) intervention; and (4) evaluation of the results.
Work on this project made me aware of two distinctive types of mediation, which
I termed indirect and direct. Indirect mediation means that the scholar gives the results
of his or her research to those in a position to apply them. Direct mediation means that
scholar himself or herself actively participates in the application of scholarly knowledge,
understanding, and skills. Skyllstad and I used both categories in the Azra project. While
mediating indirectly through conference papers, lectures, articles, and interviews, using
the synthesis of empirical fieldwork and relevant literature to encourage other people
to act, we reached the limits with no insight into the consequences of our involvement.
Direct mediation proved to be more useful and far-reaching. For instance, within the
Azra project, Skyllstad and I were able to shape its goals and contents, observe its flow
and modify it when needed, and evaluate all its stages, including the final results.
My series of publications in different formats (books, articles, CD-ROM, film),
accompanied by proactive lectures and picture exhibitions (all dedicated to Roma peo-
ple, largely silenced victims of the war in Kosovo in the 1990s), can be seen as yet another
application of ethnomusicological knowledge, understanding, and skills. The publica-
tions include those with scholarly rigor and those aimed at communication with gen-
eral audiences (more in Pettan, 2010). One of the professional involvements that I highly
value, but have never written an article about, is my role in the advisory committee at
the Slovenian annual state review titled “Let’s sing, let’s play musical instruments, let’s
dance” for children and youngsters with special needs.
To summarize, like many other fellow ethnomusicologists, I am involved in projects
of public interest. Not everything I do in ethnomusicology has an applied extension. In
my invited lectures on applied ethnomusicology, I often encourage scholars in the audi-
ence to think of research that goes beyond the broadening and deepening of knowledge
in the direction of benefiting the people they study. Some become inspired, while others
simply do not want to think in these terms. And it is right to be so. For me, this is the
clear line between ethnomusicology and applied ethnomusicology.
“Applied” in Other Disciplines

It is a common practice that scientific and scholarly disciplines have their applied
domains. To mention just some, there are applied mathematics, applied physics, applied
biology, applied geography, applied sociology, applied anthropology, and then (sur-
prisingly seldom) applied musicology, partly substituted by the category of applied
music. If hydrology, for instance, is the study of water and encompasses “the interrela-
tionships of geologic materials and processes of water” (Fetter, 2001: 3), then “applied
hydrogeologists are problem solvers and decision makers. They identify a problem,
define the data needs, design a field program for collection of data, propose alterna-
tive solutions to the problem, and implement the preferred solutions” (ibid., 11). Applied
sociology refers to “any use of the sociological perspective and/or its tools in the under-
standing of, intervention in, and/or enhancement human social life” (Price and Steele,
2004), while applied anthropology refers to “any use of anthropological knowledge to
influence social interaction, to maintain or change social institutions, or to direct the
course of cultural change” (Spradley and McCurdy, 2000: 355).
Curiously, neither the International Musicological Society nor the American
Musicological Society have sections focused on applied musicology. UCLA musicologist
Elisabeth Le Guin points out that the reason might be that “in the institutional structure
of the discipline’s most prestigious academic society,9 a stigma lingers around the idea of
‘putting music to use,’ as the SEM describes applied ethnomusicology: a ghost of the old
idea, coeval in its origins with my undergraduates’ obdurately anti-verbal Romanticism,
that music should amount to something more than its use-value” (LeGuin 2012; http://
ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/journal/volume/17/piece/599).
A recent book with applied musicology in its title refers to “using zygonic theory
to inform music education, therapy, and psychology research” (Ockelford, 2013).
According to The Oxford Companion to Music, applied music is an American term for a
course in performance studies, as opposed to theory.
It is worth inquiring about the independent scientific and scholarly societies that have
the adjective “applied” in their names, which implies that they have already answered
the “ultimate aim” in Merriam’s terms, that is, whether “one is searching out knowledge
for its own sake, or is attempting to provide solutions to practical applied problems”
(Merriam, 1964: 42–43) in favor of the latter. In general, “applied societies” are interna-
tional and are far from being small outfits of the main disciplinary bodies; some count
their members in the thousands.10 Although the aims of these societies are defined in
the disciplinarily determined ways, the great majority of them make clear that they
promote the outcomes of their disciplines with the intention that the public benefits
from their efforts.11 This is particularly clearly emphasized by the Society for Applied
Anthropology, active since 1941, whose “unifying factor is a commitment to making an
impact on the quality of life in the world” (www.sfaa.net).
A Brief Worldwide Overview

It is quite fascinating to observe engaged scholarship within the Australian ethnomusi-
cological realm, from Catherine Ellis (1985) to the newest books of Grace Koch (2013)
and Catherine Grant (2014). High ethical stands and participatory work promoted by
the research institutions focused on indigenous people of Australia, such as Australian
Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), as well as the
active/activist involvement in Aboriginal rights issue by several leading Australian eth-
nomusicologists, provide inspiring lessons for applied ethnomusicologists worldwide
36 Svanibor Pettan
(see Newsome, 2008). The contributions by Elisabeth Mackinlay (Chapter 11), Dan
Bendrups (Chapter 1), and Huib Schippers (Chapter 4) in this volume make a strong
Australian contribution to the applied work with the Aborigines, other minorities, and
carriers of music cultures in various parts of the globe.
“The practice of ethnomusicology has been central in the professional lives of ethno-
musicologists in Southeast Asia,” claims Tan Sooi Beng in her article about activism in
Southeast Asian ethnomusicology, pointing to a project of empowerment of youth in
Penang, Malaysia, to revitalize traditions and bridge cultural barriers (2008: 69). For
her, and for many colleagues elsewhere in Asia, to be an ethnomusicologist means not
only involvement in scholarly activities such as teaching, documenting, publishing,
and organizing conferences, but also application of the ethnomusicological knowledge
toward solving particular cultural problems “so as to bring about change in their respec-
tive societies” (ibid.: 70). Terada Yoshitaka provides yet another good example of sensi-
tive work in various formats (e.g., 2005, 2008, 2010, 2011). In this volume, Tan and Zhang
Boyu present Asian views and approaches from within, while John Morgan O’Connell,
Joshua Pilzer, and Zoe Sherinian complement them from outside, covering at least some
other parts of the world’s largest continent.
Practical aspects of ethnomusicology are very much present in Africa, too, from
indigenous teaching approaches to music education, preservation of cultural roots,
building of musical instruments, to diverse uses of music against xenophobia and
prejudices related to HIV/AIDS. The work of Daniel Avorgbedor (1992), Angela Impey
(2002), Bernhard Bleibinger (2010), Kathleen Van Burren (2010), along with Andrew
Tracey, David Dargie, and Patricia Opondo, to mention just a few, points to a rich diver-
sity of approaches. In this volume, Jeffrey Summitt and Brian Schrag provide their own
views and experiences in applied ethnomusicology in Africa.
South America is certainly the site of some of the major ongoing developments in
applied ethnomusicology. This is the case thanks to two extraordinary thinkers in
the field, Brazilian Samuel Araújo and US-based Anthony Seeger, whose particularly
important work and scholarly formation is related to Brazil. Araújo intends “to highlight
the political substance and epistemological consequences of new research contexts and
roles as one area with potentially ground-breaking contributions toward the emergence
of a more balanced social world, i.e. one in which knowledge will hopefully emerge from
a truly horizontal, intercultural dialogue and not through top-to-bottom neo-colonial
systems of validation” (Araújo, 2008: 14). Seeger’s work could justifiably be discussed in
any geographic context, as his articles and keynote addresses resound on all continents
(2006, 2008). In this volume, dedicated US ethnomusicologist Holly Wissler demon-
strates how applied ethnomusicological projects affect two South American communi-
ties, one in the Andes, and the other in the Amazon.
Maureen Loughran noted that some leading ethnomusicologists in the North
American context, such as Alan P. Merriam (1964), Mantle Hood (1971), and Bruno Nettl
(1964, 1983) largely ignored the work of applied ethnomusicologists while presenting
the major developments within the discipline.12 The co-editor of this volume, Jeff Todd
Titon, has presented in Section 1 of this Introduction the history of ethnomusicology
in North America from his perspective, as he lived and lives it, adding previously
unknown aspects and enriching the general understanding of the discipline. Besides
him, several other authors refer to various extents to applied ethnomusicology in the
North American contexts, including Klisala Harrison, Jeffrey Summitt, Michael Bakan,
Susan Oehler Herrick, Patricia Shehan Campbell, Clifford Murphy, and Alan Williams.
My own firsthand experiences are largely linked to Europe, where I was born and
where I live and practice ethnomusicology. This is why the following section will be
about Europe. The authors linked in various ways to Europe in this volume include
Ursula Hemetek, Erica Haskell, Britta Sweers, Lee Higgins, and Dan Lundberg.
Some European Views: Ethnomusicologies

The fact that there is no single, ultimate definition of ethnomusicology suggests that we
may consider the coexistence of ethnomusicologies, not only in different parts of the
world, but also within a single, no matter how small, location. For instance, while I may
find the definition proposed by my US colleague Jeff Todd Titon (“the study of people
making music”) acceptable, my Slovenian colleague, folklorist Marko Terseglav, defines
it very differently, as “a discipline, researching spontaneous folk vocal and instrumental
music, its characteristics and development” (Terseglav, 2004: 124).
In a sharp contrast to Vienna in neighboring Austria, which figures as one of the two
cradles of comparative musicology13 and is at the same time home to the lasting legacy
of folk music research, ethnomusicology in Slovenia is rooted exclusively in folk music
research. Table I.1 points to the major distinctions between the two and relates them to
the current ethnomusicological mainstream.14
Table I.1 Comparative Musicology, Folk Music Research, and Ethnomusicology

Comparative Musicology Folk Music Research Ethnomusicology
When? 1885–1950s From late 18th century From 1950s
What? Musics of “primitive peoples” and Peasant music People making music
“high Oriental cultures”
How? “Armchair” Fieldwork (short-term) Fieldwork (long-term)
Who? “Other” people “Own” people Any people
Where? Elsewhere Within own ethnic/ Anywhere
national realm
Why? Knowledge National duty Understanding
In an article, in which she compares the features of comparative musicology and folk
music research in Vienna in the early twentieth century, Ursula Hemetek points to some
other important distinctions, for instance, recording with phonograph by the former
and notation by ear by the latter; music as text with no context versus music as text with
context; interdisciplinarity related mainly to natural sciences versus interdisciplinarity
38 Svanibor Pettan
related mainly to humanities; and (particularly important in this context) the asso-
ciation of comparative musicology with the academia-based “ivory tower” versus folk
music research’s “highly motivated volunteers outside academia” and application of
(research) results (Hemetek, 2009: 62).
The multitude of languages and nation-state ideologies affected research within
the European space differently than in North America and Australia. By far, not all
of the European countries came under the umbrella of comparative musicology, but
all contributed to the legacy of folk music research. Distinctive developments of the
discipline in politically, geographically, historically, demographically, economi-
cally, linguistically, religiously, and nevertheless culturally diverse national contexts
within Europe inspired studies that testify primarily about the specifics of European
ethnomusicologies; put together, they enable comparisons and insights into common
features. Interestingly, with a few exceptions (e.g., Clausen, Hemetek, and Saether,
2009; Ling, 1999), Europe was encompassed as a whole primarily by ethnomusicolo-
gists from North America (e.g., in Bohlman, 1996, 2004; Rice, Porter, and Goertzen,
2000). Some authors discussed them within the theoretical frame of nationalism (e.g.,
Bohlman, 2011), some pointed to the shared developmental periods (e.g., Elschek,
1991); yet others inverted the historical trends by placing those seen in Europe a cen-
tury ago as the inferior Others (Roma and Jews; comp. Wallaschek, 1893) to the fore-
front of contemporary Europe by naming them “transnational ethnic groups” (Rice,
Porter, and Goertzen, 2000).
In the post–Cold War Europe of the 1990s, national ethnomusicologies received con-
siderable attention, including those of Denmark (Koudal et al., 1993), Finland (Moisala
et al., 1994), Latvia (Boiko, 1994), Italy (Giuriati, 1995), Spain (Marti, 1997), Croatia
(Pettan et al., 1998), and many more. This research trend continued in the 2000s, as
reflected in the symposium National Ethnomusicologies: The European Perspective
(Cardiff University, 2007) and the plenary roundtable under the same name at the
ICTM World Conference (Vienna, 2007), both organized by one of the authors in this
volume, John Morgan O’Connell.
Let us now take a closer look at the micro-plan of Croatia and Slovenia, since 1992
two neighboring independent European countries, which spent the period of the for-
mation of ethnomusicology first as the parts of the multiethnic Austro-Hungarian
Empire (1867–1918), and then as the constituent parts of what later became known as
Yugoslavia. As in many other parts of Europe, ethnomusicology in Croatia and Slovenia
grew from the national awakening of the nineteenth century and the sense of impor-
tance of a nation’s “own” folk song for the creation and affirmation of national identity.
The characteristic procedure, through the first half of the twentieth century, included
extensive fieldwork, notation and analysis of the collected songs, publishing collections,
and writing syntheses based on the analysis of collected materials. The aim was to define
specific national features, different from those of the neighboring peoples, which would
in turn provide the basis for the development of national culture. In Croatia, the key
figures, such as Franjo Kuhač (1834–1911) and Božidar Širola (1889–1956), were musi-
cians, to whom the novelties in the field of comparative musicology were known. Kuhač
was interested in collecting and writing about folk songs of South Slavs (not exclusively
Croats), comparing their features with those of non-Slavs (Germans, Italians, Turks).
Širola, himself a composer, even earned a doctorate under the mentorship of compara-
tive musicologist Robert Lach in Vienna, and used comparative methodological pro-
cedures in dealing with Croatian folk music. In the Slovenian cultural space, at about
the same time, the initiative was taken by two widely trained linguists with Viennese
doctorates and an interest in ethnology: Karel Štrekelj (1859–1912) and Matija Murko
(1861–1952). Just like their predecessors, as far back as the late eighteenth century, they
focused primarily on language in the folk songs. In contrast to Štrekelj’s emphasis on
Slovenian repertoire, Murko did research (with phonograph) of sung epic poetry in
Bosnia, as well.
The next generations of principal researchers included Vinko Žganec (1890–1976)
and Jerko Bezić (1929–2010) in Croatia, and France Marolt (1891–1952) and Zmaga
Kumer (1924–2008) in Slovenia. Žganec, doctor of law and musician, and Marolt,
himself a musician, were typical representatives of folk music research in a cultural
historic sense, who institutionalized the discipline in Croatia and Slovenia, respec-
tively. Kumer and Bezić earned their doctorates within the discipline. In contrast to
Kumer, who became one of Europe’s best and latest representatives of the folk music
research domain, Bezić was systematically broadening the scope of ethnomusicology
in Croatia by opening the space for research of urban music phenomena and in gen-
eral of influences from abroad. Thanks to the interaction with his multidisciplinary
institutional colleagues in Zagreb, influenced by both American (e.g., Alan Dundes,
Dan Ben Amos) and Russian (Kiril Chistov) folklorists, he defined the subject of eth-
nomusicology as the so-called “folklore music,” referring to musical communication
in small groups (more in Marošević, 1998). The next (current) generation of ethno-
musicologists in both countries is actively involved in what can be called mainstream
ethnomusicology.
Within what was Yugoslavia, practically each constituent republic had its own “school
of ethnomusicology,” with unquestionable commonalities, but also distinctive fea-
tures. Each of these “schools” was thematically focused primarily on the material from
within its own political unit and its own people in the ethnic sense. While the folk music
research paradigm was the unquestionable basis, each “school” had a different stance
toward the developments of ethnomusicology elsewhere and used the results of the
“mainstream” at different paces.
Aware of the discrepancy caused by the lack of comparative musicology at home and
even more by the lack of their own interest in studying the Others, Serbian ethnomusi-
cologists decided to translate, with a considerable delay, two books rooted in compar-
ative musicology. The translation of Fritz Bose’s Musikalische Völkerkunde (1953) was
published in 1975, and Curt Sachs’s The Rise of Music in the Ancient World East and West
(1943) as late as 1980 (Saks 1980).15 These books became a window to “folk music from
other parts of the world” for generations of students of ethnomusicology in Serbia. The
translation of John Blacking’s How Musical Is Man? (1973) was intended to be a contribu-
tion to/from the Sarajevo “school” in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Bleking, 1992).16 In Slovenia,
40 Svanibor Pettan
the translations include Curt Sachs’s Eine Weltgeschichte des Tanzes (1933) in 1996,
Roberto Leydi’s L’ altra musica (1991) in 1995, and Alan P. Merriam’s The Anthropology
of Music (1964) in 2000. The other “schools” felt self-sufficient and did not translate any
foreign books with a wider scope of the discipline.
According to Bohlman, “Folk music and folk song as objects have not disappeared
from the practices of European musicians and scholars, but have instead provided them
with complex ways of connecting tradition to modernity, and of emblematizing the
past in the present” (1996: 106). Elschek suggests that in this process, “cooperation with
anthropology and ethnology has been more successful than with historical musicology”
(1991: 101).
Applied Ethnomusicologies
One could argue whether various colonial expositions and other showcases involv-
ing comparative musicologists should be identified as a part of the early history
of applied ethnomusicology and to what extent comparative musicology in general
contributed to the “public sector” of the discipline.17 At the same time, it is clear
that the other branch of European ethnomusicology—folk music research—was
throughout the previous century linked to the applied domain. The principal goal
of many folk music researchers, that of protection of their national heritage, implied
practical application of their findings. Besides scholarly procedures that usually
included field research, transcription, analysis, archiving, and publication, they
often actively engaged in the popularization of folk music and dance. Important
channels for this were state-sponsored folklore ensembles in Eastern Europe
and less formalized revival ensembles in Western Euruope. Ethnomusicologists
assumed various roles in these processes: providing the ensembles with musics and
dances collected in the field, writing musical arrangements and/or choreographies,
singing, playing instruments and/or dancing, leading the ensembles, and touring
with them.
An increasing influx of immigrants in Western Europe in the second half of the twen-
tieth century gradually raised interest in their musical cultures among ethnomusicolo-
gists. In addition to important studies on immigrant musics (e.g., Ronström, 1991) and
cultural policies (Baumann, 1991), several ethnomusicologists, particularly in Sweden,
became involved in applied projects such as the Ethno camp for young musicians in
Falun and music-making within the ensembles such as the Orientexpressen.18 In
Norway, Kjell Skyllstad initiated the above-mentioned three-year project named The
Resonant Community in several elementary schools in the Oslo area in 1989, bringing
together ethnomusicology and music education in paving the way to better apprecia-
tion between Norwegians and the immigrants from Africa, Asia, and Latin America
through their respective musics (Skyllstad, 1993). Multicultural education, which in
the United States “grew out of the ferment of the civil rights movement of the 1960s”
(Banks and McGee Banks, 2001: 5), gradually became recognized and also debated in
Europe. Krister Malm was actively involved in two relevant events in the 1990s: the
European Music Council’s conference Aspects on Music and Multiculturalism in
Falun in 1995 (Malm et al., 1995)19 and in the first world conference on music and cen-
sorship in Copenhagen in 1998, where the organization Freemuse was established
(Korpe and Reitov, 1998). Ursula Hemetek was beginning applied work with various
minorities in Austria (Hemetek, 1996), which would later lead to official political rec-
ognition of the Romani people in Austria (Hemetek, 2006). My applied work with ref-
ugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina in Norway, Croatia, and Slovenia, with the internally
displaced victims of the war in Croatia, and with Romani victims of the war in Kosovo
has been presented earlier.
In 2003 Italian ethnomusicologists organized the ninth international seminar in eth-
nomusicology in Venice, titled Applied Ethnomusicology: Perspectives and Problems.
While recognizing that “setting up museums, service within administration of colonial
empires, organization of concerts, divulgence by means of publication of writings and
recordings”… were part of the professional profile of comparative musicologists at the
beginnings of the 20th century, they also noticed recent “significant developments” and
pointed to issues such as intercultural education, music in relation to diaspora, immi-
gration, and refugees, “spectacularization” of traditional music, and cultural coop-
eration projects.20 One of the curiosities of this seminar is the absence of folk music
research.
The further conference-related developments of applied ethnomusicology in Europe
are largely linked to the framework of the International Council for Traditional Music
(ICTM). They will be systematically presented later in this text.
Let us now, just as in the previous section, turn our attention to the micro-plan
of Croatia and Slovenia in order to discuss the stances of the most representative
Croatian and Slovenian researchers toward application. Certainly, the publication
of national folk song collections was not the final aim of the researchers. Either the
early musically trained researchers themselves or other musicians harmonized (e.g.,
Kuhač) or otherwise “improved” the songs in order to create nationally distinctive
art music. Marolt was known for arranging the collected songs for his acclaimed
choir and for adjusting the collected dances for the staged performances by his own
and other folklore ensembles. Application was somehow seen as a natural extension
of research by many of these early ethnomusicologists. In fact, Jerko Bezić in Croatia
and Zmaga Kumer in Slovenia were the first ones who restrained from applications,
trying “to affirm ethnomusicology as an autonomous discipline based on fieldwork,
theorizing, evidence and debate, detaching it from requisite utilitarity” (the origi-
nal quotation is referring to Bezić only; Ceribašić, 2004: 6).21 Today’s ethnomusi-
cologists in both countries complement their research activities by serving in juries
at the reviews of folklore preformances at local, regional, and national levels; serv-
ing in the organization of festivals, symposia, and other discipline-related events;
Croatians are involved in the UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage agendas..
Staff at the research institutes in both Zagreb and Ljubljana comprises specialists
in several disciplines, including ethnochoreologists. Inspired by the developments in
42 Svanibor Pettan
applied ethnomusicology, at least one researcher, Tvrtko Zebec, theorizes about applied
ethnochoreology (Zebec, 2007). Joško Ćaleta, an ethnomusicologist in Zagreb, in
whose work research and performing applications are closely intertwined, claims that
applied activities are often paying his research activities (interview, July 14, 2014), which
is a meaningful point to be taken into consideration.
This section ends with a complementing view from the other side of Europe, from the
United Kingdom. In the words of Kathleen Van Buren, “Ethnomusicologists need to
think more deeply about how to serve others, not just ourselves, through our work. This
means listening to people within communities where we live and work, allowing their
perspectives to help guide our choice of our topics and activities, trying to collaborate
and respond to their needs when we can, and empowering them rather than ourselves”
(2010: 219).
The International Council for Traditional Music

Perhaps the most efficient access to applied ethnomusicology in the global arena is
through the principal international association of ethnomusicologists, which is the
International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM), with current representation
in more than 100 countries and regions on all continents. The association was estab-
lished in London in 1947 under the name International Folk Music Council (IFMC).
We should keep in mind that the establishment of IFMC precedes Kunst’s book
Musicologica: A Study of the Nature of Ethno-musicology, Its Problems, Methods, and
Representative Personalities (1950) and the wide acceptance of the term ethnomusicology
that followed.22 It was an era of comparative musicology and folk music research para-
digms, which were affecting each other in various ways and to various extents in various
places.
IFMC’s roots are clearly in the folk music research paradigm, which is evident from
the following description:
In her capacity as Honourable Secretary of the International (Advisory) Folk Dance

Council, Maud Karpeles (1885–1976) organized the International Conference on
Folk Song and Folk Dance, held at the Belgian Institute in London, 22–27 September
1947. Delegates from twenty-eight countries participated, mostly appointed by the
governments of their respective nations, as well as a UNESCO representative…. On
the afternoon of Monday, 22 September 1947, the Vice Chairman of the conference,
Stuart Wilson (1889–1966), proposed “that an International Folk Music Council be
formed.”
(www.ictmusic.org; see also Karpeles, 1971).
The article in which Karpeles offered her reflections on the 21 years of existence of
the Council says a lot about its intellectual climate, including the sentences “In all parts
of the world the traditional practice of folk music is disappearing—gradually in some
regions and rapidly in others—and if we are to save our musical heritage for the ben-
efit of our own and future generations, it is necessary to act quickly. Collecting activi-
ties are, of course, being carried on, but these must be intensified if precious material
is not to be lost. As the saying goes, ‘It is later than we think’ ” (Karpeles, 1971: 29). The
attitudes of this kind were later largely discredited in the mainstream of the discipline
as “salvage ethnomusicology,” pointing to “romanticism, paternalism, and hegemony”
(see also Grant, 2014: 80). Cultural relativism and the absence of value judgments
became, at different paces in different parts of the world, the sine qua non of modern
ethnomusicology.23
The objectives of IFMC were the following: (1) to assist in the preservation, dis-
semination, and practice of the folk music of all countries; (2) to further the compar-
ative study of folk music; and (3) to promote understanding and friendship between
nations through the common interest of folk music.24 What matters particularly
from the point of view of applied ethnomusicology, besides the applied overtones
in the presented objectives, is the envisioned work of the newly established Council.
The list of proposals included “the holding of conferences and festivals; the publi-
cation of a catalogue of recordings, bibliographies, a manual for collectors, and an
international collection of folk songs; the promotion of national and international
archives; the institution of a general method of dance notations; and the develop-
ment of a guide to the classification of folk tunes” (Karpeles, 1971: 17). In the course
of 1950s and 1960s, IFMC indeed published several catalogues, bibliographies, dic-
tionaries, manuals, collections, statements, and songbooks. In order to accomplish
these aims, the structure of IFMC included not only National Committees, but also
the Radio Committee, Folk Dance Committee, and more, the names being subject to
change from time to time.
The intention of the IFMC in the post–World War II years was to bring together com-
posers, researchers, and other specialists interested in folk music and dance into a truly
international association; even the intention to be related to UNESCO was there from
the very inception of the Council. Maud Karpeles’s principal source of inspiration was
Cecil Sharp, the founding father of folklore revival in England in the beginning of the
twentieth century. Within the newly established Council she became secretary under
the presidency of Ralph Vaughn Williams, renowned art music composer and English
folk song collector. Members of the first Executive Board likewise included various
specialists—by far, not all of them researchers—each from a different country. While
referring to legacies of the previous editors, the new editor of the Yearbook of the IFMC,
Bruno Nettl, noted their determination to “present scholarship of the highest quality
and to exhibit samples of what was emanating from research carried on in all parts of
the world” and that “[s]‌cholars from the many nations and cultures of the world do not
always think, study, and write in the same style, and the editor of an international pub-
lication must tread the thin line between rigid standardization and chaotic diversity”
(Nettl, 1974: 7). He intended to broaden the coverage of research to those parts of the
world that had not been represented in the Yearbook and its predecessor the Journal of
IFMC thus far.
44 Svanibor Pettan
A particularly important shift that must be mentioned here is the change of the
name of the Council after more than three decades of its existence, strongly argued
within a heated discussion by the new Secretary General Dieter Christensen at the
26th World Conference in Seoul, Republic of Korea, in 1981. Erich Stockmann recalls
the consequences of this change: “It worked like magic and opened up doors in
regions where the word ‘folk music’ had a somewhat pejorative ring” (Stockmann,
1988: 8).25 The immediate result was new members in countries on all continents (see
also H. M., 1983: 3).
The current official presentation of ICTM ends up with the sentence significant for
this Introduction: “By means of its wide international representation and the activi-
ties of its Study Groups, the International Council for Traditional Music acts as a bond
among peoples of different cultures and thus serves the peace of humankind.” The year
1947 marked the start of both the Council and the Cold War period. Until the end of
the Cold War in 1991, ICTM was actively involved in crossing the political, administra-
tive, economic, lingual, cultural, and other boundaries set by the two military alliances,
while also including in its framework those countries that proclaimed themselves “neu-
tral” and “nonaligned.” The Council authorities, including the Presidents, were from
any of these politically delineated territories, and the World Conferences, Study Group
Symposia, and Colloquia were intentionally taking place in all four of them (NATO, the
Warsaw Pact, Neutral, Nonaligned).
Let me document this practice with two extraordinary examples. The first of them takes
us to a symposium on Traditional Music in Asian Countries, organized as a joint venture
with the International Music Council in 1983. The symposium took place in Pyongyang,
DPR Korea, and was attended by scholars from Afghanistan, China, India, Indonesia,
Japan, DPR Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, the USSR, and
PR Yemen. The second example refers to the 28th World Conference, hosted jointly by
Stockholm (Sweden) and Helsinki (Finland). Its closing ceremony took place on the
other side of the Iron Curtain, in Leningrad (USSR; today’s St. Peterburg in Russia). The
older members of the Council are aware of this legacy and for a good reason proud of it.
Out of the total of 42 World Conferences, 17 took place outside Europe: two in Africa
(Ghana, South Africa), six in Asia (Israel, Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, twice
in China), five in North America (three in the US, two in Canada), one in Central
America (Jamaica), two in South America (Brazil), and one in Australia. Of those tak-
ing place in Europe, four took place in the countries on the Eastern side of the Iron
Curtain (Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, German Democratic Republic), one in
the nonaligned Yugoslavia, and six in the neutral countries Switzerland, Austria (twice),
Finland and Sweden (jointly). The sites of smaller-size IFMC/ICTM gatherings, such as
the Colloquia and Symposia of the Study Groups, point to the inclusion of many more
countries from the world’s political spectrum (e.g., Cuba, Oman, Tunisia). Serving as a
communicational channel across any boundaries continues to be the conscious strategy
of the Council, which justifies the view that the Council itself is a project in applied eth-
nomusicology. The ongoing enlargement of the ICTM World Network is a part of the
same frame of thought.
The International Council for Traditional Music

and Applied Ethnomusicology
Despite its international aspirations, IFMC was for a long time considered a primarily
European association. Europe was the place of its foundation and residence, and Europe
was home to most of its members, conferences,26 and publications27—even “folk music”
in its name was largely seen as a European marker. As suggested earlier, the name change
from “folk” (IFMC) to “traditional” (ICTM) broadened the acceptability of the Council
worldwide in the 1980s. The current frame of interests within the ICTM clearly exceeds
“traditional” music, but the name of the Council remains the same, for better or worse.28
Search for the first mention of applied ethnomusicology in any ICTM context led to
the 27th World Conference in 1983 in New York, where Ghanaian ethnomusicologist
Daniel Avorgbedor presented a paper titled “The Effects of Rural-Urban Migration on
a Village Musical Culture: Some Implications for Applied Ethnomusicology.”29 The next
instance took place six years later, at the 30th World Conference in 1989 in Schladming
(Austria), where German ethnomusicologist Artur Simon presented his paper “The
Borneo Music Documentation Project (Northern Nigeria). Aspects of Documentation,
Field Research in Africa, and Applied Ethnomusicology.”
The author of the first mention of applied ethnomusicology in the Bulletin of the
ICTM was John Baily. In his report on the UK National Committee, he included the fol-
lowing, published in April 1988:
Members of ICTM UK have a particular interest in music in the multi- (or inter-)
cultural school curriculum, and we have established a sub-committee to look into
the question of teaching resources available in the UK. . . . With the same objectives
we are represented on the UK Council for Music Education and Training, which is in
the process of setting up a standing committee to look into the place of non-Western
music in our education system. . . . Ethnomusicologists, like all other academics in
contemporary Britain, have to look to their “performance indicators”; and seek to
justify their existence, in part, through this form of applied ethnomusicology.
The next instances were my report on ethnomusicology in Croatia (Bulletin of the

ICTM #90 from April 1997), in which applied ethnomusicology was related to organi-
zation of folklore festivals and amateur musical life; and Cynthia Tse Kimberlin’s and
Pirkko Moisala’s In memoriam (Bulletin of the ICTM #91 from October 1997), where
they indicated applied ethnomusicology as one of the areas of interests of Marcia
Herndon.
The first article with applied ethnomusicology in its title published in the Yearbook
for Traditional Music was authored by the Austrian scholar Ursula Hemetek: “Applied
Ethnomusicology in the Process of the Political Recognition of a Minority: A Case
Study of the Austrian Roma” (Yearbook for Traditional Music, vol. 38, 2006). The next
major development was the special section, with a group of eight authors, on Music
and Poverty, put together by the Finish/Canadian ethnomusicologist Klisala Harrison
46 Svanibor Pettan
(Yearbook for Traditional Music, vol. 45, 2013). One should of course be aware that the
lack of the wording “applied ethnomusicology” does not imply the absence of the articles
relevant for the current discussion in the earlier years, with Angela Impey’s 2002 essay
“Culture, Conservation and Community Reconstruction: Explorations in Advocacy
Ethnomusicology and Action Research in Northern KwaZulu” serving as a convincing
evidence.
As far as the ICTM scholarly gatherings are concerned, the 15th Colloquium, titled
Discord: Identifying Conflict within Music, Resolving Conflict Through Music, orga-
nized by John Morgan O’Connell in Limerick, Ireland, in 2004 can be interpreted as
anticipation of what is to follow. Although music and conflict make a suitable ethno-
musicological topic and applied ethnomusicology was not particularly emphasized
in the colloquium documents, several presentations pointed to “ethnomusicology as
an approach to conflict resolution.” The articles developed from this event form the
representative ethnomusicological volume on music and conflict (O’Connell and
Castelo-Branco, 2010).
The 38th World Conference of the ICTM that took place in Sheffield, England, in 2005
featured applied ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology as one of the themes, point-
ing to “situations in which scholars put their knowledge and understanding to creative
use to stimulate concern and awareness about the people they study.”30 Presenters were
invited to consider issues of advocacy, canonicity, musical literacy, cultural property
rights, cultural imperialism, majority-minority relations, application of technologies
such as the Internet and their effects on music and dance. One plenary session explic-
itly featured applied ethnomusicology,31 and yet another plenary session considered it
among the other subjects.32
A symposium titled Ethnomusicology and Ethnochoreology in Education: Issues
in Applied Scholarship took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 2006. The members of the
ICTM’s Executive Board, who came to Ljubljana for their regular annual meeting, and the
other invited scholars presented and evaluated their immediate experiences and visions
of the efficient transfer of scholarly knowledge into educational domains. Presentations
from contexts around the globe discussed modalities of connections between theory and
practice, methods of promoting, teaching, and learning of traditional music and dance,
and the strategies of preparing textbooks, recordings, and other materials for various
stages of educational processes (see the report by Kovačič and Šivic, 2007).
The ICTM’s 39th World Conference in Vienna in 2007 featured two important events:
a double panel, The Politics of Applied Ethnomusicology: New Perspectives, with six par-
ticipants, each from a different continent,33 and a meeting at which 44 members agreed to
establish a study group with a focus on applied ethnomusicology.34 Following the adoption
of the definition and mission statement, the Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology
was approved at the Executive Board’s meeting in Vienna on July 12, 2007.
The next year, in 2008, Ljubljana hosted the first symposium of the newly estab-
lished Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology, which was well attended by schol-
ars from all continents. Anthony Seeger delivered the keynote address. This event
featured the history of the idea and understandings of applied ethnomusicology
in worldwide contexts; presentation and evaluation of individual projects, with an

emphasis on theory and method; and applied ethnomusicology in situations of con-
flict. It is worth mentioning the use of the Native American “talking circles” as one of
the means of communication within this Study Group.
The international intentions of the Study Group continued at the symposia in 2010 in
Hanoi, Vietnam (jointly with the Study Group Music and Minorities), in 2012 in Nicosia,
Cyprus, and in 2014 in East London—Hogsback—Grahamstown, South Africa.35
Thematic frames of the symposia are trustworthy indicators of the dynamics
of the Study Group and, to a smaller extent, of the interests of local organizers. In
Hanoi, the emphasis was on definitions and approaches to applied work in various
geographical contexts; on proactive roles that ethnomusicology can play in contrib-
uting to the sustainability of performing arts through archiving, disseminating, con-
tributing to policies, understanding socioeconomic factors, developing audiences
and markets, and empowering communities to forge their own futures; and on per-
forming arts in building peace, negotiating power relationships, and strengthening
identities through formal and informal education. Note that the use of the term “per-
forming arts” is a manner of paying respect to the perspective, which is widely shared
in Southeast Asia.
The symposium in Nicosia featured applied ethnomusicology in the contexts of social
activism, censorship, and state control; in relation to various types of disability, pointing
to human rights and the making of disability politics and including disability research,
special education, and music therapy; and in relation to diverse social configurations of
conflict, including interpersonal and intergroup, interethnic, interreligious, and inter-
class, with emphasis on the divided island of Cyprus.
The symposium on three locations in South Africa opened up the question of institu-
tions, usually associated with formal and informal rules, procedures, and norms, from
schools and festivals to large international bodies such as UNESCO, including institut-
ing and institutionalization issues; and the question of media and their social, political,
and cultural impacts on applied work.
As far as the publications related to ICTM are concerned, two edited volumes can
be recommended to the readers. First, the earlier mentioned double panel that took
place at the ICTM World Conference in Vienna in 2007 inspired the creation of the
thematic issue of the Muzikološki zbornik/Musicological Annual, 46(2), entirely dedi-
cated to applied ethnomusicology (Pettan, 2008).36 Five ethnomusicologists reflect on
their experiences linked to Brazil, Australia, the United States, Malaysia, and former
Yugoslavia; the volume also serves as a Festschrift on the 80th birthday of the afore-
mentioned Norwegian scholar Kjell Skyllstad, an important early thinker in applied
ethnomusicology.
The second edited volume resulted from the inaugural Study Group’s symposium
in Ljubljana and is titled Applied Ethnomusicology: Historical and Contemporary
Approaches (Harrison, Mackinlay, and Pettan, 2010). Its 13 essays, by authors from
Africa, Australia, Europe, and North America, are widely used and quoted, in this vol-
ume as well, so no additional presentation is needed here.
48 Svanibor Pettan
Individual Views
How else could ICTM contribute to better comprehension of the emerging field? By
means of its wide international representation, it can provide us with the perspectives
from different geographic and cultural environments. The answers to my five essen-
tial questions were provided by five ethnomusicologists, each from a different conti-
nent.37 Some of them are more inclined to applied ethnomusicology than the others, but
together, they provide a useful global myriad of perspectives about the field. I asked for
anonymous, individual views, therefore they are indicated as “A view from Australia,” “A
view from Asia,” and so on.
1. How would you define applied ethnomusicology, or

at least what is its essence in your opinion?
A view from Australia: The application of ethnomusicological method and theory to
addressing practical issues.
A view from Asia: If we define applied ethnomusicology as research activities with
social conscience and political involvement, I think whatever we do as ethnomusicolo-
gists should be applied ethnomusicology at least in some ways.
A view from South America: I can only see a matter of degree in its definition, acknowl-
edging an aspect, which is inherent to any research, namely its potential to be applied to
different purposes. However, in most of what has been termed as such in the humanities
one finds embedded ideals of social justice and equity, sometimes of reparation and/or
reconciliation, all of which also subject to different and even contradictory perspectives.
A view from Africa: Generally, how our practical work in the field is applied in an
academic environment. Music is not taught in an European or abstract way, that is, by
explaining music with words, but holistically, by doing—listening, imitating, and playing.
Based on that experience we teach African music theory practically on instruments. It is
much more appropriate and easier for people to understand musical concepts doing it
that way.
A view from Europe: I do not subscribe to the term “applied ethnomusicology,”
although I understand why it is necessary. I think the engagement of scholars with the
communities they work with should be/is a given.
2. Have you done any project(s) that would fit into your notion
of applied ethnomusicology?
Australia: Preparing indigenous people’s land claim is the obvious example, that is,
applying knowledge of their musical culture to demonstrate rights over land using an
indigenous conceptual system. I was one of three researchers (with an anthropologist
and a linguist) who prepared one of the largest such claims. During the hearing of the
case (by a Supreme Court judge) songs and dances were performed to demonstrate
ownership of the land according to their own system of land ownership.
Asia: Following what I mentioned above, I would like to think all my projects are within
the realm of applied ethnomusicology.
South America: They have ranged from short-term documentation projects related to
safeguarding and revitalizing traditions perceived to be vanishing to long-term hori-
zontal collaborations with grassroot organizations, forming research groups working on
music and social justice among residents of areas affected by patterns of injustice and
inequity.
Africa: We also understand applied ethnomusicology as offering of our expertise to
people in order to develop a musical environment. This can be in form of workshops,
teaching in schools, music projects, community outreach, and curriculum develop-
ment, which takes the background of people and local needs into consideration. In our
current curriculum African music components are for instance compulsory. We just
brought new streams and modules to respond to local needs; for instance the course
Basic Music Literacy for students from villages who have problems with music theory
and music literacy, and the streams Music Technologies and Production and Music and
Arts Administration. The two streams aim at providing students with practical skills
which make them more employable, and which enable them to start their own business
within the music industry. We hope that these two new streams will in the future help to
improve the musical infrastructure in the region.
Europe: I was involved in the application of projects to the UNESCO representa-
tive list of Intangible Cultural Heritage and served on an advisory committee to the
Ministry of Culture on ICH matters. For over 20 years, I also promoted the founding
of a national sound archive. Finally, I consider the publication of an encyclopedia—an
all-encompassing research project with a wide outreach among musicians, cultural poli-
ticians and scholars—as “applied ethnomusicology.”
3. Is the distinction between “academic” and “applied” work present in your
working environment? If so, how is the “applied” domain valued compared
to the “academic” one?
Australia: When I worked at the institute it was required of researchers to demonstrate
the benefit of the proposed research to the community. This resulted in a blending of
scholarly and applied research. Later, when I was working in the university environ-
ment, there was much more emphasis on scholarship for its own sake, and the applica-
tion of research results was not highly valued.
Asia: There are theorists so to speak who are mainly concerned with the refinement
of theoretical explorations. I respect such endeavors as long as they have applicable
dimension. The “applied” domain has been treated unfairly as activities conducted by
less qualified/serious scholars, partly because of the narrow definition of the “academic”
domain, but also due to the inability on the part of “applied” ethnomusicologists to
advance a new vision of theory construction.
South America: No.
50 Svanibor Pettan
Africa: A distinction between academic and applied work is still there (for instance
when you have to teach different research methodologies or history of ethnomusicol-
ogy), but the boundaries are quite blurred. A lot of our academic research is based on
applied work and—as explained earlier—theory is thought practically (which is the
direct application of knowledge obtained in the field).
Europe: I try to avoid making this distinction. But, in my institution we have many
projects that can be classified as applied: museum expositions, digitization, community
work, projects in schools, etc. I would say 40% applied.
4. Is the “applied” domain present in your teaching curricula?
Australia: I always tried to show the relationship between applied and theoretical
ethnomusicology.
Asia: Whenever I teach I emphasize the importance of socially engaged research
activities.
South America: Yes, in the obligatory bibliographies of both undergraduate and grad-
uate courses as well as in systematic outreach and research programs.
Africa: We do not offer a degree program or specific modules on applied ethnomusi-
cology. Yet, as already explained, indigenous music is compulsory, theory is taught prac-
tically, and articles on applied ethnomusicology are discussed in class. Thus, although
not formalized in terms of specific modules, applied ethnomusicology is a reality here.
Europe: In my seminars, I discuss researchers’ social responsibilities and the
many spheres of ethnomusicological work. But, we do not have a course on “applied
ethnomusicology.”
5. Do you know of any university offering a course in applied
ethnomusicology or applied ethnochoreology?
Australia: No.
Asia: There may be, but not that I know of.
South America: No, but I know several universities that offer opportunities to both
graduate and undergraduate students to engage in applied research in the sense I out-
lined before, as well as portions of their curricular components devoted to applied
approaches.
Africa: This is a tricky question. Applied approaches differ from institution to institu-
tion, and the motives and conditions are hardly comparable. Unlike other universities in
the country, our Music Department had hardly any resources. We had to build up from
zero, which means that applied ethnomusicology was a necessity and therefore a reality.
At another university, applied ethnomusicology was simply understood as building up
an African ensemble. Elsewhere, there was some teaching of indigenous instruments, but
not applied ethnomusicology in our understanding. At Kwazulu Natal you find a com-
pletely different situation with Patricia Opondo, who is a very focused and an interna-
tionally trained academic. Applied ethnomusicology is officially part of the curriculum.
Europe: No.
What can we make of the replies of these five ethnomusicologists? All of them are well
established as professionals and work in either university or research institute settings.
Their representativeness is balanced in terms of geography and gender, as well, but none
of them belongs to a young generation of scholars, which is seeking for more radical
solutions, such as active involvement in applied projects as a part of the study curricula.
At this point I would like to add that a course in applied ethnomusicology, which counts
to the obligatory master level courses, exists for the third consecutive academic year at
the Department of Musicology of the University of Ljubljana.
The International Council for Traditional Music and

the Society for Ethnomusicology
In contrast to the eight years younger Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), which is defined
as “a U.S.-based organization with an international membership” (www.ethnomusicology.
org), IFMC/ICTM was envisioned in international terms in all respects. Its Secretariat
moves its base periodically from one country to another; it has so far been based in the
United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada, the United States, Australia, and Slovenia. Both past
and current membership figures suggest that SEM, which is the US National Committee
of ICTM, is larger than ICTM, but also that the single country with the largest number
of members in ICTM is the United States. Several accounts point to the historical differ-
ence between the financially unstable IFMC and the SEM, which grew up in a rich country.
More important for the present discussion is the difference in intellectual histories and the
resulting theoretical and methodological paradigms. In words of Dieter Christensen,
SEM and ICTM are both unique in their roles, and they complement each other;
SEM as the regional organization in North America that represents the interests
of professional, academic ethnomusicologists in the USA and Canada, and at the
same time serves the field of ethnomusicology world-wide through its publications;
and the ICTM as the international organization in the domain of traditional music
including ethnomusicology that serves scholarship with an emphasis on the mutual
recognition and understanding of diverse inquiring minds.
(Christensen, 1988:17).
IFMC/ICTM cherished various languages in its scholarly publications until 1985,

when the last article so far in a language other than English was published in the
Yearbook for Traditional Music. From 2006 on, the Yearbook’s general editor Don Niles
reintroduced the practice of adding abstracts in native languages of those people who
are the principal subjects of the articles. This practice was originally introduced in the
1980s, following Yoshihiko Tokumaru’s proposal.
52 Svanibor Pettan
Jeff Todd Titon has described in Section 1 of this Introduction how the four founders of
SEM, led by Alan P. Merriam, rejected Maud Karpeles’s invitation to join IFMC and instead
decided to keep SEM as an independent society. IFMC reported about the new society in the
following manner in its 11th Bulletin from 1957: “On November 18th, 1955, at the 54th Annual
Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Boston, the Society for Ethno-
musicology was founded for the purpose of establishing communication among persons
in primitive, folk, and oriental music, and for furthering research and scholarship in these
fields. The Society plans to continue publication of the Ethno-Musicology Newsletter three
times yearly, to meet annually in conjunction with societies of anthropologists, folklorists
and musicologists, and to engage in other activities of benefit to members” (Anon., 1957: 6).
According to Erich Stockmann, one of the Presidents of the Council, Maud Karpeles was
sensitive to occasional criticisms and used to ask him anxiously several times in the course
of the 1950s: “Are we really not ‘scientific’ enough? She knew my answer” (Stockman,
1988: 5). Dieter Christensen, Secretary General of the Council for 20 years, noted that the
“American issue” and the “scientific issue” were clearly related (Christensen, 1988: 14).
There are several important connections between the two societies that should be men-
tioned here. At the inauguration of IFMC in 1947, seven US “correspondents” were iden-
tified, among them Curt Sachs, Percy Grainger, and Alan Lomax. The “Liaison officer”
(single national representative) of the United States in the IFMC for 10 years (1952–1962)
was Charles Seeger, one of the SEM’s founding fathers. Following Seeger’s mandate, the
United States was uninterruptedly represented in the IFMC/ICTM by the “National
Committee” until 1999, starting with Charles Haywood and ending with Ricardo Trimillos.
After a five-year break, Timothy Rice, then the SEM President, re-established the connec-
tion and SEM became officially recognized as the ICTM’s US National Committee.
The first SEM President, Willard Rhodes, later became ICTM’s fourth President,
while councillor in the first SEM nomenclature Bruno Nettl later served in a variety of
roles in both societies, as did (and still do) many other scholars, from the United States
and from the other countries.
It is appropriate to complete this section of the Introduction by pointing to a joint Forum,
scheduled for September 2015 in Limerick, which is expected to bring together the two
major ethnomusicological associations—ICTM and SEM—around the theme of impor-
tance for applied ethnomusicology: Transforming Ethnomusicological Praxis through
Activism and Community Engagement. This historical event, an applied ethnomusicologi-
cal initiative by Beverley Diamond, is the first such collaboration between ICTM and SEM.
The Forum will focus on ethnomusicological praxis and collaborative strategies in

different international contexts and political situations. While there is now a long
history in ethnomusicology of initiatives that have sought to address problems of
inequality, disparity and oppression, and a shorter history pertaining to such matters
as health and environmental change, the symposium will focus, not on the problems
per se, but on the methodologies that could best enable our work to have greater
social impact. We are interested in critically assessing and finding strategies and best
practices of collaboration, communication and policy formulation.
(from the Call for papers)
An Introduction to the Chapters 53
The envisioned joint event convincingly testifies about the current intellectual climate
in both major associations of ethnomusicologists, which is very much in tune with the
ideas presented in this Handbook.
Section 3. An Introduction

to the Chapters
Jeff Todd Titon and Svanibor Pettan
In the Introduction we have identified several activities of contemporary applied eth-

nomusicologists. The chapters in this volume illustrate a range of these. Cultural policy
interventions are discussed by Murphy, Haskell, and Zhang as they review the role of
government agencies, NGOs, and the arts in the United States, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
and in China. Since the early twentieth century, US government agencies have sup-
ported the arts, including traditional music. Murphy’s Chapter 20 chronicles the work
of the ethnomusicologist-as-public-folklorist in the United States, explores disciplin-
ary connections between applied ethnomusicology and public folklore, and asks the
question, “How can an applied ethnomusicologist work meaningfully within the insti-
tutional and intellectual framework of public folklore?” Haskell’s Chapter 13 concerns
cultural policies in relation to the arts when communities recover from conflicts and
natural disasters. In their wake, cultural aid workers bear much needed resources for
music and other expressive cultural activities as they facilitate conflict resolution and
cultural development. Zhang’s Chapter 21 offers a lively discussion of cultural policies
surrounding traditional music in China. Properly balancing the inheritance, protec-
tion, development, and utilization of Chinese traditional music has been the subject of
discussion among Chinese scholars for a long period of time. This has led to increased
attention and effort from government at all levels, a development that reflects the dis-
tinctive nature of applied ethnomusicology. His chapter addresses the application of
ethnomusicology in China from the perspective of ethnomusicology’s social practices
(the macro level) and personal practices (the micro level).
Many of the authors discuss cultural policy interventions through UNESCO’s ini-
tiatives in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage; these include Wissler (Chapter 12,
Peru), Zhang (Chapter 21, China), Hemetek (Chapter 7, Austria), Schippers
(Chapter 4, Australia), and Titon (Chapter 5, chiefly theoretical). The mixed record
of success is leading applied ethnomusicologists to agree that the best outcomes occur
in small-scale projects resulting from long-term partnerships and mutual goals. Local
and regional cultural differences require that policies adapt to varying conditions.
54 Jeff Todd Titon and Svanibor Pettan
Top-down, bureaucratic solutions are apt to be less successful and more likely to
have negative consequences. Such best practices have characterized most, if not all,
successful applied ethnomusicology projects, whether cultural policy interventions
or not.
Advocacy for social justice underpins most of the contributions to this volume.
Merriam’s “white knight” critique of ethnomusicologists who feel it is their duty
to champion the music and music-cultures they research mocked the impulse
to sound the trumpet for musical justice, but it is social justice that characterizes
much applied work today, while musical and cultural equity is understood as a
given. Bakan’s Chapter 8 reveals how music may become part of an agenda for social
justice among autistic youth. He proposes an ethnographic model of disability as
a potential alternative and complement to the existing social and medical models,
arguing in turn that the ethnographic and relativistic tenets of applied ethnomusi-
cology hold the potential to effectively promote neurodiversity and autism accep-
tance. Summit’s Chapter 6 shows how musical activism can become peace activism
based on economic cooperation. He asks what happens when our experiences in
the field conjoin with ethical, moral, and religious imperatives to pursue social jus-
tice and give back to the people with whom we work. His chapter addresses issues
and offers a framework for ethnomusicologists to consider when moved to part-
ner with the people whose music we study, who so generously help us and some-
times become our teachers and our friends. Chapter 9 by Schrag and Chapter 12 by
Wissler reveal how musical advocacy can bring about mutual social and political
benefits. Schrag urges ethnomusicologists to re-engage with practitioners of multi-
generational artistic traditions among ethnolinguistic minorities. Many of these art
forms are at risk because of globalized communication. He guides arts-in-culture
scholars through an approach anchored to event analysis and relationships, lean-
ing toward enactments of traditional genres rather than liminal fusions. He offers
practical tools that communities may use in their steps toward more lively artistic
futures. Wissler shows that collaborative applied ethnomusicology projects based
in shared experience and executed in small groups are just as valid and often are
more effective than large-scale organizational projects. Two case studies show how
grassroots approaches support the effectiveness of indigenous voice and representa-
tion in regard to the uses of traditional music in tourism, safeguarding, and music
ownership via CD production. Sherinian, in Chapter 10, shows advocacy’s poten-
tial as a revolutionary political force that can not only aid the politically oppressed
but also re-center marginalized musics within ethnomusicology itself. Using phe-
nomenological methods and dialogical processes from two case studies of Tamil
Dalit (former outcaste or untouchable) folk music from her fieldwork and ethno-
graphic filmmaking in India, Sherinian argues that engagement with the meaning
and value of marginalized South Asian music forces us to recognize and decon-
struct local hegemonies of musical style and ethnomusicology’s contributions to
the perpetuation of them, not only in fieldwork, but also in teaching content and
academic/community programming. She examines methods (including filmmak-
ing and participant activism) to approach contexts where the oppressed use music to
assert identity and cultural politics of revaluation against local hierarchies of musi-
cal value that contribute to Dalit Action Theory: that is, politicized agency of the
oppressed asserted through the arts, necessitating an activist ethnographic meth-
odology focused on collaboration, dialogue, and reciprocity. Transformation often
accompanies advocacy, not just musical, social, and political but also personal, as
Bakan’s and Summit’s chapters reveal.
Education is a concern of many of the contributors. Herrick, in Chapter 16, dis-
cusses strategies for success in educational institutions where partnerships with cul-
tural organizations require collaborative decision-making for successful outcomes
that link formal instruction to daily life. Strategies negotiated among collaborative
decision-makers may most effectively apply ethnomusicology in horizontal path-
ways that dialogically engage and respond to varied social communities, particularly
in areas where large, urban public school districts face substantial challenges. The
context of Cleveland, Ohio, provides an example, where partnerships for arts educa-
tion in the city’s public schools date to 1915, and twenty-first-century programs for
arts integration have drawn national attention. Her argument asserts that strategic
process is central to both definitions of applied ethnomusicology and educators’
efforts to link formal instruction to music in daily life. Murphy’s review of applied
ethnomusicologists working in the world of public folklore also includes partner-
ships among educational and cultural institutions to provide community “artists in
the schools” and broaden the educational curriculum to include the music of local
ethnic groups. In Chapter 18, Campbell and Higgins extend educational applications
into college and conservatory levels of instruction, and also to a practice in “com-
munity music,” a specialized terminology not to be confused with the looser way
in which applied ethnomusicologists utilize the phrase to describe music among
a group that shares commonalities. They address ways in which ethnomusicolo-
gists blend musical and cultural understanding into educational practice, and they
describe cases that illustrate facets of their linkages into, and facilitation of, com-
munity music activity as these are relevant to learning and teaching—with particular
attention paid to North American and United Kingdom–based circumstances, set-
tings, and sensibilities. In Chapter 6, Summit also describes an educational initia-
tive in a Jewish community in Uganda that is characterized by long-term reciprocity,
contrasting it with failed projects that resulted from well-meaning but short-term
visits and superficial understandings. O’Connell, in Chapter 17, develops a herme-
neutic approach to music education by exploring the relationship between music
and humanity, based on the Aga Khan Humanities Project educational program in
Central Asia. Following a precedent in ecology, the Project recognized music as a
sustainable art in its balanced promotion of economic development and ecological
conservation. O’Connell envisions the space for applied ethnomusicology in par-

ticular under war-affected circumstances, when music furnishes a humanistic locus
for understanding conflict and a “humane-istic” focus for promoting conflict resolu-
tion. Educational aspects play an important role in the approaches of several other
authors as well. Sweers, in Chapter 15, points to the importance of intercultural edu-
cation, and to the efficiency of the didactic teaching aid against right-wing extrem-
ism, which raised the attention of local teaching institutions, political institutions,
and even the parliament, to her activist project Polyphonie der Kulturen. Hemetek,
Lundberg, Mackinlay, and Pilzer (Chapters 7, 19, 11, and 14) also recognize the activ-
ist aspect of education. For Schippers (Chapter 4), the educational realm is identi-
fied as one of five clusters in his ecosystems of music model. Harrison (Chapter 2)
recognizes teaching as one of her four principal ethnomusicological activities. Tan
(Chapter 3) realizes the importance of non-formal education in Asia in addressing
the issues, such as conflict resolution, peace building, gender sensitization, raising
awareness about social inequality, heritage conservation, health campaigns such as
AIDS prevention, and more.
Peace, conflict resolution, and cooperation among peoples is another area that
appeals to many of the contributors. Summit (Chapter 6) discusses how he helped
promote the work of an Ugandan fair trade coffee cooperative that brought together
Jewish, Christian, and Muslim growers in an interfaith operation in common cause.
Haskell’s Chapter 13, centered in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the recent postwar period,
offers lessons from resilience efforts in the face of conflicts and disasters, where inter-
national development prioritizes socioeconomic and political issues while neglecting
cultural landscapes. Important aspects of conflict management are imbedded in the
studies provided by Harrison (class conflict and conflict of values), Hemetek (with
focus on three distinctive minority cases), Sweers (conflicts caused by xenophobia
and right-wing extremism on the one hand and a marginalization of the victims on
the other), and O’Connell.
Medical ethnomusicology, in which ethnomusicologists ally themselves with
health-related therapeutic interventions, has a separate Handbook in the Oxford
series, which readers are advised to consult. The name is a formation derived from
the subfield of medical anthropology, considered a branch of applied anthropology.
Given its established identity and a growing literature of its own, the editors have not
emphasized it in this volume; nevertheless, examples here include Bakan’s work in the
area of music and autism (Chapter 8), and Pilzer’s work with survivors (Chapter 14),
which inspires us to go beyond the specific case of Japanese military “comfort women”
system in Korea and engage in work with survivors of wars, domestic violence, child
abuse, and sexual violence, to mention just a few.
What should be the approaches in applied ethnomusicology to the pertinent issues
rooted in colonial history and attitudes? Contributors such as Bendrups (Chapter 1),
Harrison (Chapter 2), Tan (Chapter 3), Sherinian (Chapter 10), Mackinlay (Chapter 11),
Pilzer (Chapter 14), and O’Connell (Chapter 17), remind us in various ways, to vari-

ous extents, and in various contexts that work under postcolonial circumstances
still requires immense sensitivity from the researcher. This notion is particularly
emphasized in Mackinlay’s chapter, based on her work with the indigenous people
of Australia, in which the distinctive form of presentation contributes to the strength
of her discourse. Pilzer’s argumentation refers to the period of Japanese colonialism
in Korea (1910–1945), which more than half a century later still leaves some wounds
open. O’Connell and Tan point to the consequences of the presence of Russian and
British rulers in Central Asia and Malaysia respectively in the not so distant past,
while Bendrups excercises a critical approach to neocolonial attitudes of Chile toward
its “dislocated property” Rapanui. Harrison’s work with indigenous peoples also fits in
here and forms one of the useful contexts for her proposed model for studying value
systems, reconsideration of the value judgments, and an envisioned ethnomusicology
of values.
Nationalism is yet another phenomenon that applied ethnomusicologists have to
consider. Lundberg, in Chapter 19, discusses its formative aspects and its impact on
research and documentation, with the Folk Music Committee’s value scale, which
many of us would easily recognize in a number of different national contexts. Tan, in
Chapter 3, is convincing in her critique of the concept of national culture in Malaysia.
The second smallest continent, Europe figures as the second continent according to
the number of nation-states, and remains the location of the most devastating wars
in human history. Ever increasing migrations from other continents create new chal-
lenges to which applied ethnomusicology, as demonstrated by Hemetek and Sweers,
has some efficient replies.
A short-term, temporary form of migration, tourism, has offered a major
opportunity and challenge for applied ethnomusicologists. Many have been
employed as consultants and culture workers in bringing traditional music to an
audience extrinsic to the musical community, as music plays an important role in
cultural tourism, which many think can be a driver of local and regional econo-
mies while it also sustains older layers of music that are in danger of losing, or
have lost, their original cultural contexts. Not only in Europe and the Americas,
but also in China, musical tourism is thought to constitute a creative economy,
but here the applied ethnomusicologist has played the role of critic as well as con-
sultant and advocate. Tourism often has followed UNESCO’s safeguarding initia-
tives, which single out particular musical communities for preservation efforts.
But ethnomusicological knowledge is sometimes at odds with the kinds of pub-
licity that attracts tourists, while it may also be incomplete and unreliable, as
occurred when the Chinese guqin tradition was designated as a masterpiece of
intangible cultural heritage (Yung, 2005). Related to the tourist industry is music
as commercial product in general, which has had an unsavory reputation among
ethnomusicologists who traffic in authenticity. It has also led to an important
branch of applied ethnomusicology involving music and law, forensic ethnomu-

sicology. Commodification is anathema to those ethnomusicologists who believe
that music has a cultural and artistic value that must remain beyond price. But,
as Williams argues in Chapter 22, properly utilized it can be a valuable ally for
the applied ethnomusicologist seeking to create social and economic capital for
underserved communities.
Finally, sustainability is a theme that unites most of the chapters in this volume.
Musical, and sometimes also cultural, sustainability is a goal of many arts policy
initiatives today. It is often one of the ends of advocacy, and has long been one of
the chief reasons for music education. For example, advocacy based on cultural
equity and musical rights moves toward sustainability and a kind of musical justice
as well as social justice. Schippers’s Chapter 4 is far-reaching in this respect, laying
out a model for sustainability strategies. Global implications of these strategies
were tested within the framework of a mega-project, Sustainable Futures for Music
Cultures: Towards an Ecology of Musical Diversity, encompassing the range from
Australian Aboriginal music to Western classical opera. Titon’s chapter builds on
his pioneering work in music and ecology, which he began by likening music cul-
tures to ecosystems; that is, the flow of music within music cultures may be con-
ceptualized as like the flow of energy in ecosytems (Titon, 1984: 9). In Chapter 5
of this volume, Titon discusses sustainability both in terms of its forerunner ideas
(preservation, conservation, and safeguarding, with particular attention to their
implementation in the US) and by re-examining the uses of sustainability in the
two discourse universes where it is most prominent: environmentalist conserva-
tion ecology, and economics (Titon, 2009a, 2009b). Pointing out that sustainabil-
ity is a goal rather than a strategy, he concludes by proposing resilience theory as
the appropriate strategy for achieving musical sustainability, and offers two case
studies that examine those characteristics which make particular music cultures
resilient and therefore sustainable. Sustainability is a recent concept for ethnomu-
sicologists, while resilience is even newer. Their widespread use (and abuse) today
requires that applications in various fields of endeavor be undertaken with great
care, while values from the humanities provide an appropriate context for think-
ing about sustainability and resilience in all contexts (see O’Connell, Chapter 17 of
this volume).
Notes
1. Its recognition was signaled in 1992 when the Journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology
devoted a special issue to the subject (Ethnomusicology 36[2]‌).
2. In Kunst’s definition ethnomusicology was chiefly a new name for the discipline of compara-
tive musicology. But as we shall soon see, US cultural anthropologists interested in music saw
opportunity in the new name, founded the international Society for Ethnomusicology in 1955,
and were prominent among its leaders. Thus by 1955 ethnomusicology could be described as a
new and interdisciplinary field, not just a new name for an older academic discipline.
3. In a 2013 interview he characterized as one of four “new, or newish developments in eth-
nomusicology” a “widespread concern with the need to do things that benefit the peoples
whose music and musical culture are studied” (Nettl 2014: 1).
4. In the new millennium, science is making a small comeback as music theory and com-
parative studies are applied in these analytical approaches to structural features of
world musics. Science is manifest also in a growing interest among ethnomusicologists
in neuroscience and music psychology, and questions concerning music and human
evolution.
5. Controversy over the genre of exploitation documentary, so-called mondo films such
as this one, suggesting that the genuine documentary footage is sometimes mixed with
staged sequences, does not impact the film's symbolic standpoint.
6. The practitioners are scholars whose professional positioning may vary from universities
and other schools, research institutes, archives, museums, media, and nongovernmental
organizations, to freelance status.
7. Applied ethnomusicology is about how musical practice can inform relevant theory, and
about how theory can inform musical practice. Knowledge of data, theories, and methods
of ethnomusicology, as much as ethical concerns, are essential.
8. There is a need for increased critical reflection on political agendas, moral philosophies,
and ideologies of applied ethnomusicology projects, as well as on the role of personal
agency in applied ethnomusicological work.
9. Here she refers to the American Musicological Society.
10. For instance, the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, founded in 1958, has more than 2,000
members worldwide.
11. The aim of The Society for Applied Microbiology is to advance for the benefit of the
public the science of microbiology in its application to the environment, human and
animal health, agriculture and industry. The aim of the Society for Applied Philosophy
is to promote philosophical study and research that has a direct bearing on areas of
practical concern, such as law, politics, economics, science, technology, medicine, and
education.
12. Timothy Rice’s book Ethnomusicology: A Very Short Introduction, to the opposite, ends
with the chapter titled “Public Service” and points to the fact that “[e]‌thnomusicologists
are increasingly asking themselves the question ‘Ethnomusicology for what purpose?’ ”
(2014: 120). It is my hope that this volume will encourage ethnomusicologists to seek
answers to this question, both inside themselves and in the world that surrounds them.
13. The other being Berlin.
14. For some useful current views on comparative musicology, see Schneider (2006), thematic
issue of the Polish journal Muzyka 1 (2009), and the website http://www.compmus.org.
15. In case of Sachs, the German version titled Die Musik der Alten Welt in Ost und West (1968)
served as the source for translation.
16. The translator Ljerka Vidić Rasmussen used to study there under the mentorship of
Blacking’s former doctoral student Ankica Petrović. Petrović was widely regarded the first
representative of “mainstream ethnomusicology” in what was Yugoslavia. Introduction of
new disciplinary paradigms met many obstacles in the intellectual environment rooted in
the strong folk music research school established by Cvjetko Rihtman.
17. This section uses parts of one of my earlier articles (Pettan 2008) and provides updates.
18. For instance, Dan Lundberg, Owe Ronström.

19. The proceedings contain articles by Kristof Tamas, Max Peter Baumann, Mark Slobin, and
Krister Malm.
20. This seminar took place just a month prior to the conference Invested in
Community: Ethnomusicology and Musical Advocacy, which took place at Brown
University in Providence, Rhode Island, featuring “applied ethnomusicologists (who)
work as musical and cultural advocates, using skills and knowledge gained within aca-
demia to serve the public at large. They help communities identify, document, preserve,
develop, present and celebrate the musical traditions they hold dear.”
21. This does not count for their institutional colleagues, who continued to supply the
arrangements for musicians and choreographies for the dancers in folklore ensembles.
22. The Ukrainian/Soviet folk music researcher Kliment Kvitka (1880–1953) proposed
and described the term as early as 1928 (see Lukanyuk, 2006). Interestingly, the second,
enlarged edition of Kunst’s book was published in 1955 under the auspices of IFMC.
23. See Chapter 2 by Harrison in this volume, calling for a reconsideration of this issue.
24. The third objective clearly referred to “recognition of the painful fact that the Second
World War had created deep rifts between nations and peoples” (Stockmann, 1988: 2).
25. Paul Rovsing Olsen, the Council’s President at that time, provided the following com-
ment: “. . . we hope to have found a name which, much better than the original one,
explains what our Council stands for in the world of scholarship—and in the world of
international organizations. The IFMC has been concerned, from its beginnings, with all
kinds of traditional music, not only with ‘folk music.’ This has not always been understood
by outsiders” (Rovsing Olsen, 1981: 2).
26. The first IFMC conference took place in Basel, Switzerland, in 1948.
27. The first issue of the Journal of the International Folk Music Council (predecessor of the
Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council from 1969 and of the Yearbook of the
International Council for Traditional Music from 1981) was published in 1949. The other
publication was the Bulletin of the International Folk Music Council, starting in 1948.
28. In the forthcoming part of this section I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of ICTM’s
Executive Assistant Carlos Yoder.
29. A later version was published in 1992 in the journal African Music.
30. Applied ethnomusicology (and ethnochoreology) became one of the conference themes
22 years after Avorgbedor first mentioned it in his ICTM conference paper.
31. Applied Ethnomusicology and Studies on Music and Minorities—The Convergence
of Theory and Practice with Ursula Hemetek, John O’Connell, Adelaida Reyes, and
Stephen Wild.
32. Including war and revitalization in Croatia of the 1990s and early 2000s. The session was
organized by Naila Ceribašić.
33. Organized by Samuel Araújo (South America) and me (Europe); the other panelists were
Maureen Loughran (North America), Jennifer Newsome (Australia), Patricia Opondo
(Africa), and Tan Sooi Beng (Asia).
34. I initiated the Study Group and became its first Chair; Klisala Harrison became Vice-Chair,
and Eric Martin Usner became Secretary.
35. As I became Secretary General of ICTM in 2011, Klisala Harrison assumed the duties of
the Study Group’s Chair, Samuel Araújo became Vice-Chair, and Britta Sweers became
Secretary.
36. Scholarly journal, published by the Department of Musicology of the University of

Ljubljana. It is available at (http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/MuzikoloskiZbornik/issue/archive).
37. Section 1 of the Introduction, by co-editor Jeff Todd Titon, covers North America, so I did
not include it here.
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Pa rt I I
T H E OR E T IC A L A N D
M E T HOD OL O G IC A L
C ON SI DE R AT ION S
Chapter 1
Tr anscending Re se a rc h e r
Vul nerabilit y T h rou g h
Appl ied Ethnom u si c ol o g y
Dan Bendrups
Success in field work depends on the combination of three things: techni-

cal know-how, substantive knowledge of subject, and a great sensitivity
to the values and feelings of other human beings—these listed in inverse
order of importance.
M. Hood (1982 [1971]: 202)
These words, buried deep within Mantle Hood’s seminal text, The Ethnomusicologist
(1982 [1971]), articulate an awareness of the intimate, emotional dimensions of field-
work, reliant as much on subject knowledge as on interpersonal engagement. They
appear in the preliminary discussion of Hood’s first fieldwork project in West Africa,
which had the somewhat applied aim of producing a film documentary about a per-
formance culture that was otherwise largely absent from, or misrepresented in, the
Western gaze. As his description of the research process unfolds, Hood’s personal inter-
actions with his collaborators are revealed as playing just as important a role as his tech-
nical training in achieving his research aims. Indeed, were it not for his resourcefulness
in managing relationships with others, one is left with the impression that the fieldwork
may have been over before it began. Such impressions are not unique to Hood’s experi-
ence—they are woven through ethnomusicological discourse from A(ubert) to Z(emp),
and they continue to be significant for research in the twenty-first century, where reflex-
ive discussions of interpersonal relationships (whether beneficial or problematic) are
now a standard expectation. Nevertheless, Hood’s earlier narrative is of particular inter-
est because, in the course of explaining his project’s success, he also reflects on its chal-
lenges, revealing in the process the extent of his own vulnerability and uncertainty about
the direction his work was taking at the time.
72 Dan Bendrups
I open with this reference to Hood because his experience exemplifies, in my view, an
aspect of applied ethnomusicology that is deserving of greater exploration: the poten-
tial for applied research outcomes to assist in transcending researcher vulnerabilities
and uncertainties in fieldwork. While applied ethnomusicology is frequently framed as
being responsive to the needs and vulnerabilities of research collaborators, especially
in indigenous and postcolonial contexts, I would argue that it can also serve to provide
researchers with a platform for more effective engagement with their research collabo-
rators, and that applied ethnomusicology should therefore be considered not just as a
methodological choice, but as an ontological means of enhancing and improving eth-
nomusicological practice in general. This consideration provides the impetus for this
chapter, which is, in turn, concerned with how such processes play out in circumstances
of professional and personal vulnerability.
I leave the definition of researcher vulnerability deliberately vague, as differ-
ent researchers will experience vulnerability in different ways, and always in a man-
ner that is relative to their research context and personal circumstances. As others
have observed, researcher vulnerabilities can stem from political interference (Levin,
1996) or natural disaster, to constructs of race (Radano and Bohlman, 2000) and gender
(Babiracki, 2008), and even factors such as personality, musicality, physical ability, or
ideology. I therefore propose “vulnerability” not as a corollary for weakness or deficit,
but as a state of being in which the discursive barriers we erect around our personal
and professional selves are revealed and made permeable. This differs from the “confes-
sional” mode of ethnography (cf. Van Maanen, 1988; also Titon, 2008: 34–35) because
the objective is not to indulge in the researcher’s experience of vulnerability, but to prag-
matically acknowledge that vulnerabilities and uncertainties exist, that this is normal,
and that practical measures can be taken to overcome the barriers that these vulner-
abilities may produce. I contend that such an approach is required because, despite the
excellent reflexive writing already mentioned, fieldwork is still often constructed and
communicated in terms of its successes, underscored by the occasional reticence of eth-
nomusicologists to reveal problematic experiences, lest these be interpreted as resulting
from personal inability, deficiency, or unpreparedness.
This focus on researcher vulnerability was inspired by two particular contributions to
the second edition of the seminal Shadows in the Field (Barz and Cooley, 2008): Deborah
Wong’s candid approach to revealing her own thought processes when experiencing
Asian American performance from an Asian American perspective (2008: 79), and
Nicole Beaudry’s openness in describing the particular vulnerabilities she faced in her
engagements with far north American indigenous communities (2008). However, this
chapter is also a direct manifestation of what I and others have described as a typically
Antipodean approach to the discipline of ethnomusicology (Bendrups, 2012; Corn,
2009; Wild, 2006), in which applied outcomes are often situated at the forefront of
research engagement, especially where marginalized and endangered indigenous music
practices and communities are concerned. It begins with a short discussion of applied
ethnomusicology that considers the paradigm shift (Kuhn, 2012) that this approach to
ethnomusicology has engendered, before providing a targeted overview of influential
Transcending Researcher Vulnerability 73
ethnomusicological works in which various contrasting instances of researcher vulner-

ability may be observed. It then presents two case studies of applied responses to vul-
nerability drawn from my own past fieldwork. These examples have been included not
because they are particularly important or special, but because they provide an oppor-
tunity to be explicit about some of the ways in which researcher vulnerability can be
experienced, with a degree of candidness that would not be possible if the discussion
were to attempt to deconstruct the work of others. The first of these case studies relates
the circumstances surrounding my efforts to establish a digital sound recording archive
on the remote Pacific island of Rapanui (Easter Island). The second explains the process
surrounding the production of a CD recording containing the intangible cultural heri-
tage of the small community of post–World War II Latvian refugees in Christchurch,
New Zealand. These two case studies present many contrasts, yet they both invoke ques-
tions of identity and ethnicity, of musical ability and utility, and the blurring of boundar-
ies between professional and personal agency.
The Applied Ethnomusicology

Paradigm
Applied ethnomusicology has been enthusiastically embraced by scholars world-

wide, and mobilized in diverse research settings, colloquia, and publications.
Whether defined as a subdisciplinary field, a research method, a set of principles, or
something else entirely, it embodies an epistemic rendering of the reflexive research
practices that underpin contemporary ethnomusicology. While it has been correctly
pointed out that the component parts of applied ethnomusicology have always been
apparent in ethnomusicology, and that applied aims exist as a matter of course in
ethnomusicological research, serving to inform the research process (cf. Merriam,
1964; Seeger, 2008: 286), it is nevertheless significant that scholars have only recently
sought to systematize the discourse surrounding this practice by giving it a disciplin-
ary identity.
This process reflects what philosopher Thomas Kuhn has described as a disciplinary
“paradigm shift”—a process that he considered crucial to the progress and develop-
ment of scientific ideas. Kuhn describes a “paradigm” as a set of achievements “suffi-
ciently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing
modes of scientific activity” but, simultaneously “sufficiently open-ended to leave all
sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to resolve” (Kuhn, 2012: 10).
When conceptualized in this way, there are a series of paradigm shifts that can be per-
ceived in the development of applied ethnomusicology. An enduring example of a
paradigm shift in ethnomusicology is the gradual change in research focus from ide-
alized nineteenth-century perceptions of “pure” ethnology toward research prac-
tices that respond to an ever-widening array political, social, and economic coercions.
74 Dan Bendrups
Anthropologists Satish Kedia and John van Willigen assert that their own discipline
developed on an applied basis, evidenced by the role of English anthropology in training
civil servants for colonial posts and in gathering data about colonized and indigenous
peoples for the purposes of better governance (2002: 4). Arguably, similar principles
underpin the training of at least one key Southern Hemisphere ethnomusicologist
(Araújo, 2008: 16).
In circumstances where ethnomusicology has been tied more closely to music
schools and conservatoria, the trend toward embedding ethnomusicological prac-
tice within performance practice, as epitomized by Hood’s advocacy for bi-musicality
(Hood, 1960) constitutes another paradigm shift, positioning ethnomusicology
within the heavily vocational world of the professional performer or composer—a dif-
ferent yet no less influential “applied” research paradigm. This has resulted in ethno-
musicologists engaging with musicians from other cultures on an idealized common
ground of music making, leading to a research paradigm in which applied objectives,
aimed at providing the researchers’ collaborators with financial reward, prestige,
and/or international exposure, have emerged. This is especially the case in interac-
tions with the commercial music industry and in projects centered on recording and
sound reproduction (see especially Feld, 1996; Feld and Crowdy, 2002; Meintjes, 1990;
Zemp, 1996).
Kedia and van Willigen signal that an important change in the notion of applied
anthropology occurred around the time of World War II, as anthropologists began
to respond to the needs and aspirations of the (often disenfranchised and margin-
alized) people with whom they worked (2002: 8). Similar concerns were voiced in
ethnomusicology, and have become ingrained in the discipline’s concern for endan-
gered musical practices, as well as the actions of ethnomusicologists as advocates. As
Daniel Sheehy poignantly asks, “What ethnomusicologist has never gone out of his
or her way to act for the benefit of an informant or community they have studied?”
(1992: 323).
In current practice, some ethnomusicologists (and anthropologists, as well as eth-
nographers in other disciplines) have expanded on this paradigm by using the term
“applied” to signify a social activist agenda. Indeed, Kedia and van Willigen define
applied anthropology as “the application of anthropological knowledge, methodology,
and theoretical approaches to address societal problems and issues” (2002: 1). This may
be conceptualized in the ethnomusicological context as an “approach to the approach
to the study of music” (Sheehy, 1992: 323), but in actuality, “applied” ethnomusicologists
often extend their work into outright and open advocacy for particular musics and peo-
ples, drawing on wide interdisciplinary frames of reference in the process. As Sheehy
notes, applied ethnomusicology is a conscious practice that “begins with a sense of pur-
pose [that is] larger than the advancement of knowledge about music” (1992: 323). Thus,
the current paradigm of applied ethnomusicology, which incorporates these various
preconditions, is sufficiently new and complex to be thought of as a discrete disciplinary
entity, even though its parameters and boundaries are yet to be completely defined.
Professional and Personal

Vulnerability
A further understanding of “applied” research concerns the deliberate positioning of

the researcher within the description of the field, as reflected in Stacey Holman Jones’s
attempts at blurring the boundaries between writer and subject (2007), or Ruth Behar’s
arguments for erasing the line between observed and observer (1996). In both of these
examples, the “applied” aspect of the research implicates the researcher herself as an
agent or protagonist within the research setting, and in both cases, the researcher is
revealed as occupying a somewhat conceptually (if not physically) vulnerable position.
Immersive ethnographic fieldwork is a particularly challenging line of work because
it necessitates that the (trained) professional undertake her practice in the same space
as that in which she is domiciled. It also depends very much on the establishment and
maintenance of productive interpersonal relationships, further blurring the boundar-
ies between professional and personal spaces. In these circumstances, seemingly minor
misunderstandings can have dramatic consequences, not just for the people and com-
munity under the research gaze, but also for the researcher. Nicole Beaudry provides an
evocative example of this, in which her polite rejection of a drunk acquaintance’s amo-
rous advances inadvertently led to him denouncing her as a “government spy” on local
radio, resulting in many of her collaborators temporarily or permanently disengaging
from her research (2008: 240).
While much professional attention has rightly been paid to recognizing and minimiz-
ing the negative or coercive impact of field research on research participants (especially
those who are vulnerable because of histories of marginalization or colonial disenfran-
chisement), the reflexive critique that underscores this attention has a tendency to posi-
tion the researcher in a relatively uncritical position of power. Yet, as many reflexive
fieldwork narratives emphasize, it is not always the case that researchers feel particularly
empowered while in the field, and in many cases, the success of their work depends on
the complete surrendering of power. There is, therefore, a contradiction between the
potential powerlessness of the fieldwork experience and the empowerment and author-
ity experienced by researchers upon obtaining or resuming their professional places as
writers, interlocutors, academics, or performers. While discourses of power and pro-
fessional or personal vulnerability have engaged quite extensively with gender as a fac-
tor of potential significance to fieldwork interactions, they are still far from conclusive.
As Carol Babiracki has observed, “those aspects of doing field research that were most
closely related to the experience of being female in the field were, and to a large extent
still are, discussed not in the official discourse about field research but in a sort of unof-
ficial, underground discourse in which women (and sometimes men) shared experi-
ences and advice about managing sexual miscommunication and harassment…” thus
maintaining the illusion of the “ungendered scholar” (2008: 170). I would argue that
76 Dan Bendrups
this underground discourse also extends to researchers who are un-familied, uncom-
promised by health or well-being concerns, and unburdened by economic hardship.
Unfortunately, these invisibilities both deny the vulnerabilities that may be experienced
by field researchers and conceal potential opportunities for interpersonal engage-
ment on levels other than those pertaining directly to the object of study. Thus, these
important aspects of successful relationship building are also consigned to unofficial
discourse.
The personhood of the researcher is, nevertheless, revealed in some contexts as a rich
contact zone for interpersonal engagement, especially where accompanying family
members are also implicated. This is reflected, for example, in Anthony Seeger’s intro-
duction to Why Suyá Sing (1987), in which the opening narrative explains the manner
in which both he and his wife Judith were taken in by the community, and the particu-
lar nuances of their reception as a couple and as individuals. I had a similar experience
returning to Rapanui with my wife and infant son some years after my initial fieldwork
there. Their presence led to my inclusion in family discussions and domestic contexts
(particularly with women) that were previously inaccessible to me as a single, young,
male researcher years before. The richness of the domestic space as a site for research
is well established. An excellent example of this is provided by Pacific anthropologist
Kalissa Alexeyeff, whose study of dance and music in Rarotonga situates the domestic
environment as the primary locus of her ethnography (2003). Anthony McCann (2007)
takes the domestic frame of reference further, advocating for an approach to ethnogra-
phy that directly responds to real or constructed notions of family and connectedness,
in which interpersonal relationships are not just recognized but foregrounded, in which
older collaborators are conceptualized as (cherished) family members, and in which
collaborators are valued not just in terms of the knowledge they hold (i.e., as “culture
bearers”) but also in terms of their life experience:
[It is] very important for me at the moment to consider this relationship with the
people in the communities where I live.… [To] consider the ways in which, as an aca-
demic, I have been conditioned and trained to write in ways which could often be
regarded as very disrespectful if I were to be standing here speaking to them.
(McCann, 2007)
McCann rallies against the eradication of uncertainty from knowledge, reflecting that
“[o]‌ften, it very much involves simply eliminating people from our work… keeping peo-
ple and the richness of their lives away from the heart of our work” (2007).
While they may not always be subject to theorization, these discourses of person-
hood, family, domestic space, empowerment, and vulnerability have permeated ethno-
musicological writing since the 1970s (see especially Berliner, 1978; Kisliuk, 1998; Levin
1996, 2006). For example, Paul Berliner’s account of engaging with Shona music and
musicians opens with a personified explanation of the pitch structure of the keys of the
mbira, with the lowest pitch designated “father,” the octave above that “mother,” then
“child,” and so on (1978: 1). His discussion of empowerment in his relationship with
master performer Bandambira, meanwhile, is a rather acute example of vulnerability, in

which “[Bandambira] decided that I was worthy of being entrusted with the single piece
of information that I sought to collect from him only after six years of studying mbira
music, three trips to Africa, and many rigorous tests (1978: 7).
Theodore Levin’s ethnographic monograph (1996) begins with a depiction of a differ-
ent kind of vulnerability: brawling and death threats on the train en route to his research
site, before his fieldwork had even begun (1996: 2). His recollections of 1970s Tashkent
leave the reader in no doubt about the disconcerting starkness of Soviet-era urban plan-
ning in Central Asia, which is later contrasted to the richness of the music he encounters.
Levin also provides an example of shifting between scholarly and non-scholarly applied
engagement with his field, becoming, for a time, a tour and concert promoter as a means of
remaining and earning a living in the (former) Soviet Union (1996: 5). These experiences
sit among many other anecdotes that evoke the importance of interpersonal engagement
and the political, cultural, and geographic complexities faced by the Bukharan Jewish com-
munity and others with whom he worked, yet the overall tone of these narratives—and,
indeed, the monograph’s subtitle, “Musical Travels”—perpetuates a focus on the author as
an explorer, vulnerable but resilient in the face of danger and difficulty.
Michelle Kisliuk’s various discussions of her engagements with BaAka music and
dance (1998, 2008) reveal much more about her own personal vulnerabilities in the field,
with extensive segments of writing devoted to instances of confusion, of not knowing
what to do during a particular ritual and her inner analysis of what options were avail-
able in the moment, or of the challenge of reconciling what she expected of herself with
what others expected of her. In one example, she relates her reaction to an unknown
woman’s request for help tending a cut on her leg during a rare ritual dance:
I felt squeezed within a paradox. My experience as a researcher of music and dance

helped me feel close to the BaAka as performers, while strangers like the woman beside
me resisted my efforts to move beyond being stereotyped. She approached me as though
I were a nurse-on-demand, undermining, I felt, my developing role as an apprentice [of
dance] by insisting instead that I conform to her image of white people with medicine.
(2008: 187)
Kisliuk is, nevertheless, aware of the potential for such reflections to become
self-indulgent, and suggests that the way to decide what should be included or excluded
from an ethnographic narrative is to “ask ourselves whether an experience changed us
in a way that significantly affected how we viewed, reacted to, or interpreted the ethno-
graphic material” (2008: 199).
It is with this advice in mind that I now offer the two case studies of applied research
engagement mentioned at the start of this chapter, with the intention of revealing how,
in each case, the particular set of vulnerabilities I experienced led me to the pursuit of
applied research outcomes, which, in turn, allowed me to transcend the barriers I had
faced. Both examples relate to communities that were (and are) marginal and, to some
extent, endangered, but in very different ways. The first example, the creation of a digital
78 Dan Bendrups
music archive for Rapanui, pertains to an indigenous people on an island of around

6,000 inhabitants of whom less than 3,000 are active Rapanui language speakers. As
Rapanui traditional music is a repository of language, history, and cultural knowledge,
traditional songs are very highly valued in Rapanui society, which faces continued neo-
colonial pressure from Chile—the South American nation to which Polynesian Rapanui
belongs. The second example, the production of a CD of Latvian community music in
Christchurch, New Zealand, pertains to a small population of World War II refugees
whose numbers have not been replenished through further waves of migration, and
whose children and grandchildren have mostly moved away to live and work in larger
metropolitan centers such as Auckland or Sydney, consigning the original population to
a slow process of disappearance as community members gradually succumb to old age.
Case Study 1: The Creation of a Digital

Music Archive for Rapanui
In January 2002, after six months of precedential study and fieldwork planning, I arrived
on Rapanui with the intention of documenting the music culture of this remote and
often misrepresented island. The paucity of extant English-language writing on Rapanui
music had made me convinced of the intrinsic value of the doctoral research project
I had planned—filling an obvious gap in extant knowledge—and I naïvely assumed that
my attempt at music-culture documentation would be supported and embraced locally.
However, before reaching the point of being able to make any such contribution to
knowledge, I went through a slow-burn trial by fire that many outsiders who work with
marginalized, colonized, or otherwise disempowered communities will recognize. This
engagement happened gradually over time in dozens of fragmented conversations and
encounters, and the following is but one of many that illustrate the interpersonal chal-
lenge of conducting community-engaged fieldwork on Rapanui.
In February 2002, the annual Tapati Rapa Nui cultural festival was in full swing, and
I undertook to record its musical aspects for reference purposes. On one of my walks
to the open-air festival site, I found my path blocked by a six-foot man with a feathered
crown that elevated his already grand stature, aggressively wielding an au (ceremonial
fighting staff, and ancient signifier of authority). A conversation ensued:
I’ve seen you around, recording things. Are you a journalist?

No, I’m here to do research. I’m a musicologist.
Who sent you here?
I just decided to come—I am interested in Rapanui…
So, what makes you think you can just come here and record things?
Lots of tourists are recording things—all public performances…
But you don’t have permission.
To record?
No, permission to be on Rapanui.

Whose permission do I need?
The people. Me. You need my permission. You need to give me something back if you are
taking things away.
What can I give you?
Right now you can give me your cigarettes, but it’s up to you to make up for what you
take from here. I’ll be watching you. You will need a better answer the next time I stop
you, or you’ll be off this island.
I was perplexed by this encounter, and retold it to some of the musicians with whom
I had begun to collaborate, who were at once amused, embarrassed, and in agreement
with the sentiments their compatriot had expressed. While this man’s confrontational
approach to a “guest” grated with their sense of cultural protocol, the notion that record-
ing equates to “taking” was widely agreed with, as was the invocation of reciprocity, par-
ticularly negotiated acts of reciprocity between individuals, as a pathway to permission.
In time, I learned that my confronter was a social agitator and activist known for his
quirkiness and aggressiveness, publicly tolerated and sometimes encouraged by the wider
community, but rarely afforded formal endorsement by Rapanui cultural and political
authorities. This man’s intense reaction to my mere presence stuck with me for a long time,
and I decided that I would not be comfortable with my presence on Rapanui until I could
demonstrate reciprocal intentions that even he would consider appropriate. I set out to
answer his challenge by taking stock of what I was actually capable of contributing to the
community, and to my horror I quickly realized that I didn’t really have very much to offer.
Traditional music is important to Rapanui culture because it is a repository of ancient
language, of histories, legends, and beliefs, making it a conduit to the ancestors. In the
twenty-first century, traditional music also serves political purposes, as a reminder to
current political elites that a pre-contact Rapanui once existed. Contemporary music
is likewise important as a marker of an independent cultural identity, as a vector of lan-
guage and performance practices that demark Rapanui culture as being both related to
other Polynesian cultures and yet unique. For these reasons, culturally engaged Rapanui
music research is complex and demanding, requiring either the ability to materially sup-
port the work of musicians, or to make in-kind contributions that add value to the local
music scene in ways that serve artistic as well as social and political needs. As a (mere)
PhD student, working independently and outside any larger research-funding frame-
work, my capacity to make any significant financial contribution to Rapanui cultural
needs was negligible. Rapanui is a lightning rod for boutique cultural tourism because
of its unique archaeological heritage, and many of those who work and travel there are
either generously funded or independently wealthy. Lacking stores of personal wealth
from which to draw, I could only offer my time and skills in return for the investment of
time and knowledge that my research collaborators were investing in me.
As a conservatorium-trained trombonist, freelance performer, and school music
teacher, I was confident that there may be some outlet for my musical expertise on
Rapanui; however, this was not immediately the case. Contemporary performance culture
on Rapanui revolves around the guitar, and as a brass specialist, my instrumental skills had
80 Dan Bendrups
no place in the context of local music making. I eventually found opportunities for col-
laborative performance with local reggae-influenced bands, but within the wider music
community, any credibility I might have had as a musician and possible music teacher was
countered by the fact that I was useless on guitar. Partly because of these perceived short-
comings as a contemporary musician, I found my research focus gravitating toward more
traditional musical forms that were not so guitar-focused. This led to an apprenticeship of
sorts with renowned music expert Kiko Pate, of whom I have written elsewhere (Bendrups,
2007), resulting in my acquisition—in memory and on record—of around 130 songs from
his repertoire, some of which had been handed down to him directly over generations.
Kiko transmitted this knowledge to me in 2002 and 2003, and I was desperately
eager to pass it on to others in the community, but there were two barriers. First, as a
non-islander and non-resident, I was incapable of taking up any kind of formal or infor-
mal teaching role in Rapanui society, and I could not hope to replicate traditional teach-
ing methods. Second, Kiko was concerned about his repertoire being passed around
the community without his direct guidance (I believe he initially consented to teach me
because I was an outsider, and therefore unburdened by the intricate internal politics of
authority and ownership in Rapanui music). So, having acquired a deep understanding
of some rather ancient aspects of traditional Rapanui music, I was not yet authorized
to make much of a contribution to the sustainability of this music through further dis-
semination and transmission. However, having now amassed a substantial collection of
field recordings in the course of my daily investigations, my thoughts turned to the field
collections of others, and I began to investigate the whereabouts of earlier field record-
ings taken from Rapanui. If I was ever to answer the question of what I could do for
Rapanui culture, then this was surely it: I decided to hunt down every remaining histori-
cal recording with a view to securing their digitalization and repatriation to Rapanui.
This plan had quite a few barriers. First, I had no resources from which to seed the
beginnings of an archive. Second, I lacked specific training in sound archiving (though
many years of performing in commercial music contexts and as an occasional studio
musician meant that I had a working understanding of sound recording and produc-
tion). Third, I had no idea of the actual extent of historical field recordings from Rapanui,
or the manner of their preservation in overseas collections. Nevertheless, I suspected
that I may have found a moral and ethical justification for my presence on (and “in”)
Rapanui, and I confirmed this suspicion in multiple conversations with Rapanui musi-
cians and culture brokers, including the confronting individual mentioned earlier.
I began to explore the institutions that existed on Rapanui in the hope of finding one
with appropriate facilities for hosting a digital music archive. The Father Sebastian Englert
Anthropological Museum (MAPSE) was one of two such places (the other being the
municipal library), and the museum’s capacity to manage archival records had expanded
in 2003 with the construction of the William Mulloy Library, funded and built in the
famous archaeologist’s name, to house his collection of print and media records from his
own Rapanui fieldwork in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The library had new computer ter-
minals, as well as a climate-controlled archive room. State-funded, MAPSE is an incredible
resource for such a small island, and I had made occasional research visits there through
2002 and 2003, so I was aware of its value as a repository of cultural heritage. I was also
aware of a perception among parts of the Rapanui community of the museum as a neoco-
lonial institution run by Chileans, responding to Chilean government priorities, and there-
fore “not very Rapanui.” I approached MAPSE about the potential of hosting the music
archive because of their new facilities, on the one hand, but also because I thought that the
music collection might be a way of enticing more local people to frequent the museum,
and that this might help to break down some of the barriers between the institution and
the community it served. Thus, the choice of the collection’s location was not just a mat-
ter of facilities, but also an opportunity for improving community engagement with these
facilities.
MAPSE was sympathetic to these observations, and offered to house the (future)
collection. I proposed that a computer terminal could be loaded with free audio soft-
ware (iTunes, only recently available for PC in 2003), which would serve as a database
for the collection, and that a set of high-quality DVD backup disks and a portable
hard disk would take up very little space in the archive room. With this agreement
in place, I began to look for the field recordings that would complete the collec-
tion. I found the first lot closer than expected, in the hands of Rapanui islander Tote
Tepano (Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1 Tote Tepano, dressed for Tapati festival participation, carrying tape recorder.
Photo by the author.
82 Dan Bendrups
Tote was (and is) an unconventional individual for Rapanui. Unmarried, and
unburdened by family responsibilities, he dedicated much of his time to causes on the
periphery of mainstream community interest, such as caring for stray dogs and pur-
suing environmental improvements. He was not involved in regular paid employment
at that time, but was an adept carver of replicas of traditional artifacts, which he occa-
sionally sold at the artisan market. He was also interested in sound recording—a pur-
suit facilitated by a cassette tape recorder given to him by a tourist many years before,
and supplies of tapes and batteries donated to him on request by the mayor’s office. Tote
had been my recording companion at the Tapati festivals of 2002 and 2003, and he had
made it clear that, while outsiders like me were very welcome, it was also important that
these events be captured by a Rapanui person, with a Rapanui perspective. Indeed, Tote
had an established reputation on the island as an eccentric but enthusiastic recorder of
events, and he made a small amount of money each year selling duplicates of his cassette
recordings to anyone who wanted them. He hoped that this would ultimately develop
into a more financially rewarding enterprise over time, as future generations would
surely place great value on the intangible cultural heritage he had captured and which he
alone possessed.
When I informed Tote of the plan to create a digital archive, he invited me to the small
tin-roof shack in which he lived so that I could see the full extent of his past record-
ing efforts. Lined up before me were multiple polystyrene cargo boxes full of cassettes,
stretching back to the early 1980s. As far as he was concerned, the archive already
existed: boxed up in his comfortable, yet completely unsealed dirt floor home. Having
never received any education in the handling of tape, Tote was unaware of the suscepti-
bility of his tapes to humidity, fungus, and rot, and my initial attempts to convince him
of the precariousness of his collection were met with skepticism. This was, after all, his
lifelong project and retirement plan. I did what I could to explain how the island humid-
ity and sea air might cause the tapes to corrode, and eventually he began to realize that
there were factors beyond his control at play in the preservation of his collection. Tote
agreed to allow some of his collection to be digitized and made accessible to the public,
in return for permission to store the rest of his collection at the museum, and to be given
a space at the museum in which to carry out his recording work.
Digitizing Tote’s collection was a far greater task than could be easily achieved on
Rapanui. Serendipitously, however, back in Sydney, the Pacific and Regional Archive
for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) had been established in
2003 with a mandate to protect recordings of endangered languages. With a native
speaker population below 2,000 people at that time, Rapanui was clearly within the
“endangered” range, and PARADISEC generously offered to make their facilities avail-
able for the digitization of Tote’s tapes. With help from MAPSE and from the Rapanui
branch of CONADI (the former Corporación Nacional de Desarollo Indígena [National
Corporation of Indigenous Development]), I secured funding from the Chilean govern-
ment to enable Tote to fly to Sydney with a selection of his recordings, and for six weeks,
he shared a one-bedroom suburban Sydney apartment with my wife and I while we went
about the digitization process.
The decision to work in this way with Tote was a challenge, not only because of the
impact of his presence on my home and study spaces, but also because of how it might
be perceived by others on Rapanui. Tote was not someone with whom I had previously
shared a close working relationship, and I was concerned that my efforts to work with
him instead of some of my closer collaborators and, by this stage, friends, could be a
source of confusion or even insult. On my return to Rapanui in late 2004, some musi-
cians expressed concern about my efforts to bring him to Australia, rather than a culture
bearer of higher prestige or experience, or someone with established cross-cultural cre-
dentials who might be a better ambassador for Rapanui. Indeed, Tote almost didn’t make
it to Sydney: he had boarded his flight in Chile adorned in traditional regalia, including
a crown of feathers and natural fibers that Australian customs officials would not nor-
mally permit into the country. At the border inspection, Tote’s lack of English and his
unusual baggage (consisting of one box of cassettes, one change of clothes, no cash, and
no credit cards) were cause for concern, and it was only by pure chance that a bilingual
Chilean passenger, who was familiar with Rapanui, saw his predicament and stopped to
advocate on his behalf with customs and immigration inspectors. Thankfully, both he
and the cassettes he carried were cleared, and soon entered into the PARADISEC col-
lection, with copies to be returned to Tote and to the MAPSE library archive for public
appreciation.
Digital copies of formal archive collections were much easier to obtain. I had met
Archive of Maori and Pacific Music director Richard Moyle through my association
with the International Council on Traditional Music (ICTM), and he readily made the
Rapanui content of the AMPM available for digital duplication. Two other collections
of Rapanui sound recordings belonging to previous ethnographic researchers Jorge
Urrutia Blondel and Margot Loyola Palacios were available in university collections
in Chile, and thus were easy to access via formal channels. By the end of 2004, I had
accumulated a digital collection containing more than 30 hours of historical record-
ings, much of which had never been heard on Rapanui, and I set about assembling
the archive using the free software and computer facilities mentioned above (a more
detailed description of this process is provided in Bendrups, 2005). In the hope that
future recordings might be added to the collection, I adapted and translated the acces-
sion and permission documentation used by PARADISEC for MAPSE purposes, and
subsequently set about promoting the digital archive within the Rapanui community.
Outcomes
More than a decade has passed since the Rapanui music archive was first envisioned,
and in that time, technological change on Rapanui has resulted in far greater media
engagement than could have been imagined in 2003. The island has gone from having
sporadic satellite-dependent landline telecommunications access to a widespread pro-
liferation of mobile phones and Internet cafes, making the fixed-location digital music
collection format seem a little outmoded. Nevertheless, certain beneficial outcomes can
84 Dan Bendrups
be observed. For the Rapanui community, the archive provides assurance that (some
of) their intangible cultural heritage is protected, as well as providing symbolic affir-
mative resonances of repatriation. Over the last eight years, few of my close research
collaborators have actually made use of the archive—they are largely confident enough
in their own knowledge of repertoire that they do not seek affirmation from histori-
cal sources—but they are glad simply to know that it is there. For Tote Tepano, being
involved with MAPSE has provided more stability for his recording work, and as his
contribution is acknowledged directly by name, his role in contributing to the preserva-
tion of Rapanui cultural heritage is therefore readily recognized, lending greater pres-
tige to his efforts.1
For MAPSE, the music archive is tangible evidence of the museum’s commitment to
sustaining and preserving Rapanui culture, and has already facilitated further sound
recording preservation and repatriation work, such as the Fonck Museum’s Felbermayer
project in 2012 (see Bendrups, 2013). The music archive’s role as a conduit to engagement
with the community has, however, been outshined by a subsequent (and considerably
better-funded) digitization project dealing with historical photographs of Rapanui peo-
ple and places, which are more numerous, more tangible, and of more immediate and
direct relevance to many more individuals in Rapanui society. Nevertheless, the music
collection remains prominent in the museum library’s organizational structure, and has
gone from being a fringe project occupying one computer terminal to an integrated part
of the library’s collection.
For me, the archive represents a tangible act of reciprocity, and I remain convinced of
its value and appropriateness as a response to my inability to contribute meaningfully in
other ways to Rapanui music and society. It also provides me with a place to deposit new
items as I continue my commitment to returning extant field recordings to the island as
and when I find them. As this discussion has revealed, however, the archive was not the
original aim of the research, nor was it conceived through any actual expertise or inter-
est in archiving. Rather, it came about as a result of my deficiencies and vulnerabilities
in other areas. Furthermore, it was achieved through a skill set drawing not from ethno-
graphic or archival training but from commercial performance experience, through the
exploitation of personal contacts, the goodwill of senior scholars in my region, and the
forbearance of my wife and research collaborators in supporting an outcome deemed to
be of service to the greater good.
Case Study 2: Uz Tēvu Mājām and

the Christchurch Latvian Diaspora
In 2004, I obtained my first real job in academia, migrating to Dunedin, New Zealand,
to take up a position in ethnomusicology and popular music at the University of Otago,
where my Rapanui research resonated with the university’s strategic goals in Pacific
cultural research. A broad requirement of Otago academic staff was (and is) that
their research should have some element of local community engagement, and in the
process of developing this, I became aware of the community of Latvian migrants in
Christchurch, not far from Dunedin. As extant sources assert, music has historically
been of enormous significance to the maintenance of Latvian cultural identity (cf.
Boiko, 2001), and this was especially the case for these post–World War II exiles con-
fronted by the political reality of a homeland that had been subsumed into the (former)
Soviet Union.
As a descendant of post–World War II Latvian refugees in Australia, I was notion-
ally a cultural “insider” in this community, and my Latvian surname alone is suffi-
cient evidence of this for anyone within the Latvian diaspora. However, as a child of
a family that chose to assimilate into Australian society, discarding a homeland lan-
guage and many other customs that my grandparents perceived as being of little use
to a future in Australia, my cultural competency is somewhat lacking. Indeed, I have
clear memories as a teenager of being shunned at Latvian community events because
of my Latvian language deficiencies. For a child of Latvians to be unable to communi-
cate in Latvian would certainly have been perceived as a tragedy by the more conser-
vative first-generation members of the migrant community. Consequentially, up until
the events recounted here, I had little further interaction with the Latvian diaspora
community.
My interest in Latvian music had been rekindled on Rapanui. One afternoon
in late 2004, having worked together over the course of two years to transcribe,
rehearse, and record his songs, Kiko looked at me and said “That’s it. That’s all my
songs. There are others, I guess, but they won’t come to me now.” I made us some tea,
and we sat for a while watching the clouds gather over the Maunga Terevaka volcano.
Then with a slightly capricious tone, Kiko said, “So, I’ve taught you my songs… why
don’t you teach me some of yours?” I initially laughed at the question, as there is no
real equivalent of the Rapanui concept of songs as treasured possessions, passed
down through families over generations, in Australian settler society. Similar ideas
may exist in indigenous Australian music traditions, I replied, but these were out-
side my experience and capacity to communicate. Otherwise, Australian songs were
mostly bastardized Irish ballads or insignificant novelty items referencing typical
Australian fauna. That night I continued to reflect on Kiko’s question, as I did not
feel that I had given him a very good answer, until I realized that perhaps I did pos-
sess songs after all: those brought from Latvia and maintained in exile over 60 years,
if not by my immediate family, then by my uncle, a choral director, and his many
choristers. I resolved to return to Kiko in the near future with a better knowledge of
these songs.
It was from this position of vulnerability in my cultural competency that my engage-
ment with the Christchurch Latvian community began, and it was through yet another
process of negotiating vulnerabilities that I arrived at the applied research project that
is the focus of the following discussion. I ultimately found the Christchurch commu-
nity to be very welcoming, completely unlike my teenage experiences in Melbourne,
86 Dan Bendrups
but I was initially very nervous about making contact. This nervousness abated with
the birth of my son in 2007 (and subsequently, my daughter in 2010), who became the
nexus of my interactions with the community, as he, and then she, drew attention away
from me at community events. Bearing identifiably Latvian names (Boriss and Maija),
my children symbolized the continuity of the Latvian diaspora community in the eyes of
some elders, and they were young enough that (unlike me) no level of cultural compe-
tency could really be expected of them (and, indeed, still young enough to be taught). As
they became a little older, they were able to interact with other Latvian community chil-
dren, giving me an opportunity to interact with their parents and grandparents with-
out needing (uncomfortable) justifications for this interaction, or for asking questions
about musical practices that that I should, if I were culturally competent, already have
known. As such, my children became vital collaborators in my research process, helping
to compensate for some of my own vulnerabilities.
It was through these interactions that I became aware of a tape recording that had
been made in the early 1980s, featuring the guitars and voices of the community’s origi-
nal songmen, Rūdis Krauze (Rudi) and Paulis Puriņš (Paul). Rudi and Paul had been
active musicians in Latvia before the war, and after their arrival in Christchurch they
became the mainstay of the community’s celebrations. That role was subsequently
handed over to their protégé Miervaldis “Merv” Altments (in his sixties at the time of
writing), who has a particular gift for the more raucous songs in the folk repertoire, and
Figure 1.2 Paulis Puriņš (center) with Miervaldis Altments (far left) at a Christchurch
Latvian community celebration in the mid-1980s.
whose presence at each celebration ensures the continuity of live music performance for
the community at the time of writing (Figure 1.2).
The recording had been made at the behest of Rudi’s son Karl, who arranged for the
duo to use up some spare time in a friend’s recording studio. The resulting tape contained
a number of well-known Latvian folk songs from the 1930s and 1940s, but also an origi-
nal composition by the duo, Uz Tēvu Mājām, “To Father’s House.” This particular song
is a poignant representation of the Latvian diaspora experience, articulating the sense
of disjuncture felt by many in the community, exacerbated by the observation that their
“fathers’ houses” had, by this stage, been collectivized and reallocated to Russian immi-
grants, as dictated by Soviet policies that sought to erase privilege but also to dilute the
ethnic Latvian population to a point where they could no longer lay claim to ethnic differ-
ence from Russia:
Uz Tēvu Mājām, “To Father’s House”

(Translation by the author)
Uz Tēvu Mājām, sirds man tiecās
To Father’s house, my heart will travel
Kur mātes balss man mīļi teic
My mother’s loving voice I hear
Tie skaistie meži ezeri un kalni
The beautiful woods, lakes, and mountains
Tie aicinā uz dzimteni
They call to me from my homeland
Tur bērzu birzes tāpat vel zaļos
The birch copses are still green
Un saule druvās zeltu lej
The sun pours gold on the wheat fields
No tālienes es dzirdu zvanu skaņas
From afar, the mellow sound of bells can be heard
Un nopūtas kas skumjas pauž
And the sigh of sadness
Tur meža vidū, tēva mājās
In the middle of the forest, [in] my father’s house
Kur mātes soļus atceros
Where I remember mother’s footsteps
Tur tagad staigā daudzi sveši ļaudis
There now walk many foreigners
Tas bij kādreiz mans dzimtais nams
In the house where I was born.
The cassette was not commercially released, but was copied and distributed freely
throughout the diaspora community, with many copies ending up in Australia, and
some possibly reaching the larger Latvian communities in the United Kingdom and
88 Dan Bendrups
Canada. It was also played on New Zealand national radio, with an added verse in
English. In this way, Uz Tēvu Mājām became known well beyond the rather limited
and isolated geography of the Latvian community in Christchurch.
When I inquired as to the whereabouts of a copy of this tape, a worrying real-
ization was made: it appeared that there were no copies left, or that those that did
exist were worn out or otherwise unplayable. Once again, it occurred to me that
I could play a beneficial role for this community if I could obtain a copy of the tape
to digitize. This time, however, I had the full force of my university department’s
well-appointed recording studio behind me, and funding for the professional pro-
duction of a CD, including studio mastering and commercial printing. And once
again, this initiative would rely on skills in an area of the music practice (studio
recording and production) that was not part of my ethnomusicological training,
nor encompassed within the usual ethnographic parameters of a small migrant
community study.
Karl eventually provided me with a copy of the tape (his last one). Meanwhile,
I had approached Merv about recording some of his songs in the recording studio in
Dunedin, a project he became quite enthusiastic about. This initiative became the basis
for a theoretical exploration of “doing” fieldwork in a recording studio context (see
Bendrups, 2011) but also was an opportunity to “give back” to the community by digi-
tally remastering the much-loved recording of Rudi and Paul. The resulting double CD
Lai Atskan Dziesmas (“Let the Songs Resound,” encompassing both the new and the
old) was released to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of the community’s arrival in
Christchurch.
Outcomes
In this second example of applied ethnomusicology, a typical commercial music pro-
duction process took the place of other, more traditional approaches to ethnographic
fieldwork. The ethnographic engagement happened in the recording studio context,
enabling an interpersonal dynamic based less on a dichotomy of researcher-researched,
and more on musicians as co-creators of a musical product. While initially unfamiliar
with the studio context, Merv had control over the product, and responded well to the
opportunity to review and re-record take by take. This process also enabled him to make
suggestions about other elements of the recording, such as adding kokle (Latvian zither)
to certain tracks. I did this myself, as there were no other kokle players in Dunedin. The
studio production process allowed me to do this in multiple takes, which was necessary
because my kokle playing skills are very basic, and certainly not sufficient to perform
effectively in a live recording context. More important, the research process resulted
in the remastering and repackaging of the community’s sole historical recording, now
commemorated and preserved in a more sustainable medium, and presented alongside
the contemporary performances of Merv Altments.
Conclusion
Both of the case studies presented here reveal researcher vulnerabilities that were either
pre-existing or that became apparent during the course of fieldwork, and both dem-
onstrate the potential for practical, applied projects to provide a means of transcend-
ing the barriers that these vulnerabilities can create. In both cases, access to a wider
network of sound recording production (whether for archival or commercial pur-
poses) proved to be vital, though this reliance on production facilities may simply be
a matter of coincidence. Where Tote Tepano was once the only Rapanui islander to be
regularly recording performances in his community, legions of Rapanui youth armed
with smartphones and other digital recording devices now record local performances,
uploading many of them to open-access mass-media Internet sites like YouTube, and
making recordings of their unique performance culture more readily accessible and
widely dispersed than ever before. Where the Latvians are concerned, it is unlikely
that the Christchurch community will ever seek to produce another CD, and profes-
sional Latvian musicians elsewhere in the diaspora have no trouble procuring record-
ing opportunities when the need arises. So, while I was able to mobilize support for
this particular community recording project, this sort of process may be less relevant
in the future, as communities around the world have increasing independent access to
digital recording facilities. In the example presented here, commercial-quality record
production was never intended as a primary research aim, and was not informed by
any particular expertise or skill on my part—it just became the most obvious pathway
to achieving objectives that would benefit the community in each case. In other cir-
cumstances, I’m sure that I would have found other ways to make myself “useful,” and
that these would have similarly involved tapping into my private, personal, familial,
and communal resources.
As long as ethnomusicology continues to be defined by the centrality of fieldwork to
the discipline, there will be interpersonal terrain to negotiate, and researcher vulner-
abilities to be acknowledged and confronted. As the case studies presented here dem-
onstrate, the incorporation of applied objectives into the research process can provide
an effective way of ensuring that the research is responsive to interpersonal factors and
justifiable in its own terms as an act of public or private (interpersonal) good. If anything
can be gleaned from the experiences I have recounted here, it is that applied ethnomu-
sicology has a role to play in enabling and embodying fieldwork reciprocity, regardless
of whether the research context is in a remote or metropolitan setting, and regardless of
the degree to which the research is contributing to broader cultural sustainability.
While the Rapanui example presented a music culture with far greater sustainability needs
than that of the Christchurch Latvians (whose music culture is, of course, also sustained in
Latvia itself), both communities were receptive to the outputs resulting from the research.
I would argue that this is not just because of the cultural value of the digital archive collection
or the CD production, but because in each case the outputs were arrived at through a process
90 Dan Bendrups
of negotiation in which both my interests and the interests of my collaborators were consid-
ered. Within days of my initial arrival on Rapanui, I realized that my research priorities may
not entirely coincide with the interests and priorities of those whose culture I had come to
study, and that this was itself a source of substantial vulnerability, as I could be simply asked
to leave or desist at any moment. In subsequent research, I have drawn from this experience
by trying to establish common ground with research collaborators from the beginning, and
it is the epistemic construct of “applied” ethnomusicology, in which mutually beneficial and
often tangible outcomes can be foregrounded, that makes such negotiation possible.
Note
1. See http://www.museorapanui.cl/Biblioteca/LaColeccion.htm
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Chapter 2
Evaluating Va lu e s i n
Klisala Harrison
Evaluating the purpose and effectiveness of applications of music, music knowledge,

and ethnomusicology is currently the focus of much applied ethnomusicology research.
Most applied research does not explicate values, even though they are inherent to the
work. The term “values” refers here to value judgments that are epistemological in
nature or that are experienced ontologically or metaphysically. There is no way that an
academic can avoid having values shape what he or she studies and works on, although
some social scientists would argue that one should not let values influence the conclu-
sion of research (Weber, 1949: 112). Nevertheless, a growing number of ethnomusicolo-
gists assess the success of the interventions they make, sometimes with collaborators,
thus promoting the pursuit of what they value. Others assess musical interventions that
aim to correct problems such as conflict, poverty, or the erosion of intangible cultural
heritage (Harrison, Mackinlay, and Pettan, 2010).
Although a number of scholars have called for further theorization of the nature of
evaluation in applied work (Lomax Hawes, 1992; Titon, 1992), such theories remain
underdeveloped regarding research practices. In this chapter, I argue that applied eth-
nomusicology projects should be evaluated in terms of how they navigate the value sys-
tems of the people they engage. Applied ethnomusicological work could be much clearer
about its values. The study of these value systems—in other words, an ethnomusicology
of values—should inform the design and assessment of projects. Such study would con-
tribute to research in applied ethnomusicology and theorize the ethical stances taken in
applied work. As the basis for a new model for studying value systems, I propose a return
to the idea of value judgments from early ethnomusicology. I illustrate how my model
might be used via ethnographic examples from my research, service, teaching, and per-
formance projects on popular music, indigenous Canadian music, and music theater
in the urban poverty context of the Downtown Eastside neighborhood of Vancouver,
Canada. I also ask and answer questions about evaluating values in applied ethnomusi-
cology. For example, whose values does applied work support?
94 Klisala Harrison
Applied Ethnomusicology Research
Ethnomusicologists who research applications of music and musical and ethnomu-

sicological knowledge seek to further understand those applications; any increased
understanding ideally informs future applications. Such applied ethnomusicology
research is undertaken by ethnomusicologists, and by ethnomusicologists together with
non-ethnomusicologists, students, and practitioners engaged in the field (Araújo, 2008).
Evaluation of how applied ethnomusicology projects navigate the value systems of
the people they engage can develop in various kinds of social forums. Forums of applied
ethnomusicology include all sorts of public presentations (for instance, academic and
non-academic publications), social interactions and networks, and the analyses of
people’s participation in the applications. Needless to say, applied ethnomusicology
research always includes projects that engage participants.
In academic publications that present research results, many evaluations now com-
prise a “planning and testing praxis” that includes reflection on applications as well as
relevant descriptions and analyses of cultural patterns (Keil, 1998: 303–304). Recent
examples include the edited volume Music and Conflict (O’Connell and Castelo-Branco,
2010) and the special half-issue of the Yearbook for Traditional Music titled Music and
Poverty. The former questioned how music has defined conflict differently in differ-
ent circumstances (e.g., in war or after human displacement); how music can be used
to promote peace; and how ethnomusicologists can mediate and resolve conflicts. The
latter examined the relationship of music to poverty in Nepal, Brazil, Canada, Haiti,
India, and the United States. As editor, I asked contributing authors to begin to theorize
music and poverty relationships, with attention to how music may or may not influence
aspects of living in poverty (Harrison, 2013a, 2013c).
Non-academic publications evaluating the use of music, music knowledge, and eth-
nomusicology in solving concrete problems likewise present results of research, for
example, in “gray literature” such as year-end reports of nongovernmental or govern-
mental organizations, and in end-project reports for granting agencies. On the other
hand, research processes and analyses unfold in social interactions and networks, and
in researchers’ own analyses. These could be especially influential forums for an eth-
nomusicology of values. There, applied ethnomusicologists and practitioners address
interventions-in-progress to a greater extent than in academic and gray literatures.
Outside academe, ethnomusicologists interact as volunteers or employees at public,
private, or third-sector organizations, where they may evaluate and intervene in music’s
relationship to an issue or issue area. Such activities inform or shape research. For exam-
ple, during the course of my research on music in the Downtown Eastside, I served on
the Advisory Committee on Cultural Diversity to the Mayor and Council of the City
of Vancouver. Committee members offered input to the council on whether local cul-
tural activities, including music, taking place in and funded by the City met the needs of
Vancouver’s population.
Evaluating Values in Applied Ethnomusicology 95
Inside academe, academic institutes, networks, and conferences facilitate applied

ethnomusicology research and related analysis. At the symposia of the International
Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology,
for example, so-called talking circles discuss applied interests of symposium speakers.
These circles are efforts to raise the level of scholarly discourse on topics of applied eth-
nomusicology research and practice by providing a forum for the cross-fertilization of
ideas, finding a common ground of shared meanings and experiences, and formulating
pertinent questions and issues for further research.
What ethnomusicology professors identify as applied ethnomusicology for their
mentees and students influences the future of the field (O’Connell and Castelo-Branco,
2010: 250). Teaching can be an intervention that stimulates applied research in students.
For instance, when I gave, as a Ph.D. student, a guest lecture on indigenous music in the
Downtown Eastside for Jeff Todd Titon’s world music class at Brown University, he told
me that I was doing “applied ethnomusicology research.”
Other examples of applied ethnomusicology research, and their social forums, are
not easily classifiable as academic or non-academic, or as research results or processes
overall, except in specific cases. The “head work” of applied researchers, which pro-
duces critical evaluations and research processes and results, falls into this category.
Other examples may include an evaluative part of a musical performance, of a recording
(including liner notes as well as the music), of teaching music or about music, or of a
museum exhibit—when research lies behind the evaluation.
The Role of Values in Ethnomusicology

and Applied Ethnomusicology
Applied ethnomusicology scholars have claimed that the field is reflexive, including in
the field’s social forums and in research. Titon stated in 1992 that applied ethnomusicol-
ogy attempts the
reflexive theorizing of practice that is aware of the consequences of situating eth-

nomusicology both inside the academy and outside of it, one that, in the words of
Habermas, “investigates the constitutive historical complex of the constellation of
self-interests to which the theory still belongs across and beyond its acts of insight,”
yet one that “studies the historical interconnectedness of action, in which the theory,
as action-oriented, can intervene” (1974: 2).
(Titon, 1992: 319)
Explicating values that are relevant to applied ethnomusicology, which heretofore have
been implied, would benefit self-reflection in applied ethnomusicology scholars as well
as in other cultural workers making relevant applications.
96 Klisala Harrison
In the following, I explicate some values of applied ethnomusicological work on musi-

cal sustainability. Through this and a second example, I argue for a fuller consideration
of values in applied ethnomusicology research. This would include reviving the idea of
value judgments from early ethnomusicology.
Efforts and evaluations toward musical sustainability focus mostly on musical
sounds, tools, practices, and people (Titon, 2009). Such undertakings include, for exam-
ple, sound archive projects (e.g., Thram, 2014), museums including musical content and
instruments, audiovisual documentation works aimed at preservation (e.g., Simon,
1991), or businesses that make traditional musical instruments (e.g., African Musical
Instruments in South Africa; http://www.kalimba.co.za). Some research also theorizes
what sustains musical expressions (http://soundfutures.org; http://sustainablemusic.
blogspot.com).
Musical sustainability initiatives and evaluations pursue the values—although eth-
nomusicologists usually do not identify these as such—of sustaining musical genres
and instruments and people making music, rather than, for example, respectively
censoring, destroying, and discouraging them. These opinions may seem difficult to
disagree with, but they do not acknowledge the value systems of all people who either
cause a need for, or undertake, sustainability activism and scholarship.
A main limitation of the implicit valuation in applied ethnomusicology today is that
it sometimes risks shutting out other valued approaches, even though they may be
engaged by the project. This critique can be made of much applied work that takes one
particular perspective on an issue—for example, of minority rights or conflict—and
tries, through applying music, musical knowledge, or ethnomusicology, to work toward
resolving the issue.
My second example—which its author does not identify as applied—is Steven Feld’s
project Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra, which refers to a book (Feld, 2012), and to the
recording of 15 DVDs and CDs between 2005 and 2010.1 Nonetheless, ethnomusicolo-
gists often identify the production and dissemination of recordings as actions of applied
ethnomusicology (e.g., Seeger, 2006: 223; Sweers, 2010). I use this example to suggest
that future work in applied ethnomusicology could theorize values more inclusively as
well as more thoroughly.
Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra approached recording and values through Feld’s
notion of acoustemology. Acoustemology refers to the “epistemology of sound” and
“sound as a way of knowing and knowledge production” (Feld, 2013). Values locate
within epistemologies. I will focus further on one CD, Bufo Variations, described in
the book. This recording features master drummer and jazz experimentalist Nii Otoo
Annan, who improvised—on diverse melodic and percussion instruments, including
xylophone, guitar, drums, and bells—12 tracks while he listened on headphones to a
looped recording of toads croaking. The CD concept emerged after Feld, when walk-
ing in Accra one evening, heard Bufo regularis toads singing in the polyrhythm of
3:2:4:6. Feld wondered whether this acoustic environment could have influenced the
polyrhythms of Ghanaian music. Before Feld recorded Annan to the track of the toads
croaking, he also played to him Bach’s Goldberg Variations (Annan, 2008; Feld, 2013).
Feld stimulated a cosmopolitan music not only inspired by the experience of nature
in the world, but also by human experiences of sound and music across culture, place,
and time, of immediately known and unfamiliar beings, human and not human. Feld’s
approach to research and action on acoustemology includes the possibility of diverse
acoustemologies, and therefore values and value systems, which is what I would like to
highlight here.
How can applied ethnomusicologists begin to better understand the different val-
ues engaged by their projects? Reviving the idea of value judgments, pioneered by early
ethnomusicologists, especially Alan Merriam, provides a basis for addressing the ques-
tion. In The Anthropology of Music (1964), Merriam wrote that early ethnomusicologists
made sets of judgments derived from the sound structure studied, unless the culture
they were studying already had an elaborated theory of musical sound. In Enemy Way
Music, for example, David McAllester (1954) had summarized how Navajo music both
reflected values across generations and led to value formation. Just after Merriam pub-
lished his book, Charles Seeger published “Preface to a Critique of Music” (1965). This
essay, which elaborates the basic idea found in Merriam (1964), outlined the sorts of
human relationships that inform the value-inclinations of the musicologist, as well as
the tools that the musicologist used to assert values, which Seeger identified as speech
and, less often, music. Seeger also described sources of evidence for value judgments
about music—individual taste, collective taste (general and musical), history (general
and musical), sciences (non-musical and musical), and law—with the aim of theorizing
the criteria and modalities of critiques made about music in musicology.
While Seeger worked with value judgments on a theoretical level, Merriam wrote
about methodology. After observing that ethnomusicologists had neglected folk theo-
ries about music, Merriam encouraged them to undertake “folk evaluation” as well. Folk
evaluation referred to “people who create things and ideas… assign[ing] values to their
actions” (Merriam, 1964: 31). The idea of value judgments also gave rise to ruminations
by future ethnomusicologists about how ethnomusicology methods might approach
values. The work tended to identify values as “issues” (Nettl, 1983) within culture, but
did not recommend empirical approaches to researching values.
Empirical research, including the possibility of reflexivity, could be especially useful
for achieving more comprehensive understandings of values of applied ethnomusicol-
ogy today. The research, in a larger sense, would also promote better understandings of
the processes and effects of applying music, musical knowledge, and ethnomusicology.
Yet such research may seem complicated to do. In applications, different values may be
engaged: those of an ethnomusicologist; those of the people applying the music, music
knowledge, or ethnomusicology, if different; those of other people possibly participat-
ing in applications; those of people affected by applications; and those of institutions
financing and otherwise supporting applications. Because applied work can involve so
many parties, many possible values can be present. Think also of the huge variety of
applied ethnomusicology projects and activities, all variously relating to valued local,
societal, national, or global processes (see Seeger, 2006). Thus, research methods need
further consideration.
98 Klisala Harrison
A New Model for Applied

Ethnomusicology Research on Values
There are many solutions to what I see as a need to study how applied ethnomusicol-
ogy engages values explicitly and empirically, and to develop this approach in the
field’s interrelated research contexts of public presentations and associated feedback,
social interactions and networks, and analyses by academics and practitioners. Some
approaches might study in depth one topic of valuation by different actors. Others might
find ways of defining the multiplicity of values in action among different people putting
music, musical knowledge, and ethnomusicology into practice. Value systems may even
be studied.
In order to stimulate thinking in the latter direction, I shall present a new model for
ethnographic research on value systems: my adaptation of a model proposed by Joel
Robbins toward developing the anthropology of the good (Robbins, 2013a). Robbins
suggests that empirical and ethnographic research can be used to elaborate the value
tendencies that have been identified in political philosophy. Philosophers have iden-
tified so-called monists who believe that all values are reducible to one supervalue,
such as pleasure, in that each sub-value, for example entertainment, then contributes
to the overall supervalue. Pluralists assert that more than one value exists. Sometimes
these values conflict with one another, and pursuing one means not pursuing others
(Lassman, 2011). Other social formations do not have any hierarchy of values. Robbins,
when addressing the practicalities of how to do research, takes inspiration from some of
anthropologist Louis Dumont’s observations about the nature of values (Dumont, 1980,
1986). Robbins’s model maps four key points in what he calls a “continuum of configura-
tions” (Robbins, 2013b) between more monist and more pluralist social worlds in order
to argue that all societies include tendencies toward both value monism and value plu-
ralism (ibid.).
I will illustrate Robbins’s categories of value systems with examples from indige-
nous music programs and multi-ethnic music theater and popular music jams in the
Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, where I have spent 15 years studying, performing in
and organizing formal music programs offered by organizations, often supported by
a combination of funds from the public, private, and third sector. In the three poor-
est sub-areas of the Downtown Eastside (total population: approximately 6,500),
84%–85% lived below Canada’s low-income cut-off dollar amounts in 2001 (Statistics
Canada, 2011). Music programs aimed at the poor, especially in music therapy, popular
music, and indigenous music, addressed problems that often accompany urban pov-
erty, such as ill health (including addictions) and crime. Over the years, gentrification
has intensified in the neighborhood, bringing in affluent residents and displacing the
poor. Related performing arts projects have emerged that aim to develop creative indus-
tries, consumed by people who can afford them, including festivals and music theater
productions.
My data suggest a slight but possibly significant elaboration of Robbins’s model. I will
briefly explain one origin of this suggestion before giving my musical examples—another
inspiration for my elaboration. Robbins illustrates his model with distinctive cultural
groups from different parts of the world with strong traditions of value, referenced below.
This highlights, possibly unintentionally, historically continuous and separate value
systems.
Music groups in the Downtown Eastside. However, do not have the same degree of con-
tinuity or value separation. Formal music programs have emerged as unique local forma-
tions in my indigenous cases only 10–15 years ago. The popular music programs developed
over about 25 years. Different value systems exist side by side in different music groups;
individuals can usually participate in the different music groups and their value systems.
Table 2.1 traces the four different value systems that occurred in musical examples from
the one neighbourhood of the Downtown Eastside, within cultural subgroups. The two
columns on the right point out that my examples of multiple values involved more than one
time period, or individuals participating in more than one type of musical group. I shall
consider indigenous music groups, popular music jams, and music theater productions.
Each type of music group tended to have one dominant value, but individuals participating
in numerous group types over time created additional subgroups and value systems.
The first point on Robbins’s continuum is strong monism in the Dumontian sense.
This refers to “a monism that does not fail to recognize values other than its paramount
one, nor to assign them levels of their own, but which appears wholly to subordinate all
these other values and their levels under a single paramount one” (Robbins, 2013b: 106).
Robbins gives the example of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn who predominantly value the
redemption of Jews. Hasidic male activities of worship and studying religious texts sup-
port this supervalue.
Even though Robbins’s ethnographic examples (2013b) come from relatively bounded
cultures, Dumont’s work includes value systems and relationships between domains of
social action in society as small as the family. In other writings, Robbins states that he
does not limit the identification of values and value systems to bounded cultural con-
texts, but embraces the study of values in all social formations, large and small (Robbins,
2014). The openness of Robbins’s model to “dimensional complexity” (Robbins, 2013b:
112) makes it useful for various ethnographic approaches to values, including subgroups
like those I discuss. Subgroups are rarely studied ethnographically and explicitly in rela-
tion to their values in anthropology (Robbins, personal communication, July 9, 2014)
and (applied) ethnomusicology.
Strong monism existed in “cultural healing” programs for indigenous Canadians that
I researched in the Downtown Eastside. Through the singing and drumming of pow-
wow and hand drum music, these programs seek in part to address a Canada-wide situ-
ation in which drug and alcohol addictions disproportionately affect indigenous people
compared to non-indigenous people. Their musical sounds combine musical heritages
of a diversity of indigenous peoples living in Vancouver. Like parallel pan-indigenous
Canadian and American musics, they insert local styles into types of music dissemi-
nated throughout North America. For instance, the powwow music (Browner, 2002)
Table 2.1.â•‡ Robbins’s Value Continuum Applied to Music
Musical Examples: Indigenous, Music Theater and Type(s) of Music
Popular Music Groups in Vancouver’s Downtown Time Groups Participated
Type of Value System Definition Eastside Period(s) (#) in by Individuals (#)
Strong Monism All values support one Indigenous Canadian “cultural healing” groups using 1 1
paramount value or music value well-being re substance misuse
supervalue
Monism with Stable Two values are hierarchically One cultural healing group at one organization values 2 1
Levels ordered, but each value different stages of well-being re substance misuse
is sovereign within its during the music, at different times: people able to
confines abstain from substance misuse, thus being somewhat
“healed,” in 2003 versus people on drugs or alcohol
seeking valued “healing” in 2007. Officiating elders
always recognized and valued each stage of recovery,
but placed them differently in a value hierarchy.
Stable Pluralism More than one value exists Usually without conflict, different supervalues exist 1 2
and the values are stable* in the cultural healing programs and in the music
or not in conflict theater productions involving indigenous people**
Unsettled Pluralism Two value systems conflict Different supervalues exist in popular music jams and 1 2
music theater productions. The values conflict in a
larger class conflict.
*â•‡ “Relatively stable pluralism” refers to the values being unstable or conflicting only sometimes.
**â•‡ Any occasional, minor conflicts of value resulted in relatively stable pluralism.
combines local and regional Pacific Northwest Coast First Nations singing timbres and
microtonal systems and melodies with dominating musical techniques and repertoires
from the Plains.
Elders who supervise music making in the organizations typically have the agency
to choose a value system to facilitate. I have documented how elders used powwow and
hand drumming to encourage indigenous people in the Downtown Eastside to replace
what some of my interviewees called a “culture” of drugs and alcohol there, with spiri-
tual and cultural norms associated with the music. In prayer circles that always preceded
music making, the officiating elder burned sacred plants, and participants took turns
speaking about how a hybrid type of spirituality guided “healthy” identifications. The
spirituality combined Christianity together with indigenous spiritual elements indexed
by musical sounds, songs, instruments, and ritual paraphernalia (Harrison, 2009). I do
not mean to suggest that the idea to replace, via music, one value system with another
is not complex, problematic, or even, at times, unfeasible. It can be all of these things.
I intend only to point out that as rituals, the cultural healing programs stressed a super-
value of well-being (specifically, experienced absence of addiction). In general, a lot of
rituals are monist (Robbins, in press).
The second point on Robbins’s value continuum is monism with stable levels. Monism
with stable levels refers to a system in which two values are hierarchically ordered in a
social group, but each level is comfortably sovereign within its confines. Monism with
stable levels can mean that people experience monistic commitments to different values
at different times, and that these different values do not conflict in the same individuals
(Robbins, 2013b: 107–108).
In my next field example, I show that the valuation of well-being in cultural healing
took two forms at two times in recent history, yet occurred in one music group at one
organization. In 2003, the officiating elder tended to prevent people who were drunk or
on drugs from singing or drumming. This elder highly valued the “healed”—or those
well into addictions recovery—over addicts seeking “healing.” By 2007, a different elder
led the music group. He allowed active addicts to sing and drum together with people
who were able to abstain from substance misuse. Healing, not having healed somewhat
already (or being able to abstain), became the supervalue.
Some people sang and drummed from 2003 and after 2007. They experienced
monism with stable levels in the two contained fields of ethics. These ethics did not con-
flict because they happened at different times. Robbins cites an example of people expe-
riencing stable monism: Priestless Old Believers in the Russian Urals, who devote the
beginning and end of their lives to religious values, but middle life to the worldly pursuit
of producing and exchanging material goods.
The third point in Robbins’s value continuum is stable pluralism (ibid.: 109–110), in
which more than one value exists and the values are stable. Robbins’s example comes
from the Avatip community of Papua New Guinea’s East Sepik province. Generally, in
pre-contact Sepik societies, a men’s initiation cult highly valued a specific ritual hier-
archy. Its religious structure valued adult men above women and younger men, who
in turn ranked higher than enemy neighbors. A secular sphere of Avatip life, though,
102 Klisala Harrison
involved an equality marked by sensitivity to others and the goal to achieve equiva-
lence through reciprocity. Robbins questions whether this configuration has changed
post-contact, but finds no reported evidence of substantial change, hence its relatively
stable pluralism.
In the Downtown Eastside, when indigenous people participated in not only cultural
healing but also other sorts of music events in the neighborhood, they experienced rela-
tively stable pluralism. The other events included multicultural theater productions that
aimed at developing creative industries through trying to improve participants’ socio-
economic situations and artistic skills. One performing arts company, for example,
offered mentorship in acting and singing during rehearsals for theater productions that
paid actors and sold tickets. The main value was (professional) showmanship. The music
theater contributed to the highly conflicted process of gentrification, as I shall discuss
further about unsettled pluralism.
Why do I say that indigenous people participating in both the cultural healing and
arts development experienced value pluralism? Indigenous showmanship may not
seem the opposite value to healing, but certainly it can be enjoyed in such a way that
contradicts some elders’ teachings during cultural healing. Gary Oleman, a Salish elder,
often talked about the need to “love people not power” (Harrison, 2009). Conversely,
gaining training in the arts if it ends in professional or paid artistry means gaining
socioeconomic status, which by definition refers to social positions within hierarchies
that include music as well (Harrison, 2013b).
And why relatively stable pluralism? I could see no pressure for cultural healing pro-
grams to give up their values for those of arts development or vice-versa. Both types of
initiatives, undertaken concurrently by different organizations, welcomed indigenous
people to participate because they were indigenous. The same individuals could access
each type of initiative, and participate for free, or for pay for instance in the theater pro-
duction, although arts development performances typically had the gatekeeping pro-
cess of auditions. Indigenous characters were in high demand; indigenous people were
typically granted onstage roles, even if these possibly amateur actors did not learn lines
or attend all rehearsals. I call the situation relatively stable pluralism because if an indig-
enous performer auditioned for a back-up band without also auditioning for an act-
ing role, he or she (like a performer of any ethnicity) was rejected, for instance, if life
circumstances did not allow for regular attendance of band rehearsals. This tendency
did not accommodate, for example, musicians who did not have enough money to buy
food, and had to stand in a food line for hours, therefore missing rehearsal, or people
who slept on the street and had more pressing concerns, like getting a bed for that night
at a local shelter. The musician was forced to choose which was more important to him
or her: making music or surviving physically. Producers of music theater, for their part,
wished to professionalize as many production values as possible, starting with musical
accompaniment, lighting, staging, and costumes, but working toward professionalizing
acting and onstage singing.
The fourth point in Robbins’s value continuum is unsettled pluralism (Robbins,
2013b: 110–111). Unsettled pluralism refers to when a person or people—Robbins tends to
discuss social and cultural configurations more than personal experiences, but he would
not preclude the latter (personal communication, July 8, 2014)—experience two differ-
ent fields of values but these values conflict. Robbins offers an example from his research
on Urapmin Christians of Papua New Guinea. Urapmin people define Christian salva-
tion as something that they must attain on their own by avoiding sinful thoughts and
behaviors. Robbins defines the primary value of Urapmin Christian experience as one of
individualism whose goal is the saved individual. However, individualism played little if
any role in traditional Urapmin life, which centered on the production and maintenance
of relationships—in other words, relationalism. Urapmin Christians who also have ties
to traditional lifeways experience extreme value conflict (ibid.). In my research material,
extreme value conflict did not exist in the options for indigenous people.
However, unsettled pluralism existed if I shift my view to people of all ethnicities and
cultures who participated in popular music jams as well as music theater. The values of
these two types of music groups conflict. On the one hand, the music therapy sessions
and popular music jams had healing from addictions as their supervalue too. I con-
ducted research in five music therapy practices that prominently encouraged addictions
recovery for active addicts using the contestable approach of behavior modification via
music. I also investigated, and participated as a violinist, in numerous popular music
jams offered at community centers, health centers, and festivals. Most of these events
discouraged or prohibited drug and alcohol use. On the other hand, the music theater
productions—which include pop operas or theater productions using locally popular
songs—have the supervalue of showmanship or professionalization.
Popular musicians who make up the poorest of the poor, but who successfully audi-
tion for music theater productions (most successfully in singing and acting roles),
experience conflict for one main reason tied to gentrification: the Downtown Eastside
increasingly turned into an arts district. As this happened, the popular music jams and
music therapy programs closed as their funding dried up. The closures rarely targeted
indigenous programs. At the same time, performing arts projects like music theater
aimed at generating creative industries received funding from pro-development private
and public sectors. This gave birth to class conflicts between the poor, who valued addic-
tions recovery through popular music, and the proponents of gentrification, who valued
professional arts productions supported in part by affluent new residents. Both collabo-
rated in the music theater productions.
At this point, I can suggest an elaboration of Robbins’s model to suit applications of
music in complex society, of which the Downtown Eastside provides a case study. Even
though Dumont, Robbins writes, intended “to capture and help explain what can be
seen as the routine existence of both monist and pluralist tendencies in all societies”
(ibid., 103) and Dumont ended up describing “domains of social action” (ibid., 112), what
this all means for taking social action remains unexplored.
When examining the model from the perspective of social action taking place
through music or applied ethnomusicology, it can be elaborated as follows. In complex
society, individuals have the possibility to access different value systems. In the best
case—that is, absent cultural rights violations—individuals can choose to participate in
Monism
Strong Stable Unsettled
with stable
monism pluralism pluralism
levels
Figure 2.1 Musical value systems exist in a continuum in complex society (elaborating

Robbins, 2013b). The arrow represents the possibility of individual musicians to choose
between different value systems, and the possibility of groups of musicians to move between
value systems.
one, or more than one, value system. Individual musicians, then, can choose between
different value systems that musical activities and groups support, create, and articulate.
Yet groups of individuals can also move between value systems, which can happen at
one point in time when groups of individuals participate in different music groups that
support different value systems. Over time, a musical group also can change the type of
value system engaged (see Figure 2.1). Reflecting on such an empirical study of value
systems that exist where an application has taken place, or is to take place, can help to
make future interventions more precise in terms of intended and actual result.
Which Value System Should

an Ethnomusicologist Support?
When making an application of music or ethnomusicology, which value system or sys-

tems does an ethnomusicologist choose to support? I have faced such decisions when
applying music and ethnomusicology in the Downtown Eastside. For example, in the
applied ethnomusicology course that I taught at the University of British Columbia
in 2009 and 2010, I arranged, with a student, for Gary Oleman to offer an indigenous
Canadian singing workshop that emphasized healing. In our workshop, the elder
enacted the supervalue of healing that I described as being present in my example of
monism with stable levels. On another occasion, I honored a request from organiz-
ers of a music theater showcase to involve my students. The students, all training to
be arts professionals, became singers in a choir and musicians in a band of otherwise
hired musicians for the DTES (Downtown Eastside) Music Theatre Showcase. Students
took on the roles of audio technician and assistant stage director. Several film majors
made a documentary that aired on local TV. I felt glad about arranging work experience
placements at a time when government funding cuts to the arts made hiring profession-
als difficult for performance organizers. Yet I despaired that our arrangement still left
no places in the band—even minor roles—for instrumental musicians who could not
attend rehearsals regularly due to poverty.
After I reflected with the students on the values that we supported, I felt frustrated by
my inability to confront value systems that my politics did not support. I had problems
with going along with the unsettled pluralism of the music theater showcase.
In addition, my reflection confronted me with unintended consequences of one
applied project. It actually changed value systems (my examples of strong monism and
monism with stable levels) supported by my politics—mostly because I did not think
through the valued consequences and ask the right questions of collaborators before-
hand. The value shift resulted from spin-off activities, made possible by Oleman’s sing-
ing workshop. The idea for the workshop emerged when a Ukrainian choir director,
who knew that I researched indigenous Canadian music, asked me to link her with a
local indigenous singer because she or the community center where her choir was
located—I did not ask which one beforehand—wanted to enhance indigenous collabo-
rations. I connected her with Oleman, but also asked if one of the students could help
her—hence our workshop. The workshop, her idea, was for her choir members.
Subsequently, the community center and choir director invited Oleman to offer more
workshops, and, with the choir director, to perform in concerts with workshop partici-
pants at the community center. These events, though, impacted the overall value system
across Oleman’s music offerings—which always involved cultural healing values—due to
rules for entering the Carnegie Community Centre. The center prevents anyone drunk
or on drugs from entering its building, monitoring the building entrance closely with
security guards. This institutional context “forced” the supervalue of Oleman’s practice
to shift from valuing the participation of active addicts to including only people abstain-
ing from drugs and alcohol. Several indigenous people participated from day to day in
music making facilitated by Oleman, at various organizations in the Downtown Eastside
that did and did not ban people drunk or on drugs. Their music making toggled between
the supervalues of healing and healed detailed earlier (see my paragraphs on monism
with stable levels). I worried if these contrasting values ever caused any value conflicts or
unsettled value pluralism for participants. I routinely heard about addicts staying sober
in order to take part in music at the Carnegie Community Centre, but I also heard that
they found that difficult. People undertaking applied work with music must not only
limit their analysis to which values they support, but also investigate which values and
value systems their efforts change and contest, as well as the consequences.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have called for more work on values in applied ethnomusicology
research, which has the possibility of opening up discussions and practices of method
and evaluation relevant to applications. Such work would emerge in the current social
forums of applied ethnomusicology research—public presentations, social interactions
and networks, and analyses of scholars and practitioners. It has the possibility of com-
plementing the previously implicit approaches to values in applied ethnomusicology.
I also have introduced the possibility of an ethnomusicology of values that revives the
idea of value judgments from early ethnomusicology. Through empirically investigating
values systems of music, such an approach could produce new understandings relevant
to applications. Adjusting a model for research on values from the anthropology of the
good (Robbins, 2013a), I have emphasized that music groups over time, and individual
musicians (forming other subgroups) in complex society, can and do move between
value systems that musical practices support, create, and articulate. I have detailed how
one can research value systems of music and applied ethnomusicology, and have pro-
vided examples.
In closing, I shall ask what further use is empirical research on values and value sys-
tems for ethnomusicology and applied ethnomusicology. For instance, an ethnomusi-
cologist can use such research to identify value systems by asking questions like Which
value systems are present in social groups in a given worksite? In complex society, for
instance, where do value systems overlap? How do individuals engage them via music?
When applying music, and musical and ethnomusicological knowledge, it also is
important to think critically about the choice of a value option of music. It is also impor-
tant to analyze critically those situations that block value choices. I discussed what was
relative about my example of relatively stable pluralism, which involved indigenous
people accessing cultural healing yet also auditioning for music theater roles in arts
development programs. Those who could act and sing generally got onstage roles; if
they auditioned as instrumentalists for a back-up band but could not attend rehearsals,
they were turned down.
Identifying and evaluating the value systems of a given application and application
context can promote critical reflection, for instance, on whether one would choose a
similar course of action for a future application. An ethnomusicologist can therefore
ask, does an application support, change, or contest what certain social groups (and
which ones?) consider good and valued? What are the implications and politics of the
applications’ value content? Answering such questions can result in future applications
that are better informed as to their value content and probable effect.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Pirkko Moisala (University of Helsinki) and Joel Robbins (University
of Cambridge) for their inspiring, thoughtful, and constructive comments on this
chapter.
Note
1. When I e-mailed Feld that I wanted to mention his work in this chapter, he reflected
that he has not called his work “applied” due to negative connotations of applied anthro-
pology, which serves as a basis for some types of applied ethnomusicology (Harrison,
2012: 506–507). He admitted, though, “all of my recordings are implicit and explicit forms
of advocacy, i.e., forms of representation that are made collaboratively, and that princi-
pally benefit (financially as well as otherwise) the musicians or communities rather than
solely benefit researchers and commercial organizations” (Feld, personal communication,
December 26, 2013).
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Chapter 3
Cultu ral Eng ag e me nt

and Ownersh i p
T hrou gh Part i c i patory
Approaches i n A ppl i e d
Ethnom u si c ol o g y
Tan Sooi Beng
Introduction
Many applied ethnomusicologists engage in action research, a methodology that

aims at solving concrete problems rather than hypothetical ones. Besides conserving
folk traditions, applied ethnomusicologists have been involved in other areas of action
research, such as conflict mediation (O’Connell and Castelo-Branco 2010; Pettan, 1998,
2008), intellectual property rights (Seeger, 1992), post-disaster reconstructions (Fisher
and Flota, 2011), ethics and indigenous rights (Ellis, 1994; Newsome, 2008), represen-
tation of minority cultures (Hermetek, 2010; Zebec, 2004), and peace building (Tan,
2008, 2010).
In the developing countries of the Global South, where large sections of the popula-
tion still live in poverty, ethnomusicologists work with local nongovernmental organi-
zations (NGOs), performing and visual artists, educators, and communities, applying
their musical skills and training to challenge social and cultural inequality, monolithic
representations of national cultures, and other development-related issues (Dirksen,
2012). The conservation of traditions, including music, in these places often intersects
with the struggle for basic rights such as indigenous identity, health, education, hous-
ing, land, and other issues. Through social engagement, ethnomusicologists have had
to reassess their research methodologies and adapt from other relevant disciplines.
Collaboration among the ethnomusicologists, NGOs, and other stakeholders has also
110 Tan Sooi Beng
resulted in the creation of alternative approaches in research and advocacy that are par-
ticipatory and that empower communities to make transformations in their own lives.
Nevertheless, ethnomusicological scholarship about these participatory method-
ologies in action research for addressing development issues that have evolved in the
countries of the South remains sparse.1 One such initiative was a collaborative proj-
ect conducted by Samuel Araujo and students from the Universidade Federal do Rio
de Janeiro Ethnomusicology Lab, together with youths of the Grupo Musicultura, an
NGO created by the residents of Mare, a slum area in Rio de Janeiro that has problems
of violence, drug trafficking, and unemployment. One of the aims of the project was to
document the sounds and music of Mare and their meanings. Participatory strategies
motivated by Paolo Freire’s “dialogic research” were employed: planning, identifying
issues, and devising research themes were carried out by the students together with the
residents as co-researchers. As a result of the collaboration, new kinds of information
about the various forms of violence and the sounds associated with them were devel-
oped. The process of research and the creation of a local music resource center led to
increased self-esteem among the youths involved, as well as new knowledge in music
and other related performing arts in the area. Conducting research also allowed mem-
bers of the local research team to move around the neighborhood more freely and to
gain respect from the other residents (Araujo and the Grupo Musicultura, 2006,
2008, 2009).
Angela Impey’s collaborative documentation project involving the residents of the
Dukuduku Forests of the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park, South Africa’s Northern
KwaZulu-Natal province, is another applied ethnomusicology project that uses partici-
patory action research methods for development purposes. The residents were evicted
from the park in the 1950s by the white Nationalist government. Having returned to
their homeland after apartheid was abolished, the residents are among the most impov-
erished in the province. Impey worked together with young volunteer researchers of
Dukuduku to conduct interviews and to document and conserve the cultures of the
residents, which depend on the natural resources of the forests. She adapted the par-
ticipatory methodologies influenced by Freire’s participatory learning and action strat-
egies, which have been applied in development projects, particularly in the areas of
health, agriculture, and environment in other developing countries (Chambers, 1997).
The process facilitated discussions about the meaning of tradition and identity among
the residents and how to represent themselves to visitors. This led to long-standing pre-
sentations for tourists, which were organized by the community. Collaborative research
fostered sustainability of the traditions, self-representation, and decreased poverty
among the Dukuduku. Not only did the project promote cultural tourism, it benefited
the residents as well (Impey, 2002: 403).
This chapter contributes to the few written works in engaged ethnomusicology
regarding the use of collaborative and participatory action research methodologies to
deal with development issues in countries of the South. The chapter first investigates the
alternative participatory approaches that have been created in the “theater for develop-
ment” in Asia, a type of theater that uses various media, such as music, drama, visual
Cultural Engagement and Ownership 111
arts, photography, or video, to initiate and facilitate discussion and understanding of

critical issues affecting the development of communities (Eskamp, 2006). Theater for
development has made a long-term impact as a tool used by NGOs for social inter-
vention in Asia. Following this investigation is a discussion of how I have adapted the
participatory approaches of theater for development in two main areas of applied ethno-
musicology for development work, particularly the organization of the annual Heritage
Celebrations and children’s music advocacy projects in George Town, Penang, which are
aimed at self-representation, recovering of multiethnic histories, and peace building.
Learning from the praxis of theater for development, I argue for the promotion of an
applied ethnomusicology that is engaged and participatory. For any cultural develop-
ment project to be sustainable, communities must be empowered and gain confidence
to take action in order to make changes in their lives. There is also a need to democratize
research and promote collaboration between the researcher and the community so that
the latter is engaged and feels a sense of ownership in the entire process for change. For
engagement and ownership to occur, participatory approaches for planning, training,
research, mapping of issues, analysis, and presentation, drawn from ethnomusicology
and other disciplines, such as development studies, cultural and performance studies,
applied anthropology, folklore studies, and oral history, need to be developed.
Participatory Development, Theater,

and Issues of Concern
In the 1970s and 1980s, following criticisms of state-directed, top-down development,

the World Bank and other agencies of the United Nations began to endorse decen-
tralization and to promote what came to be known as “sustainable development” in
the Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987: 43). This resulted in a move toward participa-
tory development, which is seen as the collective responsibility of all the stakeholders,
including the government, the corporate sector, and civil society.
A distinction was made between the conventional and participatory approaches to
development. NGOs involved in civil society developed participatory ways of work-
ing that proved to be more effective than the top-down methods. Primary stakeholders
were involved in the planning of their own development and participated in design-
ing, implementing, and evaluating projects in education, health, culture, agriculture,
and other sectors. Participatory training and research methods using local knowledge
were developed to facilitate stakeholders to identify their own needs. The participatory
activities helped the primary stakeholders to become more confident and to overcome
the feeling of being powerless. Participation created stakeholder ownership of the activi-
ties, which led to pilot projects being transformed into sustainable and long-term initia-
tives that were taken over by the communities themselves. In development policy, it has
been acknowledged that the participation of civil society and ownership of programs
112 Tan Sooi Beng
are crucial for any project to be sustainable. Critical evaluation is essential to enhance
engagement and empowerment (Chambers, 1997; Eskamp, 2006).
Many NGOs involved in civil society development projects in the South have
employed the participatory methodologies of theater for development as strategies for
bottom-up self-development since the 1970s. Often referred to as participatory the-
ater, process theater, community theater, people’s theater, or theater for liberation, the
methodologies of theater for development have been successfully adopted by artists
and educational groups to encourage learning, discussion, analysis, and understanding
of critical issues affecting communities and ways to deal with specific problems. Even
though the term “theater” has been used, it is understood that different forms of creative
arts and popular media (such as music, dance, drama, visual arts, storytelling, video, or
photography) are employed. Local forms of performing and visual arts are encouraged
in this kind of theater.
In the last 40 years, the participatory methods of process theater have been adapted in
non-formal education in Asia to address issues in relation to conflict resolution, peace
building, gender sensitization, raising awareness about social inequality, heritage con-
servation, and health campaigns such as AIDS prevention, as well as to help children
and adults cope with trauma caused by war or natural disasters, such as the 2011 tsunami
in Aceh, Indonesia, and improving the lives of the disadvantaged.
Some active theater for development groups include the Manila-based Philippines
Educational Theatre Association (PETA), which represents one of the pioneers of pro-
cess theater in Asia. Politicized by the repression of the Marcos regime, PETA held
theater workshops among student groups, labor unions, teachers, farmers, workers,
and other communities throughout the Philippines in the 1970s, where they explored
a variety of social issues through drama, dance, music, and visual arts.2 At the turn of
the millennium, the Philippines network of theater for development is wide, and there
are grassroots groups in all of the islands, which have initiated their own programs and
methodologies (Gaspar et al., 1981; Samson et al., 2008). These groups ensure that the
network is not centralized in Manila or controlled top-down by a few activist-artists.3
In Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Teater Arena (a political theater group) and Studio Puskat
(an audiovisual institute sponsored by Jesuit priests) have been making videos advo-
cating grassroots development and social change. Concerned that only a small urban
minority is benefiting from top-down development, the two groups came together and
ran community theater projects in the rural areas of Indonesia in the 1980s. In the the-
ater project at Tanen, cardboard puppets were used for participatory discussion of the
social structure of the community, while the local operatic form kethoprak and local
dialects were employed for the final presentation. Through the interactive theater activi-
ties, the community gained the confidence to express their needs and realized the power
of collective action. An important outcome of the workshop was the supply of electricity
for all the households and the building of canals for irrigating the rice fields in Tanen.
At the leper colony of Lewoleba, the theater practitioners encouraged lepers to perform
their experiences about being outcasts in society through storytelling, music, and songs,
which they composed themselves. This resulted in greater understanding of the plight of
and sympathy for the lepers among the other residents (van Erven, 1992; personal com-
munication, Tri Giovanni, 2008).
Maya and Makhampom are two active process theater groups that grew out of the
Thai pro-democracy movement in the early 1980s. They use performances to encourage
dialogue and to raise awareness regarding development-related issues among specific
target groups. Employing various puppet theater forms, Maya has conducted theater
workshops for teachers, students, and communities in the rural areas of Thailand.
Interactive and participatory strategies were developed to enable the rural people to
gain confidence to speak up, raise issues such as pollution, corruption, malnutrition,
and drug abuse, and take action to solve the problems. In the last decade, Maya has
developed an Experiential Activities Plan (EAP) through the “Children in the Know”
Project, which took place in schools in various parts of Thailand. Participatory activities
that included problem identification, individual explanation, group research, and com-
munication through performances and creative arts were created. These activities stim-
ulated the children to learn about maintaining good health, eating the right type of food,
living together, not being influenced by social vices and advertisements by the mass
media, anti-consumerism, and community spirit (Children in the Know Curriculum,
n.d.; personal communication, Chitrachinoa, 2008).
Makhampom runs workshops on team building and conflict resolution using pro-
cess theater at their Living Theatre Centre at Chiengdao. In partnership with the
International Rescue Committee (IRC), they have employed participatory theater
approaches to explore issues regarding gender-based violence, peace and conflict, and
HIV/AIDS at three refugee camps at the Thai-Burma border. For Makhampom, theater
and participatory activities are tools to “explore social issues as a group,” “build trust and
relationships,” “begin discussions,” “understand different types of conflict,” and “make
positive changes” (Kellock, n.d.: 7–8; Barber, 2008). As conflict is marked by a lack of
trust, team-building activities are important to encourage the participants to participate
in dialogue and work together (personal communication, Barber, 2009).
Pedagogy and Participatory

Approaches in Theater
for Development
As in many participatory strategies for development, including those described by

Araujo and the Grupo Musicultura (2008, 2009) and Impey (2002), community pro-
cess theater has been influenced by the ideas and pedagogy of Brazilian educator Paolo
Freire. Freire was critical of the Western pedagogical principle that he called “The
Banking Concept of Education,” in which knowledge is “a gift bestowed by those who
consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing”
114 Tan Sooi Beng
(Freire, 1972). For Freire, a pedagogy for liberation requires a new kind of teacher who
believes in the creativity and knowledge of the oppressed. By analogy, a theater of libera-
tion also requires a new kind of actor who activates the inherent creativity of his or her
target group.
Freire emphasized that communication in the form of dialogue between the trainees
themselves and their trainers are crucial in empowering communities to be in control
of their own development. His concept of “conscientization” is widely used in commu-
nity theater and participatory development to refer to the process of raising awareness
though collective inquiry, dialogue, and action.
Participatory theater has also adapted Augusto Boal’s pedagogy of “theater of the
oppressed,” in which the main objective of theater is to “change the people” from “passive
beings” into “subjects, actors, transformers” through dramatic action (Boal, 1979). For
Boal, the audience should be involved in the creation and performance of a play. Active
participation of the audience will support awareness training and problem-solving at
the community level.
Despite differences depending on the issues, sociopolitical contexts, indigenous
knowledge, and performing/visual arts of a particular community, theater for develop-
ment groups in Asia share common participatory activities in the process of creating
theater for problem-solving through team building, collaborative research, dialogue,
and action:
i. A range of games and theatrical practices promote participation from all members
of the target group and help to build self-confidence, trust, and social cohesion,
as well as stimulating self-expression and awareness of the possibility of taking
action to solve the problems of the community;
ii. Through participatory research, mapping, and analysis, the stakeholders deter-
mine the issues that concern them and brainstorm ideas to overcome them
collectively;
iii. The participants portray these issues and the possible solutions through a perfor-
mance/creative work they devise together;
iv. The performance is a community forum where audiences are engaged in the dis-
cussion and exchange of ideas with the performers and facilitators. Very often,
the final product can be a video, artwork, exhibition, workshop performance, or
combinations of different forms of presentations. Indigenous forms of art, dance,
music, puppet theater, storytelling, masks, and visual arts known to the commu-
nity are often employed.
In theater for development, the process of creating theater is more important than the
performance, although local aesthetics are significant. Through the participatory way of
working, the stakeholders are empowered to make positive decisions about their lives
and turn these decisions into action. In a way, process theater can be seen as a form of
action research in which the stakeholders collectively gather data through research, ana-
lyze the data, discuss, and take action to improve their conditions. These participatory
methods cannot solve the problems of the communities or the inequities of power
immediately. Nevertheless, action programs are more likely to continue, even without
the presence of the theater facilitators, if the stakeholders or communities have been
engaged and have acquired ownership of the entire process of theater making, problem
mapping, analysis, and making decisions for change.4
Adapting the Participatory
Approaches of Process Theater
in Applied Ethnomusicology
for Development
As an applied ethnomusicologist concerned about development, I have been inspired

by the praxis of action research employed by the participatory theater groups in Asia,
which involves the collective gathering, interpretation, analysis, and application of
knowledge by the community members and seeks to advance their own defined goals.
Ethnomusicologists can indeed facilitate to bring about change in the communities they
study if they apply the participatory approaches of process theater, which promote dia-
logue and research for problem-solving, and build confidence and social cohesion.
The following section illustrates how these participatory approaches have been
adapted in two cultural projects that I have been involved in to provide spaces for the
communities of George Town, Penang, Malaysia, to address their concerns regarding
top-down cultural centralization by the federal government and racial tensions in the
country. As participatory methods for action research cannot be analyzed in isolation
from the sociopolitical context, issues, and cultural roots of a place, let me begin with a
short description of the social and cultural concerns of the Penang communities.
Sociocultural Context and Concerns of the Residents

of George Town, Penang
Malaysia has a multiethnic and multireligious population of 28.3 million. The citizens
consist of 67.4% Bumiputera (translated as “sons of the soil,” which comprise Malays and
other indigenous groups such as the Orang Asli, Kadazan, Bajau, Bidayuh, Melanau,
Penan, etc.), 24.6% Chinese, 7.3% Indians, and 0.7% others (including Arabs, Eurasians,
Indonesians, etc.) (Department of Statistics, 2010). Since the colonial days, Malaysia has
been characterized as a plural, society where “two or more elements or social orders…
live side by side, yet without intermingling, in one political unit” (Furnivall, 1948: 446).
Ethnicism and racial anxieties have prevailed until recent times.
116 Tan Sooi Beng
During the past four decades, the Malaysian state has tried to bring the different eth-
nic groups together as a nation by centralizing the arts and creating top-down policies
pertaining to culture. The National Culture Policy was formulated in 1970 for purposes
of national unity following the 1969 racial riots when ethnic relations broke down in
Malaysia. In 1971, it was decided at a congress that the national culture should be “based
on the cultures of the people indigenous to the region,” that “elements from other cul-
tures which are suitable and reasonable may be incorporated,” and that “Islam will be
an important element” (KKBS, 1973: vii). Consequently, a Ministry of Culture and the
infrastructure to implement this national culture were created. Selected Malay forms
of music, dance, and theater were streamlined so that they were in keeping with the
national culture policy. These streamlined forms were promoted through workshops,
competitions, festivals, schools, and universities.5
Since the 1990s, there has been a movement toward the creation of a Bangsa Malaysia
(Malaysian Race) and more recently, OneMalaysia, which rests on the cultural identi-
ties of the various ethnic communities. The multiethnic extravagant but stereotypical
performances organized by the State Culture and Tourism Departments, known to the
world as “Malaysia Truly Asia,” represent the more recent top-down narratives of multi-
culturalism in Malaysia. Spectacular cultural shows with representative dances from all
the states and ethnic groups have also been created as icons of development, modernity,
and harmony. This is exemplified in the annual Citrawarna (Colours of Malaysia) street
parades organized by the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism, and in the annual Merdeka
(National Day) celebrations, including performances by the Malaysian People’s Drum
Symphony, in which over a thousand Malay, Chinese, Indian, Kadazan, Iban, and other
traditional drums play together in unity (Tan, 2003).
The creation of the national forms of culture has facilitated the homogenization of
selected traditional performing arts genres. Certain forms are chosen as representa-
tive of an ethnic group and are decontextualized so that they become part of national
culture. While the expression of multiculturalism appears to be promoted by the state,
the kinds of cultural differences that can be portrayed are defined by administrators.
A kind of stereotypical representation of each ethnic group is promoted, which does
not encourage self-expression and exploration at the community level. Indeed, it has
become a challenge for community artists to maintain the vitality and creativity of their
traditions. At the same time, ethnicism continues to persist in Malaysian society.6 Unity
cannot be imposed through the creation of a national culture based on the culture of one
ethnic group or through standardized representations of specific cultural traditions.
The cultural issues presented above predominate on the island of Penang where I live,
as the island has been a meeting place for diverse ethnic communities and cultures even
before the British colonized the island in 1786. As Penang port developed in the late
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the trading of spices and the export of tin and rub-
ber attracted settlers from the Malay Archipelago, Thailand, Burma, Hadhramaut, India,
China, and Europe. Penang was also an important stopover for pilgrims going to Mecca.
The meeting of different peoples in Penang is manifested in the multiple places of wor-
ship situated near each other in the inner city, eclectic food and architecture, languages
spoken, street names, festivals, and performances. Penang’s current population of

1.6 million people remains multiethnic: Chinese of various dialect groups make up
41.5%, Malays originating from different parts of the Malay Archipelago 40.9%, Indians
from various parts of India 9.9%, others (including Arabs, Eurasians, Indonesians,
Thais, Burmese, and so on) 0.7%, and non-Malaysian citizens 7.0% (Penang Institute,
2015). Cultural borrowing and mixing has occurred as the diverse communities live
together in close contact and interaction (Tan, 2011). The monolithic national culture
and stereotypical representations of the ethnic groups promoted by the Malaysian state
are in contradiction to the lively organic eclectic ethnic cultures on the ground.
Having carried out extensive research on the traditional performing arts of the vari-
ous ethnic communities in Penang, I am obligated to work with the communities,
including musicians and performing artists from whom I have gained information, to
address these concerns. Together we have attempted to (1) create spaces for all ethnic
communities to represent themselves, recover their multicultural histories, deconstruct
stereotypical ethnic representations by the federal government, and show their cul-
tural diversity; and (2) revitalize traditions, bridge cultural gaps, and promote tolerance
among ethnic groups, including children, in Penang. We have tried to achieve these
objectives through two main projects, namely, the organization of the annual George
Town Heritage Celebrations and advocacy heritage programs for children of the city. As
illustrated in the following sections, the challenge lies in making these community proj-
ects sustainable. Furthermore, the ethnomusicologist not only needs to work in the area
of music, but has to include other areas of culture such as theater, dance, crafts, visual
arts, rituals, trades, and other cultural assets of the communities.
The George Town Heritage Celebrations

The Heritage Celebrations are held annually on July 7 to celebrate the inscription of
George Town, the capital city of Penang, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.7 Taking
place in and around the historic streets of George Town, the Heritage Celebrations
are inclusive and participatory events that aim to provide the multiethnic communi-
ties an opportunity to showcase and represent their own heritage to each other, and to
Malaysian and international visitors. The community-oriented festivities feature street
celebrations of performances, food and crafts, exhibitions, interactive games, open
houses, architecture, heritage trails, public talks, and workshops with the participation
of all the ethnic communities of George Town.
The two- to three- day festivities and events give a public presence to the histories,
cultures, endangered traditions, and art forms of the diverse communities, including
those of underrepresented cultural groups that are not projected in national culture
projects. Capacity development, knowledge transfer, and the sustainability of the multi-
ethnic cultures and art are the projected outcomes.
The celebrations are coordinated by George Town World Heritage Incorporated
(GTWHI), the Penang state agency for heritage, which is responsible for heritage con-
servation and managing the World Heritage Site of George Town. The core organiz-
ing team comprises visual and performing artists and educators who act as program
118 Tan Sooi Beng
curators; the production team consists of lighting designers, stage managers, technical
expertise, and crew. There is also a group of volunteers of young people (mainly from
universities, colleges, and high schools) who help to run the celebrations as production
crew at performances, information counters, and food and craft stalls. The celebrations
are funded by the Penang state government8 as well as by private corporations.
The local communities are at the heart of the celebrations, as co-organizers, stakeholders,
presenters, participants, and carriers of tradition. The organizers envision the celebrations
together with the local communities to incorporate indigenous knowledge and perspec-
tives about performance, research, documentation, and presentations. We work with three
types of community groups with different levels of participation from each of them:
Group A: Formal religious, cultural, and clan associations that have been established
by the different ethnic groups in Penang to take care of the concerns and welfare
of their members. They include (1) the Qaryah Masjid Kapitan Keling (community
members of the Indian Muslim9 Kapitan Keling Mosque, the oldest Indian Muslim
Mosque in George Town); (2) Gabungan Liga Muslim (The United Muslim League,
an association of various Indian Muslim groups, which provides a platform to raise
issues of social concern); (3) Penang Chinese Clan Council (comprising the main
Chinese clan associations of Penang); (4) Indian Chamber of Commerce, which rep-
resents the business operations of the Indians of Penang; (5) Badan Warisan Masjid
Melayu, Lebuh Acheh (Heritage Body of the Malay Mosque, Acheh Street, that was
set up to preserve the history and heritage of the Malay mosque at Acheh Street);
(6) Yayasan Agama Islam Pulau Pinang (Islamic Foundation, Pulau Pinang, whose
mission is to promote the Islamic faith); and (7) Persatuan Sejarah dan Warisan
Melayu Pulau Pinang (Malay Historical and Heritage Association, Pulau Pinang,
which aims at preserving the Malay heritage of Penang). These groups are encour-
aged to plan and organize their own cultural activities for the Heritage Celebrations.
Group B: Residents of George Town who present and exhibit their family histories,
traditional trades, open their houses, and talk to visitors about their lives and work
in the heritage enclave; and
Group C: Cultural practitioners and performers of the various ethnic groups who
participate in the curated shows and share their knowledge with multiethnic audi-
ences through demonstrations and performance items.
In order to ensure that this community festival is sustainable and that capacity devel-
opment takes place, the organizing team has employed participatory approaches and
action research methods adapted from process theater and participatory development.
These methods are aimed at empowering communities to represent themselves so that
they are engaged in change and become proactive agents in their own development:
Participatory Planning, Training, and Bottom-Up Organization

Planning, training, and organization are done together with all stakeholders, includ-
ing the community groups. The workshop is a neutral space for capacity development.
We initiate team-building exercises and interactive activities in the locations of the

celebrations, and provide tools for research and analysis of the cultural assets of the
communities. These activities help the communities to develop the potential to make
representations of their own cultural heritage, plan and organize their programs, and
stimulate intercultural understanding among all the groups. Training of facilitators
from the community takes place.
Participatory Research to Identify Needs, Problems, and Action

We emphasize experiential learning in the heritage zone so that the communities are
able to map their own cultures and histories. The formal associations (Group A) take
the workshop participants for walks in their own cultural enclaves, identifying the his-
tories, cultures, trades, festivals, food, performances, and crafts that are still being prac-
ticed. Participatory mapping and analysis of the cultures and histories from the walk
and other secondary sources are carried out.
Cultural mapping and interpretation help to create awareness and appreciation of the
cultural assets, histories, and environment of each community. The participants find out
about their cultural similarities and differences and discover that cultural mixing has
taken place in the food, performing arts, music, and languages of the communities. By
creating maps, they reveal their perceptions about their identities and think about how
to represent themselves at the Heritage Celebrations.
The main organizers and representatives of the communities are taken on a
research trip to Petchaburi, Southern Thailand, to witness, experience, and learn
from the community festival held there annually. Petchaburi is known for its tradi-
tional crafts such as stucco decorative art, painting, and woodcarving. The George
Town representatives get new ideas about the organization, programming, layout,
and capacity building of the community festival in Petchaburi, which is inclusive
and engages the entire village in the celebrations. Group A community organiz-
ers and festival facilitators interact with each other intensively during the visit. The
Petchaburi festival organizers (including community members) also make a trip to
Penang during the George Town Heritage Celebrations as part of the learning experi-
ence and exchange.
For the residents and performers of the city (Groups B and C), such as the owners of
recycle shops, lantern makers, hawkers, photographers, or performers, oral interviews
are conducted by volunteer researchers to document the histories of their lives, trades,
crafts, and performance genres. Photographs and other documents about the family
histories, trades, or art forms are collected. The interviewers set up connections with the
wider community through relatives, neighbors, and friends.
Participatory Presentations
At the end of the workshop, the different stakeholders of Group A come together to
share their experiences and projected programs for the heritage celebrations. The con-
tent is related to the living environment, history, and experiences of the target commu-
nities and is of direct relevance to them.
120 Tan Sooi Beng
Participatory and Interactive Activities during the Celebrations

Group A: “Community Celebrations”
During the heritage celebrations, the communities present their research findings and
cultural activities in various forms, which engage the audiences interactively. For exam-
ple, in 2013,10 the Penang Chinese Clan Council held its celebrations in the vicinity of
Meng Eng Soo (translated as Memorial Hall of Heaven) at Rope Walk, which was the
ancestral hall of the Ghee Hin Chinese Secret Society11 built in 1890. The building has
been restored and is managed by the Penang Chinese Clan Council today. Street inter-
active activities were organized by clan members to invite audience participation. The
community members compiled the history of the Chinese clans in Penang, which was
exhibited on posters and has recently been published as a book. They set up pavilions
where visitors could search for the origins of their family names. Audiences could also
visit the Meng Eng Soo building, where there were ancestral worshipping demonstra-
tions. They could taste traditional Chinese food and tea (prepared by the community
members), purchase artworks, or take part in street cultural performances.
In 2013, the Indian Muslim community of the Kapitan Kling Mosque exhibited old
photographs and descriptions about the historical development of the community
around the mosque and the early development of Arabic and Tamil education among
the community since the nineteenth century. Built in 1801, the mosque is named after
Kapitan Kling, the first superintendent of the mosque, which used to serve the Muslim
section of the Indian troops brought by the colonial British government. During the
heritage celebrations, the members of the community also demonstrated the cooking of
Indian Muslim traditional cuisine, which could be tasted by visitors. Visitors could also
try out the traditional way of grinding (giling) spices and beans using grinding stones,
make tea called teh tarik (translated as “pulling the tea”), play traditional games, watch
performances of qawwalli (a form of Sufi devotional music), and participate in the lon-
gest roti canai (a type of bread which originated in Malaysia) competition.
At Queen Street, one of the streets of the Indian enclave known as Little India, a nasi
kandar (type of Indian Muslim food) festival was organized by the United Muslim
League together with all the nasi kandar restaurants in town. The history of nasi kandar
and the meaning of the term were made known to visitors through announcements. In
the past, hawkers balanced a pole on their shoulders (kandar) as they carried the plain
rice (nasi) with spicy curry dishes (meat, seafood, vegetables, boiled eggs) and sold them
in the streets of Penang.12 During the Heritage Celebrations, visitors could choose from
the best nasi kandar stalls, which lined the entire street.
The historic Malay community around the Acheen Street mosque presented tradi-
tional arts and crafts, cakes (kuih), Malay games like playing with tops, nasyid (cantilla-
tions in praise of Allah and the Prophet Muhammad), qasidah (classical songs based on
poetry), and talks about the Islamic faith. Acheen Street was the site of the earliest Arab
urban community in Penang and the center of the spice trade. It was also known as the
Second Jeddah, as pilgrims from different parts of Southeast Asia waited for their boats
to Jeddah and Mecca in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Built in 1808, the
Acheen Street mosque was the center for prayer and Islamic teachings preparing pil-
grims for their journey to Mecca. Islamic literature was printed by the printing presses
that emerged in the area around the mosque. The streets near the mosque were alive
with shops, hotels, and shipping ticket counters to cater to the pilgrims.
Kollatam stick dance, horse and peacock dances, and Indian martial arts were pre-
sented by the Hindu Indian community at the Mahamariamman Temple, the temple
of the goddess Mahamariamman. Built in 1833, the temple is known for its festivities,
which include dances and music, when the goddess is taken around the neighboring
streets of Little India during the Navarithri festival. Additionally, the 2013 heritage cele-
brations were enhanced by the Indian classical Bharata Natyam and Gujarati folk dance,
and music performances organized by the Indian Chamber of Commerce at a nearby
space in Little India.
Group B: Residents of George Town: “Up Close and Personal”

To encourage community participation in constructing the local history of George
Town, GTWHI conducted a pilot oral history documentation project, entitled Cherita
Lebuh Chulia (1945–1970) (Story of Chulia Street), with the residents of the street in
2013. Chulia Street was one of the first streets constructed in George Town by Francis
Light, a British trader who founded Penang in 1786. Home to many ethnic communities,
this street was the main commercial and residential street, and the core road for local
transport since the nineteenth century. As such, it was the principal route for festivals
and cultural processions such as the Maulidur Rasul (birthday of Prophet Muhammad),
Thaipusam (festival during which Hindus take a vow to offer the kavadi, a physi-
cal structure balanced on the shoulders of the devotee, to implore for help from, or in
thanksgiving to, Lord Murugan, the Hindu God of War and Victory), and festivities of
Chinese Gods such as Toa Peh Kong and the Nine Emperor Gods, when decorated floats
line the streets.
Activities were organized along Chulia Street during the heritage celebrations,
including an interactive exhibition featuring three-dimensional maps, videos, printed
panels, and a printed comic book. Big board cutouts of the main personalities and
events led audiences to the actual sites. Video screenings of the documentation were
held at selected coffeeshops (kopitiam), where residents could share their memories
and experiences in a relaxed manner. The video recordings also acted as tools for get-
ting feedback from the community and for giving voices to the old people who have
lived in the city for many decades. Special walking tours to visit the local residents in
Chulia Street, such as the key maker, hair dresser, soy milk maker, photographer, and
watchman, were held. Audiences were invited to share their impressions at a chit-chat
corner.
Elsewhere, visitors from and outside Penang were taken on walks to visit traditional
traders such as the lantern maker, printing press owner, religious bookseller, signboard
maker, tombstone engraver, and many more, who demonstrated and told the stories of
their lives to the visitors.
122 Tan Sooi Beng
Group C: Curated Shows: “Stories under the Stars”

In the evening, free outdoor multicultural folk performances by local artists of all ethnic
backgrounds were curated at two main open-air sites at the heritage enclave, where the
communities and residents of the city as well as outsiders came to watch and celebrate
together. Some of the performances included the Malay boria (skits, dance and music),
Thai menora (musical dance theater, see Figure 3.1), Peranakan Hokkien rhymes, Malay/
Thai wayang gedek (shadow play), and Teochew rod puppet theater.13 All the groups
interacted with the audience through demonstrations and explanations of the histori-
cal development of the forms, which were all documented on video. For instance, the
Peranakan (local-born Chinese who have adapted to Malay customs and culture) taught
the audience how to sing Peranakan rhymes as part of their presentation. The perform-
ers were encouraged to make representations of their own cultures without having to
adhere to any cultural policy. The show ended with the audience participating in dance
together with all the performing groups. In 2013, a Taiwanese glove puppet troupe, the
Taiyuan Puppet theater, known for its innovative movements, was invited to join in the
celebrations. This was to inspire local practitioners with new ideas. Following the cel-
ebrations, a workshop was held for the local practitioners of the glove puppet theater
and the Taiwanese troupe to foster exchange and learning.
Figure 3.1 Siamese in Penang performing the menora at the Heritage Celebrations, 2013.
Participatory Evaluations
Evaluations using questionnaires and focused interviews were carried out to get feed-
back from the communities and volunteers about the organization of the celebra-
tions, use of space, problems faced, and ideas about how to improve future heritage
celebrations.
Social Impact and Outcomes

Through the participatory processes involving research, members of the communities
are engaged in the heritage celebrations and are empowered to represent and revitalize
their own cultures. Even though the problems of cultural representation cannot be com-
pletely resolved through the celebrations, the communities are able to showcase their
own cultures, which offer variations to the stereotypical ethnic representations by the
federal government. The communities become aware of the possibilities of contesting
state representations through the performances and events they organize.
The communities acquire ownership of the festival as they take part actively in its
planning, research, and implementation, and they are inspired to continue to organize
and participate dynamically in it annually. Cultural gaps are bridged as the different
ethnic communities are exposed to each other’s cultural resources and come together
for discussion at workshop meetings. The organizers of the workshop and celebrations
(including the ethnomusicologist) act as facilitators in the participatory processes in
order to have a shared understanding of community needs and to provide the tools for
research and presentations. As part of the process, they also train younger volunteers,
who are included and engaged in the planning, organization, management, and run-
ning of the celebrations. Capacity building and skills development take place through
cultural documentation, mapping, and presentations.
These projects have also helped to bring performances, visual arts, food, and crafts
out of buildings and back to the streets and public spaces where they were traditionally
enjoyed by the communities at large. Multiethnic audiences are also able to access the
presentations in a relaxed manner, and yet learn about, and experience how traditions
can be used in new ways.
Advocacy Projects with Young People

In addition to working with adult communities, it is also important to educate young
people to reclaim their multiethnic histories and traditions, promote diversity, decon-
struct cultural stereotypes, and enhance tolerance, as they represent the future mem-
bers of civil society. To this end, I have worked long-term on musical-theater projects
with children and youths of mixed ages, gender, and ethnicity, to provide a venue for
them to address issues of identity and heritage, and to acquire skills in the traditional
performing arts. The target group comprises young people (aged 10–19) from different
schools inside and outside the city of George Town. The facilitators include multiethnic
musicians, dancers, dramatists, visual artists, lecturers, and students of the university
(Tan, 2008).
124 Tan Sooi Beng
Figure 3.2 Community performance Opera Pasar; children performing the clog dance at
the market, 2008.
The young people also explore other issues important to the communities in George
Town through these musical theater projects. Recent performance projects include
Kisah Pulau Pinang (The Penang Story, 2006), Ronggeng Merdeka (Independence
Ronggeng, 2007), Opera Pasar (Market Opera, 2008; see Figure 3.2), Ko-Tai Penang
(Penang Ko-Tai, 2009/2010), Ceritera Lebuh Carnavon (Carnavon Street Story) (2011),
and George Town Heboh—Streets Alive (2012). These musical theater projects have
investigated the alternative people’s histories of Penang, which are not found in school
history textbooks, such as the gentrification of heritage buildings, saving the wet mar-
ket, and environmental issues, as well as stimulating other community interventions.
Adapting and localizing theater for development, the performance-oriented projects
use participatory approaches that focus on local needs and interests, are performed in
public community spaces, and engage the multiethnic communities in the processes of
doing art. These approaches include the following:
Participatory Planning
We collaborate with different stakeholders and involve community participation in the
children’s advocacy projects. While funding is mainly from the Penang state govern-
ment and other private firms, interested parties involved in the initial planning include
university lecturers, students, historians, teachers, craftsmen, traditional artists and
performers, conservationists, and clan associations. They provide information, skills,

knowledge, workshop space, or musical instruments.
Participatory Training
The process theater workshop provides the site for participatory training and learning
activities. The training design involves team building, skill building, and capacity build-
ing. During all the stages of training, a variety of drama games and exercises are used for
ice breaking. Warm-up sessions help the participants and facilitators to get to know one
another and establish a sense of ensemble and trust through games and group dynamic
activities. These activities also help to instill confidence for self-expression.
Participants undergo skill training in selected traditional and contemporary art forms
with artists. They are also given tools for research, such as methods of conducting oral
interviews and participant observation. This is to enable them to collect their own data
regarding specific cultural assets of the community (such as music, movements, festi-
vals, craft, architecture, food) and to connect them to present-day cultural, religious,
and social contexts.
Participatory Research, Learning, and Mapping

The city and its people provide the actual environment for experiential learning. Besides
talks and watching audiovisual resources about the history and context of a particular
location to be studied (such as the market or a street), the youths are taken for guided
walks where they observe, listen, and record sounds using MP3 players and video cam-
eras, movements, and conversations. They interview specific people, including their
own grandparents, uncles, and aunts, about the topics they are studying. In Opera Pasar
(a story about conserving the heritage market at Campbell Street), the young people
talked to the traders of the market such as the vegetable seller, fishmonger, chicken
seller, and butcher about their trades and the history of the market. Participatory map-
ping of the locations of the stalls and the conflicts and issues that occurred in the space
over time were then carried out. Cultural mapping and participatory analysis of the oral
histories, photographs, and audiovisual recordings helped to create awareness of the
issues and appreciation of the wet market. Once they got over the smell of fresh fish and
wet floors, the young participants (many of whom are accustomed to shopping at super-
markets) became crusaders to preserve this old market with its beautiful façade.
Participatory Creation and Performance

The participants then collectively put together what they observed and collected from
their fieldwork with the musical skills they learned in the form of a dramatic musical
dance composition. The stories, issues, and maps were used by the children in the story-
telling, song lyrics, and movements of their musical theater.
In the Opera Pasar project, communicating what they learned to the community at
the market itself added to the excitement of the young participants. The site-specific
performance juxtaposed local folklore with festivals, the past with the present, animals
with humans. It mixed the different local languages of Penang with the eclectic musical
126 Tan Sooi Beng
traditions from Malay dikir barat (folk-singing genre), Hokkien rhymes, Chinese opera,
and jazz. There was improvisation of the music, which combined the use of everyday
objects and junk materials with more traditional instruments such as the gamelan,
and various types of storytelling. The young dancers used their bodies to convey their
impressions of the market, ranging from chickens being slaughtered, fish being caught
in the sea, mutton being hung, or buying and selling in the market.
The participants were involved in different forms of border crossings in the learning
and production process, which helped in integration. The story, music, and movements
employed were based on experiences of real-life people of various ethnic backgrounds
in the inner city of Penang. The characters mixed Hokkien, Malay, English, Tamil, and
Mandarin phrases, embodying typical conversations at the Malaysian marketplace, cof-
feeshop, homes, and schools.
Participatory Evaluations
Critical evaluations regarding the workshop process and content are carried out based
on focused interviews and questionnaire evaluations. This is to find out what the young
people and communities think about the project, the problems faced, and what they
have learned. This allows for improvements in future projects.
Social Impact and Outcomes

Besides the investigation of local cultures and concerns, the entire participatory process
of the musical theater (as exemplied by Opera Pasar) has promoted the spirit of goodwill
and building bridges among young people of various ethnic origins. It has encouraged
cross-cultural understanding and interaction by incorporating participants, artists, and
facilitators from different ethnicity and class backgrounds. The young participants have
been given a safe space to relate intensively with others outside their own racial group.
Through participatory research, the young people learn about each other’s history,
religion, and culture. Through intensive interaction during the workshop and perfor-
mances, they learn to appreciate and mix with children of different backgrounds. This
contributes to peace building. By crossing stylistic and ethnic boundaries, that is, by
representing themselves in ambiguous ways (shown by blending languages, singing,
and dance styles, which occurs in their daily lives), the young people subvert the essen-
tialist ethnic representations of the state. They begin to appreciate cultural differences
and develop perspectives that are more inclusive.
The practice of “making theater” is also extended to the community, focusing on
issues relevant to the community. The participants not only “give back” to the communi-
ties (from whom they obtained their research materials) but create new knowledge by
bringing their energy, creativity, and insights through performance. The experience is
empowering, both for the performers and the community. In the midst of the Opera
Pasar project, the young people found out that several tenants in the vicinity of the mar-
ket were being moved out, as they could not pay the high rents. They discovered that
George Town’s living cultural heritage faces a threat as traditional communities who
have been living in the inner city since World War II are being forced to vacate their
premises to make way for upmarket businesses like boutique hotels, pubs, and restau-
rants. This not only gave the young performers extra motivation to tell their story but
a channel for the tenants to make known their plight. The Campbell Street heritage
market still stands, and the traders have been able to continue selling their goods today.
However, many of those renting houses in the vicinity have been moved out to make
way for new restaurants and coffee houses.
Nonetheless, an exciting outcome is that in having contributed to the research, mak-
ing of the compositions and performance itself, the young people develop a sense of
affinity to the predicaments of the traders and the wet market. They gain ownership of
the reconstructed musical traditions, and begin to internalize traditional music through
new and engaging channels. Empowerment and ownership ensure that musical tradi-
tions will be conserved in their traditional sociocultural contexts of performance, and
not just in the archives.
Toward a Participatory Applied

Ethnomusicology for
Social Intervention
This chapter sees applied ethnomusicology as a type of social intervention in which the
researcher mediates problem-solving and cultural or social conflict among the disad-
vantaged or marginalized (Harrison, Mackinlay, and Pettan, 2011). As ethnomusicolo-
gists take on new roles in the field, their research methodologies and approaches need
to be evaluated and changed. I have tried to show in this chapter that conventional
ethnomusicological undertakings, such as fieldwork and research through interviews,
participant observation, audiovisual recordings, analysis, skill training in performing
traditional instruments, and other forms of local theater and dance, remain important
tools for cultural conservation. Nevertheless, for social intervention to take place, par-
ticipatory approaches that can strengthen the self-esteem and confidence of the target
groups by self-expression, interaction, and involvement need to be incorporated. These
approaches are often interdisciplinary and are drawn from other fields such as develop-
ment studies, performance studies, pedagogy, anthropology, and oral history. In order
to bring about change in society, it is necessary to develop an alternative participatory
applied ethnomusicology that is inclusive, plural, and interdisciplinary in approach, and
that incorporates the diverse voices of the people with whom we work.
Learning from the practice of process theater for development, this chapter advo-
cates a shift from the neutral objective collection and analysis of ethnographic data14
toward action research, which is participatory where the researcher collaborates with
the community in all aspects of the research that aims at improving the quality of life
of the community. The community then becomes an active participant in the dialogue,
128 Tan Sooi Beng
investigation, decision-making, and action taken, rather than remaining “the Other.”
The multiplicity of voices reduces the power of any dominant voice and breaks down
hierarchies.
Through the examples of the Heritage Celebrations and children’s music advocacy
programs in Penang, I have shown that the participatory methods of process theater,
such as participatory planning, training, mapping, learning, analysis, and presentation,
are practical instruments of participatory action research and applied ethnomusicology.
Participatory methods are tools for promoting dialogue and building self-confidence
and community.
The participatory approach of working is based on the following:
1. Participation of all stakeholders, which includes contributing ideas, reflecting,

and taking initiatives for action collectively;
2. Research and mapping of issues and locations as a group;
3. Dialogue and exchange of ideas together through the process of creating and pre-
senting theater or creative work;
4. Stakeholder ownership of the process and content of the research;
5. Decisions for action to be made by all stakeholders whose lives will be affected by
the action;
6. Adaptability and creativity in methodologies, as there is no single rule for
problem-solving;
7. Facilitator training among the community for follow-up work; and
8. Networking with other groups with similar interests and strategies as part of the
exchange and experiential learning.
The overall effect of these creative participatory processes is “empowerment”; com-

munities and young people gain the capacity to make positive choices about their future
and transform these decisions into action. They gain access to knowledge through
research so that they can take part in the democratic process. The stakeholders gain con-
fidence to enter into dialogue with others, and take practical action as individuals or as
a group. They are able to generate new knowledge and to challenge conventional history
and cultural representations by the more powerful.
As soon as action research becomes participatory in nature, the researcher’s posi-
tion becomes equal to that of the other participants. The stakeholders collectively
conduct research, mapping, analysis, and interpretation of social problems within the
community, which ultimately aim at the improvement of the quality of their own lives.
Once engaged in the entire process of planning, research, analysis, decision-making,
problem-solving, and the creation of artworks, the stakeholders make the activities their
own, feel committed to the objectives, and can carry on even without the presence of the
ethnomusicologist outsider. The collaboration and project are then likely to succeed.
In participatory action research, there is a delicate relationship between empower-
ment of the community and the role of the ethnomusicologist researcher. The applied
ethnomusicologist needs to find a balance between his or her own needs and the needs
of the community. Ethnomusicologists act as facilitators or catalysts, providing the

tools for participatory research, spaces and forums for dialogue, methods for capac-
ity building, and the training of other facilitators. They must respect and acknowledge
the resources, experiences, and skills of the participants. As facilitators, they need to
cross disciplines and move between music, dance, theater, crafts, other creative arts,
politics, history, and other fields, depending on the cultural assets and concerns of the
community. They must be compliant and creative in adjusting their topics and methods
depending on the social and cultural factors at play.
In the context of community development, as I have highlighted earlier, creative
participatory processes are vehicles for participation and a forum for raising and ana-
lyzing local problems. A major outcome is the empowering of community members
who, prior to participating in these projects, had little or no say in decision-making.
Nevertheless, there is a need to emphasize that participatory methods can only act as
tools for intervention in communities striving for self-reliance and change. These meth-
ods do not resolve problems such as the inequalities, racial tensions, or problematic rep-
resentations totally, but they help to illustrate and expose the issues. Group discussions
and evaluations serve as interventions or problem-posing strategies, which can lead to
further action.
The case studies of Penang also illustrate that research and documentation are essen-
tial tools for social intervention. As Arjun Appadurai (2006: 175, 176, 177) has written
in his article “The Right to Research,” it is important for the “bottom thirty percent of
the world’s population in poor countries who might not get past secondary schools” to
“make independent inquiries about their own lives and worlds. Developing the capacity
to document, inquire, analyze, and communicate results has a powerful effect on their
capacity to speak up as active citizens on matters that are shaping their city and their
world.” Writing, photography, drawing, creating videos, singing, and acting are ways to
communicate research findings and analysis to the public. He cites the Mumbai-based
Partners for Urban Action and Research (PUKAR) as an example, where young people
are taught certain forms of research and analysis to enable them to study their own lives
and the cities where they live, and to disseminate their results through various types of
media such as photography or writing.15
Finally, the processual and participatory way of working toward the organization and
running of the Heritage Celebrations and children’s advocacy musical-theater projects
may be viewed as a step toward the democratization of cultural research and learning.
Acquiring the ability to conduct research, investigate, analyze, and communicate find-
ings in creative ways can help communities and young people to voice their opinions
regarding issues that are affecting them and their communities.
Notes
1. It should be noted that participatory action research has been established in applied
anthropology and public folklore much earlier than in ethnomusicology. As an example,
130 Tan Sooi Beng
theater, music, and film have been used by activists in the southern Appalachian Mountain
region of the United States as participatory action research with community leadership
since the 1970s. For further information, see the website of Appalshop, a media, arts, and
education center in Whitesburg, Kentucky, http://appalshop.org/about/ (accessed January
13, 2014). In the field of ethnomusicology, Jeff Todd Titon has written about participatory
action research with Old Regular Baptists of Southeastern Kentucky, in the United States.
In collaboration with the Indian Bottom Association of Old Regular Baptists, he has
co-produced two Smithsonian Folkways albums of their music. For more information, see
Titon (1999), Fenn and Titon (2003), and the website http://www.folklife.si.edu/resources/
festival1997/baptists.htm (accessed January 13, 2014).
2. See van Erven’s (1992) seminal study on the Philippine, Korean, Indian, Indonesian, Thai,
and Japanese theater for liberation networks in the 1970s and 1980s. Based on research
in these countries, he has written about the practitioners, methodologies, and content of
the theater for liberation workshops and the scripts of plays performed by the prominent
groups in these countries. According to van Erven, the impact of these theater programs
has been so powerful that theater practitioners in some countries have been threatened
with guns and even imprisonment.
3. This section about the programs and approaches of the theater for development groups in
Asia is based on personal research and interviews with established groups and practitio-
ners in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Japan. The research was funded by the
Asian Public Intellectuals (API) Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Japan in 2008–2009.
4. See Tan (2009) for a report of how various groups in Japan, Thailand, Philippines, and
Indonesia have used the arts and other forms of popular media to empower young people
to understand and deal with issues, concerns, and changes in their lives. The API project
report discusses the role of communication media in democratic expression, team build-
ing, participatory processes, and engagement of the stakeholders and youths of the com-
munities in the projects.
5. See Tan (1990) for a discussion of the Malaysian government’s efforts to create a national
culture in the 1970s and 1980s and the responses from the various ethnic and social groups
involved in the arts.
6. I analyze the processes of cultural centralization, effects of the national policy on the tra-
ditional performing arts, and the re-creation of tradition by arts administrators from the
1970s until the turn of the millennium in Tan (2003).
7. The state government of Penang has sponsored an annual month-long festival of arts
and culture known as the George Town Festival since 2010 to celebrate the inscription of
George Town as a world heritage site (together with Melaka). The community-oriented
Heritage Celebrations are among the core events of the month-long festival.
8. It should be mentioned that Penang is one of the few states of Malaysia governed by the
opposition party, the Democratic Action Party (DAP), and the chief minister is a Chinese
from DAP. Consequently, the people of Penang are given more opportunities to challenge
federal cultural and other policies that are perceived to be discriminatory.
9. The Indian Muslim community has emerged as a result of the marriage of Malays and
Indians.
10. For more information about all the programs of the heritage celebrations, see www.heri-
tagecelebrations.info or www.facebook.com/GeorgeTownCelebrations.
11. Secret societies are triads or brotherhoods of sworn association, that engage in activities
outside the law and share a common system of signs and initiation rites. Secret societies
were banned by the British colonial government in Malaysia in the early twentieth century.
12. See Tan (2011) for more detailed descriptions and video recordings of the multicultural
performing arts, crafts, festivals, and food of Penang.
13. See Tan (2011) for more information about the diverse performing arts of Penang.
14. Araujo (2008) is critical of colonial narratives that inform the traditional methods of eth-
nomusicological research based on “conventional ethnography,” that is, based on “partici-
pant observation,” “analyzed and presented in a neutral way.” This type of research fails
“to produce real engagement with the researched.” For him, the discourse of academia
reduces the power of people in defining, preserving, and presenting their cultures.
15. Appadurai (2006: 167) states that it is the right of the poor to “claim the right to research.”
He argues for the need to “de-parochialize the idea of research,” which should not be seen
as an activity of those with certain training and class background. Rather, research should
be made available to ordinary people, as it is a way to increase their knowledge in relation
to some goal or task.
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Chapter 4
Applied Ethnomu si c ol o g y
and Intangibl e C u lt u ra l
Heritag e
Understanding “Ecosystems of Music” as a Tool
for Sustainability
Huib Schippers
In 1964, William Kay Archer published “On the Ecology of Music,” a five-page essay in
Ethnomusicology (8[1]‌: 28–33), in which he argues:
In a time when the total pattern of musical dissemination, consumption and response
is undergoing extraordinary changes, it may be as fruitful to consider sources of raw
materials for instruments, patterns of leisure, technological developments, musical
“listening-spaces” and the like, as to consider the music itself.
(Archer, 1964: 28–29)
Although he does not develop this idea in any great detail (Archer primarily focuses on
social and aesthetic considerations in the following pages), it does help trace back the
“wellsprings” of explicit ecological thinking on music over half a century.
In the five decades since, a number of authors have invoked ecology as an approach
or metaphor for thinking about music cultures. Most notable among these is Jeff Titon,
who developed this view over a period of 25 years through his writings, his lectures,
his blog (http://sustainablemusic.blogspot.com/), and a themed edition of The World of
Music on ecology and sustainability that he edited in 2009. In that volume, he strongly
links ecological understanding to sustainability and, outlining the contents of the vol-
ume, provides a much more comprehensive list of factors in the ecosystem of music,
including the following:
Applied Ethnomusicology and Intangible Cultural Heritage 135
Cultural and musical rights and ownership, the circulation and conservation of
music, the internal vitality of music cultures and the social organization of their
music-making, music education and transmission, the roles of community scholars
and practitioners, intangible cultural heritage, tourism, and the creative economy,
preservation versus revitalization, partnerships among cultural workers and com-
munity leaders, and good stewardship of musical resources.
(Titon, 2009a: 5)
Critiquing cultural heritage management initiatives that approach preservation stati-

cally, he argues that stewardship in relation to musical ecosystems “offers the most
promising path toward sustainability in musical cultures today” (ibid.: 11) as “living
heritage ‘masterpieces’ are best maintained by managing the cultural soil surrounding
them” (2009b: 124). That is a leading thought throughout this chapter.
Other authors have explicitly or implicitly invoked the ecology metaphor to eluci-
date the network of forces that impact the sustainability of specific music genres. Daniel
Neuman (1980) was probably the first, by dedicating a full chapter to “The Ecology of
Hindustani Music Culture,” covering “the producers of music, the consumers of music,
the contexts of music events, and the technology of music production and reproduc-
tion” (1980: 203). Other includes Slobin (1996) for Eastern and Central European music,
Ramnarine (2003) for Finnish folk music, Sheehy (2006) for Mexican Mariachi music,
and Howard (2006a, 2006b) for Korean music, to name just a few.
In that way, factors that influence musical vibrancy have been identified in specific
cultures for several decades. However, they have hardly been explored systematically
across genres and cultures. In one way, this can be explained from the fact that each
music genre is best approached in its own right, as well as an aversion to compara-
tive approaches in our discipline—which have been passionately discredited since the
1950s. This was arguably more due to conceptual and ideological weaknesses rather
than to structural flaws (cf. Nettl, 2010: 71, 82), although Lomax’s Cantometrics probably
failed to gain broad support from the 1960s due to the latter, overclaiming correlations
between musical characteristics and societal structures (Lomax, 1976). In the current
debate concerning sustainability, however, I would argue there is an argument to revisit
comparative approaches without a strong Eurocentric bias, which can assist in explor-
ing links between music sustainability and ecology from a contemporary, holistic, and
global perspective.
Ecosystems of Music
There is a 65-year gap between the time that Haeckel introduced the concept of ecol-
ogy in 1870 as “the study of all those complex interrelations referred to by Darwin as
the conditions of the struggle for existence” (quoted in Stauffer, 1957: 140), creating
136 Huib Schippers
a fertile, practical philosophical and metaphorical framework to explore sustain-

ability, and the launch of the term ecosystem, which I would argue invites more con-
crete reflections on the forces that affect a phenomenon. While the latter developed
in biology as well, the term ecosystem is both derived from and applicable to a wider
intellectual space. A. G. Tansley borrowed from the sciences when he first used it,
arguing to consider
the whole system (in the sense of physics), including not only the organism complex,
but also the whole complex of physical factors forming what we call the environment
of the biome, the habitat factors in the widest sense. Though the organism may claim
our primary interest, when we are trying to think fundamentally we cannot separate
them from their special environment, with which they form one physical system.
(1935: 299)
Ecosystems have since been used to describe animal habitats, resources, cities, and
increasingly other environments, which can “include humans and their artifacts” to the
point “that it is applicable to any case where organisms and physical processes interact
in some spatial area” (Pickett and Cadenasso, 2002: 2). That provides fruitful ground for
looking at music cultures.
Arguably, ethnomusicology—and to some extent historical musicology—have
already used this approach: primarily in regard to localized genres, with a wealth of
focused ethnographic studies from the 1960s, and regarding individual music cultures
and genres more in their diasporic and global contexts since the 1980s. Individual musi-
cians, instrument makers, communities, educators, the music industry, opinion leaders,
and public authorities are among the direct actors, while not only the physical envi-
ronment and climate, but also war, discrimination, and disease are among the indirect
forces in such ecosystems.
Undeniably, it is both easy and tempting to appeal “to natural imagery to justify cri-
tiques of the detrimental impact of transnational industry practices on sub-dominant
music cultures and styles” (Keogh, 2013: 11), and to make facile links between music
ecosystems and sustainability efforts, imbibed with a sense of moral justness, perhaps
much like the word authentic is used in music performance contexts (cf. Cook, 1998:
11–13; Schippers, 2010: pp. 47–50; Taylor, 2007: p. 21). Similarly, it is easy to succumb
to a historically and intellectually unsound tendency to impose a static, preservationist
approach on music genres as objects. While many archiving efforts, recording projects,
festivals, and even the highly visible Masterpieces of Intangible Cultural Heritage initia-
tives of UNESCO still seem to approach music genres as artifacts rather than organisms,
there is increasing consensus that a dynamic approach to processes of music sustainabil-
ity and change is imperative. It is broadly acknowledged that instruments, styles, and
genres have been emerging and disappearing throughout history and across cultures as
a largely “organic” process.
In fact, the concept of ecosystem fits current thinking on how music sits within its
environment remarkably well, almost to the point that can be considered literal rather
than metaphorical. We don’t have to stray far from Tansley’s (1935) description to define
a music ecosystem as
the whole system, including not only a specific music genre, but also the complex
of factors defining the genesis, development and sustainability of the surrounding
music culture in the widest sense, including (but not limited to) the role of indi-
viduals, communities, values and attitudes, learning processes, contexts for making
music, infrastructure and organisations, rights and regulations, diaspora and travel,
media and the music industry.
(Schippers after Tansley, 1935: 298)
It is easy to argue in parallel with Tansley that, though historically music genres may
have claimed our primary interest, when we are trying to think fundamentally, we can-
not separate them from their special environment, with which they form one physical
system.
That in turn invites a brief discussion of the terminology and rhetoric of sustainabil-
ity. In music, as in many other disciplines, ecosystem does associate with sustainability
in the context of other widely used terms such as preservation, safeguarding, salvaging,
and maintaining. The first three of these run the risk of coming across as defensive
and patronizing. They imply risks of stasis, ossification, and even strangulation of liv-
ing traditions, as well as disempowerment and other risks of government interven-
tions or institutionalization. The term maintaining (commonly used in the context of
preserving languages internationally) is much less harsh, and perhaps the strongest
competition for sustaining. Maintaining does suggest aiming for a status quo, however.
Etymologically, maintaining means holding in the hand, (Fr., maintenir), while sus-
taining implies holding a hand under something for support (Fr., soustenir). Therefore,
I would argue that the term sustaining has the best chance at transcending any “tradi-
tion under siege” associations, suggesting a gentler process, and leaving room for tak-
ing into account more than a single force working on a phenomenon—while it is still
allowed to breathe.
If sustainability is the preferred terminology, three key questions need to be
answered: whether (any—or all) music needs to be sustained; what is to be sustained;
and finally, how this can be operationalized. This will be the focus of much of the rest of
this chapter.
While some may believe that all music should be preserved, it is clear that over the
course of history thousands of music genres have emerged and disappeared due to “nat-
ural” causes. Not all of us are in arms about this at every single occurrence. For instance,
the rise and decline of crooning (McCracken, 1999) was a process that that did not cause
indignation from a sustainability perspective. In addition, it is useful to keep in mind
that much music does not need additional support. Most music cultures adapt suc-
cessfully to changing environments, and often benefit from them. Music genres once
138 Huib Schippers
constrained to a single locale are now available across the planet. The issues of mar-
kets, power, and perceptions of prestige that underlie this reality have created shifts in
musical dynamics that benefit many, but threaten the futures of other forms of musi-
cal expression. Arguably, this occurs well beyond the evolutionary processes that have
predominantly governed musical diversity in earlier periods. Anthony Seeger expresses
his concern about global risks to certain categories of intangible cultural heritage
succinctly:
The problem is it’s not really an even playing field: it’s not as though these are just dis-
appearing, they’re ‘being disappeared’; there’s an active process in the disappearance
of many traditions around the world. Some of them are being disappeared by major-
ity groups that want to eliminate the differences of their minority groups within their
nations, others are being disappeared by missionaries or religious groups of various
kinds who find music offensive and want to eliminate it.
(QCRC, 2008)
Other factors that can be beneficial or detrimental—often without a particular aim

or focus on music—include technological developments, copyright legislation, infra-
structural challenges, socioeconomic change, wars, disease, and educational systems,
as well as developments in travel, migration, business, and communication (cf. Letts,
2006; Malm, 1993; Taylor, 2007; Titon, 2009a). Considering all these factors, the focus
of sustainability in this context is not necessarily the preservation of all forms of musical
expression, but a future for those that musicians, communities, and other stakeholders
feel are worth preserving and developing, and which are at risk due to a range of circum-
stances beyond their control. Some of these circumstances can be influenced to some
extent (like funding or education); others are largely outside human control, such as
conflict, disease, or natural phenomena such as the slow sinking below rising sea levels
of the Takū Atoll (Moyle, 2007), which necessitates more creative lines of action to keep
music vibrant in a changing environment.
Next is the question of what is to be sustained. Is it the musical sound, the per-
formance tradition, the transmission processes, the audience, the commercial value,
the social, cultural, or spiritual context, or the musical practice at large, including its
underlying values and attitudes? The balance between these differs from tradition
to tradition and stakeholder to stakeholder, and they are often interrelated. While
it is perfectly possible to “freeze” a specific musical expression on video or audio
recording, for a practice to be sustainable it tends to need a combination of at least
some of the following components: a robust transmission processes, strong links in
the community, prestige, appropriate settings and infrastructure for practicing the
music, supportive media, an engaged music industry, and laws and regulations that
do not impede negatively on the genre, much in line with the Titon quote earlier in
this chapter.
For most genres and traditions, these do not form a neat and static set of characteris-
tics, but a diverse and not always coherent one. This lack of coherence is not necessarily
a weakness: it potentially creates the resilience to deal with inevitable changes due to
social and cultural change, globalization, commodification, and recontextualization.
Efforts aimed at preserving music as an object or artifact risk creating a false sense
of security: well-preserved recordings, carefully crafted slick presentations for broad
audiences, and institutionalized education or performance practices can lead to ossi-
fication by not allowing change, or an artificial “new life” supported financially and
organizationally, devoid of links with community or a creative lifeline to new ideas.
“Hold still, let me preserve you” may be convenient from a logistical perspective, but
it is an altogether inappropriate approach to sustaining a living tradition, and may
lead to a “slow puncture” demise of the music over one or two generations (Schippers,
2009: 202). Howard (2012), among many others, argues that “cultural conservation
needs to be dynamic” (p. 5), and conceived “as a way to organise ‘the profusion of public
and private efforts’ that deal with ‘traditional community cultural life’ (Loomis, 1983,
iv)” and which “we together with our constituents, share in the act of making” (p. 6).
Related to this are the concepts of tradition, authenticity, and context. As I have argued
elsewhere (Schippers, 2010: 41–60), static approaches to each of those concepts may have
done more harm than good to the thinking on, education in, and practice of music outside
the Western classical canon: “The nature of tradition is not to preserve intact a heritage
from the past, but to enrich it according to present circumstances and transmit the result to
future generations” (Aubert, 2007: 10). Similarly, as discussed above, authenticity is highly
contentious and laden. Paradoxically, it had opposite meanings in the emergence of early
music practice in the 1960s and 1970s (“Authentic is as close to the original as we can get”)
and in rock music of the same period (“Authentic is as far from copying existing models as
possible”). Moreover, the reference for authenticity, the “moment of authenticness,” may
well be rather randomly or even self-servingly chosen by a self-proclaimed authority. In
that sense, it is similar to the idea of “the right context”: virtually all music traditions rein-
vent, redefine, and recontextualize themselves as a matter of course. Hybridization and
transculturalization are not exceptions, but the norm in virtually all music that we know,
even though few realize as they enjoy a symphony that if one were to exclude all influences
from the Western orchestra that can be traced back to the world of Islam—which includes,
strings, reeds, percussion, and brass—there would be little left on stage.
All of this presents a potent case for regarding the past, present, and future of musical
practices as part of a complex and often delicate ecosystem. The final key issue in the
discussion of “What is to be preserved?” is defining the scope of ecosystems of music
for the purpose of this discussion. The literature on ecosystems at large (e.g., Pickett and
Cadenasso, 2002) allows room for both very narrowly prescribed boundaries as well as
working on a vast scale. In some cases it makes sense to draw a narrow circle around a
valley in the Swiss Alps or a Pacific island that harbors the community, is the birthplace
of its composers, teachers, and performers, has provided the raw materials for instru-
ments, and is the site of transmission processes, performance, and other aspects of
what Small calls “musicking”: “to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance,
whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practising, by providing material
for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing” (Small, 1998: 9).
140 Huib Schippers
In such a scenario, influences from beyond the circle are seen as intruders into
the ecosystem, like an oil spill threatening a coral reef. However, as myriad external
influences increasingly form an integral part of virtually all music practices, it may
be more accurate and fruitful to regard all forces that impact upon the music as part
of the ecosystem, including technology, commercialization, legislature, globaliza-
tion, and media. As Wong (QCRC, 2008) reminds us, we are working in “environ-
ments which are going to be commodified, and mediatized, and globalized.” This
allows for a much more comprehensive picture of both potential and challenges for
sustainability.
It also assists in addressing one of the concerns of Keogh (2013: 6) and others: that the
applied ethnomusicologist who works toward preservation or sustainability interferes
with the ecosystem.
I would argue that this is not the case in the approach proposed here: ethnomusicolo-
gists who strive to preserve—aspects of or certain approaches to—a particular genre
or tradition are part of the ecosystem. As Pickett and Cadenasso point out, the con-
cept of ecosystems “now supports studies that incorporate humans not only as exter-
nally located, negative drivers, but also as integral agents that affect and are reciprocally
affected by the other components of ecosystems” (2002: 7). The core in this approach lies
in not excluding any factors from the ecosystem.
Mapping key clusters of forces working on any music genre within a wider music
culture generates a simplified graphic representation of a music ecosystem, with the
genre at the center, surrounded by factors impacting it, positively or negatively, single or
multidirectional.
Figure 4.1 represents five clusters of possible factors influencing the sustainability
of a music genre, starting with community-related ones on top, then those relating to
education, those involving infrastructure and regulations, media and the music indus-
try, and finally contexts, values, and attitudes. For any specific tradition, the impor-
tance of each of those (the size of the balloon, if you will) will vary: paying audiences
and formal curricula may be irrelevant to many forms of religious music, and country
music survives excellently without grants and legislation. Often, the forces within a
cluster will interact (music programs in schools invite formal curricula and the devel-
opment of pedagogical materials), and forces between clusters may interrelate: the
high prestige of opera leads to interest by broadcasters and recording companies, with
the exposure triggering grants and subsidies for performances and buildings, exten-
sive learning opportunities, and high social status of opera singers.
Absent from this diagram is explicit mention of well-recognized forces on music sus-
tainability, such as globalization and conflict. In this model, these are best regarded not
as single influences, but as ones that may have effects across the clusters: globalization
influences industry, institutions, values, and attitudes; while conflict may affect places
to perform and create, ethnic and gender issues, and community engagement (ranging
from abandoning a music genre to finding new resilience).
MUSICIANS AND COMMUNITIES
C S
O Y
N Diaspora and
Level of interest in S
Social/ritual Community engagement cross-cultural
T participating, learning, Availability and T
settings and with music and musicians connections
E and performing accessibility of music E
X contexts material for learners M
T Community Position/status of S
S leaders musicians and Role, position, and O
A Patronage and related professions availability teachers/ F
philanthropy Informal
N Sense of identity culture-bearers learning L
D and well-being practices E
C Collaboration with/ A
Remuneration
O Ethnicity and between musicians R
and recognition
N gender issues Music programs in N
S Approaches toward schools/community I
T authenticity,
Pedagogical N
tradition, and change
R approaches G
U Attitudes toward
music making Online resources M
C MUSIC GENRE
and pedagogies U
T Formal curricula/
S teaching practices S
Aesthetics and Conservatoires I
cosmologies
Opinion leaders C
Media exposure Philosophies and
(of musical sound) Places to Music institutions values governing
perform and organizations learning & teaching
Prestige, stigma, and create
and prejudice Printed, broadcast,
& online press
Postcolonial Paying audiences Grants, awards,
values and Music rights (eg IP), sponsorship,
attitudes Independent labels censorship, and other and subsidies
and broadcasters Major recording relevant legislature
companies
Insurance, unions, Availability of Archives

World wide web Commodification and instruments and libraries, and
& pension schemes
commercialization other “hardware” museums
MEDIA AND THE MUSIC INDUSTRY INFRASTRUCTURE AND REGULATIONS
Figure 4.1 Ecosystems of music: Major forces working on the sustainability of music genres across five domains.
142 Huib Schippers
International Perspectives and

Initiatives
These ideas do not exist in a vacuum. The importance of sustaining—and the challenges
to maintaining—global musical diversity have been widely recognized with increasing
urgency, as borne out by a suite of UNESCO conventions, declarations, and initiatives
put in place over the past 14 years, flowing from its Universal Declaration on Cultural
Diversity (UNESCO, 2001): the UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible
Cultural Heritage (UNESCO, 2003), the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of
the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (UNESCO, 2005), and the Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, 2007).
While building on initiatives going back many decades in countries like Japan (since
1950) and Korea (since 1982; see Howard, 2012), and not unchallenged in all aspects
(such as reducing music genres to artifacts), the UNESCO initiatives have caused a
groundswell of awareness, interest, activities, and policies to stimulate the maintenance
and diversity of intangible cultural heritage since the beginning of the third millennium.
This is currently perhaps most notable in China, where Helen Rees signals “an avalanche
of policies, procedures, regulations, projects, and concepts that have poured forth since
China dived head-first into intangible cultural heritage protection around the year
2000” (2012: 35).
While the intensity of recent efforts in this arena across Asia is striking, they are not
limited in time and place. During the past decades, numerous initiatives (many spon-
sored by governments, NGOs, and development agencies) throughout the world have
provided support for specific music cultures over defined periods of time, ranging from
single events or festivals to projects running for a number of years. They constitute pos-
itive impulses for the cultures targeted, but their long-term effect is often difficult to
demonstrate. Another way to counteract decline in musical diversity has been to docu-
ment traditions that are in danger of disappearing. Across cultures and continents, this
has occurred on a considerable scale for over 100 years, mostly by colleague ethnomu-
sicologists (cf. Nettl, 2010). The results of these efforts are stored in various formats and
locations, from local and regional repositories to archival networks like DELAMAN
(Digital Endangered Languages and Musics Archives Network) and international cen-
ters such as the Smithsonian. In this way, the sound of many traditions is being pre-
served, allowing future generations to access and reconstruct if they wish (at least to
some extent) musical styles and genres that have disappeared. In some cases these are
invaluable as communities seek out lost repertoire, but often their reach is limited.
Timothy Rice criticizes methods that are exclusively “aimed at their accurate
preservation as sound, film, or video recordings.” He argues, “A corollary of this
theory-and-method combination is that a practice has been preserved when converted
into a recording, that is, into a fixed text or monument—perhaps analogous to the way
jam preserves fresh fruit” (1997: 102). A further reservation is that archival recordings
often implicitly suggest authenticity, purity, justness, and even “museumness” (cf. Cook,
1998: 30) for a particular recording of a particular repertoire, and in that way may stifle
the “natural” development of repertoire or interpretation.
Similar arguments can be made for the creation of national troupes or orchestras mix-
ing the music of different cultural backgrounds, for revivals, and for the institutionaliza-
tion of training professional musicians. The first tends to objectify music, ignore cultural
context, and harmonize divergent styles and even tonal systems. As Titon points out, the
second embodies “a paradox: what is presented there as authentic cannot possibly be
so, because it is staged” (2009b: 121). Feintuch firmly critiques revivalists who “assert
that they’re bolstering a declining musical tradition. But rather than encourage continu-
ity, musical revivals recast the music—and culture—they are referring to” (1993: 184).
Finally, higher music education runs the risk of canonizing and ossifying music through
fixing repertoire and curricula, and highlighting measurable aspects of music learning
over more ineffable ones (Schippers, 2010: 61–75). Indeed, valuable as they are, such
efforts do not always provide sufficient basis for the actual survival of musical styles
as part of an unbroken, living tradition, which many will argue is a key condition for
maintaining the essence (explicit and tacit, tangible and intangible) of specific styles and
genres.
Five Domains
This brings the discussion to the question of how? Given the situation described above,
it seems there is scope for an angle complementary to existing, more narrowly focused
preservation initiatives: for approaching music as governed by ecosystems, for explor-
ing the sustainability of music cultures in closer collaboration with communities. This
would be in line with the third of Dan Sheehy’s four proposed strategies of applied eth-
nomusicology: “providing community members access to strategic models and conser-
vation techniques” (1992: 331). It also resonates with Titon’s idea of stewardship, which
“repositions culture workers collaboratively, both as students of community scholars
and music practitioners, and simultaneously as teachers who share their skills and net-
working abilities to help the musical community maintain and improve the conditions
under which their expressive culture may flourish” (2009b: 120).
Such an enterprise requires a framework to map not only their histories and “authen-
tic” practices, but also their dynamics and potential for recontextualization in their
contemporary environment. This includes considering new musical and technological
realities, changing values and attitudes, as well as social, political, and market forces.
The ethnomusicological literature of the past 50 years already presents a wealth of infor-
mation on the nature and present state of many specific music cultures, based primar-
ily on wide consultation with musicians and their communities. More recently, we find
increasing attention for other stakeholders, such as public authorities, educational insti-
tutions, and the music industry, complemented by documentaries, press, policies, and
144 Huib Schippers
data gathered from government sources, NGOs, educational authorities, cultural orga-
nizations, media, and business. An excellent example of this is the volume on East Asian
Music as Intangible Cultural Heritage (Howard, ed., 2012), which includes essays dealing
with tourism, top-down preservation policies, the role of the media, and political issues.
With such a vast body of information, the key challenge is choosing ways of orga-
nizing and analyzing data and insights and their impact on music cultures. I propose
that an attractive and insightful way of doing so is a framework of five domains that
contain the crucial elements of most “ecosystems of music,” as represented in Figure 4.1
in this chapter: systems of learning music; musicians and communities; contexts and
constructs; regulations and infrastructure; media and the music industry. Table 4.1 sum-
marizes the key aspects of each of these domains in prose.
These domains cover most key aspects relevant to the sustainability of almost any
musical practice, irrespective of specific musical forms or content, and as free as pos-
sible from Eurocentric bias. Most of them are well documented. For instance, “musi-
cians and communities” and “contexts and constructs” have been at the center of much
ethnomusicological research for five decades. “Systems of learning music” and “media
and the music industry” have gained increased attention since the 1980s. “Regulations
and infrastructure” have attracted sporadic attention in the discipline, but have been the
realm of public authorities and NGOs. For example, the International Music Council
report on musical diversity instigated by UNESCO (Letts, 2006) provides a wealth of
information on a number of important non-musical factors that affect the viability of
specific music cultures, such as copyright, politics, and regulations.
Television and radio broadcasting policies, like those that attempt to encourage or
protect local music through laws that require they are allocated a percentage of airplay,
have a wide and deep influence on sustainability. Several countries have employed legal
provisions to protect folklore through copyright (e.g., Bolivia in 1968, Senegal in 1973,
and Ghana in 1985), and some have a system whereby royalties are payable upon use
of folklore for economic gain, which in turn are “sometimes earmarked for the pres-
ervation of traditional culture and/or the promotion of cultural creation” (Blaukopf,
1992: 33). These policies are of course dependent on politics, lobbying, and the ideolo-
gies of those in power, and consequently vacillate from country to country, and from
governmental era to era.
In order to understand the influence of these domains on sustainability, it is impor-
tant to regard not only each individual domain, but rather the whole as the ecosystem.
Each of the domains above overlaps and interrelates in how it affects music cultures.
For example, change can be driven by a combination of changing values and attitudes,
technological developments, and/or audience behavior. The manner of music transmis-
sion is often strongly determined by its institutional environment, and media attention,
markets, and audiences can often be linked to issues of public perception and prestige.
For example, Western classical opera may be argued to be one of the least likely
genres to survive in terms of its almost insurmountable requirements in terms of infra-
structure (a theater with excellent acoustics, a large stage, and a flight tower), high-
level training of the participants (soloists, chorus, orchestra, conductor, director), and
Table 4.1. “Ecosystems of Music”: A Framework for Understanding Aspects
of Sustainability
1. Systems of learning music This domain assesses the transmission processes that are central to
the sustainability of most music cultures. It investigates balances
between informal and formal education and training, notation-based
and aural learning, holistic and atomistic approaches, and emphasis
on tangible and less tangible aspects of “musicking.” It explores
contemporary developments in learning and teaching (from master-
disciple relationships to systems that are technology/web-based), and
how non-musical activities, philosophies, and approaches intersect
with learning and teaching. These processes are examined from the
level of community initiatives through music education to the level of
institutionalized professional training.
2. Musicians and communities This domain examines the positions, roles, and interactions of musicians
within their communities, and the social basis of their traditions in that
context. It scrutinizes everyday realities in the existence of creative
musicians, including issues of remuneration through performances,
teaching, portfolio careers, community support, tenured employment,
patronage, freelancing, and non-musical activities, and the role of
technology, media, and travel in these. Cross-cultural influences and the
role of the diaspora are also examined.
3. Contexts and constructs This domain assesses the social and cultural contexts of musical traditions.
It examines both the setting of music practices and the underlying values
and attitudes (constructs). These include musical tastes, aesthetics,
cosmologies, socially and individually constructed identities, gender issues,
as well as (perceived) prestige, which is often underestimated as a key
factor in musical survival. It also looks at the realities of and the attitudes
to recontextualization, authenticity, and context, and explicit and implicit
approaches to cultural diversity resulting from travel, migration, or media,
as well as obstacles such as prejudice, racism, stigma, restrictive religious
attitudes, and issues of appropriation.
4. Regulations and This domain primarily relates to the “hardware” of music: places to
infrastructure create, perform, practice, and learn, all of which are essential for music
to survive, as well as virtual spaces for creation, collaboration, learning,
archiving, and dissemination. Other aspects included in this domain are
the availability and/or manufacturing of instruments and other tangible
resources. It also examines the extent to which regulations are conducive
or obstructive to a blossoming musical heritage, including grants, artists’
rights, copyright laws, sound restrictions, laws limiting artistic expression,
and adverse circumstances, such as obstacles that can arise from
totalitarian regimes, persecution, civil unrest, war, or the displacement of
music or communities.
5. Media and the music industry This domain addresses large-scale dissemination and commercial aspects
of music. In one way or another, most musicians and musical styles depend
for their survival on the music industry in its widest sense. Over the past
100 years, the distribution of music has increasingly involved recordings,
radio, television, and more recently, Internet (e.g., downloads, Podcasts, iTunes,
YouTube). At the same time, many acoustic and live forms of delivery have
changed under the influence of internal and external factors, leading to a
wealth of new performance formats. This domain examines the ever-changing
modes of distributing, publicizing, and supporting music, considering the role
of audiences (including consumers of recorded product), patrons, sponsors,
funding bodies, and governments who “buy” or “buy into” artistic product.
First published in Schippers (2010: 180–181).

146 Huib Schippers
audience (sufficiently refined to appreciate the event, sufficiently affluent to afford tick-
ets). However, the art form has survived for over 400 years, currently on carefully con-
structed prestige that inspires an elite community and associated markets (including
governments, corporate sponsors, and philanthropists) to support it. Vulnerability due
to high demands in Domains 1, 2, and 4 is counteracted primarily by maintaining high
prestige (Domain 3).
Other traditions without such demands, such as traditional Aboriginal music, are in
peril, while others flourish in spite of a history of colonialism and drastic changes of
context, such as North Indian classical music, having successfully survived centuries of
colonialism and major recontextualizations from Hindu places of worship to Muslim
courts, from the houses of courtesans to respectable middle-class audiences, and on to
new listeners through broadcasting, recordings, and the diaspora, fed by a strong sense
of nationalism (Bhakle, 2005).
Over the past few years, several senior ethnomusicologists have commented on the
desirability of a systematic study of sustainability across musical traditions to avoid
“re-inventing the wheel every time we face a community that’s trying to preserve its
own traditions” (Seeger, QCRC, 2008). Trimillos expressed interest in a “deductive
approach” based on five predetermined categories of data “as opposed to so much of eth-
nomusicological study which goes to a culture and does it inductively” (QCRC, 2008).
Speaking of globalization, commodification, and media, Wong argued what is needed is
a “very practical and visionary approach to these matters” (QCRC, 2008). Meanwhile,
Moyle reminded us that “our job as sympathetic and supportive outsiders is properly
that of an on-request caretaker and facilitator, but not as an arbiter of what should be
preserved and what should not be” (QCRC, 2008).
Taking an approach informed by the considerations outlined above, detailed and
realistic pictures can be deduced of threats and opportunities in relation to contempo-
rary contexts, traditional and potential new audiences, approaches to transmission to
next generations, as well as the presence or absence of community, media, commercial,
institutional, and public support. Findings across these domains can be analyzed and
turned into accessible online resources that are not only of value to ethnomusicologists,
but specifically geared to assist communities in performing and developing the music
they value in the way they value it.
Sustainable Futures
From 2009 to 2014, an international research consortium was enabled by a large

Australian Research Council Linkage Grant to extensively test this approach on nine
diverse case studies: Mexican Mariachi, Ghanaian Ewe music, Amami Shima Uta,
Korean SamulNori, Hindustani music from North India, Vietnamese ca tru, Indigenous
Yawulyu songs from Central Australia, Balinese gamelan, and Western opera. The
project made a deliberate choice to focus not only on “endangered” music cultures (as
has largely been the practice), but equally on “successful” ones. The rationale for this was
that while the former may provide profound insight into the main obstacles encoun-
tered by living music cultures in need of safeguarding, the latter can reveal possible
pathways to removing such obstacles. So while Aboriginal music from Central Australia
and Vietnamese ca tru would be “in urgent need of safeguarding” in UNESCO terms,
Ghanaian Ewe music, Amami Shima Uta, and Korean SamulNori face much less fatal
challenges, and notwithstanding issues in some areas, Hindustani music, Mexican
Mariachi music, Balinese gamelan, and Western opera are largely thriving, according to
most observers and stakeholders.
On its website soundfutures.org, Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures: Toward an
Ecology of Musical Diversity summarizes the aims of the five-year, $5 million project as
follows:
Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures celebrates the cultural diversity of our planet.
It acknowledges that there are serious challenges to many music cultures that are
the result of recent changes in ‘musical ecosystems’. It aims to identify ways to pro-
mote cultural diversity and ensure vibrant musical futures in line with those called
for by organisations like UNESCO. Sustainable Futures seeks to counteract the loss
of music cultures by identifying the key factors in musical sustainability, and mak-
ing this knowledge available to communities across the world. In this way it aims to
empower communities to forge musical futures on their own terms.
In order to structure the project across nine very diverse case studies, guidelines for
the research teams were developed, featuring some 200 questions and subquestions
across the five domains. These were carefully formulated by Research Fellow Catherine
Grant, in collaboration with the teams, to ensure optimally compatible data. For exam-
ple, the following questions structure the section on Domain 4 (Infrastructure and
regulations):
4.1. What formal structures are in place to help musicians in your culture, with regard
to creating; performing; learning; teaching; collaborating; touring; preserving or
promoting the music culture? For example, which of the following exist: musicians’
unions; teachers’ associations or bodies; performers’ agencies; formal networks
or societies; virtual spaces for collaborating / performing; cultural organisations
or institutions; provisions for amateur / community music-making; awards and
prizes?
4.2. How do musicians source instruments? Are they expensive / difficult to source?
Are there physical or intangible restrictions on instrument-making? Who makes
musical instruments? How are they trained, and by whom? Are there enough
instrument-makers? Do they earn a living from their craft? How does this differ
from five / twenty years ago? How is it changing now? Have there been significant
recent changes in materials or design of instruments?
148 Huib Schippers
4.3. Apart from musical instruments, what other tangible resources, equipment,
or paraphernalia are required for performing, creating, or transmitting your
music culture? Are they expensive / difficult to source? How does this differ
from five / twenty years ago? How is it changing now?
4.4. Where are musicians in your culture located when they perform rehearse /
practise; teach / learn / create; record; publish; broadcast?
4.5. What other conditions are needed for performing, creating, or transmitting
your music culture? Are they difficult to access / expensive? How does this dif-
fer from five / twenty years ago? How is it changing now?
4.6. Are there festivals and competitions for your music? What is their focus with
regard to tradition versus innovation? What are the benefits or drawbacks with
regard to their effect on performance practices? How are judges appointed?
What are the criteria for excellence? Who decides? What is the role of the
media in the festivals/competitions?
4.7. Which non-musical factors impact directly or indirectly on your music culture?
Do any of the following play a role: level of poverty; government regimes; civil
situation; health issues; land reform / land rights; displacement or population
drift; environmental changes; climate; geographical distance
4.8. Which traditional authorities impact on your music culture? Are they local /
state / federal or national / international / church or religious?
4.9. Are there issues of censorship or repression that impact on your music
culture? Are these political, religious, gender-based, or other? Are artists /
musicians given special ‘allowance’ to dissent, as their role, or even duty? Do
musicians self-censor? If so, why?
How would you describe the regulation of freedom of expression for your
music culture, along the continuum from totally repressed to totally free?
4.10. What are the copyright laws, if any, that affect your music culture? Are they
enforced? If your music is ‘traditional’, is it considered free of copyright? If not,
who owns it?
4.11. Which other government or government-induced laws and regulations exist
that directly or indirectly affect musicians and music-making, either positively
or negatively? Do you (have to) deal with artists’ rights; taxation laws; free trade
policies; sound restrictions; work permits; censorship laws; education regula-
tions (curriculum / other); royalty collection and distribution; broadcast reg-
ulations (quota of locally produced music / other); and/or venue restrictions
(hours of operation / smoking / drinking / other)?
What has been the general trend with regard to amendments or revisions to
law and regulations affecting your music culture in the last, say, twenty years?
Do they reflect a general tightening or relaxing of rules? How do you envisage
the next five years in this regard?
4.12. What forms of assistance does the government provide to economically
develop the music sector? If any, are they provided through state-owned enti-
ties; through subsidies; through tax concessions; through public/private part-
nerships; and/or through financial instruments (e.g. access to loan funds)?
4.13. Where are these forms of support directed? To live performance (including
venues, cultural centres, festivals); record production and distribution; music
video production; music publishing; broadcasting; internet and multimedia;
improving business practices; building music exports; statistics collection;
training; and/or other?
4.14. What is the position / status of your music culture, internationally? Are there
formal recognitions of its value, such as UNESCO Oral Masterpiece / Intangible
Cultural Property? What are the procedures that lead to such recognition?
4.15. How, if at all, do governments at any level seek to protect or promote: your
music genre; other music genres within your country; music genres of immi-
grant communities?
Does the government have a cultural plan in place that may impact your music
genre? Are there publically available government documents or reports relating
to your music genre? Are they widely known? What function do they serve?
4.16. What is the impact of the government’s attitude to cultural diversity and
multiculturalism (or national cohesion/cultural purity) on your music culture?
4.17. What external support (if any) is required to be a successful musician? Is it
government backing; sponsorship / grants / funding; institutional and com-
munity support (performance venues; resources); public support (audiences;
purchase of recordings; radio airplay)
(QCRC, 2010: 15–17)
Researchers were asked to seek answers to all questions across the five domains, and
emphatically indicate those that were not applicable, as they might indicate areas unex-
plored in the ecosystem. They did so by applying insights from (mostly many decades)
of engagement with the specific culture, targeted fieldwork, and an average of twenty
interviews per tradition across the domains. As became apparent in November 2013,
when nine advanced draft reports were tabled before a gathering of 30 international
scholars and musicians at a final working conference chaired by Anthony Seeger in the
context of the 5th IMC World Forum on Music, this led to both obvious and unexpected
early insights through and across the five domains, some of which include the following.
Systems of Learning Music
As could be expected, systems of learning music play a key role in every music
culture, whether they are formal or informal, aural or notation-based, live or
online, real-time or based on recordings, self-driven, community organized,
or institutionally based. Striking findings were that in some cultures, such as
Balinese gamelan and Ewe percussion, the learning process is so embedded in
the lives of young people that they are likely to say they never “learned music.”
Another notable insight across the case studies was that there is not necessarily
a one-to-one relationship between highly formalized and highly structured.
At a deeper level, there are similarities in terms of structured progression only
when the learner is ready between learning opera at a conservatorium and
150 Huib Schippers
community-based transmission processes such as those in Central Australia,

although the nature of the “exams” may differ. Finally, there is an inkling that
formal education is not necessarily always the ideal: while it has advantages
in terms of stability and prestige, in some cases it could even be seen as a last
resort if transmission within the community no longer meets the needs of
the genre.
Musicians and Communities

Community engagement in the widest sense is at the heart of sustainabil-
ity in many music cultures, from village squares to opera first night crowds.
The drivers for this engagement range from entertainment to necessity, from
shared beliefs to prestige. Recognition by the community (in money or oth-
erwise) is of great importance for sustainability. There is a broad spectrum of
levels of engagement between musicians and with the “inner circles” of the
tradition, often containing important quality control mechanisms. In issues
relating to sustainability, a single inspired individual or a small motivated
group often plays a remarkable role in reinvigorating a tradition.
Contexts and Constructs

The contexts of some music cultures are stable, but most change over time,
often drastically: many music cultures demonstrate remarkable adaptabil-
ity. In that sense, recontextualization is an asset rather than a weakness. In
terms of values and attitudes, a wide range of belief systems, from aesthetic
to religious to political, can be either conducive or an obstacle to any music.
Prestige in its various incarnations is possibly a central driver for sustain-
ability, and resonates across the Domains.
Regulations and Infrastructure

Most cultures have access to some support for music in terms of infrastructure,
media exposure, or funding. However, the correlation between funding and
sustainability does not seem to be strong; not unlike formal education, depen-
dence on grants is a potential weakness from a sustainability point of view.
Specific legislation regarding music is most notable in the area of intellectual
property, copyright, and performing rights. While these do not generally gen-
erate a substantial income stream for the vast majority of musicians, they do
constitute an important moral recognition of their contribution. Other rules
and regulations may affect music inadvertently, such as laws governing sound
and public spaces. The need for dedicated infrastructure is low for most music
genres: they often use spaces that have multiple functions: village squares, pubs,
big houses. Only in rare cases—like Western opera—do the needs become so
high that they can easily become a major liability to sustainability.
Media and the Music Industry

Since their first rise to prominence on the back of technological developments
some hundred years ago, media and the music industry have played a signifi-
cant supporting role in the dissemination of music and building the reputa-
tions of musicians. In spite of much talk about commodification, even at the
peak of the record industry few world music genres generated a substantial
income for many individual musicians or groups. However, there has always
been a close, two-way relationship between media exposure and prestige,
which in turn can open avenues to financial sustainability. After the collapse
of the recording industry, online environments have created massive exposure,
with an impressive scope for niche markets and online communities that may
benefit “small musics” in decades to come.
(QCRC, 2013)
While each of the domains can be regarded to some extent as an ecosystem in its own right,
the full picture emerges only when examining a music culture across the domains, follow-
ing Pickett and Cadanasso’s suggested line of questions: “Exactly what components and enti-
ties are linked to one another? Which ones are only indirectly connected? What parts of a
system are tightly coupled and which only weakly coupled?” (2002: 4). In examining music
ecosystems, there are obvious and surprising connections. High-level practices tend to have
a solid system of transmission, but not all do, and certainly not all have institutionalized
transmission. Opera is strongly dependent on government support throughout Europe and
Asia, but Hindustani classical music is barely supported by the Indian government. Probably
the strongest correlation across domains is prestige, as mentioned before, which may inspire
learners to seek skills in a music, communities to engage with it, contexts of music to be cel-
ebrated, infrastructure to be provided, and people to buy tickets or recordings.
engaging with communities
A framework that provides such practical insights into the workings of the sustainability
of music may help address one of the great challenges of (especially applied) ethnomu-
sicology: building meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships with communities
(cf. Harrison, 2012; Harrison, Mackinlay, and Pettan, 2010; Pettan, 2008; Sheehy, 1992). As
practical, intellectual, and moral approaches to ethnography are becoming increasingly
sophisticated (Barz and Cooley, 2008), most contemporary ethnomusicologists have
moved far away from going into the field and considering their recordings and data their
property to the point of commercializing them for their own profit. Attributing rights and
making material available to individuals and communities are common practice now. But
the range of this “giving back” is quite substantial and deserves scrutiny in this context:
152 Huib Schippers
providing CDs of field recordings and musicological analyses of repertoire may not be the
most meaningful—or even ethically sound—way of giving back to communities, espe-
cially if they do not possess the equipment, inclination, education, or frame of mind to
make such artifacts useful to them. Many ethnomusicologists working with a single genre
over a long period of time are addressing this by seeking appropriate ways of giving back
by ongoing negotiation and progressing insight, in close consultation with communities.
The ambition of the Sustainable Futures project was to make available the insights into
ecosystems of music to communities in two ways: through targeted, community-driven ini-
tiatives, and through an interactive web resource. In the realm of the former, ca tru, one of
the triggers for Sustainable Futures, four years of contact back and forth has helped to inspire
a project to create a viable performance format and income source for musicians by linking
the chamber music tradition to the high-volume international cultural tourism to Vietnam:
Building on its 2009 recognition by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage

in urgent need of safeguarding, Ca Tru Vietnam aims to create a context which re-
establishes the refined urban expression of this genre in a sustainable environment.
Combining the interest of refined Vietnamese and international audiences, this enter-
prise will open a ca tru house in Hanoi (once the home to many such establishments)
on a commercially viable basis, using the high-end of cultural tourism to Vietnam as
its primary market. This will reconnect the genre to its former basis of support, private
patrons, providing a basic but stable income for up to ten ca tru musicians, technicians
and cultural workers. Linked to this will be performances and lessons for Vietnamese
audiences and young people, ensuring the intergenerational transmission of the genre
without continuing dependence on external funding or state support.
(Ca tru Vietnam project plan, 2010)
Such approaches can be developed tailor-made for many traditions, emphatically using
an understanding of the entire ecosystem to forge new pathways in specific areas to
make a genre stronger or survive.
This process becomes much more challenging when making available resources that are
not targeted at a single group, but at users from cultures around the world. As part of the
Sustainable Futures project, an online resource has been developed for making available
strategies and examples to communities across the world who are passionate about preserv-
ing music they value, aiming to assist in understanding, planning, executing, and evaluating
specific interventions in musical ecosystems to increase sustainability (cf. Grant, 2014). At
the heart of this tool is an online diagnosis tool that brings back the core of any music eco-
system to ten questions with up to five subquestions each, generating a tentative report that
may inspire individuals and communities in the steps they choose to take and alliances they
choose to form to ensure a vibrant future for their music (see Figure 4.2).
While there are inevitable shortcomings to such an approach, it is a start. At the least, it
can serve to build awareness among those who care most deeply about specific music
genres, giving them more agency in deciding courses of action and partnerships rather
than having these superimposed by scholars, NGOs, or public authorities.
Figure 4.2 Screenshots from the online survey to identify possible areas of concern for sus-
tainability on soundfutures.org.
154 Huib Schippers
The “five-domain ecosystem” approach can hopefully serve as an instrument to

describe specific music cultures by scholars and doctoral students, with the potential
of initiating fruitful discussions in the process with stakeholders to diagnose the con-
dition of the genre, and strategize initiatives to optimally align all forces for a diverse,
vibrant musical future for the planet. For all the reservations one may have regarding
understanding music as ecosystems, the approach seems to resonate well with current
approaches to caring for and understanding the sustainability of music genres and cul-
tures, the desire to give more agency to individuals and communities within the culture,
and the role of ethnomusicologists in the twenty-first century.
Acknowledgments
This chapter is an outcome of the research program: Sustainable Futures for Music
Cultures: Toward an Ecology of Musical Diversity (2009–2014). The project was real-
ized with generous support from the Australian Research Council Linkage Program
and partner organizations the International Music Council (Paris), the Music
Council of Australia (Sydney), and the World Music & Dance Centre (Rotterdam).
Nine research teams carried out the research, led by scholars at the University of
Washington (Professor Patricia Campbell, Mariachi music), the University of
London (Professor Keith Howard, SamulNori), the University of Lund (Professor
Hakan Lundstron, ca tru), University of Otago (Professor John Drummond,
Western opera), the University of Sydney (Associate Professor Linda Barwick,
Yawulyu; and Associate Professor Peter Dunbar-Hall, Balinese gamelan), Southern
Cross University (Professor Phil Hayward, Amami Shima uta) and Griffith
University (Professor Huib Schippers, Hindustani music, who also led and coordi-
nated the project through Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre). Website:
www.usoundfutures.org.au.
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Chapter 5
Su stainab i l i t y,
Resilience, an d A da p t i v e
M anagem ent f or A ppl i e d
Jeff Todd Titon
Introduction
Sustainability is a hard concept to avoid these days, and resilience is not far behind.
We are urged to conserve energy, carpool, turn down the thermostat, use renewables,
recycle our waste, lower our carbon footprint, and live sustainable lives to maintain a
sustainable planet. Conservation ecologists and environmentalists manage ecosystems
to prevent species extinction and maintain biodiversity. Developmental economists
promote modernization and sustainable development, while ecological economists
remind us about environmental constraints on trade, markets, corporations, and gov-
ernments. Some business economists have argued that corporations will better be able
to profit and sustain themselves if they think of their activities as taking place within an
ecosystem consisting not only of predators and prey but also allies and competitors.
In applied ethnomusicology, sustainability does not directly reference green energy
or developmental economics, although it may involve them. Rather, it refers to a music
culture’s capacity to maintain and develop its music now and in the foreseeable future.
Applied ethnomusicologists today, as in the past, often try to aid musicians and their
communities in sustaining their musical activities. Many of us have considered it
an ethical imperative to do so, a giving back to individuals and communities we con-
sider to be our colleagues, friends, and teachers in exchange for what they have given
us—information, music, friendship and social life, pleasure, and in many cases the basis
for the research that not only advances knowledge but also helps us advance our careers.
Sustainability is a relatively new term for ethnomusicologists, but many ideas related
158 Jeff Todd Titon
to sustainability have been with us for decades: documentation, archiving, and pres-

ervation; conservation, safeguarding, revitalization, and renewal. Resilience is an even
newer term, not yet in common use among us; but it has many advantages and, I believe,
deserves to enter the discussion surrounding applied ethnomusicology. One of the dif-
ficulties with sustainability and its related ideas is that they are ends, not means; they are
goals, not strategies. Resilience, on the other hand, offers a strategy, a means toward the
goal of sustainability. Resilience refers to a system’s capacity to recover and maintain its
integrity, identity, and continuity when subjected to forces of disturbance and change.
Insofar as music cultures are systems, they too exhibit resilience to a greater or lesser
degree. Resilient systems share certain characteristics. Identifying what makes a music
culture vulnerable, what makes it resilient, and ameliorating the former while strength-
ening the latter becomes, therefore, a practical strategy for enhancing a music culture’s
sustainability. Resilience does not simply mean “learning to live with it,” as people new
to the term mistakenly think. Nor does it mean hunkering down in a defensive stance.
Rather, resilience implies a way to manage disturbance and change and guide the out-
come toward a desirable end.
This chapter is written to begin theorizing resilience as a sustainability strategy for
applied ethnomusicologists. Just as conservation biologists intervene in the environ-
ment to restore, maintain, and develop ecosystems, so applied ethnomusicologists
intervene in music cultures. Like it or not, we are committed to putting ethnomusico-
logical knowledge and insight to practical use in order to improve musical life. We are
guided by values. We are meddlers. We are experimenters, we live with uncertainty, we
expect sometimes to fail, and we hope to learn from our failures. The strategy I am theo-
rizing here for applied ethnomusicology has been called adaptive management by those
who have been working with resilience strategies for a variety of systems, not just envi-
ronmental ecosystems. Adaptive management is succeeding in strengthening resilience
and decreasing vulnerability in social groups facing undesirable change, and in individ-
uals facing stress and trauma. Applied to organizations, adaptive management not only
enhances resilience but remodels behavior based on a new understanding: that orga-
nizations are not merely competitors, but rather exist interdependently with allies and
competitors within larger ecosystems—think of the complex relations among Apple,
Google, and Microsoft, for example.
Sustainability is current, while resilience and adaptive management point toward the
future of applied ethnomusicology. Much of it represents new thinking, while drawing les-
sons from applied ethnomusicology’s prior interventions, the decades-old ideas that have
animated them, and the relationships between applied work in ethnomusicology and that
of two of our sister, fieldwork-based disciplines, applied anthropology and public folklore.
(I might also have considered applied sociology, but this sprawling chapter is already broad
enough in scope.) Therefore, I treat the historical background of the ideas—preservation,
conservation, and safeguarding—that both preceded and contribute to sustainability and
resilience. As these ideas originated elsewhere—the conservation of natural resources, for
example, and the historic preservation of material objects—I discuss them in their original
contexts in addition to their later adoption in applied ethnomusicology and public folklore.
Sustainability, Resilience, and Adaptive Management 159
Finally, I turn to sustainability and then to resilience, again with reference to their origins
elsewhere, in this case economics (sustainable development) as well as environmental-
ism, before moving to their applications in applied ethnomusicology. I concentrate on the
United States because I am most knowledgeable about these policy concepts, strategies, and
their histories in my homeland. Nevertheless, these ideas and their applications flow glob-
ally, and they move in different directions and at different rates outside the United States.
The most prominent contemporary music sustainability project is based not in the United
States but in Australia (see Schippers, Chapter 4 of this volume). UNESCO is the major
player in the international arena, but their conservation rhetoric remains wedded to older
concepts involving preservation and safeguarding heritage, while for them sustainability
operates in the realm of economic development, not musical and cultural continuity.
Conservation: Natural, Cultural,
and Musical
Ethnomusicologists are conservationists, whether preserving and transmitting knowl-

edge of music or, in the case of applied ethnomusicologists, conserving musical practice
itself. In addition to documenting and preserving the music of the world’s peoples for
research purposes, applied ethnomusicologists have sometimes intervened on behalf of
music cultures to help them conserve music thought to be threatened and endangered,
usually by modernization and development. In many ways, these musical and cultural
conservation efforts have been modeled on those that preceded them in nature conser-
vation, or the conservation of natural resources.
Ever since the early Enlightenment, preservation and conservation have been closely
related. Taken as near synonyms, their meaning is to maintain an object or system
insofar as possible in its present state, to protect it from change, usually for contem-
plation, research, display, and perhaps for use. Conservationists who distinguish their
activities from preservation emphasize conservation’s restorative aspects—restoring a
historical musical instrument, for example, or a painting, or a dinosaur, or an ecosys-
tem. Conservationists acknowledge change but try to manage it in order to prolong a
desired state. Preservationists (who may nonetheless call themselves conservationists)
think of themselves more as protectors. They sometimes criticize conservationists for
setting an additional priority on yield or harvest or use, rather than interfering as mini-
mally as possible in order to preserve the original object or system, as they would do.
Preservationists would, for example, prefer to keep a historical musical instrument “as
found” in a deteriorated state, for study, rather than to restore or repair it for display or
use (Barclay, 2004). Although the debate between preservationists and conservationists
is most prominent in the environmental movement (deep ecologists versus “wise use”
conservationists), in this chapter I use conservation as the cover term for both preserva-
tion and conservation, distinguishing the two when desirable.
160 Jeff Todd Titon
Nature conservation, or conservation of natural resources (they are not the same
thing, for nature need not be regarded as a resource), is surely as old as the earliest hunt-
ers who realized they must not slaughter the entire herd, or the first growers who saved
seeds. There is evidence of Italian violin-makers during the time of Stradivarius and
afterward conserving the forest trees producing violin-tone wood, and of a plea from
the Englishman John Evelyn before the Royal Society in 1662, advocating that trees be
replanted to preserve the forests, which were being harvested at an alarming rate (Allen,
2012; Evelyn, 1664). German, French, and British conservationists during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries similarly worked for forest preservation based on scientific
principles, and much was accomplished, particularly in British India throughout the
nineteenth century (Barton 2002). The origins of the US conservation movement may
be found in the writings of naturalists such as John (1699–1777) and William (1739–1823)
Bartram, and Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), while novelists such as James Fenimore
Cooper (1789–1851) expressed a preservationist philosophy through characters such as
Natty Bumppo, who, like the Native Americans, used only enough natural resources to
provide for basic needs (Cooper, 1823). In the later nineteenth and early twentieth cen-
turies, the writings of John Burroughs (1837–1921) and John Muir (1838–1914) were espe-
cially influential. Muir not only founded the Sierra Club, which became an important
nature advocacy group, but also successfully lobbied the US Congress for the establish-
ment of the first National Park, Yosemite, in 1890, the first in a succession of national
parks, which came to embody the US conservation movement, and led to the establish-
ment in 1905 of the US Forest Service, the state fish and game conservation departments,
and so on.
However, the split between preservationists and conservationists was already under-
way, as Muir (the preservationist) spoke out against the national Forest Service’s efforts
to manage the US-owned parks and forests for timber harvesting. Gifford Pinchot, the
Forest Service director, termed his scientifically guided conservation policies “wise
use,” a phrase that has endured. A pragmatist, Pinchot’s idea of wise use was based in
government management for the public good, which meant protecting the forests as
a renewable resource so that the public would continually enjoy its benefits, including
tree harvesting and mining as well as recreation (Miller, 2001). His successor, William
Greeley, transformed the Forest Service into an agency whose principal function was
to prevent forest fires, while enabling the timber companies to make enormous profits
by clear-cutting huge tracts. The Sierra Club and other preservationists were outraged,
but so was Pinchot. As the twentieth century wore on, the preservationist wing of the
conservation movement was criticized on the grounds that purchasing natural areas in
the Eastern states, or seizing them through eminent domain, forced removal of popu-
lations living on those lands, while their recreational use was limited chiefly to those
wealthy enough to travel and vacation there. Today, when conservation heritage trusts
buy up and set aside farmland and seashore, critics charge that this is accomplished at
the expense of economic development and jobs.
Conservation of cultural resources may be traced, among Europeans, to those
Renaissance aristocrats of an antiquarian bent who traveled to observe ruins and kept
objects in private kunstkammer, wonder rooms or “cabinets of curiosity.” These little

theaters were the precursors of museums and contained cultural relics of all kinds, as
well as natural history specimens from the plant and animal world. Museums followed,
and eventually a historic preservation movement (to use US terminology) arose to
safeguard historically important buildings and monuments on their original sites. An
example is Stonehenge in the United Kingdom, where such activities are termed “heri-
tage preservation.” Artifacts of music cultures (e.g., ancient musical instruments) have
been preserved over the years in cabinets of curiosity, museums, libraries, or reposito-
ries dedicated to instruments and, since the early twentieth century, to recordings and
other media. Most ethnomusicologists maintain personal archives for research pur-
poses, gradually passing them along to archival institutions. Museum collections may be
found at the Musée de l’Homme, the Smithsonian Institution, and elsewhere. Examples
of dedicated sound archives include the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv (begun in 1900),
the Archive of American Folk Song (1928) at the Library of Congress, and the British
Library Sound Archive (1955). Repatriation, or returning recordings and other musi-
cal artifacts to the indigenous peoples from whom they were collected and taken, has
underlined a third purpose: safeguarding (Newell, 2003). “Digital preservation” is yet
another contemporary preservation activity, saving space and converting the printed
or recorded artifact to a more easily maintained, perhaps more permanent, medium.
However, digital preservation transforms the original medium; it does not protect it.
Conservation, of course, has a strong preservation component, sometimes with addi-
tional elements such as restoration. Archives and museums practice conservation when
they restore deteriorating artifacts closer to a presumably original state, as they do with
dinosaur bones, paintings, and musical instruments. Conservation places less empha-
sis on protection and setting aside, and more emphasis on continuing utility, than does
preservation. Demonstrating and exhibiting collections may also inspire conservation
in music cultures. The director of the Smithsonian Institution, S. Dillon Ripley, con-
ceived of performances at the museum in which the artifacts would be demonstrated
in use, for the public. “Take the objects out of their cases and make them sing,” he wrote
(http://www.folklife.si.edu/center/legacy/ripley.aspx). Although some of these demon-
strations involved crafts and the application of traditional cultural knowledge, music
was the most common kind of performance. The Smithsonian Festival of American
Folklife, which began in 1967, is an example. Until then, most folk festivals exhibited
marginal, dying, remnant traditions. But the Smithsonian festivals underlined a con-
servation element that encouraged the participants to maintain those traditions within
their own cultural groups.
“Cultural conservation” entered the US public folklore discourse in the late 1970s,
partly in response to a change in the idea of American identity, from a “melting pot” in
which immigrant cultures and ethnicities would forge a single new type of American,
to a “mosaic” that recognized, honored, and thereby meant to conserve elements of
American ethnic diversity and cultural pluralism. In that same decade, three federal
folklore agencies were established that greatly influenced traditional arts policy, includ-
ing music. Their mandate was to support the folk and traditional arts, which were
162 Jeff Todd Titon
viewed as the expression of a culturally, ethnically, religiously, racially, occupationally,

and regionally diverse set of communities that, taken together, made up the mosaic
society of the United States. Music was an important community folk art, perhaps the
most evident, along with foodways, dress, religious practice, language, and so forth. The
three federal agencies were the Office of Folklife Studies at the Smithsonian Institution
(the national museum for American history), the Folk Arts Division of the National
Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the American Folklife Center of the Library of
Congress. Each played a crucial role in developing cultural conservation, an early ver-
sion of sustainability for the traditional arts.
The Smithsonian’s involvement was the earliest of the three, and remained the most
visible. The Smithsonian’s folk festival (1967–present) led to the establishment of a sepa-
rate folklife division in 1980, now called the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
Held in the nation’s capital, at first the Smithsonian’s festival followed the model of
the Newport (Rhode Island) Folk Festival, which since 1959 had presented a majority
of professional folksingers, making careers from their music in the folk revival, with
other, lesser-known musicians who came to be known as tradition-bearers or source
musicians. The former were later termed “revivalists,” which meant that they had not
been born and raised within the musical communities that carried the music they per-
formed now, from a stage for an audience. They had learned it from recordings, from
other revivalists, or in some cases directly from source musicians. These latter, on the
other hand, had known the music they performed from childhood, when it prevailed
in their communities, and although they may have had professional careers at one time,
most were not earning their living as performers at present. Many of these were from
American minority groups, or from regions where modernization came late and the
older folk traditions had lingered. Among the professional folksingers were Joan Baez,
Oscar Brand, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Bob Dylan; among the tradition-bearers were
African American musicians such as Mississippi John Hurt, Cajun musicians such as
the Balfa Brothers, and those from the Appalachian Mountain region of the American
South, such as Clarence Ashley. In the early 1970s the Smithsonian festival stopped pre-
senting the revivalists and in so doing unintentionally ghettoized authenticity in the folk
arts by means of ethnic, class, and regional criteria. Those who produced the folk festi-
vals began to hope that the national attention gained from the festival might enhance
the prestige of these source musicians in their home communities, and help to preserve
the musical traditions they represented.
This notion of conservation differed, of course, from archival preservation, as inter-
ventions could be targeted to aid particular traditions. This goal was realized by the Folk
Arts Division of the NEA, which was (and is) a funds-granting agency. Monies were
(and still are) granted to folk artists in the form of fellowships, and to organizations
involved in preserving and conserving the folk arts in various regional and ethnic com-
munities throughout the United States. The Folk Arts Division guidelines articulated the
program’s goal: to help folk artists and their communities value their traditional expres-
sive culture and move into their futures, steadied by continuity with the past. In other
words, the guidelines were meant to help folk artists and communities conserve their
traditional cultural beliefs and practices while becoming more modern. When I served
on the Folk Arts Division’s grant decision-making panel in the early 1980s, for example,
I realized that recent immigrants from Southeast Asia were a targeted group. Folk Arts
staff told us that their abrupt removals to the United States following the war in that
region had caused cultural trauma, and that in this crisis their folk traditions were liable
to disappear within a single generation if nothing was done to help them.
The American Folklife Center, established in 1976, was neither a festival-producing
agency nor a granting organization. It combined the Library of Congress’s folk music
archive, which had been established in the 1920s, with a series of public initiatives that
involved partnerships with cultural organizations in various regions of the United
States and that served to identify, document, and present the results back to the region,
in an effort to strengthen regional and occupational folklife. Typically these initiatives
began with surveys and culminated in a series of recommendations, along with a travel-
ing exhibit. Today the Center defines its mission as to “preserve and present American
folklife through programs of research, documentation, archival preservation, reference
service, live performance, exhibitions, publications, and training” (http://www.loc.gov/
folklife/aboutafc.html). Surveys characterized their efforts in the 1970s and 1980s, while
in the 1990s partnerships with other agencies, including the National Park Service, were
undertaken for cultural conservation.
In the 1980s the Folk Arts Division of the National Endowment for the Arts built an
infrastructure of folklorists, employed chiefly in the state arts agencies. By the end of
the decade almost every state of the union had at least one. They undertook state-based
surveys to identify and document folk artists, and mounted exhibits and festivals to
present them to the general public. The state folklorists’ functions also included
grant-giving to local folk and traditional arts organizations. They hired contract field-
workers to carry out some of the documentation and presentation activities. Where
possible, they used the same authenticity criteria as the Smithsonian festival, seeking
out tradition-bearing folk artists who had been born and raised with their commu-
nity’s traditions, rather than revivalists who had come to them later in life. The result
was a folk artist inventory that also served the Smithsonian’s folklife office, which had
decided to give over one section of the festival to a different state of the union each year.
Fieldworkers who had documented state folklife often were involved in presenting it
in the nation’s capital. They also were available to the American Folklife Center for its
various regional initiatives.
As these efforts bore fruit, and not coincidentally employed hundreds of folklorists
and some ethnomusicologists with graduate degrees, the leaders in this burgeoning
field of public folklore began to reflect on what it was they were doing. Each agency
articulated its goals with increasing precision, whether in terms of cultural equity,
cultural pluralism, or—in what came to be the term most everyone eventually settled
on—cultural conservation. In so doing, they increasingly defined cultural conservation
in terms of heritage.
In 1982 the American Folklife Center produced a book, coordinated by Ormond
Loomis, entitled Cultural Conservation. They had been tasked with compiling a
164 Jeff Todd Titon
report for the US Secretary of the Interior “on preserving and conserving the intan-
gible elements of our cultural heritage such as arts, skills, folklife, and folkways”
(Loomis, 1982: 1). The Department of the Interior was the appropriate government
agency because they were responsible for conservation of public resources. For the
distinction between tangible and intangible cultural elements, the document drew
on the practice of Asian societies, particularly Japan, which identified “intangible
properties” as resources to be under government protection, folk artists among them
(ibid.: 13). This identification of exceptional traditional artists as “national treasures”
had already been the impetus behind Bess Lomax Hawes’s successful 1980 proposal to
the National Endowment for the Arts to establish and permit the Folk Arts Division
to select the National Heritage Fellows, identifying a dozen outstanding American
folk artists each year and offering them a cash honorarium of $5,000 and a ceremo-
nial recognition in Washington, DC. This tangible/intangible distinction became
much better known in its UNESCO incarnations. US folklorists ultimately came to
critique it on the grounds that in the practice of folklife, tangible and intangible were
inseparable (Hufford, 1994: 2). The Loomis document identified two components of
cultural conservation: preservation and what it called “encouragement.” By preserva-
tion was meant activities involving planning, documentation, and maintenance; by
encouragement was meant publication, public events, and education, in order that
a healthy traditional expressive folklife culture would enable a community’s sense of
integrity and enhanced identity to flourish. In this way, cultural conservation was
to be more than simply preservation and maintenance. Encouragement looked to a
cultural future in which folklife played an important role. Cultural conservation was
more effective than preservation, for “preservation plans can divert undertakings
that would disrupt normal cultural development” (Loomis, 1982: 10), and “to endure
a group must pass on its distinguishing attributes from one generation to the next.
Such attributes are the essence of cultural heritage” (ibid.: 3), and “it is possible, how-
ever, to temper change so that it proceeds in accordance with the will of the people,
and not in response to the pressures of faddish trends or insensitive public or pri-
vate projects. Conservation denotes efforts which… ensure natural cultural growth”
(ibid.: 29). Leaving aside for the moment what “natural” cultural growth might be,
this rhetoric reflects an anti-modernist agenda, opposed to materialism and con-
sumer society and the cultural homogenization allegedly resulting from mass media
and national brands. The Loomis document criticized identifying heritage items on
a list, as UNESCO later was to do in compiling an inventory of world masterpieces
of intangible cultural heritage (hereafter ICH) (ibid.: 16). Finally, cultural conserva-
tion drew the analogy between biological diversity and cultural diversity—if the one
was good, so was the other (ibid.: 11). Thus many, if not most, of the arguments that
would later surface in the cultural sustainability discourse in the new millennium
had already been anticipated in this document. It became a working document for
public folklore agencies in the 1980s.
In the 1980s and 1990s the National Endowment for the Arts’ Folk Arts Division con-
tinued to support organizations, projects, and artists, and to grow the network of state
folklorists, who in turn initiated projects within their states and regions. These projects
were aimed primarily at increasing opportunities for traditional folk artists to continue
practicing their art. One of the most successful of these was the apprenticeship program,
in which tradition-bearers were paid to teach younger members of their families, commu-
nities (and, in some instances, revivalists) their music, crafts, and so forth, in an effort to
transmit the folk arts to the next generations. Its only problem was that it was chronically
underfunded, which diminished its overall impact. Concerts and festivals not only show-
cased traditional music but also gave the tradition-bearers and source musicians recog-
nition, acknowledgment, and prestige within their communities. The Smithsonian’s was
the largest of these festivals. Another was the National Folk Festival, a Washington, D.C.–
based festival since 1969, which also came to be advised chiefly by folklorists, and which
in the late 1980s embarked on a new strategy of moving its venue to a new city every three
years, in the hope that the city would continue supporting the festival after they moved
on to the next site. A few cities did: Lowell, Massachusetts, has sponsored its festival for
more than 20 years, while Bangor, Maine, has kept its festival going for more than 10. In the
1990s, the Smithsonian festivals took on an increasing international flavor, when one sec-
tion of the festival was devoted to presenting the folklife of a nation other than the United
States, resulting also in international cooperation among folklorists.
In 1990, the American Folklife Center held a conference on “Cultural Conservation:
Rethinking the Cultural Mission.” From that conference emerged the book Conserving
Culture: A New Discourse on Heritage (Hufford, 1994). New was the emphasis on heri-
tage, along with the realization that cultural conservation worked best when folklorists,
applied ethnomusicologists, and other cultural specialists partnered with community
leaders and organizations to work toward mutually approved and understood goals.
In her Introduction, Hufford acknowledged that the cultural conservation movement
places a value on both tangible and intangible culture marked for conservation, term-
ing it heritage, something from the past which is both “ours” and worth preserving. Yet
when folklife specialists began working with various constituencies to conserve heri-
tage, it became clear that the separation of tangible and intangible heritage was mis-
leading, particularly in those areas where the two were intimately bound up, such as
intangible folk knowledge derived from interactions with the tangible environment.
A second problem arose when folklife specialists attempted to “impose external stan-
dards on local communities” (ibid.: 2). A top-down approach could easily overlook or
even discredit local knowledge, while outside experts imposed policies that proved
unhelpful. A third problem arose in the “tendency of heritage planning to authenticate
past cultures and environments [which] effectively reduced the power of present-day
communities to manage the environments on which their dynamic cultures depend”
(ibid.: 3). On the other hand, Hufford affirmed the term “conservation,” writing that
it acknowledged the dynamic aspects of culture, whereas “preservation” implied con-
stancy. In other words, heritage need not be a thing of the past. Hufford argued force-
fully for cultural partnerships between folklife specialists and community members
whose local knowledge was essential, so that the goals were mutual and the policies
reflected broad agreement among all stakeholders.
166 Jeff Todd Titon
Yet cultural conservation had its critics. Most prominent among these was folklor-
ist Nicholas Spitzer, whose background included cultural conservation work for the
Smithsonian Institution and a term as Louisiana state folklorist. Best known as the
host of the public radio program American Routes, and now also a professor at Tulane
University, Spitzer argued in a series of presentations beginning in 1987 that conserva-
tion bound public folklore to an “ethically problematic” organic metaphor in which
cultures follow a natural cycle of birth, growth, and decay. At its worst, this analogy
smacked of Spencerian cultural evolutionism. Rather than work as conservationists to
rescue cultures from threat and endangerment, Sptizer wrote, it would be better to think
in terms of conversations with cultures to further “continuity, equity and diversity”
(Spitzer, 2007 [1992]: 95–96). Had Spitzer looked more closely at the environmental
movement, he might have mentioned that nature conservationists were aiming to fur-
ther continuity, equity, and diversity within ecosystems; and he must have known that
public folklorists engaged in cultural conservation work had those ends in view as well.
Nonetheless, Spitzer reminded folklorists to consider the limitations of the ecological
trope: that culture does not necessarily behave like nature. Nor does nature necessarily
behave like culture (Titon, 2008–, 2013). Cultural conservation was critiqued also, by
several, on the grounds that it proceeded from a romantic and nostalgic bias toward the
past, one which was ill-equipped to analyze correctly the contemporary forces propel-
ling cultures forward. Nevertheless, for nearly 30 years cultural conservation remained
the dominant paradigm within public folklore, while it also guided applied ethnomu-
sicologists in their work on behalf of music cultures. If cultural conservation has given
way in the new millennium to cultural sustainability, the two paradigms nonetheless
have much in common. Applied ethnomusicologists and public folklorists today are
beholden to the history of cultural conservation, whether they know it or not.
Safeguarding
UNESCO is the major international force on behalf of cultural conservation today; but
the word UNESCO chose for it is “safeguarding.” In the English language, safeguard-
ing connotes preservation, not conservation. UNESCO had early in its history enacted
Conventions (treaties that are binding only on nations that sign them) protecting his-
toric sites, monuments, and architecture throughout the world, particularly against
the ravages of war; but in the 1970s and 1980s their discussion turned to protecting
traditional culture itself, usually termed folkways, folklife, and folklore. Eventually,
in 1989, after years of international consultation, debate, and discussion, UNESCO
issued a “Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore”
(http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13141&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_
SECTION=201.html). Many of the safeguarding ideas embodied in that cultural conser-
vation document, and in its later implementation through two Conventions (in 2003 and
2005), could also be found in cultural conservation discourse that was occurring in the
United States (see http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00006 and http://

www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/cultural-diversity/cultural-expressions/).
Indeed, the word “safeguard” had appeared in the American Folklife Center’s 1982
report on Cultural Conservation: “The ultimate aim of documentation and of the other
strategies that combine in cultural conservation must be to safeguard and promote
the community life and values of ethnic, occupational, religious, and regional groups
by recognizing and protecting the treasured patterns that arise from their ways of life”
(Loomis, 1982: 17–19; italics mine).
Significantly, however, in its 1989 Recommendation, UNESCO defined preserva-
tion and conservation exactly opposite to the common US understanding of the two
terms. For UNESCO in 1989, conservation was what those in the United States under-
stand as archival preservation. It was “concerned with documentation regarding folk
traditions and its object is, in the event of the non-utilization or evolution of such
traditions, to give researchers and tradition-bearers access to data enabling them to
understand the process through which traditions change” (http://portal.unesco.org/
en/ev.php-URL_ID=13141&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html)
Meanwhile, for UNESCO preservation involved what we in the United States think of
as conservation of living traditions. It was “concerned with protection of folk traditions
and those who are the transmitters, having regard to the fact that each people has a right
to its own culture and that [its culture] is often eroded by… the industrialized culture
purveyed by the mass media. Measures must be taken to guarantee the status of and
economic support for folk traditions both in the communities that produce them and
beyond” (ibid.).
The 1989 UNESCO Recommendation fell on deaf international ears, as only a half-
dozen nations responded (Aikawa, 2001:13–14). As a result, throughout the 1990s
UNESCO discussed ways of galvanizing international support, culminating in a 1999
conference sponsored by UNESCO and the Smithsonian Institution and leading to
the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which
generated a mechanism for identifying outstanding examples of ICH (“world master-
pieces”). In this document, the term folklore was replaced by intangible cultural heritage,
and conservation was dropped while preservation and a host of other activities were
subsumed under the cover term safeguarding, defined as a combination of “identifica-
tion, documentation, research, preservation, protection, promotion, enhancement,
transmission… and revitalization” of ICH (http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_
ID=17716&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html). UN members were
asked to sign the treaty and then to begin nominating outstanding examples of their ICH
for inclusion on a list of “world masterpieces.” If UNESCO approved the nomination,
then the nation was obligated to undertake various actions to safeguard the ICH master-
piece, which they had promised in their nominating application. These usually included
further documentation and interpretation, stimulus and promotion, and dissemination,
which often resulted in cultural heritage tourism. Despite UNESCO’s good intentions,
in the United States safeguarding carried the unfortunate additional purifying connota-
tion of cleansing and deodorizing, derived from the name of a popular soap sold in the
168 Jeff Todd Titon
United States and marketed under the brand name “Safeguard.” For political reasons the
United States has not signed either of the 2003 or 2005 UNESCO ICH Conventions. US
folklorists and ethnomusicologists have, of course, discussed the UNESCO ICH initia-
tives, but in general they have been critical of the results (Weintraub and Yung, 2009).
Sustainability
In Theory
Sustainability, as I have noted, has much in common with preservation, conservation,
and safeguarding. Some advocates of sustainability emphasize that their attitude toward
development is progressive. Conservationists, they say, would prefer to manage things
to maintain present conditions or restore earlier ones; sustainability advocates recog-
nize that change is both natural and inevitable, and seek to manage change in order to
guarantee continuity, integrity, and resource availability for the future. The predomi-
nant sustainability discourses take place in economics, ecology, and environmental
studies. Sustainability in economics means sustainable development; in ecology it refers
to the stability of ecosystems; in environmental studies it centers on energy conserva-
tion and carbon emission reduction. Although the idea long preceded the use of the
term, sustainable development appears to have entered public discourse first in the World
Conservation Strategy of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and
Natural Resources (IUCN, 1980). Sustainable development also occupied a prominent
place in Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management (Myers, 1992 [1984]). But it was with Our
Common Future (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987), usually
referred to as the Brundtland Report, for the UN, where the term sustainability, coupled
with development, captured the imagination of the public policymakers. Particularly
in the arena of developmental economics, where the chief problems were identified as
third-world population growth, poverty, outmoded and inefficient agriculture, lack of
industry, poor infrastructure, and so forth, sustainable development was viewed as a
reasonable solution, famously defined in the Brundtland Report as “development that
meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs.” Environmentalists interpreted the sustainability mandate
as confirming their agenda: limits to growth, conservation of resources, safeguarding
biodiversity, transitioning energy from fossil fuels to renewable sources, and so forth.
Most economists, on the other hand, thought that sustainable development confirmed
their belief that advances in science and technology would increase efficiency and solve
third-world problems. The environmentalists placed their emphasis on sustainable,
while the economists took comfort in development. In retrospect, of course, it can be
seen that for economics, sustainable development is not a new concept, but rather a rein-
terpretation of the conservation concept of wise use and sustainable yield, which I have
already traced to Renaissance Europe. For environmentalists, sustainability evoked the
old idea of the “balance of nature” or, as it was expressed by natural historians includ-
ing Gilbert White, Henry David Thoreau, and even by Charles Darwin, “Nature’s econ-
omy”—the idea that, left to its own devices, nature tended toward efficiency as its parts
worked together for the benefit of the whole (Worster, 1994). For ecologists, sustain-
ability evoked the scientific version of natural balance, expressed in the idea that an eco-
system tended “naturally” to move toward a state of stability, or dynamic equilibrium,
except when disturbed.
Among applied ethnomusicologists and public folklorists, the ecologists’ under-
standing of sustainability has been the most influential. As pointed out earlier, in the
new millennium cultural conservation has become cultural sustainability while musical
conservation has become musical sustainability, in both cases continuing the eco-trope.
However, developmental economics is not without influence. For example, UNESCO
views safeguarding ICH as a part of the UN’s economic development mandate.
Culture must be safeguarded not merely because it is part of our human heritage, but
because culture is “the mainspring of sustainable development” (http://www.unesco.
org/new/en/culture/themes/cultural-diversity/diversity-of-cultural-expressions/
the-convention/what-is-the-convention/). In addition, in the contemporary field of arts
advocacy, one of the most powerful arguments advanced is that the arts are an economic
engine (Throsby, 2010). In this vein, applied ethnomusicologists and public folklorists
sometimes advocate heritage tourism (festivals, living history museums, historic tours,
etc.) to fuel local and regional economies, believing that this will also give a boost to tra-
ditional music cultures and other arts.
Sustainability carries with it the notion of finite resources that are in danger of
exhaustion. Given infinite abundance, there would be no need to think in terms of using
resources in a sustainable way. If it is acceptable to speak of music as a human resource,
then plainly it is a renewable one. As long as people can sing, they are not in danger of
using up the resources required to make music. But just as language itself is not endan-
gered whereas individual languages have gone extinct and others are going extinct, cer-
tain musics—that is, music cultures—and genres and instruments are endangered. Of
course, those engaged in salvage folklore and ethnomusicology were well aware of these
threats; indeed, it could be said that the impulse to preserve music arises at least partly
from sadness over impending loss. Among US folklorists, as we have seen, conservation
moved out of the museums and into living (or, rather, supposedly dying) cultures with
the object of renewal and revitalization. As I wrote above, only a small number of US
ethnomusicologists took part in the cultural conservation movement led by US public
folklorists. Most US ethnomusicologists continued to do their research outside North
America, where their experiences with musical and cultural conservation were various
and diffuse.
Although sustainability did not make an impact in ethnomusicology or folklore
until the new millennium, it is helpful to see how the concept was implemented in late
twentieth-century developmental economics and the environmental movement, the
two areas where it remains most deeply embedded today. Sustainability comes to ethno-
musicologists with baggage from economics and environmentalism. Critics pointed out
170 Jeff Todd Titon
that sustainable development that reduced overall short-term resource yield would only
exacerbate third-world poverty in the face of population growth, but proponents argued
that a combination of smart market regulation, wise political policies, and advances in
technology would greatly increase efficiency, productivity, and ultimate yield, and that
the rising tide would lift all boats. The results of sustainable development initiatives are
mixed. Economic successes have occurred in some areas, failures in others. Cultural
anthropologists working in indigenous societies critique sustainable development
on the grounds that it is a new form of Western colonialism that destroys traditional
knowledge, lifeways, and cultural integrity. Meanwhile, resource exploitation and envi-
ronmental degradation continue, though perhaps at a lesser rate, while living standards
rise in some nations and stagnate elsewhere, and while income inequality also is on the
rise. Nonetheless, sustainability brought environmental considerations into economics
as never before.
The work of ecological economist Herman E. Daly has been notable within sustain-
able development. Daly was important not only as a theorist but also as an actor on this
stage, for from 1988 to 1994 he was the senior economist at the World Bank. Daly began
his career in the 1970s by opposing the possibility of continuous economic growth. He
maintained that in their models economists ignored the environment at their peril.
Constrained by the environment, the world economy was better viewed as a steady-state,
dynamic equilibrium (Daly, 1991 [1977]). After the Brundtland Report, Daly endorsed
sustainable development. He defined it in terms borrowed from “wise use” conservation
practice, that is, as sustainable yield, in which the renewed resource is able to exceed the
amount harvested or lost to disasters such as disease or fire. Alarmed at the way sustain-
able development was being used synonymously with sustainable growth, Daly argued
that development need not imply growth. “When something grows it gets bigger. When
something develops it gets different,” he wrote. “The earth ecosystem develops but it
does not grow. Its subsystem, the economy must eventually stop growing but continue
to develop. The term ‘sustainable development’ therefore makes sense for the economy
but only if it is understood as ‘development without growth’ ” (Daly, 1993: 267–268).
Unfortunately, Daly’s sensible distinction failed to influence most developmental econ-
omists. Not surprisingly, the business world also adopted the idea of sustainable devel-
opment, but in their hands it became a synonym for sustainable growth. To corporations
intent on global competition, growth seemed necessary for survival. Many corporations
adopted “green” practices, such as recycling waste, at the same time that they continued
using up finite resources while researching technology for more efficient productivity
and wiser use.
Daly was not the only economist to make use of ecology when discussing economy.
In the 1990s, around the same time that Daly was proclaiming sustainable growth an
oxymoron, James F. Moore argued that corporate leaders should understand their firms
to be actors within ecosystems where they must not only compete but also cooperate
in order to ensure the sustainability of the entire system and themselves within it. Just
as predators and prey are interdependent in a natural ecosystem, so are corporations
interdependent in a business ecosystem, even when they are rivals. His classic case in
point was the cooperation and competition between Apple and Microsoft (Moore,
1993). Whereas Daly’s distinction between development and growth was ignored by
those economists, business leaders, and government policymakers who maintained a
bias toward growth, Moore’s idea of business ecosystems caught on, augmented by Paul
Hawken’s popular writing on the subject (Hawken, 1994). Today it is a commonplace
to speak of the Apple ecosystem or the Google ecosystem. Daly and Moore believed
that ecosystems were self-regulating and moved toward a stable, though dynamic,
equilibrium.
Ecological thought had little impact on folklore and ethnomusicology until the new
millennium, but its effect on cultural anthropology in the past century was significant.
In fact, the sub-discipline of cultural ecology gathered momentum in the 1950s and was
well established a decade later (Netting, 1977). It treated human groups and their behav-
ior from an ecological perspective (Rappaport, 1979). Modernization and progress in
so-called underdeveloped nations in the post–World War II era had been a concern of
developmental anthropologists all along, with some applied anthropologists working to
further it, others critiquing it, yet others undermining it through action anthropology
and by privileging local knowledge over a modern worldview. Sustainable development,
as defined in the Brundtland Report, was useful to economic anthropologists con-
cerned with the impact of modernization and progress on the environment. Cultural
anthropologists used the sustainable development concept to probe the interface
between the environment and economic equity as well as political ecology. John Van
Willigen concluded in Applied Anthropology (3rd ed.) that “[s]‌ustainability has come
to be expressed in a wide range of [anthropological] themes in addition to economic
development. These include biodiversity, climate change, soil and water conservation,
efficient and renewable energy use, air quality, solid waste, population planning, foresta-
tion, and alternative agriculture” (Van Willigen, 2002: 74). Yet, as I mentioned earlier,
applied anthropolology is the target of a stinging contemporary critique coming from
anthropologists specializing in indigenous studies, because of its historical alliance with
developmental economics. The bad odor attached to it might threaten applied ethno-
musicology, but it must be noted that applied ethnomusicology arose well after applied
anthropology, during the period of postcolonial critique; and that applied ethnomusi-
cology’s ideological stance is anti-colonialism.
Concerns with sustainability and the environment were also, of course, central in the
environmental movement, represented within the science of ecology by a growing sus-
tainability discourse in conservation biology, which also came to be known as conser-
vation ecology. Michael Soulé, the founder of conservation biology, defined its “proper
objective” as the “protection and continuity of entire communities and ecosystems.”
Conservation biologists are concerned less with “maximum yields, and profitability, and
more [with] the long-range viability of whole systems and species…. Long-term via-
bility of natural communities usually implies the persistence of diversity” and, because
of human-made disturbances to these communities, requires redress through active
management (Soulé, 1985: 728–729.) In emphasizing continuity and viability, Soulé
is speaking of sustainability, but not of sustainable development. His de-emphasis on
172 Jeff Todd Titon
yields underlines the major difference between sustainable development, which has
an economic end, and conservation biology’s idea of sustainability, which concerns
long-term endurance of ecosystems and maximizes biodiversity over yield. As conser-
vation biology grew into an applied “crisis discipline,” some wished to adapt it for sus-
tainable development; yet Soulé’s original vision of biodiversity remained central, while
it impacted environmental activists and ecologists alike. Already in 1993, ecohistorian
Donald Worster could write, “There is a widespread implication… that sustainability
at bottom is an ecological concept: the goal of environmentalism should be to achieve
‘ecological sustainability’ ” (Worster, 1993: 148). Worster worried that sustainability car-
ried economic yield connotations of conservation’s “wise use” back into the discussion,
albeit under a new name. Furthermore, he pointed out the problems with the idea of
ecosystem sustainability in the face of the changed ecological paradigm, which had
abandoned ideas of stability and a balance of nature (ibid: 149–150). Nonetheless, the
contemporary environmental movement embraces sustainability, to the point that it has
become a vogue word for various eco-conscious activities.
In Applied Ethnomusicology
As I mentioned at the outset of this chapter, US ethnomusicologists and other cul-
ture workers helped to sustain musicians, musical traditions, and music cultures long
before the term sustainability became operative in the late 1980s, and before it entered
ethnomusicological discourse in the 2000s. In the 1890s a privileged, anti-modernist
wing within the Progressive movement established settlement schools for the poor in
New York and Chicago, as well as remote rural areas such as the southern Appalachian
Mountains, where immigrant and native traditions were collected from elders and
taught to youngsters. The well-known Appalachian singer Jean Ritchie (1922–) grew up
near the Hindman Settlement School in southeastern Kentucky, where many of her sis-
ters attended; after she left Kentucky for New York, she took a job at a settlement school,
where her singing came to the attention of Alan Lomax and others in the folk revival
scene, and her career as a tradition-bearer was soon launched (Ritchie, 1955). While it
suffered from noblesse oblige, the Progressives’ uplift agenda for the poor favored the
conservation of folk traditions, both rural and immigrant. Music and dance were prom-
inent among those singled out for preservation and revival. Generations of American
children learned them in school. This was not archival preservation, but sustainability
within living cultural groups, in an effort to restore and maintain personal and cultural
identity and integrity under the psychologically dislocating pressures of modernization.
Other twentieth-century efforts at sustainability before the term gained currency
were directed at individual musicians rather than cultural groups. Although most
folklorists and ethnomusicologists believed that folk traditions were endangered and
would diminish and eventually disappear, it might be possible to help outstanding
musicians revive and maintain their careers, even if it meant bringing their music to
a different audience, the urban middle class, whose ethnic and regional traditions had
vanished into the melting pot. Alan and John Lomax’s work in this vein with the African
American folksinger Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly) is a case in point (Porterfield, 2001).
In certain parts of the United States, folk festivals became occasions to reintroduce tra-
ditional musicians to their own cultures and bring them to the attention of a wider pub-
lic, thereby stimulating them to maintain their musical skills and repertoires. Festivals
such as the one started in Asheville, North Carolina (1928–present) by Bascom Lamar
Lunsford are examples. In the 1950s and 1960s, rediscovered traditional blues sing-
ers and old-time string band musicians, as well as tradition-bearing folksingers, were
promoted on the newly reinvigorated folk music revival circuit. Musicians such as the
aforementioned Jean Ritchie, Son House, Clarence “Tom” Ashley, Bill Monroe, and
Almeda Riddle—regarded as authentic representatives of their regions and musical tra-
ditions because they had grown up learning them—mingled with folk music revivalists
in widely promoted folk music concerts, as well as festivals that drew many thousands of
spectators.
Many of the those who promoted the sustainability of musical genres such as blues
and bluegrass in the 1960s were themselves young, folk-revival musicians, and some
later became folklorists and ethnomusicologists. These included William Ferris,
whose efforts to sustain blues in Mississippi included cultural tourism (especially for
Europeans), a boost to the career of B. B. King, and promotion of the career of coun-
try blues singer Son Thomas. Ferris brought King to be an artist-in-residence at Yale,
where Ferris taught as a professor of American Studies for a few years before returning
to his native Mississippi to found the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of
Southern Culture. From 1997 to 2001 Ferris was director of the National Endowment for
the Humanities, the first and only time that a folklorist has held this position, the most
powerful cultural post in the United States. Kenneth Goldstein and Roger Abrahams
both collected, recorded, and promoted folk musicians in the 1950s and 1960s folk music
revival; they became professors of folklore at the University of Pennsylvania. My own
trajectory was similar. While a graduate student, I joined Lazy Bill Lucas’s blues band in
Minneapolis in the late 1960s out of a desire to learn more about a music I had already
been playing for several years. Soon, wanting to give something back, I saw that I could
promote my new friend’s solo career, by publishing my interviews with him in fan maga-
zines devoted to African American blues music, which led to a recording contract for
him as well as an appearance at the 1970 Ann Arbor Blues Festival. David Evans’s path
was similar to mine. He researched blues while in graduate degree programs in folklore,
promoted some of the blues singers’ careers, and eventually became a professor of eth-
nomusicology, at the University of Memphis.
The most significant relationship for what would become sustainability was that
which developed in the 1960s between folklorist and bluegrass musician Ralph Rinzler
(1934–1994) and Cajun fiddler Dewey Balfa (1927–1992). Their partnership ushered
in a revitalization and revival of Cajun music beginning in the late 1960s within
French Louisiana and elsewhere. Although the sustainability concept was not avail-
able to describe it then, it remains one of the most effective instances of a US ver-
nacular musical and cultural sustainability intervention. I have written about this
174 Jeff Todd Titon
elsewhere, so a summary here will suffice (Titon, 2009c: 130–131). One of the promot-
ers of the Newport Folk Festival, Rinzler had invited Balfa, among others, to perform
at the festival. Balfa’s local newspaper had questioned whether that old-fashioned,
“chanky-chank” music ought to represent the region at such an important festival.
Surely Balfa and the others would be laughed off the stage, the paper had editorial-
ized. But instead, the Newport audience would not let them leave the stage, calling
for encores. Balfa returned to Cajun country so energized that he became a cultural
ambassador and took his family band on tour throughout the world. But more than
that, he led a cultural revival movement within his Cajun community that eventually
extended even to a renewal of the Cajun French language. Whether or not Rinzler
was responsible for doing anything more than galvanizing Balfa’s latent sustainabil-
ity talents, he understood what could be accomplished by a partnership between cul-
ture workers like himself and community leaders like Balfa. When, a few years later,
Rinzler founded the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, he spread this idea
among the festival workers and the group of folklorists and ethnomusicologists who
came to join him in Washington, D.C., in the 1970s, one that included Bess Lomax
Hawes (1921–2009) and her brother Alan Lomax (1915–2002), as well as ethnomusi-
cologists Daniel Sheehy and Thomas Vennum, along with folklorist Alan Jabbour, all
of whom were to become deeply involved with the formation and early years of the
National Endowment for the Arts’ Folk Arts Division, the American Folklife Center
at the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural
Heritage. To a greater or lesser degree, all of this work was animated by this vision of
the possibilities of cultural renewal and sustainability as a result of various interven-
tions: grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Smithsonian’s festivals,
and the American Folklife Center’s surveys and exhibitions. However, sustainability
was not the operative term at the time, and as I discussed earlier, when in the early
1980s they began to theorize about what they had done and were doing and wanted
to do better, they called it cultural conservation. But in defining it as “encouragement”
along with preservation, they were thinking about sustainability.
The founding generation of the Society for Ethnomusicology was interested primar-
ily in basic research and scholarship, not applied work. However, David McAllester and
Mantle Hood undertook some interventions that could be considered applied, even
though they never discussed them in those terms. McAllester was active in the field of
pre-college music education, working with the Music Educators National Conference to
include world music in the curriculum for youngsters aged 6–18. His own research was
with the Navajo, and although he was adopted by a Navajo family, he did not actively
seek to influence the future of Navajo music, preferring to leave that to the Navajo
themselves. Hood, on the other hand, intervened in Bali, both as a patron of the arts
and in encouraging the revival of gamelan gong-making and performance. A section
near the conclusion of his book, The Ethnomusicologist, is entitled “The Impact of the
Ethnomusicologist” and concludes by reporting on the way his work and appreciation
of their artistry raised the status of traditional musicians, and music and dance in their
community, and gave them impetus to continue (Hood, 1971: 358–371).
Only a few US ethnomusicologists were involved in these musical and cultural conser-
vation efforts, as noted earlier. At the Smithsonian Institution and associated in one way
or another with the folklife office were Thomas Vennum and, in the late 1980s, Charlotte
Heth, who had become director of their Native American museum initiative. A few eth-
nomusicologists worked as presenters at the Smithsonian’s folklife festival—I had done
so in 1976, for example—and in 1988 ethnomusicologist Anthony Seeger became the
director of the Smithsonian’s newly acquired operation, Folkways Records. Judith Gray,
who had studied ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University, was hired as an archivist by
the American Folklife Center. The Folk Arts Division of the National Endowment for the
Arts involved the most ethnomusicologists. Daniel Sheehy, who received his Ph.D. in
ethnomusicology from UCLA, was the assistant director throughout the decade, while
the Folk Arts panelists who met four times per year to advise the agency and recom-
mend grant and heritage awards included ethnomusicologists Charlotte Heth (serving
1981–1982, 1987), myself (1981–1983), Robert Garfias (1982–1983), Jacqueline Dje Dje
(1983–1985), Ralph Samuelson (1984–1985), Hector Vega (1984–1986), Lorraine Sakata
(1986–1989), Ric Trimillos (1987–1988), Adelaide Schramm (1988–1989), and Thomas
Vennum (1989). A few more worked in state agencies such as arts councils, either doing
contract fieldwork and festival and exhibit production, or as arts administrators. Each
of us had a commitment to applied ethnomusicology and to musical and cultural con-
servation in our own academic and public work, but altogether we were only about
5 percent of the ethnomusicologists working in the United States at that time. The fact
that most US ethnomusicologists researched music cultures outside the United States
severely limited the percentage that might have participated, however. In short, while
in the 1980s public (sector) folklore developed a strong US infrastructure, employing
folklorists at the national and state government levels, there was nothing comparable
in scope for US ethnomusicologists. The vast majority remained scholars aiming their
research at colleagues while teaching students in the academic world. Some, however,
were developing a commitment to applied ethnomusicology (see Murphy, Chapter 20
of this volume).
Ethnomusicology’s involvement in sustainability during the 1980s came chiefly
from commitments to musical individuals and communities that were resulting from
fieldwork, not from alliances with public folklore. While it was true even then that
almost all fieldwork conducted by US academic ethnomusicologists was accomplished
for the purposes of scholarship and contributions to knowledge about the music of
the world’s peoples, many ethnomusicologists were forming friendships with their
principal informants (some of which led to marriage) and began asking how “giving
back” might also be extended to communities. This was the same generation that had
begun reciprocity of this kind in the 1960s as graduate students. Also, at this time,
the “crisis” in US cultural anthropology was leading to a new reflexivity among North
American ethnomusicologists who, in questioning their own subject positions and
their rights to claim knowledge and authority, of necessity were considering the
impact of their research on the communities studied, in addition to the impact of
their studies on themselves. Notable in terms of their movement in the direction of
176 Jeff Todd Titon
applied ethnomusicology and sustainability were second-generation US ethnomusi-

cologists Paul Berliner, Steven Feld, and Anthony Seeger. Berliner’s work with Shona
mbira music and musicians was unusually reflexive for its time, concerned as it was
with the ethnomusicologist’s subject position vis-a-vis the people whose music he was
learning (Berliner, 1978). Feld and Seeger undertook ethnographic fieldwork among
tropical rain forest peoples, with scientific research as their principal goal; but each
scholar gradually developed a sense of responsibility to help their subjects maintain
their music and culture in the face of modernization. Feld’s efforts with the Kaluli in
Papua New Guinea included a reflexive postscript to the second edition of Sound and
Sentiment (Feld, 1990). Seeger began to investigate legal means of protecting Suya
culture, including copyright for their music (Seeger, 1991). Some ethnomusicolo-
gists undertaking graduate study in the 1980s were strongly affected by the currents
of experimental ethnography and applied ethnomusicology; among them, Michelle
Kisliuk wrote a reflexive ethnography of another tropical rain forest people, the BaAka
(Kisliuk, 1998). Alan Lomax should also be considered in this light. Although Lomax
meant cantometrics to be scientific, aimed it at anthropologists and folklorists, and
seldom was reflexive, his work on behalf of musical and cultural equity was implicit
in this research, and explicit in his strongly-felt influence on the cultural conservation
movement in US folklore (Lomax, 1972).
It was conservation ecology’s notion of diversity, coupled with equity and ecojustice,
that provided the basis for sustainability thinking in folklore (cultural sustainability)
and ethnomusicology (music culture sustainability and the persistence of musical tradi-
tions) in the twenty-first century. Within ethnomusicology, “Music and Sustainability”
was the title of a panel presentation for the 2006 annual conference of the Society for
Ethnomusicology. A special journal issue on music and sustainability published three
years later included the papers from that panel plus two others (Titon, 2009a). The essay
introducing the special issue proposed that music is
a biocultural resource, a sound-producing activity natural to humans that comes

into being as music through sociocultural processes…. Efforts to sustain music are
best directed at, and regarded as, sustaining selected sociocultural activities that
encourage music’s production and maintenance. In short, sustaining music means
sustaining people making music. Then if one grants that sustaining music is a legiti-
mate public policy pursuit, a number of further questions arise: what are the wisest
policies, how may they be achieved, and what role might ethnomusicologists play in
defining them?
(Titon, 2009b: 6)
The essays in that issue addressed music and sustainability from different vantage
points, but all were concerned with music cultures in a state of revitalization. In the
United States, these music cultures, particularly when regarded as expressions of ethnic
identity, are cultural policy targets. Applied ethnomusicologists ask how healthy these
musical cultures are, and what can be done to help them survive and flourish, while at
the same time honoring their traditional practices. Repatriation of archival recordings
has been an enormous help to a number of them. In her essay for the special journal
issue on music and sustainability, Janet Topp Fargion mentioned the Passamaquoddy
recordings made more than 100 years ago by Jesse Walter Fewkes (Topp Fargion,
2009: 78). Wayne Newell, an educator and Passamaquoddy community scholar help-
ing his nation to revitalize traditional music and language, uses these recordings and
finds them invaluable (Newell, 2003). This way of thinking about preservation is critical
to Topp Fargion’s holistic redefinition of field recordings. Recordings have always held
a central place in ethnomusicological research. Yet among ethnomusicologists today,
field recording itself may be becoming endangered. For one thing, it is increasingly dif-
ficult to keep pace with changing technological developments. For another, as social
texts become more central to ethnomusicology, documentary field recordings recede in
importance, along with musical transcription and analysis. Topp Fargion’s essay showed
how a more inclusive approach to research, particularly for sustainability purposes,
enables the field recorded document (ibid.).
In that same special journal issue on music and sustainability, Mark DeWitt and Tom
Faux both presented case studies of particular musical cultures in a state of revitaliza-
tion. DeWitt portrayed a Creole music and dance scene in northern California that is
largely self-supporting, based not only on a core of Creole (and to a lesser extent Cajun)
out-migrants from Louisiana, but also on a group of folk music and dance revivalists
who, although not growing up in Creole or Cajun culture, have joined it. Although some
of the Bay Area musicians have received recognition and support from arts councils
and other agencies, most have received little or none. The health of this scene does not
depend on stimuli from external agencies. But as it is competing with an ever-compelling
musical marketplace, its vitality can be lost in a generation (DeWitt, 2009).
For that reason, “passing it on” is a major concern of arts policy. Apprenticeship,
funded by arts agencies, in which younger members of an arts community learn from
respected elders, is one of the most widely praised forms of intervention. And in those
instances where the master artists are, or become, community scholar-practitioners,
“passing it on” becomes an important internal consideration. The experiences of Don
Roy as discussed by Tom Faux are a case in point. Unlike the Creole music and dance
in northern California, Franco-American music in New England has received sup-
port from cultural agencies, particularly for festivals and tours; but, as Faux pointed
out, Roy understood that these tourist-oriented expressions usually failed to foster the
long-term, community social capital that sustains a music and dance scene. And so Roy
teaches group lessons, and the teaching not only facilitates music but also encourages
community-building. One of the reasons, perhaps, that Don Roy is uneasy at cultural
agencies labeling him a Franco-American musician is that he understands that this
music transcends ethnic boundaries and attracts contemporary contradance musi-
cians in New England who are identified with “Yankee” (traditional British) rather than
French culture (Faux, 2009).
The ecosystem analogy that enabled the application of these principles to cultural
management on behalf of musical sustainability has recently been subjected to a
178 Jeff Todd Titon
critique by Brent Keogh. In a wide-ranging review of the ecological trope in ethno-

musicological theory, Keogh concludes that in considering musical cultures as eco-
systems, and in following the principles of natural management (that is, by “following
nature” in privileging diversity, interdependence, and so on), we would be mistakenly
attributing good intentions to nature, whereas “Nature does not care whether a partic-
ular species thrives or perishes and no one species is more important that any other….
Nature does not care about diversity, it does not manage its economy because Nature
[sic] is not an agent” (Keogh, 2013: 6). Keogh confuses agency (action) with intention,
because common language does in fact assign agency to nature, as in statements such
as “canals carved by the agency of the river.” Granted, the Christian worldview that
gave rise to the widespread Enlightenment idea of nature as the Great Economist saw
a divine hand behind nature. And, indeed, certain conservation ecologists do attribute
good outcomes to natural processes; for example, two of Soulé’s value statements for
conservation biology are that “diversity of organisms is good” and that “evolution is
good” (Soulé, 1985: 730–731).
But there is a difference between good outcomes and intentions. Wetlands, for exam-
ple, provide flood control, wildlife habitat, and so forth. One can say without violating
scientific principles that flood control is the result of the agency of wetlands. Those of
us working with the ecosystem analogy in applied ethnomusicology are not attributing
good intentions to nature, pleasant as it is to entertain the fancy that nature “cares” when
good outcomes occur. Of course, nature also acts destructively. Nor is nature indifferent.
In the tradition of scientific realism, nature simply “is,” as an external reality. Where sus-
tainability is a desired outcome, it does not require belief in agency within nature. It is
neither necessary nor desirable for conservation ecologists to anthropomorphize nature
when harmonizing human interventions in the natural world with ecological principles
in order to maximize desired outcomes. Nor is it necessary for applied ethnomusicolo-
gists to attribute agency to nature when working with that ecological analogy in cultural
policy. It would be difficult to conclude that applied ethnomusicologists who base man-
agement of musical cultures on an ecosystem resilience paradigm attribute agency to
nature or, for that matter, to culture. Keogh’s critique of the eco-trope, like Spitzer’s cri-
tique of conservation, points to the limitations they believe arise from employing analo-
gies between culture and nature. The relationship between the two is, however, complex,
as is the history of that relationship (Titon, 2013).
When back in the late 1970s I began exploring music cultures as ecological systems,
the analogy I had in mind was between music and energy; that is, as energy flowed in
a natural ecosystem in a feedback loop among so-called producer organisms and con-
sumers, so in a music culture music flowed in a feedback loop among producers and
consumers (Titon, 1984: 9). The analogy I have borne in mind is thus not merely at the
system attribute level, but a more basic analogy between the driving forces in these
two systems, namely energy and music. Indeed, ecological principles are derived from
human constructions of the natural world to begin with. As we shall see in the next sec-
tion, ecologists who favor the resilience paradigm not only deny agency to nature but
also are skeptical of equilibratory constructions of nature.
Resilience
Within the larger discourse of sustainability among ecologists, a related term, resilience,
has provided a different and, many think, more promising direction for ecosystem
management. Advocates of resilience emphasize that whereas sustainability is a goal,
resilience is a strategy. Like sustainability, resilience thinking has been taken up by econ-
omists, including business economists, and by psychologists and social workers, who
recommend resilience to their clients as a response to disruptive change in their lives.
To date, resilience has not had much, if any, impact in ethnomusicology, applied or oth-
erwise. In this chapter I begin exploring how applied ethnomusicologists might employ
resilience as a strategy. Nonetheless, resilience has already entered public discourse,
where its use is becoming more frequent.
Like sustainability, resilience has been used to mean two different, but related, ideas.
In popular usage, resilience sometimes means resistance; but more precisely, resilience
means the ability to bounce back. Consider a system such as a forest, a pond, a music
culture, a computer, or a human being. To use a homely example, imagine a person on
the verge of catching a cold. Persons may increase their resistance by boosting their
immune system with echinacea, vitamin C, and so on. Resilience, on the other hand,
refers to a person’s ability to recover after catching a cold. Going from not having a cold
to having one represents a change in state or, as ecologists call it, a regime shift from
one state to another—in this case from a more desirable equilibrium (health) to a less
desirable one (having a cold). The more resilient a system, the more quickly it recovers,
and the more fully it returns toward its previous state. Ecologists stress that a resilient
system need not bounce back entirely to its previous state; in the face of disturbance it
may—indeed probably will—change; but a resilient system recovers to the point where
it is able to retain sufficient integrity to keep performing its core functions (Gunderson,
Allen, and Holling, 2009: xiv–xvi.). Summarizing ecological thought about resilience,
Philip S. Lake writes, “The capacity to weather a disturbance without loss is defined as
resistance, whereas resilience is the capacity to recover from a disturbance after incur-
ring losses, which many be considerable” (Lake, 2013: 20).
Resilience strategies are meant to exhibit resilience themselves; that is, managing
for resilience means living with a degree of uncertainty (although trying to minimize
it). It means to experiment, sometimes to fail, and to adapt management techniques so
as to learn from successes and failures. In the current phraseology, resilience thinking
requires adaptive management. Adaptive management anticipates, and reacts to, chang-
ing circumstances, changes in values, and changes in knowledge. Resilience is meant
to be pragmatic and realistic (Norton, 2005). Environmental studies professor Lance
Gunderson explains that “Adaptive management is an approach to natural resource
management that was developed from theories of resilience. Adaptive management
acknowledges the deep uncertainties of resource management and attempts to win-
now those uncertainties over time by using management actions as experiments to test
180 Jeff Todd Titon
policy. Management must confront various sources of complexity in systems, includ-

ing the ecological, economic, social, political, and organizational components of these
systems as well as the interactions among system components…. Adaptive management
attempts to bring together disciplinary approaches for analysis and assessment and then
integrate those ideas with policy and government in the social arenas in a framework
some describe as adaptive governance… [which is] a framework for managing com-
plex environmental issues… the social and human context” (Gunderson, Allen, and
Holling, 2009: xx). Resilience thinking is implemented through adaptive management.
Restoration ecology is one area of application. Here, adaptive management attempts to
increase an ecosystem’s resilience and tip it back to a more desirable state.
Interestingly, many resilience advocates contrast resilience with sustainability not
only by regarding the former as a strategy and the latter as merely a goal, but also by link-
ing sustainability to the old “balance of nature” equilibrium paradigm, which has been
abandoned by most ecologists, even though many conservationists, cultural and other-
wise, still believe in it. In other words, the majority of contemporary ecologists no longer
believe that ecosystems exhibit periods of prolonged stability as well as an overall ten-
dency to move toward a single, balanced equilibrium, a climax state. Rather, they accept
that in complex systems disturbances and changes are the norm, and that there is no
natural balance at a climax equilibrium point, but rather any number of tipping points
that, when passed, bring about regime shifts to different states of temporary equilibria,
some more desirable than others (Pickett and White, 1985: 155–156). Resilience strategies
are meant to achieve and maintain the most desirable states whenever possible.
For some resilience advocates, abandoning the idea of stability in ecosystems also
means abandoning a cornerstone of “wise use” conservation and sustainability think-
ing: that endangered renewable resources would “naturally” recover when harvest rates
were reduced to a more sustainable level, as in a forest or fishery. Such recovery was
predictable under the balance of nature paradigm, but it could not be anticipated after
a regime shift to a less desirable state. The abrupt collapse of fisheries, without any real
prospect of return, lends credence to the newer paradigm involving regime shifts, and
indicates a need for a change in strategy and policy (Gunderson, Allen, and Holling,
2009: xiii–xiv). Gunderson continues: “A resilience approach opposes the preoccupa-
tion with increased production/yields/returns through increased efficiency… and con-
trol of natural variation. In contrast resilience thinking captures, and in fact embraces,
the dynamic nature of the world. It recognizes the perils of optimizing for particular
products…. It leads to an understanding of the critical thresholds in the systems we
depend upon, and, once a system has crossed such a threshold into an undesirable
regime, resilience thinking explains why it can be so difficult to move out of that condi-
tion, and what might be done about it” (Walker and Salt, 2006: 140).
Resilience strategies also are employed in current economic practice, and they are
not new. Diversification, a common resilience strategy for sustainability, is proverbial;
most languages contain wise old sayings such as “Don’t keep all your eggs in one bas-
ket.” Farmers understand that monoculture is vulnerable to predators, disease, and
erratic weather. Organic farmers work to improve the soil, which boosts resilience in the
face of disturbance. Investors are urged to allocate funds to more than a single type of
asset. Business corporations employ similar resilience strategies, diversifying products,
sources, and distribution channels. If they consider themselves part of larger ecosys-
tems, they understand that alliances, even with competitors, build resilience. Insofar as
applied ethnomusicologists follow business models, particularly when advocating for
heritage tourism and the creative economy, they may choose to adopt resilience strate-
gies similar to these. Diversification is an adaptive risk management technique.
In putting ethnomusicology to practical use, then, applied ethnomusicologists would
be wise to consider resilience strategies and adaptive management when partner-
ing with cultural organizations where sustainability is a policy goal. Whether working
directly with music cultures in participatory action research, sometimes as members of
those music cultures ourselves, or whether working for, or with, government agencies,
arts councils, museums, historical societies, and other nonprofit organizations with an
agenda that includes sustaining, or restoring, particular music cultures, we would do well
to recognize regime changes and implement resilience strategies. As usual in such cases,
questions arise over what is to be sustained or restored in a music culture—repertoire,
style, performance practice, function and context, feelings and experiences, careers, and
so forth—and how best to sustain what is to be sustained. Many of these are questions of
value as well as management strategy, and they involve trade-offs.
Moreover, it is crucial to consider a sustainable music culture not as a stable, climaxed
ecosystem but as a desired regime. In other words, strategies should not be aimed chiefly
at removing supposedly “unnatural” distortions, as outlined in Cultural Conservation
and quoted earlier in this essay (“… it is possible, however, to temper change so that it
proceeds in accordance with the will of the people, and not in response to the pressures
of faddish trends or insensitive public or private projects. Conservation denotes efforts
which… ensure natural cultural growth” [Loomis, 1982: 29]). “Natural cultural growth” is
a fiction; there is no reason to believe it any more than to believe in the balance of nature.
Instead, resilience strategies of adaptive management respond to forces of disturbance
and change, some good and some not so good, in an attempt to establish or restore, and
then maintain, desired regimes.
As directed at traditional music within ethnic communities, the cultural conserva-
tion and safeguarding movements discussed earlier usually claimed that their inter-
ventions were being done on behalf of music cultures that were threatened and were
headed toward a regime change. “Safeguarding” assumes that the regime change has not
yet taken place, that the heritage remains to be preserved. Sustainability, while more
flexible in concept, also assumes that the tipping point has not yet been reached, and
therefore that major aspects of the current regime are worth sustaining. In reality, many
traditional musics had already undergone regime change to an undesirable state. The
traditional aspects were at best a remnant, and therefore the desired end was restora-
tion to a former state, rather than conservation or safeguarding of a present one, even if
this could not be articulated or admitted as such. In other words, culture workers, par-
ticularly those dealing with heritage, are sometimes trapped in a preservation discourse
that magnifies the presence, and importance, of a threatened tradition. If the tradition
182 Jeff Todd Titon
already has largely succumbed, for political reasons the discourse may have to empha-
size sustainability; but the strategies ought to be aimed at restoration and resilience.
I turn now to ask what general characteristics of complex systems make certain ones
resilient in the face of disturbance, and what make others vulnerable? After identify-
ing some, I consider resilience in two contrasting amateur music cultures and see what
kinds of strategies are likely to work and what may fail.
Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy point out five characteristics of resilient systems.
These overlap to some degree. They are (1) feedback mechanisms to alert a system to an
impending change; (2) built-in mechanisms for dynamic reorganization in the face of
disturbance; (3) a structure consisting of modular components that can be repaired or
replaced individually, thus preventing the necessity to repair or replace the system as a
whole; (4) an ability to detach parts and diversify, thus localizing operations and reduc-
ing dependencies without undermining the whole; and (5) clustering, or the ability to
aggregate under favorable conditions and grow. We may add (6) social capital, when the
resilient system is a cohesive social group. “Resilient communities frequently [rely on]
informal networks, rooted in deep trust, to contend with and heal disruption. Efforts
undertaken to impose resilience from above often fail, but when those same efforts are
embedded authentically in the relationships that mediate people’s everyday lives, resil-
ience can flourish” (Zolli and Healy, 2012: 9–13). Other characteristics of resilient sys-
tems are (7) diversity, and (8) innovation (Walker and Salt, 2006: 145–148).
Consider resilience and adaptive management in two contrasting music cultures,
the Old Regular Baptists in the coal-mining country of the US southern Appalachian
Mountains, and the old-time string band revival, dispersed in communities throughout
the United States with some smaller groups elsewhere, such as Ireland. In more than
200 years, the music of the Old Regulars has not undergone a significant regime change.
Old-time string band music has done so, although most revivalists persist in believing
otherwise. Conditions within the two music cultures are significantly different, particu-
larly in terms of geographical distribution, economic dependence, and social organiza-
tion. Resilience strategies will reflect these differences and others.
The Old Regular Baptists are a regional music culture, living in an area that includes
the mountainous, coal mining portions of a few contiguous southeastern states, chiefly
in southeastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, and southwestern Virginia. Although
a small number of out-migrated Old Regular Baptists have established churches in Ohio
and Florida, 95% exist within this mountainous, coal-mining region (Figure 5.1). They
are organized into 17 Associations. Each Association consists of anywhere from about
5 to 30 churches, each church with its own congregation and ministers. Altogether they
number about 10,000 people. They possess the oldest English-language singing tradi-
tion in the United States, lined-out hymnody. This music proceeds without congrega-
tional song books and without musical notation. The tunes are in oral tradition. One
of the men with the ability to lead songs sings out the words one line at a time, singing
them to a special lining tune for each hymn. The congregation joins the leader to sing
back the words one line at a time, to a tune that is related to but more elaborate than the
lining tune. The hymnody is unaccompanied and in free rhythm, and is characterized by
3 2
Figure 5.1 Location of Old Regular Baptist Churches in the Southern Appalachian region.
Source: Howard Dorgan, The Old Regular Baptists of Central Appalachia
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), p. 3.
melismatic melodic elaboration, each singer being free to “curve” the basic melody with
more or fewer passing tones. The result is a thrilling heterophonic unison for the singers,
in step but out of phase. To non-participants it may sound mournful and disorganized.
This music has been described in more detail elsewhere, while field recordings also are
available. It descends from the practice of the sixteenth-century English parish church,
and was the “old way of singing” characteristic of the Massachusetts Puritans and their
descendants until it was eclipsed by the reform efforts of music educators in the eigh-
teenth century. Scholars of American hymnody thought it had gone extinct, but it was
discovered in the middle of the twentieth century to have survived among groups of
184 Jeff Todd Titon
old-fashioned Baptists in the southern Appalachian Mountains, where it persists most

strongly among the Old Regular Baptist denomination (Dorgan, 1989; Titon, Cornett,
and Wallhausser, 1997; Titon, 1999).
For resilience, the Old Regulars have great strengths in many of the characteristics
identified by Zolli and Healy. Feedback is one. They are self-consciously old-fashioned
and safeguard their religious beliefs and practices closely. For at least 150 years they have
carefully monitored possible intrusions from other religions, including such things as
foreign missions, Sunday school, and the use of musical instruments in worship. They
have resisted newer musical styles and repertories, most notably gospel songs and har-
mony singing. These remain tempting for some, but in fact the church leaders do not
permit the congregations to sing gospel songs or to sing in parts. Modular structure is
another resilience characteristic of this group. Their feedback mechanisms are rein-
forced by a hierarchically organized, modular structure in which each church functions
as a single module. Their number rises and falls as some join the Association and oth-
ers occasionally fall away, or go “out of correspondence,” as they say—usually over dis-
putes in doctrine. The Indian Bottom Association, in southeastern Kentucky, has in fact
gained churches and members during the 25 years that I have known them. Informal net-
works in a community of deep respect is another resilience characteristic of this group.
Communication and trust among the Old Regular Baptists is facilitated by the habit of
visiting: each church holds its worship service and a business meeting only one weekend
per month. This means that Old Regular Baptists attend their home churches but once
a month while visiting other churches three or four times each month. Ministers do the
same, as do persons with the knowledge and ability to lead the songs. All of these aspects
of church governance and organization, coupled with a close and caring social life, make
the Old Regular Baptists resilient, and have kept them so for more than 150 years.
However, in some ways the Old Regular Baptist music culture is vulnerable. Their
total population is relatively small, and new church members must reside within a nar-
row geographic region. This region sees little in-migration and is gradually losing popu-
lation. One does not join the music culture easily, by volunteering to do so; one must
join a church, and the churches have membership requirements based on religious belief
and how one lives one’s life. The songs are difficult to learn and sing until one has been
immersed in the music for a while. Other church denominations in the region, with dif-
ferent, easier, and more modern-sounding ways of singing, compete with Old Regular
Baptists for members. But their greatest vulnerability, I believe, is economic depen-
dence. They are concentrated in a region dominated by a single industry: coal mining.
Since the 1930s, automation in the mines has gradually diminished the overall number
of workers, but in the past few decades, strip mining and then mountaintop removal,
which require many fewer laborers, have greatly accelerated this trend, increasing
unemployment and poverty in the region. Low-paying jobs in fast-food restaurants and
shopping centers are available, but they provide only supplemental income and cannot
support a family, whereas coal mining, although dangerous, does not require much for-
mal education and pays a living wage. The future of coal mining itself also is uncer-
tain, given increasing environmental regulation, and the decreasing proportion of coal
in the US energy mix. Meanwhile, strip mining and mountaintop removal greatly dis-
turb the mountain ecosystems, increasing flooding, earthquakes, and pollution in the
land and water, causing illness and death. Black-lung disease from coal dust had been
an ever-present threat, but with mountaintop removal the environment itself is endan-
gered, along with all life in the region. How long the population can remain viable in
that area is an open question; and if they had to disperse, it is not known whether Old
Regular Baptists would out-migrate to areas in sufficient numbers to re-establish their
churches and Associations.
Resilience strategy for adaptive management would suggest addressing the eco-
nomic and environmental problems of coal-mining dependence first and foremost. To
help alleviate poverty and modernize the region, the federal government has under-
taken economic projects ever since the War on Poverty in the 1960s. These efforts have
improved roads, consolidated schools, and built hospitals; but the economic problems
remain. In 2014 the federal government announced a fresh initiative, and couched it in
the rhetoric of sustainability and resilience. In January of that year, President Obama
announced that southeastern Kentucky had been targeted as one of the first “prom-
ise zones” for economic development. Details remain sketchy as I am writing this, but
among the goals are job creation, growing small businesses, job training and retraining,
all to implement a “sustainable economic effort across eight counties… focused on diver-
sifying southeastern Kentucky’s economy to make it more resilient” (White House Fact
Sheet, 2014). The outcome of this initiative will not be known for some years.
Tourism, including eco-tourism, may be one industry targeted for expansion; the
region has many lovely natural sites, but it also suffers from a reputation for poverty
and violence that is unattractive to tourists. Heritage tourism, based on the region’s
rich heritage of crafts and music (ballads, old-time and bluegrass string band music,
the roots of country music, and so forth) would also be a possibility, but despite some
efforts in that direction, it has not proved an economic panacea. And even if it did,
Old Regular Baptists would not wish to participate as the regular objects of heritage
tourism. As the moderator (elected head) of the Indian Bottom Association told me
many years ago, “We’re not anxious to be studied.” Over the years, he said, a number
of visitors had “flown in, taken a shallow look, and flown out,” and their impressions
had been predictably shallow as well (Cornett, 1990). I believe that performing their
music and worship (for to them, music is worship) regularly at heritage sites within the
region could transform their worship experience and degrade it into something other
than worship: an object for a tourist gaze that would be unacceptable to them. And,
of course, the idea of turning it into an economic engine for profit is contrary to their
religious beliefs.
Ironically, the feedback mechanisms within the Old Regular Baptist communities are
very sensitive to musical and cultural threats; but the threat of changing economic con-
ditions is not within the domain of church governance. Outsiders who advocate today
for economic alternatives tend to be dismissed as untrustworthy environmentalists who
would eliminate coal mining entirely, thereby bringing the economy to an abrupt and
disastrous halt.
186 Jeff Todd Titon
Applied ethnomusicologists seeking to apply adaptive management strategies to

help Old Regular Baptists sustain their music—which, by the way, they are eager to
maintain—would not serve them well, then, by attempting to make them the objects
of heritage tourism and the creative economy, even though that is the predominant
strategy for cultural sustainability in the US traditional arts today, and an impor-
tant strategy elsewhere in the world, particularly in Europe (Throsby, 2010). It might
also occur to an applied ethnomusicologist to consider whether Old Regular Baptist
music might be sustained in a revival mode, similar to the way a related traditional
American music, Sacred Harp (or shape-note) singing, is currently being enjoyed and
propagated. Old Regular Baptist music has, in fact, undergone a kind of revitalization
and renewal within the Old Regular Baptist communities, partly as a result of atten-
tion from scholars and cultural specialists. But their music is not in a revival stage,
in the sense that people from outside their communities are joining in and spread-
ing and developing the music elsewhere. There are no folk music revivalists gather-
ing to sing Old Regular Baptist songs, nor are there likely to be. A full comparison
with the Sacred Harp revival is beyond my scope, but it may be useful to draw certain
contrasts here.
Sacred Harp, or shape-note, singing developed as part of a musical reform movement
involving written notation in shaped notes (diamonds, triangles, squares, and circles)
that made it easier for people to learn to read and sing from staff notation. In fact, this
music literacy movement was meant to overcome the perceived problems in the “old
way of singing,” which is to say the heterophonic, lined-out hymnody of the Puritans and
their descendants (such as Old Regular Baptists) who, according to the reformers, were
making an awful noise, not a joyful one. Although this movement to sing from notation
gradually succeeded in New England beginning in the late eighteenth century, where
it was put to use for part singing in standard Western choral harmonies, a grass-roots
shape-note movement arose in the South during the mid-nineteenth century, and soon
local amateur musicians were harmonizing traditional melodies (including many in the
Old Regular Baptist repertory) for part singing in shape-notes, but in unconventional
harmonies (employing parallel fifths, for example) and voicings. This way of singing and
the songbooks associated with it, such as The Sacred Harp, became very popular among
Baptist and Methodist denominations in the South, and eventually among gospel hymn-
odists, whose books later in the nineteenth century also were printed in shape-notation.
Although this music was sung in churches, it also became popular among community
singing groups, and in particular Sacred Harp singing groups arose, chiefly associated
with Baptists but not as a formal part of worship or church activities. Eventually Sacred
Harp singing became a community activity, with singing conventions of its own; par-
tisans traveled considerable distances to participate in regional and state Sacred Harp
singing conventions. Although these Sacred Harp sings gradually diminished in the first
half of the twentieth century, during the waves of folk music revival that have occurred
in the United States since the 1950s, Sacred Harp singing became a popular choral activ-
ity, to the point that there now are Sacred Harp singing gatherings in every state of the
union, and most of them are not associated in any formal way with religious practice,
although the repertory is based in the Sacred Harp song book and the revivalists mingle
with traditional singing groups that remain in the South (Bealle, 1997; Miller, 2008).
Could Old Regular Baptist music undergo such an exogamous revival? To me, it seems
highly unlikely. Although the music is attractive to a small number of outsiders, includ-
ing some Sacred Harp singers, it does not exist in community sings outside church wor-
ship, in any formal sense. Old Regular Baptist families sing when they get together, but
it is quite informal and different from a community singing event. Such “sings,” in other
words, and singing conventions that became normal for Sacred Harp singers and pro-
vided a ready-made structure for revivalists, are absent in Old Regular Baptist practice.
Of course, that could change. But whereas beginners rely on Sacred Harp songbooks for
lyrics and music notation, they would be unable to use their music-reading skills to sing
Old Regular Baptist music, because Old Regular Baptist song books lack music notation.
Recordings could provide a model, but very few recordings are available. The melodies,
particularly the lining tunes, would have to be learned by imitation and memorized.
Unlike Sacred Harp music, which has a leader who swings arms to mark a steady meter,
Old Regular Baptist songs do not have a conductor or exhibit a pulse beat. Nor is there
a single melody; and although a skeletal tune does exist, a proper realization involves
individual elaboration. Indeed, one learns to “curve” the melody appropriately only
through long experience in singing it within an Old Regular Baptist community. An
anecdote from my personal experience will illustrate. After spending much time with
them and my recordings of their music, I had learned to sing along with them; I could
follow the melodies and also sing some on my own, however tentatively. I invited two
friends to come with me to an Old Regular Baptist worship service. Although they both
were skilled musically, they told me they could not find the melodies in the sea of sound
that the group made. Of course, after several visits they would have been able to distin-
guish them; but their experience reveals how inaccessible the music is for a beginner.
The other music culture that here provides an example for resilience and adaptive
management is the old-time string band music revival. The repertoire consists primar-
ily of tunes played in the rural American South for dancing during the period from the
Civil War to the period between the World Wars. Folklorists began recording this music
in the 1930s, but the collecting accelerated in the urban folk revival movement that
began in the 1950s. Now not only folklorists, but also musicians who wanted to learn this
music, were recording it from the older musicians, most born before 1900, who remem-
bered the repertoire. Some of this same repertoire had also been recorded on commer-
cial 78 rpm discs in the 1920s and 1930s aimed at a Southern audience. In its heyday, this
old-time string band music was performed, and the repertoire shared, by both white
Southerners and African Americans. It developed primarily as an oral tradition over
the course of 150 years, as more and more tunes were brought into the repertoire, oth-
ers underwent modification, and all circulated locally and regionally. Starting around
World War I, the music fell into decline with the older square and round dances it had
accompanied, replaced by ballroom dancing and the music that was appropriate for that
style. During the same post-1950 folk music revival that strengthened Sacred Harp sing-
ing, old-time string band music also staged a comeback, as the older tradition-bearing
188 Jeff Todd Titon
musicians performed at festivals and college campuses and other venues and attracted
a cadre of young musicians who had not heard this music before but who soon made it
their own. Some of them moved south to live and work in the areas where remnants of
the musical tradition remained, and beginning in the late 1950s they gathered in various
old-time string band “festivals” at places such as Galax, Virginia, Union Grove and Mt.
Airy, North Carolina, and more recently, Clifftop, West Virginia. Although the musi-
cians call these gatherings “festivals,” they are unlike the folk festivals, where music is
performed from a stage and for an audience. Instead, at an old-time string band festival,
thousands of musicians gather chiefly to mingle and participate in hundreds of small,
spontaneous jam sessions throughout the festival grounds. Sometimes, as at Galax,
bluegrass jams are also part of the festival. It is a participatory, not a presentational
music (see music e xample 5.1 ). Summer instructional camps also arose beginning in
the 1980s, and as the revival has grown, their number has increased. At the beginning,
they employed some of the older, tradition-bearing musicians as teachers, who showed
how they played by demonstrating the music, sometimes slowly. As they passed away,
some of the most skilled revivalist musicians took their places, leading jams and work-
shops and teaching classes.
Although the string bands of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had included
various non-stringed instruments, such as harmonicas, organs, and whatever else was
popular or handy, the revival string band musicians settled on fiddle, banjo, and guitar
as the primary instruments, to which sometimes a string bass and/or a mandolin was
added. Indeed, by the time the music began to be recorded in the 1920s, fiddles, banjos,
and guitars were the most popular; however, the guitar was relatively new to the music,
having entered late in the nineteenth century, long after fiddle and banjo had delineated
it. In addition to this concentration of instruments, other changes resulted from the
revival. Banjo players have narrowed the variety of picking styles that were prevalent
before the revival to one dominant style, the so-called clawhammer (a down-picking)
style, while the rhythms of the tunes have taken on a more modern syncopation and
drive, sometimes referred to as “festival style.” Tunes played at festivals, aided by a com-
bination of conviviality and stimulants, can put musicians into a quasi-trance during
performance, as the tune may repeat 20 or 30 times and continue for as long as a half
an hour, the groove shared by all players. And whereas the music’s primary function
until the end of World War II was for accompanying the dance, today the occasion for
the music is the jams. The word “jam,” borrowed from jazz, connotes the informal and
fluid membership in any old-time string band session. The music is not improvisational
in the way that jazz is; the melody is prominent at all times, with slight though mean-
ingful variations introduced primarily by fiddlers. Jams have an informal, laissez-faire
atmosphere, though an implicit etiquette prevails. Although the fiddle is the lead instru-
ment, no single leader decides which tunes will be played; instead, different musicians,
usually fiddlers, start tunes and when others recognize them, they join in—or if they
don’t recognize them, they learn them as they play them. The jam as I have described it,
particularly as it occurs at festivals and in people’s homes (often with pot-luck meals)
or, increasingly, in public venues where it may be overheard by non-musicians, is an
informal gathering of whichever musicians are invited (or not) and show up. It is a musi-
cian’s music, done for the pleasure of the musical experience and the sociability of the
occasion.
The old-time string band revival exhibits resilience in certain areas but not others.
New members are joining the music culture every year, coming from all US regions
and walks of life. The number involved with old-time music fluctuates and is proba-
bly uncountable, but anecdotal evidence would place it around 15,000, not much larger
than the total of Old Regular Baptists. The group is welcoming and there are few if any
requirements, other than an interest in playing this music. By contrast, to join the Old
Regular Baptist music culture one must live within a small region and profess and prac-
tice particular religious beliefs. In terms of accessibility, then, the old-time string band
revival is much more resilient. Its structure is very different also. The music culture cen-
ters on a “scene,” or subculture, not a membership organization (Pfadenhauer, 2005).
Unlike Old Regular Baptists, the old-time string band music revival has little formal
organization and no hierarchical structure. It is an affinity scene, a loose collection of
small, informal groups anywhere in size from two to about a dozen persons who gather
to socialize and play music together. At the festivals, of course, people from many of
the smaller groups travel to take part and roam from one group to another, looking for
old friends and acquaintances, and for peak musical experiences in jams. The informal
aspects of the music, and the high value placed on spontaneity and serendipity, make
hierarchical social organization even more difficult. Such egalitarianism extends even
to the food supplied at these gatherings, which inevitably results in a pot-luck in which
everyone brings some food and all share. To be sure, organizations produce the festivals
and the instructional camps, but insofar as the festivals are chiefly spaces set aside for
informal gatherings and a great many spontaneous jam sessions throughout the festi-
val grounds, the production does not extend much beyond planning activities, keeping
order, and running contests, which many feel are peripheral and do not participate in.
For the vast majority, the participatory jam sessions and the socializing are the reasons
for festival attendance. The instructional camps exhibit a good deal more organization,
with reservations, accommodations, wages for instructors and staff, food catering, les-
sons, and workshops, along with evening jams. Participants pay money to attend and
expect to improve their musical skills.
Although old-time string band revivalists are conscious of changes in the music cul-
ture, and some are concerned that these are not for the better, the scene has no hier-
archy, no leaders to counter threats to its sustainability, no way in which individuals
can manage more than a small part of the scene. In this voluntary association, lead-
ing by example is the principal means of influence. Any musician who fears that the
music scene may be changing in ways not to his or her liking seeks out other musi-
cians who share his or her preferences, and usually finds them, rather than attempt-
ing to influence the course of the music’s development. The musicians are dispersed
across the United States and may be found almost anywhere—old-time string band
jams are popular in Ireland, for example. For that reason, the jams exhibit an almost
perfect modularity, except that aside from sharing repertoire, instruments, playing
190 Jeff Todd Titon
techniques, and to some degree musical style and social rules, there is no whole sys-
tem, only a scene with various parts. The parts are not like cells integrated into an
organism, as Old Regular Baptist churches are integrated into Associations. Those
parts—the social structures that come together for the jams, in home neighborhoods
and at distant festivals—are by nature able to detach themselves, dissolve, re-form or
not, and also to cluster, a feature of resilient systems. Such a system, without a hier-
archically organized whole, exhibits a certain kind of resilience. It almost automati-
cally self-reorganizes in response to change and disturbance. However, this flexibility
also means that it can more easily change state, as it did when it entered the revival
stage, significantly in those aspects mentioned earlier. The musicians themselves do
not think of this as a regime change, because the repertoire, instruments, and playing
styles exhibit continuity. The participants believe they are continuing a tradition, and
many think that by playing the old tunes and keeping them alive they are preserving it.
But at the same time, in the past 50 years they have modified the social aspects of the
scene considerably. Jam sessions as well as festivals are the most important of these, but
they are inventions of the revival, and without them the scene would not exist. Prior to
the revival, the music was played principally for dances and in contests. Another, more
recent innovation is the instructional camps.
An applied ethnomusicologist seeking to help the music culture sustain itself
through adaptive management would not encounter the main problem facing Old
Regular Baptists, namely, dependence on a single, regional industry that is itself under
threat and in turn threatens the environment sustaining the population in the region as
a whole. But in attempting to aid the scene, applied ethnomusicologists would encoun-
ter difficulties not present among Old Regular Baptists. For example, an applied eth-
nomusicologist might conceive of the revival as a regime change and imagine that the
participants would prefer to return to the older social forms; but most would not. The
applied worker would need to bear in mind that the revival has its own way of carrying
on a musical tradition but with newer social formations. Furthermore, whereas adap-
tive management could operate among Old Regular Baptists through their organiza-
tional hierarchy, there is in fact no way to “manage” the old-time string band music
revival because it lacks the institutional structures and leaders to carry out such man-
agement. The self-organizing aspects of the revival are so strong that an applied ethno-
musicologist might wonder whether aid and advice is desirable, let alone whether it is
administratively possible.
On the other hand, an applied ethnomusicologist might, in partnership with certain
musicians, come to realize that threats to the ethos of spontaneity and serendipity do
exist, particularly in the instructional camps. In the 1950s and 1960s, the early decades
of the old-time string band revival, learning the music took place chiefly by infor-
mal imitation, whether of other musicians or of recordings, as it had done before the
revival stage. Although a more experienced musician might demonstrate a technique
to a learner, teaching in the form of lessons did not exist. This began to change in the
1970s, first through class lessons held at musical instrument shops, and not long after
that in classes held at the instructional camps. These teachers usually instructed by
ear, going over a tune phrase by phrase, demonstrating techniques, without any musi-
cal notation to guide the students. Nonetheless, because the students pay money for
this instruction, an atmosphere of middle-class expectation increasingly surrounds
these camp activities, which now can include evaluation and critique and resemble art
music pedagogy in certain aspects that exert pressure toward formalization. Under
these conditions, the remaining old-timers who grew up in the pre-revival music cul-
ture usually do not make the most effective teachers, even though their playing exhib-
its the characteristics thought to be most authentic to the tradition and, for advanced
musicians who can learn by imitation, they are the most desired teachers. Private les-
sons are becoming increasingly available, almost always taught by revivalists. Music
camps now offer instruction in several different musical traditions more formal than
old-time string band music. Some of these, like Scottish fiddling, have depended on
tune books and music notation for more than a century. In others, such as contradance
music, notation has always existed alongside oral tradition, but for instruction nota-
tion has become standard. Some in the old-time music community resist notation as
they would resist an infection, thinking it works against the spontaneity they prize.
Given that the instructional camps exhibit more structure than the jams or festivals,
and given that the musical instruction influences the scene’s future, adaptive manage-
ment to maintain the spontaneity and serendipity of the old-time string band revival
scene might be appropriate.
Ironically, public folklorists and applied ethnomusicologists’ efforts to manage
and sustain old-time music, including string band music, have by and large confused
and upset the revivalists. The culture workers did so in the 1970s by dividing the folk
revival scene into tradition-bearers and revivalists, and the division persists. In mak-
ing that distinction, they ascribe authenticity to the tradition-bearers and grant them
funding support, while they deny both to revivalists. Revivalists seldom are hired to
perform at the folk festivals or are funded in other ways. Given the cultural conser-
vationists’ views that equate authentic traditional music cultures with ethnic minori-
ties and working-class communities, it seems unlikely that the revival movement will
be targeted for funding. Nor does it need such interventions, because among other
things it is not endangered. Nonetheless, some of the revivalist musicians would like
the honor of being selected to perform at these festivals. When they bother to con-
sider it, they resent being categorized as inauthentic. They argue that because the
tradition-bearing source musicians have adopted them into their communities, they
have already been authenticated by those whose authentication matters most. In con-
trast, Old Regular Baptist communities, which fit the cultural conservationists’ criteria
as tradition-bearers perfectly well, have gained much from partnerships with applied
ethnomusicologists and public folklorists. They have become stewards of their music,
and they understand that it is not only valuable to them for worship but also valuable
to others who prize outstanding musical traditions as part of the cultural matrix of
the nation. Yet the greatest threat to their musical and cultural future is economic and
environmental, and here the role, if any, for applied ethnomusicologists and other cul-
ture workers is not yet well defined.
192 Jeff Todd Titon
Conclusion
Resilience refers to a system’s capacity to recover its integrity, identity, and continuity
when subjected to forces of disturbance. Insofar as music cultures are systems, they too
exhibit resilience to a greater or lesser degree. Resilience and adaptive management have
had a life within ecological thought and the environmental movement, psychology (not
treated here), and economics. They offer promising sustainability and restoration strat-
egies for applied ethnomusicologists, as for public folklorists. However, they must be
understood with reference to the baggage they bring. “Yield” and “development” are
not appealing concepts to many culture workers. And while “management” is an appro-
priate strategy for conservation biologists, it is not without its problems when human
beings are subjected to it. Among those is the negative connotation that management
has acquired when applied to ways in which entities such as nation-states or corpora-
tions attempt to control their citizens or workers. I have already alluded to the critique
leveled at modernization and developmental applied anthropology as a new form of
colonial management, from radical anthropologists working in indigenous studies.
However, indigenous knowledge forms the basis for a bottom-up applied anthropology,
just as in applied ethnomusicology (Sillitoe 1998).
Foucault coined the term biopower to describe the way in which modern nation-states
regulate their citizenry, particularly in reference to controls over excesses of the body
(and body politic). Their disciplinary power is even more effective because the regu-
lations become internalized as culture. Foucault is working in a tradition pioneered
by Karl Marx, who wrote about the Protestant religion’s emphasis on bodily discipline
(drunkenness, for example, as a sin), effectively providing efficient, submissive factory
workers for the capitalists. George Orwell’s prophetic 1984 portrayed such a society as
a police state. These, of course, are forms of management; and a quick response to this
apparent problem is to say that the kind of cultural management I’ve been advocating
(and practicing) for nearly five decades is not and never has been top-down, but rather
grows out of a partnership between the culture worker and the community leaders and
tradition-bearers. In an ideal case, the culture worker learns the music culture’s sustain-
ability goals and helps its people plan and then implement a sustainability strategy in
which they self-manage, relying on the culture worker as a collaborator and consultant,
perhaps more in the role of coach than manager. In American baseball we call them
managers, but in football and basketball they are called coaches. Of course, both man-
age the games, employing short- and long-term strategies, and by putting the players in
positions where they have the best chance to succeed. Both coach their players, teaching
them better techniques. Interestingly, coaches appear in contemporary Euro-American
cultures in “the game of life”: people hire coaches for public speaking, for dress and
appearance, for health, for social relationships, for business negotiations, and so forth.
Many do not seem to mind being coached. Some want it, thinking it will advantage
them. Why, then, the resistance to being managed, when one is willing to be coached?
Perhaps the manager is thought to be impartial, whereas the coach is empathetic.
Marx, Orwell, and Foucault shared that resistance to management. It impinged on

autonomy and freedom; it abrogated natural rights. Being managed meant being told
what to do, what to say, even what to think, when one didn’t want to be told—and then
being coerced to do it. The difference, with coaching, is the willing partnership: presum-
ably we want to be coached, even if we don’t want to be managed, because we conceive
of the goal as our own. Adaptive managing may be regarded as coaching, then, when
applied ethnomusicologists partner for sustainability.
Resilience and adaptive management abandon the questionable assumption that
music exhibits “natural cultural growth” that proceeds to desired ends when freed from
the fashionable and faddish trends that distort its true direction. Instead, resilience rec-
ognizes that perturbation, disturbance, and flux are constant characteristics of any com-
plex system. Resilience theory and adaptive management practice therefore attempt to
identify what makes a music culture vulnerable to regime shift, and what makes one
resilient, and to ameliorate the former and strengthen the latter. Resilience theory and
adaptive management offer promising directions for applied ethnomusicologists work-
ing toward sustainability in music cultures.
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Pa rt I I I
A DVO C AC Y
Chapter 6
Advo cacy a nd t h e
Ethnom u sic ol o g i st
Assessing Capacity, Developing Initiatives, Setting
Limits, and Making Sustainable Contributions
Jeffrey A. Summit
Introduction
While we are drawn intellectually to our research, what happens when our experiences
in the field conjoin with ethical, moral, and religious imperatives to pursue social jus-
tice and give back to the people with whom we work? In this article, I address a set of
issues and offer a project framework that ethnomusicologists might consider when we
are moved to partner with the people whose music we study, who so generously help us
and sometimes become our teachers and our friends. Many ethnomusicologists have
made the decision that the role of scholar and the role of advocate are not mutually
exclusive. However, the success of advocacy projects depends on a thoughtful nego-
tiation between these roles. I believe that the model James Clifford suggests for par-
ticipant observation can be helpful for those of us who have chosen to assume multiple
roles in the communities in which we conduct our research. He describes participant
observation as “tacking between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ of events on the one hand
grasping the sense of specific occurrences and gestures empathetically, on the other
stepping back to situate these meanings in wider contexts” (1988: 34). When deciding
how, and if, to become involved in an advocacy initiative, I believe it is important for the
ethnomusicologist to “tack back” and ask a series of questions: How do we assess our
motivation and personal capacity when deciding if, and how, to engage in advocacy?
How can we ensure that our advocacy makes a real contribution? With limited time and
resources—and often unlimited need—how do we determine the personal, financial,
and psychological limits to advocacy? How do we evaluate if, and how, our advocacy
200 Jeffrey A. Summit
projects are sustainable? I explore these questions below in a way that is meant to be
both personal and practical.
For the past 13 years, I have been involved in two advocacy projects in Uganda. In
the first, I am raising funds, and working with community leadership, to support more
than 20 students from the Abayudaya (Jewish) community outside Mbale (see Figure
6.1) studying in local colleges and universities. In the second project, I’ve been promot-
ing the work of a Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Fair Trade coffee cooperative that is
dedicated to building and promoting interfaith cooperation. In both projects, the music
I have studied and recorded, and the CDs I have produced for Smithsonian Folkways
Recordings, undergird my advocacy work. From my experience, I present a number of
scenarios that problematize our advocacy efforts and suggest points for consideration
when we come to see ourselves as “partners in a common cause” with members of the
communities in which we conduct research (Titon, 2003).1
Personal Motivation
I was brought into advocacy work through a convergence of influences: my own spiri-
tual tradition, my experience with service learning, the influence of colleagues who have
engaged in advocacy, and the stated values—and support—of my university. In my own
religious tradition, I have been influenced by the field of relational ethics and most pro-
foundly by Martin Buber’s construction of the I-Thou relationship, an approach that
sees our very existence as based on encounter (1970). Rabbinic traditions of social jus-
tice, with an emphasis on tikkun olam (our responsibility to “repair the world,” Hebrew),
have influenced me as well.2 For example, the Talmud weighed the balance of action and
learning in life. In the second century c.e., Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon argued about
the relationship between study and action. The core of their disagreement was framed
by this question: What is more important, study or righteous action? If you could only
focus on one area, should you concentrate on becoming educated or doing good deeds?
Rabbi Tarfon answered, saying that action is greater. But Rabbi Akiva countered his
argument and stressed that if you had to choose between the two, it was study that was
the greater value (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Kiddushin 40b). For a society that cared
deeply about ethical action and social justice, this seems like a strange decision. Should
not doing righteous action be paramount? But the rabbinic tradition supported Rabbi
Akiba’s decision and interpreted it in this way: If you only focused on doing good deeds,
that might never lead you to become an educated person. But if you immersed yourself
deeply in learning, your studies had to lead you to act ethically, to raise a moral voice,
to be committed to repairing what was broken in the world. It was inconceivable to the
rabbis in the Talmud that education would not lead to right action. That view has shaped
my own understanding of the purpose of education: education that connects teach-
ing and research to advocacy; education that thoughtfully examines what constitutes
Advocacy and the Ethnomusicologist 201
Figure 6.1 Map of Uganda by Dan Cole, GIS Coordinator, Smithsonian National Museum
of Natural History, in Delicious Peace: Coffee, Music & Interfaith Harmony in Uganda (SFW
CD 50417), 2012.
Courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
effective activism; education that is committed to a university having an impact for good
in our world.
Even as we respect the religious and spiritual beliefs of the people whose music we
study, I am very aware that the phrase “religious values” is itself a can of worms. I have
found that my academic colleagues rarely reference or discuss their own spiritual
beliefs. “Religion” gets painted with a wide brush in the university and is more often
associated with narrow sectarian views than with a deep respect for the other. While my
religious tradition has influenced my approach to advocacy, I situate myself in dynamic

opposition to a legacy of colonialism and a history where religion has often been used
as a means of political manipulation, economic oppression, violent homophobia, and
cultural devastation for subaltern people in East Africa and beyond.
Of course, one does not have to be motivated by a specific religious tradition to engage
in advocacy. In his examination of the role of the “engaged university” and ethnomusi-
cology in the United States, Eric Martin Usner writes, “I am in higher education to make
a difference” (2010: 76). He speaks about how the music itself is a witness of something
profound—“call it beauty, community or a sense of shared humanity; call it God.” Usner
discusses how an engagement with the music nurtures understanding and compas-
sion for being human, and from that vantage point, asks how to turn that understand-
ing “into real world acts.” So, too, when Daniel Sheehy discusses the philosophy and
strategic approaches to problems inherent in applied ethnomusicology, he begins his
analysis from the assumption of interpersonal responsibility and connection. He asks,
what ethnomusicologist has “never gone out of his or her way to act for the benefit of an
informant or a community they have studied?” Sheehy states that applied ethnomusi-
cology begins with a sense of larger purpose, “first to see opportunities for a better life
for others through the use of music knowledge and then immediately to begin devising
cultural strategies to achieve those ends” (1992: 323, 324). The fact that he does not place
this commitment to social justice in a specific religious tradition does not make it any
less grounded or powerful.
The fact that I see a confluence between my own spiritual imperatives and current
directions in applied ethnomusicology deepens my commitment to engage in advo-
cacy. When Jeff Todd Titon introduces and frames the special issue of Ethnomusicology
that he edited on “Music and the Public Interest,” he describes this approach as work
that “involves and empowers music-makers and music-cultures in collaborative proj-
ects” and results in “practical action in the world” (1992: 315). Titon emphasizes that the
nature of this practical action is relational, shaping our approach to ethnographic field-
work as well. When he writes that “fieldwork at its best is based on a model of friend-
ship between people rather than on a model involving antagonism, surveillance, the
observation of physical objects, or the contemplation of abstract ideas” (1992: 321), Titon
is describing the essence of fieldwork, in the language of Martin Buber, as an I-Thou,
rather than an I-It relationship.
So, too, when Kay Shelemay stresses the importance of ethnography “predicated
on negotiated relationships” (2008: 153), she is teaching that with relationship comes
responsibility. Shelemay’s perspectives developed from her experience doing fieldwork
with Jews of Syrian descent who live in Brooklyn, New York. She examines the role of the
ethnomusicologist “who, while seeking to document the transmission process, becomes
a part of it” (2008: 141), moving the researcher into a reciprocal stance in relation to
the people whose music one studies. Such directions in applied ethnomusicology have
expanded how researchers understand and define reciprocity. In 2007, the International
Council for Traditional Music established a study group devoted to applied eth-
nomusicology and sponsored a series of conferences. In the volume on applied
ethnomusicology that developed from their work, Ana Hofman considers ethnomusi-
cologists’ engagement in advocacy and social justice, reassessing the role of reciprocity
in ethnographic fieldwork. She examines this new ethnomusicological epistemology,
with its understanding that the researcher “constructs reality together with social sub-
jects” who become active partners and interlocutors, and calls for a re-evaluation of our
responsibilities to the people whose music we study. She writes, “This approach includes
the presumption of respect, equality and reciprocity among the research participants”
(2010: 23). As I consider the interplay between these three areas, I have come to believe
that reciprocity is a way to evidence my respect for the people whose music I study. It is
also a way to address equality in a world where my privilege impacts my relationship
with the women and men who have become my friends, teachers, and partners over the
years that I have worked in Uganda.
Lessons from Service Learning
As a chaplain at our university, I have been involved in social justice and service learn-
ing during my years at Tufts. My approach in developing advocacy projects in Uganda
was also shaped by my interactions with Tufts students, and with the local organiza-
tions where they were volunteering while doing service learning in the Boston commu-
nity. In their book The Unheard Voices: Community Organizations and Service Learning,
Randy Stoecker and Elizabeth Tryon examine the service learning relationship from the
perspective of the local agencies and projects that accept and work with student vol-
unteers. Successful service experiences depend on repositioning the relationship, from
“top-down”—where university students decide on service projects they will bring to
local communities to “bottom-up”—where the communities play a key role in directing
and shaping the students’ experience. Listening to the “unheard voices” of the agencies
and the people being served was essential in building successful partnerships. Rather
than viewing service learning as a linear cause-and-effect process, Stoecker and Tryon
suggest that it be viewed as a dialectic organizational process in which feedback from the
local community shapes the strategies and actions of those engaged in service (2009: 7;
also see Usner, 2010: 81–86).
Over the years, a number of key issues continually emerged in our discussions with
students who were working with community organizations both locally and internation-
ally. It was essential that students did not conceive projects in a social and organizational
vacuum but rather in thoughtful collaboration with local agencies and communities.
Even while doing direct service, it was important to consider larger dynamics impacting
systemic social and economic change. We also found it essential to include broader edu-
cation on the root causes of the issues we addressed through service initiatives, as well as
integrating a commitment to sustainability for the programs we developed with a com-
munity. I have found this multi-tiered approach essential in developing service projects,
as I discuss later in this chapter when I describe the CASES methodology.
I have also been influenced and inspired by colleagues’ applied work as they engage
in advocacy. Current epistemological approaches in ethnomusicology have, as exam-
ined in the work of Ana Hofman and many others, “destabilized the dichotomy between
the “theoretical” and the “activist” (2010: 23). Many ethnomusicologists have decided
that the role of scholar and the role of advocate are not mutually exclusive and made
profound contributions to the communities they have studied. To name only a few,
I would reference Anthony Seeger’s collaboration with the Suyá in Brazil to preserve and
promote their culture (1987), Steven Feld’s work with the Kaluli in Papua New Guinea
to prevent deforestation in the rain forests (1982, 1991), and Kay Kaufman Shelemay’s
dedication to the transmission of pizmomim (paraliturgical hymns) and community
advocacy with Jews of Syrian descent in New York (2008). Jeff Todd Titon’s broad con-
tributions to our understanding of the ways that ethnomusicologists can contribute to
cultural sustainability, social activism, community education, and cultural policy have
helped me understand that a commitment to research and a commitment to advocacy
can be mutually enhancing, rather than mutually exclusive (2003). Gregory Barz and
Judah M. Cohen’s focus on the role of music and the arts in providing education, hope,
and healing for victims of HIV/AIDS in Africa presents a range of examples of ethno-
musicologists engaged in effective advocacy (2011). These scholars, and many others,
have provided carefully conceived, community-grounded models that have inspired my
own advocacy work in Uganda.
I am also fortunate to work at a university whose mission stresses the importance
of active citizenship. As explained on the website of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of
Citizenship and Public Service of Tufts University, “An active citizen is a person who
understands the obligation and undertakes the responsibility to improve community
conditions, build healthier communities, and address social problems. He or she under-
stands and believes in the democratic ideals of participation and the need to incorpo-
rate the voice, perspective, and contributions of every member of the community.”3 True
to their mission, Tufts University has been supportive of my work in Uganda over the
years, writing about my projects in university publications, mounting a major exhibi-
tion of my work with music, photography, and material culture in the university’s art
gallery, and hosting coffee farmers from Peace Kawomera coffee cooperative to teach
about their success developing this economic venture to address interfaith conflict and
promote community development.
I write about personal motivation at some length because I’ve found that a process
of self-reflection, ideally one that cultivates humility and problematizes the efficacy of
social justice work, is a good first step for anyone engaging in advocacy or direct ser-
vice. I have used Monsignor Ivan Illich’s address “To Hell with Good Intentions” to
good effect with our undergraduate students. In this challenging talk, Illich, a cultural
critic, philosopher, and religious leader, speaks to North American volunteers about to
embark on a service trip to Mexico in 1968 and pleads with these privileged volunteers
from North America to recognize their “inability,… powerlessness and incapacity” to
do the “good” which they intend to do during short-term service.4 Ideally, a process of
self-reflection helps disavow activists of grandiose ideas, inspires humility, and focuses
on the ways the advocate will be changed more than the ways he or she will change oth-
ers. A clear understanding of the personal importance and self-motivation for advocacy
is especially important in the academy, where faculty’s involvement in this work is often
not recognized or rewarded by additional compensation, valued substantially toward
tenure, or granted academic prestige. For all its rewards, advocacy is messy work. We
swim against strong currents of economic and social injustice. Self-reflection is essential
initial preparation before we commit and jump in.
Assessing Capacity and

Conceptualizing a Project
After understanding our personal motivation, the next step toward effective advocacy
is assessing our capacity to contribute to a community. It often feels like we barely have
enough time for our research, writing, and teaching, and it is a personal choice whether
or not an ethnomusicologist invests time and energy in developing, implementing, and
sustaining an advocacy project. In East Africa, many factors make any advocacy work
feel daunting—unlimited need, a colonial legacy of imposed social and economic struc-
tures to “better” society, complicated histories of inter-family and inter-community
jealousy and rivalry. I have often found myself repeating the dictum “no good deed goes
unpunished” as I approach a difficult challenge or roadblock in one of the projects in
which I am engaged.
Once a researcher decides that he or she wants to develop an advocacy project, the
first step is to conduct a personal assessment: In addition to our research skills and aca-
demic training, what talents, experience and personal commitments do we bring to the
communities with whom we work? What resources at our universities can be helpful as
we assess the opportunities and risks inherent in advocacy projects? Often an answer
is clear, and a skill can have an immediate impact. In Uganda, I worked with a record-
ing engineer who was also an electrician. During down times in our recording, John
rewired the community’s primary school building. Other projects are easy and short
term: Teenagers in the Abayudaya community had formed a music group and wanted
to record a number of hip-hop songs they had written to forefront the community’s new
generation of musicians. They lacked the funding to record in a local studio. I spent an
afternoon recording them on my equipment and burned copies of a demo CD so that
they could promote their music both locally and send it to international visitors who
had expressed interest in their efforts. Quick, one-shot projects can make a contribu-
tion, but projects with long-term impact demand greater planning.
I started working with the Abayudaya (Jewish people) in Uganda in 2000. This com-
munity of approximately 1,000 people living in villages surrounding Mbale in Eastern
Uganda are practicing Jews (Figure 6.2). Many members scrupulously follow Jewish rit-
ual, observe the laws of the Sabbath, celebrate Jewish holidays, keep kosher, and pray in
Figure 6.2 Worship in the Moses synagogue on Nabogoya Hill, Uganda.

Photo credit: Richard Sobol.
Hebrew. There are other communities of indigenous Africans who claim Jewish lineage,
such as the Beta Yisrael of Ethiopia or the Lemba of South Africa and Zimbabwe. The
Abayudaya do not; they self-converted to Judaism in 1919. Moved by their belief in the
truth of the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, the Abayudaya developed their Jewish prac-
tice and liturgy in the process of separating themselves from Christian missionary activ-
ity and British political rule. Their founder, Semei Kakungulu, a powerful Ganda leader,
considered Christianity and Islam and then, according to community elders, asserted,
“Why should I follow the shoots when I can have the root?” Since the community’s ini-
tial self-conversion and through the difficult period of Idi Amin’s rule, the Abayudaya
have been distinguished by their commitment to following mainstream Jewish practice,
an approach that has been amplified since their increased contact with Jews from North
America and Israel beginning in the mid-1990s. Approximately half of the community
went through a halakhic (Jewish legal, Hebrew) conversion in 2002 by a visiting beit din
(rabbinic court, Hebrew) from Judaism’s Conservative Movement.
In the course of my time with the community, it became clear that the Abayudaya’s
needs in health, welfare, and education were substantial. Since their self-conversion to
Judaism in the 1920s, the community did not attend local missionary schools, where con-
version to Christianity was required for admission. Desiring to maintain their Judaism,
the majority of the community had forgone secular education and had remained subsis-
tence farmers. One nongovernmental organization (NGO) in particular, Kulanu (All of
Us, Hebrew), was a model of thoughtful advocacy and was working with the community
to support primary and secondary school education, to secure sources for clean water,
and to explore sustainable economic models to develop indigenous crafts to sell to the
Jewish community in North America. But how could I contribute in a meaningful way
and give back appropriately to the community for their generosity and hospitality?
As an ethnomusicologist, I first worked to fulfill what we consider basic reciprocal
requirements: I worked with local leaders and musicians to determine an appropriate
level of compensation for the musicians I recorded. I made copies of my recordings and
interviews for the community. I negotiated an agreement with the Abayudaya leader-
ship counsel that directed royalties from my recordings, video, and writing back to the
community. But still, it felt like there was more to do. After speaking at length with a
broad range of people in the community, and with faculty colleagues at Tufts who work
in the area of international development, I chose one tightly focused project that seemed
doable. Two members of the community had been accepted to local colleges but did not
have the funds to pay tuition. At that point, I assessed my capacity as an advocate. I do
a lot of fundraising in my role as executive director of Tufts Hillel and have developed
relationships with wealthy donors who are committed to social justice and engaged in
many projects in the Jewish community. It costs approximately $3,000 a year for a stu-
dent to attend university—a bargain when compared to Tufts but far beyond the reach
of a farmer in Eastern Uganda. But raising $6,000 a year for four years felt possible.
I dedicated all the profits from my Smithsonian Folkways Recordings CD to a fund for
university education, and I committed to raising the balance of tuition funds to support
university education for these two students studying in Uganda.
Over the years, I have found that the path of social justice and community service
with the Abayudaya was littered with the skeletons of unsuccessful advocacy initiatives.
Students and other visitors from North America feel empowered by a culture of activism
fostered by their high schools, universities, and religious communities. They jump in
quickly to initiate social justice projects. Jews from North America visit the community
for several days and are transfixed and inspired by their experiences with this Jewish
community in Africa. In most cases, the passion and commitment of these individu-
als were not tempered by a fuller understanding of community needs and the experi-
ence necessary to implement a successful project. I learned this quickly on my second
research trip to the community: Boxes of school textbooks from the United States lan-
guished in a corner of the Semei Kakungulu primary school building. A teacher from
New England had run a textbook drive in his community and shipped these books to
the Abayudaya. Unfortunately, he did not discuss what books were used in the curricu-
lum with the school’s teachers and headmaster and they could not be integrated into the
teachers’ lesson plans. But even more, the school had no money to build bookshelves
for the books, and the roof of the school leaked during the rainy season. Wet books mil-
dewed in their cardboard shipping boxes. In another project, a large weaving loom was
locked in a mud brick building. Hopeful supporters had sent the loom, thinking that
the community could develop an industry weaving and selling taleisim, Jewish prayer
shawls. But this type of weaving was not an indigenous craft, and there were neither peo-
ple to train community members nor much enthusiasm for a complicated craft project
that felt foreign to the community. In another project, two well-meaning university stu-
dents were able to have 12 laptop computers donated to the community. They carried
the laptops to Uganda, and for six weeks, they conducted workshops with high school
students to train them in basic computer skills. The program was well received by the
high school students that summer, but the organizers did not work with the school’s
administrators or with community leadership to ensure that the computer education
project was sustainable. After the organizers left, the computers were sold off, one by
one, to pay for more pressing community needs. I have come to understand that the
success of any advocacy project depends on carefully conceived initiatives, determined
with local communities, with thoughtful attention to the dynamics of on-the-ground
implementation and sustainability.
The CASES Methodology
I was part of a team working to develop a set of standards for social justice and commu-
nity service work for International Hillel. We later refined this approach working in part-
nership with the NGO “Repair the World.”5 The CASES methodology grew out of our
shared experience and involves five components that I believe are essential to consider
when developing advocacy initiatives: community partnerships, advocacy/activism,
direct service, education, and sustainability. I discuss each component in greater detail
in the following sections.
Community Partnerships
Advocacy projects must be planned in thoughtful partnership with community organi-
zations, leadership, and the people who will hopefully benefit from the project. Simply
put, you cannot plan advocacy by yourself. Community activists and leaders represent
important entry points for advocacy projects. It is also helpful to assess the agendas that
local leaders bring to the table. The dynamics of community leadership often disenfran-
chise segments of a community, and broader discussions with community members
are essential as one plans an initiative. Our professional training as ethnomusicologists
positions us well when building community partnerships. Eric Martin Usner examines
community service learning (CSL) and the “third revolution” in higher education in the
United States—a renewed emphasis on active citizenship and civic participation—and
stresses the value and applicability of our fieldwork training for the ethnographer about
to engage in effective service. Participant observation, an understanding of the ethics
and logistics of negotiating entry into a community, interview techniques, methods
for reflecting on work in the field such as field notes, the ability to deal with culture
shock and ethnocentrism, experience and theory for problematizing differences and
diversity—all are essential skills necessary for developing community partnerships that
position an advocacy project for success (2010: 89).
Our skills as researchers also help us examine the history and success of past and cur-
rent projects, whether initiated by the community themselves or outside activists. It is
essential to determine how these initiatives are funded, who is implementing them, and
if community members see them as successful. Community members or leaders who
administer projects in conjunction with outside agencies often have privileged access
to resources, and it is important to understand how funding changes the dynamics of
power and privilege in a community. Even a modest project can infuse a local commu-
nity with more cash than a family makes in a year. It is important to conduct prelimi-
nary research to understand a community’s basic economics, the cost of local services,
and market dynamics in order to understand the potential impact when new resources
are brought into a village or town. As such, maintaining transparent communication is
important so that community members understand how and where funds are allocated
and who controls the flow of resources.
When I was working on these projects in Uganda, I was watched carefully during
every interaction that involved money. When I was recording various music groups of
coffee farmers of the Peace Kawomera Fair Trade Coffee Cooperative, I first had long
discussions with the elected leadership of the cooperative, and with local musicians, to
determine fair compensation for the groups that I recorded. But the leadership felt that
it was just as important to determine how the cash was presented to the groups. It was
essential that the performers knew that the money was distributed equitably. After each
performance, in a small ceremony, I thanked the performers and publicly announced
the amount I was presenting to the group, handing the money to the group’s leaders in
the presence of all assembled. In my experience, nothing foments community discord
and division as quickly as the perception of misappropriation of funds or unfair distri-
bution of resources. Providing compensation to these musicians is only one example;
I work to maintain this level of transparency in the larger advocacy projects in which
I am engaged as well.
In a successful partnership, the advocate works in collaboration with the community
to establish a shared vision and to set common goals to address community needs. Good
community partnerships also have to be built on an advocate’s realistic appraisal of how
much time and energy one can commit to a project. By our nature, advocates are posi-
tive and enthusiastic about the success we hope to achieve. It is better to under-promise
and over-deliver.
My first and foremost partnership in the Abayudaya university scholarship program
is with the community itself. I work on the principle that while I am contributing to the
Abayudaya’s educational vision, community leaders must direct and run this project. All
the money I raise is sent to the elected Abayudaya leadership council, which includes
women and youth representation. I do my best to make sure that my e-mail communi-
cation is transparent, copying in a broad representation of respected community leaders
when I wire tuition funds or address issues. The local council administers and distrib-
utes the funds. While I am often approached by individual students for funding, I try to
avoid dealing with individuals at all costs. So, too, when donors approach me and say
they want to “adopt” a student, I do my best to discourage individual donor-student con-
nections and encourage people to fund the larger project. Funding individual students
invariably leads to personal requests for money, “end-runs” around community leader-
ship, and then to jealousy and community discord. I feel conflicted because the “adop-
tion” approach might generate more funds, but my experience has led me to believe that
this will hurt the project in the long run.
Other Partnerships
At the same time that I was working to partner with the leadership of the community,
I had a number of decisions to make in regard to my relationship with NGOs that were
already working on a range of projects with the Abayudaya. I had tremendous respect
for Kulanu, the primary organization that was engaged with the community when
I began my research in 2000. I spoke to and met with a number of their leaders, both to
learn about their current projects and to have a deeper sense of the history, challenges,
and success of past advocacy projects with the community. I wanted to make sure not
to duplicate their efforts or work at cross-purposes. In addition, NGOs often compete
for donors, and I wanted to make sure that my projects would not be competitive with
their important initiatives in nutrition for schoolchildren and primary and secondary
education. But I struggled with a larger issue: Should I conceive of my university edu-
cation initiative as a separate project, or should I try to have Kulanu integrate it into
their existing projects? Should I simply raise funds to send to them, rather than working
directly with the community? On the positive side, having an existing NGO run and
administer the project might make it easier for me: I would not have to deal directly with
the community, be concerned with the details of fund transfers, or negotiate the logistics
and priorities of the project with the Abayudaya leadership. Besides, I trusted this NGO,
they had integrity and evidenced a strong on-the-ground understanding of the needs
of the community. On the other hand, I wanted to be more in control of the substantial
funds that I was raising and felt that I could engage donors in a deeper way if they were
working directly in a project. I also valued my direct connection with the communi-
ty’s leadership and with the students benefiting from the program. This advocacy work
brought me into community discussions that strengthened my connections with mem-
bers and taught me a lot about the community’s goals and priorities. In addition, I had
experience conceptualizing and implementing community programs. I decided to run
the project myself but maintain active connections with Kulanu, apprising them of the
funds I was raising and the direction of the project. This partnership has been respectful
and productive, and I often call on their leadership to discuss complicated problems and
seek their advice and counsel.
When writing about ethnomusicology’s responses and responsibilities to endan-
gered music cultures, Klisala Harrison and Svanibor Pettan report that the International
Council for Traditional Music’s study group on applied ethnomusicology stressed that
it was important to approach applied work with “a willingness to place oneself in posi-
tions of vulnerability, discomfort and sometimes even subservience, embracing unfa-
miliar and sometimes counterintuitive approaches to appreciate process and outcomes”
(2010: 7). This has applicability to advocacy projects as well. I encountered this when
the community leadership decided not to fund the education of a student who was
engaged to a Christian woman. An explicit goal of the college scholarship program was
to strengthen the Abayudaya, and the leadership saw intermarriage as a threat to com-
munity continuity. Leaders expressed that if the partner of the student was willing to
convert, funding would continue, but if not, they did not want to support a student who
they feared would leave the community. While I understood and respected the leader-
ship’s role in making this decision, a number of funders of the project thought that this
approach was exclusionary and, just as their liberal synagogues in the United States wel-
comed non-Jewish partners without insisting that they convert, so, too, the Abayudaya
should exercise a similar policy. This issue became contentious when the student began
to email donors directly, hoping to apply pressure on the community leadership. It was
uncomfortable to become involved in the negotiations between the donors and leader-
ship. My role became that of an educator, speaking with the donors about the challenges
that the community faced to maintain their Judaism and why imposing their values on
the community could undermine the success of the project in the long run. I also spoke
to the community leadership to explain the donors’ perspectives, stressing that such
policy decisions had to be made locally. In the end, the community leadership negoti-
ated a solution with the student that enabled him to continue receiving funding while
his financée studied for conversion.
Advocacy and Activism

I often use a story from the book of Genesis to illustrate the difference between thought-
ful advocacy and activism that focuses on a direct fix to social and economic problems.
I say, “Imagine that you were an activist during the time that the Jews were slaves under
Pharaoh. It was decreed that all the first-born baby boys would be killed. So imagine you
are standing by the banks of the Nile and a drowning baby floats by! What do you do? Of
course, you jump in and pull out the baby! You revive the child, give the child something
to eat and drink! You’ve done something immediate and important. Now, that’s effective
activism. But then another baby floats by and another and another and at some point,
you have to walk up stream and see who’s throwing babies into the river, and why, and
what it would take to stop them. That’s advocacy.”
Focused activism addresses immediate pressing needs. I was fortunate that other
NGOs, and a few synagogue groups from the United States, were concentrating on
health and welfare with the Abayudaya community. Malaria impacted many com-
munity members, and during the time of my early research in Uganda, several elders
succumbed to the disease. Kulanu was working on a program to obtain and deploy mos-
quito nets throughout the community and to organize educational programming about
malaria prevention and treatment. They were also raising funds to provide nutritious
food for children in their primary school. The fact that other organizations and indi-
viduals were working on immediate issues of health and welfare freed me to consider a
project that could contribute to community development from within.
Ideally, the advocate is committed to work toward systemic change. Before I began
the university education project, I engaged in a broad series of discussions to learn of the
community’s vision for their future. I spoke with students in the high school, women’s
groups, community leaders, and members living in more isolated villages who often
felt ignored and cut off from aid projects that helped those in the community’s center.
Many of the first songs I recorded were written by high school students and stressed
the importance of education. Students sang of their commitment to education and the
importance of completing their studies. The community also modified local Bagisu cir-
cumcision songs and added lyrics such as “You need to go to school before you obtain
leadership positions” (“Maimuna,” track 18, Summit, 2003). High school students wore
T-shirts with the motto “Education is the key to our success.” This focus led me, in con-
sultation with the community’s leadership, to concentrate on university education and
providing opportunities for the community youth who hoped to study law, medicine,
engineering, tourist services, education, accounting, and other professions. Since the
beginning of the project, the university graduates have contributed substantially to the
community. Several received their degrees in education and have become teachers and
administrators in the Abayudaya’s primary and secondary schools. A student trained in
medicine staffed a local clinic. An engineer built houses, as well as a hotel that is used by
visitors to the community. Another community member who received a degree in hotel
management runs this community guesthouse. A student who received his degree in
tourist services organizes tours of the community and local area. While this university
education project often feels like a long-term investment, there are positive ways that it
is impacting the economic strength, health, and daily welfare of the community.
I have also been influenced by the work of John Paul Lederach in the area of peace
building and conflict transformation. Lederach recounts his understanding of the
power of music for transformation with a reference to the familiar story that he
describes as “the fairy tale of the Pied Piper.” After the town’s elders go back on their
promise to pay the Piper for ridding the town of rats, the Piper plays his flute, and all the
children follow him away from town. Lederach says that when he first heard the story as
a boy, its moral seemed clear: “when you give a promise, you had best keep your word.”
But he recounts that when he revisited the story four generations later, he saw a differ-
ent lesson: the power of the musician, the flutist, “to move a town, address an evil and
move the powerful to accountability” (2005: 152). I have experienced this power in the
course of my advocacy work with the Abayudaya. Muyamba Eria, the chairman of the
Abayudaya’s Board of Directors, recently wrote to me from Mbale, reporting that over
the years, this project has enabled more than 40 community members to earn bachelor’s
degrees in different academic disciplines. While I play a role as an advocate, the project’s
success is grounded in the community’s music. Both the community and I were thrilled
when the CD received a GRAMMY nomination for best traditional world music album.
With Smithsonian Folkways Recordings support, we managed to have three members

of the community attend the awards celebration in Los Angeles. This popular recog-
nition generated both revenue and publicity that directly helped the university tuition
project. Ultimately, the community’s music redressed a colonialist legacy that prevented
these Jews from receiving an education, as they refused to attend missionary schools
that require conversion for admission.
As ethnomusicologists, we can also use our position and skills to leverage the impact
of a community’s music. Svanibor Pettan describes “advocate ethnomusicology” as “any
use of ethnomusicological knowledge by the ethnomusicologist to increase the power
of self-determination for a particular cultural group” (2010: 16; also see Spradley and
McCurty, 2000: 422; Pettan, 2008: 90). This was the nature of my work with the Peace
Kawomera (Delicious Peace) Fair Trade Coffee cooperative outside Mbale (Figure 6.3).
I saw the genesis of this interfaith coffee cooperative up close. J. J. Keki was one of the
community leaders and prominent musicians whom I recorded and interviewed for my
work on the Abayudaya CD. His vision for the cooperative grew out of seeing what can
happen when religious conflict leads to violence. On his first trip to the United States for
a lecture tour in 2001, he stayed at our home in Boston early in September before travel-
ing to New York City. He was on his way to meet a friend who was going to show him
the city from atop the World Trade Center and was actually walking up to the entrance
when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower. When J. J. learned that the ter-
rorists had been motivated by religious beliefs, he said, “I think we should begin some-
thing. We have coffee. Maybe we make a co-op of Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and
Figure 6.3 The Peace Kawomera Growers Coop sign.

Photo credit: Richard Sobol.
then we can teach the world how to work together.” When he returned to Uganda, he
walked from village to village, asking his Jewish, Christian, and Muslim neighbors if
they would be willing to form a Fair Trade coffee cooperative, saying, “Use whatever
you have to create peace. If you have a body, use your body to bring peace, not to cause
chaos. If you have music, use your music to create peace. We are using coffee to bring
peace to the world.” With the involvement of Laura Wetzler of Kulanu, they established
a relationship with the Thanksgiving Coffee Company to buy and market their coffee.
Coffee farmers compose songs to stress the positive benefits of interfaith cooperation,
the transformative impact of Fair Trade prices and to encourage their neighbors to join
the coffee cooperative.
For example, in the song, “Educate our Children,” the Balitwegomba Choir sings in
Lugisu about the economic benefits of Fair Trade and the impact this business model
has on community education (track 15, Summit, 2012).6 In rural Uganda, the govern-
ment pays special attention to the role of women in national development, and there are
many women’s clubs and organizations. It is common for these clubs to have choirs as
one of their activities. This women’s choir composed this song in the style of the Bagisu.
This instrumental accompaniment is called luwempele, which refers to two sticks played
on a wooden block. Selected lyrics are below.
We are facing many problems.
We look to Fair Trade to educate our children.
We have cultivated coffee in order to educate our children.
We look to Fair Trade and ask for a better price when we cultivate coffee,
All members of Peace Kawomera, let us rejoice!
God Almighty, thank you!
Our children are going to school now!
Thank you, Fair Trade!
All these ladies are grateful!
In this next song, the Akuseka Takuwa Kongo Group sings in Lugwere, “Let All Religions
Come Together” (track 10, Summit, 2012). Their lead singer, Saban Nabutta, is a mas-
ter at improvising lyrics for special occasions, such as weddings, graduations, political
gatherings, and celebrations to introduce a bride and groom to each other’s families.
He sings in the traditional lyric-heavy style of the Bagwere, built around the lead sing-
er’s vocal improvisation for the occasion at hand. The akadongo (lamellaphone), also
called kongo, is played throughout Uganda. In this ensemble, we also hear the endingigdi
(one-string tube fiddle) and nsasi (shaker). Selected lyrics are below.
All religions, let us come together.
So that we can succeed in this world.
I am telling all religious leaders that God is the one who created us all.
Our grandparents are Adam and Eve.
We have the same ancestors. Let us not segregate each other: it destroys the world.
Let us come together so we can overcome these troubles and promote development.
Many factors drew me to my research and recording with this coffee cooperative. I knew
many of the Jewish coffee farmers from my work with the Abayudaya, and I was inter-
ested in the musical traditions of their Christian and Muslim neighbors. On a deeper
level, I was personally inspired by one man’s response to the tragedy of 9/11. At a time
when the world was becoming more insular and xenophobic, J. J. Keki and the farmers
of the cooperative were sharing a broad vision of peace and interfaith cooperation.
In his book The Moral Imagination, Lederach addresses the question “How do we
transcend the cycles of violence that bewitch our human community while still living in
them?” and states, “Transcending violence is forged by the capacity to generate, mobi-
lize, and build the moral imagination” (2005: 5). He goes on to explain that “the moral
imagination requires the capacity to imagine ourselves in a web of relationships that
includes our enemies; the ability to sustain a paradoxical curiosity that embraces com-
plexity without reliance on dualistic polarity; the fundamental belief in and pursuit of
the creative act; and the acceptance of the inherent risk of stepping into the mystery of
the unknown that lies beyond the far too familiar landscape of violence.” I was drawn
to J. J. Keki’s audacity—and to the courage and commitment of the farmers—as they
worked and sang together across religious, ethnic, and language boundaries to model a
vision of interfaith cooperation. As I watched J. J. Keki encourage his Jewish, Christian,
and Muslim neighbors to join the coffee cooperative, his work fired my own moral
imagination. I asked, how was I positioned to contribute to the success of this work?
In the volume of Ethnomusicology that addresses music in the public interest, Daniel
Sheehy writes about how we can empower community members to become musical
activists (1992). But for me, this worked in the other direction. When I saw that the cof-
fee farmers were engaged in musical activism, to draw more members to the coopera-
tive and increase the profits realized through Fair Trade, to teach a vision of interfaith
harmony, then I realized that I, too, could use my skills to be a musical activist for their
community. Their music moved me to become a partner in a common cause.
I felt inspired by this project, but I also believe that an advocate must be dispassion-
ate in accessing the integrity of community projects. I hoped the peace that the Peace
Kawomera coffee cooperative was creating was real. I know how challenging interfaith
cooperation can be. In my work as a chaplain at Tufts, I have been involved in Jewish,
Christian, and Muslim interfaith work over the years. I was eager to explore the impact
that Keki’s cooperative had on neighboring communities. Was their cooperation cre-
ating peace, or was it just a clever way to market Fair Trade coffee? Through scores of
interviews and participation with the members of the cooperative, it became clear that
this venture was changing attitudes and impacting the level of day-to-day social and
economic cooperation among these religious communities. Many of the coffee farmers
have taken the mission, and message, of the interfaith cooperative to heart. It is common
to hear these farmers speak about the importance of separate religions coming together
and becoming “one person.” They model this in the leadership structure of their cooper-
ative, in their social interaction, and in the music that farmers are writing to convey the
importance of peace, cooperation, and economic justice. To date, more than 1,000 farm-
ers have joined the Peace Kawomera coffee cooperative. When these Jewish, Christian,
and Muslim farmers stress the importance of interfaith harmony, write songs, and sing
together, their music embodies the performance of peace.
While Peace Kawomera has established a viable model of economic and interfaith
cooperation, the success of the venture rests on the cooperative’s ability to sell coffee.
I realized that a CD of their music and a video that told their story to a larger audience
in the United States and Europe could both impact sales and present a viable model for
interethnic and inter-religious economic cooperation. My first conversations were with
the leadership of the cooperative: Did they want their story presented more broadly?
Would this help the success of the cooperative? The chairman, secretary manager,
and treasurer all stressed that they were telling the story of the cooperative every way
they could: in local newspapers, to reporters, and to visitors committed to Fair Trade
who visited Mbale. J. J. Keki was also scheduling a lecture tour to the United States and
Europe. They were enthusiastic about a CD that would present the songs that the farm-
ers were composing. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings also had a historical commit-
ment to the role of music in social and economic justice dating back to Woody Guthrie
and Pete Seeger and were positive about the value of the project. The Thanksgiving
Coffee Company in California, which markets their coffee, also saw value in the music’s
ability to tell the larger story of the cooperative and connect their consumers to the
lives and economic challenges faced by these coffee farmers. I spoke at length with Ben
Corey-Moran, President of Thanksgiving Coffee Company, who stressed the power of
Fair Trade to bring a healing and empowering connection to the people who produce
items that we value in our lives. Of course, he wanted to sell coffee: this was the vehicle
he was using to improve the economic situation of these farmers. But he believed that
sharing the community’s music brought us more deeply into the lives of these farm-
ers. He believed that once we understood the role that these men and women played in
providing us with a product that we valued, how could we not want to use our purchas-
ing power, habits, and daily practice in a way that gives life to the values we hold dear to
our hearts: relationships, connection, quality, justice? Together, the components of this
advocacy project involved recording the cooperative’s music, working with community
members to translate their songs, contextualizing the impact of Fair Trade on the farm-
ers’ lives, and facilitating the connection between the Thanksgiving Coffee Company
and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
In her discussion of the ethical dilemmas that arise when a researcher imposes his or
her values onto the people in a research setting, Ana Hofman cautions that unintended
consequences can arise when one engages in advocacy (2010: 28). I was conscious of
this during my research and promotion of the coffee cooperative. There were extremist
groups, hostile toward interfaith work in East Africa, that might target the cooperative,
or specifically the Jewish community. But the community was clear that they wanted
more publicity for their work, and they welcomed a reporter from Al Jezeera who pro-
duced a news segment about the cooperative. When I asked if they were concerned
that publicity might make them a target for violence, they explained that they believed
deeply in the importance of their interfaith model and understood the risks involved in
interethnic and interfaith work.
Advocacy work with subaltern cultures that have a legacy of colonialism must be
placed in a historical context where European efforts to “help” local communities by
bettering their economic and cultural situations have subjugated and oppressed local
people (Hofman 2010: 25). I am conscious that the dynamics of race, class, and privilege
that provide me access to distribute the community’s music internationally and raise
funds to support a university education project also position me in an unequal power
dynamic with the community. Ana Hofman emphases that the very act of recording,
writing about, and portraying people’s work is an act of domination and subjugation that
maintains a power dynamic over people who are not representing themselves. While
a careful definition of roles in a negotiated partnership can mitigate this situation, the
dynamic stands. When a leader of the Abayudaya community wished to attend rabbinic
school in the United States, to achieve the status of rabbinic ordination and increase the
community’s connection to world Jewry, I used my contacts and connections to help
him achieve that goal. I was using my power at the community’s request, but my aca-
demic credentials and professional access to the North American Jewish community
clearly placed me in an unequal power dynamic with the community.
I would also observe that digital technology is beginning to level this playing field a
bit. The Abayudaya work strategically with a wide range of academics, activists, journal-
ists, funders, and friends. It is becoming easier for them to produce and market their
own music. They increasingly exercise their own agency in determining how, when, and
where to present themselves and their music culture (Summit, 2008: 322). I also have
come to understand how many members of the Abayudaya have in turn empowered me
as an ethnomusicologist, through their trust, generous time, and willingness to work
together on a range of my academic projects.
Service
Direct service addresses pressing, unmet community needs: collecting and distribut-
ing food for the homeless, staffing shelters for abused women, tutoring grade-school
children, and providing SAT prep for disadvantaged high school students applying to
college. For many volunteers in university settings, direct service is the most common
form of community volunteering. The indicators of success for direct service include
demonstrating that the service has a positive impact on communities and the individu-
als served. Volunteers ideally work in collaboration with community members to deter-
mine that the outcomes are valued and deemed effective by those in the community.
Direct service opportunities must be carefully matched with volunteers’ skills, inter-
est, and availability. Much of the success of direct service projects depends on logistical
details: managing volunteers’ schedules and transportation, and matching these with
community members’ genuine needs. Even when community needs are great, it is com-
mon for direct service projects to recruit volunteers and not have sufficient work, or
viable time blocks, to take advantage of volunteers’ schedules.
In the course of my work in Uganda, I have participated in occasional direct ser-

vice: teaching in the community’s secondary school and meeting with university stu-
dents to discuss career direction and plans. There never feels like there is enough time,
and I choose to focus that time on my research. After self-assessment, I have decided
that my value is greater as an advocate.
While direct service addresses specific community needs, I believe that its value
goes beyond that. Of course, as ethnomusicologists, we work to develop this deep cul-
tural understanding through our fieldwork. Direct service can also provide opportu-
nities for this close contact with members of a community. Spending time in people’s
homes, teaching in a school, and being a resource during times of unexpected difficulty
ideally strengthen relationships and bring us into deeper contact with members of a
community. When I am raising money for the Abayudaya scholarship program from
overstretched business people and professionals in Boston, often someone will look at
pictures of the Abayudaya living in mud-brick homes, or carrying water in jerrycans,
and say, “These people are so poor!” My response is shaped by my direct experience with
the community. An understanding of the richness of a community’s cultural and reli-
gious life, a connection to close family structures, a different appreciation of the rhythm
of days, months, and years in an agricultural community all help to problematize simple
dichotomies such as rich versus poor or advantaged versus disadvantaged.
Education
Ideally, an effective initiative includes a commitment to both learn and teach about the
deeper social, economic, and historical contexts in which advocacy occurs. In both of
my advocacy projects in Uganda, the music has been a core component of these aspects
of education. While my research and recording of the Abayudaya’s music eventually
focused on their liturgical and paraliturgical traditions, I first recorded many songs
that stressed the importance of education and community development. In the vil-
lages, important societal issues are commonly addressed through music. In his book
on the role of music in HIV/AIDS education in Uganda, Gregory Barz discusses the
“purposeful” nature of music and entertainment, and details the role of music in edu-
cation, communication, and community outreach (2006, 2007). These songs reflected
the Abayudaya’s community values and priorities that arose from their own strategic
discussions about projects that would benefit their community. When their high school
students sang about their commitment to education, punctuated with the chorus “We
shan’t give up,” I trusted the music. I was also concerned that my research and recordings
would open the community to more ethno-tourism from Jewish communities abroad.
I wanted to make sure that the Abayudaya sought or would welcome such contact. In
fact, they sang of their isolation and their desire to connect to the international Jewish
community. Their songs, together with extended discussions with their leadership,
helped me determine the direction of my advocacy projects. Similarly, when working
with the Peace Kawomera Fair Trade coffee cooperative, their music helped define my
agenda as an advocate. The farmers sang about the importance of expanding the coop-
erative as a way to expand their market. They also sang about the impact of Fair Trade
prices on community health and education. In discussions with the cooperative’s leader-
ship, they stressed that if I could share these sentiments more broadly, I would help the
work of the cooperative and have an impact on the farmers’ livelihoods.
After determining that these projects were line in community desires and values, I set
out to learn more about sustainable aid and advocacy in Africa. Here, I turned to the
resources of our university. I contacted a number of colleagues at Tufts Friedman School
of Nutrition Science and Policy and in the Medical School who had been involved in aid
projects in Africa. I also spoke with a number of my former students who had worked in
the Peace Corps. I posed a series of questions in regard to the educational initiative I was
considering. In their experience, what projects worked, and which were doomed to fail-
ure? Was it possible to continue a project remotely after you returned home? How might
one avoid the dangers and pitfalls when large sums of money were directed toward com-
munity projects? These discussions were extremely valuable as I conceptualized the
education project and considered how to partner with community leadership and the
NGOs already working in the community.
From my experience directing local service projects with undergraduate students,
I knew that it was important to structure time for self-reflection on my involvement in
this initiative. When I led sessions for students who were doing local community ser-
vice projects, I began to speak more personally about my nascent work in Uganda and
reflect on the problems and issues that I was facing. This process was helpful in think-
ing through and focusing my concerns. A number of my graduate students had experi-
ence in international service, and their reflections were especially helpful. In addition,
I put together an informal board of advisors for this project, composed of colleagues and
friends with international service experience and good common sense. I stressed that
I needed friends who would be honest and would help me identify the mistakes I was
making, the problems was I overlooking, and the issues that lay ahead. This help from
colleagues and friends was invaluable as I launched the education project.
The music also plays an essential role in my lectures and presentations on the
Abayudaya community. The Smithsonian Folkways Recordings CD enjoyed commer-
cial success, and I have been invited to lecture around the country in Jewish settings, at
synagogues, schools, and community centers. I conclude my lectures with a description
of the challenges and issues that the community is currently confronting, and I describe
the impact of the university education project. I tell the stories of a few of the university
students and mention how much it costs for a student to attend university in Uganda for
a year. I ask if anyone is interested in the project and invite them to speak with me after
the lecture. I am often approached by potential funders. So, too, a number of synagogues
have taken on this project as one of their social justice initiatives. I build my presenta-
tion around my recordings of the Abayudaya’s liturgical and paraliturgical music. On
one level, I do this because I love to challenge stereotypes and show that Jews are more
diverse—culturally, racially, economically—than many in the North American Jewish
community assume. On another level, playing the community’s religious music is a
boundary-leveling strategy, a servable bridge, viscerally connecting to potential funders.

Vojko Veršnik explores and applies the image of a bridge to both “connect and divide”
groups of people in an ongoing cultural and educational exchange between Slovenia and
Thailand and the musical interaction between younger singers and elderly pensioners in
Slovenia. In both of these cases, Veršnik examines “the potential of music as a connecting
tool within the realm of applied ethnomusicology” (2010: 135; Summit 2000: 140–142).
So, too, I find that the Abayudaya’s liturgical music works as an effective connector, a
boundary-leveling strategy with Jewish visitors from North America, one that has helped
bring financial support to the community. Many North American Jews want to know if
these Africans are really Jewish, and my recordings of the Abayudaya singing familiar
liturgy in Hebrew set to rest questions of authenticity and establish a bond of peoplehood.
I spoke to one woman active in her Conservative congregation who visited the com-
munity in 2009. She said, “There I was in Uganda, but I felt so at home in the service! We
really are one people.” It should be obvious that the life of a Ugandan subsistence farmer
and an upper middle-class American business women have less, rather than more, in
common. Yet these shared liturgical traditions undergird a powerful sense of people-
hood felt by both communities when these Jews meet. When this woman returned to
Boston, she became actively engaged in raising money to support the Abayudaya uni-
versity education project.
When I speak about the work of the Peace Kawomera Fair Trade coffee cooperative,
I share the music that the farmers have written to educate their neighbors to the benefits
of fair trade and interfaith cooperation. Coffee farmers singing about Fair Trade and
economic justice has a deeper impact than a display in the local supermarket. Potential
consumers and retailers are drawn into the story of the cooperative and often focus on
the issue of Fair Trade with a new interest and intensity.
Sustainability
How do we assess our long-term responsibility after we begin an advocacy project with a
community? Are we obligated to be involved until we change the focus or location of our
research? Are we obligated to be involved forever? While one can become enthusiastic
about beginning an advocacy project, it is essential to develop a plan to ensure that an
initiative is sustainable over time.
It is natural to defer what feels like a distant problem when a project is just beginning,
but it is important to discuss strategies for an initiative’s sustainability in the early stages
of the project’s development. One should try to anticipate possible changes in commu-
nity needs, organizational leadership, and related infrastructure. With the Abayudaya
education project, it was essential to consider donor engagement and retention, as well
as strategies to identify and involve new donors. For me, one of the most challenging
aspects of the project has been managing the program’s growth and the community’s
expectation to send increasing numbers of students to colleges and universities.
Certain advocacy projects can be designed so that they ultimately revert to commu-
nity management and control. In certain ways, the Abayudaya education project has
aspects of this approach. The community hopes to develop an educated, professional
class that will provide a base for economic growth and development. Realistically, this is
a long-term solution at best. For example, this program has trained a number of teach-
ers who now work in the community’s primary and secondary schools, but their pay is
much too low to send their own children to college. It is conceivable that larger com-
munity projects, such as a health center the community is developing in Mbale, could
generate greater funds and provide a sustainable source of revenue. Together with the
leadership of the community, I am about to begin an assessment of the impact of the
scholarship program on individuals, families, and the community as a whole.
A few years after I started the university education project, the two students com-
pleted their studies. One student became the headmaster of the community’s primary
school and the second student completed his degree in engineering. But with the pos-
sibility of a college education, more students worked hard, hoping to attend college.
Now there are 20 students supported by this project, and the tuition bill for last term
was about $25,000. It is inspiring to spend time with these students as they realize their
dream of attending local colleges and universities. Yet, I am losing sleep as I struggle to
raise $50,000 a year for this project. I have managed to engage a few major donors, and
while this has made the fundraising a bit easier, at the moment too many eggs are in
one basket. When one of the major donors wished to decrease her contribution, I met
with her and together we developed a four-year plan for a gradual funding decrease that
would give me the opportunity to develop and enlist new substantial donors. Together
with a small group of volunteers, I developed a donor retention plan. Once or twice a
year, I ask the students funded by the program to write a brief report on their studies
and email that to me. I edit their stories into an update and share that with our donors.
On my last trip to Uganda, I solicited a member of our research team to make a short
video for current and potential donors in which the students spoke about their studies
and career plans. I have increased my fundraising efforts, reaching out more actively to
local synagogues. The students’ success is inspiring, but I struggle to keep the program
sustainably within my fundraising capacity. I am deeply committed to this project, but
in many ways, it is now more than I bargained for.
Defining Limits and Managing

Expectations
One of the important resources that we need to preserve and sustain is our own energy
and commitment to an advocacy project. Over-commitment seems to define our lives in
academia, and it is essential to determine how much time and effort we can devote to an
advocacy project before frustration sets in and we abandon our efforts. For those of us
who do research in locations where needs are great, we simply must learn how to man-
age expectations and determine when “no” is the appropriate answer.
For the first 10 years of the project, the funding and the number of qualifying students
grew at approximately the same pace. It became more challenging when the resources
for the project began to plateau and more and more students from the community were
motivated by the opportunity to attend university. I did a careful assessment of my
capacity to raise more funds and decided that I needed to cap the amount I was able to
raise at $50,000 a year. However, the elected leadership council of the community, who
administered the funds, did not want to turn away qualified students. For several years,
they decided to fund all the students who were accepted to local colleges and universi-
ties, distributing less money to each of them. Individual students began to email me and
complain that it was difficult it was for them to succeed in their studies if they did not
have enough funding for food and lodging. After discussions with the leadership coun-
cil, they decided to reduce the number of students so that they could provide adequate
stipends for living expenses in addition to tuition.
It is challenging to manage the growth of this program. More students have been pass-
ing the entrance examinations for university, and this year the leadership council sent
me proposed expenses for the project that exceeded the maximum I felt that I was able
to raise. I went back to our lead donors and discussed the growth of the program. While
the funders were committed to the project, they did not feel they were able to increase
their donations. It was painful to have to say no, but I told the leadership council that
I had to maintain funding at the stated level. The leaders were disappointed but decided
that they would establish a waiting list, and when students graduated, new students
would be accepted. This was a difficult decision for me. I knew a number of the rising
students personally but felt I did not have the capacity to grow the project indefinitely.
The Difficulty in Setting Limits

Even when we carefully define the scope and direction of a project, members of the
local community can harbor different expectations. I had been clear with the com-
munity leadership that the focus of this project was to provide university education
for Abayudaya students studying in Uganda. However, one of the women in the com-
munity had a dream to pursue a master’s degree in education in the United States after
successfully graduating from university in Kampala. She had carefully prepared for our
meeting and detailed why, and how, pursuing her degree in Boston would be helpful to
her and to the community. At the end of her presentation, she requested that I raise the
funds to support her graduate studies in Boston. I considered her request carefully, and
it is difficult to convey how painful it was to answer “no.” While it seemed possible to
raise $3,000 a year to support a student’s education in Uganda, it felt beyond my capacity
to raise $30,000 a year for one student and provide the logistical and personal support
necessary for a student studying in a graduate program in the United States. I spoke at
length with her about applying for graduate scholarships and other possible options,
but tears rolled down her face as I told her I simply was not willing to take on this large
project.
Success Creates More Expectations

A successful project will create more expectations within a community. When I pro-
duced the CD of the music of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim coffee farmers of the
Peace Kawomera cooperative, I explained to their leadership that I thought the great-
est contribution of the project would be to widely publicize their story, and that, in
turn, would increase coffee sales. This was of specific value because even through
Thanksgiving Coffee Company committed to buying the farmers’ full production at the
advantageous Fair Trade price, their coffee was marketed in two ways. All the coffee that
could be sold under the Delicious Peace label generated an addition premium of $1 a
package. The rest of the coffee was blended with other Fair Trade coffees and sold in var-
ious mixes. The cooperative could realize substantial profits if their brand sold a higher
volume of coffee.
At the same time, I decided to donate all of my profits from CD sales to fund edu-
cational initiatives for children of members of the cooperative. This amounts to 10%
of the cost of each CD. The majority of the sales are digital downloads, which cost less
than a physical CD and thus generate less profit. While I had explained this in detail to
the cooperative, J. J. Keki’s expectations were shaped by the commercial success of the
Abayudaya CD and the subsequent growth of the Abayudaya education project. Shortly
after the Delicious Peace CD was released, the cooperative leadership emailed me to say
that they had many students waiting to go to university and asked, when would I be able
to wire the funds? It was difficult to have to tell them that if we wanted to think about a
university education project, the funds generated from the CD would only be a small
part of that budget. Even though I had tried to be transparent when I detailed how the
recording project could be helpful for the community, the success of the other education
project had created high expectations among members of the cooperative.
The Impact of Advocacy on Our

Research
My involvement in these advocacy projects has impacted my research in a number of

ways. While I feel ethically and religiously obligated to this project, I am afraid that
I spend too much precious time on fundraising, organization, and lecturing—time that
should be devoted to my research and writing. On the other hand, this advocacy has led
to a deep level of trust and connection with the community and has opened doors to
further research. When I began my work on the music of the coffee farmers in the Peace
Kawomera cooperative, I was known in the community. When we signed an agreement

that profits from a CD, book, or film would be fairly directed back to the cooperative,
the negotiations were fairly simple. I have established a reputation with this commu-
nity, and they knew I was not going to cut and run. It is also helpful that people are very
responsive to me when I am doing research. Every day that I am in Uganda, I get a lot of
work done.
In my role as rabbi and executive director of Tufts Hillel, I co-directed a five-campus
project in which we received significant funding from the academic affairs section of the
Department of Homeland Security to establish Jewish, Christian, and Muslim dialogue
groups and education on campus. I allocated part of that funding to bring the leadership
of the cooperative from Uganda to Tufts University so that we could learn from their
example and experience, a move that enriched and complicated my research. I have
set my sights on doing a larger project with video and a traveling museum exhibit that
will bring this story to a broader public. This has made the project move more slowly
as I work to secure larger funding. While I have some connections at Starbucks, I have
been hesitant to bring the project to them. While they are a major buyer of Fair Trade
coffee, the company is not fully committed to Fair Trade. I am afraid such an alliance
might co-opt this project and challenge its integrity. At the same time, such a connection
might provide a much larger audience for an important story of economic justice and
interfaith cooperation.
My research on the ground with coffee farmers has also given me a more nuanced
perspective on the Fair Trade movement. I’ve learned that Fair Trade is great for farmers
when the coffee market is low and during inevitable fluctuations in the market. But right
now, the coffee market is high and large companies are offering farmers $.20 or $.30 a
pound more than the Fair Trade price for their coffee. In the balance, I am a supporter
of Fair Trade, but I need to be careful how and where I share my perspectives so as not to
undermine the work of this, and other, Fair Trade cooperatives. I also want my research
on coffee and Fair Trade to be seen in a larger context than in promoting the work of a
specific cooperative and marketing a specific coffee. In the liner notes to the Delicious
Peace CD I state, “While this recording highlights the music and impact of a particular
Fair Trade cooperative, I believe that supporting Fair Trade in general is an effective way
for consumers to bring fairer compensation to the men and women who produce prod-
ucts that we value and use in our daily lives” (Summit, 2012: 24, liner notes).
The Reciprocal Impact of Advocacy
When I work with students engaged in service learning in Boston, I find it important to
stress that they might be the ones changed more profoundly than the people with whom
they are working. Like many, I was deeply impacted by the 9/11 bombings of the World
Trade Center in New York. When J. J. Keki founded Peace Kawomera as a response to
those attacks, I was inspired by his work. I am moved as I listen to Saban Nabutta, of
the Akuseka Takuwa Kongo Group, sing “Friends, let us be united so we can be as one!”
(“Let All Religions Come Together,” track 10, Summit, 2012). Many of the coffee farmers
have taken the mission, and message, of this interfaith cooperative to heart. When he
found out that I was from America, the lead singer of the Mbiko Aisa Farmers Embaire
Group, Katerega Alamanzani, gently lectured me, “I am sorry to mention it about the
United States and Afghanistan, but why do you fight there? What is the problem? Come
up with a resolution. Regardless of tribe, color or religion, be one person!” My research
with the musicians in the cooperative moved me to deepen and expand my own efforts
to promote Jewish, Muslim, and Christian dialogue on campus.
In his introduction to a collection of self-reflective essays on the subject of American
Jewish ethnography, Jack Kugelmass discusses the researcher’s need to reconcile inter-
ests that are “purely scientific” with “the personal quest” for authenticity and commu-
nity. He states that this approach to research speaks to “the ethnotherapeutic value,
the search for wholeness, that ethnography can bring to bear in postmodern society”
(1988: 1,2). This sense of connectedness has had profound, and occasionally unexpected,
effects on me in the course of engaging in community advocacy.
Over the years, I have tried to maintain a certain emotional distance from these
projects. I gloss over the moving emails that I periodically receive from the students
thanking me for my efforts. I am extremely uncomfortable when some students call me
their “father.” Yet, when I returned to Uganda last summer, I was greeted by the first
woman in the community to receive a university degree, shortly after she completed
her education at Makerere University. I had known her since she was 12 years old, and
I had seen her suffer through bouts of malaria in Uganda. This woman had stayed at our
home in Boston when she visited the United States. I understood the dedication she had
shown to her studies over the years. When she thanked me for raising the funds for her
tuition, totally to my surprise, I burst into tears, caught off guard and overwhelmed by
the impact of the project on this individual. I am familiar with the verse in the book of
Proverbs that states “Charity (righteous action) saves one from death” (10: 2) but I sim-
ply had never understood the power and meaning of the concept as I wrote a check to
the United Way or planned a project from the comfort of my office at Tufts. While advo-
cacy is often understood as a means to impact the other, in unexpected ways, it is the
advocate who is transformed by this work.
Conclusion
I have been deeply influenced by the work of the rabbi and philosopher Abraham
Joshua Heschel, who taught that spiritual traditions begin “with a consciousness that
something is asked of us.” That understanding led Heschel to “pray with his feet” as he
marched with Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma. I often ask, what is asked of me as I work
with these communities in Uganda? In a society that puts tremendous stress on the
individual, I struggle to think in terms of “we” rather than “I.” As I do my work, I try to
keep in mind the words of a poem by Adrienne Rich (“In Those Years,” 1995):
In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I….
It took me a long time to find my voice and to learn how to say “I” but that feels like the
first step in a longer journey. I would not downplay the challenges or complications of
advocacy, but in my experience, I feel that the spirit is enriched by thoughtfully engag-
ing in this work and systematically putting into practice what it means to say “we.”
Notes
1. Jeff Todd Titon. “Closing Address” at the conference “Invested in Community:
Ethnomusicology and Musical Advocacy,” Brown University, 2003. http://dl.lib.brown.
edu/invested_in_community/index.html.
2. For a discussion of the meaning and historical development of the term tikkun
olam, see Jane Kanarek, “What Does Tikkun Olam Actually Mean?” in Righteous
Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2008),
and Earl Schwartz, “Tz’dakah, Tikkun Olam, and the Educational Pitfalls of Loose Talk,”
Conservative Judaism 63(1) (2011): 3–24.
3. http://activecitizen.tufts.edu/z-misc/tufts-students-are-active-citizens/
4. http://www.swaraj.org/illich_hell.htm
5. Adapted from: “Making the CASE,” a section of “Moving From Band-Aid Solutions
to Systematic Change: A Service-Learning ‘How-To’ Manual for Hillel Foundations”
(Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, 2001).
6. For liner notes, full lyric transcriptions and translations, see http://media.smithsonian-
folkways.org/liner_notes/smithsonian_folkways/SFW50417.pdf.
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Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Chapter 7

as an Intercult u ra l To ol
Some Experiences from the Last 25 years of
Minority Research in Austria
Ursula Hemetek
The discipline of ethnomusicology should definitely, by its very nature, have great
potential to be used as a tool of intercultural mediation. Manifold are the approaches
and publications in modern ethnomusicology to underline this aspect, such as the book
Music in Motion (Clausen/Hemetek/Saether, 2009). I interpret applied ethnomusicol-
ogy according to Maureen Loughran: “as a philosophical approach to the study of music
in culture with social responsibility and social justice as guiding principles” (2008: 52).
Intercultural mediation can be one aspect in this much broader concept. Minority
research, on the other hand, is very much connected to applied ethnomusicology (see
Hemetek, 2006; Pettan, 2008). This is the point of departure for this chapter, which is
based on research activities in ethnomusicology focusing on the intercultural potential
of music and some possible applications of this potential in the course of minority stud-
ies.1 As this work is the outcome of a long-term engagement, it also enables me to reflect
critically on the role of the fieldworker with respect to active/passive, interventionalist/
non-interventionalist stances. The question will be raised as to how far the “partnership
model of fieldwork” suggested by Ian Russell (2006) covers part of the task of applied
ethnomusicology in connection with discriminated groups and intercultural mediation.
Theoretical Background
Music and Minorities and Applied Ethnomusicology

The history of ethnomusicology, a discipline that is said to have been founded by Guido
Adler in Vienna as “comparative musicology” with the aim of comparing different music
230 Ursula Hemetek
cultures, shows some a priori intercultural potential. This potential was not always vis-
ible or emphasized in the long history of the discipline, but this is not the focus of this
chapter. For my topic, it is important to theorize especially one aspect that is specifically
connected to applied ethnomusicology: music and minorities.
Minorities, being exotic on the one hand, and underprivileged and discriminated
against on the other, seem to be a central theme throughout the history of ethnomusicol-
ogy. They were subject to ethnomusicological research very early on. Alice Cunningham
Fletcher (1838–1923) was one of the pioneers doing fieldwork with Native Americans—a
research topic that was located “on her doorstep.” She is also recognized as a pioneering
anthropologist who advocated for both Indian reform and Indian education. One of her
statements, quoted in Temkin (1988) illustrates her approach, which already seems to be
connected to application of her findings: “Living with my Indian friends… I found I was a
stranger in my native land. As time went on, the outward aspect of nature remained the
same, but change was wrought in me. I learned to hear the echoes of a time when every
living thing even the sky had a voice. The voice devoutly heard by the ancient people of
America I desired to make audible to others” (as quoted in Temkin, 1988: 99).
In Europe it was mostly the Jews and the Roma who were identified as exotic (see
Schachiner, 2008), but within the tradition of European folk music research there was
no room for serious research on minorities, except if they were seen as an extension of
the nation. There are manifold examples of such approaches, for example the German
Sprachinselforschung (see Kuhn, 1934) or research on the Burgenland Croats by Franjo
Kuhač (1878–1881), among many others.2
One important precondition for establishing research on minorities in ethnomusicol-
ogy in the modern sense—neither exotic nor nationalistic—was the recognition of het-
erogeneity, which is closely connected with urban areas as a field of research. Adelaida
Reyes sees a clear connection between the concepts of research on minorities and those
of urban ethnomusicology because
in a scholarly realm built on presumptions of cultural homogeneity, there was no

room for minorities. These require a minimal pair—at least two groups of unequal
power and most likely culturally distinct, both parts of a single social organism.
Homogeneity does not admit of such disparate components. . . . The conditions that
spawn minorities—complexity, heterogeneity, and non-insularity—are “native” not
to simple societies but to cities and complex societies.
(Reyes, 2007: 22)
Adelaida Reyes was one of the pioneers of these ideas; as early as 1979 she had pub-
lished an article on the topic, although in a sociological journal (Reyes-Schramm, 1979),
especially focusing on definitions of minorities, which is of course crucial to the entire
discourse.
One scholarly conference that pointed toward a new thinking about minorities and
ethnomusicology in Europe was a conference in Zagreb in 1985. Pettan (2012) writes
about it:
Applied Ethnomusicology as an Intercultural Tool 231
To the best of my knowledge, the first ethnomusicological conference world-wide

with the key words “music” and “minorities” took place twenty-seven years ago
in Zagreb. The key person, the representative of the hosting institution—Zavod
za istraživanje folklora Instituta za filologiju i folkloristiku (currently Institute of
Ethnology and Folklore Research)—was Jerko Bezić. Those whom he invited to take
part in this historical conference included his colleagues from Yugoslavia, from the
neighboring countries (Austria, Hungary, Italy) and from Germany. Besides his pro-
grammatic contribution and those with a focus on institutional (Haid), fieldwork
(Walcher [replaced by Hemetek]) and individual strategies (Tari), specific reper-
toires (Bašić), and comparisons of musical features (Boljunčić, Fracile, Habenicht),
most of the participants reported either about their own minority national group
(e.g. Starec on Italians in Istria, Sheholli on Albanians in Kosovo, Kmet on Slovaks in
Yugoslavia, Logar on Slovenes in Austrian Carinthia, Strajnar on Slovenes abroad)
or a minority group within their own territorial contexts (e.g. Pietsch on Croats
in Austrian Burgenland, Petrović on Sephardic Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Gojković on Romanies in Yugoslavia, Kovalcsik on Romanies in Eastern Europe).
Most presenters tried to point out interethnic connections” (Pettan, 2012: 450).
There was a publication following that conference. (Bezić, 1985)

I was privileged to attend the conference, which was my first international conference
ever, being a young PhD student with no international experience, and what I remem-
ber best was the personality of Jerko Bezić, who was the most integrative figure of the
entire event. Given the lack of professional interpreting, he actually did all that himself,
being fluent in Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Italian, English, and German. He actually
accomplished a great deal of intercultural communication by acting this way.
This conference inspired the later foundation of the International Council for
Traditional Music (ICTM) Study Group on Music and Minorities in 1997.3 From the
beginning, it seemed to be very important to define the word minority for the purposes
of the Study Group. Definitions are manifold and very much depend on the respective
political situation.
The definition that was and still is used by the ICTM Study Group on Music and
Minorities is the following: “Minorities = groups of people distinguishable from the
dominant group for cultural, ethnic, social, religious, or economic reasons.”
The definition was the result of intense discussion, of course, and it proved to be a
key problem. It was suggested that discrimination be made the common denominator,
which de facto is the case, because all minorities, however we define them, have this in
common: there are some markers of “difference” with regard to the dominant society
(language, habits, citizenship, outward appearance, religion, sexual orientation, and so
on), and they face discrimination in one way or another. But to use “discrimination” in
the definition would at that time have been too political for an international organiza-
tion like the ICTM. So, finally, the discussions resulted in using the phrase “dominant
group,” also in order to include the manifold different approaches from colleagues all
over the world.
232 Ursula Hemetek
The discussions taking place in the surroundings of this Study Group seem to be
important, as they mirror scholarly discourses and thus provide a theoretical frame-
work for the definition of who are the consultants with or for whom we work, the people
we study. I would like to quote here from the first publication of the Study Group from
2001, which shows the discourse at that time:
The discussion process reveals the wide range of interests and scholarly traditions with
regard to minorities. The complexity of the topic itself calls for a variety of approaches
and interdisciplinary connections. That minorities are defined in relation to majori-
ties is unavoidable, but their relationship can be seen from different points of view. Is it
primarily a relationship of power or a relationship of culture, of social circumstances,
of ethnicity, religion, or economics? Sociologists tend to define it as power relation-
ship, which has its effects on cultural processes, the majority requiring conformity and
penalizing deviation ......... [Reiterer 1996]. On the other hand, especially in music, this
deviation from the mainstream can also be instrumentalized by and integrated into
the majority’s culture. Mark Slobin argues in his article Four Reasons Why We Have No
Musical Minorities in the United States that dividing lines begin to disappear due to new
identity constructions, and the outcome can be seen in musical production as well as in
instrumentalizing musical styles in connection to political events (comp. Slobin 1995).
(Hemetek, 2001a: 21)
Some of Bruno Nettl’s ideas from 1992 were very useful as well. He saw growing inter-
est in the study of the music of minorities in modern ethnomusicology. “In particular,
the fate of musics removed from their original home such as African-American, over-
seas Indian, European and Asian immigrants in the Americas, European and Middle
Eastern repertoires in Israel have come to be of special interest” (Nettl, 1992: 380). He
sees this interest as being mainly connected with two research concepts: urban ethno-
musicology on the one hand—cities being multicultural centers—and long-term studies
on the transfer of cultural systems into new surroundings (Nettl, 1992: 380). In addi-
tion, he sees a new attitude in ethnomusicology that pays special attention to minori-
ties: “Ethnomusicologists increasingly have recognized that a society may be divided
musically along various lines, and scholars have therefore begun to concentrate on the
repertories and musical behaviour of segments of a population. Whereas they once
looked at small samples of the songs of a tribe with the assumption that these examples
signified a homogenous repertory, they have since come to study linguistic, religious
and ethnic minorities” (Nettl, 1992: 380).
While speaking of “linguistic, religious and ethnic minorities,” with regard to the socio-
political circumstances in the United States and in Western European countries, Nettl
refers mainly to migrant communities. No doubt, migrant communities were and are a
particularly emphasized subject in the Study Group. In the words of Adelaida Reyes,
Migration creates one of the largest, if not the largest, human groups out of which
minorities emerge. What migrants bring with them as capital for building new
lives in resettlement depends on what they had in the old life, the manner of their
departure and the reasons for it, what as a consequence they leave behind and
what they take with them. How they deploy this capital depends on their vision
of the present and the future, but it is a vision encumbered in their particular
past. The lives they create in resettlement are shaped by all these, but not by these
alone. For once in a new environment, they must interact with a host society, most
likely a dominant one, within which, as minorities, they must now accommodate
themselves.
(Reyes, 2001: 38–39)
“The capital for building new lives” is not limited to ethnicity, ethnic tradition, or tra-
ditional culture. One of the key words in our discussions that came up in this context
is identity. It is very common and has different connotations, such as ethnic, national,
individual, collective, multiple, and cultural identity, among others. “Music, Dance and
Identity in Minority Cultures” was one of the themes of the Study Group meeting in
Ljubljana, and most papers concentrated on that. It is a fact that music and dance can
obviously play an important role in the identity construction of minority cultures, and
they could be interpreted as collective to a certain extent. But from the very beginning of
our discussions, there were voices that rejected that way of interpreting the musical phe-
nomena of immigrants, like Eva Fock in her study of young descendants of immigrants
in Denmark, stating that,
in the eyes of the majority, symbolic collective identities overshadow the much
more complex and vulnerable individual identities of the youngsters. Without
looking beyond what is served on a silver plate by media or public politics, the old
stereotypes of “ethnic” and “traditional” youngsters as strangers in a modern world
are maintained. In reality, the individual way of combining a clear personal prefer-
ence with the ability to adapt to constantly changing demands, is typical for these
youngsters.
(Fock, 1999: 75)
In the meantime, the discourses within the Study Group have added new aspects,
although the definition of the term minority has not been changed. The Study Group
has followed the arguments raised by Eva Fock—collective identity as such is under
discussion. Hybridity seems to be a new important aspect as well, and power rela-
tions are very much discussed. The topic “Race, Class and Gender” has been
added, and the Study Group Symposium in 2014 in Osaka, Japan, included sexual
minorities as one of the themes for the first time (see www.ictmusic.org/group/
music-and-minorities).
Concerning applied ethnomusicology, there are to be found several approaches
throughout the history of the Study Group. In a conference publication of 2004, the
topic was explicitly raised. “Minorities are very often groups of people who are discrimi-
nated against in one way or other” (Hemetek (2004: 50). Martin Stokes says: “When we
are looking at the way in which ethnicities and identities are put into play in musical
performance, we should not forget that music is one of the less innocent ways in which
234 Ursula Hemetek
dominant categories are enforced and resisted” (1997: 8). “Ethnomusicologists, seeing
and realizing that minorities are often in the weaker position in these power relations
when working with a group, very often feel the need for some action that crosses the
borderlines of our discipline” (Hemetek, 2004: 50–51).
At the World Conference of the ICTM in Sheffield in 2005, the Study Group organized
a panel called “Applied Ethnomusicology and Studies on Music and Minorities: The
Convergence of Theory and Practice.” The relevance of applied ethnomusicology to
the study of music and minorities, and vice versa, and what constitutes this relevance
were explored. One follow-up of this panel was an article in the ICTM Yearbook
(Hemetek, 2006).
After the ICTM Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology had been founded in 2007,
a very successful joint meeting of the two Study Groups was organized in Hanoi in 2010,
which again manifested the interrelatedness of the two approaches in ethnomusicology.
Having outlined the development of music and minorities studies in connection to
applied ethnomusicology by using the example of the Study Group, I will now give a
political and historical background of the geographical and sociopolitical context of
the following case studies. As we always deal with music in its social function, it goes
without saying that the context is important. It is even more important in connection
with applied ethnomusicology, because application requires a well-founded knowledge
of the political and social circumstances of the people we work with in order to achieve
some benefit for their situation.
The Austrian Minority Situation: Historical and

Political Background
Austria is the result or remainder of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy (1867–1918),
which was a multinational country with many languages and cultures, including Czech,
Slovakian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Polish, Hungarian, Slovenian, and Jewish, as well as
Roma, cultures.
Austria did not have overseas colonies and was not confronted with overseas immi-
gration, as the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands were, as a result
of colonialism. Austria was formed by migration, but it was first of all an inland migra-
tion, within the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. During the last 50 years, however, there
has been massive immigration from eastern and southern Europe. In the 1960s Austria
needed migrant workers and thus began the immigration of Yugoslavian and Turkish
people.
Due to its location as a Western country on the border of several former communist
states, there were also several waves of refugees from Hungary in 1956 (the “Hungarian
uprising” against the Soviets ended up in violent restoration of the regime), from
Czechoslovakia in 1968 (the so called “Prague spring” challenging Soviet control, which
ended up in Soviet invasion), from Poland in 1981 (declaration of martial law following
the “Polish crisis” challenging Soviet control), and from Bosnia in 1992 (see later discus-
sion in this chapter).
The inland migration during the monarchy and the reduction of the territory after
World War I resulted in the existence of so-called “autochthonous” ethnic minorities,
those who have been living in a certain region for a hundred years or more. They are citi-
zens of Austria and have been granted certain rights. They are also recognized as an eth-
nic group (Volksgruppe). The term Volksgruppe has only existed in Austria as a political
category since 1976, due to the so-called Volksgruppengesetz (Ethnic Groups Act), and
it includes only ethnic minorities with a distinct culture and language that have lived
in Austria for at least three generations, thereby granting them certain rights. This law
does not include immigrants of recent years, who therefore remain without such rights.
Table 7.1 provides an overview on ethnic minority groups in Austria.
Table 7.1. Ethnic Minority Groups in Austria

Ethnic Groupsa In Their Territory since
Slovenes in Styria 6th centuryb

Slovenes in Carinthia 9th century
Hungarians in Burgenland 10th century
Roma in Austria 15th century
Croats in the Burgenland 16th century
Czechs in Vienna 19th century
Slovakians in Vienna 19th century
Hungarians in Vienna 20th centuryc
Foreigners: Immigrants and Refugees (Largest Groups) In Austria since
From former Yugoslavia 1960 onward
From Turkey 1960 onward
From Czechoslovakia 1968
From Poland 1981
From Bosnia 1992
a. There are other groups in Austria that would be considered to be minorities, like
the Jenische, the Trentinians in Vorarlberg, and, of course, the Jewish population.
Jenische and Trentinians are not mentioned because, although ethnically defined,
they are not recognized as Volksgruppe. The Jewish have officially denied any ethnic
definitions, due to the Nazi ideology defining Jews as a “race.” The Jewish population
in Austria suffers from a long history of discrimination; during the Nazi holocaust
a high percentage of the Austrian Jewish community was murdered. The Jewish
community in Austria today is very heterogeneous; there are different religious
groups, ranging from very orthodox to liberal, and they are still exposed to racism.
b. The Slovenes in Styria only have been recognized in 2003 as part of the
Slovenian Volksgruppe.
c. The Hungarians in Vienna—mostly refugees from 1956—were recognized as
part of the Hungarian Volksgruppe in 1992.
236 Ursula Hemetek
According to the latest census in Austria in 2011, the numbers of foreigners in Austria
are as follows (see Statistik Austria, 2011: 35):
Austrian population total: 8,404,252

Foreigners: 1,452,591 (that is, 17.3%)
According to countries of origin (including Austrian citizens born in the respective
country):
Germany: 220,3304
Serbia/Montenegro/Kosovo: 208,809
Turkey: 184,815
Bosnia and Herzegovina: 131,128
Croatia: 69,654
Romania: 68,142
Poland: 59,753
Czech Republic: 45,213
Hungary: 41,348
Italy: 29,447
Russia: 27,149
Slovakia: 26,079
Macedonia: 23,127
Other groups: less than 20,000.
The division into “ethnic groups” and immigrants seems to be outmoded in times of glo-
balization and EU integration. Among other reasons that have to do with history, there is
one to be found in Austria’s political self-definition: Austria does not want to be seen as
a country of immigration, although de facto it is. Immigration is seen as more of a threat
than as a necessity. Xenophobia is stirred up by some political parties that look for scape-
goats in times of economic recession. And these are found in the form of immigrants.
Immigrants in Austria are discriminated against on several levels. There is the labor
market, housing, and structural discrimination by the law, not to mention having to
face everyday racism. It is very difficult for them to obtain Austrian citizenship. The
integration process—which I define by referring to Bauböck (2001: 14) as a “process of
reciprocal adjustment between an already existing group and a settling group”—is not
at all satisfactory. The reactions of immigrants themselves are to be found in different
strategies, which are between—but also include—two extremes: One is withdrawal into
the ghetto, the other is assimilation. In the case of withdrawal, immigrants limit private
social contact to members of their own nationality, and find their niches in which to
survive. This is of course understandable, but it does not lead to a successful integra-
tion process. But even in the case of assimilation, which I would define as the complete
abandonment of ethnic markers like language and customs, there still is discrimina-
tion because of the visibility of “otherness” by skin color, accent, or a person’s name. The
majority—the dominant group—reacts to the challenges of immigration not by adjust-
ment but rather by rejection, thereby hindering the integration process.
I have tried to argue the reasons for this Austrian peculiarity of the division into eth-
nic groups and immigrant minorities in Austria. Nevertheless, it seems somehow para-
doxical. In the meantime, a third generation of immigrants is living in Austria. They
were born here, have hardly any contact with the homeland of their grandparents, but
are still considered immigrants, or are referred to using the now-common expression
“people with immigrant backgrounds.”
All these groups are considered as minorities mainly for ethnic or religious reasons.
But of course there are social and economic reasons as well, because certain immigrant
groups are to be found in the lower social segment. There are other groups that would
also be included in a minority definition that derives from power relations and makes
discrimination the common denominator: for example, gay, lesbian, and transgender
persons, as well as disabled persons.
All these groups have representative nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and are
more or less influential and more or less successful. The NGO minority scene is very
diverse in Austria, and it is important to underscore that within all of the groups there
is no homogeneity, neither in a political, ethnic, or social sense, nor in terms of political
representation.
One NGO in Austria, Initiative Minderheiten (Initiative Minorities), is and has been
very important for music and minority studies. It is one of the very few minority NGOs
in Austria that does not want to “represent” one or more minority groups, but tries to
act as a platform for a broad range of different groups. The mission statement says the
following:
Since 1991, Initiative Minderheiten has been advocating and contributing towards
creating a society that acknowledges and affords equal treatment and equal rights
to minorities in their individual life concepts regardless of their ethnic, social or
religious affiliation, sexual orientation or dis/ability. A society can only be consid-
ered to have acknowledged minority rights if it facilitates and supports different life
concepts in a fair and equal manner. Initiative Minderheiten works towards creating
minority alliances.
Initiative Minderheiten defines a minority as people who experience discrimina-
tion based on their ethnic, social or religious affiliation, sexual orientation or dis/
ability. Politically, discrimination means excluding certain people from certain
rights; socially, it means experiencing prejudices and exclusions. In Austria, legally
recognized ethnic groups are also considered minorities, as well as migrants and ref-
ugees, lesbians, gays and transgenders, and people with dis/abilities. This definition
is not based on a group’s number of members, but rather on their lack of power in
comparison to that of the hegemonic majority.
(www.initiative.minderheiten.at)
The means by which Initiative Minderheiten wants to reach these goals are based on
intellectual capacities and use traditional as well as Internet media. It carries out applied
research projects, exhibitions, art projects, and other smaller projects that are usually
received very well by the public. Initiative Minorities does not do social work.
238 Ursula Hemetek
Ethnomusicology was involved in some of their research as well as art projects from
the very beginning. The theoretical discussions within this organization influenced
minority studies in Austria to a certain extent. This is especially important because in
Initiative Minderheiten, minorities function as researchers, not as “objects” of research.
The application of results is intended, as the goal is combating discrimination, as well as
structural improvement of the minority situation. This can serve as a model for applied
ethnomusicology in minority studies and definitely influenced ethnomusicology
research methods in Austria.
In all of the following case studies, the political sense of responsibility was the guiding
principle of the research and action; they also have been chosen in order to show that
sometimes it is hard to draw a line between political activism and research.
Applied Ethnomusicology in Specific

Minority Contexts: Roma, Bosnian
Refugees, Immigrants from Turkey
All three groups, as minorities in the Austrian context, face discrimination in one way
or another. There are different strategies of applied ethnomusicology (see Pettan, 2008;
Sheehy, 1992) involved in each of the cases, due to different sociopolitical circumstances.
The three cases have also been chosen due to their chronological nature, thereby show-
ing a certain development of awareness and discourse level in ethnomusicology, due to
the fact that neither the term applied ethnomusicology nor a theory of it were available in
1989, when the engagement started. I hope to broaden the theoretical and methodologi-
cal scope of applied ethnomusicology by analyzing the strategies involved in each of
the cases.
Here is a short survey of the three case studies: In the process of the political recog-
nition of Roma in Austria (initiated in 1989 and the following years), their traditional
music and its presentation in public contributed to proving that a group of people who
had been discriminated against and who formerly were seen merely as a social minor-
ity were in fact an ethnic one, with a distinct cultural heritage of their own. Several
research projects by Austrian scholars on Roma music formed the basis for activities
in the broadly conceived field of applied ethnomusicology, yielding work in the areas
of intercultural mediation, political activism, public promotion, and education. Public
promotion of “ethnic” music was my main approach in 1990 and subsequently. Many of
the former activities seem to be very outmoded today. Times and contexts have changed
significantly, and a shift from “ethnic representation” to “intercultural encounters” (for
example, in a Roma music school in Vienna) is noticeable.
The example of the engagement with the Bosnian community was limited to the time
of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia and afterward (1994–2000). From 1992 onward,
about 100,000 Bosnian refugees came to Austria due to the policy of “ethnic cleansing”
by the Serbian as well as the Croatian army in Bosnia. They were merely seen as “poor”
people by Austrians, and were associated with blood and tears. Many Bosnian intellectu-
als were in Austria at that time, among them many musicians. They were very unhappy
with this public image and wanted to react by showing their potential. Ethnomusicology
could function as a kind of midwife in documenting and presenting in public the cul-
tural treasures that the refugees had brought with them. The genre Sevdalinka was cho-
sen to represent the Bosnian intercultural heritage by the musicians themselves and
by researchers. A program involving music and literature was presented to ethnically
mixed audiences, and this enabled intercultural encounter to a certain extent. It was an
activity that was necessary at a certain time due to political circumstances, initiated by
the wishes of a community.
From my experiences with the different communities of immigrants from Turkey in
Vienna from 2003 onward, I have learned to be very careful with the label “ethnic” in
music. The approximately 200,000 immigrants from Turkey in Austria are as manifold
in their cultural expressions as the majority Austrians. In practice, “ethnic” music is just
one of many music styles. Politically, immigrants from Turkey are the most discrim-
inated group in Austria today due to rising Islamophobia and the xenophobic public
discourses of most political parties in Austria. Ethnomusicological strategies to fight
discrimination must take into account the fact that many musicians from the Turkish
community do not want to be labeled according to their ethnic roots. Here, ethnomu-
sicology has to advocate more on the level of opinion-leading via expertise in different
majority institutions (involving music education, for example).
In a critical analysis of some former activities in Austria, I will draw attention to the
fact that applied work can have side effects that are quite unintentional and can only
be noticed from a historical distance. This is only possible in long-term studies. What
was intended in all three cases was to transform the research results into contexts where
they might function as an intercultural tool, which was more or less successful, by using
the methods of applied ethnomusicology for the benefit of the people we study. These
contexts include political interventions, feeding-back models, public promotion, and
strategies of influencing public discourse.
The Case of the Roma: Political Recognition and Ethnicity, or

Political Intervention and the Invention of Ethnicity
Europe invented the “Gypsy.” This is the somewhat modified title of a book published in
2011/2013: Europa erfindet die Zigeuner (Europe Invents the Gypsies), written by Klaus
Michael Bogdal from the perspective of comparative literature. His primary sources are
literary documents, and by analyzing these and other historical sources—always writ-
ten by non-Roma—he shows how, from the fifteenth century onward, the myth of the
“Gypsy” was constructed by non-Roma. It is an analysis of how non-Roma dealt with
240 Ursula Hemetek
Roma, and it clearly shows the dichotomy within the construct: on the one hand, Roma
were rejected, even hated and discriminated against, while on the other hand, Gypsy
romanticism arose. This romanticism was strongly connected to music. It is evidence for
the invention of the narrative that was constructed without any participation of Roma
themselves. The answers to the question of how it is possible that a group of people can
be reviled and their music adored at the same time are mostly to be found in these nar-
ratives. Music connected to Roma was constructed as a positive stereotype, and Gypsies
were and still are thought to be the most gifted musicians in many societies. This is also
due to the fact that Roma sometimes participate in their own stereotypification—mostly
because stereotypes sell in the music business, a fact that Carol Silverman stresses in her
recent book Romani Routes. Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in Diaspora (Silverman,
2012).
The invented myth of a people who have no home and are constantly on the move has
many consequences: one is that Gypsies are not considered to belong to any nation-state,
and are always located on the margins of societies. In 1988 there was severe discrimina-
tion against Roma in Austrian society. The prevailing opinion among the majority soci-
ety was that they were a group of people who steal, who wander about somewhere in the
woods, who do not work, and who are mainly criminals.
There was very little reliable information publicly available at that time. My first
encounter was actually a documentary on Austrian TV that was titled Ihr werdet uns nie
verstehen (You will never understand us). This statement, as well as the entire documen-
tary, aroused my curiosity. I have written about that process elsewhere (see Hemetek,
2006); here is a quotation from that publication:
The title of the film was a quote of one Sinto (one of the Roma groups living in
Austria, see below) in the film, and he really meant what he said: that we as gañe, as
non-Roma, could never understand the Roma, because we were so different from
each other. But at the same time it was the film’s aim to make gañe understand—at
least a little bit—who Roma are and how they live, because this was the first well
founded information, the first serious documentary on the life of Roma in Austria
there ever broadcast as far as I know. This film explained a lot about Roma in Austria,
about their view of life, their living conditions and their history. A social and cultural
dichotomy was emphasised with Roma on one side versus gañe on the other. There
was a beautiful song at the end of the film which touched me deeply although I did
not know anything about the music, its language or meaning. The film conveyed the
following message to me and new thoughts started working in my mind: There is a
people, living in my country, who are severely discriminated against, who are some-
how mysterious, telling me “I would never understand them.” This was fascinating
music completely unknown in public at that time, and I learned that the singer of the
moving song lived in Vienna, only a short distance from my home.
(Hemetek, 2006: 39–40) (Figure 7.1)
After I had started to make contacts in 1989 in order to learn something about the
Roma and their music, the first singer I spoke to and interviewed was the Lovari (one
Figure 7.1 Ruža Nikolić-Lakatos, 1994.

Photo by Gerhard Maurer. Archive of the Institute of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology.
of the Roma groups, see below) woman Ceija Stojka (Figure 7.2). Ceija, who had sur-
vived the Nazi concentration camps, told me about her life, about her experience of
prejudice and racism, and how Roma had to hide their ethnic identity to escape this
discrimination. In spite of that, Ceija Stojka had decided to write a book about her expe-
riences, and for the first time in Austria, in 1988, there was a Romani publicly outing her
ethnic background (Stojka, 1988). My first interviews with her were about what music
meant in her life and even what it had meant in the concentration camps (see Hemetek/
Heinschink, 1992).
One of the findings of the research was that Roma in Austria are by no means a
homogenous group, but are very diverse in terms of their history, their cultural identity,
and what they considered to be “their” music (see Table 7.2).
Table 7.2. Roma in Austria: Major Communities

Name In Austria since Coming from
Burgenland Roma 15th century Hungary

Lovari 1900/1956 Slovakia, Hungary
Sinti 19th century Bohemia, Germany
Kalderara 1965 Serbia
Gurbeti 1965 Serbia
Arlije 1965 Macedonia, Kosovo
242 Ursula Hemetek
Figure 7.2 Ceija Stojka, 1991.

Photo by Gerhard Maurer. Archive of the Institute of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology.
I do not want to repeat what I have written elsewhere, but briefly, the social and cul-
tural, especially musical, identification is very diverse; there is not just one “Romani
culture,” one “Romani music,” but many different ones. The language, Romani, exists
in many different variants, and some groups do not even speak it any more. The differ-
ent Roma groups have been influenced by different cultural traditions, due to different
locations of their stay before they came to Austria. Therefore, due to their specific his-
tory, the social structure of Roma is very different from that of other minorities. But in
spite of all this, the movement of political and cultural self-representation of the Roma
had begun in Austria, coinciding with the beginning of ethnomusicological research.
The political aim was to be recognized as a so-called Volksgruppe (see earlier discus-
sion). To acquire this legal designation, it is necessary to prove their ethnicity, to prove
that Roma in Austria were an ethnic group. Now this was a new approach, a least in
the public perception, because Roma were seen as a social problem, and not as a group
with a distinct cultural tradition, although they were viewed by the general public as
somehow racially defined and different. But the ascribed identity markers were rather
bad habits, such as stealing. In 1955, when certain rights for ethnic groups were defined
in the constitution, nobody would have thought of Roma; nor were they considered in
1976, when the Volkgruppengesetz as the legal instrument for these matters had been
implemented. This ignorance reminds one of National Socialism, when the argument
for killing and deporting Roma was their status of being so-called antisocial elements
and criminals. Even after World War II, Roma who had been deported to concentration
camps were denied compensation based on the argument that they had been arrested
and deported as criminals. The first official argument to deny their recognition as a
Volksgruppe came in 1990 when Austrian Prime Minister Franz Vranitzky said that he
did not see any “cultural markers” that indicated an ethnic tradition, which was neces-
sary for their recognition. This entire matter is influenced by the history and ideology
that underlie the idea of the European nation-state. Nation-states in Europe from the
nineteenth century onward were defined by ethnic criteria, and the nation was—and
still is—seen as something of value. National identity is expressed in “national” cul-
tural practices. Whereas all the other ethnic groups in Austria can claim some kind of
“national” tradition, deriving from their “homeland,” the Roma lack these, because they
have no common homeland, and the different groups have entered the territory from
various neighboring countries. They have no common cultural tradition in the sense of
a “national culture”—apart from, to a certain extent, the Romani language. But it was
necessary to provide evidence for their ethnic tradition, and the Roma wanted to do this
(see Hemetek, 2006). So this was the political agenda of the Romani political movement
when ethnomusicology became involved by making first recordings and interviews.
What was intended in fieldwork was what Ian Russell called the “partnership model
of fieldwork” (Russell, 2006) in an article about his long-term study of carol singing in
the Sheffield region. Russell writes:
The present research is firmly set in the “home” world (Stoeltje, 1999, 160–161), where
reciprocity is manifested through implicit obligation, and at times by negotiation.
I see it as a process that develops hand-in-hand with the building of relationships
and growth of mutual trust over an extended period of time (Georges and Jones,
1980). Humanity and friendship become paramount and the researcher and his or
her associates, partners, or consultants build relationships that are both interactive
and balanced (Hood, 1971, 222; Titon, 1995, 288). The common interest in the musical
traditions becomes a shared interest, as the distinctions between insider and outsider
become transcended or tend to disappear altogether. This process is understood as a
partnership (Myers, 1993, 12–13), with the responsibility for the integrity of the rela-
tionship lying firmly with the fieldworker.
(Russell, 2006: 16)
The aspect of where research is located seems to very important. If the fieldwork is
based “at home,” and the consultants also live in the same country, geographically very
close, experiences concerning the environment, the economic and political system, and
so on, are shared. Consultants are well informed about research activities, and friend-
ships develop out of mutual interests and long-term engagement. Thus it was easier to
apply ethnomusicological results for the “benefit” of the Roma in Austria.
244 Ursula Hemetek
The Invention of Roma Ethnicity?

There is a long tradition in European folk music research which is very close to a set-
ting that Timothy Cooley describes beautifully in his “musical ethnography of a specific
Tatra Mountain region called Podhale” (a region in southern Poland) (Cooley, 2005). At
the beginning of his book he offers a striking image that is programmatic for all that fol-
lows: a monument from 1903, with a bust of Dr. Tytus Chałubiński, a renowned physi-
cian from Warsaw, who in the late nineteenth century set up a sanatorium in Zakopane
and actively promoted tourism in the Tatras. Chałubiński organized guided tours, and
the guides involved were locals, the so-called Górale (highlanders), who also provided
music and dance for tourists. Jan Krzeptowski-Sabała, the doctor’s preferred mountain
guide, is seated at the base of the monument in Górale in traditional costume, a folk
violin in his left hand, a bow in his right. The intellectual with urban background and the
“indigenous,” prototypical, old-world Górale symbolize the forces that until then had
shaped cultural practices in Podhale. One product of that process was the “invention of
Górale ethnicity,” according to Cooley (2005).
Inspired by rising nationalism, along with the invention of the nation-state in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, folk music researchers throughout Europe tried
to provide evidence of their national heritage by collecting authentic folk music. And
they tried to prove its uniqueness and differences from the music of other nations. They
were always intellectuals from urban centers who went to the countryside, to the rural
areas that were so “pure, untouched by civilization, so authentic and romantic.” The peo-
ple there were to a certain extent “exotic” and their music making seemed “untouched
by the pollution of urban influences, of modernity, of change” (see Cooley 2005: 5). Of
course, all these seemingly untouched musics had always been subject to changes. The
folk music researchers intended to safeguard this national heritage by writing it down or
using other media for documentation.
There is an ideological aspect as well. Researchers convinced musicians that they
were the pillars of national music tradition and that they should cherish that heritage.
Musicians might have been astonished about that interest, but as these collectors were
intellectuals and from a higher social class, were dedicated to their work, and proved to be
aficionados, they were respected. The musicians might have obtained the feeling that their
everyday music making had an additional quality besides its primary function in the
community. This quality was underscored by the successful promotion activities of the
researchers. They founded choirs and folklore groups in the urban centers to cultivate the
heritage, they organized stage presentations and tours for the musicians, and they estab-
lished institutions that promoted the music as well as research on and collections of this
music. The development of tourism is an important aspect as well. The financial benefit
obtained by the musicians themselves proved to be a very convincing argument, and they
acted according to expectations. They saw their own musical practice from a new per-
spective, and the appreciation of certain aspects of their music making changed their own
attitude toward it. The outsiders’ judgment changed the insiders’ attitude. What before
had been everyday musical life now became a “traditional heritage” of special value.
Actually, the assumptions made here can be proven by many examples. Austrian
examples include researchers such as Josef Pommer (1845–1918) or Konrad Mautner
(1880–1924), urban intellectuals who discovered and promoted Alpine music, and by
doing so invented what was probably not ethnicity, but at least a tradition.
All this seems to be long ago, but I ask myself if it is really so different from the first
ethnomusicological approaches in Austria to Roma, including my own. The similarities
might not be striking at first sight, but while thinking about this chapter and rereading
Cooley’s book, it came to my mind that there might be some. Ethnomusicologists pres-
ent “their” musicians in public performances. The intellectual ethnomusicologist pres-
ents the—let us say—“authentic, prototypical” musician to an audience that probably
hears this kind of music for the first time. The way this music is presented and the addi-
tional information that is given by the ethnomusicologist influence its perception and
reception. This way of presentation also influences the musicians themselves. I would
ask to what extent ethnomusicological activities have contributed to an invention of
Roma ethnicity and Roma tradition.
The Croatian ethnomusicologist Naila CeribaŠić says, “Scholars are nonetheless
involved in the reproduction of their research subjects,” and she continues by turning
to the field of applied ethnomusicology: “Scholars are unavoidably implicated in their
research subjects, understanding and respect are inscribed in the foundations of ethno-
musicology, interest is inevitably translated into valuation, and consequently scholarly
work is, willy-nilly, a kind of applied work as well” (CeribaŠić, 2007: 4–5).
Two aspects of applied ethnomusicology seem to be important here (as categorized by
Daniel Sheehy, 1992): developing new frameworks for musical performance, and feed-
ing back musical models to the communities that created them (Sheehy, 1992). Naila
CeribaŠić is, like many other colleagues in Eastern Europe, constantly involved in festi-
val productions of traditional music. To a certain extent, these are new frameworks for
musical performance. And the feeding back of musical models also occurs constantly
via the production of various media by ethnomusicologists.
Public Performance as a Promotion Model

The first presentation of Romani culture in Austria in 1990 was called “Exceptional
Gypsies” (Figure 7.3). The entire presentation was meant as a counterpoint to prejudices
and as support for Roma political activities. The only Austrian Roma organization at
that time—Roma Verein zur Förderung von Zigeunern—was involved in its prepara-
tion, although it was actually two non-Roma intellectuals and one Roma artist who did
the job: Mozes Heinschink, a linguist and expert in Romani culture, Ilija Jovanović, a
Romani poet, and me, an ethnomusicologist. The program consisted of different aspects
of Romani culture: music, painting, literature, and film. The whole event lasted a month,
for three evenings a week. The exhibition of paintings by Karl Stojka provided a back-
ground for film presentations followed by discussions, Romani literature with music,
concerts, and a political podium discussion. The location was a gallery-pub of Vienna’s
alternative scene, and there was free admission to all events. Additionally, we had
a book exhibition and other informational material. The diversity of Romani culture
Figure 7.3 Poster for the event from 1990.
was presented by choosing four Romani groups: Lovari, Sinti, Burgenland Roma, and
Kalderaš-Serbian Roma. Mostly the participants were Roma performers and artists liv-
ing in Austria, but there were also some artists from abroad, including Mateo Maximoff
from France and the ensemble Kalyi jag from Hungary.
The title “Exceptional Gypsies” obviously stemmed from the sociopolitical situation of
the time concerning Roma, based on clichés and ignorance. The organizers felt that they
had to use the word “Gypsy” (Zigeuner in German), although it was pejorative; if they had
used Roma instead, nobody would have known what the event was about. The subject of
the poster again is a cliché—a dancing Gypsy girl—and was created on the basis of an eth-
nological photograph by Czech researcher Eva Davidová. It was about how non-Roma see
the Gypsies; it was the external perspective of an ethnic group meant to attract non-Roma.
It would be by no means politically correct or appropriate to advertise a Roma event
in such a way today in Austria, and probably it was not at that time either. Austrian
media covered the event very positively in general, but I do remember one article that
criticized exoticism in particular, and of course this critique was correct.
The posters of the events that followed over the years were somewhat different and polit-
ically more correct. This was also due to the fact that in the meantime the Vienna-based
Roma organization Romano Centro had been founded (in 1991) and took over respon-
sibility for the content of the events. What had not changed was the ethnomusicological
approach. In the organizing team, I was mainly responsible for the music. What links
the outcome to the above-mentioned folk music research tradition is that it was the aim
to present what was thought to be the “real,” the “authentic” Roma music—music from
internal musical practice that had not been performed for non-Roma before. One eve-
ning there was a presentation of the musical traditions of Serbian Roma. It was supposed
to be spontaneous, and it was a kind of simulation of a wedding meal; pork was served,
and there was a lot of dancing as well. Some Roma women were dressed very tradition-
ally (Figure 7.4), and upon my request they did present some of the “old” songs. On the
other hand, the musicians—a wedding orkestra—played music as they always did, a mix
of melodies that appealed to the public and that were modern: El Condor Paso, or the
film music from Dr. Zhivago, along with many Serbian dance tunes.
The Lovari contribution was jazz for the opening of the event: Harri Stojka, the
best-known Lovari musician at that time, felt no need to present any “ethnic” roots and
played jazz standards. But his aunt Ceija Stojka, on the other hand, did present some of
the rich vocal Lovari tradition, songs that she had sung to me before, during interviews,
and that I asked her to present in public for the first time.
The process with the Burgenland Roma was similar. In preparation for the event
there were negotiations with the consultants regarding what to present to the public.
The outcome was a few songs in Romani, sung by Gisela Horvath, accompanied by
the well-known Hungarian Gypsy music ensemble. This was also the first time that
Burgenland Roma sang in Romani in public for a non-Roma audience. This Roma
music from internal practice was very attractive for the non-Roma audience, and the
presentations were successful.
248 Ursula Hemetek
Figure 7.4 Serbian Roma women dancing at the event, 1990.

Photo: Newald.
One aspect of this event was a display of ethnicity for the first time for a non-Roma
public in Austria. Ethnomusicology was in search of “authentic” musical mate-
rial, and to a certain extent this did contribute to the invention of one aspect of Roma
ethnicity—invention not in the sense of creating something that was not there before,
but in the sense of finding a new performance context and new meaning for the music.
Applied ethnomusicology contributed to a process of identity construction in the out-
ward self-identification of Roma, by using “otherness” as a trademark. It was the exotic
element that was attractive. This happened in close cooperation with the musicians;
they themselves thought that it was a good way to perform that “otherness” in order
to make non-Roma understand something and to build bridges. Roma musicians have
followed this road since then to a certain extent. Harri Stojka, the jazz musician who
only presented jazz standards in 1990, has shown growing interest in “ethnic roots” and
has produced CDs including traditional Lovari songs since then (for example, Gitan
Cœur in 2000, or Gypsy Soul/Garude apsa in 2005; see www.harristojka.at); we now
find Kalderaš weddings scenes in modern theater productions of Serbian Roma, like in
Liebesforschung (see www.initiative.minderheiten.at), presented in 2007.
What is most striking is the development of Ruža Nikolić-Lakatos, a Romni (Roma
woman) from the Lovari group with a huge repertory of traditional songs (see figure 7.1.).
She was and is very much appreciated among her group for her singing abilities. She was
absent in the 1990 presentation, because she refused to perform. She thought that her
songs in the Lovari tradition were not meant for non-Roma. She was talked into changing
her mind, and she became one of the most popular Roma singers in Austria. She performs
old and new Lovari songs for non-Roma and she is appreciated for her “authenticity” and
for presenting some “traditional heritage” of Romani culture. That is why in 2011 the Lovari
songs have even been inscribed into the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage
upon Ruža’s application.5 The UNESCO website describes them in the following way:
Songs are an important part of the Lovara’s cultural tradition. The history behind the
name of this Roma group leads us back to their former occupation as “horse trad-
ers” (Lovara). Their songs are mostly about the family and community, yet the role
of the individual and the former ways of life of the Lovara are also mirrored in them.
These songs are like a reservoir for their language, as they contain phrases and meta-
phors typical of the Lovara, which have now (almost) become extinct in everyday
life. The songs of the Lovara encompass two main genres: the slow, lyrical song and
the dance song. Thanks to outstanding singers, such as Mongo Stojka, Ceija Stojka
and the applicant Ruzsa Nikolic-Lakatos, new songs are continuously added to the
repertoire.
(http://immaterielleskulturerbe.unesco.at/cgi-bin/unesco/element.
pl?eid=77&lang=en)
Of course this inscription has a political component. The Austrian UNESCO

Inventory contains 62 elements (2013). We find very disparate elements, for example the
Landler of the Innviertel, the Sword Dance of Dürrnberg, Classical Horsemanship and
the High School of the Spanish Riding School, the Ötztal dialect, as well as “Roman”—
the language of the Romani people of Burgenland. That minority expressions included
in this list are extraordinary compared to the inventories of other states. It indicates that
Austria sees the cultural expression of minorities as an outstanding part of Austria’s cul-
ture, like all the other elements on the list. Maybe this is a first step toward inscribing
Lovari culture into the cultural and collective memory6 of Austria. So the change from
the times when the prime minister could not see any “cultural markers,” thus denying
the Roma recognition as a Volksgruppe, seems to be quite remarkable.
The preconditions were the recognition of the Roma as an ethnic group, which finally
happened in 1993, although the appointment of the consultative body that realized the
actual implementation did not occur until 1995.
Although I looked very critically upon these activities in the past, there is evidence that
applied ethnomusicology as an intercultural tool was to a certain extent successful. The pub-
lic presentations themselves served as kind of mediation, because the audiences were mostly
non-Roma and obviously wanted to learn something about Roma. As there was hardly
any information available in public, the programs served as a tool to reduce prejudices and
provide firsthand information to a certain extent. This was the beginning, and today the
situation is quite different. Much has been published in ethnomusicology and other fields
of research, and many Roma authors and artists in fine arts, film, and music are active in
250 Ursula Hemetek
Austria. Researchers still are mostly non-Roma, although this also begins to change. There
are now a few Roma in academia, and some of them are also politically active, for example
in the above-mentioned NGO Romano Centro. The foundation of this NGO in 1991 was
actually stimulated by Ausnahmsweise Zigeuner, because the need to have political represen-
tation in Vienna became obvious through this cultural presentation. Public interest, as well
as cultural representation, was the stimulus for the foundation. Romano Centro has in the
meantime become the best informed and most active Roma NGO, among many others that
have since been founded in Austria. Its activities are manifold. The empowerment of Roma
through political and educational approaches are on the agenda, as well as raising awareness
of discrimination mechanisms in the majority society—historical and contemporary. In
connection with music, there is an extraordinary initiative: In 2012 the Vienna Gypsy Music
School was established by Romano Centro. It is still in a nascent state, but the main goals
have been set. The school is open to Roma and non-Roma and tries to transmit some of the
many different Roma music styles that are to be found in Vienna. The teaching methods will
also draw from these traditions, which is quite a challenge because the models of transmis-
sion in Romani tradition and in Austrian music schools are as far apart as can be. But the stu-
dents are also offered Western music theory in order to provide familiarity with the Austrian
model of institutional music teaching. I do hope it will succeed, because for me it is a very
convincing symbol of empowerment in the form of the institutionalization of intercultural
mediation in music (for further information, see www.romano.centro.org).
The Bosnian Refugees: Sevdalinke as a Means of Relocation,

or Nostalgia as a Tool for Indirect Intervention
In research, there are different ways to deal with war and exile scenarios connected to
the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. Among many, let me just mention the book War,
Exile, Everyday Life: Cultural Perspectives, which gives excellent examples. Svanibor
Pettan’s refugee project of applied ethnomusicology in Norway Azra—analyzed in
this book—is very well known among ethnomusicologists as a model (Pettan, 1996).
There are other approaches that include pedagogic activities, such as in refugee
camps with children (see Pesek, 2009). I would call these “direct” interventions, as
both have a clear target of integration. Additionally, Pesek’s approach is very close to
humanitarian work.
In the Austrian project presented here, a different strategy is involved. Having neither
the infrastructure nor the framework nor the abilities to do something similar to the
above-mentioned projects, this project was started with the main ethnomusicological
method—fieldwork—and from that, a model was developed that I would call “indirect”
intervention.
Bosnian refugees were forced migrants. The reason for migration is important for the
relationship people have with their native country. Adelaida Reyes calls for attention
to be given to this phenomenon, because it has consequences: “In studies of migrant
minorities, the majority is automatically assumed to be the host society. But when the
minorities under study are forced migrants, another majority forces itself into the pic-
ture. I call this a ‘shadow majority’ ” (Reyes, 2001: 39).
Around 75,000 Bosnian refugees from the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, most of
them Muslim Bosniaks, have been integrated in Austria since 1992. Integration does not
mean that they have the status of Austrians; most of them still hold Bosnian citizenship. For
many of the refugees, Austria seemed the best option because, due to working immigration
since the 1960s, there were already a certain number of Bosnians resident there, and there
were some family connections. Many Bosnian intellectuals fled to Vienna because they
thought it would be a city that would give them an opportunity to survive intellectually. The
memories of the Austro Hungarian monarchy and Vienna as a cultural and intellectual cen-
ter for the Balkans seemed to play a role as well. Many of them were actually disappointed.
Some of the refugees came in organized transports to Austria and could not choose
where to go, and so many people who formerly lived in rural areas were transferred
to cities, and the other way around. Most of them could not speak German and found
themselves in living conditions that were absolutely new to them.
The research activities began in 1994. From the very beginning there was probably an
applied aspect of this research, because of personal involvement, which is very often a
stimulus for application of results. Also influential were the activities of several NGOs that
shared the regret of the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and tried to argue and take
political action to highlight the strong bonds between the different ethnicities, the obvi-
ous family ties between them, and the absurdity of neighbors shooting at each other. They
were clearly opposed to the war and the violation of human rights. One organization was
called Dialog, and many intellectuals from the former Yugoslavia were part of it.
The research fellow at the Institute was a Bosnian ethnomusicologist, a refugee herself,
who was deeply involved, mentally and physically, in the refugee and war scenario. Sofija
Bajrektarević came to our institute in 1994. She was a refugee from the city of Banja Luka,
which was controlled by Bosnian Serb forces, while her husband Anis Bajrektarević was
from Sarajevo and had a Muslim Bosniak ethnic background. Their ethnically mixed
marriage was the reason for their flight. Sofija had given birth to a son in Austria. She
had studied ethnomusicology in Sarajevo with Ankica Petrović and was trying to find
an opportunity to use her scholarly knowledge in the new surroundings. As our insti-
tute had already established a focus on music and minorities in 1990 with the projects on
Roma research, this seemed to be a fitting new challenge. We managed to get funding for
two projects about the documentation of musical activities of war refugees from Bosnia
and Herzegovina in Austria. Sofija’s intention was to show that interethnic exchanges had
been a fact for a long time in her country, especially in the field of traditional music. This
approach was partly due to her own musical socialization, but also due to her ethnomusi-
cological research in Bosnia. It seemed to be a very interesting proposition to investigate
whether this was still the case in Austria in the Bosnian community. Sofija felt that this
multicultural Bosnian musical soundscape was endangered by the war. One CD produc-
tion by Ankica Petrović and Ted Levin suggested this in its title: Bosnia: Echoes from an
Endangered World; this served as a model and as a point of departure for our research in
Austria. Most of the recordings published on the CD stem from a fieldwork trip of the
252 Ursula Hemetek
authors during the years 1984–1985. The war was a strong motivation to publish it. Ted
Levin writes in his introduction: “The musical voices presented on this recording have
for the most part been silenced. Some of the performers have died, at least one has been
wounded and one taken prisoner, the rest are scattered amidst the carnage of the War,
their fate unknown, and unknowable” (Levin, 1993). The royalties from the sale of the CD
were donated to charitable organizations involved in humanitarian aid in Bosnia.
The musical world that we were encountering among the Bosnian community in
Austria was still alive, contrary to the “silenced voices” from the CD. And these voices
wanted to be heard.
“When I Sing My Thoughts Fly to Bosnia”

The sevdalinka genre proved to be a musical symbol of this endangered world during
the field research. Among the refugees there were also traditional singers. Their music,
especially the sevdalinke—traditional Bosnian urban love songs—obtained a new sig-
nificance for them and for the whole community in migration (see Bajrektarević and
Hemetek, 1996; Hemetek and Bajrektarević, 2000). They used it, as Martin Stokes calls it
“to relocate” themselves (see below).
Figure 7.5 Ševko Pekmezović, 1995.

Photo Rudolf Pietsch. Archive of the Institute.
The quotation “When I sing my thoughts fly to Bosnia” is from Ševko Pekmezović,
one of these singers (Figure 7.5). He comes from Kozluk, a small village near the Serbian
border, where the entire Muslim Bosniak community (1,200 people out of 1,500) were
forced to leave by the Serbian authorities in 1992. This happened often during the war
and was cynically called “ethnic cleansing.” What was formerly a multiethnic country
was to be transformed into a monoethnic one by forcing people to leave or by killing or
deporting them. The people from Kozluk fortunately stayed alive. By chance, all of them
were transferred to Austria and achieved refugee status. Almost no one spoke German.
They were taken care of by different NGO organizations in different parts of Austria.
Most of them stayed in Austria and integrated themselves into Austrian society to a cer-
tain extent; some of them have Austrian citizenship by now. Sevdalinke very often deal
with unfulfilled love, but also with concrete places or historical incidents. For a long
time these songs have been associated with Bosnia; they were the form of Bosnian musi-
cal expression in general and people identified with them greatly, even before the war.
During and after the war these songs were mainly associated with the Muslim Bosniak
population of Bosnia, due to the “oriental” melismatic melodic structure and their
emergence during Ottoman rule. Before the war, sevdalinke used to have an interethnic
quality because there were sevdalinke in many towns, and Muslim, Croatian, Serbian,
and other ethnicities in Bosnia all practiced sevdalinke. Therefore many of the refugees
in Austria chose that genre for their musical identification.
Another reason might be that there really are very specific places mentioned in them,
places that people had been to and that they liked. So for them these songs symbolized
their former home and functioned as a means of “relocation” (Stokes, 1997). Here is one
example, sung by Ševko Pekmezović.
Dunjaluče
Ševko Pekmezović: Voc.; Himzo Tulić: Saz
Recording: December 14, 1995, Gerlinde Haid, cultural presentation in Vienna
1. Dunjaluče, golem ti si,
Sarajevo, seir ti si
Baščaršijo, gani ti si
haj, a Vratniče gazil ti si.
2. Oj, Bistriče, strmen ti si
Ćemaluso, duga ti si,
Latinluče, ravan ti si,
Haj, Bezistane, mračan ti si.
3. Tašlihane, širok ti si,
lijepa Maro, lijepa ti si,
dosta si me napojila,
haj, od dušmana zaklonila.
Oh World, Oh People
1. Oh world, oh people, how great you are
254 Ursula Hemetek
Sarajevo, you’re so beautiful

Baščaršija*, you’re so rich,
ahay, but you Vratnik*, you’re gorgeous.
2. Oy, Bistrik*, you are so steep,
Ćemaluša**, you’re so long,
Latinluk*, you are so flat,
ahay, you Bezistan***, you’re dark.
3. Tašlihan*, you’re so wide,
pretty Mara, you’re so beautiful
you made me drunk enough,
ahay, you sheltered me from my foes.
* Baščaršija, Vratnik, Bistrik, Latinluk, Tašlihan:
the famous parts of ancient Sarajevo’s downtown
** Ćemaluša: the former main street of Sarajevo
*** Bezistan: the Turkish-style marketplace under a
single roof
(from Bajrektarević and Hemetek, 1996: 61)
The three verses documented here manifest the special quality reflected in the city of
Sarajevo. This is very concrete, although it is based on the past, but these texts make
it clear why Ševko says that when he sings he has the feeling of a film being shown in
his head and he can see everything he sings about. He did sing sevdalinke before he
came to Austria, but now he sings them to remember home in the situation of displace-
ment. Ševko also started to present these songs to an Austrian public, in order to make
Austrians understand that Bosnia is not only a country of war but also of culture.
This was actually the moment when the research work became applied work. Before
that, we had documented his repertory, which was huge (about 300 different sevda-
linke). There had always been the option of a publication, but it was still in the plan-
ning stage. Ševko liked the recording sessions. He usually came to the institute, because
his housing conditions did not permit recording in his apartment. In order to be able
to sing as an expression of enjoying himself, he usually brought some food and drink
to simulate a “real” Bosnian evening. After a while, Ševko spoke about presenting his
songs to an Austrian public. He had done so already on two occasions by including his
songs in events that featured other contributions as well. He wanted to go on working
with a format that would be dedicated to Bosnian music alone. Together with Ševko
and other musicians whom we had met during the research, we developed a format of
a cultural presentation, which in another article I labeled as an “informative strategy
of intercultural encounter” in the context of minorities. One principle of this type of
presentation is to let the majority participate and to try to make listeners understand the
differences and similarities (Hemetek, 2001b). It was called a “Bosnian evening” and was
first presented to the public on December 15, 1995, coinciding with the ratification of the
Dayton agreement. It consists mainly of sevdalinke, several types of which are sung by
different performers, none of whom had performed in public in Bosnia. The program
was structured in such a way that we tried to create an atmosphere in which performers
and audience were both actively involved. We did this by using a specific performance
concept with no clear distinction between stage and audience, by singing two songs
together as part of the program (the texts and translations were passed around), and
by avoiding amplification. The audience and the performers should feel as if they were
part of a Bosnian gathering. There were pieces of music as well as pieces of literature, in
German as well as in Bosnian, and the similarities as well as differences between the two
cultures were pointed out. The bilingual concept was important, because Austrians as
well as Bosnians were always meant to be in the audience.
Here is one example from the program. The lyrics of the following song were actu-
ally written by the German poet Heinrich Heine. It was translated into Bosnian by an
unknown author and it became one of the best known sevdalinke in Bosnia. We used it
in the program because of its German roots, because of its contents, which character-
ize the atmosphere in Bosnia in the nineteenth century, and because our singer Ševko
PekmezoviĆ liked to sing it very much. His performance gives an impression to the
Austrian audience of the musical parameters of sevdalinke.
Kraj tanana šadrvana
Ševko Pekmezović: Voc.; Himzo Tulić: Saz

Recording: December 14, 1995, by Gerlinde Haid at the premiere of our program
in Vienna
Transcription: Sofija Bajrektarević
Text
Kraj tanana šadravana,
đe žubori voda živa,
šetala se svakog dana,
sultanova šćerka mila.
256 Ursula Hemetek
Svakog dana jedno ropče,

stajalo kraj šadrvana,
kako vrijeme prolazilo,
sve je ropče blijeđe bilo.
Zapita ga jednog dana,
sultanova šćerka mila:
“Kazuj momče odakle si,
iz plemena kojeg li si!?”
“Ja se zovem El-Muhamed,
iz plemena starih Azra,
što za ljubav život gube,
i umiru kada ljube.”
German original version by Heinrich Heine:
DER ASRA
Täglich ging die wunderschöne
Sultanstochter auf und nieder
Um die Abendzeit am Springbrunnen
Wo die weißen Wasser plätschern.
Täglich stand der junge Sklave
Um die Abendzeit am Springbrunnen
Wo die weißen Wasser plätschern;
Täglich ward er bleich und bleicher.
Eines Abends trat die Fürstin
Auf ihn zu mit raschen Worten:
Deinen Namen will ich wissen,
Deine Heimat, deine Sippschaft!
Und der Sklave sprach: ich heiße
Mohamet, ich bin aus Yemmen,
Und mein Stamm sind jene Asra,
Welche sterben, wenn sie lieben.
English Translation:
By the Subtle Sadrvan
By the subtle Sadrvan7,
where the lively water hums,
daily was the promenade,
by the Sultan’s daughter dear.
Every day one youthful slave,
was standing nearby.
So, as time passed by,
the youngster grew ever more pale.
He was asked one day,
by the Sultan’s daughter dear;
“Tell me, youngster, where are you from,
and to which tribe do you belong!?”

“My name is El-Muhammed,
of the old Azra tribes,
who are prepared, in the name of love,
to sacrifice their very lives,
and die when they kiss.”
(Bajrektarević and Hemetek, 1996: 63–64)
This program was invited to some festivals, was presented in Austrian villages to aid the
integration of Bosnian refugees, and even was invited abroad by a Bosnian organiza-
tion in Reutlingen, Germany. As a follow-up, some of the musicians were featured in
TV documentaries and were invited to other festivals. But this only lasted up to a cer-
tain point in time. After the political consolidation in Bosnia and the integration of the
Bosnian refugees in Austria, or their repatriation (a few cases), our program fell into
oblivion. It did not seem to be needed any longer. Sevdalinke have other connotations
today; they are very much used for the construction of “national” identity in Bosnia,
and in Austria they have become part of the world music scene as well as the disco scene
in various cross-over experiments.8 Ševko still sings “his” traditional sevdalinke, but no
longer in public.
In the case of this project, it is difficult to evaluate the results of indirect interven-
tion. There were no political consequences, as in the case of the Roma; whether there
have been any individual effects is difficult to judge, although I think public awareness
of the musical abilities of the singers involved had a positive effect on them and probably
helped them to cope with their difficult situation. Again, the whole project had a lot to
do with the “partnership model of fieldwork.” The researchers were personally involved,
and the consultants wanted to obtain the attention of the public. This went hand in hand
with intercultural mediation. Sevdalinke served as a tool to improve the understanding
of the cultural background of the Bosnian refugees among the Austrian majority. And
we produced material that can be used in different areas: recordings, videos, photos,
texts, and publications. Two students from our university who were refugees themselves
wrote their master’s theses on the topic of sevdalinka, using part of our material (see
Kovinjalo, 2007; Rešidbegović, 2002). We accumulated quite a lot of literature on the
topic, and our institute is now known for its expertise in this field; in many cases we
served as mediators in school projects.
Our research culminated in several publications, one of which is now viewed as a
historical document: the CD Sevdah in Vienna (Bajrektarević and Hemetek, 1996, with
extensive notes in three languages). Some people are very happy when they find it, as it
signifies nostalgia to them. University students of Bosnian origin like to discover their
roots by using our archive. What we definitely achieved was the documentation of the
musical expressions of an endangered world at a certain time, sensing the need that
appeared under the given circumstances.
258 Ursula Hemetek
Challenging “Ethnicity”: Immigrants from Turkey in Vienna

This section deals with research activities that focused on the urban area. The results
come from research projects during the years 2005–2010, which means from a much
later time period than the two case studies above. This reveals a shift of research interests
within the institute, from research on certain groups with somehow defined constructed
identities to the urban area, which is by nature in itself diverse, not only ethnically. The
method of applying the results has also changed to a certain extent.
The Construction of Place, Ethnicity, and Identity

Through Music in Diaspora
“Amongst the countless ways in which we ‘relocate’ ourselves, music undoubtedly has a
vital role to play. The musical event, from collective dances to the act of putting a cassette
or CD into a machine, evokes and organizes collective memories and present experi-
ences of place with an intensity, power and simplicity unmatched by any other social
activity. The ‘places’ constructed through music involve notions of difference and social
boundary” (Stokes, 1997: 3). What Martin Stokes says here is, of course, not only true for
immigrants; it works for the dominant group as well. But especially in the situation of
migration, when a person experiences dislocation, insecurity, constant challenge, unfa-
miliarity, and discrimination, it might become more meaningful and more important
to “relocate” oneself by means of music. Stokes’s argument goes further when he says,
“I would argue that music is socially meaningful, not entirely but largely because it pro-
vides means by which people recognize identities and places, and the boundaries which
separate them” (Stokes, 1997: 5).
My findings do confirm these theses, and I quote them because they say a great deal
about the motivation behind the music making of immigrants. I would also argue that
they say a lot about what kind of music these immigrant groups practice.
I am far from proposing any essentialist interpretation, because music is what any
social group considers it to be, and music styles per se do not represent any denoted
ethnicity. But on the other hand, one cannot deny that ethnicity is represented by music.
Ethnicity is, of course, a problematic term, and there have been many discussions about
it, especially in a discipline that uses the prefix ethno- in its designation, like ethnomu-
sicology. Adelaida Reyes argues that it should not to be omitted, but defined it in a way
that makes it useful for interdisciplinary approaches. Reyes mentions this in connection
with research in the urban area: “Groups labelled ethnic are a social reality and… they
have come to constitute a structural category in urban social organization. It appears,
therefore, that we may have to live with the term a while longer” (Reyes-Schramm,
1979: 17). Stokes does not question the term either, but he does question its defini-
tion: “Ethnicities are to be understood in terms of the construction, maintenance and
negotiation of boundaries, and not of the putative social ‘essences’ which fill the gaps
within them” (Stokes, 1997: 6). I share the opinion of many anthropologists (see Asad,
1973) that the construction of ethnicities can only be understood by including power
relations in the analysis. It is very important to consider insiders’ and outsiders’ posi-
tions in constructing ethnicities. In the case of discriminated people, the definition of
outsiders very often contributes to their self-definition. The group in power—the domi-
nant group—defines who is “different.”
If a group is constantly perceived by others as “different” because of their ethnic
background, its members might begin to stress markers of ethnic difference in their
self-awareness. This might also happen in music making, and especially in public per-
formance. Therefore performance in diaspora seems to me to be another very important
aspect of the whole topic—the more so because performed music is very often the object
of documentation by ethnomusicologists, including my own research. Musical perfor-
mance often functions as a representation of ethnicity, “otherness,” and “difference.”
One recent publication on the topic, the book Musical Performance in the Diaspora
(Ramnarine, 2007), is very useful in this context because it provides profound insight
into possible ways of interpreting the phenomenon of “administering ethnicity” by per-
formance. And it is about “how identity is shaped and constructed through and as a
result of performance” (Johnson, 2007: 71).
But of course the concept of diaspora itself is ambivalent and needs critical analysis.
We find a critical approach in cultural studies by Ien Ang (2001, 2003), who has argued
that the diaspora concept paradoxically maintains the very logic of the state that the
concept is meant to critique. She has written:
While the transnationalism of diasporas is often taken as an implicit point of cri-

tique of the territorial boundedness and internally homogenizing perspective of the
nation-state, the limits of diaspora lie precisely in its own assumed boundedness, its
inevitable tendency to stress its internal coherence and unity, logically set apart from
“others.” Diaspora formations transgress the boundaries of the nation-state on behalf
of a globally dispersed “people”… but paradoxically this transgression can only be
achieved by drawing a boundary around the diaspora.
(Ang, 2003: 142)
In her further arguments she draws the conclusion that, paradoxically, “the politics of
diaspora is exclusionary as much as it is inclusionary, just like that of the nation” (Ang,
2003: 144).
Tom Solomon builds on her arguments when approaching the communities from
Turkey in Germany and says:
It is the tendency which Ang identifies to stress the ‘internal coherence and unity’
of diasporic social formations that makes it possible for people to confidently speak
and write about, for example, a ‘Turkish diaspora’ (about 24,100 hits on Google for
this phrase as of 1 March 2008) in popular and academic discourse. The problem
emerges when this kind of analytic shorthand begins to take on a life of its own, as if
it refers to a coherent thing out there in the real world that one can point to, rather
than a useful abstraction for what is actually a complex social formation full of inter-
nal tensions and contradictions, with multiple intersecting histories, discourses,
260 Ursula Hemetek
and practices. While paying attention to the sounds of diasporic groups as echoes
of diversity within their host societies, we should not forget to listen for the voices of
diversity within diasporic groups themselves.
(Solomon, 2008: 78)
The attention to “voices of diversity” within a certain immigrant group is an impor-

tant point of departure for the following findings.
The Urban Area as a Field of Research: Changing Perspectives

Adelaida Reyes, one of the pioneers of urban ethnomusicology, gives a very useful theo-
retical background to the distinction between music in the city and music of the city
(Reyes, 2007: 17). Whereas “music in the city” means that the city itself is no more than
a passive ingredient with no significant role in explanation, “music of the city” requires
a theoretical and methodological framework that gives full value to its complexity. The
city is included in the research, either as the context or as the object of the study.
Adelaida Reyes sees a clear connection between the concepts of research on minori-
ties and those of urban ethnomusicology: due to immigration the urban area naturally
consists of different, diverse groups. She suggests approaching this diversity as a single
organism.
The first research projects in our institute on the topic of music and minorities were
more in the tradition of the “music in the city” approach. These were ethnographic
studies, focused on specific communities. Both of the above-mentioned projects were
located partly in the urban area (most of the Roma and Bosnian refugees also live in
Vienna), but the city as a complex organism was not their focus. This approach has
changed during the last few years, and in two more recent research projects we tried to
grasp a little of the general complex reality of immigrants’ music making in the city and
of the surrounding conditions and economic aspects as well. The first one, called “Music
Making of Immigrants in Vienna” (2005–2006) served to a certain extent as a pilot for
the second one: “Embedded industries—Immigrant Cultural Entrepreneurs in Vienna”
(2007–2009). The latter was an interdisciplinary study in which ethnomusicology was
the partner discipline of sociology and ethnology.
The music making of immigrants from Turkey was part of these investigations, and
I want to concentrate on this in the following section due to the fact that immigrants
from Turkey are the main focus of xenophobia in Austrian society. Approximately
40,000 immigrants with Turkish citizenship reside in Vienna. Figures comparing vari-
ous immigrant populations show that they are the second-largest group. About another
30,000 have been naturalized, which makes a total of 70,000.
The officially verifiable heterogeneity of the Turkish population derives from differ-
ent ethnic and religious backgrounds. Turks, Kurds, and a very few Armenians form
three main ethnic and religious groups in Vienna that are registered officially as Turkish
citizens. The three main religious backgrounds of immigrants from Turkey are Sunni,
Alevi, and very few Christian Orthodox (see Figure 7.6; for further information on the
Alevi, see, for example, Erol, 2008).
Immigrants from Turkey
70% 30% 0.1%

Sunnis Alevis Christian
(Kurds and (Kurds and Orthodox
Turks) Turks) (Armenians)
Figure 7.6 Religious backgrounds of immigrants from Turkey in Vienna.

From Sağlam 2007: 64.
Another significant difference among the immigrants from Turkey in Vienna is social
class. Hande Sağlam is of the opinion that social class is more important in determining
identity than ethnicity or religion (see Sağlam, 2007). There are immigrants with Anatolian
backgrounds, with usually low educational status, as well as intellectuals from Istanbul.
Most of these immigrants came to Vienna to work during the 1960s and 1970s. They were
reunited with their families after some years and today we find second and third genera-
tions of these first immigrants. The intellectuals are mostly students who decided to stay.
In spite of that diversity, there are prejudices among the dominant society against the
“Turkish immigrant,” including the following: that they are backward and conserva-
tive, that the women are subordinate, and that they are Islamic fundamentalists—and
therefore dangerous and not willing to integrate. These prejudices are not new, but they
gained a new intensity after 9/11, when Islamophobia rose extraordinarily, and also after
the renewed debate on Turkey joining the European Union (2006–2007). Certain politi-
cal parties in Austria use xenophobia to collect votes, and we find highly racist posters
and slogans before elections, such as “Wien darf nicht Istanbul werden” (Vienna must
not become Istanbul) or “Daham statt Islam” (Home instead of Islam). Usually it is
Turkish immigrants, as well as those from Africa, at whom this aggression is aimed.
One can encounter these racist prejudices everywhere, even among Austrian students.
One possible ethnomusicological strategy is to do some research on the music of these
immigrants in order to have well-founded information to argue against these prejudices.
Via the two research projects on immigrants’ music making in Vienna mentioned
above, including a focus on immigrants from Turkey, Hande Sağlam, a researcher
born in Istanbul, was integrated into the institute’s staff. This was extremely important,
because her views and approaches added a great deal to the quality of the research. She
challenged our former concepts of ethnicity and collectivity by insisting on considering
individuality in music making to a much greater extent. She influenced the theories and
methods, and also made contacts much easier because of her language abilities.
Studies from Germany on the topic also served as inspiration. In Germany, immigra-
tion from Turkey started much earlier than in Austria, and the percentage of immigrants
262 Ursula Hemetek
from Turkey is much higher.9 There is a lively exchange between the diasporic commu-
nities from Turkey in Germany and Austria.
We found out that many of the immigrants’ organizations are active in fighting dis-
crimination on very different levels. A few try to re-ethnicize and to fundamentalize
their people as a reaction to discrimination. The majority try to promote intercultural
dialogue on many levels, including teaching and promoting Turkish music.
One of the research strategies was close cooperation with some musicians. The dif-
ference from the aforementioned projects is that there was already an infrastructure of
very active NGOs, such as the Saz-Verein, an organization founded by Mansur Bildik,
a virtuoso of the saz, the Anatolian long-necked lute. He is of Kurdish-Anatolian ori-
gin, his religion is Alevi,10 and he migrated from Turkey to Austria for artistic reasons.
Mansur Bildik writes:
In the 1970s my concert tours led me to Europe. By chance I came to Austria. I should
have got married to a Turkish girl who lived, however, in Vorarlberg. But I ended
up in Vienna. Since 1980 I have been living in this city and since 1990 I have been an
Austrian citizen. First of all, it was the music which brought me to Austria: on the
occasion of concerts, I was often approached by lovers of Turkish music, as there was
a lack of saz players in Vienna at that time.
(Bildik and Fuchs, 2008: 23)
Mansur Bildik dedicated his life to teaching the instrument that he appreciates so
much. He uses it as a cultural “ambassador,” but it is important to note that his main
approach is intercultural communication and some of the principles of his religion.
Non-musical aims like humanity, respect and tolerance play an important role in his
life. So does coexistence in music, and in this case he also attaches importance to
innovative border crossings beyond traditional Turkish music; this aesthetic coexis-
tence is for him a symbol of social living together. Mansur’s alla turca interpretations
of Mozart (Flosdorf and Marte 2006, 21p.) and performances together with the folk
group Hotel Palindrone or with the Austrian pop musician Rainhard Fendrich were
exemplary for such crossovers.
Figure 7.7 Logo of the Saz Association.

(Fuchs 2001, quotation from Bildik and Fuchs, 2008: 26)
Self-organization on the basis of Austrian law means—as we have learned from the
Roma case—to found an officially recognized organization (called a Verein in Austria;
see Figure 7.7). So Mansur took this step in order to realize his visions.
An important step on this way was the founding of the saz association 14 years ago,
in 1993. The association organises saz lessons, workshops and concerts. The lessons
and periodical student concerts take place in the Amerling-Haus cultural centre. It
belongs to the cultural initiative Spittelberg, houses a museum and numerous alter-
native cultural associations and supports minority cultures. The saz association har-
monizes with this concept of a socially engaged enthusiasm for cultural diversity.
(Bildik and Fuchs, 2008: 25)
Mansur Bildik (Figure 7.8) continues his activities in the Amerling-Haus. Recently

the center was seriously threatened by financial problems. Mansur was engaged in many
cultural activities for fundraising and showing solidarity, for example in an event called
“Vielfalt statt Monokultur” (Diversity Instead of Monoculture) in June 2014.
Figure 7.8 Mansur Bildik playing the saz in Amerlinghaus, June 7, 2014.
Photograph by Ursula Hemetek.
264 Ursula Hemetek
It is important to note that from the very beginning, teaching activities were the focus
of Mansur Bildik’s interest. It is intercultural communication via an instrument that
he seeks, and his professional musical ability enables him to use this tool. The applied
aspect of our research was to promote Mansur Bildik’s activities on the university level
and in other institutional contexts. The musical background of Mansur Bildik is tradi-
tional music from Turkey, although he crosses musical borders very frequently.
But there are other musical activities of immigrants from Turkey that are far from the
traditional context.
Wien 10 (Vienna 10)
This is the title of a hip-hop song and refers to the 10th district of Vienna, where many
of the Turkish immigrants live. They were part of the mass labor immigration from 1964
onward that followed the initial recruitment of workers by European countries. Now
there is a second and even a third generation, and they are still seen as Turkish immi-
grants, although they were born in Austria.
R-Kan [Figure 7.9] was born in 1987 in Vienna. He is the youngest son of a Turkish
immigrant family. At primary school he was discriminated against because of
Figure 7.9 R-Kan.
From http://profile.my space.com/, December 2006.
his immigrant background. At secondary school the situation changed com-

pletely because 98% of the pupils were foreigners, and he was chosen as the class
representative.
He started to write his own texts in 2002. Then he left school and was totally lost.
Two years later, he changed his life completely and made a new start as a hip-hop
singer. His lyrics show us the reality of life of a large part of the second generation and
their so-called “public ghetto” in Vienna.
(Sağlam, 2008: 43–44).
In one of his most successful songs he says: “Ich bin der Junge, den jeder hasste, keine
wollte mich featuren, obwohl mein Rap passte” (I am the guy / that everybody hates /
nobody wants to present me / even though my rap fits).” This sentence expresses his
bicultural existence and its consequences very clearly. The “guy that everybody hates” is
not just the protest of a young generation, but clearly points to the racism he faces every
day in Vienna.
R-Kan sings only in German. His German is better than his Turkish. In an interview
he said that he is not really able to write and sing in Turkish.
Here is one of his most successful songs, “Wien 10!”
Wien 10!, Private Recording by R-Kan in 2007

(from Sağlam, 2008: 44–45)
R-Kan: Wien 10! R-Kan: Vienna 10!
Sprich mein Name richtig, es ist R strich Say my name correctly, it is R-dash
Ja, ja stich dich Yes, yes stab yourself
Du kannst mich hassen aber fick dich You can hate me, but fuck yourself
Wien 10 und meine Jungs, mehr brauch Vienna 10 (district) and my boys, I don’t
ich nicht need anything else
Du willst mich dissen aber Junge traust You want to diss me but you don’t trust
dich nicht yourself
Auch ohne Weinen fließen My tears flow even if I don’t cry
meine Tränen
Ich halte meinen Kopf hoch meinen Rap I keep my head up nobody can take my rap
kann mir keiner nehmen away from me
Ich bin der Junge den jeder hasste I am the guy that everybody hates
Keine wollte mich featuren obwohl mein Nobody wanted to feature me even though
Rap passte my rap fits
Ich bin weit gekommen, denn ich geh I’ve achieved a lot because I go my own way
mein Weg
Dersim 62 das ist meine Mentalität Dersim 62, that’s my mentality
Ich weiß woher ich komme, bleib wo ich I know where I come from, I stay where
bin I am
Otto-Probst 7, das ist mein Lebenssinn Otto-Probst 7 that’s the meaning of my life
266 Ursula Hemetek
Wenn ich sterbe, werden mir die Flügel When I die, I am going to grow wings
wachsen
Zu schnell gelebt, ich war schon zu früh Lived too fast, I was grown up too early
erwachsen
R strich Kann, merk dir diesen guten R dash Kan, remember this good guy
Jungen
Wien das ist meine Stadt ich bums aus Vienna is my city I scream it out of my
meine Lunge lungs
Dieses Jahr, dieses Jahr werd ich Star, This year, this year I’ll be a star, I’ll be a star
werd ich Star
Wien macht mich berühmt ich bin ein Vienna is making me famous, I am a good
guter Junge guy
Es wird hart, es wird hart, ich bleib stark, It will be hard it will be hard, I stay strong
ich bleib stark I stay strong
Wien macht mich berühmt, ich bin ein Vienna is making me famous I am a good
guter Junge guy
Dieses Jahr, dieses Jahr werd ich Star, This year, this year I’ll be a star I’ll be a star
werd ich Star
Wien macht mich berühmt ich bin ein Vienna is making me famous I am a good
guter Junge guy
Es wird hart, es wird hart ich bleib stark, It will be hard, it will be hard I stay strong
ich bleib stark I stay strong
Wien macht mich berühmt, ich bin ein Vienna is making me famous I am a good
guter Junge guy
Ich hab keine Lehre und auch keine I don’t have an occupation and no school
Schule either
Was bringt mir Ehre, Mädchen schauen What brings me honour, girls look at
auf teure Schuhe expensive shoes
Doch ich scheiß darauf und klettre weiter But I don’t give a fuck about it and I keep
nach oben climbing upwards
In meiner Nachbarschaft sind die Kids In my neighborhood the kids are on drugs
auf Drogen
Mein Stadt war für mich ein großer Erfolg My city was a big success for me
In Wien bin (ich) ein Star für das ganze In Vienna I’m a big star for all the people
Volk
Egal welcher Bezirk, jeder liebt mich Doesn’t matter in which district, everybody
loves me
(From: Sağlam 2008:44-45)
Musically, this is one style of Turkish hip-hop youth culture, an international

phenomenon, common among Turkish immigrants of the second generation in
German-speaking countries. Tom Solomon has done extensive research on the genre in
Germany. The development in Germany is important for the Austrian scene as well (see
Solomon, 2008). The scene is diverse, different languages are used, and different ethnic
backgrounds are involved:
Kurds, Alevis, Germans, and members of other nationalities/ethnic groups have been
important in the creation of ‘Turkish rap’ in Germany. For example, a DJ often cred-
ited with popularizing the use of samples and motifs from Turkish folk music on a
rap record, DJ Derezon from the (now-defunct) group Islamic Force, is the son of a
German mother and a Spanish father (Kaya, 2001: 194). He was born in Kreuzberg,
a district in Berlin especially known for having a high concentration of Turkish
migrants, but also home to migrants from many other countries. “Turkish rappers”
in Germany who do have roots in Turkey may in fact prefer to engage with local
multi-ethnic hip-hop communities where German is the lingua franca, rather than
privilege their “Turkishness,” and so, like rappers Kool Savas (whose father is Turkish
and mother is German) and Eko Fresh (born in Köln of Turkish parents, grew up in
Mönchengladbach near Düsseldorf), rap primarily or only in German, even if they are
claimed by others as belonging to the community of “Turkish rappers” in Germany.
(Solomon, 2008: 78–79)
Tom Solomon also points to the fact that a number of “Turkish” rappers in Germany
are Kurds but choose to be “Turkish” in their artistic performance. R-Kan actually also
has Kurdish roots. His mentioning of “Dersim” is a clear indicator.11
Solomon points out that rap music and hip-hop’s visual style function as a strategy for
cultural intervention, using the “resistant” position associated with this style to make
statements about racism and other social problems both in Europe and in Turkey. Rap
music and its visual images are a strategy for cultural intervention. There is a “resis-
tant” position associated with this style that makes statements about racism and other
social problems (see Solomon, 2008: 85). This image of “Turkish rap,” first established
in Germany, also is to be noticed in Austria. Actually, this music style obviously fits for
expressing protest. There is a very clear message in the mentioned example. The political
implication is very clear and outspoken: R-Kan is fighting for his right to be considered
as a local, as a citizen of the country that is his birthplace. He fights by singing a song.
These were just two examples within a much broader range of musical activities of
immigrants from Turkey in Vienna: from Western classical music (e.g., university stu-
dents) via all kinds of popular music, world music, and jazz, to Davul and Zurna played
at weddings. Likewise, diverse is the self-definition of the human beings who are labeled
as Turks by the majority. Why should someone who was born in Vienna, who has never
been to Turkey, and who does not even speak the language be considered a Turk? Even
Mansur Bildik, who identifies with the musical traditions that he learned in Turkey, feels
Viennese and makes use of the musical possibilities of a city that has gained the label of
the City of Music due to its musical diversity.
268 Ursula Hemetek
Challenging the Discourses
It is not so easy to clearly identify and categorize applied aspects in this case. And of
course it is debatable whether there are any. To my mind, the role of research in human-
ities is not to find out the “truth,” but to add new perspectives and different views to
the canon of knowledge. In doing so, we should not avoid taking up clear positions. As
Hermann Bausinger says convincingly, “If there are burning problems, hurting, scar-
ing and depressing people and opening up old sores, there is no chance to escape to
so-called pure science—you have to make options and say yes or no or you have at least
to point to the practical implications of your scientific interests” (Bausinger, 1996: 288).
There are burning problems in Austrian society, and immigrants from Turkey face
them very often when confronted by exclusion, racism, and stereotyping, in relation to
the employment situation, in housing, on a legal level, and in everyday activities. In the
Austrian media we constantly find discourses using ideologically charged terms such
as “Parallelgesellschaft” (parallel society) and “Leitkultur” (dominant/mainstream cul-
ture), and the discussion about “integration” tries to suggest that the “Turks” cannot be
integrated because they are not willing to, due to their “Islamist” background. They are
so different that it would be best to send them “home.” These are not only arguments
used by the radical right-wing party in Austria; they are also part of the official language
of politicians in office. I think it is important to participate in discourses—scholarly
and public—in order to clarify some things at least. Our research results suggest that
in Vienna there is no such unified category as “the Turks,” but rather a population
with diverse backgrounds, cultural traditions, and senses of identity, including rural
Anatolian as well as urban intellectual. We can also prove that the share of “Islamist”
activists is about 2 percent and that 98 percent of the population of immigrants from
Turkey do not much differ in their approach to religion from most Austrians who are
Roman Catholic. In other words, many Muslims and Roman Catohlics in Vienna do
not live active religious lives. And we can prove that for many people who are labeled
“the Turks” there is no other “home” than Austria, because they were born here and do
not have stronger ties to any other country. By doing this research and by making the
results public, we try to add to discourses and to change attitudes. Of course, our studies
are “only” about music. But, as I have tried to argue in this chapter, music is a power-
ful instrument on many levels concerning minorities. It is important to point toward
individual identity constructions that are “hybrid” and “multiple,” as we have learned
from cultural studies, and it is important to point toward the great potential of indi-
viduals who have had the experience of being socialized in more than one culture. Elka
Tschernokoschewa puts it this way:
. . . for me the defining feature of “minority culture” is the fact that it implies more
than one perspective (i.e., it is multiperspectival). Minorities are in a position to look
at a problem from more than one angle; they know that there is more than one truth.
They know that the familiar and the unfamiliar are not diametrically opposed to one
another, because one can appear within the other; familiar and foreign elements can
merge and may even become inseparable.
(Tschernokoscheva, 2008: 20)
It is debatable whether studies of this kind can have an influence on political reality.
I think it is important to find niches of application. In our case it is pedagogy. At our uni-
versity we teach students of music pedagogy who will become music teachers in their
working life. They will face a classroom situation with children of diverse “ethnic” back-
grounds, and it is our task to prepare them for this situation.
By conveying to them the results of our studies, we might contradict possible ste-
reotypes in their minds; by providing personal contact with musicians like the afore-
mentioned, we might open up their minds to appreciate musical diversity, and this
might enable them to deal respectfully with immigrant children and make use of the
great potential that lies in their “multiperspectival” qualities. Although this might seem
a small-scale strategy, the preliminary evidence suggests that this research and appli-
cation venue are profitable in the long term and deserve to be continued and further
elaborated.
Conclusions
I have tried to argue in this chapter that there is considerable potential in ethno-
musicology, and especially in minority studies, for intercultural communication.
Ethnomusicology is suited to working in this way, because music has proven itself to be
a powerful instrument of constructing and conveying identities and of “relocation.” This
potential can be used in applied ethnomusicology.
The three case studies presented in this chapter show three different strategies embed-
ded in their respective sociopolitical circumstances. They also show the development of
discourses and methods within the discipline at one specific institution—the Institute of
Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology at the University of Music and Performing
Arts Vienna—over a time span of the past 25 years. To a certain extent, they mirror the
international discourses in ethnomusicology and minority studies.
The relevance of minority studies in applied ethnomusicology (and vice versa) was
another point of departure for this chapter. According to Svanibor Pettan (2008), the
growing interest in applied ethnomusicology is often related to exactly those groups of
people who are the focus of contemporary ethnomusicologists’ research, which he lists
as minorities, diasporas, ethnic groups, immigrants, and refugees. This list is based upon
the special situation of three states created out of the former Yugoslavia, but is of rele-
vance for Europe as a whole. The common denominator for all these groups of people is
that they face a dominant group, and suffer discrimination on different levels. Svanibor
Pettan (2008) further argues that applied ethnomusicology has very much to do with the
empowerment of such groups. Although the scope of applied ethnomusicology seems
to be much broader, in relation to the aforementioned groups of people this is certainly
one important aspect of applied work, if not the most important one. Therefore the
270 Ursula Hemetek
development of the international forum for these discourses in ethnomusicology—the

Study Group Music and Minorities within the ICTM—has served as a kind of model.
Ethnomusicology deals with music in a social context, and to my mind we have now
arrived at a level of discourse that is characterized by reflection on what we have done in
the past, as well as what impact our work has on the people we are dealing with. Ethical
considerations have come to the fore within the last decades, as Mark Slobin suggested
in 1992: “individual soul-searching must be going on within the discipline constantly.”
And “[b]‌y maintaining a continuous discussion of thorny issues and anticipating those
to come, ethnomusicology will not solve its ethical problems—since in the nature of
human activity this is not a possibility—but will shore up damage done and keep build-
ing a framework for future, carefully considered action” (Slobin, 1992: 336). And actually
things have changed within the discipline since then, if one considers Bartz and Cooley’s
Shadows in the Field (1997), a critical attempt to rethink the role of the researcher in the
field. There are many other indicators of these changes, which are convincingly argued
in the volume of Ethnomusicology (2006: 50, 2) to mark the fiftieth anniversary of SEM,
and in many other works. There is a shift in topic and interests in ethnomusicology as
well as in methods. Applied ethnomusicology, named as such since 1992, has obviously
gained ground within the discipline. Timothy Rice’s article “Ethnomusicology in Times
of Trouble” (Rice 2014) emphasizes the important role of ethnomusicology in conflict
management.12 Within this time span, the ICTM Study Group on Music and Minorities
and the ICTM Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology were founded. The emer-
gence of both was grounded in the development of the discipline, but on the other hand
had a reciprocal effect on ethnomusicology and international discourses.
Cooperation models between consultants and researchers, as well as different forms
of “dialogical knowledge production,” seem to have become standards of modern eth-
nomusicology. The application of results “for the benefit of the people” we work with
seems to come quite naturally, also out of the usually very close relationship that devel-
ops through fieldwork. The “partnership model of fieldwork” (Russell), including the
application of results in presentation and publication, can be noticed frequently. The
latter is not new, as it is part of the tradition of European folk music research, but there
has been a considerable shift from promoting the musical traditions of “the people” to
the “music of individuals.”
We have not quite gotten rid of “ethnicity.” And it is not likely to happen in the near
future. It is an important category in the three case studies presented here. In the case
of the Roma, it seems to have been necessary to “invent” something like an essentialist
ethnic identity. The development has shown that it was necessary at this stage of political
empowerment. Carol Silverman describes this process as “strategic essentialism” in the
course of political mobilization of the Roma and interprets it in the following way: “So
we may understand the symbols of the Romani rights movement as historically placed
responses to marginality” (Silverman, 2012: 54).
I have tried to critically analyze the role of ethnomusicology in this process. In the case
of the Bosnian refugees, one song genre symbolized not ethnicity as such, but rather the
common musical heritage of people with different ethnic backgrounds who had shared
social and national identities. It was the war that destroyed these shared identities. So
the song genre of sevdalinka served as a symbolic expression of a vanished world and as
a means to survive in the situation of being refugees. Applied ethnomusicology served
as a vehicle to promote this “nostalgia” to the Austrian majority in order to build bridges
and to improve mutual understanding.
In the third case, ethnicity is a category that is very problematic. We know from the dis-
courses in cultural studies that identities are multiple and hybrid. Stuart Hall (1994) states
that not only identities, but even all modern nations, are culturally hybrid, which is of
course true from a certain perspective, but definitely not from the perspective of Austrian
politicians. For immigrants from Turkey it seems especially important to raise the aware-
ness of the possibility of individual choice in defining identity, because public discourse
labels them ethnically and one-dimensionally. Although there is already a third genera-
tion living in Austria, they are still referred to as “Turks,” especially in media discourses
and also in the speeches of politicians. The image of the “Islamist Turk” who does not want
to integrate him- or herself into Austrian society is portrayed as a “problem.” In this case,
application means, first of all, drawing attention to the music-making of immigrants from
Turkey by making it into a topic of research, and second, challenging the public discourse
by conveying a differentiated view based on research and not on prejudices. Changing
public attitudes is not easy, and ethnomusicology does not have the power to do it imme-
diately. It is more of a small-scale approach, by organizing symposiums and podium dis-
cussions, by promoting individual musicians, and by teaching students who will later be
music teachers faced with children from immigrant backgrounds in their classrooms.
My concluding quotation, which is from a time long ago but still valid, shows that the
influential ethnomusicologist John Blacking had already thought about the application
of results guided by social responsibility. And it also shows that although the discipline
has changed considerably since then, we are still fighting the same problems:
Intolerance and ignorance are not very far apart. And both seem to me to be among
the roots of trouble in the world today. I had always thought that I might make it
my life work to deal with the intolerance, relying on the work of others for the fight
against ignorance. It now seems to me that I might be able to play a small, but more
worthwhile part in the struggle against ignorance.
(John Blacking, 1953, quoted from Byron, 1995: 5).
Notes
1. All of the research on which this article is based has been conducted at the Institute of
Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology at the University of Music and Performing
Arts Vienna. Since 1990 there has been a research focus on music and minorities at the
Institute in research, teaching, and publications. The major research projects conducted
during recent years were the following.
1990–1992: “Traditional Music of Minorities in Austria”
272 Ursula Hemetek
1993–1995: “Traditional Music of the Roma in Austria”

1995–2000: “Music of Bosnians in Austria”
2005–2006: “Music Making of Immigrants in Vienna”
2007–2009: Project partner in “Embedded Industries—Immigrant Cultural
Entrepreneurs in Vienna”
Field research projects concerning immigrants in Salzburg (2004), in Innsbruck (2005),
in Vorarlberg (2009), and concerning the music of Slovenes in Styria (1999–2001)
2009–2010: Bi-Musicality and Intercultural Dialogue.
2. More details on this topic, see Hemetek (2007).
3. About the development of the Study Group on Music and Minorities in detail, see
Pettan (2012). The first symposium was held in Ljubljana in 2000 and since then sympo-
sia were organized every two years. The publications of the Study Group, all edited vol-
umes, are: Pettan, Reyes, and Komavec (2001); Hemetek, Lechleitner, Naroditskaya, and
Czekanowska (2004); Ceribašić and Haskell (2006); Statelova, Rodel, Peycheva, Vlaeva,
and Dimov (2008); Jurková and Bidgood (2009); Hemetek (2012) Hemetek, Marks, Reyes
(2014).
4. The group of Germans in Austria cannot be considered a minority in the sense of suffering
from discrimination. Due to the common German language and the rather privileged pro-
fessional positions of a high percentage of Germans in Austria, they do not have similar
problems to the other immigrant groups.
5. The creation of a National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Austria, as well as
its continuous updating, are tasks that Austria agreed upon when it ratified the UNESCO
Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2009. To explain
what this means in Austria, I quote the UNESCO website:
“Intangible cultural heritage comprises the practices, representations, expressions,
knowledge, skills as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces asso-
ciated therewith, that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recog-
nize as part of their cultural heritage. The intangible cultural heritage consists of five
overlapping areas:
• O
ral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of intangible cul-
tural heritage
• Performing arts
• Social practices, rituals and festive events
• Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe
• Traditional craftsmanship.
This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is con-
stantly recreated by communities and groups, providing them with a sense of identity and
continuity.” (http://immaterielleskulturerbe.unesco.at/en/)
6. For discussion of the terms, see Assmann (1999).
7. Šadrvan: a Turkish wooden fountain, usually placed in squares.
8. This statement is not based on follow-up research but only on results from constant obser-
vations of the scene in Vienna.
9. Germany always was the main target country of Turkish immigrants in Europe, housing
about 60% of the Turkish emigrant population, followed by France (6.3%), the Netherlands
(4.8%) and Austria (3.8%).
10. Alevism is a religious belief based on ancient Turkish beliefs. It is a liberal and mystic form
of Islam in which music, especially the instrument saz, is highly appreciated.
11. Dersim is the Kurdish (Zaza) name of a province in Anatolia that was formerly called
Tunceli. There is a specific history connected to the place that includes the “Dersim
Rebellion,” also known as “Dersim massacre” from 1934. Many immigrants in Austria
come from there, and their ethnic background is Kurdish. Therefore “Dersim” can be used
as a metaphor in a song, which will be understood by insiders.
12. Many of the other works that seem to be important for that development connected to my
field of research have been quoted throughout the article, representing only a very per-
sonal selection, of course.
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References on the Web
www.harristojka.at (2013)
www.ictmusic.org (2013)
www.minderheiten.at (2013)
www.romano-centro.org (2013)
http://profile.my space.com (2006)
Chapter 8
B eing Appli e d i n t h e
of Au t i sm
Michael B. Bakan
Introduction
Applied ethnomusicology, writes Jeff Todd Titon, may be defined as “the process of put-
ting ethnomusicological research to practical use” (Titon, 2011).1 My purposes in this
chapter are, first, to describe and critically examine how an ethnomusicology of autism
might be conceptualized as a form of applied ethnomusicology so defined, and, second,
to position this emergent area of inquiry in relation to relevant epistemological frame-
works, including the autistic self-advocacy and neurodiversity movements, disability
studies, and the anthropology of autism.
To achieve these purposes, I employ a polyvocal narrative approach, weaving together
my own words and ideas with those of children on the autism spectrum with whom
I play music, spokespersons from within the autistic self-advocacy movement, and
scholars, scientists, and disability rights advocates representing diverse positions and
epistemic communities (Harrison, 2012). I ultimately propose an ethnographic model
of disability as a potential alternative and complement to the existing social and medi-
cal models, arguing that the ethnographic and relativistic tenets of applied ethnomusi-
cology hold the potential to effectively promote neurodiversity and autism acceptance
by helping to transform customary tropes of deficit, disorder, despair, and hopelessness
into alternate visions of wholeness, ability, diversity, and possibility.
The Artism Ensemble will be my principal ethnomusicological focus. Artism is a neu-
rodiverse music performance collective comprising several children with autism spec-
trum diagnoses2 and their co-participating parents, along with a cohort of professional
musicians and ethnomusicologists of diverse musicultural background. The ensemble
is the cornerstone of the Artism Music Project, an Institutional Review Board-approved
Being Applied in the Ethnomusicology of Autism 279
applied ethnomusicology program that has been developed in accordance with all per-
missions, safety, and ethical requirements and recommendations of the Human Subjects
Committee at Florida State University (FSU). I have coordinated and performed with
the ensemble since its founding in 2011.
In our collective commitment to fostering a musicultural world that builds founda-
tionally from the agency, imagination, and preferences of the children in the group,3
Artism endeavors to privilege autistic ability over disability, supportively respond-
ing to the creative initiatives and impulses of children with autism, rather than trying
to restrain, retrain, or redirect them.4 Artism additionally serves as a social model in
its own right through its concerts and other performance events: a model of inclusive
sociality, music making, and cultural co-production that promotes autism acceptance
rather than autism awareness; that displays a productive and creative domain of musi-
cal praxis built upon the elimination of conventional generational, cultural, musical,
and neurophysiological boundaries and barriers; and that in turn challenges traditional
assumptions about musical expertise, musical value, and the ostensibly self-evident
social hierarchies that exist within group music-making environments.
Artism applies ethnomusicology to practical use in these multiple and interrelated
ways. It enables people who have historically been disenabled, builds culture and com-
munity in environments where “conventional logic” would seem to deny the very pos-
sibility, and publicly performs autistic ability and sociocultural inclusivity as challenges
and alternatives to autistic disability and exclusion. Yet it is undeniable that Artism,
whatever its merits or aspirations may be, is also a product of the very hegemonic con-
structs that it resists and challenges. It highlights the staging of autism and the perfor-
mance of disability. In so doing, it paradoxically resists and is co-opted by an essentially
(and essentialist) pathologizing view which posits “autism” in contradistinction to “nor-
mal,” thus propagating the very constructs of exclusion and hierarchy it aims to over-
turn, at least in some measure.
Like most manifestations of disability practice and discourse, the Artism Ensemble
occupies a complexly contested space in which empowerment and appropriation are
dialectically entwined; it invites critical consideration and evaluation. The following
discussion endeavors to tease out some of this complexity, while ultimately concluding
with the suggestion that Artism and like-oriented applied ethnomusicology projects are
worth the effort, despite their inherent limitations and liabilities.
Applied Ethnomusicology,
Music Therapy, and Medical
Ethnomusicology
It is important to establish at the outset that there are fundamental epistemological and
practical differences between engaging musically with autistic individuals in the context
280 Michael B. Bakan
of an applied ethnomusicology project like Artism, on the one hand, and treating autism
spectrum disorders (ASD) through the use of music therapy–based interventions,
on the other. As is explained in the 2012 online article “Music Therapy as a Treatment
Modality for Autism Spectrum Disorders,” published by the American Music Therapy
Association (AMTA) on its website,
Music Therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to

accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed
professional who has completed an approved music therapy program. . . . Music
therapy provides a unique variety of music experiences in an intentional and devel-
opmentally appropriate manner to effect changes in behavior and facilitate devel-
opment of skills. . . . Music therapy can stimulate individuals [with ASD] to reduce
negative and/or self-stimulatory responses and increase participation in more
appropriate and socially acceptable ways. . . . Because music is processed in both
hemispheres of the brain, it can stimulate cognitive functioning and may be used for
remediation of some speech/language skills [in persons with ASD].
(American Music Therapy Association, 2012)
The field of music therapy is highly diverse. The approaches of its researchers and
practitioners span a wide gamut, from behaviorism-based studies yielding quantified
outcomes to ethnographic and phenomenological methods emphasizing qualitative
findings and narrative reports.5 Yet for all the ways in which they differ, and despite the
fact that the cited AMTA article is by no means representative of the discipline in total,
I would contend that there is a unifying thread binding together the endeavors of music
therapists on the whole: put simply, they are committed to using music for therapeu-
tic purposes, and therapy, by at least one standard definition, is “treatment intended to
relieve or heal a disorder.”6
This treatment-centered orientation is consistent with the AMTA position on ASD
accounted for above. From that stance, ASDs are treated by music therapists using
“music interventions” that aim to “effect changes in behavior and facilitate development
of skills,” “reduce negative and/or self-stimulatory responses and increase participation
in more appropriate and socially acceptable ways,” and “remediate some speech/lan-
guage skills.” This is certainly a valid approach that has yielded benefits for many autistic
people, improving quality of life and promoting the development of useful skills. Yet
there are many other potentially fruitful approaches as well, and applied ethnomusicol-
ogy in particular lends itself to a rather different set of epistemological priorities and
practical methods.
As an ethnomusicologist who works in the area of autism, my interests are in music
making, not music interventions; my epistemological focus is on autism as a cultural
way of being, not a disorder (cf. Straus, 2013); my aspiration is to comprehend and
engage with people labeled “autistic” on their own terms to the greatest extent possi-
ble, rather than to effect changes in their behavior, facilitate the development of specific
skills, or remediate their actions in social settings to bring them in line with normative
expectations.
In short, my framework is ethnographic rather than therapeutic, musicological rather

than pathological. I am not trying to provide treatment or to cure autism through musi-
cal methods or any other. Instead, I am trying to better understand and communicate
with people identified as autistic by hanging out and making music with them, having
conversations and listening well, and getting to know who they are and what matters to
them. To the extent that this work is directed toward effecting change of any kind, its
main purpose is not to change autistic people in any way, but instead to change the often
misguided ways that non-autistic, that is, neurotypical, people and institutions imagine,
think about, and respond to autism and people who “have” it.
These priorities distinguish the approach of the present work not only from music
therapy, but to a lesser degree from medical ethnomusicology as well. The progeni-
tor of Artism, the Music-Play Project (MPP), which ran from 2005 to 2009 and was
the subject of an earlier series of publications (Bakan et al., 2008a, 2008b; Bakan,
2009; Koen et al., 2008), was a medical ethnomusicology endeavor. Emphasizing
both qualitative and quantitative measures of “social-emotional growth indica-
tors” and gains in “response-ability,” MPP melded ethnographic and therapeutic pri-
orities in a manner that aligned with the health and healing-oriented perspectives of
much medical ethnomusicology (and indeed of much music therapy as well). Koen,
Barz, and Brummel-Smith, in their introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Medical
Ethnomusicology (Koen, 2008), define medical ethnomusicology as “a new field of inte-
grative research and applied practice that explores holistically the roles of music and
sound phenomena and related praxes in any cultural and clinical context of health and
healing” (Koen, Barz, and Brummel-Smith, 2008, 3–4).7 The music-play protocols of
MPP provided such a context in the therapeutic dimensions of their intent.
Artism is a different case. It is a project that aligns much more comfortably with the
basic tenets of applied ethnomusicology than with those of medical ethnomusicol-
ogy. Accounting for this difference, at least in part, is a personal history of transforma-
tive experiences that traces back to a cathartic musical encounter I had in 2003. From
there, the story runs through the life course of the Music-Play Project, then head-
long into a moment of crisis in 2010. This, in turn, paves the way for the founding of
the Artism Ensemble in 2011, and finally leads to a series of discoveries in the anthro-
pology of autism, disability studies, and the autistic self-advocacy and neurodiversity
movements that have subsequently reconfigured how I think about music, autism, and
ethnomusicology.
Beginnings
My path to becoming an ethnomusicologist of autism began in the year 2003, when a

three-year-old relative of mine, Mark,8 was diagnosed with a condition called Asperger’s
syndrome.9 I had never heard of Asperger’s and became quite concerned when I learned
that it was an autism spectrum disorder. I had a rather fuzzy image of what autism was at
the time, one formed mainly by Dustin Hoffman’s performance in the movie Rain Man
and by occasional encounters with disturbing, sensationalist media images in which
autistic children were shown isolated in corners of rooms, rocking back and forth inces-
santly, banging their heads against walls, erupting into violent tantrums.
Mark certainly did not fit this image. Granted, he didn’t come across as your “typi-
cal” three-year-old kid either. He was often anxious. He carried his body kind of stiffly,
clenching his fists and holding a lot of tension in his shoulders. He tended to avoid eye
contact, except with his parents (especially his mother). His English-language vocabu-
lary was large for his age, but he didn’t seem very interested in using it to actually com-
municate most of the time; rather, he spoke mainly in a language of his own invention,
Skoofie, which was unfortunately unintelligible to others. When speaking Skoofie, he
was very expressive and gestural, but when speaking English he tended to use a flat
monotone and to stand or sit still, rarely employing hand gestures or body language. He
did not like meeting new people—they scared him, made him anxious—and he would
customarily retreat to the comfort of his bedroom whenever visitors came to his home,
staying there until they departed. He had meltdowns and tantrums just like other chil-
dren his age, but was prone to being inconsolable for rather long periods when they
occurred.
For all that, he was an adorable, bright, and endearing little guy, a lot of fun to be
around except when he was feeling especially out of sorts, and that really wasn’t all that
often since he was happy much of the time. His bond with his mother was extremely
close—theirs was a very warm and loving relationship—and among those whom he
knew well he could be affectionate, funny, and expressive.
One night I was at Mark’s family’s house for a dinner party. He had sequestered him-
self in his room while the rest of us dined. This was as expected. My new Florida State
University ethnomusicology colleague Benjamin Koen was at the gathering as well, and
he and I decided to do some drumming together after the meal.
Ben and I were improvising and getting into a nice groove. My eyes were shut, as is
my habit when I play. I felt a light tapping on my leg and looked down to see Mark sit-
ting beside me on the floor, looking up. I was surprised, but delighted. He shifted his
gaze away from me toward a pair of bongo drums (one of many options in a room full
of percussion instruments) that were sitting next to him on the floor. Then he looked
back up at me. I surmised that he wanted to jam, too, and that he was asking for permis-
sion to do so. I smiled at Mark and nodded encouragingly. He jumped in and started to
play, immediately taking the rhythm in an entirely new direction. Ben and I excitedly
followed him there. Mark’s eyes lit up. Then he took us to another musical place and we
went there with him. He lit up some more, and next thing we knew he was singing, too,
in a strong, clear, beautiful voice I had never heard before, continuing to drum all the
while. It was quite magical.
And then it was over. Eight o’clock arrived, and right on cue Ben’s baby daughter
melted down and started to cry. Moments later, the baby was bundled up and the Koens
were off and away, headed toward home in their minivan. Mark disappeared for a few
minutes and I assumed he had returned to the solace of his bedroom for the rest of the
night. But then he reappeared in the living room. My wife Megan and I were sitting
together on the couch. Mark came over and started talking to us. I don’t remember what
he said (I wish I did) but what I do remember is that he was like a different kid from the
Mark I had known. He looked relaxed, he spoke to us lucidly in English and accentuated
his speech with fluid hand gestures and body language, and the tension in his shoulders
had melted away. He appeared altogether comfortable, at ease. Something about the
social experience of drumming with Ben and me in the free, exploratory, improvisatory
environment that we had spontaneously created together seemed to have tapped into
something deep.
Precisely what that something was I will never fully know, but at the time and up until
the present I remain convinced that it had a lot to do with Mark’s sense that Ben and
I were really listening to him, listening to what he had to say to us and how he wanted to
connect with us through his drumming, his singing, his playing.10 We weren’t trying to
tell him what to do or how to do it right; we weren’t directing the flow of the music or the
course of the improvisation, though we were certainly contributing to it. We were pay-
ing attention, enjoying, responding, communicating, appreciating, intuitively reaching
out to meet Mark where he was and wanted to be, and then traveling elsewhere with
him from there. The extent to which we succeeded in these various ventures was not
really the point, for I firmly believe that what mattered most for Mark was the simple
fact that we were trying. And I firmly believe, too, that with the exception of his mother
and a few select others, there had been far too few people in Mark’s life who had really
done this, who had really tried to co-experience the world through his eyes and ears and
thoughts and feelings, rather than assuming they had the right, even the obligation, to
try to correct and normalize his “unusual” behavior or, perhaps even worse, to tune him
out altogether.
Becoming Applied
That evening of drumming with Mark and Ben had a transformative impact on me.
I was inspired by it to move in a new direction as both a musician and an ethnomusi-
cologist, one that would ultimately take me to the new frontier of becoming an applied
ethnomusicologist of autism.
A goal of capturing lightning in a bottle was central to that journey. The kind of expe-
rience that Mark, Ben, and I had shared was something I wanted to cultivate so that
other kids on the spectrum—and other people generally—could enjoy it as well. I didn’t
see this as a potential cure for autism or as a path toward “normalizing” autistic behav-
ior; these kids were getting enough therapies and interventions already. I just wanted to
help make things happen that would enable them to have fun, feel successful, and play
and explore the way they wanted to, rather than according to everybody else’s rules all
the time; and I wanted their parents to be a part of all that, too, both in terms of shar-
ing in the experience actively and getting to see their kids having a good time doing
something well, with “doing well” defined not in terms of the criteria of some test or
standard of normalcy or functionality, but rather in terms of simply taking some plea-
sure in the experience of a meaningful activity undertaken in the company of others.
These would appear to be rather modest goals, but in the domain of autism, bereft as it
has historically been of the most fundamental measures of regard and respect for the
integrity and value of autistic personhood, they turned out to be not so modest at all.
From such goals and aspirations was born the Music-Play Project, or MPP, an
interdisciplinary venture produced mainly under the banner of medical ethnomu-
sicology and involving a collaborative team led by Benjamin Koen and myself and
including autism research scientists, physicians, and a cognitive psychologist (Bakan
et al., 2008a, 2008b; Koen et al., 2008, Bakan, 2009). Initially, the project took its
name from a different acronym, CHIMP, which stood for the Children’s Happiness
Integrative Music Project. We were dissuaded from the use of this name, however,
when an anonymous reviewer of one of our first grant proposals expressed that it was
dangerously suggestive of early experiments in “abnormal psychology” that relied on
data culled from studies of monkey and chimpanzee behavior. The name CHIMP
was summarily dumped, but not without regret on my part, as I had rather liked the
emphasis on happiness and integration that the spelled-out version of the acronym
stressed.
So began what I now have come to regard as a process of progressive deterioration for
the program, which from that point forward was known as the Music-Play Project. The
more deeply I immersed myself in the medical-scientific literature on autism and ASD,
with its heavy emphasis on deficits, disorders, and impairments—and on interventions,
therapies, and cures—the more fully I was seduced into that literature’s paradigmatic
assumptions insisting that measurable outcomes of benefits, preferably quantitative
ones drawn from the analysis of data collected in randomized clinical trials with con-
trols, would be the only valid measures of the project’s success. The more fully I was
pressured into accepting the idea that the capacity of MPP to meet its “potential” and
make a real “impact” were dependent on our success in securing grants from scientific
research funding agencies and having our articles published by peer-reviewed scientific
journals, the more I felt the core goals and aspirations that had inspired the project in
the first place slipping away from me.
As MPP moved increasingly science-ward, even as I grasped desperately at the eva-
sive notion that this was being done in a synergistic way that did not compromise the
project’s original intentions (Bakan, 2009), it progressively diverged from what it had
been at the start and from what I had always believed it should remain. Try as we did
to keep it from doing so, MPP became less about play, less about music, less about the
kids and the families, and more about the results, the measures, the documentation of
benefits and gains, and the potential impact beyond the immediate environment of the
actual people involved.
The Music-Play Project had begun in 2005 and continued, on and off, through sev-
eral different phases and studies, until 2009. Many wonderful things happened during
its course, but the growing disconnect between what had gotten me into it and what
it had become eventually became too great. To play in the sandbox of medical-scien-
tific autism research meant to play by the rules of autism science. This translated into
identifying and targeting specific areas of social, communicative, and behavioral deficit
and impairment associated with ASD and developing testable methods for empirically
determining what, if any, benefits our music-play programs were providing in terms of
improving the symptoms and lessening the deficits of children participating in our proj-
ect. In other words, the goal was to effect positive changes toward more “normal” and
“functional” ways of acting, reacting, and relating on the part of these kids, which was
precisely what I had not wanted this work to be about.
This recognition was sobering and disheartening. I snapped. I didn’t want to do
this anymore. I didn’t want to “measure” these kids, “normalize” them, or “cure”
them; I didn’t want to be doing therapy of any kind. I just wanted to play music with
them and give them and their parents a chance to have some fun and blow off some
steam, to be creative and social and engaged on their terms instead of somebody
else’s, to be playful and imaginative without having to worry about measuring up.
I craved the comfort and ease that Mark and Ben and I had shared on that pivotal
night back in 2003, for the kids and their parents, and also for me. “Sciencing about
autism” made no more sense to me than “sciencing about music” ever had, and it con-
stituted a similar affront to my musical and humanistic sensibilities (Merriam, 1964;
Bakan, 1999: 15).
So I let it go. By 2009, Ben had moved to China and I had completed a major phase of
the Music-Play Project, a randomized clinical trial measuring “social-emotional growth
indicators” that was based on the SCERTS model of ASD assessment (Bakan, 2009;
Prizant et al., 2006). I presented my findings at the 2010 Society for Ethnomusicology
meeting and determined that it was time to close this chapter of my career and move on
to something else.
A couple of months later, though, I received a call from Jennifer Hoesing at the
Florida Department of State’s Division of Cultural Affairs (DCA). She was familiar
with the Music-Play Project work and was calling to inquire about whether I might be
interested in submitting a proposal for a DCA-administered, National Endowment for
the Arts–funded grant in support of the continuation of my music and autism work.
Immediately, I envisioned a new path forward. Arts and culture—these were my com-
fort zones; these were the places I lived as a musician, as an ethnomusicologist. What
had been the Music-Play Project, mired down in the priorities of scientific autism
research, assessment, and intervention, could potentially become something very dif-
ferent: the Artism Music Project.
Artism would be about playing music and improvising, and about celebrating and
modeling neurodiversity. In Artism, kids with autism would be the kinds of people
and musicians they wanted to be, and they would call the shots. And it would feature
a real band, the Artism Ensemble, made up of the kids, their parents, and a talented
and diverse group of professional musicians who would together go out and play
concerts—concerts where people would get to hear and see all of us having a good time
being creative, being ourselves, and being together.
More than any amount of statistical data or academic rhetoric, I reasoned, such a
project had the potential to change public perceptions of autistic people for the better,
to foster autism acceptance by presenting an alternative and affirming image of lived
autistic realities and neurodiversity. Identifying people with labels like “autistic” or “dis-
abled” inevitably creates frames in which particular biases or predispositions toward
those individuals are activated. This applies to perceptions and assessments of musi-
cal performances as much as to anything else. Yet as the music education researchers
Judith Jellison and Patricia Flowers have noted (1991: 323), “when the… actual perfor-
mance is seen to be unlike that suggested by the label, initial biases have been shown to
be overcome.”
I was convinced that performances by the Artism Ensemble would do that kind of
work, at once celebrating and defying the label of “autistic” in ways that countered all the
entrenched mythologies of autistic tragedy and negation. Even more important, I was
convinced that this imagined “Artism Ensemble” would offer opportunities and outlets
for people with and without autism to experience special moments of comfort, joy, ease,
and new understanding, as Mark and Ben and I had on the occasion that had launched
the whole thing forward in the first place.
I prepared the proposal and it was successful. The grant was awarded in 2010 and the
Artism Ensemble came into existence in January 2011, continuing under the aegis of
grant funding through the summer of 2013.11
Spinny Chairs
“Come in,” I say, inviting my twelve-year-old Artism Ensemble bandmate Mara

Chasar into my office on a sweltering hot August afternoon in 2013. Mara enters with
eyes downcast and sporting a mild frown. She seems nervous, or at least a bit uncom-
fortable. For three years now, the main context in which she and I have interacted
has been the E-WoMP, or Exploratory World Music Playground, in Tallahassee,
Florida. There, together with three or four other children on the autism spectrum,
some of the children’s parents, and accomplished musicians hailing from locations
as far afield as Peru, Bolivia, Trinidad, and China, Mara and I have met regularly to
rehearse, play, and make music together. We have also taken the E-WoMP on the
road, performing in Artism Ensemble concerts at venues around Tallahassee and in
other parts of Florida.
Mara and I have actually known each other and have been playing music together on
and off for more than four years by this time. We first became acquainted in 2009 when
she and her parents participated in a three-week program of the Music-Play Project.
We then reconnected when I invited them to join the Artism Ensemble. They played in
the group during its inaugural 2011 season, took a hiatus for a year in 2012, and rejoined
in 2013. The 2013 season had concluded with a big concert in Orlando for the Opening
General Session of the annual conference of the Society for Disability Studies (SDS), just
a few weeks prior to the present meeting in my office.
Now here we are, sitting in the stillness of my fake wood-paneled digs in the College
of Music at FSU, surrounded by computer and audio equipment and multiple shelves
stuffed with books and folders. It’s got to be a bit off-putting for Mara, I think to myself.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
But things immediately change for the better the moment Mara feasts her eyes on the
nice black office chair sitting adjacent to my desk. She plops herself down and gives it a
good kick start.
“Whee!!” she exclaims with glee as she tucks up her knees and whirls about in the
chair, over and over and over again. The downcast eyes alight and open wide. The frown
becomes a radiant smile and Mara’s laughter fills the room.
“I love spinny chairs!” she shrieks. “Spinny chair! Everyone loves the spinny chair!!”
She spins and spins, round and round, and she continues spinning as she quickly
modulates from her playful tone to a more serious one.
“So what do you want?” she asks me.
I’m a bit thrown off by the question.
“Want?” I say, pondering, searching for just the right way to put it. “Oh, what do
I want—well, I just want to talk to you, about autism and Asperger’s and stuff like
that,” I venture, not sure how that’s going to go over. Mara continues to spin. “You
know,” I continue, “you had such wonderful things to say about all that stuff during the
question-and-answer session after our Orlando concert with Artism, and since then
I’ve been reading this book written by autistic people—it’s called Loud Hands: Autistic
People, Speaking (Bascom, 2012a)—and what you were saying is really in line with what
they’re saying. So now I’m trying to write about music, and autism, and Artism and all
that, and I think it would be great if you could write with me, because you have such
amazing insights and I think having you share those would make the things I’m working
on way better than anything I could write by myself.”
“So you want me to help you write a book?”
“Well, yeah, a book, some articles, a few different things actually. Is that OK?”
“I think that sounds cool.”
“Great. So how about you talk and I’ll type out what you say, or else you can just sit
here at the computer and type yourself if you prefer. That’s fine, too.”
“You type,” she says. “I like spinny chairs!”
“Remember how our concert in Orlando was at that conference, you know, the one
for the Disability Studies society?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, after the rest of you guys left, I stayed around for the rest of the conference.
There was this one session that was run by people who do disability studies but who
also have autism themselves, and they thought that our concert was sponsored by this
big organization called Autism Speaks. It wasn’t, but they thought it was because I had
handed out this questionnaire to the audience and one of the questions had to do with
‘promoting autism awareness.’ Well, it turns out that ‘autism awareness’ is a phrase that
these people, and a lot of other autistic people, too, really hate. They think it’s offen-
sive, because what they want is autism acceptance, not autism awareness; because a main
mission of Autism Speaks is to find a cure for autism, to get rid of it, and these people
with autism say they don’t want to be cured, they just want to be who they are and to be
accepted for being who they are. So then—”
“Who says autism is a bad thing?” Mara interjects in a tone of righteous indignation.
“It sounds like this [Autism Speaks] organization is treating autism like cholera. Autism
isn’t cholera; it isn’t some disease you can just cure. It’s just there. You don’t need to be
aware of it; you just have to accept that it’s there. I mean, you can’t accept cholera; it’s a
disease.”
“You told me that a lot of people find this organization offensive,” Mara continues,
“and honestly, you know, [from what you’ve said about it,] I do too. Awareness and
acceptance are a lot different from each other. Yeah. Awareness means you know it’s
there, but acceptance means you know it’s there and it’s not going to go away. Of course,
you can’t accept something if you don’t know it’s there, so I guess we have to be aware of
it and accept it. So if that organization’s thing is ‘Autism Awareness,’ maybe they should
change it to ‘Autism Awareness and Acceptance.’ And honestly, curing autism doesn’t
come in some kind of a pill or medication. And there is no cure. There really isn’t. It’s just
there, wound into your personality.”
Mara has stopped spinning momentarily. Now she resumes. “Spinning chairs!
Spinning chairs make everyone happy!” she sings. Then, in a mock serious tone, “I get
distracted easily,” and after that, throwing back her hair and laughing wildly, “especially
by things like this that are SPINNY CHAIRS!!”
“You know,” I say to Mara, laughing along with her as she continues to spin away,
“the scientists and the doctors and therapists and people like that who specialize in
autism, and the people in those organizations like Autism Speaks, would say that
what you’re doing now—spinning and spinning and spinning while we have this
conversation—is an example of stimming, that it’s a ‘symptom’ of your Asperger’s or
your autism or whatever.”
“Stim-what?” Mara asks, seemingly confused. “What is that?”
“Stimming,” I repeat. “It’s a word that they use to describe so-called ‘self-stimulating
behaviors’ that autistic people do when they’re, I don’t know, feeling stressed or
uncomfortable or whatever, or maybe the scientists don’t know why they do those
things but they know they do them and they say that’s one of the things that makes
them autistic.”
Mara’s laughter now escalates to a fever pitch.
“That’s just ridiculous!” she states incredulously. “I mean, I bet that the president has a
spinny chair and sometimes he spins around.”
“Which president? The president of the United States or the president of Autism
Speaks?”
“Both of them,” she fires back. “I’m sure they look around and see if their security
guards are around, and if they see the coast is clear they just kind of silently spin around
in their chair. They probably don’t laugh like I do because the president doesn’t laugh,
or at least lots of people think that, but that’s just another stereotype—but still. Spinny
chairs. I like spinny chairs.”
There is a brief pause in the conversation as Mara continues to spin.
“I like to talk a lot,” she explains, “but the president likes to talk a lot too. And he
gives all those speeches, so why don’t they say that the president needs to be ‘cured,’
because the president talks a lot too. If he’s like me in any way, he needs to be ‘cured,’
doesn’t he?”
I chuckle. Mara stops spinning, leans forward, and points to the spot on my computer
monitor where I have just transcribed her last remark.
“Just say that I said that sarcastically,” she insists. “I don’t want to offend the president.”
“I have something else I wanted to say,” Mara announces after another brief pause,
resuming her spinning at the same time. “You know, I think there should be a type
of therapy that involves spinny chairs. There should be a room where there are rows
and rows of spinny chairs, and a bunch of people would file in and sit down, and
they’d all talk to each other and say, ‘I wonder what this new therapy is?’ And then
the therapist would walk in and tell everyone to be quiet, and then he or she would
say, ‘Now, spin around in your chairs really fast!’ and everyone would at first be
really skeptical, but then someone would try it, whirling around and around. They’d
say, ‘Hey, this is fun!’ and everyone else would start to do it, and then the whole room
would be spinning around and around, or at least to everyone in the spinny chairs.
Or a therapy where everyone gets together and just types or writes stories together.
When I’m bored or sad or stressed, I like to sit down, ignore everyone, and just write
for hours on end.
“You know, when I hear about people saying people with autism aren’t ‘normal’
and get surprised when we do things like use big words or do things they can’t, I just
think: We are normal. We learn things just like ‘normal’ people do, we talk when
we feel like it to who we feel like talking to just like ‘normal’ people do, we play and
dream and laugh and love just like ‘normal’ people do, even if we’re too shy to admit it
sometimes.
“Some of us have a few problems, but why do ‘normal’ people have to be the ones to
‘fix’ them?” Mara asks rhetorically, after which she instructs me to be sure to put scare
quotes around each iteration of “normal” and around the word “fix” in the preceding
section.
“Why are all the therapists ‘normal’ and we’re not?” she adds. “In fact, the therapists
should be people who used to have severe autism or Asperger’s, or whatever, and then
found out how to deal with their problems. Having a Ph.D. in psychology doesn’t always
make you an expert.”
“What about people like me,” I ask, “you know, who aren’t autistic but work with peo-
ple who are?”
“Well, you people seem pretty nice,” Mara answers matter-of-factly, “and you seem to
know what you’re talking about, so people like you would be pretty good for that role.
But I still like the idea of doctors and stuff who have autism.”
Autism and ASD: The Official Story
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a range of complex neurodevelopmental dis-

orders, characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and
restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior. Autistic disorder, some-
times called autism or classical ASD, is the most severe form of ASD, while other
conditions along the spectrum include a milder form known as Asperger syndrome,
and childhood disintegrative disorder and pervasive developmental disorder not
otherwise specified (usually referred to as PDD-NOS).12 Although ASD varies sig-
nificantly in character and severity, it occurs in all ethnic and socioeconomic groups
and affects every age group. Experts estimate that 1 out of 88 children age 8 will have
an ASD… . Males are four times more likely to have an ASD than females. . . .
(NINDS, 2013)
So states the “Autism Fact Sheet” published on the website of the US National
Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).
Later in the same document, NINDS declares:
The hallmark feature of ASD is impaired social interaction. . . . Children with an

ASD… have difficulty interpreting what others are thinking or feeling because they
can’t understand social cues, such as tone of voice or facial expressions, and don’t
watch other people’s faces for clues about appropriate behavior. They lack empathy.
Many children with an ASD engage in repetitive movements such as rocking and
twirling, or in self-abusive behavior such as biting or head-banging. They… don’t
know how to play interactively with other children. Some speak in a sing-song voice
about a narrow range of favorite topics, with little regard for the interests of the per-
son to whom they are speaking. . . .
(NINDS, 2013)
Elsewhere, the “Fact Sheet” provides a list of primary indicators leading to an ASD
diagnosis, especially in individuals beyond the infancy/toddler years: impaired ability
to make friends with peers, impaired ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with
others, absence or impairment of imaginative and social play, restricted patterns of
interest that are abnormal in intensity or focus, preoccupation with certain objects or
subjects, inflexible adherence to specific routines or rituals, and stereotyped, repetitive,
or unusual use of language.
As for treatment options, there “is no cure for ASDs,” according to NINDS. “Therapies
and behavioral interventions are designed to remedy specific symptoms and can bring
about substantial improvement. . . . Most health care professionals agree that the ear-
lier the intervention, the better. . . . Therapists use highly structured and intensive
skill-oriented training sessions to help children develop social and language skills, such
as Applied Behavioral Analysis… .” (NINDS, 2013).
Deficit-centrism
The official story on autism and ASDs, as represented by the NINDS “Autism Fact Sheet”
and other research and informational sources deemed credible and authoritative, is
mainly a bleak one. It is the kind of story that affirms anthropologist Olga Solomon’s
assertion that there is “a remarkable silence, an absence of discourse about hope in bio-
medicine’s views on autism…” (Solomon, 2010a: 253),13 and that motivates comments
from autistic activists such as the following one from Temple Grandin:
I’m certainly not saying we should lose sight of the need to work on deficits. But… the
focus on deficits is so intense and so automatic that people lose sight of the strengths
[of autistic people]. If even the experts can’t stop thinking about what’s wrong instead
of what could be better, how can anyone expect the families who are dealing with
autism on a daily basis to think any differently?
(Grandin and Panek, 2013: 180–181;italics in original)
How indeed? And even Grandin might be accused of not going far enough in her
critique of rampant deficit-centrism, for in highlighting the plight of “the families who
are dealing with autism,” she diverts attention away from autistic people themselves.
Consider what the autistic self-advocate Penni Winter has to say on this matter:
Our Autism is called a ‘tragedy’ or even, by some parent groups, ‘the enemy’ to be
fought at all costs, and the [apparent] increase in our numbers is referred to as an
‘epidemic,’ as if Autism were some dread disease. We’re said to ‘ruin’ our parents’
lives and break up marriages, and we get discussed in terms of the ‘burden’ we are on
our families, the ‘difficulty’ we cause others. What we might feel or think or want is
hardly even asked—because, oh yeah, that’s right, we don’t have feelings or needs. It’s
the parents and families who are focused on, because they are deemed to be the ones
that ‘matter,’ not the individuals with Autism.
(Winter, 2012: 119; square brackets in original)
There are exceptions to the pervasive tones of deficit-centrism and bleakness, even
in the most mainstream contexts. The NINDS “Autism Fact Sheet” does hold out hope
for people with ASDs across the lifespan, indicating that for many, “symptoms improve
with age” to the extent that they “are able to work successfully and live independently
or within a supportive environment” (NINDS, 2013). The website of Autism Speaks
(Autism Speaks, n.d. “a”) presents a similar position and adds to it with the pronounce-
ment that “all [people with ASDs] deserve the opportunity to work productively,
develop meaningful and fulfilling relationships and enjoy life.” The same website now
includes an “Autism Acceptance” page as well (Autism Speaks, n.d. “b”)—presumably a
response to the attacks levied against the organization’s ubiquitous “Autism Awareness”
campaign by autistic self-advocates. And the NINDS “Fact Sheet” includes a link to the
website of Autism Network International (ANI), a leading autistic self-advocacy organi-

zation, on its list of resources for additional information.
Despite such occasional nods to alternate viewpoints and priorities, however, the
consistent message from the mainstream remains intact: where autism is concerned,
nothing is good unless it gets better, with “good” and “better” equating to an ideal of
“normal,” “indistinguishable from normal,” or at least “closer to normal.” Within
such an epistemological quagmire, there can be no true achievement of what autistic
self-advocates are seeking in their calls for autism acceptance; in their view, this needs to
change.
“It starts with the basic, foundational idea that there is nothing wrong with us. We
are fine,” writes Julia Bascom in her foreword to Loud Hands.14 “We are complete,
complex, human beings leading rich and meaningful existences and deserving dig-
nity, respect, human rights, and the primary voice in the conversation about us”
(Bascom, 2012b: 10).
Building on this premise, Penni Winter explains:
One of the biggest and most insidious maltreatements [of autistic people] involves
the concept and practise of what I call ‘normalisation,’ which springs out of the belief
that Autism is an inferior or ‘wrong’ state. Thus ‘becoming normal’ is seen by many
parents and therapists as the ultimate goal… and the aim of all therapy is to make us
‘indistinguishable’ from our ‘normal’ peers. Autism thus becomes something to be
got rid of, no matter what sacrifices must be made. Some would even rather see their
child dead than autistic… [What advocates of normalisation fail to see] is the real
cost of this normalisation, which can be very high indeed… they are subscribing to
a huge fallacy—the one which says that the Autism is somehow separate from, and
‘burying’, the ‘real’ (i.e.: normal) person underneath. Not so. Autism runs all the way
through. It’s a deep neurological difference. It can no more be stripped away or ‘cured’
than our gender or race can be ‘cured’ or taken away. It’s that central to our being [cf.
Sinclair 2012 [1993]: 16–17].
(Winter, 2012: 115–117)
The autistic author and activist Ari Ne’eman, who serves on the US government’s
National Council on Disability and is the President and co-founder of the Autistic Self
Advocacy Network, problematizes and nuances the issues raised by Bascom and Winter
in the following passages from an essay he wrote on the future of autism advocacy:
Sadly, the traditional autism community has been driven by a set of priorities differ-
ent from our own. Led almost exclusively by those not on the autism spectrum, it has
made harmful decisions without our input. . . . It is our belief that the traditional pri-
orities of autism advocacy, which focus on eliminating the autism spectrum rather
than pursuing quality of life, communication, and inclusion for all autistic people,
need to be reset. . . . The object of autism advocacy should not be a world without
autistic people—it should be a world in which autistic people can enjoy the same
rights, opportunities and quality of life as any of our neurotypical peers. . . .
Does this mean that we should not be engaged in trying to ameliorate the many
challenges associated with being autistic? Of course not. What it does mean is that,
first, we should target our efforts towards the real challenges we face, rather than
towards a broader, nebulous concept of “curing” autism that is offensive to many of
the people that it aims to benefit. Second, we should in every instance consider the
fact that it is often social barriers rather than disability itself that pose the problems
we face.
(Ne’eman, 2012: 88–90, 93–94)
The issues are highly complex. Autistic self-advocates such as Bascom, Winter, and
Ne’eman share core convictions regarding the guiding priorities of autistic advocacy, but
they do not speak in unison, and they hold widely divergent views on a host of matters.
Furthermore, the positions they espouse, individually and collectively, are by no means
representative of a unified stance where the values and priorities of autistic people at
large are concerned. There are many on the spectrum who openly oppose their views,
and this does not even account for the large number who do not as yet have any means at
all to effectively communicate with other people. The question of who is best qualified to
speak and work on behalf of their interests—parents or other family members, autistic
self-advocates, researchers, clinicians, or therapists—is one of the most vexing and con-
tentious in the entire realm of autism-related discourse and policymaking. And it would
be naïve to suggest that the kinds of supports, accommodations, and treatment proto-
cols that have emerged through the dedicated efforts of medical-scientific researchers,
clinicians, and therapists have been neither beneficial to nor appreciated by a great many
autistic people. Much valuable work has been done, and many lives have been changed
positively as a result of it.
In approaching this chapter, then, I am aware that autistic self-advocacy and neurodi-
versity have their limitations, problems, critics, and internal divisions. But coming from
the relativistic epistemological foundation that I do as an ethnomusicologist, I remain
convinced that listening to what autistic people have to say—verbally, musically, and
otherwise—is the best and most appropriate first step toward an engaged and applied
ethnomusicology of autism. A paradigm shift from pathology to neurodiversity is
essential to this development.
Toward a Neurodiverse Approach

to Applied Ethnomusicology
Mainstream discourses relating to autism and ASD routinely posit a dichotomy of

“autistic” to “normal.” This is unacceptable from an autistic self-advocacy perspective.
The term “normal” must be replaced if the conversation is to move forward produc-
tively; neurotypical is the suggested replacement word. The autistic scholar and author
Nick Walker explains that this is a word which “allows us to talk about members of the
dominant neurological group without implicitly reinforcing that group’s privileged
position (and our own marginalization) by referring to them as ‘normal’ ” (Walker,
2012: 233).
Walker similarly advocates for the term neurodiversity for the larger movement of
which autistic self-advocacy is a part, and neurominority as a designation for autistic
culture: “Neurotypicals are the majority; Autistics are a neurominority,” he explains to
illustrate the latter. As for the former, neurodiversity is defined by Walker as “the under-
standing of neurological variation as a natural form of human diversity, subject to the
same societal dynamics as other forms of diversity,” such as race, gender, ethnicity, or
sexual orientation (Walker, 2012: 233). He argues convincingly of the need for a shift from
a pathology paradigm of autism (and human neurological variation generally) to a neu-
rodiversity paradigm. In the epistemology of the pathology paradigm, there is belief in
a “right,” “normal,” or “healthy” way for human brains and minds to be configured and
to function. Substantial divergence from this dominant “normal” standard equates with
the blanket assessment that there is “Something Wrong With You” (Walker, 2012: 227).
Contrastingly, in the epistemology of the neurodiversity paradigm, variation in the con-
figuration and functioning of human brains and minds is regarded as “a natural, healthy,
and valuable form of human diversity,” and “all of the diversity dynamics (e.g., dynam-
ics of power, privilege, and marginalization) that manifest in society in relation to other
forms of human diversity… also manifest in relation to neurodiversity” (2012: 228).
As Walker attests,
If you reject the fundamental premises of the pathology paradigm, and accept the
premises of the neurodiversity paradigm, then it turns out that you don’t have a dis-
order after all. And it turns out that maybe you function exactly as you ought to func-
tion, and that you just live in a society that isn’t sufficiently enlightened to effectively
integrate people who function like you. And that maybe the troubles in your life
have not been the result of any inherent wrongness in you. And that maybe every-
thing you’ve heard about Autism is open to question, and that your true potential is
unknown and is yours to explore.
(Walker, 2012: 237)
The Artism Ensemble: A Different

Way to Play
The kind of neurodiverse world that Walker envisions in the above quotation mirrors
the kind of musicultural space that the Artism Ensemble aspires to realize. Making
music, performing publicly, and doing ethnography are our main tools, relativism and
advocacy our epistemological cornerstones. In the E-WoMP, autistic preference and
action are not regarded as symptomatic; they are accepted for what they are—viable
ways of being human—and they are creatively explored. Challenges and frustrations
that arise within the group and between its members—and they do arise—are con-
fronted and dealt with as a matter of course. They are part and parcel of the band’s
basic social dynamic and are never merely explained away as manifestations of the
autism-related problems of particular individuals. The constructs of autism and
ASDs—or, as we prefer to call them, ASCs, or autism spectrum conditions—are always
out in the open, but in any given situation they are subject to either outright dismissal
or vigorous critical assessment on account of their perceived irrelevance, inaccuracy,
or inadequacy.
The ensemble itself is a large group of somewhat fluid proportions. On any given
occasion, it will include between three and five children diagnosed with ASCs, one or
two parents of each child, and anywhere from five to nine staff musicians. The total
number of players ranges from about a dozen to upwards of 20.
Artism’s Exploratory World Music Playground facility, the E-WoMP, comprises a
large array of percussion instruments that both the children and adult players are free
to explore, as they wish to and on their own terms, individually or collectively—thus the
“playground” identifier in the name. Most of the E-WoMP’s instruments were manu-
factured by project sponsor Remo, and are modeled after traditional drums and other
percussion instruments originating in West Africa, Latin America, Native America, and
elsewhere. They include djembes, congas, bongos, ocean drums, thunder tubes, cuicas,
a Native American-type gathering drum, tom-toms, egg shakers, and steelpans (steel
drums).
All instruments selected for the E-WoMP must meet two basic requirements: high
yield for low input (i.e., easy to produce pleasing/satisfying sounds without need of
specialized training) and safety for use by the children in the program. Flexible rubber
swimming pool dive sticks are the main types of mallets, and other mallets and sticks
with padded or rubber ends are used as well. The use of rubber-tipped and padded strik-
ing implements is important not only for the physical safety of participants, but also for
keeping volume levels in check and avoiding harsh timbres. Sensitivities to loud and
harsh sounds are common among people with autism, making attention to such sensory
issues a priority in any music-centered project.
Artism’s staff musicians play both the E-WoMP percussion instruments and their
own instruments, including guitar, bass, steelpan, flute, and clarinet. In previous years,
other instruments, such as zheng and didgeridoo, were also featured. The diverse musi-
cal backgrounds of the staff contribute to the profusely intercultural palette of resources
from which Artism’s music springs. Compositions, arrangements, and directed impro-
visations by the children reflect this musicultural diversity, as elements of festejo,
rumba, flamenco, calypso, raga, and gamelan combine with those of jazz, blues, funk,
hip-hop, rock, classical, and other genres—as well as with ideas and concepts that are
uniquely the children’s own and bear no recognizable resemblance to any pre-existing
musical genre or tradition per se—to forge the unique sound and approach that define
Artism’s music.
Applying Ethnography in the

Ethnomusicology of Autism
“Medical culture—what has been described and vigorously critiqued within Disability
Studies as the medical model [of disability]—has certain defining attributes,” writes
Joseph Straus in his essay “Autism as Culture.” “First, medical culture treats disability as
pathology, either a deficit or an excess with respect to some normative standard. Second,
the pathology resides inside the individual body in a determinate, concrete location.
Third, the goals of the enterprise are diagnosis and cure” (Straus, 2013: 462).15
Whether describing medical models of disability or pathology paradigms of autism,
thinkers like Straus and Walker pinpoint the same basic epistemological premises.
Proponents of any such models or paradigms, in their various roles as researchers, phy-
sicians, or therapists, as teachers, aides, or even parents, operate from a fundamental
position that there is a need to change the autistic or otherwise “disabled” person. They
are, then, at least in their relations and interactions with their subjects, patients, clients,
students, or children, agents of change in search of solutions.
I do not consider myself to be an agent of change in this sense. Neither do I fully see
myself as an agent of change in the alternate sense that disability studies scholars such
as Tobin Siebers have posited relative to the so-called social model of disability, which
“opposes the medical model by defining disability relative to the social and built envi-
ronment, arguing that disabling environments produce disability in bodies and require
interventions at the level of social justice” (Siebers, 2008: 25).
It is principally an ethnographic model, or at least way of thinking, that guides me in
working ethnomusicologically on autism. I want to get to know and understand autis-
tic people according to their terms and from their perspectives: learning from them,
sharing experiences with them, comprehending their conceptions and values of com-
munity, personhood, social experience, humor, work and play, pleasure and pain, joy
and suffering, and of course music. Toward such ends I concur with Straus’s insistence
that we must take “the concept of ‘neurodiversity’ as a point of departure” as we “seek to
understand autism as a way of being in the world, a world-view enshrined in a culture… a
difference, not a deficit” (2013: 467).
The challenges of working ethnographically on autism and neurodiversity are in
some respects unique, but at a fundamental epistemological level they mirror those of
ethnographic research generally. Consider, for example, the following comments by Jim
Sinclair, which, were it not for the specific references to autism and “your child” (the
original context was a presentation for parents of children with ASDs), could readily be
mistaken for a passage from an introductory manual on ethnographic fieldwork:
It takes more work to communicate with someone whose native language isn’t the
same as yours. And autism goes deeper than language and culture; autistic people are
“foreigners” in any society. You’re going to have to give up your assumptions about
shared meanings. You’re going to have to learn to back up to levels more basic than
you’ve probably thought about before, to translate, and to check to make sure your
translations are understood. You’re going to have to give up the certainty that comes
of being on your own familiar territory, of knowing you’re in charge, and let your
child teach you a little of her language, guide you a little way into his world.
(Sinclair, 2012 [1993]: 17)
Artism and Applied Ethnomusicology
As an ethnomusicologist, I am interested in the music, thoughts, lives, and musi-

cal communities of the autistic children with whom I currently work and play music
in much the same way that I was interested in the music, thoughts, lives, and musical
communities of Balinese gamelan musicians with whom I worked and played music in
Indonesia in the 1980s and 1990s (Bakan, 1999). I did not endeavor to remediate the per-
formance practices of my Balinese fellow musicians, nor cure them of their preference
for paired tunings over equal tempered ones. I assumed that these Balinese musicians
were competent practitioners of the Balinese musical arts they practiced. I assumed that
their distinctive clusters of behaviors, abilities, and attitudes in musical and social prac-
tice reflected individual manifestations of a broader Balinese worldview and ontology.
I welcomed opportunities to learn from them through musical and social interactions,
through performances and conversations that yielded ethnomusicological insights into
Balinese ways of being, and of being musical.
I assume similar things and welcome similar experiences and insights in my work
with the Artism Ensemble. Entering the E-WoMP, the principal site of Artism musi-
cal production, I approach matters much as I did when entering the bale banjar, the
principal site of Balinese gamelan music production: as a learning musician, a curious
and committed ethnographer, and a co-participant in the making of music and cultural
community.16 Here, though, the culture-bearers are not musicians in Bali who play on
a gamelan but American children on the autism spectrum who play on an E-WoMP. It
is these children who direct Artism’s musical proceedings, guiding the course of group
improvisations, coming up with musical themes and motives that under their own
sure-handed ensemble direction take shape and blossom into full-blown compositions,
selecting pre-existing materials—a melody from Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, a Bo
Diddley beat under an extemporized rendering of Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham, a
steelpan-led take on the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night”—from which to create inspired
arrangements that cleverly combine passages of pre-composed and improvised music.
As for the adult members of the ensemble—the professional musicians and
“non-musician” parents alike—we are not there to teach or direct the children; rather,
we are there to learn from and respond to them. We apply whatever skills and attri-
butes we bring to the E-WoMP, individually and collectively, to nurture the children’s
creativity, agency, individual and social aspirations (musical and otherwise), and reci-
procity. There are no pre-established repertoires, right or wrong notes, specific musical
goals or demands, or defined expectations of any kind beyond ensuring that all par-
ticipants contribute to maintaining a safe environment emphasizing mutual respect and
support for one another.
Typically, rehearsals and concerts move in round-robin fashion from one piece to
another, with each child taking charge of the composition/arrangement and ensemble
direction duties for one or more of their own pieces per program. This protocol was not
created or imposed by me or any of the other adult ensemble members, but was an organic
and gradually forming outgrowth of the children’s own desires for how Artism’s musical
process should work, one that was worked out collectively among them in rehearsals (with
one child in particular, NICKstr, usually taking a leadership role in the deliberations). The
development of this protocol seemed to emerge as a direct response to the children’s learn-
ing at the outset of the project that the ensemble was not going to function exclusively in
a “play lab” environment, as in the Music-Play Project, but would additionally be getting
out in public and performing concerts. Once they realized that they were going to have
an audience, they almost immediately became committed to the idea of fashioning what
one of the children, Coffeebot, referred to as a “high-quality musical product.” They also
became quite deeply invested in delivering the goods with showmanship and style, that
is, showmanship and style defined on their terms, which have often been deliciously and
provocatively at odds with “conventional” musical tastes and sensibilities.
It was fascinating to witness this strategic and aesthetic shift from a participatory to
a presentational mode of performance (Turino, 2008), as well as to both observe and be
a participant in the making of the distinctive sound, look, feel, and identity that have
come to define Artism’s unique musicultural brand over time. The accompanying note
includes links to video examples from Artism rehearsals and concerts that provide some
sense of the diverse character and range of the group’s repertoire.17
It is also important to mention that in both broad outlines and specific characteris-
tics, the generative processes of musical production and social engagement that define
the Artism Ensemble’s approach contrast in key regards with “best practices” positions
regarding clinical, therapeutic, and educational approaches to working with people with
autism. As Elizabeth Fein explains,
Individuals on the autism spectrum tend to gravitate toward pre-ordered systems

in which the relationship between parts can be predicted based on rules, and strug-
gle to function within open-ended systems requiring flexibility, improvisation, and
intuition. They thus gravitate toward and function best under a “stable symbolic and
social order,” under conditions where social expectations and givens are consistent,
explicit, systematic, and shared between interlocutors.
(Fein, 2012: 69–70)
Artism’s open-ended approach, reliant as it is on flexibility, improvisation, and intuition,

may be seen to push back against such logic to a considerable degree. Moreover, there is no
doubt that the children in the group (and also the adults) do sometimes struggle with the
unpredictability and open-endedness of the process; it is even fair to surmise that their
often exacting methods of directing the ensemble, as well as their frequent preference for
creating music that can be precisely ordered and structured, reflect desires for increased
control and certainty. But over time they have all come to revel in the possibilities for spon-
taneous invention and co-creation that the E-WoMP affords, too, each in their own way.
On the basis of what I have observed over the past decade, autistic people are no less
spontaneous, intuitive, flexible, or improvisatory than other people. They can just appear
to be so because they are so often forced to contend with situations and settings in which
their particular attributes and preferences for expressing such qualities are demeaned,
or are patronized, or are not even recognized by their interlocutors. The evidence com-
ing from the autistic self-advocacy movement, as well as from Artism and similar types
of projects (see, for example, Bagatell, 2010; Bascom 2012a; Fein, 2012), suggests that
in situations where autistic people are given opportunities to have their talents enabled
rather than disenabled, nurtured rather than quashed, and embraced for what they are
rather than being targeted for remediation, they can and will thrive in ways that people
without autism would never think possible unless they witnessed it firsthand. A primary
purpose of Artism is therefore to provide just such people, that is, neurotypical people,
with precisely that opportunity: to witness, enjoy, appreciate, and celebrate autistic abil-
ity rather than identify, symptomatize, marginalize, and take pity on autistic disability.
The child stars of the Artism Ensemble, together with their supporting cast of parents
and professional musicians, make good and innovative music, make good culture and
community, and make change. They do this through their compositions and arrange-
ments, their improvisations, their concerts, and their public presentations of individ-
ual and collective selfhood. Change is achieved internally among the group’s members
through our joint musicultural ventures and all that they reveal. It is achieved externally
as we reach out to audiences through concerts in which Artism’s players, the children
foremost of all, are applied to the cause of transforming public perceptions of autism
from disability-centered to ability-centered ones, from recognition of a negating sort to
recognition of the more affirming and celebratory kind.
A Critique of Artism from Members

of the Autistic Self-Advocacy
Community
Revisions and edits aside, the majority of my foregoing description of the Artism
Ensemble and its philosophy was written prior to the group’s Society for Disability
Studies (SDS) Conference concert in Orlando on June 26, 2013. In the aftermath of
that concert and still today, I stand by what I wrote in most every respect. However, an
enlightening exchange that I had with several autistic self-advocates a couple of days
after the show profoundly impacted my subsequent assessment of not just the concert
itself, but also the project overall and possibilities for its improvement and develop-
ment moving forward. This same exchange also heightened my appreciation for the
challenges of doing applied ethnomusicology generally, since determining how and for
whom such research is being put “to practical use” is inevitably a complex matter with
high stakes attached.
The Artism Ensemble concert at SDS 2013 was the group’s most ambitious and com-
plex undertaking to that point. We had previously performed about a dozen concerts,
ranging in setting from open-air arts festivals to large concert halls and from state muse-
ums to street fairs. We had never traveled beyond our home-base region of Tallahassee/
Leon County, however, and had certainly never experienced the kind of visibility that
performing at the pre-eminent international conference on disability studies promised
to provide.
Any musician knows that taking a band on the road is challenging. There are myr-
iad logistical details to attend to, from transportation and accommodations, to load-
ing equipment in and out of the performance venue, to sound and lighting and other
technical matters, to maintaining a collective spirit of camaraderie, patience, and
enthusiasm. Take a band on the road in which the featured players are children, and
beyond that children with the special sensitivities and proclivities associated with
autism, and the venture’s complexity and possibilities for difficulty grow exponen-
tially. Add to that the complicated audience dynamics of a body such as the Society
for Disability Studies, in which most of the members are themselves disabled indi-
viduals collectively requiring a wide range of accommodations, and it is easy to imag-
ine a situation in which any of a number—and indeed any number—of things might
go wrong.
Yet nothing did, or so it seemed. All six cars in our motley caravan made it through
the labyrinth of toll booths, outlet malls, and theme park discount ticket outlets between
Tallahassee and Orlando in good time and without a hitch. Our complimentary hotel
rooms were nicely acquitted and ready and waiting for us upon arrival. The kids—and
the adults, too—were in good spirits and very excited about the show. We had an excel-
lent and efficient dress rehearsal, leaving us ample time for a leisurely dinner before the
concert. Everyone on site—the sound and lighting technicians, our SDS host officers
and volunteers, the interpreter team assigned to “translate” our concert into sign lan-
guage (an amazing site to behold)—was as welcoming, competent, and accommodating
as we could have hoped for.
The concert itself was a great success. Our program consisted of five main selections,
all composed or co-composed by the children in the group: “Steel Drum Madness,” by
Coffeebot; “Life of Goodness,” by E. S.; “The Beat Song,” by E. S. with Carlos Silva; and
“The Nightmare Before Christmas” (based on the poem and movie of the same name by
Tim Burton) and “Purple Eggs and Ham,” by Mara (under the stage name “Mara-I-am”
on the program). These were followed by a free improvisation, jam session performed
as an encore, during which an open invitation was made to the audience to sit in with
the band; several audience members came onstage and joined in on various available
percussion instruments while others (e.g., in wheelchairs) had instruments brought to

them and participated from their seats.
Each of the pieces came off well; all 12 members of the band expressed that this was
probably the best concert we had ever done. The audience, about 150 strong, was recep-
tive and enthusiastic. There was a special feeling in the room, perhaps issuing from the
fact that this supportive community of scholars and disability rights advocates had an
unprecedented depth of comprehension and appreciation for what we were doing. We
received a standing ovation, and then there was the aforementioned post-concert Q&A
session, which was so enlightening, and in which Mara in particular really shone.
An evaluation questionnaire was distributed to audience members, per our standard
protocol under the NEA grant. The responses were overwhelmingly positive. The con-
cert was deemed “Excellent” (1) or “Very Good” (2) by 95% or more of the respondents
on every question, and the free comments were almost uniformly enthusiastic. The only
criticisms per se were that one respondent felt that “the music this band plays seems to
heavily represent the higher end of the [autism] spectrum”18 and another found that a
couple of the comments of one of the band members (i.e., an adult professional musi-
cian) seemed “awkward” and this audience member “didn’t care for” them. Otherwise,
all respondents indicated that they had liked the music very much, had been inspired
by the concert, had learned much of value regarding the abilities of autistic children,
and so on.
I had no specific feedback of which I was aware, however, from any autistic individu-
als who had attended the concert, and this, as much as anything, was something I had
hoped might emerge. So two days later, during an open Q&A session following a fasci-
nating conference panel titled “Intersectionalities in Autistic Culture(s): A Discussion
Instigated by This Posse of Autistics and Friends” (Grace et al., 2013: 42), I took advan-
tage of the opportunity to solicit feedback on our concert.
“Were any of you at the Artism Ensemble concert the other night?” I asked. Several
of the panelists, as well as a number of audience members, indicated they had been. “So
I was wondering,” I continued, “you know, we’ve never had the opportunity to play for
and get feedback from members of the autistic community, and I’d be really interested in
hearing your honest assessment of the show.”
One of the panelists, the autistic self-advocate Zachary (Zach) Richter, veritably leapt
out of his seat to the center of the room.
“Honestly,” he said, “well, I’m going to keep this polite, because you don’t want to hear
the impolite version—”19
“That’s OK,” I interjected. “Don’t spare my feelings. I really want your honest
opinions.”
“Well, I’m going to keep it polite. It’s better to keep it polite. You know, I’ve seen you
around the conference, Dr. Bakan”—
“Please, call me Michael.”
“No, I’ll call you Dr. Bakan—and I wanted to say something to you, but I didn’t
because I didn’t want to be rude. But since you brought up the question, honestly,
I found it offensive.”
It was a stinging criticism, and of an intensity that quite frankly surprised me, but
I managed to maintain my poise.
“How so?” I asked, bracing myself for the response.
Zach proceeded to present an incisive and thorough-going critique. Other panelists
and audience members contributed occasional comments, too. These included the panel
moderator, Professor Elizabeth J. Grace of National-Louis University, who is autistic, as
well as another panelist, Allegra Stout, who is not autistic but is deeply involved in the
autistic self-advocacy movement.20 It was a lively discussion, with expressions of una-
nimity of opinion on a number of issues, dissension on others. The following is my own
summation of the main critical points raised, which I present with advance apologies for
inevitable oversimplifications of a richly nuanced and impassioned exchange:
• The concert, with its emphasis on percussion and amplified instruments, demon-
strated a lack of sensitivity to the sensory challenges of many autistics.
• My failure to instruct the audience to use “silent applause” (e.g., waving of hands
overhead) rather than clapping to express their appreciation was another instance
of inattentiveness to autistic sound sensitivities.
• The absence of any autistic adults in the group—or even of consultation with autis-
tic adult musicians in connection with the project—was deemed problematic for
several reasons:
• It deprived the children of the opportunity to have adult collaborators and men-
tors who, like themselves, were autistic.
• It implicitly propagated the pervasive mythology that autism is a “children’s dis-
ease,” in turn playing into a common neurotypical tendency to infantilize autism
in ways that sabotage autistic self-advocacy initiatives.
• It inscribed and reinforced a pattern—real, illusory, or otherwise—of the agency
of autistic children being constrained by the values and sensibilities of neuro-
typical adults (myself most especially).
• The absence of explicit political activism and engagement in the manner of presen-
tation diminished whatever potential may have existed for advocacy in support of
autistic and broader disability rights causes.
The Scourge of “Autism Awareness”
There was an additional criticism levied by Richter as well, one that did not pertain to
the concert performance itself, but rather to an unfortunate item included on the audi-
ence questionnaire:
In terms of promoting autism awareness, this concert was:
(1) Excellent (2) Very Good (3) Good (4) Fair (5) Poor

“Why are you asking about autism awareness?” Richter inquired of me, a pained
expression on his face. “That’s wrong. It should be about autism acceptance! Have you
received funding from Autism Speaks? That’s what I think, and I’m angry because
SDS told us this was going to be a safe space for autistics, and then they bring in your
group and the whole autism awareness thing, and it’s like an Autism Speaks agenda and
that makes me—us—mad. I’ve talked to the conference organizers and told them this
shouldn’t have happened, and I’ve blogged about it, too.”
This was a nightmare unfolding. I felt defensive, under attack, and yet I could easily
see how the chain of events leading up to this moment had resulted in its occurrence,
and how from Richter’s perspective the charges being raised against me and the whole
Artism enterprise were well-founded. A loud silence blanketed the room in anticipation
of my response.
“First, Zach, let me assure you, we have received no funding or support from Autism
Speaks and have no affiliation whatsoever with that organization,” I began. “Second,
I feel absolutely terrible. I didn’t know how offensive the phrase ‘autism awareness’ was
until now, nor did I know the history behind it that contributed to making it so. You are
100% right, and as soon as I leave this session I’m going to remove that phrase from the
questionnaire and free myself of any association with it in everything I write or say from
now on. I want to do this thing right. I’m really sorry.”
“We can help you with that,” Dr. Grace chimed in. “It’s easy. If you send me that
questionnaire, I can go through and make edits to get rid of that kind of offensive
language.”
“Thanks. I’d really appreciate that, and I’m sorry for taking up so much of your discus-
sion time on this topic.”
“That’s OK,” she assured me, “but we do need to move on now.”
Addressing the Criticisms
The feedback on the Orlando Artism concert that Zach Richter and his fellow autistic
self-advocates provided has proven to be invaluable. It has inspired me to think about
the Artism Music Project, and more broadly the applied ethnomusicology of autism,
in new and challenging ways. Mainly, at this stage, it is making me think long and
hard about what in Artism is currently working and what is not. What about the proj-
ect should be retained, adapted, developed, and nurtured, and what should be tossed,
expunged, or at least radically reconfigured?
These are practical questions, not theoretical ones. They address applied eth-
nomusicology concerns, not intellectual abstractions. And yet, as applied ethno-
musicology endeavors consistently teach us, there is no dividing line between the
practical and the theoretical, the applied and the intellectual. They always inform
and penetrate one another, for every practical decision both reflects the conceptual
apparatus involved in its making and affects the conceptual horizons that emerge in
its wake.
If we are to endeavor to improve Artism, our best first step is to respond directly, dis-
passionately, and honestly to the criticisms that have been directed toward it by autistic
self-advocates. The following is at least a preliminary effort to do precisely that:
• Criticism: Failure to accommodate the sensory challenges of many autistics, espe-

cially their sensitivity to loud sounds.
• This must be addressed, both within the group itself and in our mode of public
performance. Mara has on a few occasions said that the tendency toward loud
playing in the group, especially in the compositions of the two boys, Coffeebot
and NICKstr, sometimes overwhelms her. There have been occasions when she
has become distressed in rehearsals that now, in retrospect, I would attribute to
her discomfort at the sheer loudness of the environment. E. S. does not speak
verbally about sensitivity to sounds, but she does often cover her ears during
rehearsals, which may—or may not—signal that she is experiencing discomfort
or displeasure due to loudness.21 The challenge here is that the two boys in the
group love to play loud, sometimes really loud, and the philosophy of letting the
child lead, especially in their own pieces, creates a dilemma as to whether they
should be free to express themselves as they choose or should be reined in (and
if the latter, by whom). In the end, however, we will probably do best to heed the
advice of Jim Sinclair, who advocates for community norms that protect mem-
bers with sensitivities from overstimulation (Sinclair, 2012 [2005]: 43). We can all
learn to play more softly without ultimate compromise to our expressive poten-
tial, and this will need to be a goal for the ensemble in the future, for the sake of
certain of its members as well as prospective audience members with heightened
sensitivities to sound.
• Criticism: Failure to instruct the audience to use “silent applause” rather than clap-
ping during the performance.
• This deserves prompt attention. Encouraging future audiences to adopt the
practice of applauding silently rather than clapping, which is standard practice
at autistic gatherings such as Autreat, will enable us to avoid disturbing autistic
or otherwise sound-sensitive audience members. It will additionally provide a
great teaching moment on neurodiverse practices and values for our other con-
cert attendees.
• Criticism: Absence of adult autistic musicians in the ensemble.
• This, too, warrants an active response. If we claim to be a neurodiverse ensemble
and to model neurodiversity by way of example, we need to raise the stakes of
what is meant by such claims. We have to open ensemble membership not to
just autistic adult musicians, but also to autistic “non-musicians” and neurotypi-
cal children. The present demographic of the ensemble is too categorical: autis-
tic children, neurotypical adults. It is no wonder that autistic self-advocates
would take issue with this arrangement, and it is imperative that this structure be
remedied.
• Criticism: It appears that the children are not really the composers of the pieces
credited to them.
• This is a complex issue. I can attest to the fact that the children have a great deal
of autonomy in conceptualizing, exploring, making manifest, and shaping their
own musical ideas on their own terms within the Artism context. That said, this
is an improvisation-driven ensemble, and the collective improvisation process
inevitably involves significant “co-creation” on the part of other members of the
group. The staff musicians, being the experienced and professional players they
are, have the capacity to strongly influence the music’s direction as it emerges in
the course of improvisation, whether intentionally or not. Moreover, since they
are often the main (though not only) players of melodic and harmonic instru-
ments, their impact on the shape and development of the children’s compo-
sitions can be great. My overall impression has been that the children tend to
appreciate and value these musical contributions of their adult collaborators;
indeed, they have often stated this to be the case. Moreover, they are generally
not averse to speaking (or otherwise communicating) their displeasure when
they do not approve of where their music is being taken by the staff musicians.
I believe that on this level we are actually doing quite well (though we can always
do better) and that the issue here may be more one of impression than reality.22
• Criticism: Absence of political activism in the concert diminished its advocacy
potential.
• While I appreciate and respect this charge, I do not necessarily agree with it. It is
my belief that the strongest “political” statement the Artism Ensemble can make
on behalf of autistic advocacy, agency, and self-determination is the one that
keeps the music in the foreground first, last, and foremost. Play is important, joy
is important, shared endeavor is important, and music is important. If autistic
and non-autistic people can share in the pleasurable co-creation of culture and
music together through a project like Artism, and if other people get to share in
that experience as well, whether as listeners or co-participants, then everyone
benefits, consciousness is raised, mutual acceptance is cultivated, and good work
is done. Sometimes, an absence of explicit political activism is to the advantage
rather than the detriment of effective advocacy. Artism performances would
seem to hold that potential, though different performance contexts will surely
influence whether or not that is the case in the future.
Mara Speaks (Again)
Back to Mara, who is once again spinning in her favorite chair. “. . . and of course the
Autism Ensemble [sic] is not a cure,” she tells me. “I don’t treat it like a cure, because it
isn’t, and if you call it a cure I will disagree with you. It’s simply the kind of way you can
calm down and, you know, help with the bad parts of autism without restricting the
good parts.”
I ask her what she means by that.
“Well, what I mean is, a lot of famous people were autistic or Asperger’s or something,”
she explains. “[My] Mom tells us that people like Einstein and Marie Curie and a bunch
of other famous people had it. Mom tells me that a lot of people who have autism and
Asperger’s can be more creative and insightful than other people, insightful in a way,
you know, where they’ve experienced a lot of the emotions that they’re either writing
about in stories, or plays, or poems; because a lot of people who have autism can swing
between different emotions really quickly. I’m like that. Someone will just say one word
and I become like a stereotyped emo. (Once again, if you haven’t heard it before, an emo
is one of those really sad, dark people. I just go around telling people ‘Life is pointless’
when I’m like that.) Of course, the bad parts in my situation are that when I get angry,
I get ANGRY!! I mean, like, yelling, slamming-door angry. Of course, I never get physi-
cal angry. I don’t punch or hit or bite, though I have bitten someone, but that was in third
grade. What I meant by helping with the bad parts but not restricting the good parts is
that Artism kind of helps with my anger issues without restricting my creativity, and
that’s all I got to say.”
“Well, OK,” I say, pausing and trying to figure out a way to get Mara to expand on that
topic just a bit more. “I know we’ve been at this for a while, but can you just tell me a little
bit more about how that works?”
“It’s the fact that I’m allowed to bang on drums for a while—and any instrument
I want (as long as I don’t break it or it’s not meant to be banged)—without anybody tell-
ing me I’m supposed to do it this way, or I’m supposed to do it that way, or I’m supposed
to put this there or that THERE, or I’m doing it wrong.”
“Is that the most important one,” I ask, “the one about not being told you’re doing it
wrong?”
“Yeah.”
“Why is that so important, not to be told you’re doing it wrong?”
“Because I’m told that every day. I want a break from it!” She laughs. “Spinny chairs!
. . . It’s just nice being there with other people without them telling me what to do, or just
jabbering about all the things they can do that I can’t… .”
“If Artism continues next year and you stay in the group,” I now ask Mara, shifting
gears so as to test out some of Zach Richter’s proposals for the group’s future devel-
opment, “what would you think about having an adult musician with autism join
the band?”
“That would be good actually; it sounds pretty cool. I’d like that.” Mara pauses and
redirects her attention. “I like spinny chairs, paper clips, wolves, and a bunch of other
things.”
“What do you think it would add?”
“It would add to themselves and to us. It would be cool seeing an adult with autism in
the group instead of just kids with autism. And the autistic adult would be happy to see
so many autistic kids being happy too.”
“Are you an autistic kid or a kid with autism?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s like asking a zebra, ‘Are you black with white stripes or white
with black stripes?’ ”
“Would it be good to have kids who weren’t autistic in the group as well?”
“What do you mean?” Mara asks, looking perplexed, as though the question doesn’t
even make sense. “Well, why not?!” she finally exclaims. “Does it matter? I mean, just
because it’s called the Artism Ensemble doesn’t mean we only have to have autistic kids
in there.”
“Did it ever bother you that that was the way it was?”
“No, not really. We’re all just kids in the end. I mean, that’s the whole point. We’re
all just kids in the end. Who friggin’ cares whether we’re autistic or not? Why does it
matter?”
Concluding Thoughts
Mara is wise beyond her years. Her ideas and insights cut to the core of many current
autism and neurodiversity issues and debates.
“Who says autism is a bad thing?” she asks rhetorically. The answer is that a great
many people do, indeed the vast majority. Yet Mara, along with autistic self-advocates
such as Bascom, Walker, Sinclair, Ne’eman, Winter, Richter, and Grace, begs to dif-
fer: autism is not a bad thing, it’s just a thing—a difference, not a deficit; a culture, not a
disorder.
There “is no cure [for autism]. There really isn’t. It’s just there, wound into your per-
sonality,” Mara tells us unequivocally, again echoing the convictions of most autistic
self-advocates. No wonder these people decry the extraordinary amount of time, effort,
expertise, and expenditure being poured into autism research and interventions aimed
at their ostensible normalization, remediation, and cure, into what they equate with
efforts at their erasure from a society that does not value or want them, as they are and
for whom they are.
“Who friggin’ cares whether we’re autistic or not? Why does it matter?” Mara chal-
lenges us to wonder. Why indeed, for if the neurotypical majority could learn to better
listen and respond to the autistic neurominority, to attend to what autistic people say
they need and want, rather than assuming to know what’s best for them, true neurodi-
versity would become a real possibility. Then whether you’re autistic or not wouldn’t
have to matter so much, or it would matter in different, more productive ways. Working
together, we can collectively forge a path away from stigma, exclusion, and disenfran-
chisement, and toward acceptance, inclusion, empowerment, and agency for all.
“It’s just nice being… with other people without them telling me what to do, or
just jabbering about all the things they can do that I can’t.” Poignant words again from
Mara, and words that are hardly exclusive to autistic people; the relevance of such senti-
ments is arguably universal. Does it not behoove all of us to create, nurture, and sustain
environments in which being together with others in this way can be expected, counted
on, and assumed, whether you happen to be black or white, Muslim or Christian, autis-
tic or neurotypical? Awareness is not enough; acceptance is the necessary but not suf-
ficient condition for getting us to where we need to be.
Music provides a powerful vehicle for asserting and reifying the qualities of human
dignity, inclusion, acceptance, and neurodiversity that Mara, along with an ever grow-
ing chorus of autistic self-advocates, champions of disability rights, and activist schol-
ars across multiple disciplines, are promoting. Ethnomusicology, with its moorings in
ethnography and musical co-participation, offers a productive theoretical foundation
from which to move forward. Applied ethnomusicology, with its emphasis on putting
ethnomusicological research to practical use, sets the merging of productive musical
practice, ethnographic epistemology, and social activism in motion. An emergent eth-
nomusicology of autism is thus an arena of great potential, whether in its possibilities
for exploring new horizons of musical sociality and agency, expanding the horizons
of ethnographic possibility, or serving the interests of autistic self-advocacy, disability
rights, and neurodiversity.
The path is not an easy one. Missteps and pitfalls are inevitable: the prospect of gar-
nering resentment from the very people on whose behalf we presume ourselves to be
working is real and palpable; the kinds of understandings we develop, programs we
enact, and messages we send may well play into the hands of makers of agendas and
images we aim to combat. Indeed, abundant opportunities exist to make things worse
rather than better, regardless of our intentions. We may stumble, as I did at the Society
for Disability Studies conference. We may propagate the very essentialisms we abhor, for
example, in the aftermath of an Artism concert in 2012, when I overheard a departing
audience member saying something to the effect of, “Oh, wasn’t that special; it’s so nice
that those autistic kids get to do something fun with music since they surely couldn’t
play in a real band or orchestra.”
“No one would claim perfection” in such work, Jeff Todd Titon presciently warned in
1992, since “action is risky, and sometimes one makes mistakes; but consider the alterna-
tive, non-action” (Titon, 1992: 320). Indeed, the stakes of taking action are high, but the
consequences of not taking action are higher still. The risks are always there, but they
are more often than not worth taking, so long as we approach our endeavors judiciously,
intelligently, in a well-informed manner, and with compassion and vision. Most impor-
tant, we must learn to listen and to listen well, even to those who may find it hard to com-
municate with us in ways that we can readily understand. That is a challenge that should
not be beyond us. We are, after all, musicians, and ethnomusicologists; it’s what we do.
Notes
1. For alternate definitions and substantive discussions of related issues in applied ethno-
musicology, see also Titon (1992), Sheehy (1992), Alviso (2003), Harrison, Pettan, and
Mackinlay, eds. (2010), and Harrison (2012).
2. All of the participating children and families in Artism were formerly participants
in the ensemble’s progenitor, the Music-Play Project, or MPP, as well. They were origi-
nally recruited for MPP through the client registry of the Center for Autism and Related
Disabilities (CARD) at Florida State University and became involved with Artism when I
put out an open call to MPP alumni in 2009 regarding this new, related project.
3. The intersectionality of autistic and child identities in the Artism Ensemble is not
addressed explicitly in this chapter for reasons of space and scope. Exploring such inter-
sectionality is of great potential significance, however. Ethnomusicologically oriented,
ethnography-informed approaches to the study of children’s musical cultures, as exempli-
fied, for example, in publications by Campbell (2010), Marsh (2008), and Gaunt (2006),
offer valuable models and possibilities relative to future projects and studies on the musi-
cal lives of autistic children.
4. There is continuing debate on the relative pros and cons of using person-first language
in discourses on autism. As Elizabeth Fein notes, “In many disability contexts and com-
munities, using ‘person-first language’ (i.e. Steve is a person with autism) is considered to
be more respectful than using language that characterizes that person according to their
condition (i.e. Steve is autistic or Steve is an autistic). However, in the autism world, this
formulation of the relationship between person and condition is not so straightforward.
Many in the autistic self-advocacy community have voiced a strong preference against
person-first language, arguing that autism is not, in fact, separate from themselves in the
way such language implies. . . . [I]‌n the absence of a single good answer to the thorny ques-
tion of respectful language,” Fein states, “I have chosen to use both of these formulations
and alternate between them as seems appropriate for the context. Whenever possible, I
follow the preferences of the person to or about whom I am speaking” (Fein, 2012: ix). I
adopt a similar approach here.
5. For a range of approaches in music therapy, see Nordoff and Robbins (1977), Bruscia
(1987), Clarkson (1994), Edgerton (1994), Ruud (1998), Aigen (2002), Stige (2002), Kern
(2004), Pavlicevic and Ansdell (2004), Whipple (2004), Walworth (2007), Gold (2011),
Reschke-Hernández (2011), and Simpson and Keen (2011).
6. This definition of “therapy” is from Oxford Dictionaries online: http://www.oxforddic-
tionaries.com/us/definition/english/therapy (accessed May 28, 2014).
7. On medical ethnomusicology, see also Barz (2006), Koen (2009), Allison (2010), Van
Buren (2010), and Barz and Cohen (2011). Of related significance are Roseman (1991) and
Friedson (1996, 2009).
8. “Mark” is a pseudonym, as are the identifying names used in this chapter for all child par-
ticipants in the Artism Music Project with the exception of Mara Chasar. Both Mara and
her parents specifically requested that she be identified by her real name in this and other
publications related to this research.
9. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (i.e., DSM-5)
(American Psychiatric Association, 2013), the various separate “disorders” of the autism
spectrum, including Asperger’s syndrome (Asperger disorder), have essentially been col-
lapsed into a single diagnostic category of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
10. As for Mark himself, he recently told me that me he has no recollection of the events of that
evening and explained that “[i]‌t’s actually not that big of a deal to me, because I’m not that
into music now anyhow” (personal communication, August 2, 2013).
11. The original 2011 grant and two renewals of it (2012, 2013) were federally funded by the
National Endowment for the Arts and administered by the Florida Department of
State’s Division of Cultural Affairs. Additional sponsorship of Artism has come from the
Florida Council on the Arts and Culture, Remo Inc., the Council on Culture and Arts for
Tallahassee/Leon County (COCA), Temple Israel (Tallahassee), the Society for Disability
Studies, the Tallahassee Youth Orchestras, and the Florida State University’s College of
Music, College of Medicine, Center for Autism and Related Disabilities, and Autism
Institute.
12. See note 9 above regarding how what were formerly recognized as multiple “disorders”
of the autism spectrum have been collapsed into the single diagnostic category of ASD
in DSM-5.
13. The anthropological study of autism is a growing field in which significant contributions
are being made to epistemological and methodological transformations of autism research
and discourse. See also Ochs et al. (2004), Grinker (2007, 2010), Solomon (2010b), Prince
(2010), Sirota (2010), Sterponi and Fasulo (2010), Bagatell (2010), Solomon and Bagatell
(2010), Brezis (2012), and Fein (2012).
14. Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking (2012) is an important recent addition to the grow-
ing corpus of published works addressing issues of autism and living with ASD that have
been authored or co-authored by autistic people. See also Williams (1992), Lawson (2000),
Shore (2003) (of additional interest on account of the author’s professional status as a
musician and music educator), Miller (2003), Prince-Hughes (2004), Biklen (2005), Ariel
and Naseef (2006), Tammet (2007), Robison (2007), and Mukhopadhyay (2011 [2008]),
among others. Numerous documentary films, blogs, websites, and other media also con-
tribute to the increasingly prominent presence of autistic voices in ASD discourses.
15. Straus’s work intersects disability studies, music theory, and musicology. He is central to
a cohort of scholars currently working in these areas. Representative works in the emer-
gent literature on music and disability that engage autism-related subjects include Straus’s
book Extraordinary Measures: Disability in Music (2011) and his co-edited volume (with
Neil Lerner) Sounding Off: Theorizing Disability in Music (Lerner and Straus, 2006). That
volume includes autism-related chapters by Headlam (2006), Jensen-Moulton (2006),
and Maloney (2006). Of related interest, see Lubet (2011) and Marrero (2012). Of more
general relevance to the epistemological orientations and practical ramifications of differ-
ent models of disability in disability studies (e.g., medical, social), see Davis (2013a, 2013b,
2013c), Shakespeare (2013), Siebers (2013), Garland-Thomson (1997, 2013), Rioux (1994),
Titchkosky (2007), Carlson (2009), Ralston and Ho (2010), and Silvers (2010); on autism
specifically, see Nadesan (2005), Murray (2008), and Osteen (2008).
16. There is, of course, an inherent flaw in this comparative analogy. Balinese musicians were
doing what they do long before I arrived in Bali as an ethnomusicologist in the 1980s,
whereas the children in the Artism Ensemble did not know each other, let alone become
co-creators of their own musicultural world, until after the program and the E-WoMP
were created. I, in collaboration with other non-autistic adults, came up with the idea
of the project, made the E-WoMP, and implemented Artism. Therefore, I may rightly
be accused of having essentially created the ethnographic field site that I now visit and
research. While recognizing that there is some irony in this situation, ethnographically
speaking, I hold to the conviction that a large measure of “ownership” of the E-WoMP
space, and of Artism’s musical and social processes and priorities overall, has been claimed
and maintained by the children in the group.
17. “Joobai I,” by E. S., may be accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZVHiDQJLLo;
“Steel Percussion,” by NICKstr, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjkrjHf_cSI. Both
performances were recorded during a concert at the Florida State University Museum
of Fine Arts in the spring of 2013. A rehearsal video of “Purple Eggs and Ham,” by Mara,
may be accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CltqzvA96-E. Note that this
video commences with an incomplete take. The full performance starts 40 seconds in,
immediately after the point at which one of the children (Coffeebot) is heard saying
“Take two.”
18. This is a valid observation. Three of the four children who performed in the concert had
diagnoses of Asperger’s syndrome or high-functioning autism (HFA), and this was a
major factor in the group’s approach and profile on multiple levels. It is perhaps worth
noting, however, that in the Music-Play Project, which enrolled more than 30 children
in its programs from 2005 to 2009, the span of different ability and diagnostic profiles
along the continuum of the autism spectrum was much larger than it has been in Artism.
Several of the participating children in MPP were essentially nonspeaking individuals,
for example.
19. This is not an exact transcript of the conversation. My reconstruction effort here is
based on notes I took during the panel, journaling I did in its immediate aftermath, and
memory-based recollections. I apologize and take full responsibility for any inaccuracies
or misrepresentations.
20. I am grateful to Allegra Stout for consulting with me on the present work and for recom-
mending the book Loud Hands, which has profoundly affected my perspectives on autism.
21. Since E. S. also frequently covers her ears in other settings, including quiet ones, it is dif-
ficult to determine whether this is a sound sensitivity–related matter in her case. This has
been an ongoing topic of discussion with her parents and has been explored by the ethno-
musicologist Elyse Marrero in her Master’s thesis, which focuses on E. S. and her music
(Marrero, 2012).
22. I hasten to add, however, that my Artism staff colleague Michelle Jones takes a more criti-
cal stance on this matter than I do. She contends that there is a tendency for the staff musi-
cians to “dominate” the course of musical development at times. She also notes that the
current arrangement, wherein melodic and harmonic instruments are principally the
province of the staff musicians while the children (and parents) mainly play percussion,
creates an “imbalance of power” that favors the adult players with professional musical
experience.
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Winter, Penni. (2012). “Loud Hands and Loud Voices.” In Loud Hands: Autistic People,
Chapter 9
Motivations an d Met h od s
f or Enc ou rag i ng A rt i sts
in L onger Tra di t i ons
Brian Schrag
. . . I would so far hardly agree that the widely feared greying-out of musi-
cal diversity is actually taking place. . . . It’s hard to overstate the harm done
to most of the world’s peoples by colonialism, capitalism, and globaliza-
tion, but difficult to make a case for a pejorative evaluation of the musical
results. The musical experience of the average individual is much broader
today than in the past. The hybrids and mixes resulting from intercultural
contact could be interpreted as enrichment as easily as pollution, and old
traditions as a class have not simply disappeared.
Bruno Nettl (2005: 434)
Nettl here deftly attempts to remove one of the most galvanizing burrs under the
saddles of ethnomusicology’s founders: the specter of global musical homogenization.
Alexander Ellis validated non-European musical scales (1885), von Hornbostel and oth-
ers created archives of recordings of non-European musics at the turn of the twentieth
century (Koch et al., 2004), and Frances Densmore documented the musics of North
American ethnolinguistic communities (1927). Jacob Gruber described these activi-
ties as salvaging as many bits of local communities left in colonialism’s wake as pos-
sible (1970), and Alan Lomax visualized humanity’s likely musical future as grey (1968).
Ethnomusicology’s pre- and early history resonated with an urgency to act in the face of
inevitable loss.
Anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, and others have since eschewed this sim-
plistic conceptual framework: colonialism and neocolonialism inexorably lead to the
impoverishment of the centuries-old expressive culture of minoritized communities.
Rather, we increasingly recognize the hugely complex interactions constantly occur-
ring between Earth’s seven billion individuals, their communities, sub-communities,
318 Brian Schrag
and supra-communities; governmental, commercial, environmental, communicational

infrastructures; and other factors we have yet to imagine.
We celebrate the sparks, the glitter that results from colliding cultures (Lipsitz, 1999).
We acknowledge the complex histories and natural loss behind the illusions of cultural
stability (Wade, 2012). In addition, we realize that communities are not passive recep-
tors of every sign and system they encounter: “Central Africans in suits, Indonesian
soap operas, and South Asian brands are no longer inauthentic copies by people who
have lost their culture after being swamped by things that only North Americans and
Europeans should possess. Rather there is the equality of genuine relativism that makes
none of us a model of real consumption and all of us creative variants of social processes
based around the possession and use of commodities” (Miller, 1995: 144).
Whence, then, come the burgeoning number of art forms populating UNESCO’s
List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding (unesco.org/cul-
ture/ich)? Why have the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre and partners
invested five years and considerable financial resources in the Sustainable Futures for
Music Cultures project, dedicated to the encouragement of endangered “small musics”
(www.imc-cim.org/programme/development-and-music)? And why do many of the
people I—and, perhaps, you—know in minority ethnolinguistic communities lament
the loss of their traditional laments?
I readily acknowledge the labyrinthian nature of human creativity that our explora-
tions unveil. I contend, however, that the maze is neither infinitely complex nor without
metanarrative guidance. Individuals at the beginning of the twenty-first century do in
fact experience more kinds of artistry than they did a century earlier. However, these
“hybrids and mixes resulting from intercultural contact” constitute a rapidly growing
percentage of human experience, masking processes of artistic and social change that
result in experiential, social, and intellectual impoverishment. Tony Seeger attributes
the loss of small traditions to an uneven playing field, one in which majority groups,
missionaries, copyright legislation, and other systemic factors “disappear” them
(Schippers, 2009).
We need not think in terms of contamination or enrichment. Rather, certain kinds of
artistic traditions suffer from identifiable social and environmental changes: motivated
by government promotion, lure of financial gain, war, or environmental catastrophes,
children and families move from ethnolinguistically centered communities to cities
composed of individuals connected by myriad identities. Such migration often results
in loss of materials, skills, knowledge, and anchoring domains of use, thereby thwarting
our progress toward a world marked by profoundly diverse artistic forms, each thriv-
ing and changing. Ethnomusicologists and others fascinated by surprising artistry in its
social contexts are uniquely suited to influence this situation for the better.
In this chapter, I first lay out conceptual groundwork that enables arts-in-culture
scholars to enter most productively into local, national, and international efforts to
increase local artistic thriving. This entails avoiding esoterica and anchoring our
research and communication in widely accessible categories related to experienced
events. Second, I explore how framing artistic activity in terms of its degree of liminality
Motivations and Methods for Encouraging Artists 319
moves us toward a deeper understanding of a global arts ecology. Third, I assess the
health of artistic forms of communication in minority ethnolinguistic communities.
Fourth and finally, I describe practical tools we can use as communities work toward
more lively artistic futures.
Foundational Concepts
In this section, I describe the need for shared, widely accessible vocabulary in describing
artistic traditions, and then outline a small set of such concepts. This foundation flows
from prototype theory and from event-based approaches common to ethnomusicolo-
gists and anthropologists.
Return to Coherence
Ethnomusicologists are not usually trained to count things. Linguists count languages,
biologists count species, sociologists count opinions, international nongovernmen-
tal organizations (INGOs) count displaced people, but ethnomusicologists don’t have
a comparable basic unit of analysis. Except for rhythmic or harmonic divisions within
musical pieces, we embrace the caprices of communal choice and form, resisting the
urge to define an artist or performance as “this and not that.” After an exceptional educa-
tion in ethnomusicology, I had to teach myself how to create, administer, and analyze
the questionnaires supporting my PhD research in Cameroon (Schrag 2005). Though
not uniformly or categorically (see Titon, 1997), we have eschewed Merriam’s early posi-
tivist goal of “sciencing about music” (1964: 25).
The benefits of our view of research as purposeful dialogue with other humans,
rather than observations of data containers, are enormous: We ground our ethics in
human relationships by acknowledging individual and corporate agency, the trans-
formative potential of artists and their arts, and the multivalence of people’s iden-
tities. We avoid imposing the kinds of stereotypes that Jean Kidula—Kenyan PhD in
ethnomusicology—encountered when her students at the University of Georgia learned
that she was an accomplished classical piano player: “You play keyboard? Oh my God!
You are an African.” Kidula responds that it’s “sad that people try to push you into this
box because an African should do this. Or because you’re Italian you should only study
that Italian stuff. [A]‌s a musician, you already know that. So what happens is, you get
into other music because it makes… you start incorporating it into your own being”
(Schrag, 2000).
When we want to contribute to broader conversations of human rights or influence
government or community policy, however, we are left without the persuasive data of
proportional loss that counting can reveal. Nettl doesn’t know that “the musical experi-
ence of the average individual is much broader today than in the past.” It seems like it
320 Brian Schrag
must be true, given our own experiences and the demonstrably pervasive reach of elec-
tronic communication. But we don’t really know what’s going on.
In order to increase our engagement with people who identify with ethnolinguis-
tic minorities, I propose that we refocus our attention on artistic practices and ideas
that have coalesced into identifiable entities. There are individuals who experience
commonality with other individuals around the idea and practices of an ethnolinguis-
tic construction. The International Organization for Standardization has designated
SIL International’s Ethnologue (www.ethnologue.com) as the authority in identifying
human languages (ISO 639-3 standard); it lists over 7,100 living languages, each of which
serves as an identity marker for a group. People who speak the Mono language and live
(or have lived) in one of several areas in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo,
for example, think of themselves as amono—Mono people. Ngiemboon speakers in
West Cameroon assume enormous amounts of common knowledge, experience, and
values with each other. None of these people groups is internally totally homogeneous,
completely discrete, or represents its members’ sole identity. But myriad communities
connected by ethnolinguistic identity exist, and their interactions commonly include
artistic forms of communication as well. Even more to the point, communities based
on ease and predictability of communication usually betoken a long history of common
language use, and thus draw on multigenerational traditions.
To avoid the dangers of essentializing that ethnolinguistic and artistic labels some-
times generate, I ground my analytical categories in protoype theory. First proposed by
Eleanor Rosch in the 1970s (see Rosch, 1977), prototype theory provided a framework
for the development of Cognitive Linguistics, which pictures cognition as an amalga-
mation of features of varying importance. This system of graded categorization eval-
uates how well a given term coheres with a concept under review. In North America,
English speakers identify robin more frequently and quickly as a kind of bird than they
do ostrich; a robin is a better example of a bird—a prototype—than an ostrich because
robins have more of the popularly conceived important characteristics of birds (Taylor,
2008: 39–42). Researchers have explained how humans from a variety of communi-
ties in the world impute order and meaning to their musical sounds based on cognitive
marking and neural processes (see Peretz and Zatorre, 2003). Cognitive anthropologists
apply experimental psychology and other methods to explain patterns of shared knowl-
edge (see Kronenfeld et al., 2011).
I approach every definition in this chapter as a tool to reveal local concepts that refer
to prototypical elements of the arts and art making. They are centered, malleable, and
porous starting points, rather than strictly and minutely delimited Aristotelian catego-
ries (see Lakoff 1999, 1987). This means, for example, that I don’t try to define a par-
ticular community as consisting only and all of the people who share a closed set of
features. Rather, prototype construction leads researchers to identify members of a
community by a changing set of features, some of which are more important than oth-
ers; the language(s) someone speaks and her parents’ birthplace, for example, may carry
more weight than her manner of dress. This means also that my approach favors the dis-
covery of commonalities, shared concepts within a community. Many ethnolinguistic
communities are experiencing stress; emphasizing the stable, older elements of their
artistry is more likely to lead toward continuity.
Analytical Categories
I have chosen categories and their definitions that flow directly from common ethnomu-
sicological thought and practice, with organic extensions, and the capacity to be viewed
through prototype theory: communities, events, artistic genres, genre enactments, and
genre enactors. A community is any group of people that shares a story, identity, ongo-
ing patterns of interaction, and that is constantly in flux. Examples include groups that
share a strong ethnolinguistic identity, clubs of all kinds, families, dance associations,
exercise groups, religious centers, and others. Artistry is a special kind of communica-
tion, marked by greater emphasis on manipulating form than the communication used
in everyday interactions. Poetic speech may rely on patterns of sound and thought,
such as rhyme, assonance, and metaphor, that a simple exchange of information will
not. Circling a drum while repeating a sequence of foot movements relies on form more
heavily than simply walking from one place to another. Adopting the facial expressions
of a mythical character draws on form to communicate more than allowing a person’s
face to remain at rest. Artistry may mark events as separate from everyday activities,
may touch cognitive, experiential, and emotional ways of knowing, and may contract
or expand the information contained in a message. In addition, artistry often reveals
its uniqueness as a bounded sphere of interaction. Artistic events have beginnings and
endings (no matter how fluid), between which people interact in unusually patterned
ways. Ruth Stone describes artistic events as “set off and made distinct from the natural
world of everyday life by the participants” (1979: 37).
Artistic events occur in space and time and include artistry; such events are normally
associated with one or more communities. An event is something that occurs in a par-
ticular place and time, is related to larger sociocultural patterns of a community, and
is divisible into shorter time segments. Communities have types of events that include
social expectations and patterns. Examples of events include festivals, birthday parties,
rites of passage, watching and listening to a music video on an electronic device, study-
ing a museum painting, a mother instructing her daughter with a proverb, and others.
An artistic event contains at least one enactment of a genre.
An artistic genre—which I often shorten to genre in this chapter—is a community’s
category of artistic communication characterized by a unique set of formal charac-
teristics, performance practices, and social meanings. My rough method of assessing
whether an artistic practice constitutes a genre is that it must be at least two generations
old, and community members must be able to create within the system. An important
internal characteristic is the level of variation supported by a genre. Examples of genre
include olonkho (Siberia), Broadway musical (New York City), kanoon (Cameroon),
huayno (Peru), haiku (Japan), Delta Blues (Southern United States), and qawwali
(South Asia).
322 Brian Schrag
An enactment is an instantiation of an artistic genre during an event, or artistry that

people produce through a genre’s patterns and practices (see Kisliuk, 1998: 12). Enactors
communicate through an artistic genre. These people are human beings with multiple
roles, competencies, knowledge sets, skills, histories, and identities.
Thinking this way has implications for evaluating the health of any kind of artistry.
First, events may contain enactments of more than one genre. A commemoration of
the death and life of a Bamiléké (Cameroon) king may last a month—one event with
many sub-events. During this time, performers from other kingdoms visit to pay their
respects, usually including performances of one or more genres, each with unique com-
binations of music, dance, drama, and visual elements. Second, events are normally lon-
ger than enactments of a genre. At a wedding, for example, you may perform a solo from
a love song genre. Enactment of the love song genre is just one part of a larger event that
includes rituals and other elements. Third, enactments of genres may be found in more
than one kind of event. Certain kinds of acrobatic feats, for example, may appear both in
circuses and gymnastic competitions. Fourth, many events entail strong expectations of
what kinds of genres they can include. For example, an Orthodox icon might jolt wor-
shippers in a Baptist sanctuary. There may be an inflexible association between a certain
type of event and a certain genre, or participants in an event may have the freedom to
switch out elements from different genres. Finally, genres and events are always chang-
ing. Old ones die, new ones are born, creative people innovate. Genres like soukous in
1960s Congo have multiple origins, wrapped in unique combinations of features; such
fusions are common.
Integral and Liminal Genre

Enactments
In April 2012, I attended a performance entitled “From the Arctic to the Middle East
(Broken Narratives by an American Flamenco Dancer)” presented by the Clinard
Dance Theatre in Chicago. My niece, Marisela Tapia, performed in this work, which was
collaboratively created by Wendy Clinard and her students. Wendy is an accomplished
performer and teacher of flamenco, and Marisela had built solid foundations through
several years of involvement in the tradition. I expected to experience a performance
that felt like the few other flamenco events I had seen and heard, but was surprised by my
inability to frame it. Critic Zack Wittenberg (2012, TimeOut Chicago) described “From
the Arctic to the Middle East” as a “. . . joining of classical Spanish, Andalusian folkloric
and current American techniques. . .” that “. . . spoke to broader cross-cultural themes… .”
After the performance, Marisela, her father Andrés, and I discussed the audience
response to this modern/flamenco/classical Spanish fusion: palpably positive, marked
by focused attention and spirited applause. I wondered, however, whether an audience
that knows flamenco well would respond differently to a performance that had more of
the characteristics typical of a fuller, older flamenco tradition. As I learned more about
flamenco’s history, sub-genres, and performance practices, I found examples of perfor-
mances that entail many more people participating in more energetic and historically
forged ways: shouts of ole and eso es at strategic moments, or the expectation of entering
into the heightened state of duende (Webster, 2004).
Definitions
These experiences led me to hypothesize two broad enactment categories, based on
the number and importance of their characteristics flowing from a genre. I call enact-
ments with deep, wide-ranging relationships to a genre integral, and others, liminal.
Integral enactments are profoundly familiar to performers and exhibit a congeries of
components characteristic of their normal social and artistic infrastructure, sufficient to
cohere as an iteration of a genre. Another way of describing integral performances may
be as those most coincident with the participants’ community’s structuring structures
(Bourdieu, 1977).
Liminal enactments, in contrast, do not comprise features sufficient to fully express
a genre. Experiencers recognize certain elements, but lack an emergent frame to guide
their expectations and engagement. Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner developed
the concept of liminality to explain rituals’ capacity to usher someone from one identity
to another (1960 and 1967, respectively). Though I here draw on liminality’s more popu-
lar sense of being-in-transition, anthropologists’ technical use provides some insights.
For example, the period of resymbolization between two identities in a ritual allows
social fluidity and experimentation not condoned on either side of the transformation.
Liminal enactments of artistic genres also often entail unusual levels of risk-taking.
Sussing Out Liminality and Integrality
To explore liminality’s usefulness as an analytical tool, we need to compare several pairs

of integral/liminal enactments of a single genre. Two primary approaches exist. First,
we could describe two genre enactments from different points in its history: one from
a period of historical health of the genre, and one from a period of weakness. A less
longitudinal solution entails description of two genre enactments from the same time
period: one whose performance allows or encourages more integrality, and one whose
context results in liminality. In this section, I place our discussion of artistic genres
in the context of their historical geneses. Then I present an extended example of two
closely related enactments of a single genre, the two differing primarily on their degrees
of liminality. Finally, I isolate features that illustrate contrasts between liminal and inte-
gral enactments, drawing on other examples in the process.
324 Brian Schrag
Rock Enactments
I attended the Rock of Our Salvation Evangelical Free Church in Chicago’s Austin neigh-
borhood regularly from 1987 to 1990, with frequent subsequent visits. This predomi-
nantly African-American church became my family’s spiritual home, and I became an
informal apprentice of the choir director and keyboard player, Paul Grant and Charles
Butler, respectively. At that time, my musical training and experience had mostly been in
eurogenic traditions, so I needed to learn a number of black gospel church performance
characteristics. These skills and knowledge included melodic and verbal improvisa-
tional techniques, modifications of vocal timbre, patterns of congregation/choir/soloist
interaction, repertoire, common verbal couplets, and shared worship expectations and
experiences, among others. When Paul Grant chose Andraé Crouch’s “The Blood” as
my first solo with the choir in the late 1980s, I integrated most of these characteristics
through Paul’s oral instruction and my imitation of others. The congregation responded
with vocal and bodily animation, especially when I added melodic ornaments: “You’ve
got the Spirit now!” The event dynamic, however, remained primarily one of separation
between the performers and the audience.
I discovered a deeper step into the genre during a visit to Chicago in 2011, when
friends at the Rock asked me to sing “The Blood” again with the choir. Because by that
time I had become more confident in my performance abilities and in the solidity of
my relationships with the congregation, when I came to the end of the final chorus,
I decided to improvise more freely, repeating phrases in counterpoint with the instru-
mentalists in ways that lengthened the song. The instrumentalists, director, choir, con-
gregation, and I entered into a heightened communication mode. We focused intently
on each others’ visual, kinesic, verbal, melodic, and harmonic cues to shape the rest of
the enactment. Members of the congregation began to stand, raise their hands, pray to
God, cry, and shout affirmations. Their responses encouraged me to continue into a
heightened musical and spiritual awareness and engagement. This reciprocal, resonat-
ing feedback did not occur in my previous, more liminal performances of the same song
in the same genre.
The Ebb and Flow of Communication

When humans from one community interact with those from another, we search for
or create ways to communicate. The longer and more regular this interaction becomes,
the more energy at least one of the communities will invest in accommodating its
visual signs, symbolic vocal systems, and social structures to the others’. The results of
communication collisions vary widely, dependent on the agency of individuals, struc-
tural similarity of the two systems, economic and social capital at stake, and political
or ecological forces, to name a few. Contests between ethnolinguistic communities
and global economic and social forces, however, follow a common pattern: If the two
groups differ substantially in power or status, then the weaker usually accedes more to
the stronger’s communication patterns. If they both inhabit similar locations in a power
hierarchy, their adaptations to each other are likely to be more equal. The period of
time, people engaged, and the locations associated with this contact constitute liminal
communicational space.
Linguists and sociolinguists have examined many phenomena resulting from
such liminal communicational spaces. Their categories most germane to our discus-
sion are languages, pidgins, creoles, and diglossia (McWhorter, 2001: 131–176). In
short, languages are grammatically and phonologically ordered systems that serve the
needs of full communication; about 7,100 languages exist globally (www.ethnologue.
com, accessed February 2, 2015). Pidgins are simplified communication systems that
people use “. . . for the utilitarian purpose of interacting with [speakers of other lan-
guages] for reasons tied to basic sustenance through the exchange of goods and ser-
vices” (McWhorter, 2001: 132). Examples of pidgins include Russenorsk—used to enable
timber trade between Russians and Norwegians in the 1800s—and the system Native
American Indians used to barter with European colonists. Language communities use
pidgins for needs distanced from their core identities.
Sometimes, however, pidgins become creoles: systems of communication that develop
a complexity, internal coherence, and intergenerational transmission distinct from all of
the languages that spawned it. Papua New Guineans speak Tok Pisin, a creole histori-
cally connected to Portuguese, English, and Melanesian languages. Tok Pisin has devel-
oped complex grammatical and lexical characteristics, and people in urban areas are
learning it as a first language.
Finally, diglossia refers to a situation in which a community speaks at least two
languages, and each is “compartmentalized so that there is little or no competi-
tion between languages within the same function” (Lewis, 2009). In northwestern
Democratic Republic of the Congo, speakers of the Mono language routinely use the
regional language, Lingala, for trade. This is likely to remain a stable situation as long
as most children leave the government educational system before finishing high school
(Lubliner, 2002).
The Kera language spoken by about 35,000 people in southern Chad and Cameroon
provides an example of a language that is becoming less complex because of interac-
tion with people in another ethnolinguistic community. In rural areas, Kera speakers
use three tones in differentiating between nouns. When Kera speakers—especially
women—move to urban areas and begin to converse in French, however, they tend to
reduce their use of tone when speaking Kera (Pearce, 2013).
Similar simplification results when communities’ artistic forms of communication
interact. At least until the 1970s, Siberian Sakha people enacted their diėrėtii sung genre
in ways that included its uncommon characteristic of “unfolding mode” (Alekseyev,
1976: 57; Harris, 2012: 48). Alekseyev describes performance of an unfolding mode
as one in which “the distance between the neighboring tones of the tune can vary to
extremely wide margins, from a whole tone interval to… even a tritone in its ‘unfold-
ing.’ The latter is usually connected to an increase in emotional energy, often visible
within the parameters of one song. In general, the width of the intonational step is
326 Brian Schrag
generally related to the character of the personage being sung and the tessitura of the
tune” (Alekseyev, 1996: 49; http://eduard.alekseyev.org/work20.html). In the last few
decades, enactments of diėrėtii frequently omit this feature, as Sakha scales transition
from malleable intervals to more stable, diatonic forms heard in the modern Russian
soundscape (Alekseyev, 1986: 213).
My research among Ngiemboon communities of West Cameroon revealed mecha-
nisms of transmission that result in growing, evolving traditions of integral enactments.
The robust performances I encountered were marked by a particular dynamic inter-
change: its artists create tradition through the masterful exercise of the most malleable
of their infrastructures, thereby strengthening the most stable (Schrag, 2013).
The dance association DAKASTUM (Danse Kanoon du Secteur Ntumplefet) pro-
vides an instructive example of transmission and interaction that leads to integral
enactments. This group of about 40 men and a few women live in Cameroon’s capital
of Yaounde, meet every two weeks in the home of one of their members, and rehearse
exemplars of the kanoon Ngiemboon artistic genre. They sing and dance while circling
a group of percussionists. DAKASTUM’s primary motivation in meeting regularly is to
perform at nkem legwés—death celebrations—that take place in the first few months of
the year, about six hours’ distance in their home region, Batcham. Songs’ refrains (stable
infrastructure) provide the song caller time and predictability to compose the next call
(a malleable infrastructure), while the caller’s addressing important people provides
emotion, social context, and interest to keep singing the crucial refrain; the rigid met-
ronomic patterns of instruments like the shakers allow the player of the big drum struc-
ture in which to improvise, which increases interest in and energy emanating from the
ensemble; the unflinching existence of the paved road between Yaoundé and Batcham
enables DAKASTUM and hundreds of other dance associations to frequently climb
aboard a bus (malleable infrastructure) to facilitate interaction and learning between
urban and rural performers, while tolls from the bus and thousands of other vehicles
provide the Cameroonian government enough money to maintain the road.
DAKASTUM members point to performances at nkem legwés as the most integral.
These performances include competent players for each of six percussion instruments,
at least one masterful song caller, at least 15 to 20 dancers, a chain of about a dozen songs,
a high degree of energy and volume (accompanied by steadily rising pitch through-
out the performance), time for the caller to improvise lyrics related to the location of
the nkem legwé, and scores of Ngiemboon people watching. DAKASTUM modifies
its enactments for other contexts—for example, recordings for popular distribution
in Cameroon or singing an anti-AIDS song in a hospital—including shortening their
songs, removing the song-chaining feature, and reducing percussive, vocal, and dance
improvisation as much as possible (Schrag, 2005: 163–165). These enactments are out-
side the center of the kanoon genre, moving toward liminality.
When interaction between diverse communities occurs, the prospect of imaginative
pleasure, or the attainment of political, monetary, or social goals, may draw artists to
act in generic contexts foreign to them; by doing so, they enter liminal space. Artists
in this space generate artistry through various combinations of generic patterns and
conventions. They may remain embedded primarily in a genre they know well, incorpo-
rating interesting features from a new genre into enactments of the known. In this case,
they flavor or spice their artistic output with foreign elements that symbolically shift
experiencers’—including their own—interpretive frames. The creators of the album
Deep Forest, for example, “fused digital samples of music from Ghana, the Solomon
Islands, and African pygmies with ‘techno-house’ dance rhythms” (Mills, 1996: 59).
The album has sold millions of copies. Feld suggests that the creators of Deep Forest
are able to “borrow” from non-Western groups because they have romanticized them
into representing humanity’s primal origins; they are us thousands of years ago, so it’s
really our music, too (1996: 25). Deep Forest extracted bits of timbre, song phrases, and
other artistic elements from foreign genres and inserted them into their artistic base,
techno-house.
Most fusions have relatively weak potential for sustaining continuing creativity. This
happens when new enactments do not develop into generic patterns that allow other
people to enter easily. In fusion, you have to give up something. The result can become
a new tradition (e.g., High life), but the initial contributors each offered a bit, a flavor of
their deeper, broader artistic tradition. If they leave the old tradition for the emerging,
they lose that depth and integration. For example, a tabla master playing jazz or pop
reduces conceptual foundations (e.g., ragas), repertoire, social integrations and mean-
ings, forms, and other elements to fit new structures and performance contexts.
Factors affecting the results of interaction between two or more socioartistic genres
include the relative social status of each tradition, the preponderance and ease of access
to each (for example, through radio, Internet, oral means, etc.), and the number of prac-
titioners. The stronger will usually influence the weaker more substantially, resulting in
more moves toward liminality by the weaker. From a broad view, minority communi-
ties with ethnolinguistic identities exhibit more genres in fundamental transition, fewer
enactors of their older genres, lower social status of their older genres, and fewer tradi-
tional social domains for the enactment of older ethnoartistic traditions. The global pic-
ture, then, is one of minority artistic traditions simplifying, assimilating into majority
social domains (e.g., entertainment, tourism, global church), and enjoying fewer practi-
tioners, each with diminished skills.
If people attempt to learn another artistic tradition, having no interest in maintaining
their own, then their artistic symbolic structures will still influence the resulting per-
formances: borrowing from linguistic terminology, they will perform with an accent.
The accent could result from symbolic structures relating to their societies (e.g., ethno-
linguistic communities), performance practices, and performance systems (vocal tim-
bre, fabrics worn, languages used, instruments, patterned movements, etc.). If enough
people are interested in creating at the point of socioartistic contact, then new artistic
genres may be born.
French philosopher Paul Ricoeur describes tradition as “. . . not the inert transmission
of some already dead deposit of material but the living transmission of an innovation
always capable of being reactivated by a return to the most creative moments of poetic
activity… [A]‌tradition is constituted by the interplay of innovation and sedimentation”
328 Brian Schrag
(1984: 68). The transmission of traditions depends on people emitting sounds, visual

patterns, objects, and smells from their bodies into the air, with other people then learn-
ing and embedding those symbols into their consciousness and bodies. Innumerable
factors may influence the progression of a community’s artistry.
How Integral and Liminal Enactments Differ

Embedded in communal systems of value, identity, and transmission, integral instantia-
tions of an older genre exhibit a strong cluster of features characteristic of the genre. In
contrast, a liminal enactment connects more ephemerally to both genre patterns and
community. I offer the following statements as informed hypotheses comparing the
effects of each, ready to be tested.
Integral enactments exhibit more complexity than do liminal. People’s communication
systems generally become more complex with frequent interaction in the system over a
long time, and simpler with less internal interaction; this parallels differences between
languages and pidgins. The more time people spend with each other creating within a
genre, the more communicational nuance, subtlety, and virtuosity are possible.
Integral enactments result in more ecstatic experiences than do liminal. The commu-
nicational complexity typical of integral performances serves as a resource for enactors
of genres that comprise ecstatic states. Heightened emotional states are part of numer-
ous artistic traditions, including Hausa Bori ceremonies (Nigeria), Zar in Ethiopia,
Candomblé in Brazil, Santería in Cuba, Tarantismo in Italy, Bira in Zimbabwe, glos-
solalia in Pentecostalism (Becker, 2004: 97–99), Catholic mystical traditions, New Age
meditation, and many others. Ecstatic states are often foregrounded by specialized
terminology, such as groove (Afrogenic popular musics), in the pocket (jazz), tarab
(Arabic performance), and duende (Flamenco).
In “Creativity and Ambience: An Ecstatic Feedback Model from Arab Music,” Jihad
Racy provides a rich example of the complex knowledge, experience, and interactions
necessary for ecstasy to emerge from performance of certain Arabic genres (1991). He
argues that the creative process requires not only the skill and artistry of the classically
trained composer/performer, but also a communicative audience that shares an under-
standing of the basic musical materials (e.g., maqamat) with the performers. Intelligent,
emotional feedback from the listeners affects how the performers spontaneously com-
pose. This emotional exchange helps create in the performer the ecstatic state of saltana.
I here quote Racy at length (11–12):
Traditional performers, I have interviewed, stress that the tarab process first requires
that the singer or the instrumentalist belong to the tarab culture. Like his audience
members, he must be “native” to the tarab musical idiom so that he can “feel” the
music, or as Fakhri explains, he must understand and sense it properly. He must, for
example, play the neutral (microtonal) Arab interval correctly and “feel” their musi-
cal effect. Similarly he must understand and respond to the quaflat (singular qafla),
or the emotionally charged cadential formulas at the end of each melodic phrase,
particularly in modal improvisations.
In addition, such a performer must be endowed with ruh, “soul,” or ihsas “feel-
ing,” namely the emotional power and talent to musically affect, or engage the lis-
tener ecstatically. Without this innate quality, a performer may still be accepted for
his technical performance skills or his ability to display musical innovations, but is
also criticized and even dismissed as someone who plays but does not communicate
emotions, or as Sabah Fakhri puts it: “He can play his instrument, but cannot make
it speak.” Musically, hsas implies correct intonation, rhythmic accuracy, and good
judgment regarding modal progressions and tonal emphases. “Feeling” also refers
to an intuitive ability to affect, for example, finding the desirable delicate musical
balance between renditions that are too static and too repetitive to be emotionally
engaging, and those that are too excessive and digressive to generate and maintain a
true sense of musical ecstasy.
Racy describes performance that is intense, reciprocally communicative, resonant,

visceral, and dependent on deep experience and long traditions; integrality is clearly
required to produce ecstasy in such Arab classical genres. I’ve seen Racy perform in con-
texts where only a few of these characteristics existed, and participants didn’t express the
same emotional states. Liminality dilutes groove.
Integral enactments result in more deeply contented enactors than do liminal. Beginning
in the 1940s, psychologist Abraham Maslow developed the concept of self-actualization,
as the pinnacle of his hierarchy of needs: the state of a person who realizes his or her
potential, fulfills him- or herself, and does “the best they are capable of doing” (Maslow,
1954: 150). In liminal enactments, artists limit the sounds, sights, and movements they
produce because they cannot lean into the patterns and signs of an established genre.
Following Maslow, artists without contexts in which they can fully express their art live
poorer lives. Researchers have applied the concept of self-actualization cross-culturally
to a degree (see Ivtzan, 2008), but more study is needed to know how much it explains
globally. I expect that skillful artists thrive in their artistic potential most during integral
enactments.
Liminal enactments can lead to the development of new genres. If people invest enough
energy into the enactment and institutionalization of liminal forms over time, new
genres emerge. Essentially every transnational, transethnic, translinguistic form of art-
istry reflects this process: Congolese popular music draws historically on West African,
Cuban, European, and Central African musicking, propelled to wide influence in part
by recording studios in the Congo basin in the 1930s and 1940s (Mukuna, 1992); Punjabi
popular music mixes European features with those of their ethnolinguistically tethered
arts (Schreffler, 2012); and virtually all North American popular music flows from artis-
tic interactions between enslaved Africans and others (Southern, 1997). This is the artis-
tic water through which nearly everyone connected to the global economy swims.
Liminal enactments can provide spaces for forging social harmony. Communities
united by ethnic, political, commercial, or other ties often vie for dominance at the inter-
stices of contact with others. But liminal space is in some ways neutral ground—betwixt
330 Brian Schrag
and between—and artists with divergent histories and competencies may also find con-
nections therein. To overcome natural frictions, then, efforts to encourage coopera-
tion require intentional rigidity and patient relationship-building. Participants in the
Songs for Peace Project (www.songsforpeaceproject.org) drew on this feature of lim-
inality to work toward reconciliation between Muslims and Christians. They gathered
ethnomusicologists, composers, cinematographers, missiologists, and various scholars
at colloquia in Beirut, Lebanon, and Yogyakarta, Indonesia. They interacted through
presentations, discussion, and shared performance (King and Tan, 2013).
Such liminality contributes malleable, invigorating energy into human dialogue. It pro-
vides space, for example, to connect people from divergent communities to encourage peace.
Liminal enactments can tickle people’s imaginations. Liminal enactments like Wendy
Clinard’s collaborative flamenco fusion, “From the Arctic to the Middle East,” inject
energy into genre breaking and novelty. Clinard’s intense motivation to explore bound-
aries and fuse disparate traditions invigorated her for years, resulting in marked new-
ness. Such enactments can also introduce non-aficionados to interesting and valuable
artistry, as Wendy’s did for me.
Assessing the Health of Humanity’s

Artistic Traditions in the 2010s
Nettl is likely correct in stating that “[t]‌he musical experience of the average individ-
ual is much broader today than in the past.” Their integral experiences, however, may
be few. In this section, I first propose a straightforward gauge of an individual artistic
genre’s health. I then provide a broad historical framework for explaining the general
state of minority arts, and present a graded scale for assessing the health of artistic tradi-
tions through historical lenses.
For our present purposes, I am most interested in one particular kind of historical
artistic genre change, namely the kind experienced by many ethnolinguistic communi-
ties in the last 100 years or so. These changes are built on colonial, missionary, commer-
cial infrastructure, and social momentum influences of the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Subsequently, the rate of change accelerated due to urbanization and the astounding
expansion of communication technologies from the late 1900s until the present.
Measuring the Health of an Ethnolinguistic Community’s

Artistic Genres
Following Ricoeur’s view of tradition as a living process of innovation and sedimenta-
tion, the ideal growth pattern of artistic genres is one of grounded creativity through
balanced malleable-stable dynamism. Practitioners maintain a sustainable equilibrium
between newness and familiarity, allowing the new to invigorate the familiar and the
familiar to support the new. A long malleable/stable passing on of a tradition produces
complexity, depth, and integration with its community(ies), while allowing for adapta-
tion and novelty. The result is the production of thriving, resilient, flourishing arts.
Quick and Dirty Genre Health Sketch

My time living in the Mono village of Bili in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in
the early 1990s and subsequent interactions allow me to suggest a rough model to mea-
sure how well a tradition is following this pattern. Three types of data are necessary for
such an analysis: the number of times the genre has been enacted in two or more periods
separated by a significant passage of time; an assessment of each instantiation’s degree of
integrality; and indications of the growth of the genre’s features in new enactment con-
texts. From this data, we can approximate the most recent measure of health of the genre
and its trajectory for the future.
Table 9.1 roughly illustrates the change in health of the gbaguru genre, as enacted by the
Mono community in Bili. Gbaguru is a long tradition characterized in the main by these
traits: sung; performed primarily by men; played on a 7–10 stringed harp, the kùndi; lyrics
in the Mono language; melody does not move in opposition to linguistic tonal direction;
lyrics commonly refer to Mono proverbs; composers’ purposes normally include giving
advice to someone; and broader social purposes include enforcing social norms.
Longer gbaguru enactment contexts include the following: individual enjoyment at
home, while walking through a forest, yangba and gbaya circle dances, and the gbaza
male initiation rite. All of these have become less frequent since the 1940s, caused
primarily by government institution of schools and the expansion of Communauté
Evangélique du Christ en l’Ubangi (CECU) churches using foreign arts. The last gbaza
was performed near Bili around 1974.
Newer gbaguru enactment contexts include recording an oral “letter” for some-
one far away, lyrically and dramatically communicating news, and leading worship in
CECU churches. CECU churches began introducing gbaguru songs into their services
Table 9.1. Number and Integrality of Gbaguru

Enactments, Mono Community
Number of Enactments Integrality of Enactments
Longer Newer Longer Newer

Traditions Traditions Traditions Traditions
1940s high none high N/A

1980s low very low medium very low
1990s low low medium very low
2011 low medium low medium
332 Brian Schrag
periodically in the early 1990s, and in more regular and extensive ways since 2007. I was
purposefully involved in pastors’ discussions of embracing gbaguru music into the lives
of their communities and in contributing to a song-writing workshop in 2007. The 2007
workshop resulted in a dramatic growth in the number of people performing and com-
posing gbaguru for mostly Christian purposes. Note that I haven’t counted the enact-
ments, and so must rely on comparative vocabulary in Table 9.1 to illustrate my points.
Graded Genre Health Analysis

Linguists have tried to understand the rapid rate of language death in the world today
by analyzing the nature of each language’s use and transmission (see, e.g., Lewis and
Simons, 2010). Ethnomusicologists have begun to adapt the concomitant models to
artistic forms of communication. Box 9.1 identifies eight possible states of an artistic
genre’s vitality.1 Assessing a genre’s vitality on a graded scale helps guide the nature of
our interactions with a community.
Box 9.1 Graded Health Assessment of Artistic Communication Genres
1. International: An artistic genre reaches this level when an international “community of

practice” forms around it.
2. National or regional: The genre’s reputation grows beyond the home community. Community
members may receive financial or other support from the regional or national level.
3. Vigorous: This is the pivotal level for artistic vitality. At this level, oral transmission
and largely traditional contexts of education are intact and functioning. People have
sufficient opportunities for performance, and young people are learning by observation,
participation, and appropriate educational contexts. A genre can exist comfortably at this
level without needing to move higher.
4. Threatened: The first level that hints at downward movement, toward endangerment.
A genre is still enacted, but changes are becoming noticeable: diminishing performance
contexts, increased time given to more recent introductions, more rural-urban movement.
5. Locked: The genre is known by more people than just the grandparent generation, but its
performance is restricted to tourist shows or other contexts that are not integrated into the
everyday life of the community. The performance repertoire is fixed, with no new additions.
Participation and creative energy decline noticeably.
6. Shifting: The grandparent generation is proficient in this genre, but fewer contexts exist for
passing it on to younger people. Possibly the younger people do not express interest (or are
perceived that way by their parents and grandparents). The genre is not dead or endangered at this
level, and can be revitalized, but signs point to downward movement and likely endangerment.
7. Dormant: Functional contexts for performance are gone, but recordings and other
ethnographic description exist. A community could reacquaint itself with the genre, but its
rebirth would likely take on a different character than the original.
8. Extinct: No one in the community is capable of creating or performing in this genre.
Probably no performance has occurred in the lifetime of anyone currently living. No
documentation exists. This is rarer, as most genres grow into other styles, or stylistic
elements are perpetuated in related styles.
Global Community Artistic

Health Assessment
No one has evaluated the health of the world’s artistry as a whole through rigorous
quantitative or qualitative lenses; we have as yet neither the conceptual framework
nor the methods to make this assessment. Building on this chapter’s discussions,
I here suggest several possible characteristics of a vigorous global ethnoartistic ecol-
ogy that may serve as steps toward our capacity to evaluate our status in a useful
manner. Building on its origins as a branch of biology concerned with the relation-
ships between living things and their physical context, I use the term ecology here
to emphasize the interdependence between all embodied, social, communicational,
and physical factors affecting the world’s artistry. Healthy artistic and biologi-
cal systems share several characteristics: They benefit from the adaptational value
of diversity; they follow finite cycles of growth, decay, and renewal; they exhibit
immeasurably complex internal and external connections; and they respond well
to humble stewardship at the community level (Titon, 2009). In the vocabulary
of dynamism that emerged from my study of Ngiemboon communities, a healthy
global artistic system is one in which many older traditions exhibit internally sus-
tainable creativity—a vibrant malleable/stable engine within a growing community.
In such a system, the percentage of liminal artistic performances in the world in any
given year should not surpass that of integral, and such performances should con-
tribute to a vibrant malleable/stable engine that feeds energy back into local creative
ecosystems.
A thriving global ecosystem makes non-destructive use of electronic communi-
cation media, which seems more likely than some early predictions would have it
(Green and Ruhleder, 1995). A 2009 study found that “. . . while the [Internet] revolu-
tion increased the volume of all communications, it is possible that it has intensified
our local communications to a greater extent than it intensified our global commu-
nications, simply because we maintain a greater number of local contacts. If this
is correct, physical proximity may have become an even more important factor in
social dynamics compared to the pre-[Internet] era” (Goldenberg and Levy, 2009).
Crowdsourcing and other community data gathering approaches also promise the
ability to contribute to “local” projects from anywhere (Greengard, 2011). Audio or
video Internet discussions, then, may energize local traditions by increasing their
visibility, and artists in majority traditions acknowledge and affirm local creativity.
In addition, many new traditions become vibrant and deeply embedded in commu-
nities, but not at the expense of older, existing traditions. Finally, the global artis-
tic panorama contains thriving communities expressing as much fundamentally
diverse artistry as possible, resulting in individual and communal well-being and
self-actualization.
334 Brian Schrag
Examples of Loss in Longer Artistic Traditions

In 2005, six city-raised participants attended a song-writing workshop I led in Yaounde,
Cameroon. Most of their parents or grandparents had moved to Yaounde from geo-
graphically centered ethnolinguistic communities elsewhere in Cameroon. I asked how
many knew one of the traditional song styles of their parents well enough to sing or
compose in it. The number: zero. When I lived in the Mono village of Bili (northwestern
Democratic Republic of the Congo) in the early 1990s, only two older men played the
mbaza (xylophone), a few people knew how to play and sing with the kùndi (harp), and
horn ensembles had all but disappeared. This contrasted markedly with how older peo-
ple described the community life of one or two generations earlier, when these traditions
flourished. In neighboring Central African Republic, the Mpyemo instruments that
Gerhad Kubik and Maurice Djenda noted in 1966 (Kubik, 1998: 311) no longer existed
by the late 1990s (Brad Festen, personal communication; Djenda, 1992/1993). Olonkho
epic poem performances in Siberia (Harris, 2012: 2), alamblak slit drum speech (Coulter,
2007), and Kaluli sa-ya:lab funerary weeping (Feld, 2001: 54–55) in Papua New Guinea all
represent artistic genres that have mostly or completely faded from communities since
the 1950s. UNESCO contributes bureaucratic and international weight to exposing these
phenomena by yearly adding artistic traditions to its Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage
(ICH) in Need of Urgent Safeguarding (www.unesco.org/culture/ich).
Perhaps, as Nettl suggests, the losses we notice represent the natural course of societal
evolution—one form dies, another takes its place, and the beat goes on. We may experi-
ence melancholy at its passing, but there’s usually something new and interesting and solid
around the corner. I believe, however, that the global picture of change in human artistry
is qualitatively different and more deeply corrosive now than in the last century. I base this
conclusion on viewing art forms as ecologically situated systems of communication that
respond to global social dynamics in ways similar to languages and physical ecosystems.
As far as I know, nobody has tried to make an exhaustive list of such forms of artis-
tic communication, their histories, and health. Linguists and ecologists, however, have
counted languages and species of flora and fauna. Respected (and contested) scholars
predict that if losses continue at current levels, 50% of plant and animal species and
perhaps 90% of the world’s more than 7,000 languages will disappear by the end of the
twenty-first century (Krauss, 1992; Wilson, 2002). Linguist Michael Krauss challenges
his colleagues: “Obviously we must do some serious rethinking of our priorities, lest
linguistics go down in history as the only science that presided obliviously over the dis-
appearance of 90% of the very field to which it is dedicated” (1992: 10). I am not aware of
parallel counts of artistic genres, but the examples of loss I have given suggest that such
communication may follow similar trends (see Aubert, 2007: 55–56).
Testimonials
My Cameroonian friend Roch Ntankeh is in one of the first generations whose parents
moved from rural areas to Yaounde, learning only French and popular music styles. In
his late twenties, he began to feel a void that came from his ignorance of the language
and arts of his parents’ region, Bangangté. With this motivation he has researched that
community’s arts for an academic degree, and has begun regularly taking his children to
Bangangté for lessons in their language and arts.
The first thing that motivated me to study the music of my own people is the fact that
I had important musical skills and social curiosity that permitted me to more quickly
understand than someone outside my culture. After that, I realized how little I knew
of my own culture. This motivated me to find out more because I learn much through
individual study. The feeling that animates me is joy, curiosity, lots of questions; but
beyond all of that, the inner peace caused by the fact that I’ve re-found myself, my
own history and my identity. I thus feel affirmed and encouraged. And that motivates
me to encourage others to do the same because it’s only when you discover what’s
hidden inside yourself that you can grasp what’s hidden in others.
(written communication, May 2013, my translation from French)
Ethnomusicologist Robin Harris conducted research with Sakha communities in

northern Siberia, focusing on the epic storytelling genre, olonkho. Master olonkhosut
Pyotr Reshetnikov shared as follows (Harris, 2009; see also Harris, 2012):
The audience for olonkho is less now because they have forgotten how to listen to
olonkho, as an oral creation, as an attractive, really, creation of humanity. There used
to be lots of olonkhosuts, great olonkhosuts, because there was a community of lis-
teners. In the past, olonkhosuts were elevated, and if the olonkhosut was good, even
great, one whose name was spread around the republic, people would make an effort
to come, even from far away to hear.
Both of these artists feel hope, Roch because of his resources and fortitude to take
such energetic measures, and Pyotr Reshetnikov because of the revitalization that began
after Soviet decline in the 1990s. I have other friends who don’t have the resources and
fortitude to take such energetic measures, and they feel that their relevance to the world
is fading.
I believe that the most crippling injuries triggered by increasing liminality are human
existence with less deep pleasure, fewer thriving communities, and unfulfilled friends.
The lost satisfaction includes not merely the pleasure related to heightened emotional
states, but also the delight in being surprised or the opportunity to encounter myriad
artistic milieux that spark curiosity, exploration, creation, and response.
Toward a Thriving Global Artistic Life
A healthy artistic genre has recurring enactments, effective patterns of transmission,

and innovation in the context of predictability. At a global level, healthy artistry includes
the continual reinvention and interaction of painfully diverse genres. Scholars in
336 Brian Schrag
culture, communication, and the arts can significantly increase the likelihood of reach-
ing such an enduring, vibrant dynamism.
Global Interest in Longer Artistic Traditions

I first presented a paper at an ethnomusicology conference in the early 1990s. After
discussing my efforts to encourage creativity in northwest Democratic Republic of the
Congo, an ethnomusicology student offered this advice: “Don’t worry about all that
activist stuff. Just record the harp music so we can enjoy it—it’s beautiful.” Speechless
at the time, I have since reflected on the effects of various ideological and philosophi-
cal strands twisting through ethnomusicology and related fields. The two strands most
germane to this discussion are the tension between activism and scholarship, and the
role of ethnolinguistic minorities in ethnomusicological research. Regarding the lat-
ter, members of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) have, since the organization’s
founding in the 1950s, noticeably shifted their interest away from ethnolinguistic minor-
ity musics toward other subjects. This general trend is revealed by the subjects of articles
in SEM’s flagship journal, Ethnomusicology. Editors dedicated most of the issues in the
1950s to formational content for the new discipline of “ethno-musicology”: develop-
ing bibliographies, building lists of interested people, disseminating information about
courses related to the field, making announcements, and gathering information about
audio recordings of national and minority musics. Essentially all of the discussions and
information either directly address or assume an interest in music of Others, mostly
ethnolinguistic minorities. The first article on the subject of a minority musical tradition
appears in the eighth issue, “An Apache Fiddle,” by David McAllester (1956).
Following the foundational moment of the 1950s and early 1960s, the percent-
age of Ethnomusicology articles dedicated to ethnolinguistic minorities peaked in the
1970s at 37 percent, and bottomed out in the 2000s. Figure 9.1 contains the results of a
rough, conservative survey of the proportion of articles dedicated to such minorities in
Ethnomusicology.2
Ethnomusicological inquiry and reflection, of course, occur beyond SEM’s North
American hub. The British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE), the Société française
d’ethnomusicologie, the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM), and other
scholarly organizations provide platforms for international dialogue and publication
not included in this survey. In addition, students and scholars in universities all over the
world reflect on and write about musics and their communities. And as I suggested in
the introduction to this chapter, streams counter to the North American example also
flow through the global music scene. UNESCO’s Commission on Intangible Cultural
Heritage, the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre’s Sustainable Futures, the
recent formation of the Minority Musics Section in ICTM, SEM’s Indigenous Music
Special Interest Group, and Applied Ethnomusicology groups in both ICTM and SEM
all point to scholars’ and social activists’ renewed interest in minority arts. Reasons for
this renaissance may include postcolonial shame, acknowledgment of the parochial
40% 37%
35%
31%
30% 28%
24% 24%
25%
20%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s
Figure 9.1 Ethnomusicology articles treating ethnolinguistic minority musics.
nature of eurogenic values in many artistic disciplines, and fear of weaknesses in the
health of human ecosystems brought on by homogeneity. It may be a sense of nostalgia
for moments of surprise at encountering something completely different or discovering
never-before-documented genius.
Scholars and activists from minority communities are also recognizing the loss of
their traditions and finding stronger voices through organization and Internet commu-
nication. Even Christian churches are recognizing the loss of the communicative power
and inherent value of their older arts. The Congolese participants in a song-writing
workshop I helped lead in 2006 wrote a manifesto including these words (my transla-
tion from French):
We have noticed with regret the remarkable absence of traditional music in our
churches. This was caused by the arrival of the first missionaries, and traditional
music has been erased, leaving in its place modern music, which has given youth the
feeling of being despised, wronged. . . . Thus, we participants of this workshop rec-
ommend that the Congolese Association for the Translation of the Bible and Literacy
of Sukisa-Boyinga ask our churches to help us incorporate traditional music with
inspired biblical texts in our respective churches.
A Therapeutic Approach to Communities and Their

Arts-Making
Taking action to sustain older artistic traditions will require a methodology with ele-
ments that arts advocates can implement and that stakeholders can measure. Creating
Local Arts Together (CLAT), outlined in Make Arts for Life: A Guide (Schrag and Van
Buren, forthcoming), is one such process.
338 Brian Schrag
Figure 9.2 The Create Local Arts Together (CLAT) methodology.
CLAT consists of seven localizable steps that community members can use to encour-
age vibrancy in their longer traditions (see Figure 9.2).
1. Meet a Community and Its Arts. Explore artistic and social resources that
exist in the community. Performing Step 1 allows you to begin relationships,
involve and understand the people, and discover the hidden treasures of the
community.
2. Specify Goals. Discover the goals that the community wants to work toward.
Performing Step 2 ensures that you are helping the community work toward aims
that they have agreed upon together.
3. Select Effects, Content, Genre, and Events. Choose an artistic genre that can help the
community meet its goals, and activities that can result in purposeful creativity in
this genre. Performing Step 3 reveals the mechanisms that relate certain kinds of
artistic activity to its effects, so that the activities you perform have a high chance
of succeeding.
4. Analyze an Event Containing the Chosen Genre. Describe the event and its genre(s)
as a whole, and its artistic forms, as well as in relationship to their broader cultural
context. Performing Step 4 results in detailed knowledge of the art forms, infor-
mation that is crucial to sparking creativity, improving what is produced, and inte-
grating it into the community.
5. Spark Creativity. Implement activities the community has chosen to spark cre-
ativity within the chosen genre. Performing Step 5 actually produces new artistic
works for events.
6. Improve New Works. Evaluate results of the sparking activities and make them bet-
ter. Performing Step 6 ensures that the new artistry exhibits the aesthetic qualities,
produces the impacts, and communicates the intended messages at a level of qual-
ity appropriate to its purposes.
7. Integrate and Celebrate for Continuity. Plan and implement ways that this new
kind of creativity can continue into the future. Identify more contexts where the
new and old arts can be displayed and performed. Performing Step 7 makes it
more likely that a community will keep making its arts in ways that produce good
effects long into the future.
CLAT integrates ethnographic and artistic form research and analysis into an
Appreciative Inquiry approach to community development (see Ashford and Patkar,
2001; Tiempo, 2012). Our goal with such methodologies is to see more and more genres
moving from Threatened, Locked, and Shifting to Vigorous states (see Box 9.1). In soci-
olinguistic terms, we want to fortify artistic genres with long histories so that they will
remain thriving components of living languages, sometimes developing stable diglossic
relationships with regional or international arts.
Action Points for Scholars

Ethnomusicologists’ ethical, relational, methodological, and arts-in-culture organicism
uniquely qualifies us to help humanity reach the richest artistic future possible, which
celebrates artists and artistry in long traditions. I offer a list of steps we can take toward
this goal.
• Create a stream of ethnomusicology and related disciplines dedicated to identify-

ing, assessing, and promoting the health of older artistic genres of communica-
tion. With communities, we can use a simple tool like a Community Arts Survey
(see Appendix) to identify and briefly describe such genres. We can then assess
the vitality of the artistic genres on a scale like that in Box 9.1. Finally, we can offer
strategizing and catalyzing events that draw on approaches like Creating Local Arts
Together (Figure 9.2).
• Integrate the identification, assessment, and promotion of older traditions into our
degree programs, courses, publications, community projects, and conferences.
• Devote the majority of our social, financial, and intellectual capital to get-
ting to know and encourage artists representing older, at-risk traditions.
Ethnomusicologists and scholars from related disciplines can contribute best when
we (1) prefer analytical concepts firmly grounded in experienced events rather than
esoterica; (2) employ methods that members of most communities in the world
can adapt and implement without extensive education and training; and (3) choose
to be guided by our historical ethic of privileging minoritized communities in our
engagement.
340 Brian Schrag
• Encourage more students to study and promote older minoritized art forms.

• Develop and contribute to living archives of longer artistic traditions. These should
be curated, Internet-based, appropriately accessible, and designed to spark discus-
sion and creativity (Seeger and Chaudhuri, 2004).
• Increase our engagement with international and national initiatives to support longer
artistic traditions, such as UNESCO’s ICH. Though often a frustrating mix of com-
mon goals and institutional roadblocks (see Grant, 2014), such efforts need our exper-
tise. See Smith and Akagawa (2009) and Barthel-Bouchier (2013) for more on ICH.
• Remove silos separating applied ethnomusicology, indigenous musics, minor-
ity musics, medical ethnomusicology, ambitious studies like Sustainable Futures,
activist organizations like Cultural Survival (www.culturalsurvival.org), and
related communities. These and other disciplines (see, e.g., Aubert 2007: 47–51)
share many goals and offer unique approaches. Collaborating on demonstrably
effective projects will result in a much wider impact on the world’s artistry (cf.
Nettl, 2010:107).
• Embrace the phenomenological theoretical stream in ethnomusicology most
recently championed by Harris Berger (2009, 2014), but extend it to interactions
and goals outside academia. Though phenomenology takes the experience of
events as primordial—as I do in this chapter—we need to theorize within a cycle
that includes external praxis. In fact, an event-anchored, organic, humanized,
embodied view of artistry welcomes insights from all of ethnomusicology’s con-
ceptual streams: music, dance, and poetic analysis; semiotic approaches to emo-
tion; thick ethnographic description; participation in artistic practice; revealing
power differentials in communities’ artistry; and others.
• Enlist huge numbers of people around the world in harnessing Internet-mediated
creativity in the interests of—and following the leadership of—minority artists.
Clay Shirky suggests that humans have built up “well over a trillion hours of free
time each year” and can access “public media that enable ordinary citizens, pre-
viously locked out, to pool that free time in pursuit of activities they like or care
about” (2012: 27). We can help spark major investment from this enormous pot
of cognitive surplus into celebrating and promoting older traditions. This could
include fostering websites, social media sites, audio and video sites, cell phone
enactment distribution, and other electronic channels.
• Get used to counting things.
Conclusion
Ethnomusicology stands unique in the world in its rigorous organic treatment of art
forms and the communities who experience them. We may sometimes swim unap-
preciated in the eddies and backwaters of academia, public policy, and community
development, but not because our potential contributions are negligible. Rather,
I believe our offerings are too radical, and thus often incomprehensible to others.
To illustrate, in 2007 I became the International Ethnomusicology Coordinator
for SIL International, a faith-based language development international nongovern-
mental organization (INGO). At the time, SIL’s ethnomusicology department oper-
ated as an appendage, only vaguely related to our founding discipline, linguistics. I,
Tom Avery, and others began to graciously and inexorably force change: We became
the Ethnomusicology and Arts Group; I earned a spot on our International Academic
Coordination team, with linguists, anthropologists, literacy specialists, and other
already legitimized disciplines; we laboriously followed the bureaucratic trail of forms
to create official job descriptions for Arts Specialists; we developed curricula to train
people in this multidisciplinary field, culminating in a World Arts M.A. at the Center
for Excellence in World Arts and a similar program at Payap University in Chiang Mai,
Thailand; UNESCO accredited SIL to provide advisory services to its Intergovernmental
Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage; and we crafted superb promotional materi-
als to attract people to join us.
Throughout this period, we presented ourselves as inhabiting the core of SIL’s iden-
tity: helping minoritized communities access their local communication systems to
work toward a better future. We ethnomusicology and arts people were skilled in inter-
acting with artistic forms of communication (i.e., genres comprising elements of music,
drama, dance, verbal arts, and visual arts); everyone else was concerned with prosaic
utterances susceptible to linguistic analysis. But we all cared about communication. In
some significant contexts, ethnoarts personnel now work hand in hand with linguists
and others. However, we continue to work toward integration with many of our col-
leagues’ conceptual and practical framework.
The forces arrayed against local art forms are formidable: urbanization weakens ties
between language speakers and their home cultures; globalized communication media
relegate local art forms to one choice among millions (Kidula, 2008: 54); media indus-
tries relentlessly press their favored art forms into new markets (Kaemmer, 2008: 403);
expansive religious traditions use foreign genres, creating unwelcoming environments
for artists from their local communities; and engulfing educational, legal, and religious
systems destroy long-established traditions of transmission. We may be entering a
period of perpetual liminality.
I believe that ethnomusicologists can help minority communities navigate these tides.
We can become known, highly regarded in academic and policy-making circles, and be
present when influential people make decisions affecting minoritized artistic traditions.
We can exert considerable winsome influence in local, regional, and international are-
nas when we combine a vision of artistically thriving humanity, commitment to artists
on the margins of global communities, personal stories of friends in these margins, and
rigorous scholarship contributing to a growing body of data. We can move from aca-
demic and activist liminality to an exhilarating integrality.
Restating the linguists’ lament, we must do some serious rethinking of our priorities,
lest ethnomusicologists stand feckless while global forces liminalize the representatives
342 Brian Schrag
of long artistic traditions whose depth, beauty, function, and power we are uniquely
able to appreciate. Bess Lomax Hawes’s admonition that ethnomusicologists should
lean toward activism with ethnolinguistic minority communities remains telling: We
“should be supporting the music alive; rather than just teaching it as though it were
gone…” (1993), or treating its enactors as though they don’t exist.
Appendix
Perform a Basic Community Arts Survey
This activity relies on a focus group to develop a preliminary list of artistic communicative
events, and can be performed by anybody with some competencies in basic ethnographic
questioning. It should take a day or less to perform, and result in a list of the types of artistic
communication that are both integral and ancillary to a community. The rough list becomes
an essential resource for deciding what kinds of ethnographic and formal analysis that a
community wants to perform. These decisions will be based on particular goals associated
with literacy, education, community development, justice, well-being, and the like.
1. Gather Community Representatives

Gather a few people from the community of different ages, genders, and socioeconomic
backgrounds.
2. Make a Quick List of Event Types When People

Communicate Artistically with Each Other
Ask questions such as these:
When do people sing? Dance? Tell stories? Act? Wear special clothing?
Jot down the name, brief description, and other information that arises, such as kinds of people
involved (men, women, youth, children, specialists, a particular socioeconomic group, etc.);
when it’s usually done (particular days, seasons, months, times of day, etc.); reason(s) for the
event (if easily discernable at this early point in the research) and/or connotations.
3. Extend the List by Researching Likely Social Contexts

for Artistic Communication Acts
Anthropologists know that cultures often mark important events and transitions with artis-
tically rendered communication. Use the following outline to help identify rituals and spe-
cial events that exist in a community. Then explore what kinds of communication might be
associated with rituals, life-cycle events, historical events, activities, nature, or ceremonies.
Life-Cycle Events
• Birth (birth announcement, lullaby)
• Childhood (funny or nonsense games, teasing, taunting)
• Puberty (girl’s songs, boy’s songs, initiation)
• Courting (love, courting, proposal of marriage)
• Marriage (wedding, men’s events, women’s events)
• Death (funeral, burial, mourning)
Historical Events
• Commemorative (disasters, honors, first outsiders, changes in leadership or government,
first road, first vehicles, wars, etc.)
• Legend (creation, mythology)
• Local news
Activities
• Work (cutting timber, hunting, fishing, road making, etc.)
• Fighting (preparation for battle, battle, victory, defeat, etc.)
• Dancing (male, female, multiple sexes, social, ceremonial, solo, etc.)
• Recreation
Ceremonies
• Religious (planting, harvesting, fertility, power, prophecy, worship, etc.)
• Social (greeting, farewell, wedding, funeral, completion of a special community
project, etc.)
Nature
• Animals (pets and wild animals, including birds, fish, and reptiles)
• Places and things (mountains, rivers, forests, trees, plants, the heavens—including clouds,
sun, moon, stars, and sky)
• Time cycles (daily, weekly, monthly, annual)
4. Extend the List by Presenting a Barrage of Eurogenic or

Other Outside Communication Genres
Present a list like the following and ask, “Do you have anything like this?”
Exclamation, greeting, calling, imperative, announcement, spiel, exchange, argument, discus-

sion, debate, hortatory, persuasive, report, commentary, narrative, eulogy, prayers, proverbs,
riddles, humor, artistic/poetic, meditation, song, proverb, word games, unintelligible speech,
story, myth, fable, folktale, chant, parable, and so on.
344 Brian Schrag
5. Gather a Little More Information about Each Genre

If time and occasion allow, you can ask a few more questions about each genre:
• A brief description or local name
• Kinds of people involved (men, women, youth, children, specialists, a particular socioeco-
nomic group, etc.)
• When it’s usually done (particular days, seasons, months, times of day, etc.)
• Reason(s) for the event and/or connotations
• Whether the event includes special
• verbal features (e.g., vocal modifications, poetic elements, archaic vocabulary)
• movement features (e.g., dance, gestures)
• d
ramatic features (e.g., one person taking on the character of another, connoting a dif-
ferent reality)
• musical features (e.g., melody, rhythm)
• visual features (e.g., designs, colors, shapes).
Notes
1. Slightly revised text from Coulter (2011). See also Harris (2012); Grant (2014); Saurman (2013).
2. Thanks to Center for Excellence in World Arts graduate students Lydia Duggins and Julie
Johnson for performing this research.
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Chapter 10
Activ i st
Et hnomusic ol o g y a nd
Marginalize d Mu si c of
Sou th Asia
Zoe C. Sherinian
Hearing and seeing marginal music through participant activism brings ethnomusicolo-
gists face to face with our choice of subjects, with self-reflexivity, and with musical value
played out in local power politics. It also presents us with new methods such as ethnographic
film, dialogical participation, and broader distribution and impact for our scholarship and
its meaning. In this chapter I explore how South Asian activist ethnomusicology can con-
tribute methodology and theory to the wider discipline. Focusing on dialogical processes
from two case studies of Dalit (formerly “untouchable” or “outcaste”)1 folk music from my
fieldwork and filmmaking in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, I examine ways to approach
local contexts where there are intense hierarchies of musical value and where oppressed
communities use music to assert identity and cultural politics of revaluation through meth-
ods of participant activism that contribute to what I call Dalit Action Theory.
To conduct activist ethnomusicology in the context of South Asia generates theoreti-
cal perspectives of musical value within economies of musical style. It forces the ethno-
musicologist to engage with the cultural politics (or meaningful action) of marginalized
music and musicians in the South Asian geographic area of study in which, until the late
twentieth century, scholarship had primarily focused on formal analysis of the elite clas-
sical styles of Karnatak and Hindustani music as sound objects.2 That is, the meaning of
the music was interpreted within and not beyond the building blocks of musical perfor-
mance. It exemplified the fetishization of the object of art and the genius individual art-
ist whom ethnomusicology has typically worked against, especially within the academy.
As in the visual arts, where it was thought that there must be an art object that can be
preserved, in Western art music it is the composer and the score that are fixated upon
as the primary objects of analytical importance and the determinants of meaning. This
Activist Ethnomusicology and Marginalized Music of South Asia 349
was the focus and methodological model adopted by early ethnomusicologists of South
Asian music. In pre-1980s ethnomusicological field methods, knowledge was under-
stood to lie in the object of the transcription or notation of the collected and recorded
music. Such representation of sound then facilitated comparison across lived experi-
ence to understand origin and evolution (Titon, 2008: 25).
Since the mid-1980s, using phenomenological and hermeneutic approaches, the
point of entry into the “life-world” (ibid.) of the music for ethnomusicologists has more
often been the people, their context and the processes that evolve from sound making,
the shared experience of performance, and the relationships that evolve through that
fieldwork process, as well as music’s social cultural process of production, transmission,
and reception. The moments of self-reflexivity that reveal transformation enter ethno-
musicological ethnographies through close description of shared music making that
may be poetic and polemic. Instead of a singular authoritative interpretive approach,
we constitute meaning through “sympathetic listening” across multiple personal field
relationships and perspectives (ibid.: 27, 29). Our goal is knowledge of people through
agreement and lived experience, the analysis of which proceeds through interpretation
of shared musical processes (ibid.: 27). These methods are common today in South Asian
ethnomusicology. However, repercussions of the pre-1980s inclination toward the for-
mal analysis of classical South Asian music included the reinforcement of long-standing
local hierarchies of musical and social identity value that were further codified in the
mid- to late twentieth century by postcolonial caste politics and academic choices.3
I assert that an alternative engagement with the meaning and value of marginalized
South Asian music through the drumming and folk songs of untouchables, or Dalits,
inherently changes the way we practice ethnomusicology in South Asia and impacts
broader theories of applied ethnomusicology. Preminda Jacob (2009), art historian of
Tamil visual culture, argues that methodology is determined by the content of study;
it takes on the imprint of the theorist’s disciplinary focus. She draws from the work of
Georges Did-Huberman (2003), who poetically described methodology and its impact
on the fieldworker as tools in perpetual transformation:
From the tool kit to the hand that uses them, the tools themselves are being formed,
that is to say, they appear less as entities than as plastic forms in perpetual transfor-
mation. Let us think rather of malleable tools, tools of wax that take on a different
form, signification, and use value in each hand and on each material to be worked.
(Didi-Huberman, 2003: 38)
Thus, as we move from fetishizing the art/sound object of classical South Asian music
produced by and for the elite, using a methodology of formal analysis, to a focus on
the use of folk music by the lower castes and Dalits, to assert politics of identity what
does this require of our fieldwork and ethnographic methodology? How does it effect
the fieldworker, the subject, and the relationship between them? Do each of them also
become malleable tools (re/trans)formed in the research process? Finally, what does the
resulting theory that evolves from the data/experience look or sound like?
350 Zoe C. Sherinian
Most important, a focus on folk cultural contexts, expressions, and processes, as well
as the lower castes who use and produce this culture (a shift in musical, contextual,
and human subjects from earlier studies), forces us to recognize and deconstruct local
hegemonies of musical style and our discipline’s contributions to the construction and
perpetuation of them. This necessitates a self-reflexive, area-focused (South Asia) con-
sciousness of our choices and stance.
I propose that studying the people and meaning behind marginalized music neces-
sitates a participant-activist methodology, not only in fieldwork, but in teaching content
and academic/community programming. In this chapter I use and theorize activist and
advocate ethnomusicology, as opposed to applied or public sector, which I feel reflects a
job description or title more than a method. I am concerned with the actions of advo-
cacy and engagement in order to emphasize “energy directed toward socio-political
concerns” (Dirksen, 2012: n.p.), “the uses of ethnomusicology towards solving con-
crete problems” (Harrison, 2012: 514), or the understanding of advocate ethnomusicol-
ogy as “any use of ethnomusicological knowledge by the ethnomusicologist to increase
the power of self-determination for a particular cultural group” (Patten, 2008: 90, in
Harrison, 2012: 509). However, I ground such political action or engagement in the fem-
inist perspective that the personal is the political. Further, I wish to bridge what Rebecca
Dirksen calls the “[w]‌ell-fed false dichotomy between ‘pure research’ and ‘applied
work,’ ” or the perceived juncture between the university and “real life” (2012: n.p.).
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett argues that this split is a “mistaken dichotomy” based on
a resistance to reflexively analyze the core, applied character of the discipline of folklore
(1988: 141). The activism I examine here includes recognition of the role that ethnomusi-
cologists play within the academy as “advocates” legitimizing the study of all music (not
just Western art music) simply through our presence in the classroom and committee
room every day, transmitting and representing our discipline.
Finally, the use of media such as participatory ethnographic film as a form of knowl-
edge transmission (and production), and as an educational and consciousness-raising
tool, not only opens the possibility to reach a wider audience for ethnomusicology, it also
requires that the ethnographer and her resulting “texts” become a forum or conduit for
her subject’s agency and message, while not erasing or denying the scholar’s own critical
voice. Film provides an accessible medium and greater sensory experience for the audi-
ence to which the subjects communicate. It provides a fuller observation of the experi-
ences of the marginalized, and a means to a more transparent lens into the relationship
of the subjects with the ethnographer. Further, participant-action ethnographic film, in
which cameras are put into the hands of the ethnographic and/or oppressed subjects,
can provide a collaborative ethnographic production that is much less mediated by the
scholar and potentially highly dialogical.
The shift in methods that result from a shift in subject (classical to folk music, elite
to oppressed people) allows us to begin to see, hear, and experience South Asian music
differently—from multiple perspectives, no longer as aesthetic objects that reflect the con-
structs of elite musicians, their values and culture. But instead, we can experience the per-
spective and creative processes of the oppressed majority and their music that asserts a vision,
song, and beat of resistance and liberation. As scholars, we are invited to open ourselves to
dance with the thinking, conscious, embodied, agentive Dalit singing her tune, refusing to
be silent, but demanding to be heard and seen in a cultural politics of clashing musical styles.
Transformative Musical Meaning/

Action Grounded in the Political
Assertion of Cultural Value by Dalits
Dalit is a self-chosen term of oppositional politics that is used by people throughout

India (and in some other parts of South Asia or its diasporas) formerly referred to by the
terms untouchable, outcaste, Harajin, or the contemporary term, scheduled caste.4 The
term Dalit comes from Marathi, meaning ground, suppressed, or broken. As a single
umbrella term, it undermines sub-jati (caste) differentiation and unifies people across
identities of oppression including class, gender, race, and religion.5 The term Dalit was
first applied in Western India to lower castes and outcastes in the nineteenth century
by Jyotirao Phule, the Maharashtran activist and social reformer who worked for the
rights of Shudras (lower castes), outcastes, and women (Mendelsohn and Vicziany,
1998: 4). The modern Dalit movement was started in the 1920s by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
(1891–1956), whose work included challenging Mahatma Gandhi’s campaign to prevent
untouchables from having a separate electorate—that is, their own representation in
India’s new democracy.6 The term was made popular again by the Dalit Panthers and in
the Dalit literary movement of 1970s in the state of Maharashtra. Dalits also fall under the
rubric of the “subaltern,” in that as a subject, the subaltern studies group of South Asian
historians have studied them in a limited—some would argue, failed—sense (Bhagavan
and Feldhaus, 2008). Dalits make up over 16 percent of the population of India (that
is, 260 million). Untouchability was outlawed by Article 17 of the Indian Constitution
in 1950. However, prejudice, discrimination, and violence continue as part of the daily
experience of Dalits in India and its diasporas. Indeed, historian Dilip Menon calls caste
violence “the central fault line of contemporary Indian society” (Menon, 2006: 1).
Dalit Action Theory is politicized agency of the oppressed, asserted through cultural
expression, necessitating an activist methodology focused on collaboration, dialogue,
and reciprocity. Its action is one of social justice for underrepresented and undervalued
culture: an expression of the ideal of worthy intervention and a “guiding sense of social
purpose” that has been at the heart of ethnomusicology, particularly applied ethnomusi-
cology, since its inception (Sheehy 1992: 323; Titon, 1992: 316–317).7 In ethnomusicology,
Dalit Action Theory evolves from political experience, engagement, and exchange; that
is, dialogue between culture bearers, researchers, and other activists with whom they
are engaged. I have developed this concept from anthropologist Sherry Ortner’s idea of
subaltern practice theory (1996). While “practice” is a useful concept from performance
studies, my emphasis on “action” broadens the concept of practice and performance to
recognize a politicized agency of the oppressed, asserted through the arts and the eth-
nographer’s dialogical engagement with them. I am searching for a space between gen-
der theorist Judith Butler’s distinction of performance and performativity that would
articulate through expressive culture a blended, heightened, conscious “habit” of iden-
tity politics (Blacking, 1995: 218; Butler, 1990). Sheehy calls this “conscious practice”: the
purpose and end game of applied ethnomusicology’s strategic action that goes beyond
collecting knowledge for knowledge’s sake (1992: 323). A phenomenological approach,
using examples below from dialogical fieldwork among outcastes of Tamil Nadu, will
show how Dalits use music to assert value, power, and empowerment in society, and
the means by which knowledge about that process is formulated and transmitted as the
foundational lens for methods and theories of advocacy and activist ethnomusicology.
The Classical Ten Percent
In South Asian culture, one continues to find a hierarchy of musical value in which the
classical court music and concert music—Hindustani and Karnatak, which are patronized
by only about ten percent of the population—are considered of greater worth than other
practices, including folk, popular (Bollywood or productions of the regional film indus-
tries), and some devotional music. This hierarchical value difference is justified in the
following ways. The “classical” practices are theorized in vernacular and Sanskritic texts
and thus are considered rooted in “ancient Hindu” culture, which predates the “foreign”
cultural influences of Islam and Christianity. However, this essentially erases their influ-
ence, or the contribution of anything but upper caste Brahminical Hindu culture, to these
“classical” forms of music.8 Furthermore, the powerful institutions of society (education,
media, politics) and the elite (upper caste and class) people who control public discourse
consider the classical practices more complex, virtuosic, meaningful, and literally cleaner
(or purer) than these other genres, even those practices essential to village Hinduism.
What is as important to this study, however, is that this discourse of ancientness,
purity, and essential greater value has been reinforced and codified, whether consciously
or unconsciously, by Western ethnomusicologists. The results have been an uncritical
impact on our knowledge about and support of the music of elite South Asians and, to
a large degree, an erasure of our knowledge and support of the non-elite. In particular,
we have ignored the music and culture of Dalits. However, I would also apply this era-
sure to lower-caste and class hereditary musicians, who also struggle to have the value
of their music recognized (Terada, 2000). These musicians who play folk instruments
in the village ritual economy, as well as those who play in Brahmin temples, are still
believed to repollute themselves through performing drums like the Tamil frame drum
called parai9 or aerophones such as the double reed nagaswaram. That is because such
instrumental performance involves the polluting substances of animal skin or saliva.
By maintaining hereditary occupational roles as performers within polluting contexts
such as funerals, where the sounding of the instrument is ritually necessary and outcaste
participation is demanded within village systems of kadamai or slave-like hereditary

duty, their status remains low (Sherinian 2009, 2011).
Folk music scholar Jesudasan Rajasekaran described the dynamics of degradation
and low status experienced by folk musicians whom he observed in the 1970s when he
first began to study Tamil folk music:
The status of folk music and also musicians was very, very low. They are not even
considered as people that they [the middle classes and castes] can move [with], they
can go about and talk to or have any interaction with. Because, they are only used for
occasions where they are required. That’s all. If it’s a karagam dancer, Mariamman
festival comes, “ok we pick them up.” That is all. The rest of the time these people,
they are just on the fringe. They are not very much part of the society, not like the
Karnatak musicians, or any other light musicians, or temple musician. That’s another
hierarchy that is in this thing. Just like in this community, the caste hierarchy is so
strong, even [in] the music they have a hierarchy.
(J. Rajasekaran interview, February 15, 2009)
Rajasekaran’s analysis highlights a hegemony in Tamil culture that not only parallels, but
(re)constructs and transmits a tangible coherence of structures of musical value as hier-
archies of the social values of caste and class in South India (Feld, 1984: 406). An even
more visceral expression of the coding of the musical value hierarchy in South India
came from a Brahman Karnatak mrdangam (drum) artist who said that simply hearing
folk music made him feel sick to his stomach (personal communication, Aaron Paige).
Thus, the untouchablity and unseeability of low-caste musicians are extended to the
sound of their instruments as unhearable.10
Unfortunately, this value hierarchy has also been reinforced, perpetuated, and codi-
fied in the West by the research and teaching choices of ethnomusicologists, including
the standard material in world music textbooks (the majority of which focuses on anal-
ysis of classical Indian music). Ethnomusicologists have further supported this social
hierarchy in the following three ways: (1) by not contextualizing the meaning of specific
styles of music within South Asian culture, particularly in economies of caste and class;
(2) by erasing the presence of folk and popular voices (who make up a numerical major-
ity in the society) through the music we choose to research, teach, and program in our
concert series; (3) by codifying style categories instead of recognizing the flow of cul-
tural influence and exchange through their porus boundaries.
Orientalism and Neo-Orientalism

in Ethnomusicology
There is a complex interactive fieldwork dynamic, with specific histories in both the
Euro-American academy and the South Asian context, that needs to be deconstructed
and scrutinized in order to understand how the more recent choice of subjects from the
less valued communities potentially shifts our methodology. This deconstruction is nec-
essary in order to address advocacy from the perspective of marginalized South Asian
music and its cultural politics, and therefore to bring the music of lower caste, outcaste,
poor, tribal, and rural people to the center of academic inquiry.
The Japanese historian and Pulizer Prize–winning author John Dower described the
idea of value-free scholarship, or “research produced by a completely impartial and dis-
passionate researcher” (McLean, 2006), in which the field of Asian studies was immersed
in the 1960s and 1970s, as the drowning of the academy in highly political and ideological
modernization theory that indeed was not value free (Dower, 2004). This apolitical, anti-
activist methodology, rooted in the surveillance culture of the McCarthy era of the 1950s,
created great fear and purged scholars from Asian studies. David Price shows that social
activist-anthropologists working for racial justice experienced a similar politics of sani-
tization and scrutiny by the FBI starting in the 1940s and 1950s (Price, 2004). In her dis-
cussion of the history of applied ethnomusicology and mid-twentieth-century interest in
folk culture following the New Deal cultural documentation projects of the 1930s and the
burgeoning folk revival movement, Rebecca Dirksen says that “McCarthyism and Cold
War politics administered a heavy blow as the FBI investigated folk artists and supporters
for alleged communist sympathies.” These included the “rigorous investigation” of Allen
Lomax and Benjamin Botkin by the FBI (Dirksen, 2012: n.p.; Sheehy, 1992: 325).
The scrutiny and the ideology of value-free scholarship affected the choice by many
ethnomusicologists to study classical music and culture in India over less valued forms
of music in the mid-twentieth century. It also may have been the least threatening choice
for American ethnomusicologists during the heightened tensions of the Cold War, with
Pakistan politically aligned with the United States, and India with the Soviet Union.
Furthermore, within the music academy, where most ethnomusicologists studied and
taught, local struggles over musical value influenced the choice to work with elite Asian
court music that could compete with the “sophistication” of Western classical music. This
was not only a research choice; it extended to performance teaching, textbook content,
and concert presentation. Mantle Hood’s concept of bimusicality (that one could be flu-
ent in more than one musical system) and his development of this musicological method,
derived from performance skills and music theory/analysis within ethnomusicology,
further fueled the study of elite/court-based Javanese, Japanese, and South Asian music
(Nettl, 2005: 50). Deborah Wong calls this “research through performance practice”
(2008: 81). Drawing on work by Marc Perlman (2004), Wong suggests that the problem
with Hood’s work was his authorial position and the lack of ethnographic, dialogical, or
collaborative presence in his writing, so core to contemporary applied, activist ethnomu-
sicology and, some theorists argue, all ethnomusicology (Harrison, 2012: 507–508):
His scholarship on gamelan music theory was profoundly shaped by his time and his
own training. He spent years interacting with Javanese musicians and learning from
them directly, but they are essentially not present in his analytical work; His scholar-
ship on music theory is empirical, produced by a unitary interpretive subject (Hood)
and is barely ethnographic.
(Wong 2008: 81)
In turn, the theoretical and musically complex nature of these practices molded eth-
nomusicological approaches and methods of interaction with “classical” Asian music.
Indeed, Nettl argues that more Western audiences were inclined to embrace Asian elite
(while foreign) practices as “music” and further that they might even like, let alone
appreciate, them for their complexity (Nettl, 2005: 50). The easy embrace of Asian clas-
sical music through introducing gamelan ensembles in the Western academy, bring-
ing “A-grade” artists and academics from Bali and India to teach in Ph.D. programs,
and their mentorship of Western students as “disciples” further supported the accep-
tance of ethnomusicology within music departments that were still committed to the
Eurocentrism manifest in the “value-free” ideology of virtuosity and perfection of the
Western musical canon.11 The study of elite court and temple cultures of Asia, with their
comparably complex written theoretical and notation systems, more easily validated
and facilitated the study of non-Western music in general during the early years of the
discipline (1950s). However, this Eurocentric hegemony was not new. It had its roots in
Western music and academic studies tainted by the colonialism and racism of the nine-
teenth century, as well as the orientalism of the eighteenth century.
The focus on elite court cultures of Asia by ethnomusicologists is an example of the
continuation of Indology and eighteenth-century orientalism, which historian Thomas
Trautmann (1997) calls “Indomania.” Trautmann focuses on Sir William Jones, known
primarily for his assertion that Sanskrit was a civilized European proto-language,
in some respects surpassing Latin and Greek in the development of its grammati-
cal system (1997: 39). In 1784 Jones also wrote Indic ethnomusicology’s foundational
“Brahmin-musical-centric” (my words) texts with his treatises on Indian classical music,
entitled On the Musical Modes of the Hindus. Trautmann’s form of eighteenth-century
orientalism can also be seen in the encouragement of Indian Christian converts
by the German Lutheran missionaries in South India to use the elite Karnatak genre
of kīrttaṉai as the basis for an indigenous hymnody as early as 1714.12 It was not until
the height of imperial colonialism in the mid-nineteenth century that the Eurocentric
brand of orientalism Trautmann calls “Indophobia” was more prevalent in British India.
In South India its musical traces were perpetuated primarily by British missionaries,
including the promotion among converts of four-part harmonic Western hymnody
in English over the earlier modal and odd-meter based indigenous genre of Christian
kīrttaṉai encouraged by the German Lutherans (Sherinian 2007, 2014).
Indomania for the elite practices continued among music scholars and their local
informants, usually Brahmins in the nineteenth century. For example, Augustus Willard
wrote one of the earliest English treatises on Hindustani music in 1834. This was fol-
lowed in 1914 by A. H. Fox Strangways’s early prototype of comparative musicology,
The Music of Hindustan, and the work of two twentieth-century Protestant missionar-
ies: Emmons White, who published Appreciating India’s Music in 1957, and H. A. Popley,
who drew on the earlier work of Fox Strangways and Captain Day to write The Music of
India in 1921. White also worked closely with contemporary Brahmin Karnatak theorist
P. Sambamoorthy and, in the 1970s, Karnatak ethnomusicologist John Higgins. These
missionary and civil servant scholars wrote detailed analyses of the classical raga sys-
tems, as well as detailed transcriptions in Western notation from first-hand experience
through personal study with a local, typically Brahmin, teacher. While these works
contain subtle traces of ethnocentricm, rationalistic comparison, generalization,
paternalism, and the impetus to scientifically codify structural procedures and perfor-
mance practice, they generally were written with a great respect and appreciation for
the Karnatak and Hindustani systems. The goal (particularly of Fox Strangways and
Popley)—to scientifically and practically “know” the classical systems, particularly of
melody—however, strongly contributed to the later methodological focus on music’s
structure and theory within South Asian ethnomusicology. Further, this focus was
devoid of any real sociopolitical analysis of the culturally powerful Brahmin, or upper
caste, elite hereditary music communities that produced or patronized these forms
of music and the theories about them. This lack, in turn, extended the production of
uncritical colonial knowledge past the mid-twentieth century, landing us in the middle
of contemporary Hindu fundamentalist cultural politics.13
In his analysis of the contemporary Hindu fundamentalist movement in The Saffron
Wave, historian Thomas Hanson shows how “the Brahminical high scriptural tradition
that… produced the bulk of Sanskrit texts [was] regarded as the classical center of the
Aryan-Vedic high civilization” (1999: 65). He argues that the concept of a single classical
Hinduism organized around a central high culture and extending across the subconti-
nent as a “great tradition” was a production of colonial knowledge. Furthermore, this
codification and elevation of Brahminical practices into a Hindu tradition took place
with “the active assistance and help of Brahminical western-educated strata, especially
in Madras and Bengal where the colonial administration began” (ibid.: 66). The concept
of the unity of Hindu culture puts the classical practices at the center, with devalued folk
music at the margins, paralleling the geography of most villages, where outcastes, con-
sidered spiritually dangerous and impure, are confined to ghettos on the wastelands at
the boundaries of the village (Mines, 2010: 226, 232).
Partha Chatterjee describes the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as
more concerned about defending and promoting a unified Indian culture than the reli-
gion of Hinduism. He defines the BJP’s construct of Indian culture as an authentic ideal,
fundamentally unified, ancient, and continuous. Furthermore, he says, the attempts to
describe this unified ideal by nationalists “have been largely textual, searching ancient
works of religion, philosophy and law written for the most part in Sanskrit. The older
the texts, the stronger the claim to belong to the origins of Indian culture and hence to
its continuous authenticity” (2003: 1). To counter these claims of cultural unity, and to
show the great diversity of practices in India, many of which counter orthodox Hindu
practices, Chatterjee cites a recent vast study by the Anthropological Survey of India. He
finds that in 4,635 distinct communities, 80 percent of the population eat fish or meat,
racial hybridity is the norm, one-half of all men and one-quarter of all women drink,
most are allowed to smoke, and the strong regard for lineage and ancestry “is a trait that
belongs only to the upper castes” (ibid.).14
Chatterjee furthermore says that while the cultural nationalists may recognize diver-
sity within India, they argue that there is a fundamental cultural unity that cannot
be found in the day-to-day practices of the people because those practices have been
corrupted by many influences (often constructed as foreign, Muslim, or Christian).

They hope to promote this political ideology in order to uphold the national cultural
ideal and maintain power in the hands of the upper caste Hindus (ibid.).
In order to understand the dynamics and politics of advocacy in South Asian ethno-
musicology, we must confront the local sociopolitical identity of musical style, as well
as the contribution of colonial dynamics and scholarship to the construction or reifica-
tion of these hierarchies. A self-reflexive approach will help us understand our inher-
ent role as advocates or perhaps contemporary Indomaniacs, which ethnomusicologists
have played for non-Western music and musicians within the music academy since the
founding of the discipline in the 1950s—and in South Asia for over 200 years. Then we
must decide the degree to which we were, and continue to be, conscious of the elite or
marginalized subjects of our advocacy.
Methods that focus on formal analysis of musical systems (such as raga and tala) help
us maintain distance from the “disorientation” of the embodied, often sensually extreme
fieldwork experience. It keeps the academic project in a comfort zone away from the
“domains of the body, the spiritual, the ‘mystical,’ ‘the exotic,’ and the ‘primitive’ ” (Hahn,
2006: 92). Our methods of fieldwork as disciples of classical music gurus have led to
extreme levels of embodied (particularly technical) knowledge from which South Asian
ethnomusicologists have been able to make great contributions to the understanding of
the systematic theory and performance practice of these forms of music, for example,
the work of Slawek (1987) and Miner (1993) on the history of sitar, Nelson (1991) on the
mrdangam drum, and T. Viswanathan (1974) on Karnatak raga improvisation. However,
the literature has lacked that self-reflexive mirror that would necessitate greater repre-
sentation and understanding of the sociopolitical context and processes from which the
music evolves and gains its meaning. To generate a new method of South Asian activist
ethnomusicology through better understanding the music/dance that have been over-
looked in South Asia, I turn to Dalit Action Theory.
Dalit Action Theory on the Ground
Transformative musical action is woven into encounters with politics of cultural value.
Key to this action and its meaning is dialogical field engagement, disorientation, and
reorientation through reflection. Dislocation when in the field and relocation in the aca-
demic world (or vice versa) are also often factors whether one is literally far away from
the field site or not (Babiracki, 2008: 168). However, in his study of heavy metal music,
Harry Berger describes a critical dialogical process through engaged interpretation with
metal performers after a period of ethnomusicological data gathering (interviews and
participant observation) (Berger, 2008: 74). This is methodology for theoretical inter-
pretation that crosses the perceived dichotomy between academy and field site, engag-
ing the subjects of research in the production of knowledge through, in Berger’s case,
dialoguing with the metal heads about Marxist critiques of their music and the politics
of music, which in turn resulted in a range of collaborative interpretive insights that sup-
ported the agentive voice of the subjects (see case study below and Sherinian, 2005).
In this way, Dalit Action Theory in ethnomusicology evolves out of data and experience
derived from political engagement, participant-action, and exchange of music and ideas
between members of the music culture and ethnomusicologists, as well as other activists
with whom the people are engaged. Knowledge production is dialogically shared. The goal
of the experience and cultural understanding is transformative musical meaning/action,
grounded in the assertion through performance of a politics of cultural value, resistance,
and identity. Key to this action in the field experience is transformation through cultural
and musical disorientation (Hahn, 2006; Wong, 2008), which we can perhaps call a sub-
altern praxis of reversal, reorientation through reflection and interpretation (Freire, 1984
[1970]), and, as Berger has shown, critical dialogical engagement (Berger, 2008).
Using two case studies of Dalit folk music from the South Indian state of Tamil
Nadu, I will show how music makers/producers use music to assert value, resistance,
and empowerment in society. My focus is to demonstrate how theories of advocacy and
activist ethnomusicology evolve from data and experience attained through using an
activist ethnomusicological methodology focused on collaboration, dialogue, reciproc-
ity, and mutual transformation in relationship, shared music making/composition/per-
formance knowledge building, and theologizing.
Case Studies from the Dalit

Movement: The Subaltern Sing
(and Drum!)
Both of the following case studies engage with Tamil Dalits and the cultural politics of
Dalit liberation through music. I began writing this chapter with the intention of using the
phrase “subaltern action theory,” drawing on subaltern as a universal, academic designa-
tion that can encompass the experience and politics of people such as Dalits throughout
South Asia and its diasporas.15 Antonio Gramsci first applied “subaltern” to those groups
excluded from politics, who thus lacked a voice of political representation or participation
in the production of history or culture, as the elite understood this process. This included
those of “low rank,” the proletariat, workers, peasants, and those suffering under the hege-
mony of ruling elite classes such as Mussolini’s Fascist Party (El Habib Louai, 2012: 5).16
I am further influenced by feminist anthropologist Sherry Ortner’s (1996) feminist prac-
tice theory focused on gender and power. She theorizes the role that female/subaltern
agency can play and how this agency is both constructed and enacted (Ortner, 1996: 16).
The subaltern studies group in South Asian history, especially as exemplified by
Gayatri Spivak’s essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988), uses Marxist and feminist
analysis to understand workers and women, drawing on Gramsci’s notion of the prole-
tariat and those of low rank in their use of the term subaltern. From her analysis of early
twentieth-century Indian women’s lack of access to the public sphere, Spivak asks the
question, “Can the subaltern speak?” She was specifically concerned with the experi-
ence of women subjugated by sati (or widow immolation), which was primarily middle
class and elite women, being solely represented in the writing of British colonials and
elite Indians. She also describes subaltern self-representation in scholarship and media
as “anonymous and mute.”
Those marginalized in today’s South Asia similarly have little access to voicing their
concerns or representing their identities in mainstream media and to globally networked,
or cosmopolitan audiences. So, how can the subaltern speak for themselves, especially
without reinscribing their subordinate position in society? I assert and, as I once dis-
cussed with Dr. Spivak, attempt to understand the self-representation of many marginal
people in India by suggesting that “Can the subaltern speak?” is the wrong question. For
those oppressed by caste, class, and often gender, the means of protest communication
in South Asia is rarely public speech. It is more often song and performance; that is, the
subaltern sing and drum their subjectivity (Sundar, 2007: 160–162).17 As a method for
ethnomusicology (and political science), one must listen for the resistive expression of
Dalits not as speech, but as music. My primary critique of Spivak’s use, and in turn my
evolution from the phrase “subaltern practice theory” to “Dalit Action Theory,” is the
lack of recognition that Dalits or any oppressed peoples inherently have agency. This is
the case in South Asia because many upper-caste historians who theorize the “subaltern”
have not studied (done fieldwork with), understood, or recognized the contemporary
medium from which Dalits communicate. Dalit Action Theory in the medium of folk
music instead redirects and answers the question, “Can the subaltern speak?”
By reorienting and answering this question with a focus on the Dalit action of musi-
cal performance and protest, I shift from the limits of a category of identity such as
subaltern (which implies a population below some other identity)18 or even the term
oppressed, to behavior, or the action of Dalit culture. Because of the daily forms of dan-
ger and humiliation that Dalits must resist to survive, they may not speak (in the pub-
lic sphere or from a political platform) at all. I assert that the Dalit mode of action is
to sing and drum their resistance and liberation, using accessible tools of identity such
as those evolved from village folk culture that inherently empower them in their own
cultural resources (language, nonverbal musical style, instruments, etc.).19 Further, as
I show in the following case studies, Dalits re-sound their empowerment through Dalit
musico-theology, through reclaiming the polluted status of their parai frame drum, and
through interrogating their internalized castism.
Thus, by choosing the term Dalit Action Theory, I allow my theory to evolve from
my data and the terminology of local activists across South Asia. The following ethno-
graphic case studies explore and define how Dalits act and what actions can be con-
tained within this term and then applied theoretically more universally. I found that
Dalits often act in a unified way across differences (caste, class, and gender); they are
more often intersectional. While it is commonly asserted that the liberation of women
is at the center of caste liberation (Devasahayam, 1997), Dalit culture encourages acting
in an expansive, inclusive, and improvisatory way, as is reflected in the ability to change
the lyrics, tunes, rhythms, and other elements, of folk songs (as a medium of action), in
order to meet the particular sociopolitical needs of the moment (Appavoo, in Sherinian,
2014). Dalits often act in a loving welcoming way toward those who might hold power
over them, while maintaining their integrity of self-understanding and definition (see
case of Amulraj below). This exemplifies Sherry Ortner’s model of “serious games”: “cul-
turally organized social episodes in which players retain some degree of agency…
actors play with skill, intention, wit, knowledge, intelligence” (Prieto, 1998: 12).
I draw my concept of action from Sherry Ortner, who emphasizes in her book Making
Gender the role of practice in social change. Ortner reacts against practice theory as
reproduction in the mode of Bourdieu and Giddens (Ortner, 1996: 17), while she contin-
ues to argue against the separation of reproduction and transformation. She also avoids
the loop of structures constructing subjects, or vice versa. Ortner instead argues for
subaltern practice theory that “look(s) for the slippages in reproduction, the erosion of
long-standing patterns, the moments of disorder and outright resistance” (ibid.). In her
case study of the Hawaiian women’s cultural coup that overthrew local gender arrange-
ments, she emphasizes “the disjunctions in, rather than the coherence of the struc-
ture,… the creativity of the women within the limits of their traditional politics,…
(and) the transformations rather than the continuities that ensued” (1996: 18). Thus, her
emphasis lies on “incompleteness, instability, and change” in systems and people (ibid.).
I am interested in the sort of agency from the oppressed that emerges not only
from a dynamic cultural context, but also with cultural material such as music, to cre-
ate change. This is radical action, that goes to the root, often internally, to address core
issues of power and hierarchy that affect oppressed communities: the power of the com-
munal arts to radically transform the self in relation to society or one’s context. This is
negotiation between the constructed ideological forces and the place where real people
work out the messiness on the ground to create change. This practice framework has a
conscious intent of radical action through the arts for change. Human action not only
constructs the arts and individual identity in relation to them, but also transforms them,
potentially liberating the actor. The actor inherently shows his or her skill through the
arts, manipulating folk song lyrics, tune, rhythm, instruments, and meanings to create
an internal, community-based dialogue intended to create action for change.
This action is radical in its disorientation, in the way that it pushes the external limits
of habitus (Ortner, 1996: 11). Dalits reverse power structures (Appavoo, in Sherinian,
2014). In village religious practice, Dalits radically transform, from the inside, the
internalized roots of the shame of untouchability. The parai drum evokes trance states
that enable Dalits to make themselves anew. Dalit Action Theory, then, is centered in
the power of the arts, the music-dance-narrative, to (re)produce society and history
through the intentional action of agents, specifically oppressed agents. Dalits under-
stand the larger forces working against them and are actively—not simply—surviving,
and resisting, through daily musical action.
The church in India constructs Christian identity and theology as well as the practice of
music. But, through indigenizing Christian music in styles such as folk music that allow
for slippages in reproduction and active resistance to dominant ideology, practitioners
are able to change lyrics and other musical aspects and, therefore, theology (Sherinian,
2014). Using folk music, Dalit Christians are able to change Christian theology and their
associated social identities “from below.” With such a musical system, song texts have no
authors, hymnbook committees have no control, and there is a built-in “lack of totaliza-
tion of ‘structure’ itself.… Hegemonies are always ‘partial’… there are always sites [or
sounds]… of alternative practice and perspective available, and these may become bases
of resistance and transformation” (Ortner, 1996: 18). Folk music in Indian culture is one
such site of alternative practice, particularly with the influence of culture broker theo-
logians like Rev. J. T. Appavoo (1940–2005), who was a significant node in a network of
change that encouraged this alternative practice of folk music as theology.20
Actors as agents with desires and intentions are embedded within games, dramas, sto-
ries, and, I would also assert, musical systems and structures with sound and movement.
Furthermore, such perspectives inherently recognize, in agency, alternatives—the pos-
sibility of doing things differently. As Ortner says, “there are [always] other ways of
doing the game of life, even if those alternatives are not immediately available or not
subjectively desirable. What is important is that they exist, and thus always prevent clo-
sure” (Ortner, 1996: 19). They are understood as possible. They give hope and encourage
persistence of action by the oppressed. This is consciousness.
Christianizing “Dalit”
In the early 1980s, Christians throughout India, but particularly in the South, began
to embrace the term Dalit as a form of identity and to apply it to the creation of a lib-
eration theology that addressed caste as well as class and gender inequalities. This
“Dalit Theology” had its roots in the Social Gospel movement of the mid- to late nine-
teenth century,21 the Ambedkar movement, Marxist and labor movements, and the
anti-Brahmin Dravidian movement in South India (Devasahayam, 1997; Webster, 1992).
It also led to the development of a body of literature on Dalit theology.
The academic roots of the Dalit theology movement began at the United Theological
College, Bangalore, in April 1981, with a lecture entitled “Towards a Sudra Theology” by
A. P. Nirmal. Kottapalli Wilson used the term Dalit in 1982 in his book The Twice Alienated
Culture of Dalit Christians. In 1984, the Church of South India Dalit Bishop M. Azariah
(the first Dalit Bishop in the CSI Madras Diocese, who served in 1990–1999) was the first
Protestant Church leader to use the phrase “Dalit Theology” in international discourse,
with the intent of bringing global concern to the plights of Dalits.22 One of the most strik-
ing problems for Christian Dalits is that the Indian government does not afford them
the same degree of compensation (quotas in government jobs and educational seats) as
nominally Hindu Dalits.23 In 1994, Bishop Azariah led a march to Delhi to fight for com-
pensatory rights—affirmative action and quotas in education and government jobs—for
Christian Dalits equal to those offered to “Hindu” Dalits. Dalit Christians have also been
actively involved in the international struggle for Dalit human rights and recognition of
caste discrimination. More recently, many Dalit Christians, including the young women
parai drummers of the Sakthi Kalai Kuzhu (The Sakthi Folk Cultural Centre), participated
in political demonstrations as performer/activists at the 2001 United Nations Conference
on Racism in Durban, South Africa, and the 2004 World Social Forum in Mumbai.
Case One: Tamil Folk Music as

Dalit Theology
It was this milieu of activism and musico-theology into which I stepped in 1993 to begin
my doctoral fieldwork on the indigenization of Tamil Christian music—only to become
disoriented and transformed. In this section I describe how the introduction of folk
music by theologians and a folk music process of re-creation of Christian music and
theology by Dalit villagers since the 1980s are examples of Ortner’s subaltern practice
theory, specifically through the reformation of sociomusical identity (Ortner, 1996: 17).
Tomie Hahn articulates how an ethnomusicologist can experience disorientation in
fieldwork in the process of discovering the transformative moments that lead to cultural
understanding or reorientation (Hahn, 2006). I conducted my dissertation fieldwork at
the Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary (TTS) in Madurai, India, in 1993–1994. My origi-
nal intent had been to study the use of Indian classical Karnatak music by Christians.
However, in my first engagement with Rev. Theophilus Appavoo (1940–2005) and his
Dalit Christian folk music, I experienced embodied disorientation that critically chal-
lenged my understanding of what was significant theologically, musically, and politi-
cally in the seminary community.
In Appavoo’s first morning chapel service that I observed in the early months of my
fieldwork, I was taken aback by the way he arranged the community in the chapel space,
mixing women and men in a circle instead of segregated on two sides. Furthermore, he
called forth women students to dialogue with him during his sermon, and he used lively
participatory folk songs where typically light (film-music style) or classical Christian
music was the norm. This experience not only moved me intellectually and musically,
but politically (Blacking, 1995: 213–214).24 The direct and metaphorical ideology of the
lyrics and the folk musical style fully engaged my progressive (feminist, socialist, and
queer) political values and moved me to commit my project to a greater understand-
ing of the expression and transmission of Appavoo’s Dalit Liberation theology through
music. I chose to embrace the folk style of this Christian music, the participatory expe-
rience of the gender-integrated space, the experience of collaborative music making,
and the politics of liberation that these performance practice values articulated. It was
not only an academic decision, but also an embodied political one, in the feminist sense
of the personal being the political. John Blacking’s analysis of the Christian music of the
South African Venda people, which applied a folk model of musical performance inte-
grating worship, music, politics, and social life, is a useful comparison:
The significance of musical freedom in the context of religious worship becomes

apparent, and the difficulty of explaining nonverbal action with concepts derived
from other modeling system dissolves in the face of a system that relates feeling and
bodily experiences to material realities without any sense of contradiction.
(Blacking, 1995: 221)
This initial observational experience in the TTS chapel brought me into Appavoo’s
sphere and familial community as a student and critical partner in dialogue about music
production, style, and transmission in the seminary.
Above I describe Harry Berger’s use of critical dialogue in fieldwork and interpre-
tation with particular attention to the “ethics of voice in fieldwork… and the role
of power in expressive culture” (Berger, 2008: 74–75). One of my most embodied
transformative field experiences at TTS involved a dialogue about vocal style and
a folk process of shared production of theology from below through the adapta-
tion or change of lyrics. The result of this embodied experience and interpretive
process was a multifaceted understanding of caste and gender politics through
recognition of the agency (voice) and stances of all involved in the negotiation of
meaning (Berger 2009). Specifically, the analysis of musical style showed both non-
verbal and verbal elements of song expressing the agentive voices of the doubly
oppressed: Dalit women.
While learning to perform and lead the classical South Indian Karnatak style, sung
liturgy at TTS, I acutely experienced the hegemony of male vocal range. That is, the
performance practice of this congregational style liturgy at the seminary required
women to sing very high because the keynote, or sruti, was determined by a male vocal
range, usually a sruti of C or D, in a setting in which men and women sing in octave
unison. Male instrumental leaders habitually chose the most accessible sruti for them
(males) to both sing and play on a harmonium keyboard. Thus in order to sing in
octaves, the women had to push their range up from the Karnatak music norm of F1 to
begin at c2 (middle C) and stretch to g3 (or higher, an octave and a half above. For the
majority of the women (including me), the musical result was a strained, thin, often
squeaking female timbre, very typical of Indian film music since the late 1940s. My
initial analysis and embodied response in my own discomfort of singing that high was
that these women were constrained by what I termed a male vocal hegemony. I shared
this musical and gendered analysis with Rev. Appavoo, helping him understand my
embodied musical experience (Sherinian, 2005).25 The following was his response:
I think real research should create some action. So if I do some research that should
create something, some change in what we call the subjects of research. As you have
been doing. You are doing that, because you always remind us about the women,…
you know the women’s perspective…. So this should be research of a person who
is committed to humanity in general. All my articles and everything are connected
with that kind of thing. It’s not just research for the sake of getting a degree.
(interview, Madurai, July 1994)
However, while Appavoo supported my analysis and potential influence on, or “inter-
ventions” in, the realm of performance in the seminary (Titon, 1992: 316), through dia-
logue with the young women singers, I determined that many of them preferred and
strove to sing high with a nasal timbre, as a vocalized film music aesthetic that con-
structed a modern, sophisticated Indian femininity. Appavoo ultimately recognized this
perspective, but concluded that this vocal expression was not “liberating,” as an oral sym-
bol of modernity and sophistication, which simultaneously reinforced a domesticated,
virginal, and constrained femininity for adult women (Sundar, 2007: 147–148, 169).26
Further engagement with Appavoo’s own compositional processes, on the other hand,
not only created change in his community, or the “subjects” of my research, but in the
ethnographer (myself). This manifested through Appavoo’s style of dialogical engage-
ment with students and with me. It included praxis, reflection, and change of his compo-
sitions, a collaborative process to make them more accessible and theologically relevant
and thus as liberating as possible. For example, when teaching his own songs, Appavoo
remained open and listened for feedback about lyrics and musical sound from students
at the seminary. While I was doing fieldwork with Appavoo’s choir, the women spontane-
ously replaced the lyric that addressed God as Appa (father) with Amma (mother) in a
rehearsal of his song “Manasamātta” (Change of Heart). He thoughtfully broadened the
way he addressed God to make it more inclusive of a theological construction as mother
as well as father, by switching the term every other refrain (see Sherinian, 2014: Chapter 4,
for full analysis of this song and a sound example). This is indicative of Appavoo’s embrace
of a folk music process. In South Asian classical music, on the other hand, the student is
passive, never asking questions of the guru, but simply practicing and patiently waiting
for the guru to decide if the student is ready to receive more. It is a role that demands an
inherently “uncritical nature” (Groesbeck, 2001: 1; Nettl, 2005: 156–157).
Appavoo did not immediately recognize his own gendered limitations until the wom-
en’s side of the choir boldly sang back to him their perspective that “God is Mother!” He
did not understand my gendered experience of singing the Karnatak liturgy until I shared
that the vocal range chosen for me by the male harmonium player, who used it to pri-
marily accompany men, strained my performance/range. In turn, I did not understand
the class perspective of the urban Dalit women until another Indian woman friend lent
the perspective that while I felt limited by this high vocal range, perhaps the young Dalit
women who sang this repertoire in their upper range experienced its thin timbre as an
urban sophisticated voice, like that of film stars, and provided them modern, urban,
middle-class status through musical emulation. When Appavoo recognized that my
strained experience as a women vocalist did not fit his own folk and feminist ideology
of accessibility for his music, he consciously scrutinized the starting pitches (or vocal
range level) for his compositions, adjusting them to better accommodate women in per-
formance. Others in the seminary who did not share these feminist values, on the other
hand, ignored us. Until ethnomusicologists begin to practice an activist methodology and
fieldwork space that allows dialogue between multiple perspectives or stances, that chal-
lenges the constructionist authority of a white academic, of a male theology professor, of a
rising middle-class Dalit female student, and that acknowledges that we ethnomusicolo-
gists inherently intervene, we can only achieve a limited understanding of culture.
The re-creative flexibility and transmission process (production, reception, and

reproduction) of folk music in the Tamil Dalit Christian context provided the lived expe-
rience of people as the experience of creating empowering theology.27 This included the
dialogical and interpretive process of participatory-action that evolved from the lived
experience and practice of conducting fieldwork through embodying and negotiating
not only politicized lyrics, but nonverbal, culturally coded elements like musical timbre
and range (Blacking, 1995: 199–200).
Rev. Appavoo, in turn, put the responsibility back on us, his students, to transmit his
theological and political message through engagement with village and town congrega-
tions and to nurture these songs in a feedback process that could potentially lead to fur-
ther theological recreation, particularly by the village Dalit people for whom the music
was intended. After inviting me into his family circle and calling me his daughter, he
named me Parattai Kural (Parattai’s voice),28 bringing to consciousness an identity of
being more than a scholar, but also an activist with whom he was willing to trust and
share his music. Through this trust and familial closeness, he placed a responsibility on
me to spread his message of the praxis of Dalit musico-theology at a more global level.
All of these dialogical field engagements and experiences dislodged, redefined, and
reoriented the traditional guru-disciple relationship that I, like so many of my col-
leagues in South Asian ethnomusicology, had come to expect, particularly within a
Karnatak or Hindustani elite musical context. It was the shift to a folk music milieu and
a liberation theology production, transmission, and reception process that facilitated
this reorientation.29
Jeff Titon describes the particular process of self-reflexivity and transformation for
ethnomusicologists as located in the shared experience of playing music together in
cross-cultural relationships (Sherinian, 2005, 1; Titon, 2008 [1997]). My engagement in
hearing, studying, and performing Tamil Christian folk music, and my participation in
the daily rituals of shared eating and in a dialogue of shared values with the commu-
nity members who gathered around the musico-theology and person of Rev. Theophilus
Appavoo created the place from which I locate my participation and self-transformation
in my study and activism.
Case Two: Drumming Dalit

Documentary Film
In his book Global Soundscapes (2008), Mark Slobin essentially asks, “What does music
do for film?” I want to extend this question to ask, “What can film do for music as advo-
cacy?” The documentary film, This Is a Music: Reclaiming an Untouchable Drum, which
I shot in India in 2008–2009 and released in 2011, is an example of ethnomusicological
advocacy that is inherently polemic. The title This Is a Music came from one of my nine
parai frame drumming teachers, Amulraj, as he asserted the value of his drum, usually
considered polluting, as music (ida oru isai, or “this is a music,” in Tamil).
Tyagu (field assistant/translator): To what extent do you accept those who

think of you in such a degrading way? To what extent do you accept their views?
Amulraj: We won’t get angry if they speak that way. Those who have learned the
profession won’t get angry. We won’t get angry (shakes his head). We will call them
and say, “Come here man, this is a music! You can’t understand this (shakes hand
and gestures a throw). It doesn’t get through your thick head! That is why you are
speaking like this. Go ask people like yourself, but who have traveled, ‘what are our
abilities?’ Don’t simply go around talking like scum.” We will call them and tell them
these things. But we won’t get angry with them. (Smiles and shakes his head “no”).
(interview, Amulraj, Munaivendri, Tamil Nadu September 7, 2008)
In the Indian musical economy, where the hierarchy of musical value parallels the
caste hierarchy, “polluted” outcaste musicians playing polluting folk music struggle for
respect against assertions of degradedness and lack of musicality (personal communi-
cation, Rajasekaran, 2009). Thus, Amulraj’s assertion that his parai instrument, com-
monly thought of by middle-caste villagers and upper-caste musicians as degraded, “is
a music” is a passionate, radical critique of the cultural ramifications of caste hierarchy.
By providing Amulraj and his troupe an opportunity through film to voice their agency
against this cultural devaluation and to share their ongoing experience of castism in
the Indian village in their struggle to become professionalized musicians (laborers),
my academic work as a scholar filmmaker embraces this polemic stance. However,
my position to support Amulraj’s assertions are grounded in traditional ethnomusi-
cological methods—that is, well documented, “hard,” systematic musical analysis of
the music’s structure and performance practice using my informant’s own terms (ana-
lytical perspectives and metaphors that perhaps do not get through the thick heads
of Amul’s middle- and upper-caste oppressors). These were gained from spending
four months of participatory fieldwork learning to play the parai with the members of
Kurinji Malar: embodying its rhythms, its structure, its dance, and its meanings.30
As significant as formal analysis, however, my film focuses on the negotiation of
the parai’s ritual value in funerals and village Hinduism, where its sound and sound-
ing is the means to call the deity, analogous to the use of Sanskrit slokas in Brahminical
Hinduism (personal communication, John Jayaharan, 2009), and the means to take the
soul to heaven (surgam) (personal communication, Rajasekaran, 2009). Further, we
observed how in the contemporary urban folk festival context, parai performance has
become a source of Non-Brahmin, Tamil cultural identity and entertainment. Finally,
within the Dalit civil rights movement in Tamil Nadu, the parai drummer has become a
cultural icon for empowerment and the drum “a weapon for liberation.”
Making this documentary film was experiential and progressive within the disci-
pline of ethnomusicology, as its process and results were highly dialogic, self-reflexive,
multivocal, and transformative. Having nine teachers instead of one, as Tomie Hahn
(2008) has argued, “disoriented” my fieldwork expectations in Munaivendri village. It
changed the nature of the guru-student relationship I had grown to expect in the South
Asian context. This multivocality of teaching techniques lent itself further to a dialogi-
cal engagement throughout the fieldwork and filming process. My teachers challenged
my discourse and interpretations, the critical process of which I document in the film
narrative. I allowed myself to be vulnerable (to turn the camera on both my subjects
and myself, the ethnographer), to show the dialogical process of coming to understand
the following: (1) the drummer’s worldview (and how it was different from perspec-
tives of middle-class Dalit activists, which I had adopted); (2) how they experienced
caste discrimination as musicians; (3) how they experienced the term parai (as “a bitter
taste on their tongue,” or a word that was hard to swallow, as it reminded them of their
degraded caste name, Paraiyar); and (4) how they would ultimately negotiate a balance
between building their self-esteem that resulted from their more positive reception at
the Chennai Sangamam urban folk festival with the limitations of their necessary eco-
nomic engagements with upper-caste patrons in their home village context.31
Sashi (cinematographer: What do you think about parai?

Zoe (ethnographer/director): The instrument.
Tyagu (field assistant): You see, the object. The instrument… what do you
think about that instrument. What is its meaning to you?
Amulraj (drummer/teacher): You mean drumset?
Tyagu: Parai?
Amulraj: (strongly assertive tone) you mean about drumset! That is honorable
(kouravamana) work (velai). There is no need for us to ask for alms (pitchai) from
anybody. It is beautiful work. It is super work. It is not that this is being done as
hereditary (parambaram) habit (parakam). Of course it was done as a hereditary
habit [duty], but we are not following them (in that way). Music Illaiyaraja [famous
Dalit film music producer] is beating, right? Can we simply go and talk about him
that way? But, when it comes to learning the profession, no one will acquire it that
easily. This profession will come quickly only to the one who created it. [he likely
means Paraiyars who are thought to have this ability “in their blood”]. When it comes
to beating a single beat… if you ask who can learn it quickly, it comes only to us.
Tyagu: Do others think about drumset as low (kizha)? If they think of it as low how
do you accept that?
Amulraj: Those few others who do not know about this profession, and those who
do not know anything of the world, and those who have not gone anywhere [literally
outside] and have no knowledge about other places, think of this profession as
polluted (asingama). Those who have moved away from this place to town and
have roamed there would not think of it as polluted. Those who have lived only
here, having never been away [traveled], would think “these guys… what they do
is definitely polluted. What they do is a bad/mistaken work [tappana tolil].” Those
who have traveled in four directions would think, “this guy… Beautiful profession!
Keen interest!” And, those who know that whatever function it is, only drumset
leads the way [literally stand at the front] will not think of it as degraded. Even then,
if somebody thinks, “What, drumset! This guy is still (mindlessly) beating kottu and
roaming around.” We would respond “what man, have you (ni—informal you) ever
traveled around the world?” In this way we have also questioned them and answered
with details.… Similarly, anyone who has traveled all the four directions would not
think that way. They have said, “It is his profession, sir we cannot beat like him! You
see this guy beating, see whether you can beat like that, sir.” I have heard this being
said with my own ears. (interview, Amulraj, Munaivendri September 7, 2008)
In her attempt to negotiate agency within practice theory, Sherry Ortner begins
by “retaining an active intentional subject without falling into some form of free
agency and voluntarism” (1996: 19). She argues for a method that embraces “the unit
of practice” as the serious game or structures of agency, not the “agent” (ibid.: 13, 19).
This allows us to keep the hopeful and persistent action of agents as well as struc-
tures in mind. To remember to hear how agents are “skilled and intense strategizers
who constantly stretch the game even as they enact it, and the simultaneous fact that
players are defined and constructed (though never wholly contained) by the game”
(ibid.: 20).
Amulraj’s identity may still be constructed as Paraiayar, or untouchable jati, by his
upper-caste village neighbors, but his movement as a musician outside the ideologi-
cal, geographical, and discursive limitations of the village allows him to negotiate this,
to redefine himself in relation to other forces that show the greater humanity of his
music and person. He intentionally talked back to us, the ethnographers who used the
reclaimed, ancient term parai of the Dalit activists and folk festival organizers, to name
his drum/ensemble. He instead assertively favored an English term “drumset” that had
more neutral, but valued status in his mind as middle class. He justified this with his
claim to an indigenous cosmopolitanism, to a worldliness and understanding of the
ruptures in the caste system possible outside his village and region, and the value and
agency of his music to help create these.
How was this field encounter mutually transformative? Through my relationship with
Kurinji Malar as their student, their advocate, and their friend, these nine drummers
became brothers to me. While I was already invested in regional Dalit politics, I came to
understand their local village processes, their economic and social context, their socio-
political reality—which is not mine, which I can step out of without having to take any
real responsibility or without it having an impact on my daily life. However, I was fur-
ther transformed into an activist filmmaker through a relationship of affinity with their
situation. I, in turn, created the opportunity for Kurinji Malar to attend the Chennai
Sangamam festival through drawing on my contacts with Catholic organizers and other
academic activists to get the group invited to the festival, based partly on the fact that
I was making a documentary about them.32 But, the drummers then took this oppor-
tunity and ran with it. The networking they pursued with other musicians and organiz-
ers at the festival (which I had nothing to do with), along with their professionalism
and enthusiasm in performance, led to multiple opportunities that took them twice to
national and international events in Delhi, as well as to several other regional festivals.
Ethnomusicologists in academia have always networked to create these sort of opportu-
nities for our teachers/informants, though one might argue that I was acting more like
a public sector or applied ethnomusicologist who works in community festival organiz-
ing. Ethnomusicologists need to reconsider that, whether creating opportunities for our
informants while in the field or producing world music concert series for a school of
music, this is musical activism: that ethnomusicologists are all activists and advocates,
and the process of becoming so can be transformative of our work, our scholarship, and
ourselves as people.
The ethnomusicological method of musical immersion in contexts that bring us face

to face with performers, typically as our teachers or collaborators, who produce musical
sound, concepts about it, and its cultural meaning, is participant activism. We are not
only immersed in contexts, but in relationships of shared music making and dialogues
of knowledge production. When we bring these processes into our written or audiovi-
sual ethnographies and are conscious or honest about our roles as actors in the field, we
are practicing self-reflexivity.
I have shown that if one works in a context in which the value of the music and musi-
cians are intensely hierarchical and one is focused on those at the margins/bottom, we
cannot do our subjects justice unless we engage with the local (and potentially global)
politics of value. Thus, in order to participate in critical dialogue with subaltern or Dalit
collaborators (to change the way we practice South Asian ethnomusicology), we need
more conscious tools and theories that engage us as actors in the field, not passive musi-
cal mimetics who primarily produce or translate structural analysis of musical systems.
The South Asian musical context in which the value and meaning of caste, class, and
gender are still fought over and negotiated everyday, through mediums like folk music
and performance, offers Dalit Action Theory for ethnomusicology and cultural studies.
This is knowledge production as transformative aesthetic action through embodied dis-
orientation, dialogical processes of praxis, reflection, and critical interpretation, woven
in and out of encounters with the politics of cultural value, where oppressed groups use
the arts to assert identity and (re)valued agency.
While doing fieldwork, many ethnomusicologists come face to face with the reality
of political power dynamics with which our informants struggle. However, for those
of us who work in the Western music academy, whether the “world” music we study
is elite, popular, or Dalit, and whether or not we consider ourselves “activist/advocate
ethnomusicologists,” we are still forced to engage with the politics of musical value in
these institutions. Applying the perspectives of Dalit Action Theory in our academic
departmental contexts may also be a means to the growth and survival of our discipline.
Notes
1. Dalit is a term of oppositional politics that can be described as anti-caste. It is an umbrella
term that is inclusive of those formerly called outcaste, untouchable, or harajin. It is also a term
meaning “oppressed,” used by some activists to include lower castes, the poor, and women.
2. Art historian of Tamil media culture Preminda Jacob (2009: 4) argues that the ephemeral
and collaborative nature of the production in the Tamil film industry and political banners
and cutouts, “almost wholly precluded them from serious consideration by art historians…
The discipline of art history conventionally requires an object that can be collected and
preserved and, in the case of contemporary works, clearly attributed in its authorship to a
particular individual” (Jacob, 2009: 4).
3. This includes the reassertion of upper-caste and Brahmin identities through solidifica-
tion and narrowed control of Karnatak music by urban Brahmins, particularly in Madras/
Chennai. This happened through the shift in production control away from the regional
courts and kingly patrons to the sabbhas or music clubs of the urban areas after the 1860s,
but also through institutions like the Madras Music Academy and All India Radio (see
Lakshmi Subramanian, 2011).
4. The term harajin, (meaning “children of God”) was applied to untouchables by Mahatma
Gandhi. While many common, politicized outcastes still use the term harajin, Dalit activ-
ists have extensively critiqued it as patronizing. Some of this is based on the general cri-
tique of Gandhi by Dr. Ambedkar, the acknowledged twentieth-century leader of the
untouchable movement. Ambedkar critiqued Gandhi for upholding the varna system in
his ideology and for using strategies such as threatening a fast-unto-death if Ambedkar
did not relinquish his goal of achieving a separate electorate or representation for Dalits
in India’s parliamentary system, which was already available for other minorities. This is
extensively documented in the Pune (or Poona) Pact of September of 1932. (See youtube.
com/watch?v=ZJs-BJoSzbo for Dr. Ambedkar’s 1955 BBC Interview).
5. In common use, however, Dalit has often problematically been conflated or used in prac-
tice as a simple replacement for outcaste jati terms such as Paraiyar or Chakkliyar. Yet,
its meaning in such application still carries a sense of political consciousness of oppres-
sion and a rejection of the term untouchable or specific caste/jati names thought of as
derogatory.
6. In 1924, Dr. Ambedkar founded the organization Bahiskrit Hitakarini Sabha (Outcastes Welfare
Association), with the intention of working for the liberation of the outcastes, or untouchables.
His goals included the eradication of illiteracy, economic development, and nonviolent action
against caste-based discrimination, such as denial of temple entry. (Goldy George, Salam
Bhimrao! Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in India: A Reflection). http://
histhink.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/salam-bhimrao-dr-bhimrao-ramji-ambedkar-the-
dalit-movement-in-india-a-reflection/ (accessed October 6, 2013).
7. Daniel Sheehy (1992: 324) describes this worthy purpose of ethnomusicology as seeing
“opportunities for a better life for others through the use of musical knowledge, and then
immediately to begin devising cultural strategies to achieve those ends.”
8. The discourse of a golden age of Hinduism disregards the presence of Christianity in
Kerala from possibly the first (if not, certainly the fourth) century and the important
patronage and cultural influence of Islam, Sufism, and Muslim hereditary performers in
Hindustani music (Qureshi, 1991).
9. The etymology of the term parai is “to speak or announce,” reflecting the occupation of
parai drummers as those who announce village ritual and social occasions by playing the
semiotically coded patterns of their drum. The term parai is found in Tamil Sangam litera-
ture written between the 2nd century b.c.e. and 2nd century c.e.
10. In my previous work I have shown that this value hierarchy extends beyond Hinduism
to the music and theological resources of other religious communities in South India,
including the Christians (Sherinian, 2007, 2014).
11. The best-known Ph.D. programs in ethnomusicology that were early integrators of
Asian ensembles and teachers in their curriculum and faculty include UCLA, Wesleyan,
University of Michigan, and University of Washington.
12. In the Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Halle, Germany, I located a small
collection of kīrttaṉai dated 1714 that included ragas, talas, and three part kriti form, put
together in a pamphlet for schoolchildren of the Tranquebar mission in Tamil Nadu. It was
against this upper-caste repertoire and the values that it carried that Theophilus Appavoo
would create his Dalit liberation theology in folk music in the 1980s.
13. The exceptions to this were Regula Qureshi’s (1991 and earlier) work on the erasure of the
oral contribution of poor, illiterate Muslim hereditary practitioners of Hindustani music
and the Marxist work on the music industry by Peter Manuel (1993). The work since the
1990s of Matthew Allen (1997, 1998), Yoshitaka Terada (2000), Amanda Weidman (2006),
Richard Wolf (2009), Douglas Knight (2010), Lakshmi Subramanian (2011), Devesh
Soneji (2012), and Anna Schultz (2013) has finally begun to fill in the critical perspective
and the sociopolitics needed to understand the production of classical music by upper-
and middle-caste Indians.
14. This counters the stereotype perpetuated by orthodox Hindus that Indian society is
Hindu, the majority of people are vegetarians who further follow the orthodox strictures
that one should neither drink nor smoke, and that there is very little intercaste or love
marriage.
15. I do not mean to associate Dalit with something that is somehow “sub” or below anything
else. It is not a disempowered position but an empowered, counter expression of opposi-
tion to the caste system or to hegemonic systems of power.
16. Louai, El Habib, “Retracing the Concept of the Subaltern from Gramsci to Spivak: Historical
Developments and New Applications,” African Journal of History and Culture 4(1): 4–8,
January 2012, http://www.academicjournals.org/AJHCDOI: 10.5897/AJHC11.020ISSN
2141-6672 (accessed October 1, 2013).
17. Pavitra Sundar, citing Rahaja (2003), similarly asserts in her discussion of film singer Lata
Mangeshkar that “[i]‌n many parts of India, singing is a crucial mode of female partici-
pation in the public sphere” (2007: 162), and that indeed music is “the means by which
women enter the nation” (ibid.: 161). Sundar qualifies this, saying that women’s presence
in the public sphere, at least in the film Lagaan, is “non-threatening as they are allowed to
participate only in song. The narrative makes no room for female aggression” (ibid.).
18. I am grateful to the Dalit filmmaker-activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan for helping me see
the point that Dalits are not “sub” or below anything.
19. In his important article on music, politics, and Christianity (1981), John Blacking showed
the significance of nonverbal, folk modeling systems to influence social action, especially
in oppressive contexts like South Africa’s apartheid system, where the speech of the major-
ity black population was severely repressed and restricted (reprinted in Blacking 1995: 199,
edited by Byron).
20. Rev. Dr. J. T. Appavoo was my teacher. My publication Tamil Folk Music as Dalit Liberation
Theology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014) is an ethnomusicological biogra-
phy of his life and theology as music.
21. The Dalit theology movement is a local movement with over one hundred years of roots in
India. It was not directly influenced by the South American movement, though its think-
ers read liberation theology works by Paulo Freire and Gustavo Gutierrez.
22. Other important publications include Towards a Dalit Theology by M. E. Prabhakar
(1988), Emerging Dalit Theology by Xavier Irundayaraj (1990), Reader in Dalit Theology by
Arvind Nirmal (1991), Indigenous People: Dalits by James Massey (1994), and Christianity
and Dalits by Sathianathan Clarke (1998), and the recent anthology that includes chapters
by Dalit faculty from TTS and the Chennai Diocese, Frontiers of Dalit Theology, edited by
V. Devasahayam (1997). Frontiers of Dalit Theology includes two articles by Theophilus
Appavoo, “Dalit Way of Theological Expression,” and “Communication for Dalit Liberation.”
23. Many lower-caste and Dalit activists, such as the author Kancha Ilaiah, who wrote Why
I Am Not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture, and Political Economy
(1994), reject being called Hindu and having been appropriated into the Hindu fold.
They argue that their religious practice, deities, and origins are completely different from
Brahmanical Hinduism. Most unpoliticized lower-caste people, on the other hand, simply
accept the term Hindu as applied to them by the social and political system.
24. See John Blacking’s (1995) work on music and politics within the South African (Venda)
churches, specifically his discussion of the form of liberation theology called Black
Theology and his stress on the importance of musical style, that is, how people of different
denominations sang to mark political associations and consciousness in a process of adap-
tation or inculturation of European Christianity (specifically hymnody) to African culture
(1995: 218).
25. For a full analysis of this incident in my ethnographic experience, see my article
“Re-presenting Dalit Feminist Politics Through Dialogical Musical Ethnography” in
Women and Music 9 (2005): 1–12.
26. Pavitra Sundar argues that three generations of Indians knew the “virginally pure” shrill
falsetto timbre of the iconic film music figure of Lata Mangeshkar as the “quintessen-
tial and ideal voice” of a modern, middle-class, national, Indian femininity (2007: 145,
147–148). Drawing on Barthes’s (1977) theory of the “grain of the voice” or “corporeality
of voice,” Sundar focuses on a method of using “vocality in theories of the body… dem-
onstrating how vocal music works to embody and disembody the nation” (ibid.: 146). She
describes this as “materiality of music” and the “audible body” (ibid.: 164) grounded in its
sociohistorical context (ibid.: 163). She concludes that Mangeshkar’s “desexualized vocal
style helped contain the dangerous visual and aural presence of female bodies in public”
(ibid.: 149). While it is not a particularly transgressive presence, but a domesticated agency
limited to “sexually modest, upper-caste, and middle-class Hindu women” as they con-
tribute to patriarchal nationalist goals (ibid.: 164, 168–169).
27. Harris Berger asserts that “the object of study is not music sound or music structure, it
is pieces, performance, sounds, or structures in the lived experience of social persons”
(Berger, 2008: 70). Furthermore, he argues that ethnomusicology’s proper object is not the
reification of texts, but “practices of production and reception” (ibid.: 65).
28. Rev. Appavoo’s Tamil folk pen name was Parattai Annan, or “big brother with messy hair.”
He used this anonymous identification in the publication of his songs to encourage people
to change the lyrics or music as they saw fit to their sociopolitical context.
29. Advocacy was inherently present in my commitment to share Appavoo’s Dalit liberation
songs and liturgy with the world. Our mutual enthusiasm to get this message to a global
academic and theological audience brought him to my academic milieu in the United
States on lecture tour. Tragically, on this tour in 2005, he became sick, and after seven
weeks of hospitalization with congestive heart failure, died—a completely transformative
experience for me.
30. This is an oral system of drumming based in mnemonics with a clear theoretical organi-
zation. There is a relationship between the kinesthetics of the dance patterns, the drum
mnemonics, and folk tune genres. Most contemporary performances have a systematic
drumming and dance organization of a circle-line-circle over the course of 20 minutes.
I learned and recorded on videotape 35 different named beats (adis) from these men, all
but one of whom have less then a fourth grade education. Further, I interviewed them
about their teaching methods, and videotaped and analyzed hours of our lessons.
31. See the film trailer for This Is a Music: Reclaiming an Untouchable Drum for more contex-
tualized detail. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPXJAYPHGzI.
32. Besides a general ethical stance of practicing my responsibility to “give back” to this group
of very poor and illiterate musicians who had become my teachers, I understood this as
an “intervention” and a potentially significant boost in their career trajectory and pro-
fessionalization (Titon, 1992: 316–317). However, I fully embraced Sheehy’s notion that
securing Kurinji Malar an invitation to participate in the Chennai Sangamam folk festival
would and ultimately did provide them increased financial opportunities, and enhanced
self-esteem through contact outside the caste-infected economy of their local area—a stra-
tegic practice with a worthy purpose (Sheehy, 1992: 324).
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Rajasekaran, J., Madurai, Tamil Nadu, February 15, 2009.
Pa rt I V
I N DIG E N OU S
P E OP L E S
Chapter 11
De c ol oniz at i on a nd
“Story-ing” the Personal-Political-Possible in Our Work
Elizabeth Mackinlay
Introduction: Beginnings
This chapter is told as story. It is my personal-is-political story and a narrative that

speaks to the philosophical, theoretical, and methodological past and present colonial
violence in the her/his stories of our discipline. It gives an account of why I come to
be speaking about decolonization and applied ethnomusicology in this moment. I real-
ize before I begin that by speaking a story and engaging in talk about decolonization
work, I have already ventured onto dangerous and contested ground. I am a white settler
colonial woman, and others like me who occupy a settler position have long laid impe-
rialistic claim to the power to speak the truth about Indigenous others. How is the story
I propose to tell any different? I am tempted to justify my storytelling approach by care-
fully choosing words from the writing of Indigenous scholars Sium and Ritskes, who tell
us that in Indigenous epistemologies, stories are theory in action and decolonization
demands “personal and relational understanding” and the “richness and creative vitality
that storytelling brings” (2012: 11). Yet, here they are referring directly to the authority
and authenticity of stories told by Indigenous people in a decolonizing space, and the
position of a settler speaking is highly contested in this landscape—indeed, who does
the storytelling and from what perspective they enter the story are critical (Siums and
Riskes, 2012: 11).
Doing decolonization work as a non-Indigenous narrator is not an easy position
to occupy or authenticate—but neither should it be. Engaging in what Pillow terms
“uncomfortable reflexivity—a reflexivity that seeks to know while at the same time
situates this knowing as tenuous” (2003: 188), I would argue, is an ethical necessity
for those who want to interrupt and interrogate colonial ways of being, doing, and
380 Elizabeth Mackinlay
knowing, which habitually appropriate the voices we speak of/to (Siums and Ritskes,
2012: 11; cf., Kelsky, 2001). The reflexivity is uncomfortable, and inevitably so is the
story, and such narratives might, as Fanon suggests, more “properly be called a litera-
ture of combat” (1967: 193) for they evoke dangerous truths about disciplinary history
and identity that “won’t stand still” (Denzin, 2006, p. 334). I am aware that storytelling
of this kind is not usual or perhaps even readily accepted practice in ethnomusicology;
however, I smile and share with you Richardson’s assertion that anyone who thinks the
“creative and analytic are contradictory and incompatible” is a dinosaur waiting to be
hit by a meteor (Richardson, in Richardson and St. Pierre, 2005: 962). Greene’s voice
joins Richardson’s in support of the urgency to challenge dominant modes of research-
ing and writing:
Allowing myself to be carried along by the great conversation initiated by others

(and, indeed, maintained by others) I would not have to disrupt. I would not have to
begin anything; I would need only to be swept along by what the great ones have said
and remain partially submerged by them. But then I think of how much beginnings
have to do with freedom, how much disruption has to do with consciousness and the
awareness of possibility… we have to keep arousing ourselves to begin again.
(1994: 109)
Indeed, this chapter as story is a provocation to become and remain fully and truly
“wide awake” (Greene, 1994: 112) to the issues of colonial power and privilege, which
refuse to go away in ethnomusicology. Being “wide awake” to colonialism leads to
questioning of a critical kind into the uncomfortable landscape of “race,” and the lens
of critical race theory sits on the ground as a signpost in front of us as a place to begin
such a discussion. A critical race theory perspective insists that “race [read colonial-
ism] still matters” (Ladson-Billings, 2009: 18) and does not allow us the option to walk
away from, deny, or silence the understanding that “race is always already present in
every social configuring of our lives” (Ladson-Billings, 2009: 19). Critical race theory
confronts us with our complicity in processes of colonization and asks us as ethnomu-
sicologists to see the ways in which we knowingly or unknowingly enact, sustain, and
benefit from our white power and privilege. Critical race theory in ethnomusicology
might usefully be defined then as a set of basic insights, methods, and practices that
seek to “identify, analyze, and transform those structural and cultural aspects of [eth-
nomusicology] that maintain subordinate and dominant racial positions in and out of
the [field]” (Solorzano and Yosso, 2002: 25). Just like decolonizing storytelling, critical
race theory as method is often expressed as story and includes “counter-stories” told by
racially marginalized and oppressed peoples to talk back to “monovocals, master narra-
tives, standard stories, majoritarian stories” (Solorzano and Yosso, 2002: 25) produced
by white settler colonial privilege. Just like decolonizing “story-ing,” the same question
about my authority and authenticity to tell stories about colonialism as a white settler
colonial woman applies—am I not simply redeploying the same kind of privileged gag-
ging and disempowerment?
Decolonization and Applied Ethnomusicology 381
The colonizer and the colonized are inextricably in relation—without one there can-
not be the other, and in this sense colonization is a “shared culture” (Smith, 1999: 45),
or, as Memmi (2013 [1965]) would have it, both colonizer and colonized are “bound”
and “chained” in colonial relationship in “relentless reciprocity” and dependence. Both
are implicated in the stories of the other; Smith (1999: 45) further explains that what
this means is that both colonized peoples and colonizers share a language and knowl-
edge of decolonization. This story is told then in the language and knowledge I have as a
white settler colonial woman and the sense of “response-ability” I have that it is time to
come clean, to own up, to use my colonial power and privilege to shake, rattle, and roll
ethnomusicology into a more ethical way of attending to our colonial complicity. Our
“response-ability” as ethnomusicologists, our capacity to respond to the call to decolo-
nize, takes center stage. In the telling of this story, I want both writer and reader to trou-
ble and be troubled by the relationships it invokes (Gandhi, 1998: 4) between who we
are as non-Indigenous researchers-as-colonizers in our discipline, the colonizing rela-
tionships we have with Indigenous peoples and knowledges we work with, the kinds of
colonial violence we embody and perform as ethnomusicologists, the tangled-up colo-
nial past and present in which we find ourselves, and who we might be in the process of
becoming once we start talking loudly about decolonization. As I write, I can already
sense the resistance that begins to exude from some of you as readers—the direct and
indirect privileges and power we hold as colonizers because of the “erasure and assimila-
tion of Indigenous peoples is a difficult reality to accept” (Tuck and Yang, 2012: 9). But
I did not promise that this chapter was going be pleasant “feel good” reading; in fact,
if it were, it would not be achieving one of its central aims—to unsettle and disrupt.
After all, as Fanon reminds us, “decolonization, which sets out to change the order of the
world, is, obviously, a program of complete disorder… it cannot come as a result of magi-
cal practices, nor of a natural shock, nor of a friendly understanding” (1963: 36).
There are three characters in this story, playfully named: Ms. White Settler Colonial,
Professor Decolonization, and Dr. A(pplied) Ethnomusicology. Their stories are unique
but become intertwined as they realize the inevitable entanglement of relationships,
representation, and research in which they find themselves. Literature is reviewed in
the dialogue they speak; theory is evoked in the actions they take and the colonial set-
tings in which they find themselves. This story does not intend to survey all that has
been written and thereby define applied ethnomusicology—others in this Handbook
and elsewhere (e.g., Harrison and Pettan, 2010) have already done this task justice.
Decolonization is the setting, the main character, and the plot line. Some readers may
have already decided that this chapter is not for them—putting objections or discomfort
to the alternative writing style aside, the terms “colonial,” “colonizer,” and “colonized”
may seem irrelevant, out of step, and yesterday’s news, for aren’t we already living in a
post-colonial world? Listen carefully as you read—to the whispering that asks ethnomu-
sicology to respond to decolonization. How do we as non-Indigenous applied ethno-
musicologists read, respond to, and reimagine the multiple ways our white race power
and privilege are embedded in our lived experience as non-Indigenous peoples? Do we
want and what can we hope to achieve in terms of social justice for Indigenous peoples
by adopting a decolonizing framework in applied ethnomusicology? Is decolonization a

move we want to make in our discipline, and why might applied ethnomusicology offer
the best hope yet?
Ms. White Settler Colonial Becomes

an Ethnomusicologist
Ms. White Settler Colonial sat down on her most comfortable couch, shoes off, cup
of coffee in hand, ready and primed for some reminiscing. Her photo albums lay on
the floor next to her, a large pile of black-covered books with plastic pockets keeping
her memories safe. She sits still and the albums remain unopened, lost in the histori-
cal moment of remembering how she became an ethnomusicologist. In her first-year
introduction to ethnomusicology class at university, Ms. White Settler Colonial had
watched an Aboriginal song man and song woman from the remote Pitjantjatjara com-
munity at Indulkana in the Western Desert of Australia perform, sitting cross-legged
on the floor of a tiered lecture room and singing several song verses from a Dreaming
song called Inma nyi nyi (A. Ellis, 1982; C. Ellis, 1985). While she can see their faces
clearly in her memory, Ms. White Settler Colonial cannot remember their names.
They were “objects” that she gazed at, their songs were transcribed and analyzed later
in tutorials, their voices and identities distanced, disembodied, and therefore ulti-
mately “captured” in her own imperial understanding. With a university music degree
in hand, Ms. White Settler Colonial eagerly set forth on an Honours research proj-
ect in ethnomusicology to return to that moment when she was first introduced to
Indigenous Australian Dreaming songs. With no thought about her right to know,
she enrolled in Pitjantjatjara tribal [sic] singing classes at the Centre for Aboriginal
Studies in Music (CASM; Tunstill, 1989) and found herself the only White Settler
Colonial woman in the room. During the first week of classes, the other students vari-
ously glared and whispered at her, “Don’t you know, you’re not Aboriginal—you’re
white! And you think you have a right to be hear/here!” Ms. White Settler Colonial put
her head down, got on with her role as participant/observer/researcher, and sat alone
with her as yet unrecognized colonial complicity. One Aboriginal woman, Robin,
was watching her closely and waiting to find out—what kind of white settler colonial
woman was she? Two, three, and four weeks passed until one day Robin caught her eye
and casually asked, “Where you from sis?” The question opened up the possibility of a
different kind of encounter, one that began with a gesture of generosity and hospital-
ity from the “colonized” to the “colonizer” and continued with cups of tea in the local
café, gigs at art galleries, conversations in lounge rooms late at night, and a burgeoning
friendship across that which might divide them—here a friend, there a researcher, but
what of the in-between? This question remained unanswered. At the end of the year
Ms. White Settler Colonial handed in her Honours thesis and felt duly entitled to call
herself an ethnomusicologist.
Ms. White Settler Colonial picked up one of the albums and flicked quickly to the
memory she was searching for. She saw herself, a year later, sitting in the “field” in the
remote town of Burrulula in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory
of Australia as a doctoral student with the tools of her trade—a notebook, a camera, a
tape recorder, and stark white skin she had not yet noticed. She is surrounded by peo-
ple, performers, and a community of Aboriginal people making songs and ceremony in
the photo; but Ms. White Settler Colonial sits with her head down once more, trying to
“capture” in black ink on white pages that which she calls “music” but which Yanyuwa,
Garrwa, Mara, and Gudanji people call something else completely (see Bradley and
Mackinlay, 2000, for a discussion of Yanyuwa terms for music). Aside from a short visit
to Burrulula in the mid-1960s by Alice Moyle (1988), Ms. White Settler Colonial was
the first music researcher to focus attention on Aboriginal performance at Burrulula.
She believed proudly and completely in her mission to fill this gap in the musicologi-
cal record; after all, Ms. White Settler Colonial carried with her a research legacy that
must be sustained. No sooner had she thought this, than the whispering returned, “And
you think that gives you the right to be hear/here? Who gives you the power and the
privilege to be hear/here White girl?” Ms. White Settler Colonial felt the sting of settler
naiveté, innocence, and arrogance reach forward from her memory to sharply slap her
face and angrily pushed the albums from her lap onto the floor.
Ms. White Settler Colonial sighed—her life and work as an ethnomusicologist has
“always-already” been complicated, confused, and conflicted. When she sat down at
CASM to learn tribal [sic] singing, she found herself next to the Yanyuwa man who
became her husband. She went to Burrulula as his wife and was introduced to the
Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Mara, and Gudanji community by her mother-in-law and husband’s
grandmother as family (see Muir, 2004). “Meet my grandson’s wife,” her husband’s
grandmother had said with a smile, as she took Ms. White Settler Colonial by the hand
and heart to meet her Yanyuwa family. Soon after arriving at Burrulula she was called
Nungarrima, the right way “skin” or female kinship name in relation to her husband.
No one called her by her first name after that, and she reciprocated; she and they were
variously now baba (sister), marruwarra (cousin), manjikarra (sister-in-law), kujaka
(mother), kulhakulha (daughter), ngabuji (paternal grandmother), and kukurdi (mater-
nal grandmother). Many years later, she would be given a “bush” name linking her to the
traditional country of Manankurra and the Tiger Shark Dreaming (see Bradley, 1988), of
her husband’s grandmother. She became a non-Aboriginal mother to Aboriginal chil-
dren and kundiyarra, a partner in song (Mackinlay, 2000). Despite her sense of belong-
ing to her Yanyuwa family, every so often Ms. White Settler Colonial would turn around
and notice her white shadow, and with that recognition came the whispering once more,
“Don’t forget, you are still white, white girl! Can you are you here/hear yet white girl?”
As Ms. White Settler Colonial’s personal, professional, political, and performative
lives became inextricably entangled, she could no longer see herself clearly in her role
as ethnomusicologist, at least not in the way she had been traditionally trained. When
she went to Burrulula in 1994, Ms. White Settler Colonial entered a community rav-
aged by the ongoing effects of colonization, and she idealistically and paternalistically
thought her work as an ethnomusicologist would—and could—make a difference. Ms.

White Settler Colonial has told this story in other places before (e.g., Mackinlay, 2009,
2010) and she finds it hard, just like every other telling, to find the right words. In this
moment of standing still, the “truth” would seem to suggest that nothing has changed.
The Burrulula she met 20 years ago is in many ways very much the same Burrulula
today, and for her, that is simply not good enough. Her breath catches in her throat as
Ms. White Settler Colonial realizes that perhaps it is also that ethnomusicology, at least
as she knows it, is no longer good enough. From the corner of her eye she spies her
white shadow lurking in the corner and nodding in agreement. She wants her academic
work to somehow translate into “something better” for the women, men, and children
whom she calls family. Better homes, a fair education, an end to racism, and the rein-
statement of Indigenous Australians as a sovereign people—all of these things she feels
are more important than black dots on a white page and any fancy analytical account
she might be able to give of them. Ms. White Settler Colonial knows that the PhD she
completed and the journal papers she subsequently wrote about the social and musi-
cal lives of Aboriginal women and men at Burrulula did not change anything for her
family, despite how well she wrote them and the prestige of the publications in which
they appeared. She realized that while people might be hearing the words she spoke at
conferences and reading those that appeared in her writing (e.g., Mackinlay, 2005), they
were not listening—not with their hearts. Ms. White Settler Colonial knew that there
was more, and indeed that she had to do more, to engage the thinking hearts of her col-
leagues, students, and friends. In this moment of “wide-awakeness,” she found herself at
odds with the disciplinary flow of ethnomusicology, and once again she heard the whis-
pering, “Well hello there white girl, perhaps you are beginning to be hear/here!” Now
that Ms. White Settler Colonial has begun to hear the whispering, she finds that she can-
not ignore it. It plays around in her head constantly. She does not know what else to do
except return to her fallback position of researcher to try to find its source.
Whispering in Ethnomusicology
about Decolonization
While there are many ethnomusicological discussions that discuss the colonial con-
texts and the colonial repositories of our work (Emoff, 2002; Seeger, 1986; Waterman,
1990), “decolonization” is a term that remains largely unfamiliar to ethnomusicologi-
cal vocabulary. In step with anthropological debates in the 1970s sparked by the work
of Geertz (1973) and feminist thinkers such as Rosaldo and Lamphere (1974) about the
nature of fieldwork, the power and authority of researchers, and texts as representa-
tion acts, Gourlay (1978) provactively challenged the concept of the ethnomusicologist
as both “ominsicent and non-existent” in the writings of colleagues such as Merriam
(1967) and Nettl (1964). Gourlay (1978: 3) was critical of the insistence, on the one hand,
that ethnomusicologists become fully immersed in fieldwork if they are to truly learn,
understand, and interpret the music of another culture, and yet on the other hand, com-
pletely silence the performers and their own subjectivities in the texts which result from
participatory observation research. He questioned the relevancy and ethics of neutral-
ity and objectivity in ethnomusicological work and called for the “missing ethnomu-
sicologist” to become visible in recognition of the messy reality of the subject-object
relationship (1978: 4) inherent in social science research. Indeed, Gourlay (1982) called
for a “humanizing ethnomusicology” that would simultaneously resist ethnocentric and
dominant Western ways of knowing, doing, and being in relation to music, and seek
to bring the worldviews of Self and Other “into an interpenetrating dialectical rela-
tionship through which the investigator is himself investigated” (1982: 416). Alongside
Gourlay’s provocation, feminist thinkers in the discipline (e.g., Herndon and Ziegler,
1990; Koskoff, 1987) had also begun to question ideologies of dominance, and specific
attention was given by them to exploring the status of women in music cultures globally,
the nature of gender relationships and gender structures on musical roles, and the posi-
tioning of the gendered fieldworker in ethnomusicological settings.
However, it would be another 15 years before the first in-depth and sustained critique
of the colonial past and present of the discipline arrived on the scene with publication of
the edited text Shadows in the Field, edited by Gregory Barz and Timothy Cooley. The
first edition of Shadows (1997) attempts to bring into open space discussion of the “cri-
sis of representation” that categorizes postmodern social science, and Barz and Cooley
clearly acknowledge the linking of “ethnographic fieldwork, as well as representation, to
colonial, imperial, and other repressive power structures” (1997: 4). The need to recog-
nize that being in the field and being with/out Others, being out of the field and being
with/out Others, being in the business of representation with/out Others in and with/
out of the field is ultimately an exercise of power takes center stage in this text. I use
the hyphenated phrase with/out to signify and question the capacity of ethnomusicolo-
gists to ever really leave the field. If the field really is an intersubjective and intercorpo-
real shared moment of performativity and experience, then the field never really leaves
us—we are never with/out the field and the shadows we cast are with/out the field at the
same time because, on the one hand, they never really leave us, and on the other, they
remain elusive and incapable of erasure.
In relation to the thinking about decolonization, then, our shadows are shaped by
colonialism, and recent work by Vass (2013) would suggest that they are indeed white.
White bodies mark the colonial history and disciplinary performance of ethnomusi-
cology, and pale imperial shadows take center stage in talk about decolonization. The
second edition of Shadows reached audiences in 2008, and what is at once surpris-
ing and distressing about this revised text is the silence of talk about decolonization.
Yazzie laments, “while the world decolonization process is almost complete, it has not
yet begun for Indigenous peoples” (2000: 39) and if Shadows is representative of cur-
rent disciplinary thinking about decolonization, it remains a sharply closed door on an
open moment of possibility. “Decolonializing” [sic] processes are referred to by Meizel
(in Cooley, Meizel, and Syed, 2008: 96) as relevant only to studies where issues of power
and cultural Otherness appear “outstanding,” and although she does not explicitly state
so, here we can read her words as referring to ethnomusicological studies that engage
directly with Indigenous and colonized peoples. In this context, Meizel suggests, the
onus is on the researcher to “understand his or her responsibilities in the way oth-
ers experience their musical worlds” (Meizel in Cooley, Meizel, and Syed, 2008: 96).
Certainly, decolonization is one of the most pressing issues for those of us working
with Indigenous peoples today, and one that we must take personal response-ability
to engage with epistemologically, methodologically, and ontologically, but what of the
response-ability of the discipline? If everyone is in agreement that the colonial history
pervades past and present practice, do we not have a disciplinary response-ability to
decolonize, or at the very least, to begin to dance toward it? Why is it that decolonizing
talk in ethnomusicology remains a whispering that many are too afraid to heed? Why
do we assume that it’s up to Indigenous people alone to decolonize? What kind of disci-
pline is ethnomusicology with/out decolonizing talk, and further, is talk alone enough
to decolonize?
Dr. A(pplied) Ethnomusicology Meets

Professor Decolonization
Ms. White Settler Colonial found herself a job working in a university teaching eth-
nomusicology within the context of Indigenous Australian Studies. She decided that
she would add the word “applied” to her title and began calling herself Dr. A(pplied)
Ethnomusicology—Dr. A. for short. She felt this new term better reflected her
personal-is-political agenda. One morning, she was halfway through a lecture on
applied and advocacy work in ethnomusicology, when Dr. A. was interrupted by a loud
knock at the door.
“Just hold on a moment,” she said, and excused herself to see who was there. “Oh my
goodness it’s you! Prof. D.! I didn’t think you were coming! Look everyone; it’s my good
friend Professor Decolonization! You know, the one I promised to talk to you about before?”
Several students nodded their head in agreement. They thought they recognized her
from the discussion earlier but were not quite prepared for the reality.
“What are you doing in town, Prof. D.? I didn’t realize you were even in Australia!”
Dr. A. was surprised to see her colleague and friend.
“Well, you know how it is, Dr. A., I’m never quite sure if I’m going to be welcome at
this kind of gig, but I could see that this was a conversation you needed to have with
someone like me by your side—the colonizer and the colonized are bound together, you
know, we are both implicated in colonization and decolonization. Don’t forget Phillips
and Whatman (2007: 6) who contend, ‘because we are all products of a shared colonial
history, we are all subjects of the enquiry.’ The only problem is that you, Dr. A.—a.k.a.
Ms. White Settler Colonial—have dominated that conversation for far too long!” Prof.
D. winked at the class and settled herself into a spare chair. “So, how far have you got
with your class discussions on applied ethnomusicology and decolonization? Has any-
one walked out yet? Raised a hand in objection? Wrinkled up their noses or—and I won-
der about this response—smiled with empathy?”
Dr. A. grimaced. “Actually, no—well, not yet anyway. We were just about…”
Prof. D. interrupted, “Oh, you must have only just started then… I know where you’re
at sister. You haven’t told them yet have you?”
Dr. A. hesitated.
“Oh no, don’t tell me! You’re not nervous, are you, Dr. A.? After all this time?”
Prof. D. let out a loud sigh. “Remember, Dr. A. ‘everything is in danger of
colonizing—everything is suspicious’ (Cary, 2004: 77), and that includes your unwill-
ingness to begin the discussion—so go on, off you go. I can hold your hand if you need
me to.”
Dr. A. swallowed deeply and reached for a sip of cool water to moisten her lips and
throat. She realized that the silence between her voice and Prof. D.’s was becoming thick
and heavy, you could cut the tension with a knife; the class was expecting her to speak.
She began with a safe response.
“Let’s start with what we mean when we use terms like ‘applied.’ In anthropological
discourse, the term ‘applied’ refers to research practices that use theory and method
to solve practical human problems. ‘Applied’ is about ‘the dynamics of “partnership”
between the scholar and the social subjects involved in ethnomusicological research’
(Hofman, 2010: 22). Many applied ethnomusicological projects run on a collaborative
field research and epistemological approach whereby the researched actively participates
in the research process alongside the researcher (Hofman, 2010: 23)—as co-researchers,
co-authors, and co-constructors of knowledge. Border crossing and shape shifting
happens a lot in our work, and many traditional divisions are broken down in such an
interactive and dialogic way of working. Sheehy tells us that applied ethnomusicology
emphasises the tendency to see ‘opportunities for a better life through… musical knowl-
edge’ (1992: 324) by asking ‘to what end?’ (1992: 323).” Dr. A. looked at Prof. D., hoping
that maybe this was enough to set the context. Prof. D. didn’t need to say a word; she
simply reversed the gaze. Dr. A. took a deep breath and continued.
“Sheehy’s work put the consequences of our work high on the agenda and challenged
us to think about ethnomusicological work as ‘strategy guided by a sense of social pur-
pose’ (1992: 335). Certainly, there is often a social justice agenda rippling beneath the
surface or displayed boldly on a billboard at the front of much applied work in ethno-
musicology today, and words like ‘benefit,’ ‘reciprocity,’ and ‘relationships’ figure prom-
inently in these discussions. Ethnomusicologists continue to grapple with the ethical
response-abilities they hold toward the communities from whom they collect and
gather musical knowledge, a dilemma that becomes even more complex as they shift in
and out of academic fields of play. In many ways, applied ethnomusicology represents
an attempt to bring this tension to the front and center of our practice so that it can no
longer be ignored, but rather demands an active response.” Dr. A. finished speaking and
looked expectantly at Prof. D.
Prof. D. shook her head in frustration. “To what? What are applied ethnomusicolo-
gists responding to? Oh come on Dr. A., you can do better than that! Now’s the time
to practice what you preach—where’s your heart in all of this? Why don’t you really tell
them about decolonization? All of this is just appeasing white settler colonial guilt and
pandering to a claim to innocence of the same kind.”
Dr. A. knew that Prof. D. wanted more from her, but decolonization was a relatively
new word for her, too. Despite all of the whispering she had heard over the past 10 years,
she still did not feel she had the right words to explain it, or that she even had a right to
explain it.
“For me,” she began, “the one characteristic I keep returning to is the potential of
an applied approach to view our work as musical, personal, and political all at once.
If we start thinking and talking openly about relationships and response-abilities, then
through this lens we are enabled to address the uneasiness that many of us feel when we
position ourselves and our discipline in the context of colonization, white power, and
white privilege. Indeed, the ‘idea of privilege is at the heart of the colonial relationship’
(Memmi, 2013 [1965]). It’s a matter of urgency, how we as non-Indigenous researchers
address the complex relationship between our histories, our disciplines, and ourselves
as colonizing culture. Our white settler colonial identity brings us enormous power and
privilege in relation to Indigenous peoples, and yet in many research contexts it remains
hidden under carefully guarded discourses of ‘for their own good,’ ‘soothe the dying pil-
low,’ ‘researcher as expert,’ ‘document and preserve at all costs,’ and, ‘saviours of a disap-
pearing race, music, and culture,’ ”
Prof. D. raised her eyebrows, “Those are pretty harsh words.”
“For sure,” Dr. A. agreed, but continued with her critique. “But they need to be.
Interrogation of the ways in which we continue to embody and enact colonialism is not
comfortable business, nor it is an apology for being a colonizer. What it does mean is
taking on board, believing, and living words like decolonization.”
“That’s my baby!” Prof. D. exclaimed. “But it makes me really sad to think that nobody
really knows me yet, even when I walk down the corridor to the tea room, many people
quietly close their office doors to keep me out. What do they think I’m going to do?
Rip their pristine white research chairs from right under their backsides? Do you know
what? One day I just might—and that’s what everyone is scared of.” Prof. D. paused and
then continued carefully, “I know that you’ve been trying to introduce me for some time
in your own work Dr. A. (Mackinlay, 2005, 2010, 2012). But maybe it’s time for me to
start telling the story.”
Dr. A. knew that placing emphasis on unveiling inequalities, deconstructing power
relations, and reflection and action as pathways to change are important in any dance
toward to decolonization. As a non-Indigenous person working with Indigenous com-
munities in applied ethnomusicological contexts, words like “reconciliation,” “hope,”
“action,” and “social justice” were everywhere in her writing because they gave her assur-
ance that performance of her white power and privilege as Ms. White Settler Colonial
had good intentions. They provided her with “immunity,” as Youngblood Henderson
(2000: 32) contends, from recognizing and responding to herself as part of the problem.
She consistently saw herself as the ethnomusicologist “doing decolonizing good”—one

who proudly wore her anti-racist, social justice, and reconciliation politics on her invis-
ible White sleeve and wasn’t afraid to call neo-colonial and racist praxis in ethnomusico-
logical research for what it was, where and when she saw it. She realized now that while
she had might have heard the whispering, she had not really ever listened, and it was
time to start.
“Settle in Dr. A., we might be here for a while.” Prof. D. shifted in her chair to find a
more comfortable position and began. “Some of us—and by ‘us’ I mean the ‘colonized’—
have been talking about decolonization for a long time. Decolonization is a concept
which takes on different meanings across different contexts—it simultaneously evokes
a historical narrative of the end of empire, a particular version of postcolonial political
theory, a way of knowing that resists the Eurocentricism of the West, a moral impera-
tive for righting the wrongs of colonial domination, and an ethical stance in relation
to self-determination, social justice, and human rights for Indigenous peoples enslaved
and disempowered by imperialism. Indigenous scholars frame decolonization in both
congruent and contested ways.”
“And that’s part of it, isn’t it?” Dr. A. added, “Discourses such as Orientalism (Said,
1978) and Aboriginalism (Hodge, 1990; McConaghy, 2000) want to construct and
imagine an essentialized homogenous colonized group in historical and contemporary
terms, but Indigenous peoples’ experiences of colonization vary across time and space,
and responses to colonization are equally as diverse.”
Prof. D. nodded, “Fanon’s thinking asserts exactly that. He writes that decolonization
is not a formal administrative term but rather a ‘restructuring of subjects into agents
of history’ (in Kohn & McBride, 2011: 69). Smith (1999) similarly argues that decolo-
nization necessarily empowers Indigenous people to re-claim, re-name, re-write and
re-right and in this way the colonized emerge from the fog of the colonial imaginary as
liberated people. Wilson and Yellow Bird expand on this and suggest ‘decolonization
is the intelligent, calculated and active resistance to the forces of colonialism that per-
petuate the subjugation and/or exploitation of our minds, bodies and lands’ (2005: 2).
Others such as hooks have turned their attention more intensively to the prospect of
decolonizing minds as a powerful move to ‘militantly confront and change the devas-
tating psychological consequences of internalized racism’ (1994: 205). Fanon, too, felt
strongly about this, writing pro- and evocatively that ‘imperialism leaves behind germs
of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land but our minds as well’
(1965: 36).”
“Let’s come back to the issue of land in a moment,” Dr. A. suggested. “I’ve read Battiste’s
work (2000), and she similarly emphasises the need to decolonize Indigenous minds
from ‘cognitive imperialism, our cognitive prisons’ (2000: xvii) and suggests that this
can be accomplished by ‘harmonizing Indigenous knowledge with Eurocentric knowl-
edge’ (2000: xvi). In a way this reminds me of what a lot of applied ethnomusicology
tries to do—make a space where musical and cultural knowledges of the researched and
the researcher can performatively come together to empower the former. Applied eth-
nomusicology when viewed from this perspective might shift us closer toward a critical
practice and assist us in deconstructing the unequal power relationships between the
researcher and the researched by giving oppressed peoples control over how they are
depicted.”
“In some senses, yes,” Prof. D. continued. “Smith describes decolonization as a
process, rather than a product, linked to political action such as social justice and
self-determination grounded politically in contexts, histories, struggles, and ideals
(1999: 4). We owe a lot to critical scholars and our feminist sisters for giving us the theo-
retical grounding to expose the lingo of research as vehicles of sustained oppression and
tools of colonization (Mutua and Swadener, 2004: 14). For naming colonization for what
it is—not discourse and practice that exist in the past, but a machine that continues to
dominate our worlds as Indigenous and non-Indigenous people today.”
Dr. A. agreed. “I guess you’re right, the shift from a colonized to decolonized state
doesn’t occur in a tidy and linear progression from imperialism through to colonization,
and then hey presto, we’ve got decolonization. It seems to me that thinking about colo-
nialism and decolonization as dialogical is key to us being more responsive and respon-
sible (Le Sueur, 2003: 2). It’s a constant dovetailing, circling in and around, backward
and forward, and once passed through, any of these stages can be revisited or reversed.
That makes it a pretty complicated agenda to take on as a researcher and I am still not
sure where, how, and why non-Indigenous people—colonizers like me—should, could
or can enter the conversation.”
“Yes, and we would insist that colonization is indeed alive and well. There is no
post-colonialism here (cf., Smith, 1999, 2000); the colonizers have not left yet (Smith,
1999: 24).” Prof. D. spoke animatedly, “But we need to start somewhere, Dr. A., we need
to begin. The first step is to produce counter-narratives to those texts and contexts which
sustain the dominance and power of the West over Indigenous peoples. Easy enough,
you might say, but to be ‘completely’ decolonizing, research must go one step further
to strive to change lives, stop people from dying, and respond to reality (Mutua and
Swadener, 2004: 10; Smith, 1999: 3).”
“You know what? You’re right.” Dr. A.’s face flushed with shame. “The lived experi-
ence of Indigenous peoples is the ‘unfinished business of decolonization’ (Smith,
1999: 7)—and in the enthusiastic rush to dive into deconstruction of imperialism, we
as non-Indigenous researchers maybe too easily forget or dismiss the realities of life for
Indigenous peoples because we refuse to make them part of our own. It’s too easy for us
to step back into settler colonial innocence, sitting pretty under the umbrella of social
justice.”
Prof. D. reached over and placed her hand gently on Dr. A.’s shoulder. “Dr. A., decol-
onization is not a metaphor, nor is it a ‘metonym for social justice’ (Tuck and Yang,
2012: 21). In the opening article of the new journal Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education
and Society, Tuck and Yang provide us with this stark reminder: decolonization is not
converting Indigenous politics to a Western doctrine of liberation; it is not a philan-
thropic process of ‘helping’ the at-risk and alleviating suffering; it is not a generic term
for struggle against oppressive conditions and outcomes. The broad umbrella of social
justice may have room underneath for all of these efforts, but this is not decolonization.”
Dr. A. dropped her head into her hands. All of a sudden, her earlier talk about decolo-
nization as linked to social justice in ethnomusicology and applied ethnomusicology
felt awkward—exactly as Tuck and Yang intended. Their words were harsh, and there
were more to come; Prof. D. had not finished.
“Tuck and Yang are critical of the way in which decolonizing discourse is too easily
adopted ‘without mention of Indigenous peoples, our/their struggles for the recogni-
tion of our/their sovereignty, or the contributions of Indigenous intellectuals and activ-
ists to theories and frameworks of decolonization’ (Tuck and Yang, 2012: 3). In this guise,
it becomes nothing more than a metaphor, and Tuck and Yang stress that this ‘kills the
very possibility of decolonization; it recenters whiteness, it resettles theory, it extends
innocence to the settler, it entertains a settler future. Decolonize (a verb) and decoloni-
zation (a noun) cannot easily be grafted onto pre-existing discourses/frameworks, even
if they are critical, even if they are anti-racist, even if they are justice frameworks’ (Tuck
and Yang, 2012: 3).”
Dr. A. rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know Prof. D, there are too many questions swirl-
ing around, muddying the waters and making everything messy. How do we read and
respond to the multiple ways our colonial settler power and privilege is embedded in
our lived experience as non-Indigenous peoples, in our relationships with and responsi-
bilities to Indigenous peoples? How do we begin to link our awareness and acceptance of
this reality with ‘an agenda which does not accept the dichotomies implicit in the terms
colonizer/colonized… but rather explores the relations of power through dialogue, creat-
ing spaces for transformation, for new [ethnomusicological] and methodological strat-
egies’ (Fox, 2004: 91)? What is our applied ethnomusicological work if it is not linked to
social justice? What can and should it be?
Dr. A. realized, as soon as she asked these questions, that she had already slipped
back into a colonizing decolonizing search for ‘settler futurity’ and ‘settler normalcy’
(Tuck and Yang, 2012: 35), desperate to find the comfort of ‘settler innocence’ once more
through use of words such as dialogue (read: reconcile, negotiate, settle). Prof. D. sat
quietly for a moment staring at Dr. A., almost as though she could read her mind. This
next part of the conversation was not going to be easy.
“Unsettling, isn’t it, Dr. A.? Land is central to colonization—discovery, conquest,
exploitation, distribution, appropriation—all of these are violent acts which form part
of the white possessive logic that Moreton-Robinson (2004) speaks of, which disavows
Indigenous sovereignty. We can see that land and place are central in ethnomusicologi-
cal work, too—think about the word ‘field’ and our insistence on ‘fieldwork.’ What kinds
of white possessive logic do we invoke when we use those terms? Smith (1999: 7) asserts
that the ‘linguistic and cultural homeland of the colonizers is somewhere else, their cul-
tural loyalty is to some other place’; is this not true, too, for many ethnomusicologists,
applied or otherwise? Is not the claiming of a ‘field’ through ‘fieldwork’ the same kind
of colonial move but in a different guise? In the ‘field’ are we not laying colonial claim to
epistemologies and discursive traditions of knowledge which are not ours?”
Dr. A. felt tied up in knots. She knew that what Prof. D. was telling her made sense; it’s
no longer whispering she hears but shouting, screaming, and yelling. Her husband’s and
children’s voices, those of her family at Burrulula, her Indigenous friends and colleagues
are all part of this loud and noisy chorale. Now that her White Settler Colonial laundry
hangs plainly on the line for all to see, what is she to do? What are her response-abilities?
How can she respond in a way that enacts an ethic of response-ability in relation to the
demands of decolonization?
Response-ability and
Being-in-Relation
as Decolonizing Work
How might we then begin to decolonize applied ethnomusicology? How can decolo-
nizing theory inform actual applied ethnomusicological work? These questions sit
uneasily in this story, each and every one of us wanting and needing a neatly packaged
way forward through our discomforts and uncertainties. Decolonizing theory asks us
to rethink, reimagine, and reconstruct our research identities, relationships, and agen-
das as existing within a colonial framework, which wants and needs to know, fix, and
capture the Other. This is our response-ability—a word written in this way through-
out this chapter quite deliberately to remind us that we have an ethical obligation to
act on such wide awakeness to the ways in which we continue to “be-in-relation” to
colonialism. “Being-in-relation” is a concept that provokes us into personal and politi-
cal kinds of thinking about the ethical and moral obligations we have to enact a non-
violent research relationship towards the Other, a relationship which deconstructs
and breaks down the colonial project. This is dangerous work because it means placing
ourselves in a vulnerable position where our reason for being as applied ethnomusi-
cologists is under threat. “Being-in-relation” is a different kind of thinking in applied
ethnomusicology—it refuses, as Audre Lorde (2003) would have it, to use the mas-
ter’s tools to dismantle the master’s house. The absence of “being-in-relation” to colo-
nialism and our White Settler Colonial subjectivities weakens our capacity to work
toward less violent and more socially just practices and projects in applied ethnomu-
sicology. “Being-in-relation” means placing colonial relationship at the center of our
practice at every epistemological, ontological, and methodological turn. Sitting there
in the middle—whispering and reminding us—colonial relationship calls other ethi-
cal modes of being into the research space. Response-ability, respect, re/search, rights/
rites, and attentiveness to re/presentation begin to make their way into the motivations,
means, and modes of working with Others as applied ethnomusicologists, and become
crucial for putting in place a decolonial and ethical way of knowing, being, and doing.
Without such attentiveness, colonial ways of working remain unchallenged, undis-
turbed and unaccountable. “Response-ability” and “being-in-relation” cannot be easily
scripted or written into a fieldwork manual or a step-by-step guide on how to decolonize
applied ethnomusicology—they are intimately about our individual personal, political,
philosophical, and performance relationships that each of us has with colonialism and
the people with whom we work. But they can become the beginning of the research
conversation.
Conclusion: Applied Ethnomusicology
Talks about Decolonization
A story like this has no ending, it is, as Greene would have it, a “narrative in the mak-
ing” (1995: 1). Dr. A., Ms. White Settler Colonial, and Prof. D. continue to talk, and this
chapter represents the way that my “thinking heart” is attempting to “cultivate multiple
ways of seeing and multiple dialogues in a world where nothing stays the same” (Greene,
1995: 16; cf. Mackinlay, 2010). Indeed, it is not for me to complete this narrative for read-
ers; it is a story that needs to become uniquely their own. My dialogic and dialectic role
as storyteller has simply and most complexly been to introduce a new character into
the plot line of applied ethnomusicology, that of decolonization, and the intention has
always been to ensure that the ways that Indigenous scholars are thinking, talking, and
writing around this concept speak loudly and clearly. Is applied ethnomusicology ready
to listen to the voices of decolonization? Are we ready to ask the uncomfortable ques-
tions about the ways that we perform and reproduce White Settler Colonial power and
privilege from the beginning to the end and back again in our research projects and
products, our classrooms, and our engagements with communities? Are we ready and
do we have the response-ability? If we are ready to acknowledge and become “wide
awake” to our personal-political-disciplinary identities as White Settler Colonial and
hold that decolonizing our discipline is one of the most urgent ethical and moral ques-
tions of our time, the search must be ongoing, for we are not there yet. We are already
performing some of the theoretical and methodological moves we need to make—many
of us enthusiastically embrace dialogic and collaborative research processes; we lay bare
a willingness to engage with and enact a set of politics that link applied work with advo-
cacy work; we openly enter into a reflexive engagement with the intersubjective and per-
formative nature of what we do; and, we demonstrate a preparedness to ask what kind of
research, for whom and by whom, under what circumstances, to what ends—and then
to ask them all over again.
In this sense then, to paraphrase bell hooks (1994), applied ethnomusicology, with all
of its limitations, remains a location of possibility to begin to decolonize. If applied ethno-
musicology can embrace that “research exists at the interstices between political ideology
(the idea that shape any given praxis), space/place (the spaces that give life to such proj-
ects) and community (the people that carry out such work)” (Zavala, 2013: 65), we begin
to decolonize. If we are vigilant in our attendance to and act upon a “wide-awakeness”
to the white settler colonial possessive logic of our practice; we begin to decolonize.
If we ask whether our projects are ultimately about white settler colonial futurity or
Indigenous futurity, we begin to decolonize. If our applied ethnomusicological work

places an accountability of “place” (Zavala, 2013: 60) (and by extension, land, sovereignty,
and self-determination) at the center of what we do, we begin to decolonize. If we posi-
tion applied ethnomusicology as within/against colonizing structures, knowing that we
forever are between and on the way, we begin to decolonize. If we refuse to engage in the
kind of “politics of distraction” (Corntassel, 2012: 91) and reimagine words such as rights
as response-ability, resources and research as relationships, and reconciliation as resur-
gence (Corntassel, 2012: 91), we begin to decolonize. Being white settler colonial in this
space means we have to make a radical break from business as usual and perform an ethi-
cal turning inside out to imagine a different kind of applied ethnomusicology encounter,
“an encounter that both opposes ongoing colonization and that seeks to heal the social,
cultural, and spiritual ravages of colonial history” (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2012: 42) and
the colonial present in which we find ourselves entangled. Decolonization is everyone’s
business; it “implicates and unsettles everyone” (Tuck and Yang, 2012: 60). The narrative
remains unfinished, and it cannot be built upon metaphor. It is now up to each and every
one of us to commit to producing a different kind of decolonizing story.
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Chapter 12
Andes to Ama z on on
the River Q ’ e ro s
Indigenous Voice in Grassroots Tourism, Safeguarding,
and Ownership Projects of the Q’eros and
Wachiperi Peoples
Holly Wissler
Introduction: Reciprocity
The support for and ability of indigenous people to express their own voice regarding
the use of their music in tourism, representation, safeguarding, and material produc-
tion projects are often impeded by the restrictions and agendas of local government
and nongovernment organizations, as well as tour companies. The efficacy of projects
based around any of these activities is often directly proportionate to how much that
voice is listened to, ideally in balance and equal partnership with the counterpart they
are working with. The question of how to gauge efficacy in music projects and represen-
tation has been a debate in applied ethnomusicology in the past few decades (Alviso,
2003; Bradley, 1989; Davis, 1992; Grant, 2012; Hutchinson, 2003; Lomax Hawes, 1992;
Long, 2003; Sheehy, 1992). In this chapter I discuss the representation of music in indig-
enous tourism, preservation, safeguarding, and CD production through the lens of
two case studies. I use these themes to focus on hands-on indigenous action regarding
self-representation and how the choices of action are related to satisfactory reciprocal
relationship (or lack thereof) between the indigenous people with the applied ethnomu-
sicologist, foreign tourists and students, and Peru’s Ministry of Culture.
The first study is the internationally known highland Quechua Q’eros people in the
Cusco Region of southern Peru and their choices regarding indigenous tourism and
effective sharing of their music in touristic ventures; and the second is the near-extinct
Amazonian Wachiperi1 people, also in the Cusco Region, and their choice to make their
Andean Q’eros and Amazonian Wachiperi 399
own CD production of their now inactive songs, intentionally negating a CD produc-

tion proposition from the Cusco division of the Ministry of Culture. When it comes to
presenting music in the public sphere, both the Q’eros and Wachiperi assert their own
guidelines in active resistance, even if on a very small scale. Indeed, my intention for
sharing these two case studies is to advocate for the value and efficacy of micro-scale
grassroots applied music projects, executed in small groups and even one-on-one,
versus large-scale operations, events, and stagings that involve organizational partici-
pation. Applied ethnomusicology can be effectual on the smallest of scales, and in my
experience that is where it has been the most fruitful.
The measurement of success of projects with both the Q’eros and the Wachiperi is
gauged by the effectiveness of reciprocity, an age-old theme in anthropological and eth-
nomusicological studies, which was first systematically studied in the groundbreak-
ing work of Marcel Mauss in his comparisons of Polynesian, Melanesian, and Native
American exchange systems. Reciprocity also premises the social, economic, and spiri-
tual systems in the Andes and the Amazon, as shown in the lives of the Q’eros and the
Wachiperi. Mauss’s classic book, The Gift (1954, first edition in English) examines rec-
iprocity in large-scale contexts with detailed description of the North American pot-
latch, the kula ring exchanges based on Malinowski’s work with the Tobriand peoples,
and in the meetings, assemblies, markets, festivals, and seafaring expeditions of various
Polynesian and Melanesian groups. Similarly, the Inca Empire (1436–1532) functioned
on a large-scale system of reciprocity known as mit’a, whereby a tribute tax was paid to
the Inca king and nobility in the form of labor and production (food, weaving, ceramics,
metallurgy, mining, and the building of temples, palaces, roads, and irrigation canals, to
name a few). In return, all areas of production, that is, all peoples who were incorporated
into the Inca system, received periodic distribution of food and clothing from the mas-
sive state storage system of qollqas (storehouses). Instead of common markets that were
the life centers of many Asian and European empires, the Incas had intricate trade net-
works among the coastal, Andean, and Amazon regions joined by Qhapaq Ñan (royal
stone roads). An enormous variety of goods was produced all along the Andean vertical
ecology,2 made possible due to the multitude of ecosystems found in the extreme range
of altitudes situated in tropical latitudes. Through labor tax reciprocated by provision
of goods to all, the Incas created a successful social system that propelled the largest
pre-Columbian empire in the New World. This system of reciprocity was intrinsically
linked to the social and personal relationships among those who made the exchanges,
so that reciprocity on the local level extended to the empirical level. The first decades of
the post-Spanish invasion (1532–1570) experienced a tragic shift to a newly introduced
European slave feudal system that caused the breakdown, demoralization, and mass
deaths of many Andean, coastal, and Amazonian groups, indicative of the devastation
that a non-reciprocal system can incite (see Hemming, 1993: 334–359).
Today, as in the past, relationship is key to Andean livelihood and is what must be
nurtured above all else. Ayni is the system of reciprocity that ensures good relationship
among people with their fellow community members, animals, and the powerful spirits
that hold sway over their quality of livelihood (see scholarship that includes discussions
400 Holly Wissler
of ayni: Abercrombie, 1998; Allen, 1997, 2002, 2008; Arnold with Juan de Dios Yapita,
1998; Bastien, 1978; Bolin, 1998; Butler, 2006; Cummins, 2002; Flores Ochoa, 1977, 1988;
Gow, 1976; Harris, 2000; Isbell, 1978; Mamani Mamani, 1990; Mannheim, 1986, 1991;
Rozas Alvarez, 2002 [1979]; Schaedel, 1988; Silverman, 1994; Stobart, 2006; Tomoeda,
1996; Webster, 1972; Wissler, 2009a; Zuidema, 1964, 1982, 1990). In living and working
with the Q’eros since 2003 I have come to see how this operative principle is essential in
every relationship, and can cause offense, even harm, if not upheld.
The Quechua word ayni refers to mutual aid in nearly every aspect of community
life, such as sharing food and labor, gift-giving, and political and ritual offices as part
of a community’s cargo system.3 This understood web of social obligations ensures that
everyone in the community is taken care of in social, political, and fundamental ways.
While exchanges are not often direct, ayni is an implied and tacit obligation that ensures
that “what goes around, comes around.” On the smallest scale, home visits should be
accompanied with a simple gift, such as potatoes or coca,4 and neighbors help one
another in farming, herding, and home building. On the community level, a festival
carguyoq (sponsor) solicits food, drink, and coca from fellow community members so
that his cargo (festival responsibility) goes well. If ayni is not fulfilled, one risks damag-
ing a relationship with a neighbor or the entire community. Anthropologist Catherine
Allen, in her moving ethnography The Hold Life Has, succinctly describes the vitality of
ayni: “Reciprocity is like a pump at the heart of Andean life” (Allen, 2002: 73).
This system of interactive reciprocity in the Andes exists not only among humans, but
among all vital energies, as Allen states:
Every category of being, at every level, participates in this cosmic circulation.

Humans maintain interactive reciprocity relationships, not only with each other but
also with their animals, their houses, their potato fields, the earth, and the sacred
places in their landscape.
(Allen, 1997: 76)
All entities—human and non-human—have animu, an animated essence, so the main-

tenance of respectful relationships with all beings is essential for a good, functioning
life (Wissler, 2009: 42–45). In Q’eros, and many traditional Andean communities, the
most potent relationship to be upheld is with the supernatural forces, the Apu (moun-
tain gods) and Pacha Mama (mother earth), as they hold the most power and influence
on quality of life. If this crucial relationship is not maintained and renewed through
numerous offerings, the spirits can inflict ill, sometimes in dramatic ways: crops fail;
lightning strikes a person or an animal; a puma attacks a baby llama or alpaca; or a fam-
ily member dies prematurely. In this case, “what goes around, comes around” can liter-
ally have deadly consequences. Conversely, if the reciprocal relationship is attended to,
the powers can bestow good luck, healthy crops, and herd procreation. I have witnessed
these beliefs and realities as daily life in the Q’eros community, with Q’eros’ songs as one
of the many offerings used in order to uphold good relationships with these all-powerful
spirits (see Wissler, 2009: 109–207). Similarly, the Amazonian Wachiperi have their own
system of reciprocity, as described later in this chapter.
Mauss expounds the idea that gifts received are not inactive, which is why gift-giving
can be so powerful and binding (and in some cases, potentially dangerous). An exam-
ple he details is hau, which, according to the Maori, is the soul and power of objects
that create ties on a soul-level because of the animation/spirit of the object (Mauss,
1990: 11–12). The Q’eros’ animal fertility rituals are pinnacle moments of circulatory ayni
among all sentient beings, when there is an abundant flow of energies and conspicuous
co-consumption in intentional exchange of ayni among the supernatural powers, people,
animals, and a variety of ritual objects (see Allen, 2002; Stobart, 2006; Wissler, 2009).5
Sound and song have vital roles in these circulations of offerings (Wissler, 2009: 182–207).
Other continuous offerings include libations of alcohol, and intricate offerings with
many ingredients, to include food items and coca leaves, that are then burned for the Apu
to consume via the smoke, while the ashes are consumed by Pacha Mama.
Mauss determines reciprocal gift-giving as a total social phenomenon, since it
involves legal, economic, moral, religious, social, aesthetic, and spiritual dimensions.
Mauss lists the benefits of reciprocity as numerable: It creates mutual ties and satisfac-
tion on the individual, familial, community, inter- and intra-community, and institu-
tional levels; enhances solidarity such as kinship links, alliances, and friendly relations;
creates permanent commitments; is obligatory and binding; promotes honor and integ-
rity; and is the basis of moral and material life. Reciprocity, as the intrinsic social under-
pinning of life for the Q’eros and the Wachiperi, is therefore the naturally preferred
mode of interaction in our projects as well.
Background: Andes and Amazon,

Q’eros and Wachiperi
The Andean Quechua Q’eros and the Amazonian Harakbut Wachiperi live on extremes
of the same River Q’eros, both in the Paucartambo province in the larger region of Cusco,6
in southeast Peru (see Maps 12.1 and 12.2). The Q’eros nation consists of five communities,
with the largest community of Hatun Q’eros, the site of my work, located on the river’s
source at 11,000 feet above sea level. This source is fed by glacial headwaters originating
at 16,000 feet, flows through the llama, alpaca, and potato zones of Hatun Q’eros, down
through their cloud forest territory, plunges through impassable gorges, and eventu-
ally arrives in the rain forest foothills at the Wachiperi community located on the river’s
mouth, at 1,000 feet.7 Not only are the Q’eros and Wachiperi located on the furthermost
ends of the same river, but both groups represent extremes of indigenous cultural pros-
perity: The Q’eros are a flourishing Quechua group, having tripled their population in
the past one hundred years, with their traditional and changing customs expressive of
pre-Hispanic culture, such as songs, weavings, and offerings to the mountain spirits. This
is a result of their ancestral exploitation of three vertical ecological zones located on the
eastern watershed of the Andes, spanning from 15,000 to 6,000 feet in a vertical drop of
about 25 miles. These zones provide all animal and crop resources for sustainability, so
402 Holly Wissler
Map 12.1 The location of the Q’eros Nation in Peru. The Wachiperi region is due north of
the Q’eros Nation, in the beginning of the Amazon section.
Map courtesy of ACCA, Asociación para la Conservación de la Cuenca Amazónica, Cusco, Perú. www.acca.org.pe.
that their ethnic and cultural integrity is intact and the continued integrity of their cul-
tural practices is fostered. The Q’eros are an admirable example of a people who are not
tied to the cash economy within their own community, though this is rapidly changing
due to urban migration and the arrival of a car road into the community (2014), which
connects them to urban amenities and trappings more than ever before in their history.
By contrast, the Wachiperi, of the Harakbut linguistic family, suffered great loss and
relocation during forced enslavement and displacement from their original territory
caused by the early twentieth-century rubber terror, particularly under the exploits of
Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald, who made the Madre de Dios region, original
home of the Wachiperi, a major area for capturing slaves and labor under the pain of
death. Later, many Wachiperi were relocated to a mid-century (1946) establishment of
Map 12.2 The location of the Q’eros River and communities of Hatun Q’eros and Queros-Wachiperi in the Department capital of Cusco and
province capital of Paucartambo. The community territories are designated in shaded areas.
Map courtesy of ACA, Amazon Conservation Association, Washington, D.C. www.amazonconservation.org.
404 Holly Wissler
a North American Baptist Mission, followed in 1948 by a small pox epidemic that coin-
cided with the opening of the road to Cusco, which severely reduced the population.
Today only some one hundred or so Wachiperi remain.8 The Wachiperi songs, like the
people and their language, are on the border of extinction.
Q’eros and Wachiperi music has much in common, as is true for many indigenous
cultures: The songs express their environment with topics about the landscape, revered
animals and birds; they are used for personal expression of grievances, complaints, and
loss; both are used for healing in some form; and the songs fortify identity and social
ties (Allen, 2002; Olsen, 1996; Seeger, 2004a; Stobart, 2006; Turino, 1993; Uzendoski,
2005; Wissler, 2009). The principal difference is that the Q’eros still embody and retain
the original context for musical practice (carnival, animal fertility rituals, corn harvest),
while the Wachiperi lost their context for musical production during relocation to the
Protestant mission and prohibition of the drinking of masato, fermented yucca beer.
Community singing for the Wachiperi had been traditionally organized in masateadas
(communal drinking rituals) in large communal homes, and their communal singing
ended with the prohibition of this ritual.
In September 2010 I collected, digitized, and repatriated 50 years of audiovisual
archives to the Q’eros, and in December of the same year I digitized and returned
University of California Berkeley anthropologist Patricia J. Lyon’s 1964 and 1965 reel-to-
reel recordings of 206 Wachiperi songs to the Wachiperi. This was the first time in the
history of both communities that audio-visual archives had been repatriated to them
(see Figure 12.1).9 In the case of the Wachiperi, the repatriation of song archives was
my introduction to the community, whereas with the Q’eros I had accumulated years of
research and reciprocal relations that opened doors on both communal and individual
levels. It is this foundation of years of trust and collaboration with the Q’eros that has
allowed for the co-creation of exchanges with tourist and student groups, with music as
focal point, which are fulfilling and often very potent for both the Q’eros and the guests.
I have married my role of 30 years as tour leader and cultural translator in mountain
areas of Peru with 15 years as music researcher in the same mountains, to successfully
incorporate the Q’eros and their music into our mutual livelihood of tourism in a way
that benefits both parties on various levels, without changing or creating a new form of
the performance aspect of their music.
The Quechua Q’eros and their Music

in Indigenous Tourism
When indigenous music is introduced into tourist realms, it quite often undergoes the
construction of a new or altered musical form (Harnish, 2005), a folklorization of the orig-
inal music (Mendoza, 1998, 2000), or a staging of indigenous culture and identity nego-
tiation for political purposes (Oakdale, 2004). Indigenous music that is commoditized
Figure 12.1 Digitized archives returned to the Queros-Wachiperi community. Estela

Dariquebe is the only elder still living who recorded with Patricia Lyon in 1964 and 1965.
Photo by Holly Wissler, December 11, 2010.
for touristic purposes often becomes “self-conscious ‘cultural performances’ ” (Rios,

2012: 6), a self-conscious presentation of self (Senft, 1999), or, in the ecological analogy of
Titon, “like chemical fertilizers, artificial stimuli that feed the plant but starve the soil… .”
(Titon, 2009: 122). In my work with the Q’eros and the introduction of their music into
tourism, they do not reconstruct a performance of identity, or display an objectified image
of their cultural heritage, which could be very tempting for them given that they are often
associated (on the national and international level) with a romantic Inca past, as a people
who still harmoniously live in untouched, ancient tradition (Corr, 2003).
I argue that what supports the maintenance of authentic, unpackaged musical perfor-
mance, as well as the facilitation of deep sharings of musical and life experiences between
two extremes of culture (indigenous, rural Andean with modern, urban US), is the very
small, grassroots level in which we work. These exchanges are not so “small” after all,
when one considers the inner experience of rich benefit and growth, and, in the case of
the Q’eros, personal benefit plus economic compensation. It is in the arenas of tourism
and work with students on study abroad programs in Peru where I have experienced
direct, immediate, and long-lasting impact in the service of applied ethnomusicology.
406 Holly Wissler
Indigenous Tourism and Ideas of Authenticity

In past decades there has been a growing interest in, implementation of, and debates
about indigenous tourism, which includes activities where indigenous people are
directly involved, and their culture, including musical presentation, serves as the
essence of attraction (see Boniface and Robinson, 1998; Butler and Hinch, 2007;
Knudsen and Waade, 2010; Ryan and Aicken, 2005; Xie, 2001). Butler and Hinch
state in their introduction to their edited volume Tourism and Indigenous Peoples,
“Indigenous cultures have become a powerful attraction for tourists and as such they
have drawn the attention of tourism entrepreneurs, government agencies and aca-
demics” (Butler and Hinch, 2007: 2). Many of the case studies in this volume discuss
whether indigenous tourism is an opportunity for the indigenous to “gain economic
independence and cultural rejuvenation to whether it presents a major threat of hege-
monic subjugation and cultural degradation” (ibid.). These are two extremes of the
continuum, and the editors do clarify that “[a]‌parallel range of opinions exist at opera-
tional levels of debates about the size of indigenous tourism markets, the appropriate-
ness of various marketing practices and the business models that are most suitable for
indigenous tourism operations” (ibid., my emphasis). The overall premise of all cases
presented is that there is not one guiding set of principles that assures success in indig-
enous tourism models; rather, each case is unique to time, place, and size. I agree with
this conclusion, and have myself experienced models that both work and do not work
regarding tourism with the Q’eros.
Boniface and Robinson (1998) discuss how tourism can help preserve cultures and
resurrect forgotten traditions, while at the same time challenging cultural norms, which
can lead to situations of conflict, in which much tension, and even violence, can result.
Many issues must be confronted when cultures meet, such as social and economic power
relations, and even moral and legal rights. The majority of the case studies in both Butler
and Hinch and Boniface and Robinson deal with fairly large-scale tourist operations.
I emphasize the word size as quoted above because it is on the smallest level where I have
felt and seen the most effective results, literally one-on-one, or a ratio of roughly two to
one, when I introduce US guests and the Q’eros to one another (Figure 12.2). The group
sizes I work with are anywhere from four to thirty total people involved. The effective-
ness of these encounters is probably more immediate and impactful when compared to
many other models that deal with interactions on a larger scale, such as stagings of musi-
cal presentations to a sizable audience.
The issue of authenticity in tourism—its definition and implementation—has been
a much-debated issue in the study and practice of indigenous tourism. One of the first
critics of inauthentic tourist experiences was the American historian and social critic
Daniel Boorstin, whose groundbreaking book The Image discussed the effect of mass
media on American culture that resulted in contrivance and a valuing of the fake
over the genuine. He critiqued the tourism industry as a whole, saying it once offered
real experiences but came to insulate travelers from the places they were visiting and,
Figure 12.2 Two US tourists with three Q’eros, learning about the Q’eros pinkuyllu flutes.
Photo by Holly Wissler, July 17, 2014.
instead, provided artificial products and presentations for tourists who expect to see
scenes out of the movies (Boorstin, 1961). Boorstin’s seminal critique is still influential in
authentic tourism debates today.
Fifty years later, Knudsen and Waade discuss “a hunger for reality and the indexical
authenticity” and “a striving for the real” in regard to authenticity in indigenous tour-
ism (Knudsen and Waade, 2010: 2). Authenticity is not observers (tourists) observing
staged authenticity (the idea of tourist as observer and host culture as observed; Urry,
2002), but “the nature of authenticity is experiential” (Johnson and McIntosh, 2005: 36,
my emphasis). Along these lines, Knudsen and Waade discuss that the longing for the
authentic in tourism is not a “… ‘thing’ you can possess, nor a ‘state of mind,’ but some-
thing which people do and a feeling which is experienced” (Knudsen and Waade, 2010: 1).
I agree that experience and experiential are key components in authentic exchange in
indigenous tourism, which includes accessing deeper meanings of indigenous music by
the students/tourists involved.
Knudsen and Waade use the term “performative authenticity” to marry object-related
and subject-related modes of authenticity. Object-related refers to concepts that are
“out there”: place, the tourists’ projections, narrations, and identity constructions about
408 Holly Wissler
place, and pre-conceived ideas in general, such as the desire for a non-technological,
natural environment and experience in their travels. “Indexical authenticity” refers to
the inner experience of the tourist who is affected by and has intense feelings for place
(object-related) (ibid.). Subject-related refers to the inner, affected, tactile, corporeal,
emotional, and inter-relatedness that the tourist actually experiences (ibid.: 12–16).
Performative authenticity, therefore, is the combination of preconceptions that conjure
up images and sensations with the subjective inner affected experience and existential
personal quests that happen in the moment. In simpler terms, the projected combined
with the experienced.
Sustainability scientist Ning Wang writes in his article “Rethinking Authenticity in
Tourism Experience,” “Existential authenticity refers to a potential existential state of
Being that is to be achieved by tourist activities. Correspondingly, authentic experiences
in tourism are to achieve this activated existential state of Being within the liminal pro-
cess of tourism” (Wang, 1999: 352). Wang discusses authenticity in terms of intraper-
sonal (the sensations of authenticity the person feels) and interpersonal (the authentic
bonding among peoples). I believe the concepts intra- and interpersonal, sensations and
bondings, are key in the success of interactive, exchange tourism and indigenous musi-
cal sharings. In our exchanges, the tourists and students have direct and intimate con-
tact with the Q’eros and their musical offerings. The tourists’ experience is more than
observing, but a taking part in, a participation of—when emotions, thoughts, sensa-
tions, and even spirit become involved. I believe we achieve authentic sensations and
mutual bonding in our exchanges, which are connected to both pre-conceived ideas of
place and identity, combined with actual, corporeal, and emotional experience, which
I expand on below.
Interpretations and meanings of “authenticity” have been critically examined in con-
temporary ethnomusicology, and many ethnomusicologists have discussed authenticity
in regard to the incorporation of indigenous music in touristic ventures and festivals
(see Stokes, 1994). Jeff Titon quotes the definition of folk cultural traditions from the
Smithsonian’s Center of Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies Guidelines for Research,
which is meant to guide fieldworkers’ decisions on what is and is not authentic:
… community-based forms of knowledge, skill and expression learned through

informal relationships and exhibiting intergenerational continuity. Typical genres
include oral tradition, social custom, material culture and its supportive knowledge,
and the folk arts. Forms of folk culture are traditional to the extent that they maintain
standards or values, which have continuity with, and are informed by, past practice.
They are living traditions to the extent that they are practiced, and are socially inte-
grated within community life and speak to its cognitive, normative, affective, and
aesthetic concerns (Office of Folklife Programs 1988).
(Titon 1999: 123–124)
Based on this definition, the Q’eros’ music-making I organize for tour groups is sol-
idly rooted in “intergenerational continuity” and a “living tradition.” While they are not
playing in the ritual context (i.e., drinking the ceremonial chicha—corn beer—involved
in multiple offerings for the mountain spirits or carnival merry-making), the execution
of their music is not modified or staged. The renderings are more subdued than during
their inebriated ritual contexts and more akin to the way they sing around their family
hearths or while herding their llamas and alpacas out in the Andean heights: a simple
playing and singing of their songs in an intimate, private setting, as they did for me dur-
ing my fieldwork, so that they share the community’s affective and aesthetic concerns. To
use Thomas Turino’s definition, this is participatory music that does not become staged
or presentational. Rather, it is a simple rendition of participatory music (Turino, 2008).
In contrast to simple renderings of music in intimate settings, many of my Q’eros
friends have expressed feelings of p’enqay, or shame, and a sense of being used and
manipulated as they are put on stage by the Ministry of Culture, which solicits them
to perform their songs and the traditional sounding of announcement on conch shells
(pututu) for specific ceremonies based around achievements of the Ministry. Both the
Q’eros and the Wachiperi are regularly called upon to travel long distances from their
communities and perform for special Ministry of Culture events, thereby symbolizing
the Ministry’s investment in heralding and safeguarding the traditions of both peoples.
While the Q’eros’ musical performances for the MC are similar to the ones they do for
my tour groups—a simple rendition of songs—the experience is dramatically different.
One is an uncomfortable staged obligation for a political entity, with little understand-
ing or significance of the music imparted, and centered around an event that often has
nothing to do with the people performing, versus an intimate, often mutually meaning-
ful experiential exchange between US tourists/students and the Q’eros, which is directly
focused on the Q’eros, who they are, and the layers of musical meaning. In my experi-
ence, it is the latter musical representation that engenders a sense of “authentic.”
Indigenous Tourism and the Q’eros Identity

I first heard of the Q’eros upon moving to Peru in 1982 as the exotic last stronghold of
“pure” indigenous Andean people surviving today. It was this romantic reputation that
led me 20 years later to choose the Q’eros’ ritual music as my dissertation research topic.
The fame and attraction of the Q’eros to foreigners evolved from mid-twentieth century
onward due to many factors that link them to an ancient, and even Inca, past.10 One
version of the Q’eros’ origin myth of Inkarí, the mythical Inca who founded the Inca
Empire, tells how the Q’eros were privileged with the power of wisdom, while the Incas
received the political power. The first academic expedition into Q’eros headed by Cusco
University (Universidad Nacional San Antonio de Abad, Cusco) in 1955 highlighted
the connection to an Inca past with sensational editorials in the Lima newspaper, La
Prensa, such as: “Living museum from the Inca era being studied by Peruvian scientists,”
and “Q’ero is an admirable testimony of a pre-Incan city in Peru” (journalist Demetrio
Tupac Yupanqui, August 21 and 22, 1955, respectively). These editorials brought national
attention to the Q’eros. Fifty years later, their legal establishment of the Nación Q’eros
(Q’eros Nation, consisting of five Q’eros communities, approximately 3,000 population)
410 Holly Wissler
is indicative of the Q’eros’ self-identified identity/ethnicity, and their wish to preserve

and promote themselves as a unified group. In 2006, Peru’s then National Institute
of Culture—today the Ministry of Culture—declared the Q’eros people “Cultural
Patrimony,” the first case of its kind in Peru in which a people were so named.11 Because
of this renown, streams of foreign and local filmmakers and researchers have been
drawn to Q’eros’ romanticized identity over the past 50 years.
As mentioned, the Q’eros’ continued practice of their community traditions has much
to do with their location in three diverse ecological zones on the eastern watershed of
the Andes, all in relative close proximity, which has fostered self-sustainability, and less
need for trade and outside movement than more dependent Andean groups. The Q’eros
are likely one of the few remaining ethnic groups of the diverse mosaic of cultural groups
in existence in southern Peru at the time of the Spanish invasion, versus ethnic Incas
(see Mannheim, 1998: 383–384; Rowe, 1963: 185; Webster, 1972: 7–9). In sum, the Q’eros,
with their intact cultural and ethnic identity, have many platforms and an eager audi-
ence from which to assert this identity, which they articulately connect to an ancient
Inca past, as their origin myth tells them; they are proud of their identity, and articulate
and utilize it to their benefit. This makes tourism highly attractive for and to the Q’eros.
Today the Q’eros are particularly sought out by a specific niche of foreigners (US
and European) who seek spiritual guidance, and have come to look to the Q’eros as the
teachers and holders of Andean Native American spiritual tradition. They are known
as spiritual leaders, because every head of family—usually the men, and sometimes the
women—is a ritual specialist, having inherited the knowledge of how to make precise
offerings for the mountain deities (Apu) and Mother Earth (Pacha Mama), whereas
other Andean communities have only one or a few ritual specialists. This corresponds
to their version of the origin myth, Inkarí, in which the Q’eros inherited vast spiritual
knowledge. Many Q’eros are invited abroad to teach their knowledge, and visitors to
Peru hold learning sessions with them in and around the Cusco region, while the hardier
will travel to Q’eros.12 This type of “mystical/esoteric/New Age tourism,” as it is called in
the tourist trade, comes with a lot of hot critique; many argue that because of the forces
of commerce and capitalism, the Q’eros have sold out or exploited their ritual expertize
to spiritually empty Westerners who look outside their own home for fulfillment, or,
conversely that the Q’eros representatives, such as tour companies, have created an exag-
gerated mystic around the Q’eros that the Q’eros comply with and cultivate in order to
simply earn the much-needed income to support their families. Certainly, the Q’eros are
a spiritual people, and the issue of spiritual tourism is complex and multi-faceted.
In spite of the Q’eros’ renown and attractiveness to outside visitors, they do not have any
community-based tourism (CBT) in place, where the community could potentially man-
age their own touristic operations to the control and benefit of the community;13 rather,
separate tour companies and individuals employ Q’eros who are looking for work in
tourism as they become more connected to/dependent on the cash economy. In the past
decade there has been significant Q’eros migration to Cusco, which comes with new eco-
nomic trappings: building homes, paying for their children’s education, and buying food
from the market that they used to grow in their community. Tourism is now a main form
of income for many in-community and migrant Q’eros, and they are savvy in securing
their own work contacts to make offerings for tourists and sell their handmade textiles.
This system of individual enterprise fosters capitalistic competition and often jealou-
sies among community members, yet many Q’eros have stated that they prefer to be their
own individual agents in securing tourist activities versus any kind of CBT where equality
would be enforced. Francisco Quispe from Q’eros stated bluntly that they do not want to
create CBT that would instill and obligate an equal sharing of tourist earnings. “Many
don’t want to share, because they think that if they do a rotation system then there would
be ‘less for me.’ We prefer to work with people we already know; with contacts we already
have and continue to make” (personal communication, July 19, 2013). This contrasts with
the Taquile island CBT model, where, in the 1970s, the Taquileños created an innovative,
community-controlled tourism system, with home stays and cultural activities, to com-
bat mass tourism to their island that was run by outsiders. The Q’eros region is vast, not a
single island, and the Q’eros individually, not collectively, discreetly invite tourists to their
homes in the mountains, or meet tour groups in Cusco. This is completely in character
with their savvy negotiation of “Inca identity” that they use in political, social, and tourist
arenas; it is also in line with their decades of astute control regarding which outsiders can
and cannot film, research, and witness rituals in their community.14 They have taken con-
trol of tourism in their region and are not interested in any CBT that may not serve their
own individual desires and needs, which is fascinating considering that they still live by
traditional communal rules in regard to intracommunity social matters.
Case Study: Q’eros-Tourist Exchanges with Music

as Focal Point
Knudsen and Waade discuss authenticity in indigenous tourism as “the desire for insight
into the intimate back-stage life of others,” and this insight is what we achieve in our small,
face-to-face meetings with the Q’eros (Knudsen and Waade, 2010: 10). Even though I am
regularly solicited to take groups and individuals into Q’eros because of my research pro-
file, I only travel to Q’eros with select, close friends because in this way I feel we can share
quality exchanges inside the intimate space of the Q’eros’ homes. In other words, I take
friends to meet friends. I have only led one tour group into Q’eros, and I sensed varied
agendas and interest in the clients’ meeting the Q’eros, so that any meaningful exchange
was compromised, and the trip felt unsatisfactory. This experience, coupled with the
high-altitude rigors and inclement weather involved in arriving to the community that
took a toll on the original intent of cultural exchange, led me to conclude that I will not
take tourists into Q’eros again. What works for us (the Q’eros, visitors, and me) are the
close meetings between select Q’eros and small tour and student groups in Cusco, specifi-
cally using music as focal point and a window into Q’eros’ life and perspective.
The Q’eros call me chakawarmi (bridge-woman) because of my ability to conjoin my
compatriots with the Q’eros in meaningful colloquy. I work with about 10 Q’eros families
whom I rotate for the exchanges. The group I have chosen are the ones who committed
412 Holly Wissler
to my work years ago when I began my initial music research in Q’eros, so we have a
long working history together. In this way I continue ayni, reciprocal social obligation,
in exchange for all the favors and time they gave in helping me understand their music.
In some cases, the Q’eros’ earnings with groups are through selling their textiles, but
mostly we are hired to meet with small tour and student groups, so that the Q’eros make
a much-welcomed wage.15
The tourist demographic we meet with are generally high-powered, well-educated
professionals from the United States who have just two weeks or so vacation a year.
Many check into their workplace regularly via Smartphones, often adding stress to
their once-in-a-lifetime visit to Peru. Knudsen and Waade (2010) expand on ideas
from Gilmore and Pine (2007), stating that “the craving for authenticity is a reaction to
a strong technologically mediatised, commercialised and socially constructed reality.
One could think of this ‘craving’ as a ‘longing’ for the immediate, non-commercialised,
brute natural world, characterized by the real authentic” (Knudsen and Waade, 2010: 1).
Most of the visitors we meet with come away with a sense of having experienced the
“real authentic,” even if in one session and on a small scale.
Certainly the meeting location has a powerful, underlying influence: the capital of the
Inca Empire, with the final goal of the mystical citadel of Machu Picchu. The clients/stu-
dents are already under the spell of having finally arrived in the majestic Andes, a place
that has been their dream for years. They are in the midst of the “indexical authentic-
ity” and “emotional geography” of the tourist’s inner experience, affected by and having
intense, often projected, feelings for place (Knudsen and Waade, 2010: 5–16). This emo-
tional investment in place and history is conducive to their openness for and interest in
a meeting with the Q’eros.
Upon meeting the Q’eros, the guests first see the physical representation of authen-
tic: The men in pre-Hispanic unku tunics under their hand-woven ponchos, with the
knee-length calzuna pants; the women in brightly-colored finely-woven lliklla shawls
with typical Q’eros designs and bayeta (woven cloth of sheep and alpaca fiber) skirts.
All wear the simple ojota sandals, and often their feet are mud-caked from recent
work in their homes, fields, and travel by foot over a mountain pass to arrive at the
road and take the bus to Cusco. Soon after, social features of the authentic begin to
be expressed: warm hugs from the Q’eros to the guests, most of whom are unaccus-
tomed to such affection upon first meeting. Barriers begin to break down. The tour-
ists soften, smile, and even laugh at this unexpected warmth and physicality. Next
come greetings in their native Quechua, a language they have not heard in person,
and most likely have not heard of before their journey to Peru. These are not formal
speeches, as are sometimes performed on stage for Ministry of Culture functions just
before musical performance, but direct, personal greetings in this ancient language
of the Andes.
We sit in chairs in a small circle, versus two lines facing one another (“us” and
“them”), or the Q’eros on a stage and the guests as audience, as in Ministry of Culture
presentations. Often we hike together, sharing magnificent Inca archaeology and
Andean scenery (Figure 12.3). I ensure that the sessions are dialogue; that is, I invite
Figure 12.3 A Q’eros couple sharing music with US tourists from inside an Inca niche.
Photo by Vicki Groninga, October 13, 2013.
the Q’eros to ask questions of the clients, and vice versa. There are many questions
that I could easily answer in regard to the Q’eros’ lifestyle, and interpretation and
meaning of their music, but I defer to the Q’eros so that they reply first in their own
words, and I then add what I have discovered and learned through years of research,
in terms that are more easily understandable to Western thinking. Therefore, my
translation is both literal from Quechua to English, with the addition of cultural
translation.
Next, I facilitate the sharing of a music the guests have neither heard nor imagined
before: men simultaneously play pinkuyllu—four-holed end-notched vertical bamboo
flutes—“out of tune” and dissonant, while the women sing with full force from the gut,
intentionally expelling all air at the ends of phrases . Each pinkuyllu is tuned to itself,
but not to another, so that if there are two or three pinkuyllu the sound is inevitably
bitonal or tritonal. I let the Q’eros choose which pukllay taki, or carnival song, they wish
to sing, about the sacred and medicinal plants, flowers, and birds in their environment.
It is taboo to sing the animal fertility songs out of ritual context, but it is precisely the
tritonic pukllay taki sung by a woman combined with the tritonic pinkuyllu complemen-
tary melody that is normally sung out of carnival context throughout daily activities
such as herding and weaving. I see it over and over again: the spellbound look of awe on
414 Holly Wissler
the visitors’ faces, taking in this extraordinary experience of indigenous Andeans vigor-
ously singing and playing, and just for them.
In our ensuing post-listening dialogue I explain how the basic life tenet of
ayni—reciprocity—is manifested in Q’eros music. I begin with the significance of
the song topic and basic elements of music such as tuning, and the complementarity
of the men’s playing and the women’s singing.16 I help the guests understand what is
usually a new musical aesthetic for them: that starting and stopping together is not a
musical criterion; in fact, in Q’eros it is just the opposite. The space must be continu-
ally filled with sound so that the offering of songs, particularly in animal fertility
ritual, is plentiful and nonstop.17 If the group shows keen interest, then I particularly
expand on one of the most exciting musical discoveries in my years of singing in
ritual with Q’eros women: Their self-identified vocal technique, aysariykuy, which is
the notable prolongation and expulsion of air at the end of alternate refrains. I share
my passion about the idea that the Q’eros’ worldview is encompassed in a single
vocal technique that is a ritual blowing of the person’s samay, or animated essence,
which is sent out in offering to the Apu, mountain deities, in propitiation for the
return of ayni.18 This ritual blowing of the song, just like the ritual blowing (phukuy)
of coca leaves, is, in the Q’eros’ words, chayanankupaq—“so that the song arrives,”
and uyarichinankukama—“until they [the Apu] are made to hear.” The people hope
to be reciprocated with the health of their crops, herds, and overall livelihood. I elu-
cidate how they taught me that if they don’t sing and play with aysariykuy, then the
Apu won’t hear the song, thereby not receiving the song offering, which places ayni
in jeopardy. If the song is not received and ayni is not reciprocated, bad occurrences
take place—and in extreme cases, death. The people take direct responsibility for
unreciprocated ayni, stating that perhaps they did not sing properly, give enough
offering bundles, libations of alcohol and coca leaves, in order to ensure complete
reciprocity.19
With university and high school student groups that are part of an in-depth study
abroad program, I distribute song text and we sing along with the Q’eros, so they can
experience the sensation of aysariykuy (see Figures 12.4 and 12.5). Many of these student
groups have a Quechua component, so I am able to delve deeper and breakdown the
meaning of the term aysariykuy. Quechua is a language in which multiple infixes and
suffixes are added to basic verb roots to enhance the meaning. The root of aysariykuy is
aysay: “to pull,” “to drag,” “to haul,” or “to throw.” Added to aysay are three suffixes: the
first, ri [ru],20 indicates an action with speed and urgency; the second, yu, implies an
action performed with intensity; and finally, ku, which indicates an action executed
with much enthusiasm, affection, and in quantity. For ease in pronunciation, ri-yu-ku
becomes riyku, so the final word is aysariykuy. Thus, the essence of the full translation is
something akin to “The song is pulled or thrown with urgency, intensity, and affection-
ate enthusiasm” and “with much quantity of breath.” More than just simply infusing the
song with samay, or life essence, that samay must be moved and “thrown” in a particular
way, with “urgency, intensity, and affectionate enthusiasm.” The vocal technique is then
packed with intention that the guests learn about through singing and are privileged
Figure 12.4 A young US high school student from a National Geographic student group
tour in Peru learns a Q’eros song.
to share with the Q’eros. Explanations, demonstrations, and participation through

music are singular, major connectors for the guests to gain a profound glimpse into the
deep meaning of Q’eros life. Sometimes the Q’eros break out in endearing laughter at
the tentative attempts at aysariykuy in the guests’ singing, and the humanness of these
moments is fun and unifying.
The final portion of our sharing moves into spontaneous dialogue when I facilitate
a conversation, and mutual questions and answers between Quechua and English.
Occasionally we will share about the Q’eros’ singing their loss and grief in improvised
song text in the animal fertility songs and rituals. Since those rituals are about life, they
are also about death and remembrance of time when ayni was not reciprocated (see
Wissler, 2009: 182–207). This topic only comes up when our conversation leads into it in
some fashion, when all those involved are sharing about difficulties and loss in life. All
sessions end with the Q’eros selling textiles that the women present have woven them-
selves, so that the money goes directly to that woman and her family and not through a
broker.21 Everything about the experience is intimate and direct. I believe this is as close
a view and understanding of Q’eros music that one can possibly get within the struc-
tured framework of a two-hour session, outside of Q’eros.
416 Holly Wissler
Figure 12.5 A Q’eros man gives a “high five” to a US student from a National Geographic
student group tour who has sung a Q’eros song with him.
Mutually Beneficial Exchange
Both the Q’eros and visitors have articulated numerous benefits from these sessions.
Below is a sampling of quotations from some Q’eros and guests who have participated
in these exchanges, which illuminate the resultant gains and expansive learning on both
sides. I am referred to as comadre in the interviews with the Q’eros.22
Francisco Quispe Flores from Q’eros stated, “Noqa thak kashani”—‘I am in peace’
[with this work]. I feel a solidarity and cariño (affection) because this work is more per-
sonal,” and Santos Machacca Apasa noted, “When we share about our lives and cus-
toms, I feel hatun sonqoyoq (with a big heart).” Santos’s mother, Beatríz Apasa Flores,
described the fun and happiness she feels:
Nishu kusisqa kashani (I am very happy). We talk, we laugh, we sing. It is fun to hear
them sing our songs. They try to do aysariykuy, but it is very funny and we laugh. They
are immersing themselves. This makes us happy, gives us satisfaction that others want
to know our songs. And they can take the songs in their hearts to their family in the US.
(all, personal communication, July 19, 2013)
Equal sentiments of the emotional affects of intimate sharing have been expressed by the
foreign guests. Gayle Goschie, a client from Oregon who trekked with me on the Inca
Trail to Machu Picchu in 2010 remembered:
It was so exceptional to be sitting side by side, exchanging a little of ourselves with

Holly’s interpreting, hearing the feelings of the Q’eros through song. Such a personal
experience that transported me back to ancient, ancient times. I will always remem-
ber sitting next to Juana, listening to her sing, and admiring the beauty of her and her
loosely woven black skirt with its texture of burlap. The big wide diverse world was a
little smaller at that moment.
(personal communication, May 21, 2013)
Paralleling Gayle’s sentiment, Bonnie and Krishna Arora from San Diego, California relayed:
We first met the Q’eros while on a day hiking trip in the Sacred Valley [of the Incas].
They performed a prayer offering and, since it was our 34th wedding anniversary,
they blessed our marriage. That day they touched us with the genuine love and kind-
ness they showed, and we felt an instant connection. Meeting the Q’eros definitely
impacted and changed our lives in many ways and we share that message and the
story often with our friends.
(personal communication, August 20, 2013)
Because of that first impactful meeting, Bonnie and Krishna returned to travel with me
twice to Q’eros, donating family foundation funds to help build a much-needed bridge
to connect the potato and corn zones, and becoming godparents to a Q’eros boy.
The Q’eros and visitors use many adjectives to describe a shared sense of opening,
connection, and well-being that is attained during these exchanges: peace, cariño, with
open-heart, satisfaction, exceptional, personal, and genuine expressions of love and
kindness. “The big wide diverse world a little smaller” described by Gayle Goschie is the
solidarity and personalized affection that Francisco Quispe addressed. Beatríz touches
on the exchange aspect, that the Q’eros feel pride and satisfaction to share their music
with the foreign guests, which they can take away to their country and family.
The exchanges facilitate a reciprocal learning and accessibility to one another’s lives,
which is directly related to the size and intimacy of our interactions, as Francisco articu-
lates: “It is good to work in small groups and rotate the Q’eros who work. Sometimes
I work, then another couple works. It is not good to invite a lot of Q’eros, because our
sharing is not as good, not as close, and we don’t sell as many weavings.” Santos relays,
“I learn about their lives too. We are always remembering them afterwards. They leave
good memories.” Santos continued to describe how large group size is an impediment:
Last year A “Four Winds” trip23 had 300 tourists in one group, with about eleven or
twelve buses and one to two Q’eros per bus. This for me is commercial. Jealousies are
created. The Q’eros do not have a voice; we cannot talk that much. We are representa-
tives, but without a voice. It is the same thing with our performances for the Ministry of
Culture. It is the small groups that are more valuable, where we do have a voice.
(personal communication, July 19, 2013)
418 Holly Wissler
Equally, the tourists and students commented on the value of intimacy. Sarah Mayer,
an undergraduate student in Iowa State University’s Peru Program, 2013, and Staci
MacCorkle, client on the Inca Trail trek to Machu Picchu in July 2010, report:
The opportunity to have a genuine two-way discussion with the Q’eros was excep-
tionally unique. It is often really difficult to understand a culture, religion, or way of
life so different from our own, but having the connection through Holly that could
bridge the gap in understanding gave me a better appreciation of the Q’eros culture
that is alive, vibrant, and meaningful, not stuff of strange folklore or mythology.
(Sarah Mayer, personal communication, July 5, 2013)
Having the opportunity to speak essentially one-on-one with community
members was tremendously special and unique. So often, “village visit” activities
arranged for international tourists are staged and motivated by particular issues
and/or messages. This was very different. Speaking candidly with the Q’eros about
their hopes, fears, and day-to-day concerns was both enlightening and, yet, nor-
mal. It was normal in the sense that our hopes, fears, and concerns are not that
different; I could have been speaking with any of my American peers about the
same topics. It was enlightening for the very same reason—no matter where we
are in the world and where we call home, people are people; we have the same
basic concerns about our quality of life and the resources available to enjoy a
quality life.
(Staci MacCorkle, personal communication, June 2, 2013)
The small size of our groups and direct conversations make it so there is no audi-
ence; every person involved has a voice, a place to ask questions and share thoughts.
There is no agenda, no particular message, other than mutual learning and respect.
Francisco stated that in large groups sharing was not as close, and Santos in particular
described the frustration of the Q’eros not having a voice in large stagings by tour oper-
ators and the Ministry of Culture. He keenly differentiated between representative and
voice: that the Q’eros are often representatives, but without a voice. Small groups allow
the Q’eros to have a voice, providing an opportunity to share who they are without
jealousies that arise when large groups of Q’eros work together. In the exchange held
among the Q’eros in the tour group with Staci MacCorkle, we all realized, after about
an hour of discussion, that in fact we were expressing the very same preoccupations
about our personal lives: family welfare, money, health, and education. In this moment
of discovery, we all fell silent and felt a strong sense of connectedness and solidarity.
I would go so far as to say we experienced anthropologist Victor Turner’s seminal defi-
nition of liminality and communitas: many felt a sense of awe, being in the moment, a
bonding, and even love, that unites people of vastly different backgrounds and social
realms (Turner, 1969, 1974).
Due to the small group size, a university student experienced the genuineness of
the people who are not the “stuff of strange folklore or myth.” The director of the Iowa
State University program, Nancy Guthrie, called this “foundational reality,” in her
description:
I think that our encounter with you and the Q’eros as individuals was a pivotal
moment for some of my students in terms of having a window into this culture and
people. Before that time together, they were somewhat ethnocentric in their lan-
guage about Peru. Meeting the Q’eros and hearing about their music, weavings, ani-
mals, and way of life provided a foundational reality. This was not something they
were reading about in a book.
Mutual respect, so necessary in this global and violent age, is garnered through this
foundational reality. Different lifestyles and cultures can reveal the sameness in human-
ity through real exchange, as expressed by Staci MacCorkle, and also by Robin Davis,
violinist and pharmacist from Boise, Idaho, after she spent many days with Agustin
Machacca Flores in Q’eros in 2007:
Agustín was a proud man with a self-effacing sense of humor. He was an affection-
ate husband and devoted father of four. He was determined to preserve the skills
and customs of the Q’eros by promoting literacy in his family, and working closely
with scholars such as Holly. As my admiration for him grew, I realized we shared a
matched intelligence; mine applied in the technical realm of Western medicine, and
his in the tenuous and demanding mountain existence of the Q’eros.
Robin came to find respectful equality in such differently manifested realities. Agustín
was also able to articulate this shared equality through the process of debunking
pre-conceptions and stereotypes that often results from direct encounters. The Q’eros
are simply natural, just being who they are, and with dignity and professionalism
they guide in the truthful sharing about the meaning of their music, as explained by
Agustín:
Before the tourists arrive they see photos of the campesinos (Andean people who live
in the mountains). They feel pena (pity) for how we live, how we used to live. But
when they meet us they learn about and appreciate how we can live in communities
so far away. And we too are concerned about how they live. There is a camaraderie—a
confidence that we build together. It is in this confidence that we come to understand
one another. It is not that the Q’eros are more tristes (sad, poor) and the tourists less
so. In the end we are in the same situation. We want to play our music for other tour-
ists, but nobody understands the music. No one can explain it. La comadre enten-
dichishan (makes it to be understood). Chayachinakama (until [the understanding]
is made to arrive).
When we sing and play for the tourists we feel like it is our profession. We are very
proud. Our way of playing for them has sinchi hatun valiq (extreme value), because
we share our customs and our music ñawi ñawipura (eye to eye), not via Internet or
recording. Our music is very old, from our ancestors’ time, and the comadre is the
chakawarmi (bridge woman). The contact is very human, and we end knowing one
another, hugging one another.
420 Holly Wissler
We have taught la comadre the truth about our music. We included her in every-
thing. And now she shares this truth with others. Everything is good because it is
done in the basis of knowledge and truth. All of our hard work together is now bear-
ing fruits. She doesn’t invent some romantic story about us, like many do. We are in a
school together, we are dispersing our knowledge little by little. Q’ala rimarakushan-
chis, q’alamanta (We converse clearly, transparently).
I believe it is of paramount importance to allow foreign guests to experience the

Q’eros as they are, thus shattering any preconceptions, such as poor Andeans or roman-
ticized Incas frozen in time, which can be seeds for breakthroughs about other cultural
stereotypes. It is in face-to-face learning about one another when preconceptions can
fall away. Part of the educational process of seeing the Q’eros, and other indigenous
peoples as they are, is through simple and honest renderings and explanation of their
music. Agustin takes rightful ownership in lovingly stating that it was the Q’eros who
taught me about their music, so that we can pass it on to others through shared learn-
ing “in a school together.” He is proud for having taught me, and respectfully acknowl-
edges that I am the one that is necessary for “making it be understood,” a direct agent,
no middleman—from them to me to the foreign guests. It is this genuine presentation of
their music that speaks to the hearts of the foreign guests.
Many experience a shift in perception about Q’eros music, and come to learn about
the spiritual significance of their music through direct exchange, as Bonnie Arora
states:
Their music was quite different to us. At first it sounded very simple and repetitive,
as it seemed to have a span of only a few notes. Then as we learned more of their
deep spiritual connection with nature and we began to recognize the whiff of air as
they sung as a way to share their song, their happiness and sadness with nature, and
the spirits that reside in the mountains and earth. The impact was overwhelmingly
beautiful.
Two undergraduate students in the ISU Peru program report on their perception of
Q’eros music:
Our session was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Before traveling to Peru,
I had taken a class about indigenous music in the Andes. However, the interaction we
had with the Q’eros taught me things a book never could. I was able to see firsthand
how excited they were to share an immense part of their culture. To them, music is
their life. Without it, the Apus and Pacha Mama will not hear their prayers. I was in
awe with their great reverence for their gods and how they utilized music to show
this reverence. (Kelsey Trejo, personal communication, July 2, 2013)
There are a few moments in my life that I look back on and feel as though it
changed my life or perception of the world. For me, I feel that this encounter with the
Q’eros will be one of them. Listening to their music and seeing their true passion for
their indigenous language and culture not only opened my eyes to a different way of
life, but it made me more curious and proud of my culture.
(Kelly Gifford, personal communication, July 2, 2013)
Even a class session conducted virtually by Internet with Q’eros in Cusco and a Brandeis
University (Boston) World Music class was able to transmit the deep meaning of the
music, as Brandeis student Emily Altkorn describes:
What struck me most about our Skype class was intimate connection between
Q’eros music and the daily lives of the Q’eros themselves. The Skype session showed
me that the Q’eros aren’t just “going through the motions”—the songs really do
evoke the strong emotions that they are meant to and are an integral part of Q’eros
life. Often when I’m in synagogue I find my mind wandering, as I wonder what I’ll
be doing later that day or when the service will be over. It was clear, though, that
Inocencia did not feel this way about her ritual song. In some ways I think I envy
her connections to her rituals and music, since I’ve never been able to feel a con-
nection to my religion or my music (as they are separate to me) in such a pure,
honest way.
(personal communication, April 22, 2014)
And Judy Eissenberg, professor of the Brandeis World Music class and professional vio-
linist, experienced the meaning of Q’eros music, as she heard it in Q’eros, as a natural
part of life’s narrative.
It took a while before someone decided to sing, and when it happened, it was part of
the flow of the evening. Earlier that day, I had seen the birds, the llamas, and flow-
ers that were in the songs. I laughed at the earthy teasing of the women in one of the
songs… I was part of the world that these songs described. So the music was not so
much an object at that moment, it was part of the evening, part of the narrative of life
being lived.
It is direct, interpersonal exchange that makes possible deep learning about the
meaning of a vital music that goes beyond book learning. I believe when the exchanges
spark analysis about one’s own culture, as in the case of students Kelly Gifford and Emily
Altkorn, that the sessions then have the possibility to reverberate through a person’s
continuing growth, encouraging self-reflection of one’s own person and culture, which
ultimately extends to respect for other cultures as a whole. Q’eros music in these settings
is not a performed, staged object, but a lived narrative that goes far beyond the boundar-
ies of a classroom and touches souls.
It is evident that the sharing of Q’eros music and life with foreign visitors has a pro-
found impact for all involved. The Q’eros take pride in sharing their traditions (weav-
ings, music, discussions of lifestyle), which are re-enforced and valued by them in
422 Holly Wissler
the process of performance and transmission, while guests experience a new sound
that promotes insightful, visceral, even life-changing learning about another people.
For the guests, through the experience of listening and participatory singing, the
music becomes insight into a people who live a vastly different lifestyle, yet this dif-
ference becomes accessible through perceiving their music as lived experience and
“not stuff of strange folklore…” or any sort of staged and removed performance. The
Q’eros have the opportunity to break through “poor Andean” and “romantic Inca”
stereotypes, and be real people, on an equal sharing-basis. The Q’eros are their own
“interpretive authorities” and active agents in how they present and explain their
music, with my assistance as translator (Titon, 1999: 9). All of the above testimonies
show that the mutual sharing of affect, sentiment, connection, dignity, and respect,
as well as perception changes and deep learnings about Q’eros music, are only pos-
sible because of the eye-to-eye (ñawi ñawipura), firsthand, intimate, and direct
conversations.
Chris Ryan, in his discussion of indigenous tourism, states, “Successful indigenous
tourism products require awareness and exercise of a guardianship and/or teach-
ing role” (Ryan, 2005: 9). Agustín discussed the learning/teaching element thor-
oughly: the guests learn about the Q’eros and their music, and the Q’eros continue to
value their traditions through the mirror of our sessions. The guests begin to assimi-
late rich aspects of an Andean people and music they have never heard of before, fully
enhancing their journey to Peru that otherwise would likely be just visits to archaeo-
logical sites without exposure to the people of the high Andes these sites are histori-
cally associated with. The Q’eros and myself monitor guardianship in the intimacy of
the sessions: they are in charge of how they perform and what we say about it. There is
no one else involved.
The Q’eros acknowledge the much-needed economic gain either through sale of their
textiles or receiving a wage for their participation. Many times guests will reflect on dif-
ferences in economic status in the global arena, and, acknowledging their economic
advantage, will sometimes work with me afterward to see how they can satisfactorily
donate some of their abundant resources toward a project that will benefit the Q’eros.
These donations are unexpected bonuses that are born exclusively from the exchanges
and are not a part of the original motivation or any agenda. From some of the resul-
tant donations we were able to build the much-needed footbridge (2007), and have seed
money for building a primary school in one of the Q’eros valleys that had no school
(2010). Boniface and Robinson (1998) discuss how social and economic power rela-
tions must often be confronted, even if unspoken, when cultures meet. These issues are
often less conflictive when dealt with at the personal level, when the guests have met
and talked directly with the people to whom their donation will benefit, and can keep
in touch about the projects via Internet with me as liaison. Donating toward a needed
community project is sometimes one way the US visitors deal with “white guilt” and
economic difference in a way that is both personally satisfying to them and benefits the
Q’eros.
Reciprocity in Indigenous Tourism with the Q’eros

Three of the principal attributes of successful exchange in our indigenous tourism
activities that include music are size, experience, and reciprocity, which are interrelated
and feed on one another. In regard to size, Ingram (2005), and Johnson and McIntosh
(2005) touch on the lack of establishing one-on-one relationships as an impediment that
leads to distortion when visiting the host groups Maori in New Zealand and aborigi-
nal Australian. In the seminal Fourth 1986 International Colloquium “Traditional
Music and Tourism” held in Kingston, Jamaica, Prime Minister Seaga of Jamaica
declared: “[the] problem of presenting folk material in an authentic yet appropriate
manner is the major barrier between traditional music and tourism” (Kaeppler and
Lewin, 1986: 211). Prime Minister Seaga was referring to the inclusion of music in the
large tourism industry in the Caribbean. What we do is nearly the opposite: there is
nothing large-scale or national, or even regional, that our exchanges entail. What we
achieve is orchestrated in an “appropriate manner,” without “distortion,” precisely
because of the small numbers of people involved with direct dialogue. Distortion and
unwieldiness is more likely to happen when presentation and exchange is on a larger
scale and the intermediaries are not so intimately involved with the culture-bearers and
their music.
Small-scale interaction allows Knudsen and Waade’s “performative authenticity” to
come to life, when projections about place and emotional state are successfully inter-
twined with in-the-moment tactile, emotional, corporeal, and interrelated experience
(Knudsen and Waade, 2010: 12–16). They add, “Through the notion of performative
authenticity we wish to point to the transitional and transformative processes inherent
in the action of authentication…” (ibid.: 1). The transformative processes are actively
co-created in sessions of deep learning exchange between the Q’eros and foreign guests.
It is in these intense moments of co-creation that two aspects of performative authen-
ticity emerge: relating empathetically to the other and/or connecting affectively to the
world (ibid.: 2). Empathy and connecting affectively arise (such as similar preoccupa-
tions, as we experienced in one session) when travelers are not insulated and products
are not artificial (Boorstin: 1961). Guests are not part of a distant audience; they are right
there, up close and personal, in the midst of all experience, discussion, and musical
presentation.
The most powerful exchanges are based in the experiential (i.e., not book learning
or observation, but interaction). To reiterate Knudsen and Waade’s idea of “Authentic”
in tourism is neither a “… ‘thing’ you can possess, nor a ‘state of mind’, but something
which people do and a feeling which is experienced” (Knudsen and Waade, 2010: 1, my
emphasis). The director of the Iowa State University program echoed this idea when she
stated that the “foundational reality” of the Q’eros’ actions are “things that must be expe-
rienced to be understood,” and cannot be read in a book. Through experience, the guests
sing and discover aysariykuy; they gain an embodied perception of a basic life concept
that is a driving force of a people whose life is expressed differently on the outside, yet
424 Holly Wissler
cultural impasse is markedly lessened as we explore and experience more about one
another. The experience of both listening to and active embodied participation of music
are rich beginnings of understanding what makes another people tick. Ideally, the expe-
rience engenders emotional bonding that is a promotion of empathy and understand-
ing between two very different cultures at a singular point in time, when the experience
“transcend[s]‌the tourist frame to become real” (Titon, 1999: 8).
Tourists and students often express that in their short visit they feel as if they have met
the “real” people of Peru. My understanding of this statement is that they are referring
to the salt-of-the-earth indigenous Andeans, the original backbone of the pre-invasion
populace, versus the urbanized service people (guides, hotel receptionists, drivers, etc.)
with whom they spend the majority of their tour, and who are more similar in lifestyle.
The success of our exchanges has much to do with equal reciprocity, that is, the ideal
situation of ayni that has premised Andean relationship since pre-Hispanic times, and
is the norm of operation with the Q’eros today.24 The vast scale of exchange throughout
the Andean, coastal, and Amazonian regions of the Inca Empire was premised on the
effect that a particular good or service had on local relationship, that is, the empire’s suc-
cess was founded on local, small-scale reciprocity that nourished the web of imperial
expansion. Through small-scale reciprocal sharing, we respond and collaborate sponta-
neously in song and discussion, preconceptions are debunked, and we gain a more real
sense of one another, thus affecting relationship that can then expand into a larger web,
as expressed in the above testimonies.
What is often brought forth are our genuine selves in awe of what we are experiencing.
Both the guests and the Q’eros are served by experiences that are heart-opening and/
or that change perceptions, providing quality insight into the other, and a sparking of
new awarenesses that can continue into daily life. Guests make donations, treat the next
person differently, learn about the life-and-death aspect of a vocal technique; the Q’eros
learn about the real lives of foreigners, who otherwise would be just tourists walking on
the busy street. In this way, the indigenous music of the Q’eros is co-experienced, not
falsified or performed artificially—it is merely, and deeply, shared.
While ratios of Q’eros and guests in groups of 5, 10, or even 30 are small scale, often
there is a vastness that opens up in the intimacy of exchange that is not small scale at all.
The meeting of a few people and changes of perception that are stirred up often extends
to how we interact with others as a result of what has happened to us in the exchange. In
other words, in the intimacy of a focus, worlds open up. There is a temporary dissolving
of separateness, and what results is gratitude and satisfaction.
I contend that these meetings are more effective human exchanges that result in a
deeper, longer-lasting transmission of musical information and knowledge to the visi-
tor than other styles of indigenous tourism where indigenous music is part of a staged
program, folklorized or distanced from its original meaning. In the space we co-create
together, the Q’eros have their own voice to share their music and lives, and equally, so
do the tourists and students since all talking is dialogue and participation. This is an
example of an active indigenous voice that we have nurtured together, and a meaningful
way we have found to bring Q’eros knowledge and music to foreign visitors to Peru.
Adverse situations can occur when that voice is not nurtured and when reciproc-
ity is not experienced as equal. This was the case with the Wachiperi community, who
chose to revive some of their near-extinct songs upon emotional listening to archives of
their deceased relatives, and who took issue with Cusco’s Ministry of Culture, negating a
CD publication proposition and instead took charge of their own production. A nearly
opposite case, the Wachiperi voice strongly emerged under these very different, conflic-
tive, and emotional circumstances. The story is as follows.
The Wachiperi: Song Revival

and UNESCO
Half of today’s 7,000 spoken languages are on the brink of extinction, and over 600 of
these have less than 100 speakers (Davis, 2009: 3–5). Wachiperi is one of these apoca-
lyptically endangered languages. The Peruvian Amazon, like all of South America’s
Amazonia, has suffered tremendous decimation and active disappearance of land and
peoples since the European invasion and the introduction of new diseases and dev-
astation caused by the early twentieth-century rubber exploitation, when caucheros
enslaved and relocated the people of the Harakbut linguistic group from their homeland
region on the lower Madre de Dios River to the river’s headwaters, which led to infight-
ing among the Harakbut subgroups (Gray, 1996: 14).
In the twentieth century, forces such as mining, logging, evangelism, and cattle farm-
ing continue to contribute to the depletion of Amazonian culture and natural resources.
Anthony Seeger states, “It’s not as though these [musical cultures] are just disappearing,
they’re ‘being disappeared’; there’s an active process in the disappearance of many tradi-
tions around the world” (quote from Schippers, 2010: 152). This has been the case with
the Wachiperi of the Madre de Dios River Basin, located just north of the Q’eros Nation
territory.
Today, there are approximately 50–60 Wachiperi who know their indigenous lan-
guage, a sub-group of the Harakbut linguistic family.25 This linguistic family includes
the seven subgroups of languages and people: Arakmbut, Sapiteri, Kisamberi, Pukirieri,
Asaraeri, Toyeri, and Wachiperi, many of which are extinct or drastically reduced in
numbers.26 When a language dies, naturally so do the songs that express the soul of the
people—in this case the Wachiperi’s expression of their healing knowledge and interde-
pendence on the rivers, plants, animals, and birds in their jungle environment. Similar
to other indigenous Amazonians, the Wachiperi used to live primarily from fishing,
hunting and gathering, and small agricultural production of products such as corn and
coca leaves. Since the early 1970s, gold mining has been a source of income for many
Harakbut from gold deposits in the Madre de Dios river basin (see Gray, 1983, 1997a,
1997b). Today, many are now part of the urbanized world and hold typical jobs such
426 Holly Wissler
as shop owners, work with various Amazonian products, such as lumber and coca, or
migrate for work in larger cities of Puerto Maldonado and Cusco.
The Harakbut social and spiritual regulating mechanism, like that of the Q’eros,
is based in reciprocity (see Alvarez, 2012; Gray, 1996, 1997a, 1997b; Moore, 1975; Tello,
2013). Among the Harakbut the principle of reciprocity is most visible in the relation-
ship between people and nature. Nature constantly gives to the people (food, medicinal
plants and products for subsistence, and today gold). The giving of nature to people can
sometimes be activated by shamans who are guided by dream revelations. In return, the
people must treat the diverse elements of nature with respect, otherwise they risk sus-
ceptibility to spiritual sanctions from natural sources.
Among the Harakbut, the patrilineal clan is the primary source of solidarity and
reciprocity, and the classic articulation of reciprocal relationship between the men and
nature is the hunt. The hunter dreams of his prey, and then upon waking departs to hunt
it. If successful, the hunter must generously share his catch with extended family mem-
bers, who expect to receive some portion of the meat, thereby reinforcing clan bonds
Tello, 2013. In modern times, generosity has extended to the profits made from mining
gold, which is used to buy food products (such as canned goods that are a luxury) and
beer, which are shared with extensive family and community.
Key aspects of reciprocity in social contexts and relationships between Harakbut
people and nature are generosity and respect. Some of the sanctions that ensue due to
breeches in reciprocity and respect of people with nature are ostracism, and physical and
spiritual damage, and even death from natural forces. Mutual respect between animals
and humans is imperative. A Harakbut myth relates of an animal rebellion as a warning
to people who do not treat animals with the due respect of a solemn hunt, particularly
younger men who hunt with frivolity and sport and are then punished by the animals’
spirits. For example, a person’s soul can be trapped by the Amazonian growth and taken
over by the physical and/or character aspects of an animal as a result of the more severe
transgressions of reciprocity and lack of respect (Gray, 1997a). So the lowland Harakbut,
like the highland Q’eros, take responsibility for their part in their relationship with and
the consequences of their reciprocal relationships with the natural and spiritual powers.
Unlike the highland Q’eros who have inhabited their territory for centuries, the
Harakbut Wachiperi are new to their settlement on the Queros River. The Wachiperi
historically did not have permanent settlements; rather, like many Amazonian inhabit-
ants in sync with the rhythms of natural abundance, they lived off the plant, animal, and
fishing resources of one river area, and then relocated every half year or so to let the area
replenish while they exploited the resources from another. In this cyclic migration they
were walkers of interfluvial territory as hunters, gatherers, fisherman, and later, farmers.
The Wachiperi lived in large, communal longhouses distributed among the many riv-
ers of the Madre de Dios river basin, but were relocated in the 1950s and 1960s to tribu-
taries farther upstream on and near a North American Baptist Mission. In the mid-1960s
the majority of the Wachiperi consolidated into two native communities, La Comunidad
Nativa de Queros (often just called Queros-Wachiperi) and Santa Rosa de Huacaria,
which gained official legal community status in 1990 and 1985, respectively.27 In 2008,
the Amazon Conservation Association (ACA), a nongovernmental organization

(NGO) based in Washington, D.C., along with their sister NGO in Cusco, Asociación
para la Conservación de la Cuenca Amazónica (ACCA, Amazon Basin Conservation
Association) addressed the historical displacement of the Wachiperi family groups from
the Queros-Wachiperi community and brokered an agreement between the people and
Peru’s National Institute of Natural Resources (INRENA) to create the world’s first land
concession to be managed by an indigenous group located near their community. The
Haramba Queros Wachiperi Conservation Concession protects 17,238 acres of highly
diverse rainforest, a public land resource that is entrusted to the Wachiperi for a 40-year
renewable concession in exchange for their active investment in conservation and sus-
tainable development projects. The concession secures the Wachiperi water supply, sus-
tains their access to forest products, and ideally helps the community maintain their
cultural traditions.
ACA and ACCA were aware of my research with the Q’eros, and in 2010 they invited
me to visit Queros-Wachiperi to share my work and see if there could be the possibil-
ity of cultural work with them as part of the land concession projects. Excited by the
possibility of collaborating with people in Amazonia, in December 2010 I digitized and
returned 15 reel-to-reels containing 206 Wachiperi songs that University of California
Berkeley anthropologist Patricia J. Lyon had recorded with this community in 1964 and
1965. Lyon had recorded with the direct family elders of today’s Queros-Wachiperi com-
munity, though even when she recorded they were no longer performing their songs due
to their severe population loss and mission prohibition of masateadas, the communal
gatherings for drinking, singing, and dancing; rather, the singers sang from memory, so
that the songs were already in declension 10 or so years prior to Lyon’s work with them.
The Wachiperi experienced profound, emotional reactions upon the unexpected
hearing of their deceased relatives singing their indigenous songs—songs that many
of the younger generation had not ever heard—which galvanized the community into
discussion about the revival and preservation of a selection of these songs before the
onset of total loss.28 I received some basic funding support from ACA and ACCA to
travel to the community and conduct workshops focused on song and cultural preser-
vation, which mainly consisted of long days listening to Lyon’s recordings, discussions
about their meaning, and reminiscing about the past. The only three remaining elders
alive from the Queros-Wachiperi community, Manuel Yonaje, Carmen Jerewa, and
Estela Dariquebe, recounted how they used to walk long distances from their disperse
river homes for community gatherings in one host home, drink masato, and express
their connection to spirits, plants, and animals through days-long drinking and singing
(Figure 12.6). These masateadas were times of joyful reconnection with other Wachiperi
whom they had not seen for some time, “back when we were many people,” Manuel
recalled.
Manuel described the gatherings: before the drinking of masato started, one by one
the men would sing embachiha, solo unaccompanied songs that invoked birds, animals,
and natural elements such as the moon and stars, with layers of meaning about migrat-
ing birds, which are metaphors for the people meeting and departing in welcome and
428 Holly Wissler
Figure 12.6 Estela Dariquebe, Carmen Jerewa, Manuel Yonaje: the three elders of the
Queros-Wachiperi community who remember the traditional songs.
Photo by Holly Wissler, May 12, 2012.
farewell, and also code about the white people’s invasion. Later in the night when the
masato began to flow, they sang embachinoha, which they also refer to as cantos de bor-
racho, or improvised drunken songs. This was the permissible time and space to vent
personal aggressions, when both men and women expressed individual grievances
through song, some quite directly about and toward other community members, often
sparking verbal and physical fights (Lyon, 1967: 73–74).
I recorded a number of embachiha with old Manuel. One of the songs we were able
to revive with a group of about eight Wachiperi was Kapiro, about the great egret that
returns annually, and is therefore a song of return and welcome. [ and . “Kapiro”
recorded in 2010 and 1965 respectively] Our project had forward momentum in the first
year after my return of the archives, when we shared many touching moments of listen-
ing and singing a few temporarily revived songs, such as “Kapiro.” A core of about six
community members, all of whom spoke Wachiperi, proved to be the most commit-
ted to learning some songs. However, the initial idea of reviving many different topical
songs proved to be difficult and slow, partly because of division and friction between
the urban Wachiperi who had migrated years ago to the more modern community of
Pilcopata on the road, and the families who still lived in the community inside the for-
est. In our third year together we eventually, and mutually, let go of the idea of long-term
song revival, simply because Wachiperi music is not sustainable. Jeff Titon defines sus-
tainability of music as “a music culture’s capacity to maintain and develop its music now
and in the foreseeable future” (Chapter 5 of this volume). Wachiperi musical culture
lacks the resilience “to recover and maintain its integrity, identity, and continuity when
subjected to forces of disturbance and change,” which, in this case, are critically reduced
numbers of Wachiperi and native speakers and loss of original singing context (ibid.).
We did, however, manage to add to the community archive by recording and thor-
oughly discussing seven esüwa, or Wachiperi healing songs, a genre that Lyon did not
record during her time with the community 50 years prior. Esüwa are not sung dur-
ing the masateadas; rather, these healing songs are passed down through generations
of healers (wamanokkaeri) and performed privately in intimate one-on-one (healer/
patient) contexts, usually at nighttime when the forest spirits are more active.29 A wama-
nokkaeri visits the ill person invokes the appropriate plant or animal spirits to assist in
the healing, and uses a combination of singing esüwa (with no instrumental accompa-
niment) blowing, spitting, and application of plant salves to begin the healing process.
Because of the personal nature of esüwa, the Wachiperi feel strongly that this genre is
not to be exposed in the public arena; so our recordings were solely intended to add to
the community archive, and the elders profoundly enjoyed remembering these songs
and sharing them with me.
In March and May of 2011, I recorded seven esüwa with Carmen Jerewa and Estela
Dariquebe, the only two remaining elders of the Queros-Wachiperi community who
had once been practicing healers. Carmen still occasionally performs healings with
esüwa, yet in general the actual practice is in rapid decline. Estela is now blind and simply
too frail and with fluctuating lucidity to practice healing. We recorded the seven esüwa
songs they could draw from memory, and documented information about each one as
part of our mutual learning process in our sessions together. In addition to Carmen and
Estela, there are some four or five members of the Santa Rosa de Huacaria community
who remember these songs and practice healing with them. In particular I remember
hearing about Alejandro Dumas from Huacaria, who lived to be nearly 100 and had the
regional reputation of being a master healer. He died in early 2010, just before I started
my work with the Wachiperi, and his daughter, Lidia, lamented not having taken the
initiative to learn esüwa healing practice from him, and now it is too late. It is for these
reasons—less than 10 elders who know and practice esüwa healing with its transmission
in severe decline—that UNESCO nominated the esüwa to the List of Intangible Cultural
Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding on November 25, 2011.
Esüwa Healing Songs
The esüwa I recorded and discussed with Estela Dariquebe and Carmen Jerewa were the
following:
1. Bapokate esüwa. Recorded with Carmen Jerewa, March 19, 2011.

For calming hurricanes and strong winds in order to prevent serious damage.
2. Ekuchirite esüwa. Recorded with Carmen Jerewa, March 19, 2011.
For healing debilitating headaches and migraines.
3. Wamiekate esüwa. Recorded with Carmen Jerewa, March 21, 2011.
For healing diarrhea. This song describes many different kinds of dogs and their varied
colorful markings, symbolic of the way an ill person’s diarrhea may look.
430 Holly Wissler
4. Ekpuguyte esüwa. Recorded with Carmen Jerewa, March 21, 2011.

For curing pulled ligaments. Ekpuguy has the repetitive invocation in a mantra or
chant style of many types of particularly strong plants and animals. They relayed
to me that “just like the plants are humans, like a human, and we believe in the
plants, it is because of this we invoke the strong plants with urgency so that the
ligament will be strong.”
5. Mbpehekaieesüwa. Recorded with Estela Dariquebe, March 21, 2011.
To call back a person’s animo or spirit, when he or she is near death. The healer sings,
“why do you want to leave when we are doing well here? Don’t go, come back, come
back.” The song tells of the clear trail that one walks on when we are dying, but the
healer places plants as obstacles in the path so that the person’s spirit will return.
6. Emepükete esüwa. Recorded with Carmen Jerewa, March 21, 2011.
For healing susto, a phenomenon experienced in both the Andes and the Amazon
when one has experienced a great fright, causing a person’s spirit to leave the body,
thus making it vulnerable for malignant spirits to enter. The healer sings, “Where
have you gone, why did you leave, why did you go so far, come here, come here,
your spirit is scared, in every place I am calling your spirit to return.”
7. Etakte esüwa. Recorded with Carmen Jerewa, May 13, 2011.
For the prevention or cure of a fishbone getting stuck in your throat. The song
names many birds that have the proper phlegm to swallow fish easily, such as the
hakuypina—snakebird (Anhinga anhinga).
In addition, Peru’s Ministry of Culture created a list of the following esüwa in
2013: Bihichindign (snakebite cure); Totochindign (to cure when one’s spirit is trapped
by evil forces); Wewëchindign (to cure high fever); Ekmimichindai (to cure hemor-
rhages); Washisopachindign (to cure cramps); Nokirëngte emanokkae (to free the
patient from the negative energy of a deceased person that keeps the patient trapped
between life and death); Ekhen (to lessen a river’s flooding, thereby creating a riv-
erbank so that one can cross unharmed to the other side); Ugate emanka (to tame
the enemy. The enemy’s bad energy is absorbed, converted to good and used so that
both sides live peacefully; so that a person’s love will be reciprocated; and also a tech-
nique to tame birds before the hunt); Ewäsösuwa (to remove or alienate a person);
Hindakkoichindign (to cure cut wounds) (Cantos Wachiperi CD liner notes, 2013).
Every esüwa is a chant-like repetition that invokes animal, plant, and forest spirits,
and describes manifestations of the illness usually through metaphor. Often vocables
are added to ends of words, for example a nonsensical suffix is added to plant names in
Ekpuguyte esüwa, for rhythmic ease of rapid-fire repetition. The Wachiperi openly dis-
cussed their beliefs about the Oteri, or powerful benevolent forest spirits, who are called
upon to help in the healing. These spirits are rarely seen because they reside in particu-
larly dense and untouched areas of the forest, which they articulated as an important
reason for forest conservation on their land concession. I asked Carmen to perform a
healing on me for susto, to help with a particularly anxiety-producing situation I was
Figure 12.7 Carmen Jerewa, the only active healer and esüwa singer in the community of
Queros-Wachiperi.
Photo by Holly Wissler, February 19, 2012.
dealing with at the time (see Figure 12.7). After singing the song, Carmen spit and blew
the song on various parts of my body. The idea of “blowing the song” for healing and
to connect a person with spiritual powers is similar to aysariykuy in Q’eros songs: the
expelled breath that sends the song out to the Apu for connection in offering.30
It is because of my preliminary research of the esüwa, and the trust I had garnered with
one of the two Wachiperi communities, that I wanted to participate in, and felt I should
be a part of, the Cusco Ministry of Culture’s team that was responsible to UNESCO for
the safeguarding31 of the Wachiperi esüwa.32 At that point in time, I was the only person
actively working on the research of the newly nominated esüwa. I presented my work to
the Cusco director of the Ministry of Culture, David Ugarte, who officially (via written
document) invited me to be a part of the team; however, ensuing differences in work
ethic with the Ministry of Culture proved to be obstacles in my working with them.
Issues with the Safeguarding of Esüwa and Song Ownership

I have observed many struggles and conflicts of interest between the Wachiperi and
the Cusco division of the Ministry of Culture (MC-DDCC, Dirección Desconcentrada
de Cultura, Cusco, which I refer to as MC hereafter) since UNESCO’s naming of the
esüwa as Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). A principal issue is that the Wachiperi
emphatically state that any recordings of the esüwa are not to be used or distributed
publicly, due to the fact that this is sacred knowledge and transmission is only through
the act of healing. The safeguarding measures proposed by the MC on the application to
UNESCO conflict with this taboo, such as Article 1d of section 3b, entitled “Safeguarding
432 Holly Wissler
measures proposed”: “Promotion and dissemination of the Eshuva songs: Production

of a CD-ROM with a selection of Eshuva songs selected and performed by the
Huachipaire”33 and “Production of a documentary in DVD-ROM format depicting the
main features of the Eshuva.”
When I discussed this issue with Regis Andrade, long-term anthropologist employed
by the MC, former member of the MC’s ethnodevelopment plan with the highland
Q’eros and member of the MC’s esüwa safeguarding team in 2013, he explained that the
intended use of any of the MC’s recordings of esüwa will be in the Intercultural Bilingual
Education (EIB) curricula in both communities. The ideal model in the EIB system is
that teaching goes beyond instruction in two languages (for example, Quechua/Spanish
in Q’eros, and Wachiperi/Spanish in Queros-Wachiperi and Santa Rosa de Huacaria),
to include the indigenous community’s traditional knowledge in the school curricula
alongside the national curricula, via committed family members who collaborate regu-
larly with the teachers and students. In this way the MC is proposing a completely new
form of transmission of the esüwa: that the traditional intergenerational transmission of
the genre, which is nearly nonexistent, be replaced by collaborative, inter-institutional
and familial cooperation in the public education system. Andrade justifies that this
use of the esüwa recordings is not public since it will not go beyond the schools of the
Wachiperi communities (personal communication, September 17, 2013). However,
there is no plan as of yet for the implementation of esüwa in the EIB curricula of the
communities, and only initial discussions have begun with the communities about this
idea. The larger issue here, though, is the lack of knowledge about, in Anthony Seeger’s
terms, “local ideas of appropriate control over transmission of knowledge” (Seeger,
2012: 28). This is the case with the MC who, according to personal accounts from some
Wachiperi, lack communication with the communities as to what would be appropriate
regarding the safeguarding measures of the transmission of esüwa. Meanwhile, the main
safeguarding activity between the MC and the communities has been the collaborative
editing of the Harakbut dictionary (first of its kind, publication 2015), which the MC
envisions as a tool for language preservation.
I believe both the MC and the Wachiperi are still in a time of adjustment to the
UNESCO nomination, including any sort of mutual understanding as to what this
exactly means, and with no long-term safeguarding plan yet in place—four years after
nomination. Many Wachiperi have articulated their dissatisfaction, expressing that any
efforts at safeguarding made thus far are superficial. For example, the MC has built a
Casa de la Memoria—Memory House—in both Queros-Wachiperi and Huacaria. This
is simply a large building (based on the former Wachiperi communal longhouse model)
that provides the Wachiperi with a physical space to “perform the Eshuva and a place
for the local elderly to transmit to the youth other expressions of their intangible cul-
tural heritage” (safeguarding objective 1b). Yet on the day of the official inauguration
of the Casa de la Memoria in Santa Rosa de Huacaria, August 30, 2013, the President
of the community, Marisabel Dumas, specifically asked the Cusco director of the MC,
David Ugarte, about a plan and funding for use. Ugarte curtly replied that the MC does
not have a budget for any projects, and that this should come from UGEL (Unidades de
Gestión Educativa Local), the local education office that serves the Wachiperi commu-
nities. So at this point the shell of the building exists, with no proposed plans or budget
for use, other than a suggestion to use the space to “remember Wachiperi traditions.” If
there is little intergenerational transmission of esüwa in the privacy of family homes, it
seems absurd to think that the people will walk over to the large building to do it.
Alberto Manqueriapa, an outspoken Wachiperi leader and healer from Santa Rosa
de Huacaria, was offended by the colorful pamphlets the MC printed in early 2012 that
announce the declaration of esüwa as ICH by UNESCO. He highlighted one incorrect
statement that informs that the esüwa are sung during the drinking of masato, and are
therefore associated with inebriation. Alberto, with others, posed for the pamphlet
photos in their cushma, or newly adopted “traditional” dress made of tree bark, yet he
says he feels like a payaso (clown) when he does this. Wachiperi traditionally wore no
clothes, and it is only in recent times that they have adopted the cushma as “traditional”
dress. He explained that it seems ironic to don the cushma as public Wachiperi identity
when it was never their original dress and the reality is that in daily life the Wachiperi
use Western dress. Alberto, like my Q’eros friends, expressed acute aggravation at feel-
ing used by the MC when he is called on to represent the Wachiperi at MC celebratory
events in Cusco. He angrily added that he feels like the token Wachiperi on stage in his
cushma, while his wife is at home working hard to get food for their children and the
people of his community need education. He stated unequivocally that he has little faith
in the safeguarding plan of the MC (personal communication, September 10, 2013). The
ex-President of the Queros-Wachiperi community, Walter Quertehuari, expressed that
the MC seems like pura pinta (pure makeup), and he asked, “To what benefit is it to
the community that we work on these songs with them?” (personal communication,
February 19, 2012). These statements indicate that some Wachiperi, in particular the
community leaders, feel as if the process of donning Wachiperi identity and safeguard-
ing traditions and songs are exercises they do for the MC, versus any sort of collabora-
tive commitment.
Renato Cáceres, former director of the Ethnodevelopment Department of the
Direction, Production, and Diffusion of Culture in the MC, who also became active in
initial esüwa safeguarding efforts before choosing to leave the MC, stated that the MC
does not know what true safeguarding is. He acknowledged the complexity of effective
safeguarding, adding, “neither do I.” He pointed out that the MC holds no training semi-
nars or studies of other successful safeguarding models in the world in order to learn
about effective safeguarding measures, neither during the application process nor after
nomination. He reiterated that the esüwa should not be recorded or used lightly, and so
that even the proposed superficial safeguarding plan could not be implemented since so
much is based on recording.
Professional archaeologists in the field in Peru express similar inadequacies in regards
to the MC’s safeguarding and management of the area’s spectacular Inca archaeological
sites. Global case studies of successful management of a culture’s major archaeological
inheritances are also not consulted; rather, a common complaint is that the MC works
in a very local, willy-nilly way, roping off sections of archaeological sites for no apparent
434 Holly Wissler
reason, and reconstructing Inca walls in ways that have proved controversial, such as the
use of cement instead of local materials.
In the case of the esüwa, it seems that what is essentially missing is focus on safeguard-
ing plans about preservation and sustenance of the practice per se, versus the recording
and archiving of esüwa songs that are one aspect of the holistic healing process. The
tradition bearers do not have a sense of empowerment, or even collaboration, with the
government entity that applied for this international recognition on their behalf. In my
discussions with some of the Wachiperi, they complain that they were not included in
the design of the safeguarding action plans from the beginning, which is one of the nom-
ination shortcomings noted by past Secretary General of ICTM (International Council
for Traditional Music) Anthony Seeger in his informative article on the evaluation pro-
cess of ICH nominations to UNESCO (Seeger, 2009: 122). The fact that no funding has
yet been sought from UNESCO for safeguarding relieves the MC and the Wachiperi of
any sort of obligation to UNESCO (ibid.: 116), so that ineffectual safeguarding, confu-
sions, and even conflicts between the MC and the Wachiperi are simply the current sta-
tus. MC anthropologist Andrade commented that without the UNESCO nomination,
the Wachiperi would simply continue to be neglected by the Peruvian government, as
they have been for decades. He reiterated that at least now, with the nomination, they
are gaining much public attention and hopefully effective inter-institutional safeguard-
ing plans in the future (personal communication, September 17, 2013). The question
that arises, then, is about the value of such attention if it comes rife with conflict and
misunderstandings.
Taking Action into Their Own Hands: Wachiperi

CD Production
In late October 2011 the MC offered me a contract, from newly disbursed Ministry
funds, to produce a CD of Wachiperi songs with the Wachiperi—a project that suddenly
became more poignant after the UNESCO naming a month later. They wanted the CD
production to include many of Lyon’s archival recordings, as well as my recent ones of
embachiha (songs of animals, birds, and natural elements), and also some of the newly
nominated esüwa. At that point in time, the seven esüwa that I had recorded with the
community were only intended for the community archive. The MC made it clear that
these funds would roll over at year-end (i.e., in three months), so I felt institutional pres-
sure to complete the CD production with the Wachiperi as soon as possible. At first I was
enticed by the idea of funding for a collaborative CD production with the Wachiperi,
something we had talked about during our sessions in the Queros-Wachiperi commu-
nity but had not yet moved forward on, but I needed to consult with the community first.
I had already planned my annual November sojourn to the United States and the
Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) conference, so only on December 4 was I able to
present the idea of an MC-sponsored CD production to the Queros-Wachiperi com-
munity. This meant we had a short month to complete a CD production if they decided
that was what we wanted to do. I was surprised to discover that they did not yet know of
the UNESCO naming that had happened over a week prior, which I had candidly men-
tioned. In reaction, Walter Quertehuari, the President of the community at the time,
complained about the lack of consultation on the part of the MC with the community
about the application process in the first place. While they did express interest in having
a product they could use to promote their Wachiperi identity, particularly when tourists
came to their community (which is minimal due to lack of infrastructure and a solid
community-based tourism plan), they were also clear that they did not want to work on
the production under the auspices of the MC. Quertehuari was direct in his exaspera-
tion at the fact that I had done the footwork regarding the return of archives and holding
workshops with the community throughout the year, and that we should not allow the
MC to suddenly take credit for a production that borrowed both from the community
archives (Patricia Lyon’s recordings and my new ones) and our work sessions together,
which had been partially funded by other entities: the nongovernmental organizations
ACA and ACCA. The community agreed in consensus, so that in this moment I wit-
nessed the Wachiperi taking ownership of their work and archives. Fully understanding
and accepting their position, upon return to Cusco I broke the news, to the conster-
nation of the MC, and did not enter into contractual agreement with them. Personally
I was relieved, as I was beginning to experience the common operating procedure of
the MC’s bureaucracy, which is a system of delayed, mid-year disbursement of funds
for projects that are expected to be completed in insufficient time before year-end. This
enforced urgency, combined with a lack of project longevity and vision due to regular
turnover in directive staff that is based on the changing political calendar, make the MC
projects based in personal agendas, in Cácere’s words, versus long-term, collaborative,
and visionary projects.
In reaction, the community suggested that we do our own CD production, a proposal
that was undoubtedly born from strong feelings of ownership of Patricia Lyon’s archives,
which I was moved to see them guard so unambiguously. As Seeger states, “Ideas about
rights over music are often closely intertwined with important concepts of person, ideas
about the origin and significance of sound, and also about relations of power” (Seeger,
2012: 32). The small community of Queros-Wachiperi was fiercely guarding the signifi-
cant sound recordings of their direct family members, thereby negating a government
power that regularly attempts to implement cultural support in ways that lack commu-
nication (no conversation about nomination plans and announcement, plans for safe-
guarding), and that often seem useless (building of the Casa de la Memoria as a space to
revive cultural tradition), violable (a contract to record esüwa for possible public use),
and degrading (demeaning staged performances for MC agenda).
With the idea now sparked, we began conversations of how to do a CD production,
with no or limited funding. We saw the opportunity of linking the CD production to the
first ever Jungle Ultra Marathon, an international event to be held the Kosñipata district
in May 2012, the district location of the Queros-Wachiperi and Santa Rosa de Huacaria
communities. This six-day mega race with professional runners from around the world,
covered by international press, was to be staged to raise international awareness about
436 Holly Wissler
the multiple conservation efforts in the region. I proposed that we produce the CD in
time to be sold at this event to raise awareness about Wachiperi culture, and the commu-
nity was enthusiastic about the idea. I used all the remaining funds I had received from
ACA for my work with the Wachiperi for this production, which was in line with the
meeting in late 2011 when group consensus negated funding from the MC. This, then,
became a project by and for the community.
We mutually decided on the round number of 20 songs for the CD, 17 from Patricia
Lyon’s archives and three that I had recorded in 2010 and 2011 with Manuel Yonaje. All
of the 10 singers whom Lyon recorded were to be represented, and song topics were to
be varied. The small group of community members involved in song selection cherished
the time listening to all 10 singers (Manuel Yonaje and Estela Dariquebe were the only
two of the 10 still living), and selecting the songs that represented a variety of Amazonian
birds and mammals, such as the mealy parrot, great egret, macaw, howler monkey, jag-
uar, and spectacled bear. The community decided we should list the singers’ Wachiperi
names along with the names they adopted for, and are known by, in the urban world. For
example, Estela’s name in Wachiperi is Yorine, and Manuel’s is Meyopa. Embachinoha,
or cantos de borracho, were also selected. It was clear that no esüwa were to be included,
as the MC had wanted, for the obvious reasons outlined above.
The production was inexpensive and completely homemade. We touched up some
of the sound from Lyon’s recordings when possible, and I completed the master in
my home office and ordered two hundred copies to be burned at a CD/DVD produc-
tion store in a crowded local mall in Cusco. I selected three photographs of the liv-
ing elders, Manuel, Carmen, and Estela, and collected photos of two deceased singers
from family members, and designed a few cover options in a graphic design shop in
Cusco. Inside the cover we included a small synopsis of the original singing context
and song genres, which was co-written by two educated Wachiperi (the President of
the community, Walter Quertehuari, and a university graduate living in Cusco, Joel
Jawanchi, son of one of the original singers) and myself. In this summary they were
able to include what they felt accurately represented the community, and I was able to
add information about Patricia Lyon, an imperative since most of the songs on the CD
were from her archives. In the end we were up against the deadline of the start of the
marathon, and I was not fully satisfied with the information (mostly the writing style),
but the content was satisfactorily inclusive and representative. Due to this last-minute
rush, our final communications and decision-making about the CD summary notes
were all by cell phone and Internet to the Wachiperi who lived in Pilcopata on the
road, since there is no electricity, Internet, or phone service in the community itself
(see Figures 12.8 and 12.9).
This final flurried and constant communication about the last details of the CD pro-
duction with the Wachiperi in the Peruvian Amazon is a far cry from the days when
Anthony Seeger made a collaborative music CD with the Suyá of Brazil (1976), when
a single communication often took weeks or months. I was able to send mp3 files via
the Internet for final approval, while Seeger would mail a cassette tape that would
take weeks to arrive and often be unplayable due to broken cassette players or lack of
Figure 12.8 Front Cover, Wachiperi CD: Cantos Wachiperi: Familia linguística Harakbut,
Grupo étnico Wachiperi. Photo of the Queros (Q’eros) River in the background.
batteries (Seeger, 2008: 276). What remains the same, though, is that “the process, as
much as the product” was important for both parties (ibid.: 275). This collaborative pro-
cess is addressed by Luke Lassiter opens his groundbreaking book The Chicago Guide to
Collaborative Ethnography with a section from the El Dorado Task Force Papers of the
American Anthropological Association:
The El Dorado Task force insists that the anthropology of indigenous peoples and
related communities must move toward “collaborative” models, in which anthropo-
logical research is not merely combined with advocacy, but inherently advocative in
that research is, from the outset, aimed at material, symbolic, and political benefits
for the research population, as its members have helped to define these.
(Lassiter, 2005: ix)
438 Holly Wissler
Figure 12.9 Back cover, Wachiperi CD. CD song contents.
Today it seems that collaborative, advocative research aimed toward the benefit of and
defined by the research population is much more possible as the world becomes “smaller,”
with quick communication and easier road travel. It was the Wachiperi themselves who
took the reigns and insisted we not work with the MC (political stance); rather, create a
product that would stand for who they are now (independent choice, material and sym-
bolic benefit) and what their history is, with symbolic representation including the wealth
of Patricia Lyon’s materials, and equal representation of their past community members.
Over the next months we sold the CDs at the typical low, affordable CD price (10 soles
for locals, about $4, and 20 soles to tourists if they were willing). We sold directly, via
various avenues: to marathon spectators; at a hotel reception in Pilcopata; a popular café
in Cusco; and to many friends via word of mouth. Every Wachiperi family received their
own copies. The sales were slow, but after a year and a half I returned the proceeds to the
community, and they agreed by consensus that all profits were to go toward the purchase
of medicines for the three elders.34 In this way the production was by the Wachiperi, for
the Wachiperi, a record of their past and present, done in their way, with their choices
and voice, with resultant proceeds that went to the only three elders who remember this
invaluable, nearly extinct, song tradition.
The MC’s interest in using selections from Lyon’s archives in a CD production ini-
tiated questions of ownership and nervousness at possible co-option on the part of
the MC. We took this opportunity to investigate at INDECOPI (Instituto Nacional de
Defensa de la Competencia y de la Protección de la Propiedad Intelectual—the national
institute that protects intellectual property), only to discover that the Wachiperi would
need to show legal proof of song inheritance in order to register ownership of the com-
munity’s (anonymous) songs—that is, that the song authors had imparted these songs
on legal documents to the current community members. They have the right to inter-
pret the songs in the same way their deceased family members did, but “interpreters do
not have rights to ownership,” as the INDECOPI employee explained to us. As Seeger
points out, copyright laws originated in (white, urban upper-class) Europe, were “inti-
mately linked to the figure of the author,” and “little thought was given to creating legis-
lation for unwritten and unpublished traditions,” that were performed by illiterate, oral
cultures (Seeger, 2005: 78). It seems this colonial practice is still in existence in Peru,
and this community’s songs and collective knowledge cannot be legally protected. The
Wachiperi perception is that the original author of their songs was the gallinazo, or tur-
key vulture, who created the songs when the bird was still human. But again, as Seeger
indicates in reference the ownership rights of the Suyá songs of Mato Grosso, Brazil,
“How does one define a jaguar as individual author?” (Seeger, 2004: 76).
Seeger also points out that, apart from sound, “Music is also a web of rights and obli-
gations that both establish relationships among people and organizations and are also
an expression of those relationships” (Seeger, 2004b: 70). In this case, the expression
of relationship by the Wachiperi was to say a direct “no” to the powerful Ministry of
Culture, and assertively do a CD production in their way, reclaiming the possession of
their traditional intellectual property.
In 2013 the MC did produce a CD entitled Cantos Wachiperi. Renato Cáceres was sent
to record the three song categories for this CD, embachiha, embachinoha, and esüwa,
with elders in Santa Rosa de Huacaria and Queros-Wachiperi communities. This was
one of his final assignments with the MC before resigning due to differences in work
ethic. He stated that he felt “false, hypocritical, and deceitful” during recording, since he
had no pre-established relationship with the singers or the Wachiperi as a whole, and he
was beginning to understand that the esüwa should not be recorded in this superficial
manner (personal communication, July 15, 2013). In this CD production, the MC no lon-
ger raised the possibility of implementing songs from Patricia Lyon’s archival recordings,
and in the end did not add the esüwa to the CD due to the insistence of the Wachiperi,
and instead housed these esüwa recordings in the MC archives for the time being.
A recent conversation with a member of the MC esüwa safeguarding committee, who
preferred to remain anonymous, shed light on the latest status of safeguarding measures.
He stated that the original plan leading up to UNESCO nomination was to record and
440 Holly Wissler
diffuse as many esüwa as the MC could, but since the Wachiperi are not in agreement, it is
up to them to decide what the safeguarding plan should be. This simplistic explanation and
delegation of responsibility to the Wachiperi has currently put a standstill to any safeguard-
ing efforts (personal communication, February 9, 2015). Teresa Campos, area coordinator
for indigenous community rights at the MC, and overseer of the esüwa safeguarding team
in Cusco, succinctly said that safeguarding efforts are currently congelado—frozen (per-
sonal communication, February 11, 2015). So it seems that what is in store for the future
between the MC and the Wachiperi is a total re-assessment of effective safeguarding mea-
sures and implementation—or not. Ideal applied ethnomusicology in this scenario would
be collaboration and mutual work ethic from all involved parties (MC, ethnomusicolo-
gists, anthropologists, community members), yet, when this is not possible, it is ultimately
up to the people themselves to take their own stance, which the Wachiperi have and do.
Conclusion
The important components of efficacy and measures of success in specific music projects
with the Q’eros (indigenous tourism) and the Wachiperi (CD production) are the com-
bination of small-scale shared experience, co-collaboration, and equal status of every-
one involved. The established base of reciprocity that upheld the ancient Inca empire,
and Andean and Amazonian communities historically and currently, is also imperative
and operative on the smallest of levels for respectful human interaction and exchange.
In our projects, many aspects of a mutually beneficial relationship are present and oper-
ative. It makes sense that reciprocity is the preferred interaction in projects when it is the
foundation of life among the Q’eros and the Wachiperi.
In the case of the highland Q’eros, their active voice in indigenous tourism has been an
organic process that we have been developing and fine-tuning for about ten years now.
We have learned, together, about what kinds of interactions work in such a way so that
everyone is satisfied. The Q’eros authentically and directly express who they are, so that
self-representation is in their hands. They have a sense of serenity—thak!—about this rep-
resentation, knowing their voice is heard. More than heard, it is often deeply received in
the vibrant space of co-creation, when the foreign guests see their wholeness, versus an
Andean stereotype. We never know what will happen or come up in these spaces, which
makes the interaction a symbiotic, spontaneous process, versus a more controlled, prac-
ticed, and staged event. This is because each individual involved—tourist and Q’eros—is
allowed to express him- or herself freely in complementary dialogue. The quality of recip-
rocal giving and receiving (ideal ayni) is more possible in small groups, where active par-
ticipation is on an individual level that results in people sharing freely and unmasked,
engendering expansion and learning on both fronts. The outcome is often heart-opening
and connecting, versus sharing from the ego with a pitying (“poor Andean”) or exalting
(“wealthy foreigner”/“ancient Inca stuck in time”) perspective, which is hierarchical and
separating. I would go so far as to say that there are grains of emotional healing involved
in such interactions. The profound glimpses we experience into the life of the “other” in
unhurried, still moments creates a sense of solidarity that can be soothing—a salve to the
soul. In this context the Q’eros’ music is shared, heard, and received, so that for a brief
moment a foreign guest whose life is completely different can gain a sense of understand-
ing and connection into a world he or she has never experienced, or imagined.
In contrast, many Q’eros and Wachiperi discuss feelings of being used by the Ministry
of Culture when they perform their music on stage in celebratory functions of achieve-
ments by the MC. One example is the May 20, 2013 celebration in Cusco, which
announced UNESCO’s nomination of the Qhapaq Ñan, Royal Inca Highway, as a World
Heritage Site, marking the first time in history a multinational application has been sent
to and nominated by UNESCO (Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and
Peru). The MC called on many Q’eros and Wachiperi to be representative “original peo-
ple” from the Inca Imperial Period when the usage of this road system was at its peak,
requiring them to sing and dance (dance in the case of the Wachiperi) on a large stage in
typical dress. The Q’eros and the Wachiperi with whom I discussed this event expressed
that the experience was uncomfortable and felt degrading. In this case it is not equal shar-
ing; there is a clear hierarchy involved when the orders come from above, and the indige-
nous are the payasos (clowns), as a Wachiperi leader said. What is glossed as a celebration
of their indigeneity is actually experienced as demeaning. Political power relations win
out, and the Q’eros and Wachiperi must find other means to wholly express themselves.
In the case of the Wachiperi, the means they took was an active stand when they felt
encroachment of political power in response to the MC’s suggestion of a CD production
about their music, using the community’s archives. They said a clear “no,” and took it
one step further: they came up with a satisfying solution of their own production that
enhanced self-esteem and made it so they could represent Wachiperi identity in their
way. We mutually agreed and worked together to realize the production, so that I had
an equal relationship with the Wachiperi in our work together. The entire production
involved about ten people at the most, which is very grassroots, except when you con-
sider that that is about 10 percent of the entire Wachiperi population. Profits were only
800 soles (about $320), which covered over a year’s supply of medicines for the three
community elders. It is precisely at this level that such a precarious group must step forth
in self-defense. The mutual service I provided was the return of archives, assistance in
song selection and CD liner notes, and the know-how of a homemade CD production.
Their benefit was an independent production, and mine was collaboration in it, being
witness to their courage and ambition in satisfactory representation, and the necessary
and willing surrender on my part to do it their way. At this moment, our work together
flowed in effective co-collaboration and was service in the sense of equal and reciprocal
empowerment. We enjoyed the flow of spontaneous collaboration versus the hierarchi-
cal making of a CD in which one entity (the MC) would have final production choice
that likely would have been fraught with enhanced feelings of resistance and resentment
on the part of the Wachiperi that were already present.
Significantly, what transpired from our intensive song workshops together, and my
discussions with Daniel Sheehy, director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and
442 Holly Wissler
Cultural Heritage, about the possibility of a CD production entitled “Music of the River
Q’eros,” to include both Q’eros and Wachiperi songs, was an invitation to participate in
the 2015 Smithsonian Folklife Festival that focuses on Peru. In the festival, six repre-
sentative Wachiperi will have the opportunity to express their culture and traditions in
their own terms. Also significant is that they are the only indigenous group to represent
all of Peru’s Amazonia in the festival.
Though we eventually let go of our original idea of reviving songs, as explained
above, the most meaningful times were those of group listening, learning, and discus-
sion in a small group with three generations of Wachiperi, which is not something
that resulted in a product or presentation, but were simply moments of deeply shared
experience at a singular point in time. Just that alone, I contend, is valuable. Many, like
Nely Ninantay, Manuel’s granddaughter, articulated that our listening and discussions
were extremely valuable in raising awareness about Wachiperi heritage. Nely stated
that she was not even aware of the existence of these songs and their prevalence and
place in the Wachiperi past, and she felt proud to receive this heritage.35 If one single
Wachiperi person, like Nely, receives benefit from our small-scale work, then it has
been worth it.
Manuel Yonaje died on January 27, 2014. With him passed a substantial quality of
lived Wachiperi knowledge since he was one of three Wachiperi elders, and the only
elder man, of the Queros-Wachiperi community. During our time together from 2010
Figure 12.10 Manuel Yonaje listens to Patricia J. Lyon Wachiperi archive recordings.
Photo by Holly Wissler, February 19, 2012.
through 2013, I was able to see how vibrant and grateful he was when listening to Lyon’s
song recordings, when singing in his recordings with me and discussing the old days
“when we were many people” (see Figure 12.10). I would sit for hours in the hot sun or
under the dark sky and listen to him reminisce about the old days of Wachiperi history,
music, and life. I remember one magical moment when we were sitting in the grass and
I saw a small yellow bird up high on a branch, and asked, “Is there a song for that bird?”—
to which he burst into singing that bird’s song. I am reminded of a powerful quote by
anthropologist, ethnobotanist, and conservationist Wade Davis: “Is the wisdom of an
elder any less important simply because he or she communicates to an audience of one?”
(Davis, 2009: 5). In Manuel’s bringing forth his wisdom, I witnessed individuals’ per-
spective and awareness of their own Wachiperi tradition and heritage change, mainly
his granddaughter, Nely, and daughter-in-law Odette.36 These one-to-one relationships
were profoundly and mutually beneficial, touching the depths of reciprocity at a most
basic level: One elder died with the satisfaction that his people’s music was relived and
shared with the younger generation of his family, not to be forgotten. I, as “applied eth-
nomusicologist”—but mainly friend—was privileged to be a part of this process and can
now share Manuel’s wisdom and life with his community, and in broader contexts, such
as the Cusco community, Peru, academia, and the 2015 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. In
my work with both the Q’eros and the Wachiperi, we searched together through experi-
ence to discover and shape equal, reciprocal, and deeply beneficial relationships, and it
is this mutual service that we experience with one another that sustains our projects and
my relationship with these extraordinary people—that is, people as individuals, versus a
group in staged presentation.
Notes
1. In many publications they are acknowledged as the Huachipaeri group, but recent col-
laborative work between the Wachiperi and the Ministry of Culture on the first Harakbut
dictionary (2015) that has established the Harakbut alphabet has changed the spelling to
Wachiperi. Equally, the spelling of Harakmbut has changed to Harakbut.
2. Ethnohistorian John Murra provided groundbreaking research on the usage, exploitation,
and sustainability of Andean, Amazonian, and coastal ecosystems, which he termed “ver-
tical ecology” (see Murra 1972, 1980).
3. The cargo system was introduced by Spain mainly for service in Catholic religious offices, such
as sponsoring a patron saint festival and liturgical rituals, as well as administrative offices.
4. Coca leaves are used practically, socially, and ritually in Andean life. See Allen (2002) for a
full discussion of the use of coca in Andean communities.
5. As in Q’eros rituals of extreme reciprocal exchange, Marcel Mauss writes about the exces-
sive co-consumption of the North American Indian potlatch rituals (Mauss, 1954).
6. Peru is divided into 25 large regions (formerly called departments).
7. While historically Andean and Amazonian groups have been linked through essential
trade networks that complemented the sustenance and ritual necessities of both regions,
I have not found any clear historical or ethnographic evidence that confirms that the
Q’eros and Wachiperi have historical connections. I have found suggestions of possible
444 Holly Wissler
ancestral connection of the Q’eros to Amazonian territory beyond their current cloud for-
est region, which is subject to further investigation, and beyond the scope of this article.
8. The exact number of Wachiperi population is difficult to ascertain since many Wachiperi
today are mixed with Amazonia Matsiguenka and highland Quechua groups, and there
has been no government census of the Wachiperi. In 2008 the Wachiperi calculated that
57 remained in their population for a diagnostic report prepared by the Asociación de la
Conservación de la Cuena Amazónica (Amazon River Basin Conservation Association,
ACCA), a nongovernmental organization based in Cusco that works in various conserva-
tion projects with the Wachiperi. In a recent workshop (January 2015) with the Wachiperi
to prepare for their participation in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival they estimated about
120 total Wachiperi, therefore numbers are subjective and fluctuate.
9. The repatriation of audiovisual archives to the Q’eros is the topic of a future article,
“ ‘Where Dead People Walk’: Repatriation of Fifty Years of Audio-Visual Archives to
Q’eros, Peru (working title)” in an edited volume on archival repatriation, editors Frank
Gunderson and Bret Woods.
10. For a detailed discussion of Q’eros’ identity, see Wissler dissertation (2009a: 35–41):
“Identity: La Nación Q’eros; Q’eros and/or Inca?”
11. The naming of a “people,” versus a tangible or intangible cultural heritage, has received
much criticism locally and nationally.
12. If one “googles” “Q’eros,” there are numerous websites that offer spiritual tourism activities
with the Q’eros.
13. See Boniface and Robinson (1998) for impact of influences on host communities in the
tourism industry, and Berno (2007) for the indigenous voice in designing tourism in a
case study the South Pacific.
14. See Cohen (1986) and Wissler (2009b) for candid accounts of the challenges of filming in
Q’eros.
15. The exchanges are with a varied demographic, through the following organiza-
tions: US-based travel companies Wilderness Travel and National Geographic/Lindblad
Expeditions, and US study abroad programs, such as The Center for World Music, SIT
World Learning, Iowa State University, and UC Davis. The high-end Peruvian travel com-
pany COLTUR Peru (www.colturperu.com) has recognized the value of these exchanges
and employs us on a regular basis to meet with a wide spectrum of clientel (spiritual tour-
ists, economists, university alumni, to name a few). In addition, we do video conferences
from Cusco with Brandeis University Spanish and music classes.
16. See Wissler (2009: 84–108) about the Andean concept of yanantin (male/female comple-
mentary duality) and its manifestation in Q’eros ritual music and the relationship between
the women’s singing and the men’s pinkuyllu in a transcription design that shows this
relationship.
17. See Wissler (2009), Stobart (2006), and Allen (2002) for the importance of continuous,
nonstop music-making in Andean ritual.
18. This is also called sami. See Allen (2002) for an in-depth discussion of sami.
19. Steven Feld’s classic work, Sound and Sentiment (1982), addresses reciprocity in the music
of the Kaluli in Papua New Guinea.
20. The suffix ri is really ru, but in this case the u changes to i for ease of pronunciation, based
on the subsequent suffixes.
21. Ingram (2005: 33) discusses a survey of tourists’ interactions with Australian aboriginal
culture, where they doubt the authenticity of objects being sold.
22. Comadre, or co-mother, is a social tie and obligation obtained during chukcha rutuy, a
pre-Hispanic ritual when the hair of a young child is cut for the first time, a rite of pas-
sage from infancy into humanhood. I become madrina, godmother, to the child, and
co-mother with the parents.
23. The Four Winds Society specializes in “spiritual expeditions” and regularly works with the
Q’eros in Peru.
24. I stress ideal ayni, since ayni is not always reciprocated, which I contend is one of the main
reasons the Q’eros express their grief through improvised singing in animal fertility rituals
that are all about offerings intended for ideal reciprocal ayni. The sung grief is a remem-
brance of times when ayni was not reciprocated (see Wissler, 2009, Chapter 8).
25. This number includes silent speakers, that is, people of the younger generation who under-
stand Wachiperi but do not speak it.
26. Arakmbut has the most number of speakers (approximately 200).
27. La Comunidad Nativa de Queros (Queros-Wachiperi community) has a fluctuating popu-
lation of about 20 people all of Wachiperi origin, and Santa Rosa de Huacaria has a pop-
ulation of about 150, composed of Wachiperi, Matsiguenka (Amazon group of Arawak
origin), and Quechua from the highlands.
28. View a five-minute YouTube of this archive return and ensuing discussions at http://youtu.
be/Y8hfmoZi__Y. There is a brief section of esüwa in this video clip, which the Wachiperi
approved since it is momentary, versus exposing the entire song and practice.
29. There are also two types of protection songs: esütateika, when the healer sings for the pro-
tection of an individual against possible harm, danger, disease, and ewasütuteika, for the
protection of a group, such as family, families, or the entire community. These protection
songs, like the esüwa, are performed privately.
30. Many scholars who have worked in the Andes and Amazon areas of South America have
shown how people are agents in the intentional and causal movement of breath, blow-
ing, and spitting, sometimes through song, for interaction with the spiritual, invisible, and
intangible forces around them (Allen, 2002; Guss, 1989; Olsen, 1996; Uzendoski, 2005).
31. See Chapter 5 by Jeff Titon in this volume, “Sustainability, Resilience, and Adaptive
Management for Applied Ethnomusicology,” for a thorough discussion of safeguarding.
32. It is specifically the Cusco division of the Ministry of Culture, not the central office in the
capital city of Lima, that is responsible for the safeguarding of esüwa since the Wachiperi
reside in the Cusco Region.
33. Esüwa (versus Eshuva) is the more recent spelling asserted by the Wachiperi, which cor-
respond to the newly established Harakbut alphabet and pronunciation.
34. Similarly, when I completed my DVD documentary Kusisqa Waqashayku (2007), about
the annual cycle of the Q’eros’ musical rituals (when I also employed much collaborative
input about representation), I returned my documentary production, along with $4,500 in
DVD sales and donations, to the Q’eros community. They chose to use the proceeds for the
building of their new town council building, completed in 2010.
35. Nely Ninantay is the first Wachiperi student at Cusco University (Universidad de Cusco
San Antonio de Abad) to write about her people in an academic thesis. She completed her
degree in tourism in 2014 with her thesis on the topic of eco-tourism in her home commu-
nity of Queros-Wachiperi.
36. I believe that Odette Ramos Dumas, in her mid-twenties, is a notable culture-bearer of
the Wachiperi. She is the granddaughter of the renowned shaman Alejandro Dumas,
mentioned earlier in this chapter, and inherited much wisdom from him. She is fluent
446 Holly Wissler
in Wachiperi, and was passionate about our work together and would sit at length by
Manuel’s side listening to and learning about the songs.
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Pa rt V
C ON F L IC T S
Chapter 13
The Role of A ppl i e d

Et hnomusic ol o g y i n
P o st-C onfli c t a nd
P ost-Catast roph e
C om muni t i e s
Erica Haskell
Applied ethnomusicologists and cultural advocates have contributed to facilitat-

ing conflict resolution and cultural development in postwar and post-catastrophe
environments. In the wake of both conflicts and natural disasters, cultural aid work-
ers bear needed resources and are often welcomed with open arms to host countries.
This chapter outlines the multiple roles that applied ethnomusicologists, and cultural
projects in general, can have in post-conflict and post-catastrophe situations. In both
kinds of catastrophes, practitioners have applied their skills to ease social upheaval, cre-
ate economic opportunities for musicians, and strengthen existing cultural venues and
institutions, as well as establish new ones. In other cases, musical and cultural projects
are developed and run by actors with relatively little expertise in cultural issues. This
chapter also addresses some fundamental challenges that applied ethnomusicologists
face in navigating the diverse field of international development in which social, eco-
nomic, and political concerns often sideline equally important cultural ones. I focus on
some of the similarities and differences between post-conflict and post-disaster cultural
communities through the lens of applied ethnomusicology. While the main case studies
are drawn from the author’s long-term fieldwork in Bosnia-Herzegovina on the post-
war cultural environment there, more general findings are informed by visits to other
post-catastrophe environments.
I have chosen to link two kinds of catastrophes, war and natural disaster, not to blur
their differences but rather because many international aid agencies react to their results
in similar ways. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which are often a sources for
454 Erica Haskell
cultural-redevelopment funds, use “humanitarian aid” as a blanket term for any kind of
human assistance. In this way, the “need” that humanitarian organizations seek to ame-
liorate can vary from basic sustenance and housing to civil society building and edu-
cational reforms. Based upon my own research in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina, I
share several findings about the ways in which musicians can be impacted by disasters
as venues and employment are in shorter supply, distribution channels are shut down,
performance contexts shift, and large institutions are threatened. In the field of ethno-
musicology, my research is grounded in the research of scholars of Southeast European
music (Helbig, 2005, 2008; Laušević, 1998, 2000a, 2000b; Maners, 2000; Pettan, 1998a,
1998b, 1999, 2001, 2008; Ramet, 1994, 1996; Sugarman, 1999a, 1999b; Urbain, 2008), eth-
nomusicologists who write about the broader transition from socialism to democracy in
Eastern Europe (Buchanan, 1996; Rice, 1994; Silverman, 1989, 2000; Slobin, 1996), and
writings about the application of ethnomusicological knowledge for the public good.
Humanitarian situations offer special opportunities and challenges to ethnomu-
sicologists focused on aiding and advocating for musical communities at risk. In
settings where outsiders’ involvement is widespread, a common characteristic of
post-catastrophe situations, applied ethnomusicologists may be allowed added access
to tangible and intangible resources,1 although they may also face daunting logistical
problems.
I begin here with a short case study about one postwar project in a village in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, followed by a discussion of some general findings on cultural aid
in post-catastrophe settings. I then discuss the impact that catastrophes can have on
music venues. Through the lens of a postwar project in Central Asia, I address some of
the ways in which the disruption of travel and forced migration affect musicians and
their communities. The Pavarotti Center in Mostar serves as an example of how funds
raised through concert advocacy have been employed by one NGO. In the final sec-
tion of this chapter, I share a case study of a small record label’s partnership with a for-
eign NGO, meant to address shifts in the musical marketplace, that resulted from the
Bosnian conflict.
The Mozaik Community Development

Fund and Guča Gora
In 2002, seven years after the end of the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina the
Non-Governmental Organization Development Foundation, now renamed Mozaik
Community Development Foundation, began research to select a region in the
country for a “living heritage network” funded by the King Baudouin Foundation
based in Belgium, as well as the Open Society Fund, Soros. At the time, some of the
King Baudouin Foundation’s projects supported “living heritage” in Macedonia,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Romania, and Bulgaria, while others aimed to elevate social and
Post-Conflict and Post-Catastrophe Communities 455
economic ills that resulted from the war. By funding local heritage, the organization
hoped to make a “lasting contribution towards greater justice, democracy and respect
for diversity” (see http://www.kbs-frb.be/content.aspx?id=290655&langtype=1033)2
as well as stimulate “local communities in the creative use of their cultural resources,”
which they believed could act as an engine for local development (www.kbs-frb.be).
Through their contributions, Bosnian Living Heritage Network sought to facilitate the
sharing of values and ideas about community development through cultural resources
(www.mozaik.ba/english/html/livingheritage.html).3 To recognize and emphasize the
important role of living heritage in alleviating poverty, social tensions, and regional
instability, the foundation staff chose specific projects not primarily for their cultural
authenticity or value, but rather for their ability to build civil society.4 The foundation
argued that emphasizing living heritage was a “unique approach to community devel-
opment because it places people first, and intercultural relations at the heart of sus-
tainable development” (ibid.) After a year-long research period, in which an advisory
board made up of local experts traveled throughout the country, they chose central
Bosnia-Herzegovina as a regional focus because of its rich mix of ethnic groups, brutal
experience during the war, and the perception that there was much progress to be made
in the area of cultural identity, which had been used by political, military, and religious
leaders to fuel the conflict.
Unlike many international NGO projects introduced by international organizations
after the war throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina, which primarily focused their funding
activities on the largest cities, Mozaik chose the selo, or village, as the stage on which the
most progress toward community development could be made. Experts on the advisory
board chose specific villages, and members of the communities were invited to apply for
small living heritage grants. Guča Gora was one of the villages selected. This small, rural,
primarily Catholic village, in the central region of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was founded by
Franciscan monks more than 800 years ago, and the cathedral they built was the largest
structure in Europe for the following 30 years. The Franciscans in Guča Gora, with their
emphasis on education, also founded the first high school in Bosnia-Herzegovina. To
locate an existing community group or create a new one to fund, Mozaik Foundation
staff facilitated a gathering of 10 community leaders from Guča Gora, whom they asked
to brainstorm about the needs of the village. In this session, Gučogorci were educated
about the work of the foundation and were taught how to present themselves within the
guidelines of the grant requirements. Members decided that a cultural center, in which
the folkloric dance and music group “Sloga” could rehearse and other local groups
could meet, was the best compromise between the village’s needs and Mozaik’s grant-
ing requirements. By this time the leaders in the village were experienced at fitting their
local community’s needs into the narrow and often confusing categories established by
funders.
Officially recognized in 1922, in the 1930s Guča Gora’s Sloga was defined as a Seljačka
sloga (village harmony), similar to many other rural groups in the region. In the early
1950s, with the formation of Socialist Yugoslavia, the politically driven transformation
of the existing peasantry and its folklore groups to official status brought new folkloric
456 Erica Haskell
group categories. The organizational framework of folklore groups meant that the Guča
Gora group gained official Izvorna (or “spring,” meaning authentic) group status and
became simply “Sloga.” By calling themselves “Sloga,” they were voicing a conscious
but silent resistance to the new Yugoslavian organizational structure (Ceribašić, per-
sonal communication, 2005). Its categorization as an Izvorna folkloric group meant
that, unlike the concept of stylized folklore performed by kulturno-umjetnička društva
(cultural-artistic associations, KUDs), the group performed only local Guča Gora songs
and dances in its repertoire, without major changes to the original music or lyrics.5
Because of the homogeneous ethno-religious character of the village, most of the songs
the group sang were drawn from traditions they characterized as Croatian Catholic, in
direct comparison to neighboring Muslim villages. Sloga primarily performs svatovske
pjesme (wedding songs) and other songs connected to customs, rituals, and everyday
life. Their singing techniques involve alternating solos with potresanje (shaking) as well
as singing with exclamation at the end of the phrase “oj,” called ojkanje. In the former
Yugoslavian KUD system, Izvorna KUDs were excluded from the KUD system, a system
in which KUDs had the opportunity to perform outside the domestic realm. Stylized
KUDs performed folk music and dance suites that incorporated examples and some-
times costumes from each of the former Yugoslav republics. The importance of such
KUDs as a tool and vessel for ideological messages, such as “brotherhood and unity,”
has been well documented by ethnomusicologists and anthropologists (Buchanan 1995;
Kurkela 1995; Maners 2000).
Throughout the group’s existence, Franciscan monks, and more recently Yugoslav eth-
nomusicologists,6 have gathered and transcribed some 70 distinct folk songs from Guča
Gora. Of particular local interest are those songs that Gučogorci believe are inspired
by the sound of their church bells. Although the songs themselves are not sacred, the
tones they reference are of central importance to the Catholic faith in the villagers’ lives,
their everyday soundscape, and thus their sense of identity. Other KUDs that performed
and competed in countrywide and international folk festivals often selected songs from
Guča Gora to fulfill the Croatian element of their folkloric suites. The village was, and is
still, surrounded by several small Muslim villages.
During the most recent war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as with many villages in the
region, a majority of its inhabitants were forced to flee to safer locations both in and
outside the country. Guča Gora was targeted by a force of mujahideen fighters who left
the village flattened and burned. As described by one villager, “a group of approximately
thirty Arab guerrillas rampaged through the church with their weapons held in the
air, shouting Allah Akhbar! They knocked over pews and other sacred symbols of the
ancient church, vandalized the historic and irreplaceable mural above the main altar,
and finally scraped off the faces of Jesus and the Virgin Mary on another painting near
the altar” (Kohlmann, 2004). This account mirrors the ethno-religious nature of the
conflict in which Bosnian Croats (Roman Catholics), Bosniaks (Sunni Muslims), and
Bosnian Serbs (Serbian Orthodox) participated in violence against each other during
different periods of the war.7 In 2002 a third of the surviving villagers made the difficult
decision to return to Guča Gora to rebuild their lives. In the intervening years, most
Gučogorci had settled in other countries, and some had even begun their own folklore
groups abroad. When they were asked by the Mozaik Foundation to list the village’s
needs, understandably those who had returned to Guča Gora prioritized rebuilding the
village, on a material level, from the damage of the war, above all other goals.
We can categorize humanitarian efforts in postwar environments into phases, as
early assistance was aimed at solving basic needs for water, food, and shelter. Following
the Dayton Accord,8 a number of international organizations flowed into the country
with a host of new and less tangible diplomatic, social, economic, political, and cultural
goals. These efforts have been categorized by international actors within the larger con-
text of “nation building” and have often been largely unregulated, mostly because the
domestic government was and continues to be highly divided. International organiza-
tions and politicians working in Bosnia-Herzegovina maintain a level of governing and
financial power, augmented only by the promise of future EU membership. The plethora
of NGOs now in Bosnia-Herzegovina, seen together, constitute a new funding struc-
ture, complete with its own language, categories, and procedures. When inhabitants of
Guča Gora returned to their village in 2002, organizations disbursed applications for
grants targeted at rebuilding. In the first year of their return to Guča Gora, the organiza-
tion United Methodists Committee on Relief was the only one to finally offer funds for
rebuilding the village.
The Mozaik Foundation’s emphasis on civil society building was not originally a pri-
mary concern for this postwar village, but community leaders had learned in the years
after the war that if they were strategic, their needs could sometimes be molded to fit
NGOs’ mission statements. After meeting with the Gučagorci, Mozaik Foundation
responded to the village’s letter of intention with suggestions and extensive editing.
At the time, this process was one of the most cooperative and intensive cultural grant-
ing procedures being used in the region. In the final ranking of applications, Sloga was
lauded primarily for their intention to involve a large number of Gučogorci in volun-
teer activities, their good financial intentions, and their plans for the long-term sustain-
ability of the folkloric group. To fulfill the self-sustainability aspect of the application,
the group noted their future intention to procure costume materials for 22 members, to
make the costumes themselves, and to record an album for local distribution.
When I questioned Mozaik about their choice of Sloga, the staff members were care-
ful to make clear their disinterest in the musical merits or authenticity of the group
and to highlight the group’s importance for creating harmony in the community. From
my review of Sloga’s letter of intention, it is clear that members presented those quali-
ties as valuable not to themselves but to their funder. Such tailoring of intentions is, of
course, common in grant applications. However, the application and training process
asked community leaders to define the group and its value within the context of civil
society and left other aspects of musical performance up to the musicians and dancers.
Because the merits of the application did not hinge on authenticity or specific perfor-
mances, members of Sloga embraced their history and heritage as their own, rather than
something bestowed upon them by an outside force. In conversation with me, they also
openly stated that they saw Sloga as a symbol of survival against the attacks their village
458 Erica Haskell
had experienced during the war. It is significant that throughout this process Mozaik
maintained its financial power to include and exclude groups based upon the ways in
which they presented themselves. Although I am not aware of any overtly political mate-
rial included in Sloga’s repertoire, when I asked how the organization would respond to
the group performing songs that were nationalistic in nature or disparaging to neigh-
boring Muslim villages, Mozaik employees informed me that the folklore group would
be asked to change their program. Evidence of such censorship, or at least the power
to censor, in the name of interethnic and inter-religious cooperation, metaphorically
referred to as “harmony,” is evident in other postwar projects (Haskell, 2011) and also in
socialist-era KUD performances. In my discussions with Sloga, members demonstrated
their understanding of the organization’s power. Singers and dancers felt honored to
receive international support, and saw their three-year relationship with the Mozaik
Foundation as a stamp of approval for their preservation of heritage and non-political
activities.
The revival of Sloga from the rubble in Guča Gora illustrates the strength of music and
dance to draw a community together toward a common goal. In the Bosnian context,
Sloga’s story also reminds one of the possibly divisive nature of music that represents
one ethno-religious group. This is especially true when seen within the larger region.
Mozaik’s efforts to convey democratic models and community-building processes may
be of most use to Sloga on a local level, as they forge some kind of self-sustainable future,
which may require them to navigate various NGO applications in the years to come,
as the present government does not maintain the Yugoslav-era funding structure for
KUDs. The merits of Mozaik’s living heritage network await a more involved study, but
it is undeniable that through their assistance this small central Bosnian village is now
able to offer visitors much more than the now-popular war tourism. It is clear that the
present postwar cultural funding environment in Bosnia-Herzegovina poses multiple
challenges for historic folklore groups such as Sloga, as they reinvent an identity that is
in keeping with and sometimes dependent upon their understanding of the concept of
“civil society.”
Post-Catastrophe Aid Environments
In my work in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina, the impetus to help, advocate, and

support artists within the context of this discipline was strong. The case of Sloga in
Guča Gora serves to show some of the complexity that funders and musicians face in
post-catastrophe environments. Musicians in communities that have experienced seis-
mic shifts, of the natural or manmade kind, are often painfully aware of their pressing
needs and are willing to share ideas about solutions. As expressed in the above narrative,
political, economic, and social shifts and transitions can impact musicians and the com-
munities of which they are a part. Catastrophe-ravaged environments can present stark
possibilities for improving musicians’ lives and, sometimes, even generate new funding
sources. Applied ethnomusicologists in post-conflict and post-catastrophe situations

may find themselves in multiple roles, from grant-writer to concert-promoter, as they
endeavor to help people. In both situations, practitioners have applied their skills to ease
social upheaval, create economic opportunities for musicians, and strengthen existing
cultural venues and institutions, as well as establish new ones. Actors have sought to
fill post-conflict and post-catastrophe cultural and institutional voids by creating new
performance venues, media outlets, music schools, museums, and sustainable busi-
nesses. In the case of the Guča Gora, community leaders had learned how to navigate
funders’ goals over the years, but in newer disaster areas applied ethnomusicologists
may find that their understanding of the aid environments may be helpful to musical
communities.
Applied ethnomusicologists, development workers, and humanitarians have played
a variety of roles in their efforts to repair the havoc wreaked by catastrophes, be they
human or nature made. While the physical outcome of disasters is often visible in crum-
bling building facades, impassable bridges, and uninhabitable homes, it can be more
difficult to assess the impact such calamities have upon musical communities and the
institutions that buoy them.9 Indeed, warring parties have targeted cultural institutions,
such as libraries, as they attempt to obliterate or even just confuse historical accounts.
“Libricide” has been committed in several regions, including Tibet, Cambodia, Kuwait,
China, and many parts of Europe. In her article titled “Culture and the New Iraq,” Julie
Edwards and Stephan Edward write that “Obscuring history, obliterating cultural
memory, erasing identities, and intimidating local populations are all wartime strate-
gies achieved by targeting libraries…” (Edwards, 2008). On the heels of catastrophe,
aid agencies may assume that cultural production has been impacted, without assessing
how or to what degree. I encountered this phenomenon in Bosnia-Herzegovina, when
international humanitarian organizations and embassies assumed that, along with food,
citizens needed “culture aid” in the form of visiting musicians or international forms
of music (Haskell, 2011). Artistic and traditional expression was thought to have been
damaged, just as mortar rounds had penetrated city buildings. Ethnomusicologists have
valuable skills that can help in assessing how musical communities and cultural institu-
tions have or have not been impacted by catastrophes through their detailed and local-
ized research approaches. Scholars may also find that they can aid NGOs in locating
local cultural experts and practitioners to advise on the applicability of their new proj-
ects. Even aid agencies’ misconceived ideas about how music communities have been
impacted by disasters may free up valuable resources that applied ethnomusicologists
and their partners may find useful.
Here I argue for a multifaceted view of these environments—not only as communities
in need of assistance, but as places in which creativity can flourish. As this is a handbook
for applied ethnomusicologists, I also address some of the practical aspects of work-
ing in disaster-impacted realms. While post-disaster environments present risks to
researchers, they also offer opportunities in the area of helping people and communities
and gaining access to financial resources.
460 Erica Haskell
I approach this topic having spent almost a decade living in the postwar city of
Sarajevo. Although “postwar” is only one of many characteristics of that city, much of
my fieldwork there revolved around understanding the impact that violent conflict
had had upon musicians and musical institutions.10 In my travels to other postwar
and post-catastrophe cities, such as Phnom Penh and New Orleans, I noticed cultural
re-development projects that were similar to those I had studied in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
This chapter is an attempt to generalize about these fields to better understand the sim-
ilar characteristics that post-conflict and post-disaster communities have as aid envi-
ronments. Examples of post-conflict projects are drawn from Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Cambodia, and Afghanistan; post-catastrophe phenomena are illustrated by cases in
post-Katrina New Orleans and post-earthquake Haiti. Numerous projects exist in each
of these locales, and thus I do not seek to present a complete assessment but rather to use
specific projects to highlight the following shared issues: musical venues, disruption of
travel and forces migration, concert advocacy, commemorations, shifts in markets, and
closures or changes to cultural institutions.
Musical Venues
Just as a storm may decimate a swath of land or a community, conflicts often leave
behind post-disaster areas, such as no-man’s-lands between front lines, as well as stra-
tegic damage to essential facilities that can impact all levels of people’s lives. Wars and
natural disasters, of course, greatly vary in the destruction they leave behind. Musicians
experience upheaval just as do others in their communities, finding it difficult to fill
their basic human needs. As I have, many ethnomusicologists working in such areas
help friends, collaborators, and informants they meet in the field. Indeed, some schol-
ars feel that reciprocity is a central element of their scholarly work. While internal or
civil conflicts often leave behind protracted divisions mirrored in divided communities,
wars of occupation sometimes result in political and/or social power shifts that impact
alliances that artists had prior to the conflict. Any number of lasting ailments can follow
a disaster. Often some form of economic hardship follows, and it is common for trade
routes to be impacted, currencies to be devalued, and other forms of economic distress
to exist. In addition to the logistical and practical concerns that musicians and their
institutions share with others in their communities, they face special issues.
Post-disaster environments present challenges and opportunities as musicians seek
old and new contexts for performance. Catastrophes may destroy established perfor-
mance venues, forcing musicians to not only find places to perform but also, at times,
new audiences. During the siege of Sarajevo (1992–199611), many large and small profes-
sional and amateur ensembles continued to perform and draw large audiences, despite
the significant dangers they faced in doing so. One young concert organizer explained,
“Hundreds of new bands have sprung up since the war started. It’s a paradoxical situ-
ation. In these depressive times, everyone wants to expend energy doing something
creative” (Kalendar, 1996). Musicians sought out performance venues that met their
needs for a level of security and secrecy to avoid attack, but that could also accommo-
date their musical genre. In the face of great adversity, new venues, and thus contexts,
for performance emerged. As the siege continued, musicians found that they had to
be inventive in repairing equipment, as most normal trade with the outside world had
ceased. In the postwar context in Sarajevo, some young musicians recast wrecked and
rubble-filled buildings as outdoor festival venues.12 These spaces signified not only the
recent history of the region but also highlighted the enormous political and social jour-
ney young people felt they had begun toward a lasting peace. By performing in unortho-
dox and unsanctioned spaces, artists and musicians also contested the long-established
cultural bureaucracy in the city. In this way musical sound took over parts of the city
that had, before the war, had other uses.
Many aid responses to musicians’ practical needs after natural disasters have, rightly
so, sought to solve practical and logistical problems. After the catastrophic flooding that
resulted from Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity gathered
donations to build a “Musicians’ Village” in the Upper Ninth Ward where, before the
catastrophe, there had been a large concentration of musicians. The organizers of this
high-profile project argued for the importance of reconstructing a stable neighborhood
where a musical community had existed before the flooding. Musicians’ proximity to
each other was central to their livelihood and the creative relationships forged over gen-
erations. The project builders sought to transport pre-catastrophe musical communities
back to their original soil.
The project originally sought to rebuild more than 70 single-family homes for local
musicians in an effort to preserve the cultural presence that had existed before the flood-
ing. Well-known jazz musicians, as well as several celebrities, drew attention to the proj-
ect, which now also includes the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.13 As is true in the case
of Hurricane Katrina, domestic and international media attention about a disaster can
draw a large amount of money for re-development campaigns such as this. The New
Orleans Habitat Musician’s Village continues to organize benefit concerts in order to
support the community and its cultural activities. The project did not delve into the his-
toric reasons for some musicians being relegated to the particularly poor neighborhood
most impacted by the flooding, nor did Habitat for Humanity attempt to confront such
difficult questions. The long-term positive or negative effects of this particular project
have yet to be analyzed.
Disruption of Travel and

Forced Migration
For musicians who rely on travel to reach their audiences, catastrophes can cause a
(sometimes massive) loss of income.14 Many ensembles are unable to overcome the
462 Erica Haskell
significant logistical hurdles and physical distance from their audiences and fellow
musicians that they face after a catastrophe. Both conflicts and natural disasters may
make it impossible for musicians to travel across political or natural borders. In these
situations, they may also find that their musical products cannot be distributed as
they once were. In these cases, efforts like that of the Aga Khan Foundation in Central
Asia to fund musicians’ travel, concerts, and distribution can be central to a musician’s
career and may even spur interest in the musical form among audiences for whom they
perform.
In 2000 the Aga Khan Development Network began a multipronged project in
Central Asia to promote the region’s cultural resources to the rest of the world, docu-
ment local traditions, and aid in the transmission of traditional skills from generation to
generation through a funding arm called the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (http://www.
akdn.org/AKTC).15 In the case of Afghanistan, the Trust created a Music Initiative to
attempt to reinvigorate musical traditions that had been quieted by harsh Taliban mea-
sures to ban music. During the Rabbani Period (1992–1996) and after the Taliban took
Kabul, a music ban forbade all live and recorded music (Baily, 2001). Like others in com-
munities impacted by human or natural catastrophe, many Afghan musicians left the
country to live in refugee communities away from their homes. Musicians in diaspora
communities in Pakistan and around the world exhibited resilience in the face of social,
economic, and physical upheaval by continuing to play and to pass on their musical tra-
ditions.16 Although they had fled their homeland, or had been forced to leave, many
musicians continued to play in new settings, instrument makers continued to make
instruments, even though it was sometimes difficult to find materials, and soon dias-
pora communities became the main source for Afghan music recordings (Broughton,
2002). By 2000 the Aga Khan Music Initiative had begun a focused project to revive
fundamental cultural institutions and ancient oral traditions by founding music schools
in which master musicians share their skills with students through traditional vernacu-
lar pedagogical methods. Creating spaces and institutions for “master-apprenticeship”
(ustad-shagird) meetings and relationships is a way of preserving the way in which stu-
dents learn. Although this focus may seem like an effort to enshrine traditional ways
of transmitting culture, in other areas of the project artistic collaboration, and even
change, were valued. In this way, the architects of the project saw musical traditions
not as stagnant but rather constantly shifting. The project seeks to revitalize musical
communities by creating incentives for refugee musicians to return to their homeland
to teach young Afghan musicians in master-apprentice training centers in Kabul and
Herat. It also includes music research and archiving in Herat and Badakhshan, as well as
outreach to schools, instrument-making workshops, and public performances.
Indeed, many Afghan musicians have faced several political and social shifts in their
lifetimes so that the performance contexts, audiences, and even the meaning of their
music have changed. The Music Initiative is funded consistently, and it continues to
exist partially by redirecting profits from album sales back into on-the-ground proj-
ects. The final and most high-profile element of the Fund for Culture involves promot-
ing music through concerts outside the region, as well as recording and disseminating
music from Central Asia around the world through a partnership with Smithsonian
Folkways Records (http://www.folkways.si.edu/find_recordings/CentralAsia.aspx).17
What began as a project focused in Central Asia has now expanded to communities in
the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. This multipronged project exemplifies
the sizable impact that applied projects can have on a population during turmoil when a
project is informed about a musical community’s needs.
There are other cases in which refugee and other diaspora communities have offered
valuable transnational partnerships to aid post-disaster communities in document-
ing, performing, and teaching their music to new generations. Diaspora groups offer
economic and organizational help, as well as reintroducing cultural traditions to their
homeland (Hamera, 2002).18 In response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the diaspora
funded Haitian Arts Alliance, based in Miami, spearheaded a project to repatriate
recordings made by Alan Lomax in the 1930s. In addition to repatriating the recordings
in an attempt to heighten local interest in the music, this project represents an effort to
draw media attention to the importance of music in people’s lives.
Members of the Cambodian diaspora, many of whom left the country during the
Khmer Rouge occupation, have played an active role in the creating, recording, and
international distribution opportunities for local musicians as cultural institutions were
closed or destroyed during the conflict. Based in Massachusetts and heavily supported
by the Cambodian diaspora on the West Coast of the United States, the Cambodian
Living Arts organization supports “revival of traditional Khmer performing arts to
inspire contemporary artistic expression” (http://www.cambodianlivingarts.org/).
According to their mission statement, this organization recognizes the shared owner-
ship of Khmer traditional arts and highlights the importance of the arts in processes
of reconciliation and healing after war. Like the Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central
Asia and the Middle East, Cambodian Living Arts offers networking, educational, and
mentorship opportunities, as well as career development and “income generating proj-
ects for master performing artists” (https://www.facebook.com/Cambodianlivingarts/
info).19 Groups such as the Los Angeles–based psychedelic nostalgic rock band Dengue
Fever have traveled extensively through Cambodia to raise awareness about Cambodian
Living Arts and then have donated their earnings to the organization. Part of diaspora
strength, as is true in both the Cambodian and Haitian cases, is their ability to offer
more funding than local communities have access to after a disaster.
Concert Advocacy
In addition to the many disadvantages that musicians confront during social, eco-
nomic, political, and physical upheaval, international press coverage of catastrophes can
draw abundant donations from distant audiences. For each of the disasters mentioned,
numerous concerts have been planned, broadcast, and recorded by an array of organiza-
tions around the world to raise awareness and money.20 Concert advocacy is an effective
464 Erica Haskell
way to raise money, although, for musicians on the ground, where and how the money
is spent may be more important than the particular celebrity musicians who perform.
Nongovernmental organizations that have access to funds raised through concert advo-
cacy would certainly do well to work with local and international cultural experts in
deciding how, where, and over what period to allocate funds. Post-catastrophe environ-
ments tend to be flush with short-term ideas and projects but have a dearth of long-term
sustainable solutions, especially in the area of culture.21 The following is a description
of a cultural center funded by humanitarian concerts held outside Bosnia-Herzegovina
before and after the conflict.
War Child and the Pavarotti Center
One of the most publicized cultural centers in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Pavarotti Center,
was originally funded by millions of euros donated through an international organiza-
tion called War Child. The organization was founded in Britain in 1993 by two filmmak-
ers, Bill Leeson and David Wilson, who had just returned from the former Yugoslavia,
where they had made a film about the role of artists in war. In their travels and work they
had both been shocked by the plight of children in the conflict region and consequently
decided to use their film and entertainment industry connections to raise money for aid
agencies operating in the region. Later both realized that, rather than donating money
to other organizations, they should create their own. War Child’s first project, to set up
mobile bakeries to feed refugees and war victims during the conflict, was conducted in
cooperation with the British Government and the United Nations High Commission
for Refugees (UNHCR). This project was based in Medjugorje,22 where it fed Croatian
refugees throughout Western Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Upon War Child’s discovery that diabetic children in Bosnian-Herzegovina were
receiving little or no insulin, because clinics had been closed or were inaccessible due to
war, the organization began to ferry insulin into besieged Sarajevo on Red Cross flights
and to distribute the medicine directly to the children. Today, War Child is still one of the
main suppliers of diabetic medicines throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina; it now receives
additional funding from the US Office of Development Assistance, the UNHCR, and
the European Union. But by far the largest and most involved project for War Child was
the Pavarotti Music Centre in Mostar (see Haskell, 2003).
Brian Eno, the well-known British popular musician with recordings Music for
Airports and Thursday Afternoon and producer of multiple U2 releases and other
albums, and Tom Stoppard, screenplay writer of such acclaimed films as Brazil and
Empire of the Sun, were among many high-profile patrons of War Child. In fact, it was
with Eno’s encouragement that War Child started “delivering music aid into Bosnia”
(War Child brochure 2000). On September 4, 1995, some of the best-known bands and
musicians in Europe entered studios with the intention of recording tracks and then
producing an album to raise money for the children caught up in the war. The album
was released in September 9, 1995, titled Help,23 selling more than 71,000 copies on the
first day and raising millions of pounds.
With the success of the Help24 album and the support of their newest patron at the
time, Luciano Pavarotti, War Child began to implement and fund almost 20 humanitar-
ian projects in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The projects were varied, focusing on assistance
with medical care, food provision, and educational and social welfare programs. In
1996, shortly after a fragile peace had been brokered in the region, War Child purchased
a bombed-out building in Mostar, a city in the center of the Herzegovinian region in
which some of the most intense fighting had taken place during the war. War Child,
with its slogan “Helping the innocent victims of war,” planned to rebuild the structure
as a music center. The center was built on the south side of the old city of Mostar, which,
before the war, had been the Luka Primary School. The brochure for the center stated
that it was “created from the shell of a bombed out building, and will now be a peaceful
environment where music can be taught, played and enjoyed” (PMC brochure, 2000).
The opening of the center was announced on December 21, 1997, in local as well as
international media, like this:
Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti and famous friends from the entertainment industry
attended the opening of the Pavarotti Music Center on Sunday December 21st, in
the divided town of Mostar to reunite children from Bosnia’s three ethnic groups. In
driving rain the helicopters arrived, carrying the celebrities from Split, Croatia.…
(PMC brochure, 2000)
From its inception, the mission of the project was meant to heal a national divide
between the three ethnic groups. The goal is consistent with the way in which the
international media portrayed the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but did not reflect
the local demographic of Mostar at the time. Unfortunately, after the conflict few
Bosnian-Serbs returned to the city. Although before the war the population of Mostar
was mixed, it is now predominantly Bosniak (about 51 percent) and Croat (about 45 per-
cent). Most people in these communities live separately in different areas of the city.
The center was planned to be a place in which children from the region would have
the opportunity to benefit from music therapy. In their promotional material, War Child
defined the center as a
forward-looking and open-ended facility, where every kind of music making can
take place. All four main functions—music tuition, music therapy / workshops,
recording studios and performance areas—are allowed and encouraged to overlap
so each space is designed to be multi-functional, within a clear overall framework.
(War Child bulletin, 2000)
The organizers of the center referenced the Joint Declaration of the 1982 International
Symposium of Music Therapists in defining music therapy; the following statement is
included in their literature.
466 Erica Haskell
Music Therapy facilitates the creative process of moving toward wholeness in the

physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual self in areas such as: independence,
freedom to change, adaptability, balance and integration. The implementation
of Music Therapy involves interactions of the therapist, client and music. These
interactions initiate and sustain musical and non-musical change processes
which may or may not be observable. As the musical elements of rhythm, mel-
ody and harmony are elaborated across time, the therapist and client can develop
relationships which optimize the quality of life. We believe Music Therapy
makes a unique contribution to wellness, because man’s responsiveness to music
is unique.
(ibid.)
The relationship defined in this statement between therapist and client is clearly
hierarchical, as the European expert (in the early years of the center, all therapists were
British and Dutch) applies therapy to Bosnian children. Wound into the practice of
music therapy is the theory that music, on its own, removed from cultural or politi-
cal context, heals. The curriculum at the center includes an African Drum Workshop,
which organizers say appeals to children who are beginners, as well as advanced players
between the ages of 4 and 17. In recent years the workshops have also been extended to
a local hospital for children with disabilities and a school for the blind. Workshops in
which children from different ethnic groups play music together and then proudly per-
form can certainly result in positive experiences.
In contrast, ethnomusicologist Svanibor Pettan founded, with Norwegian musicolo-
gist Kjell Skyllstad, a project titled Azra in Oslo, which sought much the same kind of
cultural exchange as War Child seeks in Mostar. The two scholars saw the possibilities
of musical exchange between the majority community of Norwegians and a Bosnian
refugee minority seeking asylum from the conflict in their homeland. The project was
rooted in the three activities of research, education, and music-making.
At its center was the ensemble Azra consisting of Norwegian music and Bosnian
musicians, some of them refugees. The goals of Azra were to strengthen the Bosnian
cultural identity among the refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina in Norway and to
stimulate mutually beneficial cross-cultural communications between the Bosnians
and the Norwegians.
(Pettan, 1999: 289)
The Azra project emphasized music as the central mode of exchange. It was through
sharing musical differences and similarities that musicians, as well as audience mem-
bers, were introduced to each other and came to know each other. Indeed, music must
have had healing effects upon those who participated in the Azra activities, as it was pri-
marily based upon person-to-person, and then community-to-community, exchange of
music. The involvement of two music scholars from both communities allowed music
to be the focal point, and included a grounded discussion and description of the music’s
place in each environment. In comparison, the War Child project focused on healing
war wounds rather than on music. In this way, music was distributed by professionals
and received by war-traumatized individuals.
Much of War Child’s emphasis on medical aid to traumatized children is due to
the organization’s history as first a granter of humanitarian aid and only second a cul-
tural facilitator. In its publicity the center equates humanitarian aid with music aid, as
Bosnian-Herzegovinian children wounded by the war25 are referred to the center by
medical, social, and educational authorities. Indeed, after the war, music therapy was
a largely foreign concept in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the years since the founding of the
center, War Child has added an outreach program to refugees through the local psy-
chiatric hospital. The model of providing music therapy to conflict-stricken children
requires that trauma be diagnosed, a cure be administered, and final results be tested.
The following description of music therapy makes it clear that the style, origin, and his-
tory of the music are not central to its efficacy.
Children were brought together in shelters and cellars, in bombed ruins and, when
safe, in open spaces, to make and listen to music, to sing, to beat drums, to strum
guitars, to act and react together through music. These workshops began to take a
structured form with War Child’s association with Professor Nigel Osborne, who
had organized a children’s opera in Sarajevo at the height of the war.
(www.pavarottimusiccentre.com)
These medically derived components are, on a whole, unidirectional. International

experts are responsible for diagnosing the ailment, administering a cure, and determin-
ing the success of the treatment.
In addition to music therapists, the center also has recording studios. Access to a
recording studio is advantageous to musicians who are already established and has, over
the years, proved to be a useful tool for young musicians. Throughout its years of work
in the region, War Child has received sizable support from the Croatian government,
an important detail since Mostar was so heavily fought over between Bosniaks and
Bosnian-Croats.
War Child has lobbied extensively inside the political/social structures of The
Republic of Croatia and has won support from all political parties in Zagreb, includ-
ing the ruling HDZ. In addition major music personalities in Croatia have agreed
to be associated with the Center and work with their colleagues from Mostar and
Sarajevo to ensure that its success is not only local but regional.
(War Child Bulletin 2000)
Although practitioners of music therapy aim to choose music that is apolitical, for the
local community, funding is an important marker of political agenda. That the project
was funded by the Croatian government signals to Bosniaks living in the city that an out-
side power is involved. It is exactly such external political and economic support (from
Serbia and Croatia) that allowed the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina to continue for such a
long time and for nationalistic stereotypes to succeed. Had the center been founded by
468 Erica Haskell
local members of the Mostar community, it may not have had such lavish recording stu-
dios and important visits from European celebrities, but it might have been grounded
in the community. Several years after War Child opened the Pavarotti Center, the OKC
Abrasević Youth Center was founded by the local community in the center of Mostar
(http://www.okcabrasevic.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1
76&Itemid=58). Drawing its name from a Yugoslav-era cultural center, the center is a
vibrant venue for concerts, art exhibitions, and film screening.
In the past years, War Child has continued to use the enormous support it receives
from the media and music and entertainment industries to raise funds for its proj-
ects and also to “advance public awareness of the daily struggle facing children in war
zones” (War Child brochure, 2000). Although War Child began its work in the former
Yugoslavia, it has expanded its field of operations to include some of the other wars that
are currently affecting millions of children around the planet. By the time War Child
began work in Mostar, the organization had already piloted several projects in postwar
regions throughout the world. During the 2003 war in Iraq,
. . . eighteen top pop stars, including Paul McCartney and George Michael, released
an album to raise money for child war victims in Iraq. Former Beatle McCartney,
who made a live recording of his song “Calico Skies,” said: “Whatever the politics,
whatever the rights and wrongs of war, children are always the innocent victims. So
I am delighted to make this small contribution.” The charity said the “Hope” album,
whose contributors also include David Bowie and Avril Lavigne, was not a political
album. “The plight of children transcends politics. These songs are a plea for hope
without which the children of Iraq have nothing at all”
(Reuters, London, April 22, 2003)
With its growth, War Child has sought to create projects that will be applicable to dif-
ferent cultural settings. Indeed, to a certain extent, international donations are depen-
dent upon the breadth of involvement the organization can have across the world.
Unfortunately, in the last decade large portions of the original sum donated
through album and concert ticket sales were lost or stolen. The center’s loss of such a
large-scale investment remains a stain on Bosnia’s donor history and tarnishes future
foreign investment in the cultural realm. That said, concert advocacy remains one of
the most vibrant mechanisms for gathering global humanitarian support from diverse
audiences.
Commemorations
Among local communities, political parties as well as cultural institutions may

seek out traditional musicians to perform in commemorative events. Musicians
can offer particularly symbolic and metaphorical weight to events as communities
commemorate loss, survival, or even attempt to heighten memories of the past

through nostalgia. Just as during other social or political upheavals, such as revolu-
tion, during postwar and post-catastrophe situations musicians and music can be
powerful political and social symbols.
Given the socio-religious divide between communities in post-conflict
Bosnia-Herzegovina, several urban projects have emphasized reconciliation through
the metaphor of “sharing the stage,” while rural projects highlight strengthening civil
society institutions (Haskell, 2012).
Indeed, in the Bosnian general election of 2000, several years after the con-
flict, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) launched a
get-out-the-vote campaign targeted at young voters. OSCE officials commissioned
an “election song” titled “Zgrabi Svoju Sreću” (“Grab Your Chance”), which was per-
formed by three musicians (Irina Kapetanović, Marija Sestić, and Sanja Volić), each rep-
resentatives of one of the three main ethnic groups in Bosnia (Bosniak, Bosnian-Serb,
Bosnian-Croat). Their Western-style punk rock anthem was followed by an
OSCE-sponsored music video featuring the song, and both were broadcast throughout
the country in the days leading up to the election. OSCE’s entrance into the politics of
culture in Bosnia received mixed reviews from its target audience. When Bosnian youth
expressed their distaste for the song, saying that it was condescending and imperialistic,
international officials were puzzled. While, at the time, the OSCE was a new player in
the politics of culture in Bosnia, the public was accustomed to attempts by the Yugoslav
regime to sponsor music as a symbol of political and social unity. Perhaps their dis-
satisfaction was due to the OSCE’s exclusion of any Bosnian musical features so wildly
popular among the country’s youth. This campaign’s mixed reception illustrates some of
the complexities facing international cultural sponsors who seek to effect political and
social change through music. Such projects use music as a tool for impacting primary
social and political problems by “performing” reconciliation and modeling harmony on
the stage.
On a practical level, commemorations may offer musicians a chance to concertize,
although some may find the post-disaster concert to be a minefield of special interests
and, in the case of post-conflict areas, politically divisive parties. Ensembles, espe-
cially those that draw from local traditions, perform commemorative events meant to
mourn a community’s disaster as well as celebrate survival. This tie to a period in time
evokes powerful emotions but can also have lasting political implications. Such situa-
tions can result in dynamic and sometimes contentious relationships between indig-
enous (or local) and foreign actors. As musicians in politically and socially volatile
communities may be concerned that their musical practices and traditions are threat-
ened, this chapter contends that such situations may be the most opportune times for
applied ethnomusicologists to engage and find support for their work. While track-
ing the opportunities for cultural development created after humanitarian disasters,
it is essential that applied projects that be sustainable as well as locally derived and
authored.
470 Erica Haskell
Shifts in Markets
In Bosnia-Herzegovina the conflict and the postwar security and political situation sig-
nificantly impacted the flow of music, in all forms, across borders. State institutions,
such as radio and television stations, which had facilitated a shared sense of nation-
hood through cultural understanding and government policies, largely collapsed or
became arms of one of the national factions. Record producers and musicians, hop-
ing to sell their recordings across post-Dayton borders to the regional audience that
spoke Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian, found travel and shipment difficult, costly, and
time-consuming. Musicians in Sarajevo during the siege paid dearly for instruments,
amplifiers, and cassettes passed hand-to-hand under the airport, in the tunnel leading
to Dobrinja.26 Some musicians who, before the conflict, had toured with ease between
Sarajevo, Belgrade, and Zagreb, as well as throughout Europe, encountered visa limita-
tions that greatly restricted their ability to perform across the region. Just as the con-
flict tore apart some mixed marriages, as husbands and wives found themselves and
their families on different sides of the conflict, so were several bands forced to break
up because of their mixed membership. In the postwar period, after many borders had
been opened, musicians still faced a nationalization of the markets, in which some labels
were only interested in promoting music consistent with their political and/or national
interests. In my travels around Bosnia, I met several entrepreneurs who expressed to
me their aspirations to use the Internet or radio to unite groups of fans across borders.
Indeed, young musicians and audiences in Sarajevo often found it easier to go online to
find music from bands in the region than take a train or bus to attend a live concert.
Since the conflict, the process of opening borders for travel in the region and greater
Europe has been slow, just like any tangible or intangible reconstruction. In November
2010, the European Union interior ministers lifted visa requirements for citizens of
Bosnia and Albania. Visa requirements for Serbia, Macedonia, and Montenegro were
lifted a year earlier than those of Bosnia and Albania, in December 2009. Prior to this
agreement, anyone who wanted to travel outside the country was forced to wait in long
lines outside European embassies, fill out lengthy forms, and await the visa verdict,
which would sometimes take weeks to arrive. Now, for the first time in almost 15 years,
Bosnians can freely travel to European countries.
An experience common among many musicians around the world has been the
implosion of local music markets because of the steady advancement of digital music
sources into audiences’ lives. Changes in the structure of the music market may exac-
erbate already limited distribution possibilities for musicians in post-disaster environ-
ments. Dependent upon the genre of music, applied ethnomusicologists may find that
introducing musicians to record labels and other music outlets outside the disaster area
can open up new opportunities for musicians. The following is a description of a donor/
record label partnership that sought to address the issue of the shifting music market in
Bosnia after the war.
A Profitable Partnership
Gramofon Records is an example of a Sarajevo-based postwar record label that sought

to help musicians navigate shifts in the market that resulted from the conflict and eco-
nomic recession in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The small but prolific Gramofon Records was
established in 2003, founded by Edin Zubčević, who also runs the Sarajevo Jazz Festival.
On their website, the staff explains that they “prefer artistic projects which are inno-
vative, urban, authentic or important in some other way.” They also note that they are
“trying to preserve and document [the] music heritage of Bosnia-Herzegovina” (Http://
www.gramofon.ba/discography_about.php?lang=en). Gramofon Records’ discography
has three separate editions: “novi gramofon” (new gramofon), which is described by the
record staff on their website as “different styles and types of music, actual production
(new music, electronic, improvised music, jazz… .)” (Ibid.); “etno gramofon” (ethno
gramofon), described as “traditional and sacred music”; and “gramofon classic,” which
they hesitantly describe as “so-called classical music.” Connected to these editions, the
label also has a category called gramofon video, on which documentary films, music vid-
eos, and artistic video works are released. The label’s success is due in large part to a
long-term partnership with a Swiss NGO.
In 2004, the Swiss Cultural Program (a shared program of the Swiss Arts Council,
Pro Helvetia, and the Swiss Development Cooperation, SDC) agreed to support the
label through Aida Čengić, who was the Head of the Pro Helvetia office at the time
of research. Before receiving support from Pro Helvetia, Zubčeviće’s small staff at
Gramofon were already running the two-week annual Sarajevo Jazz Festival, as well as
acting as booking agents for musicians wanting to perform in Bosnia-Herzegovina. As
a company, they boasted an impressive list of clients, booking the majority of large-scale
events in Sarajevo. I learned from Čengić that Pro Helvetia was particularly interested
in Gramofon’s viability as an already existent business and a local creation run by a small
local staff. In addition to these reasons, Zubčević was an attractive candidate because
he was and continues to be a part of the new generation of cultural organizers who have
their eyes on the goal of future EU accession and are actively engaged in making money
in their new free market economy. Zubčević explained the opportunity he saw on the
musical horizon following the war to boost the alternative music scene.
We can talk about the limits of good taste when we talk about it, but not go any fur-
ther. So, it’s not about [supporting] a sophisticated culture, for that of course there is
no cultural policy. Even in such a mess it creates the perfect ambience to what hap-
pens to us, what happens [over] the last five or ten years. And that is that we have a
situation where in fact what would be… at best a kind of subculture, a kind of paral-
lel world, in fact our reality and our entire culture.
(Zubčević, 2006)27
472 Erica Haskell
Zubčević’s excitement about creating “a parallel world” where alternative political and
social opinions, as well as musical styles, may flourish is evident.
Although, like most nationally funded arts councils, Pro Helvetia’s main focus is to
promote Swiss artists within Switzerland, they also take up the task of international cul-
tural diplomacy and regional development. In my conversations with cultural figures
in Sarajevo about international/foreign funding for musicians, artists, and other per-
formers, Pro Helvetia always came up as the most progressive and well-respected of the
funders. This success was often described to me in comparison to heavy-handed efforts
or cultural projects that were out of touch with local interests. The organization’s historic
sensitivity to local expression within the domestic Swiss context is also illustrative of
their approach to supporting international projects.
In 1939, Pro Helvetia became Switzerland’s Arts Council, as laid out in the Pro Helvetia
Act of that year. At present, the Swiss parliament allocates support for the organization
every four years “to promote artistic creation, support cultural exchange both within
Switzerland and with foreign countries, disseminate culture and campaign for folk
culture”(Http://www.prohelvetia.ch/APPLICATIONS.7.0.html?&L=4). These tasks are
understood “as a mandate to promote public awareness of the arts, to encourage reflec-
tion and debate on cultural needs and cultural policy, to promote Swiss arts abroad,
and to foster encounters with the cultures both of Switzerland’s various regions and of
other countries” (http://www.prohelvetia.ch/Mission-Statement.67.0.html?&L=4). Pro
Helvetia began working in Sarajevo in 1999 and had Swiss representatives based in seven
different countries in the region of Southeastern Europe.
Pro Helvetia’s mission statement comprises five sections: mandate, targets, values,
tools, and position. “Pro Helvetia contributes to the development and opening up of
society. It fosters diversity of cultural expression. It promotes Switzerland’s image
abroad and encourages a multi-faceted self-perception at home.” Consistent with their
approach to Gramofon, Pro Helvetia makes the following statements about how they
understand the value of art:
(1) Art is an experiment; the Arts Council supports fresh and courageous projects. (2) Art
is about difference; the Arts Council highlights both differences and common ground.
(3) Art is controversy; the Arts Council encourages critical debate. (4) Art is about
respect; the Arts Council advances cultural learning.
(Ibid.)
Pro Helvetia’s mandate of fostering creativity, engagement, and cooperation has

been exhibited in the organization’s support of Gramofon. Those who seek to instill
ethno-religious divisions in Bosnia-Herzegovina might charge Pro Helvetia with
fomenting revolution among these alternative groups and their audiences. Several of
the bands originally signed to Gramofon employ musical styles that are not indigenous
to Bosnia-Herzegovina, such as reggae, rap, dub,28 and jazz to draw young listeners to
concerts, while the political topics of their songs include critiques of the domestic politi-
cal situation, individual politicians, democracy, corruption, and the Dayton Agreement.
Unlike other postwar cultural projects in which funds were dispersed by international
organizations in an ad hoc and thus inconsistent manner, Pro Helvetia employed the use
of scheduled micro-grants. In the field of development, such small grants are also called
mini-grants. Micro-grants have been used in development projects around the world to
help engage citizens in their communities through market activity without the weight of
crippling debt. In the American context, micro-grants have been a particularly popular
way of supporting artists and musicians.29
Just as the mechanisms and methods for delivering funds were central to the sustain-
ability of the projects, Pro Helvetia’s procedure for choosing cultural projects was novel
at the time. When the Pro Helvetia office was originally set up in January 2003, Čengić
organized a meeting of local experts, from different fields of art, and one representative
from the headquarters in Zurich. In the gathering, locals greatly outnumbered the Pro
Helvetia staff. Independently, the group also met with 15 additional experts in the field
of culture to put together a countrywide analysis. The experts were scholars and cul-
tural organizers chosen to represent various cultural sectors. In her interview with me,
Čengić explained:
Based on that analysis and based on their inputs during those two days, we devel-
oped a country concept in which we said [that] we are interested in young people,
we are interested in [the] formation [of] professional development. Also, based on
my knowledge of the situation, we came up with five ideas. One of those five ideas
was Gramofon. So then I knew about Edo’s [Edin’s] aspirations to do some publish-
ing. And then we sat to discuss about it. “Are you still in?” and he said, “Yes, yes, very
much so.” So this is the initial conversation that took place.
(Čengić, 2006)
There was also a steering group, based in Zurich, which was in charge of approv-
ing or rejecting proposed projects. After approval, Čengić was given an additional
three months to develop the project. Her goals during that period with Zubčević were
“to develop all [of] the activities, to develop [an] action plan, to develop [the] budget
into tiny little detail, to develop strategy for the second and third years” (Zubčević,
2006). After the process of analysis and development, the project was finally signed in
January 2003. According to Čengić, funding levels by Pro Helvetia are based more on
the strength of the individual projects than on some sort of pre-allocation to specific
countries.
Of the original projects proposed by Čengić, only two were approved. In response
to my questions about whether she was disappointed by the fact that all of the propos-
als were not accepted, Čengić calmly responded, “You can’t get everything. My experi-
ence says it’s a good rule not to do more than three cooperation projects at the same
time” (Čengić, 2006). In the postwar years in which Pro Helvetia was more active in the
region, the organization also spent 100,000 Swiss francs a year (approximately $102,650)
on “small action” projects in each country within the region. Unlike larger and more
engaged projects based on long relationships, such as that with Gramofon, small action
474 Erica Haskell
grants are meant to provide limited one-time funding. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Pro

Helvetia has used these for a wide range of activities, including exhibitions, concerts,
musicians’ tours, and theater performances. Small action grants may also be dispersed
in cooperation with larger projects. In the case of Gramofon, individual musicians may
receive such grants to assist them in activities ancillary to the label’s budget.
I have noted the imbalanced sponsor-recipient relationship that developed, or was
built, into many other cultural projects I researched in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Unlike the
organizers of those projects, both Zubčević and Čengić were adamant about defining
their relationship as a balanced and cooperative one. When I asked Zubčević to explain
how he dealt with the issue of sponsorship, he was careful to underline Gramofon’s
independence.
It’s not, it’s not sponsorship. It’s not… . We’re doing… . Cause we used to be NGO, and
we established the company, which is actually part of cultural industry. And, actually, my
idea is that we have from NGO work, cause we, as I said, we got know how, we got to learn
how to do certain things and we know how to make money. And we learn how to…
how to… be active in the culture industry… because there is no culture industry here.
(Zubčević, 2006)
One of the reasons for his obstinate response is that over the life of the project, Pro
Helvetia has provided low-level but consistent operational funds to Gramofon in the
form of small yearly matching grants. Explained by Pro Helvetia as a partnership,
the relationship is based upon financial support that is contingent on the release of a
certain number of CDs and continued financial earnings by the label. The aim of this
small-level institutional granting initiative by the Swiss is to guide the label to future
self-sustainability. The project represents a specific approach to funding in that it does
not focus on a one-time event but on long-term sustainability in the area of culture.
Zubčević explained to me his understanding of the partnership and Gramofon’s respon-
sibilities to Pro Helvetia.
And after one year they said: “Let’s sign the contract for three years and let’s see [if]
will we do in [the] next year.” And every three months we’re writing reports. Financial
reports, narrative reports, whatever. And step by step so we established a relationship.
Actually, we consider the office from Pro Hevecia as a partner, as a member of the staff
but it also has authority. “You know, you should release CD, that CD.” So, they remind
us sometimes, you know. Because they say, “You said that you’re gonna release six
CDs, you released five, why does that happen?” We say: “Because of that,” “OK then
do that again, we’ll pay you money.” Because we propose [a]‌certain program, and if
we don’t fulfill what we’re supposed [to do] it’s not OK, [but] it’s not serious.
(Zubčević, 2006)
For Zubčević, the most significant gain the label has made, due to Pro Helvetia’s
support, has been their ability to build a well-produced and packaged body of
Bosnian-Herzegovinian music that is accessible to local and international markets. Part
of making Gramofon releases available to international markets involved inviting a con-

sultant from Switzerland who had been running a successful label called Intakt Records
(http://www.intaktrec.ch/), a major Swiss jazz label, for more than 20 years. Talking
about the consultant, Patrick Landolt, Čengić stressed his personality, knowledge,
and willingness to help. “The industry… he knows it inside out. And he is [the] kind
of person who wants to help. He was the best consultant for this job” (Čengić, 2006).
Packaging was also a major issue for Gramofon before they received support from Pro
Helvetia. Now Gramofon CDs are all packaged in high-quality cardboard digipacks,
often accompanied with liner notes.
By funding Gramofon, Pro Helvetia hoped to contribute to diversifying and develop-
ing the local music market, as well as create an identifiable Bosnian product for inter-
national markets. The donor actively supported this goal by inviting an experienced
recording entrepreneur and record label director to Sarajevo to advise Gramofon about
global markets, recording techniques, and packaging. Packaging, at least at the time of
release, helped Gramofon to stand out in the international market.
In their mission statement, Pro Helvetia’s policy explains their support for a “diversi-
fied, lively and innovative cultural scene” and equates musicians and artists in the scene
as aiding in democratic expression. Gramofon’s role as one of the only alternative or
engaged record labels in the country is central to its support by Pro Helvetia and also
to the difficulty it faces in competing with popular music labels in the country. The
partnership between Gramofon and Pro Helvetia represents an exception in the world
of cultural funding in Sarajevo, as the organizers of the project have emphasized slow
growth created with minimal support over a long period of time. Yearly micro-grants
made it possible for Zubčević to rely on Pro Helvetia’s support without limiting his
freedom. The choice by both organizers to work with musicians and bands willing to
criticize present social and political situations helped to support a struggling scene in
an impossible post-conflict period marred by rampant piracy, strong borders, and an
economically depressed population. Because of Pro Helvetia’s support, many of the
bands on the Gramofon label have found a safe place to contest difference, to voice
differing and often political opinions, and to incorporate new genres into the Bosnian
soundscape.
Closure or Changes in Cultural

Institutions
Many large cultural institutions founded during the socialist period in Yugoslavia in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, such as museums, concert venues, festivals, and music schools,
have not fared as well as new ones such as Gramofon Records. This is partly because
of their inability to fit within a new and highly factionalized political context. The best
cultural and historical example of this is the Zemaljski Muzej (the National Museum),
which was closed in October 2012. Because of a lack of governmental funding, the
476 Erica Haskell
museum is no longer able to accept visitors (Hooper, 2012). The divisive political situ-
ation that emerged after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord in 1995 left formerly
Yugoslav institutions in a political void, as in this case the history the museum had
told through its exhibitions and holdings no longer resonated with some highly politi-
cized audiences. Activist ethnomusicologists navigating post-conflict environments
may require extensive local networks on all sides in order to achieve any level of suc-
cess in helping already existent institutions. Sadly, but perhaps realistically, the Bosnian
case highlights the reality that many post-conflict cultural institutions may be forced
to choose sides, and that this act may impact the kinds of cultural material they pres-
ent to the public. Applied ethnomusicologist may find, in situations such as this, that
their ability to navigate aid agencies by writing grants can be invaluable to the musicians
for whom they advocate. Sources for assistance may range from foreign embassies to
regional funds. In many cases, such grant writers will find that their arguments for cul-
tural funding must be linked directly to other overarching social and political goals tied
to the grantors’ interests, as was true in the Guča Gora example.
Conclusion
Applied ethnomusicologists and cultural advocates have contributed greatly to facilitat-

ing conflict resolution and cultural development in postwar and post-catastrophe envi-
ronments. In the wake of both conflicts and natural disasters, cultural aid workers bear
much needed resources and are often welcomed with open arms to host countries. In
other cases, musical and cultural projects are developed and run by actors with relatively
little expertise in cultural issues. In situations in which NGOs and institutions are trying
to fill basic needs for the communities they serve, cultural products can have ancillary
value: drawing a crowd, including people, raising money, selling a product, and explain-
ing new concepts. Musicians are also used by politicians and communities alike to sym-
bolize how innocent citizens have been impacted by natural or man-made disasters.
This chapter has addressed some fundamental issues that applied ethnomusicolo-
gists face in navigating the diverse field of international development in which social,
economic, and political concerns often sideline equally important cultural ones. I have
painted with broad strokes in an attempt to illustrate phenomena I recognize across
many post-disaster realms. Each of these projects responds to struggles that musicians
and their communities face in times of crises by attempting to advocate for musicians.
I have also attempted to share some lessons for how applied ethnomusicologists can assist
musical communities in the aftermath of social, political, and natural catastrophes. I have
sought to identify lessons learned in the past and to suggest how some of the pitfalls to
cultural assistance might be avoided in the future by applied ethnomusicologists work-
ing in post-conflict and post-catastrophe communities. I have also noted the opportu-
nities, particularly financial, that post-disaster conditions provide to creative advocates
who can capitalize on new funding resources for the good of musical communities.
Notes
1. The Mostar bridge and the city around it has been the site of the single largest international
effort to restore Bosnia-Herzegovina’s cultural heritage since the war. The “Old Bridge
Area of the Old City of Mostar” project was overseen by UNESCO and the Aga Khan
Foundation. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
2. See the foundation’s mission statement, which also includes a commitment to creating
a better society, as well as encouraging new projects in the regions in which they work.
http://www.kbs-frb.be/content.aspx?id=290655&langtype=1033 (accessed October 2013).
3. www.mozaik.ba/english/html/livingheritage.html (accessed September 2003).
4. In their article Foley and Edwards (1996) define civil society as “the realm of private vol-
untary association, from neighborhood committees to interest groups to philanthropic
enterprises of all sorts, has come to be seen as an essential ingredient in both democratiza-
tion and the health of established democracies.”
5. These groups were organized in all parts of Yugoslavia, in rural as well as urban settings.
According to anthropologist Lynn Maners, KUDs were originally “modeled on Soviet
institutions and formally sponsored by state institutions such as universities and workers
organizations” (Maners, 2000: 303). This undertaking was made in an effort to “create a
Yugoslav national identity, composed of [state] approved diverse identities” (ibid.).
6. Although the Gučogorci I met remembered other ethnomusicologists who had visited the
village over the previous decades, I only found recordings collected by Ankica Petrović.
They are currently housed in the Ethnomusicology Archive at the University of California
Los Angeles.
7. For a more in-depth discussion of the mosaic of religious belief in Sarajevo and throughout
Bosnia, see the writings of the following three anthropologists: Sorabji (1989), Lockwood
(1978), and Bringa (1995).
8. The 1995 agreement brought the three and one-half year armed conflict to an end, as well
as formalizing and legitimizing ethno-religious borders won during the conflict.
9. Examples of major projects to rebuild and preserve tangible culture include Bamiyan
(Afghanistan), Mostar bridge (Bosnia-Herzegovina), The Iraqi National Museum, and the
Ninth Ward in New Orleans.
10. Portions of this chapter previously appeared in Haskell (2011)
11. Among journalists, the siege of Sarajevo is often referred to as the longest in the history of
modern warfare. See Connelly (2005).
12. The Rock Under Siege (1996) concerts are a good example of the kinds of “underground”
performances that took place during the conflict. They were held in a club in the center
of the city, and the organizer Aida Kalendar explained to me that some audience mem-
bers had to travel long distances to attend. The Futura Festivals (1998–2002) took place in
unconventional spaces like factories and damaged buildings. See Haskell (2011).
13. The Musician’s Village consists of 72 single-family homes as well as five elder-friendly
duplexes and the “Center,” which is a 17,000 square-foot performance venue equipped with
recording facilities, a computer center, and listening library, a dance studio, classrooms, and
teaching facilities. http:///www.nolamusiciansvillage.org/ (accessed September 18, 2013).
14. During the siege of Sarajevo and even after the conflict had ended, musicians found that
their music distribution outlets were greatly narrowed. Those who had toured before the
war now found themselves hesitant to perform for audiences with whom they might have
been at war just a few years before. See Haskell (2011).
478 Erica Haskell
15. http://www.akdn.org/AKTC (accessed May 2014).

16. Adelaida Reyes (1999) has written extensively about refugee musicians in her book.
17. http://www.folkways.si.edu/find_recordings/CentralAsia.aspx (accessed June 2014).
18. In her article, Judith Hamera chronicles a refugee Khmer family’s statements about the
importance of Cambodian classical dance in their efforts to both heal from the genocide in
that country and also instill cultural values of the homeland in their children.
19. https://www.facebook.com/Cambodianlivingarts/info (accessed September 24, 2013).
20. To name a few, Hope for Haiti Now, A Concert for Hurricane Relief, and the Concert for
American Bosnian Relief Fund.
21. See “Aiding Harmony? International Humanitarian Aid and the Role of Applied
Ethnomusicologists,” in Shared Musics and Minority Identities: Papers from the Third
Meeting of the “Music and Minorities,” Naila Ceribasic and Erica Haskell, eds. (2004),
pp. 303–314. Study Group of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM), Roc,
Croatia, as well as Haskell (2003).
22. Medjugorje, which means “between the hills,” a small town in Herzegovinian, has become
well known in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the world, because of the apparitions of six young
people who claim to have seen visions of the Madonna. It is claimed that beginning on June
24, 1981, the Blessed Mother appeared to them, and later told the visionaries that God had sent
her to our world to help followers convert their hearts and lives back to Him. The town and its
cathedral have become a meeting point for Christians and an ending point for many religious
pilgrimages. The religious nature of the town made it central to much conflict during the war.
23. The Help project was the brainchild of Tony Crean and Andy McDonald of Go! Discs.
24. War Child has produced a number of so-called “peace albums and events,” including the
album 1 Love, the Feast for Peace program, a documentary titled Musicians in the War
Zone (Iraq, Sierra Leone, Thai-Burmese), two War Child Concerts in Canada, and many
more. These events and projects are organized primarily to heighten awareness interna-
tionally about the plight of children of war and also to raise money for humanitarian proj-
ects in postwar countries.
25. In their literature, War Child organizers quote a UNICEF report that found the level of
trauma among the children of Mostar was the highest recorded anywhere in the former
Yugoslavia.
26. Dobrinja is a residential neighborhood where much of the front-line activity took place.
27. Zubčević (2006).
28. In the 1960s, the dub genre of music developed out of reggae. Dub musicians rely heavily
on instrumental remixes of recordings that they manipulate to create songs. Generally, the
drum and bass parts are emphasized. For a more detailed description, see Scaruffi (2003).
29. We might also refer to these grants as micro-patronage, as they are termed in the following
website: http://blog.alrdesign.com/2009/05/micro-grants-for-artists.html.
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Chapter 14
The Study of
Survivors ’ Mu si c
Joshua D. Pilzer
Mountain pass after mountain pass, though I cli—(laughs)

always one yet remains.
Though I climb over, though I climb over,
this endless road of mountain passes…
Han Jeongsun, “(Hot) Pepper”
Introduction
The last decades of the twentieth century saw the gradual unraveling of the concept of
culture, which for many years prejudiced anthropology and ethnomusicology against
the particularity of people’s experiences, and particular uses of music in the interest of
getting by in everyday life. As part of this movement, “practice theory”—the inquiry
into the ways that people do this—made its way into ethnomusicology and anthropol-
ogy. The fields also witnessed the rise of the ethnographic study of violence. In the midst
of this atmosphere, a field of study has arisen that can be called the study of survivors’
music, the inquiry into and documentation of the musical lives of those who endure or
have endured violence and traumatic experiences (see Schwartz, 2012a, 2012b; Shapiro-
Phim, 2008; Silent Jane, 2006; Pilzer, 2012).
In the chapter I outline basic characteristics and methods of the study of survivors’
music, giving examples from my work and that of others, and from other scholarship,
memoirs, and other sources that could be considered part of the literature of survivors’
music. I dwell on some of the examples at length, to give an example of the work in
practice.1 My perspective has evolved through 10 years of work with Korean survivors of
the Japanese military “comfort women” system of the Asia Pacific War (1931–1945)2, and
through more recent work with Korean survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima
and their families.
482 Joshua D. Pilzer
Music appears again and again in survivors’ stories of their traumatic experiences and
survival—because it is often a part of those traumatic experiences, because it can be a
powerful expressive alternative or contrast to speech or writing, and for a whole host of
other reasons. As a result, it has special stories to tell about the nature of those experi-
ences and the means by which people survive. Its documentation, interpretation, and
dissemination can therefore contribute much to human history and knowledge.
Simply put, the study of survivors’ music is an attempt to document the musical prac-
tices of survivors and to understand them as both records of experience and adaptive
resources for survival and selfhood, which often tell a very different story about experi-
ence than other expressive forms and historical records. The study of survivors’ music is
a kind of applied ethnomusicology because it is about documenting, interpreting, and
making ethically accessible experiences and lifeworks that otherwise would pass from
the historical record. It is therefore a species of the work of cultural and historical pres-
ervation that is so central to applied ethnomusicology, although its focus on traumatic
experience may be atypical.
Scholars and others interested in survivors’ music may seek to put the documen-
tary results of the study of survivors’ music in the hands of people with similar expe-
riences who can be inspired or helped by them; to make materials ethically available
to educators and others who are interested; or to put survivors and educators
together for educational projects. Based on what scholars of survivors’ music dis-
cover, they may play a role in the reorientation of political and social movements, or
may become part of these movements themselves. For scholars of survivors’ music,
perhaps even more so than for other educators, education is often a form of advocacy
and activism.
However, like the work of many recordists, yet unlike some kinds of political activism,
the study of survivors’ music does not need to assume a clearly defined political position.
Nor does one necessarily presume to seek to “help” survivors; it has been my experience
that survivors help those they address, much more than the other way around. One may
seek rather to document and tune in to the complex understandings about the nature of
social violence and strategies for survival that people spend their lives cultivating, yet
which political movements often neglect in the interest of ideologies or political aims.
Of course, without attempting to grasp the finer points of the experience of sexual
slavery, nuclear atrocities, ethnic genocides, domestic violence, or other catastrophic
world events, one can know enough to quite legitimately object to them and to orga-
nize socially and politically against them. But the study of survivors’ music can play an
important role in complementing that kind of activism, beginning from the assump-
tion that the deeper understandings that reside in musical practice are important to the
record of human history, can benefit the general project of human flourishing, and can
provide important guidance to social movements.
This work privileges survivors above all else—genres, ideologies, and, yes, music—
and tries to listen carefully to their voices, stories, and the music that they impart to
others in diverse circumstances. This listening perspective acknowledges that survivors
have much to tell and to teach us about the nature and significance of their experiences,
The Study of Survivors’ Music 483
about the arts of surviving, mitigating, and preventing the more ugly sides of social life,
about ethics, and about the art of human flourishing. “The accretion of marginalized
voices transforms experience into collective memory,” writes Victoria Sanford (2006:
13) in The Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy, and Activism. Survivors relate
understandings that are essential to the revision of collective memory, and to the doc-
umentation and rewriting of history. They can help to reorient political movements,
both through refining those movements’ understandings of history and the present
and through refreshing the place of survivors and their welfare on the list of movement
priorities; and they can be of enormous value to other people who may be experienc-
ing or have experienced similar traumas, injuries, and other struggles. When survivors
speak and sing, they are often engaged in multiple forms of outright and more implicit
activism; and from one perspective, the study of survivors’ music is a complement to
those practices, helping to make them more legible across the many gaps of culture,
language, generation, class, gender, sexuality, and ability that separate people from
each other.
Why is it so important to keep survivors at the center? Put simply, it is because survi-
vors, their experiences, and their wisdom are routinely marginalized for a whole host of
reasons. First, there are numerous survivors who are shunted to the margins of society by
the political and social pressures that suppress public awareness of the often-systematic
violence and exploitation they suffer or have suffered. The act of listening to such survi-
vors, therefore, is a political act of the most signal importance, capable of inaugurating
political movements for social justice, reparation, and reconciliation. The millions of
current and past victims of global sex trafficking are one such set of survivors at present;
so, too, are the survivors of Japan’s most recent nuclear catastrophe.
Second, in cases where such exploitation and violence have been acknowledged,
many societies, political movements, and scholars nonetheless tend to overlook survi-
vors’ voices in favor of their own, or to domesticate them through various techniques of
appropriating others’ experiences and voices. Political movements and public cultures
may do this in a rush to righteous proclamation, or in pursuit of the transference of
ownership of political issues from survivors to bourgeois civil societies, national subjec-
tivities, and so on. Such public, political, and scholarly cultures seek, as intellectual his-
torian Dominic LaCapra has put it, identity rather than empathy (1999: 699); in extreme
instances we lay total claim to others’ experiences of victimization as aspects of our own
identities, rather than acknowledging them as something of their own. This is always a
threat in the case of survivors of the Japanese military “comfort women” system in South
Korea; similar appropriative projects characterize historiographies and public under-
standings of the mid-century European holocaust, and countless other traumatic events
of modern history.
Scholars, as well, are guilty of ignoring or selectively hearing survivors’ voices. Of
course, for a long time scholars in ethnomusicology (with important exceptions, dis-
cussed below) were more preoccupied with rescuing or documenting cultural forms in
danger of extinction than with paying attention to particular people and the texture of
their experiences, traumatic or not, and the musical cleverness that they bring to bear
on the effort to survive those experiences. Often with the best intentions and perfectly
good scholarly goals in mind, scholars of music and traumatic experience have treated
survivors as receptacles of the past that allow for its reconstruction. Much of the litera-
ture of survivors’ music falls into this category, and means, ironically enough, that in the
interest of learning something about survivors, one has to attempt to sense their imprint
on accounts of the past that are based almost entirely in their testimonies. This might be
said of Gila Flam’s remarkable Singing for Survival (1992), a vivid reconstruction of the
musical lives of Jews in the Lodz ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland. This book is created
almost entirely from survivors’ memories; yet it is not concerned with the role that these
songs might have in survivors’ postwar lives, or the possibility that processes of trau-
matic remembering, forgetting, and overcoming could have deeply impacted the songs
and stories, and the ways in which they were presented to the researcher. Shirli Gilbert’s
exhaustive study of Music in the Holocaust is another example of a fine scholarly work
that relies principally on survivors’ written narratives, interviews with survivors, and
recordings of their singing, but tells us nothing about survivors’ postwar lives and their
struggles in the long unfolding of traumatic experience, which leave an indelible imprint
on the oral-historical material. Susanne Cusick’s powerful work on music and torture
in the United States’ war on terror (2008) is yet another example, reconstructed from
the narratives of survivors, but focusing on the uses of music as torture rather than the
experiences of people who have been tortured with music. These are important schol-
arly works with pressing agendas of their own; I mention them not to criticize them,
but to highlight that, despite all of this fine work on the subject of music and violence, a
hole remains in our understanding about survivors’ lives and musical work. The musical
means by which survivors stay alive and come to terms with their experiences are over-
looked, and this is certainly a great loss to human knowledge.
The study of survivors’ music attempts to address this void. It may draw inspira-
tion from and find precedents in humanist ethnomusicologies like those practiced
by Veronica Doubleday in her Three Women of Herat (1988), and Judith Vander in
her Songprints: The Musical Experience of Five Shoshone Women (1988), and in the
ethnomusicologies of marginalized social groups, such as those of Adelaida Reyes
(1999), Amelia Maciszewski (2006), James Porter and Herschel Gower (1995), and
Carol Silverman (2012). This latter category can be considered part of the literature of
survivors’ music.
The study of survivors’ music considers survivors’ musical activities as important
sites of witnessing, of reckoning and overcoming, and of self-reconstruction. Many
survivors have spent large portions of their life cultivating music as a means of sur-
vival, an arena of identity and community building, and a site for imagining alternative
social formations. They imbue these musical creations and acts with knowledge and
wisdom they have acquired through many trials and long processes of struggle and
reckoning. Furthermore, survivors often make music in the interest of communicating
these different experiences, sentiments, identities, and understandings, and often are
actively interested in the kind of receptive and flexible audience that ethnomusicolo-
gists can be.
“Survivors’ Music”
It is worth spending a moment to discuss the advantages, problems, and issues arising
from the appellation “survivors’ music.” The word “survivor” and its analogues in other
languages—seizonsha in Japanese, saengjonja in Korean, and others—are typically over-
burdened in one way or another, variously inspiring shame, guilt, cinematic romanti-
cism or liberal triumphalism. Often these positive and negative valences of the word
are complexly intertwined. Nevertheless, naming the field of study “survivors’ music”
rather than “music and traumatic experience,” “music and violence,” or “music and
conflict” seems preferable to me because it refuses to displace people from its center,
and it refuses to reduce people and their music to experiences of trauma, violence, and
conflict. I have been frustrated by this tendency in much of the scholarship on music
and violence, most crystallized in Steve Goodman’s fetishistic Sonic Warfare (2012). My
partner Yukiko coined the term “survivors’ music” in Korean (saengjonja ui eumak) in
2006, helping me come up with a name for a seminar that wouldn’t essentialize people
in this way.
My preference for “survivor” emerges from a Northeast Asian context in which many
sufferers are deemed “victims,” in which this victimhood is spectacularized in popular
and political culture, and in which survivors are at times exploited for political ends. The
turn toward “survivor” is a corrective to that tendency. That said, the study of “survivors’
music” should not ignore or de-emphasize the importance of real victimization experi-
enced by different people, or the centrality of the different concepts of victimization and
“victim ideologies” that popular and political cultures evolve.
Another issue: the phrase “survivors’ music” runs the risk of valorizing survivors and
their expressive lives over those who have not survived. I believe it is possible to study
survivors’ music without doing this, however. Typically, the opposite is true, and the
dead are valorized while survivors are viewed with suspicion or taken as walking monu-
ments to the dead. The study of survivors’ music seeks to re-establish a balance between
the importance of history and historical losses, and the importance of living people.
I use the term to refer to people who have survived violence and traumatic experience,
but also to refer to people who are currently enduring such experiences—people living
through war, armed conflict, situations of domestic violence, and so on. Such people
might not conventionally be called survivors, but it is important to remember that they,
too, are engaged in the daily activity of surviving, and their music or musicality may be a
crucial part of this effort. Many women worldwide, for instance, are such survivors, liv-
ing with the constant threat of domestic and sexual violence.
Classical “survivors” are commonly supposed to have lived through something that
is over; but it is important to acknowledge that traumatic experiences do not simply
end—rather, they unfold over time, and rarely have clear endings. Furthermore, they
are often accompanied by regimes of suppression and discrimination, as in the case
of many survivors of sexual abuse, or the strategically forgotten victims of war and
authoritarianism. Thus the work of survival is ongoing and often treacherous and
difficult.
In sum, “survivors’ music” is a complex and imperfect moniker, as perhaps all names
are. The important thing is to proceed aware of, sympathetic to, and interested in the
complexities and contradictions inherent in the name. To be attentive to these is not to
split hairs in self-serving academic discussion; it is to strive to rightly orient one’s moral
and scholarly compass, and the moral compass of the political and social movements in
which the study of survivors’ music can play a part.
Key Issues
Ethics
There are many ways one might go about the study of survivors’ music, and what
follows are just some key issues that emerge through a consideration of work in the
field. I have already discussed the focus on particular people, rather than music, or
culture, or violence, or anything else. The first thing that this requires of a researcher,
student, or educator interested in the study of survivors’ music is profound thought
about how to proceed in a way that is appropriate to one’s subject position, that is
frank and open about one’s goals, that avoids causing harm at all costs, and that
above all prioritizes the wishes and interests of survivors over particular scholarly
objectives. This generally means that one does not go digging into painful aspects
of people’s lives unless by the will of survivors who wish to explore their experiences
or let others know about them. There are often many publicly available documents
that speak to these things already. In any case, we must take care not to violate survi-
vors’ privacy or expose them to recriminations and harm. This is not a sort of moral
requirement, an “ethics” of scholarship and education that we must get out of the way
prior to beginning work: it is rather an opportunity to create a method of scholarship
or pedagogy that puts people in the center and prioritizes them over political, schol-
arly, or pedagogical aims. This has to be done by researchers, students, educators,
and survivors together.3
But perhaps there are some basic principles, or guidelines. For one, one should
attempt to demystify the “informant” and “researcher” relationship, and should base
relationships with survivors along the lines of a culture-appropriate friendship between
people of certain genders and ages. One should not conceive of research subjects as
people one engages with for scholarly ends; rather, the ends are whatever emerges from
the relationship. My collaborators and I build relationships fitfully, over long periods
of time; and I do not let these lapse once some sort of scholarly goal has been accom-
plished. Surely this enduring relationship, and the empathy and understanding it pro-
duces, are greater gifts to life and knowledge than the conventional relationship between
researcher and subject.
The self-importance, arrogance, and class prejudice that abound in scholarly cultures
often take the form of bourgeois paternalism when scholarship is “applied.” Avoiding
this is an ethical issue, a matter of making scholarship about more than reinforcing posi-
tions of social power through the doing of “good works.” As such, the study of survivors’
music begins with the supposition that survivors are generally of more help to scholars
and publics than the other way around, and that the student of survivors attempts to
learn from survivors first, not to “help” them. In addition, there is a further step to take
to avoid this paternalism: the study of survivors’ music, a kind of scholarship turned to
public good, should not be founded on an exoticized or fetishized notion of survivors as
others whom “we” study and teach about. There are many survivors of traumatic experi-
ence and violence who are also scholars and activists. Silent Jane documents and probes
the relationship between her synaesthesia and her experience and memories of child-
hood sexual abuse in her “Beautiful Fragments of a Traumatic Memory: Synaesthesia,
Sesame Street, and Hearing the Colors of an Abusive Past” (2006). Survivors’ written
narratives and testimonies, when they focus on musical activities or embody musical
qualities, are also a precious part of the bibliography of survivors’ music, and they, too,
are scholars of survivors’ music.
Aesthetics
A people-centered study of survivors’ music often requires scholars and educators to for-
sake evaluative criteria by which we distinguish between “good” and “bad” music, other
than those which survivors themselves utilize in the process of making music useful
and meaningful in their lives; rather, we are tasked to appreciate music as people make
use of it. I was forced to overcome this instinct to aesthetic judgment in my work with
many Korean elderly and middle-aged people who are fond of the sentimental Korean
pop genre teuroteu (a Koreanization of [fox] “trot”). The genre grated against almost
every aesthetic preference that I had inherited as a post-punk in late twentieth-century
America. It was drippily sentimental; it was vigorously mass-produced; and it was popu-
larized on recordings featuring only synthesized instruments accompanying the sing-
ing voice. As the genre overwhelmingly preferred by professional bus drivers in South
Korea, it was the soundtrack to many a terrifying interstate bus ride. Furthermore,
the genre jarred against my political sentiments, as it was a legacy of the assimilation
of Japanese popular music to Korea during the Japanese colonial era (1910–1945). Yet,
when survivors of Japanese military sexual slavery began to sing these songs for me,
I realized that all of these evaluative criteria were useless to me; they offered no help in
understanding how people make this music and make use of it in the daily work of get-
ting by. That ingenuity, the stories that people told me about music, and the sounds of
their voices singing these songs were fascinating and indeed profoundly beautiful.
A people-centered field like survivors’ music studies must also not go in search of
prepared notions of authenticity, or expect survivors to produce certain kinds of music
that we believe appropriate to their experience. The point is to attempt an understanding
of others’ experience and expressive lives, not to animate caricatures of others we have
encountered elsewhere. Yet I have heard, on many occasions, people ask survivors to
sing and then stop them in the middle of their favorite songs to demand something
older, something from the wartime, something of their own composition, something
more Korean, something more serious or more sorrowful.
The expectations and demands of others are important because they are part of sur-
vivors’ experience. But survivors do not often conform perfectly to these expectations.
Beginning my fieldwork in South Korea with elderly survivors of the “comfort women”
system, I expected to hear them sing songs from childhood and the wartime, and was
routinely surprised to find many of them singing songs that were only a few years old.
Learning and singing new songs is a way for profoundly marginalized people of what-
ever age to remain contemporary, and to maintain contact with mainstreams, real or
imagined. Learning manifestly popular songs, or engaging in decidedly “mainstream”
musical practices, is another way of participating in societies to which one has not been
granted full membership. So, in the study of survivors’ music, we must be ever willing to
relinquish such prejudices against new music, against popular music, and so on.
A Practical Analytics
The study of survivors’ music is a practical analytics of music in people’s lives. This means
that one inquires into the value—strategic, aesthetic, cultural or social—of particular
musical things and actions to particular people in particular settings. This means that
a musical event is not interesting in and of itself, either as “great music” or as somehow
representative of culture or historical experience. One is typically not interested in what
musical behaviors and objects can tell us about culture as a whole, or in finding kinds of
musical activity that definitively represent historical experiences of traumatic experi-
ence and violence. Experiences of violence and traumatic experience may promote cer-
tain kinds of solidarity that make generalizations about culture and experience tenable;
but they are just as likely to disrupt social relationships and produce experiences of such
singularity that scholarly generalization is not possible, or at least not interesting. We
must acknowledge and appreciate this particularity at first if we are going to make our
way back to the systematic connections that link people’s experiences.
From this perspective, a piece of music, or a fragment of music, or a song or a frag-
ment of song, performed by a survivor or group of survivors in a particular circum-
stance for a particular reason, is a cultural and historical treasure—it is not necessary
that it should be a particular instance of a generic phenomenon. It is precious because it
is part of the alchemy through which people survive and make life livable or worth liv-
ing. In that way, it is as precious as any other great work of art.
It is most important to the people-centered study of survivors’ music to consider
musical events not primarily as pieces representative of culture or experience broadly,
but as part of a survivor’s daily life and personal history. Yi Okseon, a friend and sur-
vivor of the “comfort women” system, sang a song for me that illustrates this nicely. We
were at a party in the summer of 2002 in the living room of the House of Sharing, a rest
home for survivors of the “comfort woman.”4 Five survivors sat on the couches in places
of honor; the rest of us—guests and staff—sat on the floor around a long table. One by
one, people sang songs by way of self-introduction, moving around the circle in rough
order of seniority. When the circle came to Yi Okseon, she stood up and sang her show-
piece song,5 the classic colonial-era pop ballad “Tear-Soaked Duman River” (“Nunmul
jeojeun Dumangang”):
When I went to China at age sixteen6 I crossed the Duman River, you know? I didn’t
realize that, and only afterwards I learned that I had crossed it. So that “Duman
River” song, if I forget it I won’t lose it, if I die I won’t forget it. Because I was dragged
away by Japanese across the Duman River…
In the blue waters of the Duman River
A boatman works the oars
In the flowed-away long ago a boat took my beloved
And left for somewhere
My beloved, for whom I long,
When will you come back?
The listeners began to clap pre-emptively, assuming she would stop after verse one, as
many people do. But Yi Okseon pushed on to the final verse:
On a moonlit night the river’s water
Catches in its throat, and it cries
This person who lost (her) beloved sighs.
. . . It left for somewhere . . .
When will you come back?
“Tear-Soaked Duman River” was written by composer Yi Si-u and lyricist Kim
Yongho, and debuted by male vocalist Kim Jeonggu in 1938. Yi Si-u wrote the song in
the 1930s, when he toured Southwestern Manchuria near the border with Korea, work-
ing for a theatrical company that was giving performances for the many Koreans in the
region.
There is a widely told colloquial story of the origins of the song: one evening Yi Si-u
was staying at an inn, and sat up in the night listening to a woman sobbing in the next
room. The next day he asked the innkeeper about her. Her husband, a friend of the inn-
keeper, was an anti-colonial independence fighter (dongnip-gun), who had been cap-
tured by Japanese forces. She crossed the Duman River to seek him out, but by the time
she had arrived at the prison to which he had been taken, he had already been executed.
The night Yi Si-u had heard her crying had been the evening of her husband’s birthday.
She had made a small memorial altar to him, and was drinking before it and mourning
his death.
Over the course of the colonial era (1910–1945) the song became famous for its politi-
cal subtexts, which were veiled in obscurity and thus protected from colonial censors.
As postcolonial South Korea cultivated both its popular music industry and its national
consciousness, founded in the wounds of the colonial era, the song became one of the
most famous popular songs in the land, playing a large part in the production of that
national consciousness. The woman’s tears drop into the Duman River on behalf of an
entire people that had lost its national sovereignty, seamlessly welding private grief and
a national-cultural sense of woundedness.
Many accounts of Yi Okseon’s performance might end here, with the general signif-
icance of the song to Korean colonial history, reducing Yi Okseon’s experience to an
extreme instance of that. But the study of survivors’ music privileges the singer, not the
song. We ask what the song might mean to Yi Okseon; how she altered it to make it her
own; how it bridges the gulf between her experiences and popular culture; how she her-
self changed in the process of taking it to heart; and why she sang it on this particular
occasion for this particular group. In order to discover these things, we must situate the
song and the performance in Yi Okseon’s life history.
Yi Okseon was born in 1927 in the southeastern port city Busan, the second of six sib-
lings, to a poor family. She wanted to go to school, but the family couldn’t afford tuition.
When she was 13, a small drinking house recruited her for work, promising to send
her to school in exchange. The proprietor, however, took her on as a servant and made
no signs of sending her to school. Over the next two years she moved around between
drinking houses, often asked to pour drinks and keep customers company, narrowly
avoiding being pressed into sex work. All the same, she was glad to be making money to
send home.
One day in 1942, while on her way home from a department store, Yi Okseon was
abducted by a burly man and put in a truck with other girls in the back. Guarded by a
Korean and a Japanese, the girls were loaded into a train. After several days’ journey they
crossed the Duman River and were offloaded, on July 23, at Yanji, a Manchurian town
close to the border. She was raped on the night of her arrival. For the next three years she
was held against her will and forced to provide sexual services to soldiers, mostly from
the nearby air force base—seven or eight men on weekdays and upwards of 50 on the
weekends.
On that night in 2002 when Yi Okseon sang “Tear-Soaked Duman River” at the House
of Sharing, she related how she cried for the young self that was taken across that river.
So the song records a traumatic wound and a self split in two. One half has been taken;
the other half sits on the riverbank and cries for the lost self. So Yi Okseon’s version
of the song differs dramatically from the original, about a woman by the banks of the
Duman River, or an unnamed “I,” or the “we” of postcolonial Korean nationhood long-
ing for a lost love object. She has lost a part of herself, and lives in two places at once. Yi
Okseon often speaks and sings to me about feeling like a foreigner in South Korea, and
about feeling that her heart lives in northeast China. So that feeling of a split self stuck
with her throughout her life, finding expression in many of her songs and stories. Yet in
adopting this song as her own, she related her experience to the popular story, making
her traumatic experience intelligible to others in the room and elsewhere throughout
South Korea, and claiming a place for herself in the popular story of the colonial and
wartime experience.
Our consideration of Yi Okseon’s performance of “Duman River” might easily stop
at the end of the war—it is quite typical for scholarly and public interest in the lives of
survivors to extend only as far as the so-called end of their infamous traumatic expe-
riences.7 But the experience of Japanese military sexual slavery was only a part, if the
most terrible part, of Yi Okseon’s saga of suffering and survival, and as such goes only
partway to explaining the significance of the song for her. Three years after her abduc-
tion the war ended, and both Manchuria and Korea were liberated from colonial rule.
She, however, had no funds to return to Korea. While wandering destitute in Yanji city,
she met a Korean man whom she had met previously at the air force base. “I took hold of
him and begged him to open a liferoad for me” (to secure my livelihood), she reported
in a published testimony (Kang, 2000: 174). They married; but he was denounced for his
high status in the pre-liberation Volunteer Labor Corps, and escaped south across the
Duman River into Korea. She waited for 10 years for him to return, but he never came
back. The river thus had another significance for Yi Okseon, for like the independence
fighter in the song, her husband had gone away across the river, never to return.
After that long wait she remarried at the urging of her parents-in-law. In the late 1990s
she made contact with a South Korean organization searching for survivors of the “com-
fort women” system, and relocated to the House of Sharing in 2000, after the death of her
second husband. Thus the song and the Duman River obtained yet another sense for her,
as she returned to a land that she hardly recognized after her 58-year absence. The song
tells us a long story of loss and dislocation—from self, home, and loved ones. But this
story is nonetheless Yi Okseon’s, a means of making a coherence of self across a tumultu-
ous life. The song is also a means of connecting Yi Okseon’s personal history to Korean
popular culture and society. For these and other reasons, it has been a tool for her in her
survival. Together with many of her other songs, it also documents her long reflection
about the nature of home and the passing of time. She told me that although she had
returned to the land of her birth, she felt like she had “returned to a foreign country.”
She had family in northeast China; and she had changed; and home had changed. This is
something that diasporic people know about the nature of “home” that people who have
never left often never recognize.
Yi Okseon’s twisting “Duman River” story is an opportunity for us to learn about
the experience of diaspora, the nature of loss, and the nature of identity. As a canoni-
cal popular song about displacement, it reveals a paradox of South Korean and many
other national identities—a quintessential “Korean” experience is an experience of
marginalization. National identity depends on outsiders like Yi Okseon to embody
the spirit of modern Korean experience, while it denies them full social membership
and considers them broken—speaking imperfect Korean as returnees from abroad,
not fully grounded in culture, behind the times. But Yi Okseon, in the coherence
of her narrative of fragmentation and loss, is actually several steps ahead of most
Koreans in the process of understanding what it means to change in the process of
becoming yourself, what transformations the passage of time works on the places we
are from, and the scars and traces that the wounds of time’s passing leave behind.
If we forget about all of this, and essentialize survivors and their music by constantly
referring back to the particular experiences that we consider to have been of paramount
importance in their lives, we miss out on the stories of their survival in the wake of such
experiences. We also lose out on the opportunity to learn of their wisdom and their
hard-won philosophies of life.
Interpretation and Collaboration

This take on Yi Okseon’s “Duman River” is of course my interpretation, arrived at over
10 years of talking with her about life and music. What is the place of interpretation
in the study of survivors’ music? Might it not be better to “let the recordings speak for
themselves?” By now in ethnomusicology we know that even the seemingly simple act of
recording involves a complex of interpretive moves. One decides what to record, thereby
deciding how experience is to be divided and recorded, and what parts of experience
are important. The recordist selects how to record these, and how to contextualize that
thing that she has newly made or inflected. This is true for any kind of recording: sound
recording, writing, drawing, film, photography, and so on.
Since recordings of whatever kind are already interpretations, there is no use in trying
to keep one’s interpretation out of it; rather, it is important to understand one’s interpre-
tive moves and their significance, and to involve others in these processes of interpre-
tation. In the case of survivors’ music, one can attempt to understand the interpretive
moves of survivors, what they consider important about music and the musical and their
relation to it; then one can attempt to document these as faithfully as possible, using
technology to imitate these interpretive moves, such as making sound recordings when
people habitually close their eyes when singing. When music is accompanied by signifi-
cant movement, this is because someone has decided that they go together, or conceives
of them as a single activity, and the recordist can choose an audiovisual medium. One
can then engage in dialogue with others about the significance of these things, listen or
watch recordings together, and so on.
Songs and other kinds of music are already, in many ways, recordings of different
kinds of experience, places, times, and other things. Many survivors document their
own musical lives, and these documents—stories, recordings, illustrations, writing—are
of paramount importance. The complex process of making ethnographic inscriptions,
recordings, and documents is something that survivors and ethnographers do together,
however much or little they acknowledge it. It is a process rife with the most interesting
possibilities. This takes time, an ongoing relationship of discovery and making. With Yi
Okseon and others, this has involved my recording songs in many different contexts; lis-
tening to and discussing recordings together; working together to choose favorite ren-
ditions for scholarly examination or public exhibition; and forging relationships that
provide a crucial context for interpretation.
Performance
The narrative of Yi Okseon’s “Duman River” that I have presented here begins in the
present, and works its way back to it along the swath of her life experience. We return
to the living room of the House of Sharing to consider another key issue in the study of
survivors’ music that this song demonstrates. Yi Okseon’s “Tear-Soaked Duman River”
is a performance, at a particular time for particular people. She sang for an audience of
political activists and social workers—the staff of the House of Sharing and a cohort
surrounding a group of Japanese lawyers who were helping with the struggle for repara-
tions and apology for the “comfort women” in the Japanese legal system. In speech, she
related the song only to her experience of abduction during the war. Yi Okseon was a
compelling, savvy activist whose performances of wartime victimization were utterly
legitimized by experience. She saved other parts of the story for other, equally sincere
and equally performative contexts. Considering survivors’ music as performance does
not mean questioning its authenticity or sincerity; rather, we attend to the social value
and the significance of the different kinds of performances, and survivors’ performa-
tive competence and social power, which they demonstrate. At other times, as she spoke
about the song and other ruminations on love, loss, and the nature of home, she related
her experience of dislocation to mine, as a foreigner in South Korea. While the experi-
ences are of course dramatically different, the act of relating was a way that she made a
connection between us. It was an example of her skill as an educator, building a bridge to
teach me about her experiences.
The “Musical”
From the example I have given above, one might begin to think that the study of survi-
vors’ music is principally about the search for and interpretation of pieces that shed light
on the past and survivors’ experiences. To the extent that one looks for such musical
things, as in the discussion of Yi Okseon’s “Duman River,” one must attend to how they
are brought to bear on life and presented in performance. Nonetheless, it is also impor-
tant not to neglect the “thingness” that people attribute to music—the way they come to
possess it, treasure it, use it, exchange it, and so on—which is crucial in order to under-
stand how music is a resource for survival, and to understand people’s beliefs about
music and its power. Musical talismans can be very important to survivors, whether they
be physical objects, songs, or memories. Yi Okseon’s song is one example, which she said
she would remember beyond death. Another is Daran Kravanh’s narrative of music and
its role in his survival of the Khmer Rouge period (Lafreniere, 2000): Kravanh relates
finding an accordion in the woods and carrying it through his time in the labor camps
and the killing fields, and credits the accordion on several occasions with saving his life.
Nonetheless, from Yi Okseon’s song and Daran Kravanh’s story it is clear that “music”
and its material culture are not the sole objects of the study of survivors’ music. For one,
the things people say about music are also crucial. But the study of survivors’ music goes
further than this, beyond the duality of music and speech, beyond a world in which
there is music and everything else, or music and its context. In order that the study of
survivors’ music not displace people from the center of the inquiry and set an artificial
notion of music in their place, in order that it not exclude survivors who are not profes-
sionally or conventionally musical, and in order that one can understand the important
gray areas and connections between different arenas of survivors’ expression, the study
of survivors’ music can fruitfully embrace a generous notion of the “musical.”8 One can
pay attention to the musical qualities of speech, writing, sound, silence, and so on, and
of the continuities that connect different expressive spheres and sounding to the realm
of music. The connectivity between expressive spheres is the key to understanding the
practical value of music in survivors’ lives. It is the mechanism by which the kinds of
voice, identity, resilience, expressive power, and expressive content that people cultivate
in music find their way into other realms of life, and vice versa, like the system by which
electricity circulates through and out of a batteries. In addition, spaces between can be
powerful and productive expressive spaces in themselves.
This is one of the basic perspectives of sociomusicology, although practitioners of
that branch of our field, with notable exceptions,9 tend to focus on particular relations
between expressive arenas—particularly music and speech, or music and language,
rather than taking the global view that I feel is so essential to the study of survivors’
music. The way that people live in silence, or live with sounds and noise; the ways these
silences, sounds, and noises produce music, or speech, or written narrative, or other
things, in whatever order—the relative connectivity of expressive realms and the con-
tent of the interstitial spaces between them tells us about the usefulness of music in
human life. In survivors’ lives, silence and noise are especially important categories, for
survivors often live in political and social conditions that silence them or deem their
expressions—linguistic and musical—to be noise.
As such, the study of survivors’ music can benefit from carefully listening to the gray
areas that connect music to other sound arenas of life for survivors. This is one of the
basic perspectives of my book (2012),10 which provides numerous examples. In my cur-
rent project on Korean radiation sufferers, I have moved yet further in this direction.
Han Jeongsun, a second-generation Korean victim of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima,
provides a powerful example of the importance of thinking broadly about “the musical”
in order to understand the significance of music in survivors’ lives.
One of Han Jeongsun’s songs about walking provides the epigraph that begins this
article. The song is “Gochu” (pepper), debuted by pop star Yu Ji-na in 2009. In the song
the protagonist walks across mountain passes, always finding yet another steep incline
before her. The mountain pass is a popular metaphor for struggle in Korea, as it is else-
where. Since the age of 30, Han Jeongsun has suffered from avascular necrosis of the
femoral head—a condition in which interrupted blood flow causes cellular death of
bone components in the tops of her femurs. Her condition has thus far required four hip
replacements and other sorts of major reconstructive surgery. She told me that songs
about walking have literal significance for her due to the trouble she has walking. The
text of the song emphasizes this difficulty; but the dotted 4/4 rhythm of the piece lilts
along with an effortlessness and energy that makes the endless walking artful and seems
to make it possible. When Han Jeongsun sings “Pepper,” she often dances, even when
sitting down, shifting her weight from side to side and moving her arms alternately up
and down in the improvisatory manner of Korean traditional dance. She also sings while
walking, borrowing the rhythm of music for daily movement.
My current work with Han Jeongsun connects her songs, her dancing, her walking,
and her political testimony by tracing themes and rhythms across her expressive life. We
take walks together; she infuses her political testimony with discussions of her ailment
and of her difficulty in walking. She sings and dances to songs of walking before and
after activist meetings. In the study, I aim to show how in this way she weaves and holds
a workable sense of self and world together, draws inspiration from music for her daily
physical struggles, and draws on popular culture to find a voice and to claim political
rights for herself and her fellow radiation sufferers.
There are a number of advantages to this broad perspective on “the musical.” For one,
it means that anyone interested in doing fieldwork or reading about survivors’ music
does not need to wait for people to participate in formal music-making. The ethnogra-
pher—whether working with people or historical documents—gets right to work, try-
ing to get a sense of survivors’ expressive universes and the techniques, qualities, and
thematic material that link formal music-making or the musical facets of daily life and
expression with the rest of their expressive lives. This entire network could be thought of
as the changeable circulatory system of “the musical” in survivors’ everyday life. As we
assemble the circuitry, we get a sense of what the musical is good for—what sort of sto-
ries people use it to tell, what sort of strength people draw from it and competences they
cultivate within it, and what sorts of knowledge it embodies.
I prefer the broad approach to the musical not only because it gets at the core signifi-
cance of music in survivors’ lives, but also because it allows me to make use of manifold
documentary resources not focused on music. While primary research and record-
ing are important, there is often a tremendous amount of documentation of survivors’
lives already, and within these we find countless evidences of the importance of “the
musical” in survivors’ lives. This means that plentiful materials are already available,
which one can make use of without engaging in firsthand field research. This means
that the people who engage in the study of survivors’ music need not be scholars with
leave and resources to conduct ethnographic research. There are documentaries, pub-
lished testimonies, and survivors’ narratives, recorded collections, and scholarly works
that one can consult in search of the musical in survivors’ lives. Many of these materials
are available online, in university libraries, and for purchase. Sometimes it may feel like
searching for a needle in a haystack; but because of the many uses of music and the deep
presence of the musical throughout expressive life, usually one does not have to look
very long or very hard.
Examples of this are readily available. Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (1985), an
almost 10-hour-long film documentary about the Holocaust of Jews and others in
mid-twentieth century Europe, follows its long, scrolling opening text with survivor
Simon Srebnik singing several songs and discussing them. The US Library of Congress
website “Voices from the Days of Slavery,”11 a collection of nearly seven hours of recorded
interviews with survivors of the enslavement of African Americans, includes a hyper-
linked index of song titles.
Most importantly, the broad approach to “the musical” in survivors’ lives also allows
the student of survivors’ music to work with almost anyone, not only those survivors
who have a particular memory for, interest in, or talent for music. We find out about
the fragments of song or sound in talk and testimony. We talk about music and sound
that survivors encounter in the course of their daily lives. We can even include people
who never “make music” themselves or are averse to music for various reasons. Some
survivors had their voices partly or completely taken from them—as in the case of the
many victims of nuclear radiation exposure who have had to undergo thyroid surgery,
or in the case of the severely psychologically traumatized. Some have had experiences of
the coercive power of music—for instance, the many women in sex-and-entertainment
cultures the world over who are expected to sing or dance or otherwise perform for
patrons—and may have forsaken music for this reason, or because they have decided
that it is sinful. Often these silences are just as telling about the nature of experience
and the place of music in social life as any recordings of musical performance that we
might make.
Redemptive Narratives
One might reasonably expect that the study of survivors’ music privileges the redemp-
tive powers of music, its power as means of resisting social domination, countering
or diffusing violence, healing and overcoming trauma and hardship. Indeed, there is
much to learn from survivors about how to survive, and music, at times, is useful in this
process in many ways. It can be a means of making or maintaining senses of self and
social connectedness; of finding things to live for; of connecting with society from the
margins; of consolidating social groups that can resist different kinds of violence and
oppression; of communicating in secret; of securing the sympathy of one’s tormenters;
and of securing the financial means of life, among other uses. But it is also profoundly
important to look beyond such notions of the redemptive power of music, just as ethno-
musicology has found it important to look beyond beliefs in the transcendental power
of music that often hold sway in Western art music circles.
The newly emerging study of music and violence, which has its own special interest
group in the Society for Ethnomusicology, is founded on this idea. Shirli Gilbert gives
the most powerful scholarly statement of this that I have yet found, in her introduc-
tion to Music in the Holocaust (2005), calling for a re-evaluation of the place of music
in the Holocaust that accounts for its role in manufacturing obedience and inspiring
Nazi terror. Survivor Szymon Laks, in his memoir Music of Another World (1979), about
his term as a member and conductor of the Auschwitz II men’s orchestra, explains the
role of music in naturalizing suffering, of encouraging fatal conformism, and other
pernicious uses of music in concentration camp life. To this we could add the role of
music in consolidating social groups which then perpetrate violence against excluded
others; the (related) ways in which music helps to naturalize notions of national, racial,
gendered, sexual and other sorts of superiority; the role of music in torture (Cusick,
2008; Pettan, 1998); the uses of music in the performance of domination and submis-
sion (Pilzer, 2014), and others. And beyond this dark side, upon close examination many
uses of music in survivors’ experience fill us with neither hope nor despair, and are as
ambivalent as so many other things in life.
Leaving people in the center of the study of survivors’ music, we set aside these beliefs
in the moral goodness or badness of music, just as we forsake our own aesthetic judg-
ments about it, and instead ask how survivors think and feel about music, and how they
are musical in the pursuit of life. The result is a much subtler understanding of the role of
music in situations of social violence and in survivors’ lives. Laks relates in his memoir
of Auschwitz II (1979: 65–66):
One evening… I found lying on the ground a crumpled and greasy piece of paper
covered with writing that attracted my attention. I picked it up and, after returning to
the barracks, unfolded it carefully so as not to tear it. It smelled of herring and God
only knows what else. But it was music! Only the melody, written by hand but very
legibly, without harmonization, without accompaniment. The title at the top read
Three Warsaw Polonaises of the 18th Century, author: Anonymous.
I washed the precious document as carefully as possible and hung it up in a dis-
crete place in the music room to dry overnight. During the next few days I harmo-
nized all three polonaises and wrote out the parts for a small chamber ensemble, after
which we began to practice the pieces in the barracks when conditions allowed. The
pieces turned out to be true pearls of eighteenth-century Polish music.
Some of my Polish colleagues congratulated me on this deed, regarding it as an act
of the resistance movement. This surprised me a little, since for me this was an ordi-
nary musical satisfaction, heightened by the Polishness of the music to be sure, but
I did not see how its being played in secret could have harmed the Germans or had
an effect on the war. In any case, if this episode can be regarded as a sign of resistance,
it is the only one I can boast of during a rather long stay in Birkenau. The rest was a
struggle for survival.
Laks’s colleagues are hungry for tokens of resistance; but he is not so sure. He has seen
how the most sincere and devout appreciation of music can live within the most mon-
strous of men; and is well aware that he survived when so many others did not because
of a musical ability that it was his luck to possess, but did not make him any worthier of
life than they were.
This is a profoundly complex account of the social power of music in the face of suf-
fering. Laks suspects the redemptive narrative, but his “ordinary musical satisfaction” is
no small thing. This moment is one of the few in his narrative when he encounters music
that reminds him of his life as a concert pianist and conductor in prewar Warsaw, and of
the glories of Western art music. It is a moment that recalls a deep belief in higher things.
It is a glimmer of the glories of music that precede and follow Laks’s wartime narrative,
and which were so important to him in rescuing his life from its Holocaust; but he is
reluctant to admit it to the nightmare world that he survived.
Daran Kravanh, in his narrative of playing the accordion and surviving the Khmer
Rouge period, relates:
I cannot tell you how or why I survived; I do not know myself. It is like this: love and
music and memory and invisible hands, and something that comes out of the society
of the living and the dead, for which there are no words.
Yes, music, the power within my accordion’s voice, saved my life and, in turn, the
lives of others.
(Lafreniere, 2000: 3)
So while we are obliged to look beyond redemptive narratives in the appreciation

of music in survivors’ lives, we must at once be capable of looking beyond the aura
of suspicion that surrounds beliefs in the transcendental or redemptive powers of
music. These beliefs are held by many people living through violence and traumatic
experience or living with the consequences of such experiences, and they form the
contexts of many survivors’ encounters with music. The study of survivors’ music
takes these beliefs seriously, seeking to understand their power and their useful-
ness, while recognizing that there are many stories where such beliefs are nowhere
to be found.
Advocacy and Activism

The study of survivors’ music, as I have outlined it, attempts to put the interests of survi-
vors first over scholarly arguments or goals. This principle leads us naturally to another
set of questions concerning advocacy and activism.
First, is this study advocacy? This is an open question. I have put forward my pref-
erence for thinking about the study of survivors’ music as a practice of listening,
documentation, and learning over political action; but there is an implicit politics in
my choice of whom to listen to. More often than not, I choose the underprivileged,
marginalized, and ignored, and advocate for the importance of their points of view.
I have attempted to do this through writing, teaching, public presentations, and the
exhibition of recordings (see below).
Another, related question: Is the study of survivors’ music activism? I think the
study of survivors’ music should seek understanding and prioritize the best inter-
ests of survivors, whether or not this understanding or those interests are congenial
to political movements; to that extent it is its own kind of activism, of the sort that
Svanibor Pettan advocates: the use of ethnomusicological knowledge and under-
standing “for the betterment of humanity” (2010: 90). Prioritizing the wishes and
interests of survivors is not an abstract or legal matter of intellectual property, but of
trying to do right by others and ourselves; and it is a political act of the utmost impor-
tance, and most certainly a form of activism. But it is a kind of activism that may lead
the scholar of survivors’ music to guard her autonomy from movements and organi-
zations, while often sharing many sympathies with them and working together.
It is also possible to look at the question of activism from another perspective. Claims
that one kind of ethnomusicological scholarship or another are activism run the risk of
overlooking the ways in which the people we study engage in different kinds of activism.
The survivors of the “comfort women” system and the nuclear bombing of Japan are
often multiply engaged as activists, often making political statements in speech or song,
often taking to stages and media platforms to testify to their experiences and advocate
for social groups. One can learn from survivors about how they go about expressing
themselves politically, organizing (or not organizing) into movements, cultivating
movement consciousnesses, and so on, and why.
We can also listen to testimony and observe activist culture with an ear for the
imprint of the musical. Han Jeongsun’s testimonies about walking and living with
radiation-related disability are one example of this, as an example of the place the musi-
cal facets of life can have in helping survivors to cultivate political voices, and the ways
that the content of personal musical expression can become part of political discourse.
We can listen to survivors’ explicitly musical activities during testimony, or musical pre-
sentations meant to be kinds of action and testimony in political spheres or preparatory
to such action. The fact that so many Korean survivors of the “comfort women” system
sing or reference music during testimony (see Howard, 1995) is what motivated me to
study their musical lives in the first place.
One such woman whom I came to know quite well is Yi Yongsu. In her testimony, she
relates how at 16 years old she was taken from Daegu by a Japanese businessman and
placed on a boat for Taiwan, where she was raped repeatedly by soldiers and others. She
was taken to Hsinchu, about 60 kilometers southwest of Taipei, where she was placed
in a “comfort station,” a military sex camp. The camp was near an air force airport that
served as a base for kamikaze pilots. For the next eight months, she was imprisoned and
forced to have sex with soldiers, in months which saw a dramatic increase in the number
of suicide missions as the war effort turned in the Allies’ favor and the Japanese became
increasingly desperate. One of these pilots came to visit her many times.
One day he told her that he was leaving for his mission, and wouldn’t be coming back.
He had brought all of his toiletries with him and gave them to her as a present. He said
that he had gotten a venereal disease from her, and he would take this to his grave as a
precious gift. Finally, he taught her a song. She sang this song often in testimony; and she
related it to me at her home in Daegu in 2004.
That soldier, he was an officer, when he was going away to die, he taught me a song:
I take off with courage, leaving Taiwan behind,
Riding and rising above waves of gold and silver clouds.
There is no one to see me off,
And this little one is the only one who cries for me.
I take off with courage, leaving Shinchiku behind,
Riding and rising above waves of gold and silver clouds.
There is no one to see me off,
And the only one who cries for me is Toshiko.
He gave me the name Toshiko.
The song was “Hikokinori no uta” (Song of the Pilot), a Japanese military song
(gunka) associated with his particular squadron of kamikaze pilots. He had changed
the words, adding his own place of departure and putting in the Japanese nickname he
had given her. I discuss this song as part of her wartime experience in detail elsewhere
(Pilzer 2014).
As Yi Yongsu has told her story countless times to the expectant South Korean pub-
lic and others, and as activists in the “comfort women grandmothers movement” have
encouraged the women to standardize their stories of sexual slavery for important
legal reasons, her story has become quite formalized. In this process, her “Song of the
Pilot” song often has an honored place, dividing the testimony in half. It arrests the
flow of time and zooms into that moment, thus becoming the dramatic high point of
the testimony.
It is a mechanism of transport; but it is also a disciplined traumatic memory. It is a
scene like the disembodied scenes that characterize traumatic memory, but one that
Yi Yongsu has taken hold of and placed into a narrative frame in a broad process of
self-making. Listening to survivors sing in testimony can allow us to see the artistry by
which they put their lives back together and give their lives continuity.
Yi Yongsu explained that she sang this song in testimony because she had discovered,
through its lyrics, that she was in Taiwan. Listeners to her testimony realized at this
moment that prior to learning this song she did not know where she was. But in recent
years she began to add a different reason, as she became more secure in her place in
the movement and in society. She said that the man had helped her by giving her hope.
Certainly this hope was complicated by the fact that he had such tremendous power
over her, and many in the South Korean public and elsewhere would frown at this deeply
problematic relation of affection. But nonetheless the relationship and its song played
a role in her survival, and became a cornerstone of Yi Yongsu’s postwar project of self-
reconstruction. And as she became more and more entrenched as a star of the “comfort
women” movement, she showed more and more of this sentimental core of her story to
South Korean public culture. In interviews and testimonies she began to speak of how
important this officer had been to her and of her fruitless attempts to find him in the
postwar period, while stating, for the record, that she did not love him. So music in testi-
mony can allow survivors to express unwelcome but important feelings and experiences
in public and politicized forums, and can allow deep listeners to hear them and share
in them. Of course, by listening to music in testimony, we can also learn about the role
of music in projects of social domination and in traumatic memory; a recent article of

mine addresses the former issue in the context of the “comfort women” system (Pilzer,
2014). And there are many more things we can learn from listening to music in the con-
text of testimony.
Recording and Documenting

Survivors’ Music
When thinking of the many tragedies of modern life, from genocides, to wars, to sexual
and domestic violence—one tends to think, first and foremost, of images or texts. Many
have noted that the visual means of representing the Holocaust of European Jewry have
long consisted of a codified type of image (Hirsch, 2001: 7, Young, 1988: 163), and this is
true for the representation of South Korean survivors of Japanese military sexual slavery as
well. In a seminal article in the anthropology of social suffering, Arthur and Joan Kleinman
point to the predominance of images in the representation of suffering worldwide, and
describe the techniques of their appropriation and commodification (1997). Survivors’ nar-
ratives are second most popular in the representation of modern atrocities, and are often
turned into films—and thus into moving images. Written narratives benefit from the cul-
tural cache accorded to the written word, even taking on a sort of sacral quality.
This dominance of the textual and the visual adds urgency to the study of survivors’
music. Many survivors pass from this world without having their voices recorded at all.
So the act of recording someone’s voice—whether casually speaking, singing, or giving
testimony—is very powerful and important. Despite the artificial severing of the world
that sound recording accomplishes, the attention it draws to the voice is one reason
that it is still an important means of documentation, although other forms are equally
important and useful.
It is standard in ethnomusicology to obtain permission from subjects before mak-
ing recordings. Often this permission is obtained in spoken or written word only, and
subjects have very little idea of what will actually be done with the recordings. It is pref-
erable, in the study of survivors’ music and in the field generally, to maintain ongoing
conversations about the recording process, to listen to recordings together, and to decide
together on preferred ones. One must delete recordings when survivors request that this
be done. One might think of the process as similar to paging through the photographs
on a digital camera, getting rid of some and keeping others, making the process a trans-
parent one and a kind of play.
Archiving, Accessing, and Exhibiting

Survivors’ Music
Once one has made documents of survivors’ expressive lives, one must work out what
to do with such things. How should one archive and govern access to archives? Not only
libraries, but also books, websites, personal collections, and many other things can be
archives.
In order for documentary materials to contribute to human knowledge and under-
standing, they must be accessible; but the degree of this accessibility should be governed
above all by what survivors want—how much they want their voices, names, stories, and
music publicized, and in what form. First, recordings should be accessible to survivors
themselves should they want them. One also may need to consider any organizations
one has worked with in the production of such documents, which may expect copies or
may have made this a condition of their assistance. Such organizations may or may not
make suitable places for an archive.
One could draw up a form that survivors sign, giving you unilateral permission to
use audio visual materials, stories, and so on, in certain ways. However, in general these
things should be worked out on a case-by-case basis, because people’s feelings about
these things and their personal circumstances change over time. Ethically speaking,
open access is the most complicated kind of accessibility, because subsequent uses of
material become impossible to trace and to square with survivors’ wishes.
Of course, since writing is another kind of recording, books and articles are archived
as well, and one must decide on what terms this is to happen and how accessible
they are to be. Open-access and online journals, which don’t require membership in
elite academic institutions, seem preferable to me; and presses capable of making
inexpensive books seem an obvious choice. The things one has to do to make a book
inexpensive—limiting the number of color images, for instance—can be made up for
these days by websites where color images and other materials can be made available.
Accompanying websites or online publication make associated recordings available for
no extra cost to the reader. Above all, it seems preposterous—no matter how much one
is worried about one’s tenure case, scholarly reputation, and so on—to publish a book
on survivors’ music with an elite academic press that favors small pressings of expensive
hardback books that only university libraries and the affluent will buy. There are far too
many examples of this in the small literature focused on survivors’ music.
Another possibility for creating ways of accessing work is exhibition. In the summer
of 2004, photographer Yajima Tsukasa and I opened an exhibition of sound recordings
and portrait photographs of Korean “comfort women” survivors in one of Seoul’s gal-
lery districts. It went on to be exhibited throughout South Korea and in Germany. The
exhibition was sponsored by the House of Sharing and by the South Korean Ministry of
Culture, Sports, and Tourism. At the exhibition, listeners stood before 160 cm-squared
portraits of 12 current and former residents of the House of Sharing, listening to
recordings of each of the women on headphones. There were two sets of headphones
so that people could listen together. I used field recordings, selecting short audio exam-
ples excerpted from a wealth of recordings of each survivors’ expressive life. I worked
with each woman to choose the song she would prefer to have exhibited. Similarly, the
women had been asked by the photographer to choose whatever clothing and makeup
they liked for their portraits, although they were not invited to choose one photograph
over another.
The exhibition ran for two weeks surrounding August 15, Korean Independence
Day: the gallery director wanted to take advantage of the upsurge in nationalism and
interest in national issues surrounding this day. So visitors to the exhibition were already
conditioned to encounter the women as symbols of national suffering. Political con-
texts of different scales and distributions will frame one’s attempt to exhibit survivors’
music—in this case, a South Korean national context of the “comfort women” issue and
its associated movements.
I attempted to intervene in this political landscape by challenging the overwhelm-
ing perception of these survivors as symbols of victimization, creating a space for lis-
teners to encounter them as grandmothers, as women, as philosophers, as talented
storytellers and singers. There were songs from the wartime, but there were also
prayers, joke songs, and philosophical musings—on life, on the passage of time, and
on making peace with suffering and transience. Despite this, however, the symbolic
power of the “comfort women” issue in public culture made it very difficult to listen
with fresh ears. One man in late middle age told me: “These are not songs… they
are the sounds of crying.” One young girl, in a fever of militarized emotion, wrote
in our comment book: “We’ve really got to do to [Japan] just as they’ve done unto
us!” Another young girl wrote, “This made me think that we’ve really got to have a
war with those Japanese bastards!” The language of victimization and of masculin-
ized militaristic response—the ideological complex of postwar South Korean national
identity—rose to the surface and swept away the laughter, the peace, everything but
the galvanizing tears and anger.
This experience made me deeply skeptical of the utility of exhibiting survivors’
music; one will typically contend with a prefigured political context that governs how
people listen, and it will almost always overwhelm authorial intention, the particu-
larity of survivors’ voices, the exceptions to popular canonizations of survivors’ sto-
ries, and so on. However, if the sounds only reach a few people, this is nonetheless of
immense importance, for each person carries within them a universe of possibilities.
One girl wrote:
Ah~
Grandmother(s)12~
Now refreshing Autumn has come and
Let’s all of us hold hands
And go for an Autumn stroll ^_^
And let’s also go
To look at the changing leaves ^_^
At the opening of the exhibition the majority of the women were there, and stood listen-
ing to their songs, singing along, admiring or critiquing their photographs, and answer-
ing questions from reporters and others. Typically audiences listen to survivors to hear
of their victimization. But in this instance they were listened to for their speaking and
singing voices, their songs and stories; no matter how much the public still rendered
those songs as the sounds of crying, the survivors themselves felt a different sort of vali-
dation in public, the public recognition of songs they had made their own and selves
they had made over the long years of their lives.
Yi Yongnyeo’s recording for the exhibition was a medley of pop songs, which she had
sung at a New Year’s party at the House of Sharing. With Bae Chunhui’s janggo (hour-
glass drum) accompaniment, Yi Yongnyeo had blended three verses from three sepa-
rate songs—Son Panim’s 1955 “Cry, Guitar String,” about wandering in a foreign land;
another song none of us could identify, which might have been of her own invention;
and “Jal itgeora Busan-hang” (Take Care, Busan Harbor), a 1970 pop classic. In the
first piece she sang about drifting in a foreign land in search of lost love. In the second
piece she sang from a woman’s perspective, asking a departing man why he had fooled
her into love. In the last verse she assumed the male perspective, bidding a number
of women well as he takes his leave in Busan Harbor. Yi Yongnyeo transformed the
song, which in its original version bid a fond, wistful, but jovial and inevitable fare-
well to the man’s female conquests, into the bottomless lament of a woman who recalls
the words of the one who left. One of the women to whom the man bids farewell is a
Miss Lee (Yi). Yi Yongnyeo thus found herself in the song and cried as she sang in her
cigarette-scarred voice.
At the exhibition, Yi Yongnyeo listened to her song and sang along, crying, then
slowly starting to laugh; when the song was over she walked briskly to the center
of the exhibition space and began to sing her breezy version of “The Ballad of the
Travelling Entertainer” (“Changbu Taryeong”), which exhorts us: “Life is a one
night’s spring dream, so we’ve got to have fun while we can.” Media photographers
and television crews captured images of Yi Yongnyeo singing, dancing, and laugh-
ing in the face of her victimization; not all of them only used the images of her
in tears.
Attempts at exhibiting survivors’ music must face the general complexity of display-
ing music and people, and the difficulty of intervening in overdetermined political
contexts. They are fraught with ethical quandries and dangers, and can easily become
the kind of “conscience pornography” that the Kleinmans describe in their powerful
article on images of social suffering (1997). In general, this means that longer and more
complex media, such as books and documentary films, are preferable, in the interests
of diffusing sensationalism, making sustained political interventions, and cultivating
respectful and productive relationships with survivors. This means a step away from the
streamlining of ethnographic material for political activism. Again, though, this is itself
a kind of activism—on behalf of the people concerned, and on behalf of mutual empathy
and understanding.
Teaching Survivors’ Music
While most presentations of survivors’ music are intended to be educational, classroom
and other person-to-person teaching about survivors’ music has its own set of chal-
lenges and opportunities. Smaller classes are preferable to large lecture courses, because
they allow the instructor to stay in touch with students and field their often dramatic
reactions to the material: no matter how much one privileges survivors, their music,
and their ingenuity over the calamities that they survive in such a course, many students
nonetheless encounter many new and shocking social realities, and react in a variety of
ways. Some students associate the survivors’ experiences they encounter with their own
experiences of violence and trauma. Bearing this in mind, it is important to make infor-
mation available to students about counseling services and emergency resources avail-
able to them through their school, government, and nonprofit organizations.
A course on survivors’ music may be built around case studies, but there are a num-
ber of framing issues to bear in mind and focus in on. There is the fundamental issue of
how to listen to survivors’ music, and the question of witnessing—for survivors’ musi-
cal performance is often a kind of witnessing, and the listening subject is also a witness.
This topic provides an opportunity for thinking about the politics of listening, the act of
witnessing as a recuperative act, and also about traumatic transference and secondary
trauma.
Another core issue is the role of music in social domination and resistance. Shirli
Gilbert’s introduction to Music in the Holocaust, which, as discussed above, problema-
tizes notions of the redemptive power of music, is quite useful as a discussion piece here.
So, too, is James Scott’s Domination and the Arts of Resistance (1990), which elaborates
a theory of public and hidden transcripts of power, and describes how the performance
of submission can be a strategy of resistance, allowing us to understand the complex
interrelatedness of concepts such as “domination,” “subordination,” and “resistance.”
Throughout, it is useful to juxtapose these scholarly texts with survivors’ narratives that
variously bear out and challenge these ideas. Regarding the variously destructive and
redemptive power of music, Laks’s memoir (1977) and Daran Kravanh’s narrative of life
under the Khmer Rouge (Lafreniere, 2000), both mentioned above, make a compel-
ling contrast. The cumulative effect is to shift focus from abstract arguments about the
nature of music and social domination to a consideration of what music means to survi-
vors and how it unfolds in particular situations as people make do in life.
Perhaps the pre-eminent issue to be considered in teaching survivors’ music is the
role of music vis-à-vis survivors’ experiences of violence and traumatic experience.
There are a number of different perspectives from which one can consider this relation-
ship: the psychological relations between music and trauma; the music of rituals aimed
at healing and overcoming; music and cultural trauma; and the role of survivors’ music
in political arenas, among others.
All of these issues prepare a mature discussion of case studies, which can be woven
throughout the course, along the lines of my suggestions for incorporating the Laks
and Lafreniere books above. I have taught case studies in the music of survivors of
African-American slavery and the US Civil War; the Khmer Rouge; domestic violence,
child abuse, and sexual violence in North America; the genocide of Native Americans;
the European Holocaust; the Asia-Pacific War; the Vietnam War; the recent Afghan and
Iraq wars; and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
One of the core tenets of the study of survivors’ music is that survivors themselves
are teachers of music and life. Just as the question of whether or not the study of survi-
vors’ music is a kind of activism is interestingly answered by shifting focus away from
the researcher to the ways that survivors themselves become activists, the teaching of
survivors’ music can be fruitfully pursued by drawing attention to survivors’ teaching
activities. An instructor must first find such materials in the written literature, and this
may seem difficult; but since most often survivors perform, testify, and write narratives
of their experiences at least partly to educate others, there is an abundance of material.
Using survivors’ teaching practices as inspiration, one may instigate group learning
of pieces of survivors’ music in classes. I have found this to be one of the best ways to
convincingly demonstrate the pleasure and the hopefulness inherent in the study of sur-
vivors’ music, and to demonstrate the utility of music in people’s lives. Such learning
and performance also create bridges across the gulfs that often separate students from
survivors, by affecting a transubstantiation of a song, melody, rhythm, or other musical
piece or activity from one person to another or to a group. My survivors’ music seminar
has learned and performed songs and instrumental pieces of survivors of the “comfort
women” system, the Holocaust, and African-American slavery.
Conclusion
In this chapter I have overviewed some of the primary ethical, intellectual, and practical
issues that arise in the study of survivors’ music. The overriding issue, in my view, is to find
a way to be a scholar, educator, and activist without displacing people from the center
of one’s intellectual, pedagogical, and political goals. If “the study of survivors’ music”
doesn’t coalesce into a crystal-clear method, this is because so much must be worked
out between scholar-educator-activists and the people they work with; that working-
out is the fundamental principle of the method.13 It is a method that stresses listening to
and learning from survivors and their music rather than helping them, and facilitating
others in similar processes of learning. In this way it hopes to spread the word about
the plights of people who suffer and have suffered, to spread appreciation of their art-
istry, and to disseminate the knowledge they have acquired through their struggles—
knowledge that may make life easier for many of us, and may prevent cycles of violence
and traumatic experience and repetitions of shameful episodes in human history. As a
kind of musical inquiry interested in people and practice over ideas and ideologies in
the abstract, which stresses the importance of listening to others, of educational activ-
ism, and of forging connections with educators and others outside the academy, it is my
hope that the study of survivors’ music may make a profound contribution to human
history—musical and otherwise—and to the general well-being of social worlds. Many
survivors slip away from us every day and take these reservoirs of music and knowledge
with them, to our lasting impoverishment. There is much work to do.
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my gratitude to Yi Okseon, Yi Yongsu, Han Jeongsun, and the other
survivors of the Japanese military “comfort women” system and radiation sufferers who
have inspired this chapter. I am grateful to the students of my seminars on “Survivors’
Music” at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Columbia University. Thanks
also to the attendees of a Columbia University Ethnomusicology Center presentation,
titled (somewhat hyperbolically) “Survivors’ Music: A Manifesto,” for their suggestions
and questions, and to the editors of this volume for their careful criticisms.
Notes
1. My book Hearts of Pine: Songs in the Lives of Three Korean Survivors of Japanese Military
Sexual Slavery (2012) puts this method into practice much more thoroughly.
2. A system of organized sexual slavery by which the Japanese military and business pro-
vided sexual services for soldiers and affiliated civilians. The system, often called Japanese
military sexual slavery, involved between 50,000 and 200,000 girls and young women
from across Japan’s colonial territories. See Yoshimi (1995: 92–93).
3. My own attempt to sort these things out, and turn them into a method of inquiry and
documentation, can be read in the preface to Hearts of Pine (2012: ix–xii).
4. www.nanum.org.
5. One’s showpiece song, or “number eighteen” (ship-pal bon, an expression of Japanese ori-
gin) is a kind of personal favorite/best song which many Koreans of older generations
often sing voluntarily or by request at parties and other informal social settings. For more
on the “number eighteen,” see Pilzer (2012: 38).
6. Korean ages are counted from conception, so Yi Okseon was roughly a year younger in
European reckoning.
7. Many survivors’ written and spoken narratives generally stop at the moment of “lib-
eration,” although at this moment survivors have hardly begun to grapple with their
experiences. Two nonetheless immeasurably valuable narratives exemplify this: Bree
Lafreniere’s Music through the Dark, about accordionist Daran Kravanh’s tale of survival
under the Khmer Rouge (2000); and Szymon Laks’s Music of Another World, about his
term as the conductor of the men’s orchestra at Birkenau (1979). The fetishization of vio-
lence in the historical understanding of modern atrocities and traumatic experience is
such that many survivors have come to understand their value as public people to be con-
centrated in their ability to relate traumatic historical events, and often stop when the
most horrific part of their story is finished, before the work of self-reconstruction and
healing has begun.
8. One might contrast this adjectival way of thinking about music with Western art music’s
predilection to foreground musical “pieces” (nouns) or Christopher Small’s (1998) empha-
sis on musical practices (verbs).
9. For instance, Steven Feld’s Sound and Sentiment (1980), one of the central documents in
the small literature of sociomusicology, is notable for focusing on the relations between
environmental sound, language, and music.
10. I listen to Pak Duri’s musicality in her speech, testimony, and singing, and in her shin-
sae taryeong (ballad of life’s trials), a kind of vocalization between song and speech,
attempting to understand how the voice she cultivated in song was useful to her in other
expressive realms, among other things (2012: 31–66). I recorded many conversations with
survivor Mun Pilgi, and listened for how she “musicalized” her daily life by introducing
musical sounds—song quotations, clapping, rhythmic vocalization—and topics while
speaking, sitting in silence, and listening to environmental sound (ibid.: 67–104). In this
way, Mun Pilgi used music to strive away from her feelings of isolation and toward differ-
ent senses of togetherness—the togetherness of the shared rhythm of clapping, or shared
knowledge of a song, or a fandom, for instance. In one remarkable example, she begins to
sing to the pulse of a young woman’s casual tapping, establishing a collective pulse which
bridges generations and gulfs of experience (ibid.: 102). Such moments of the emergence
of music also demonstrated the way that she used “the musical” to weave threads of the-
matic coherence through her life—peppering her talk with quotations from her favorite
songs, for instance.
11. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/voices/.
12. It is not uncommon in written Korean, especially when approximating speech, to omit
plurals. So it is impossible to know if this refers to one woman or a group, or both.
13. A remarkable example of another project in the study of survivors’ music is Jessica
A. Schwartz’s work with Rongelapese survivors of American nuclear testing in the Pacific
and their descendants. Her attention to the political interests and personal wishes of her
collaborators is admirable, and she has evolved her own methods to reflect these interests
and desires (see Schwartz, 2012a, 2012b).
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Chapter 15
M u sic and C onfl i c t

Resolu ti on
The Public Display of Migrants in National(ist)
Conflict Situations in Europe: An Analytical Reflection
on University-Based Ethnomusicological Activism
Britta Sweers
Nationalism and migration have been two central forces in shaping the political land-
scape of Europe—besides the formation of transregional structures, such as the European
Community (e.g., Behr, 2005). This has become particularly apparent in the post-1989
situation (e.g., Fijalkowski, 1993). While the period before 1989 also experienced a strong
migrant movement, especially into states like Germany, Austria, and Switzerland that
recruited so-called “guest-workers” during the economic boom, the political perception
was mostly focused on the divided situation of the Cold War. The fall of the Berlin Wall in
1989 and the subsequent downfall of the Soviet Union and communist governments of the
Eastern Bloc countries led to a change of the economic and political systems in Eastern
Europe. One could thus observe the formation of new nation-states, including the Baltic
states Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, along with an increasingly unstable situation that
also influenced regions outside the initial conflict zones. This became most visible with the
Yugoslavia Wars in the 1990s, but also with new persecutions, for example of Romanian
Roma, and relocations of earlier migrant populations, such as the Russian-Germans.
The result was a large migration flow, particularly into those Western countries that had
started to accept political refugees after the end of the guest-worker recruiting period. The
admittance of the modern, partly traumatized migrants and the integration of the earlier
migrant groups have been partly highly conflict-laden processes, which partly led to vio-
lent escalations, as became apparent in Germany in the early 1990s.
By particularly focusing on three different case studies of so-called “action ethnomu-
sicology” from Germany and Switzerland (cf. Pettan, 2008), this chapter predominantly
focuses on the university-based work of public display of migrants through music in
512 Britta Sweers
time-restricted contexts with limited preceding research data. Based on a general analysis of
the impact of applied ethnomusicology in this situation, the chapter addresses the relation
between academic research and applied work. All these projects indicate that successful
intercultural interaction is not only based on profound ethnomusicological research—such
as a cartography of the addressed migrants or musical cultures, an analysis of the specific
problem situation, and the role of the music in this context. Rather, a systematic knowledge
and management of the projects’ key factors is likewise essential—particularly, as most
projects require pragmatic compromises with regard to the scientific hard facts. Besides the
infrastructural situation, these key factors also comprise a clear knowledge of, for instance,
the various target groups, including the needs and interests of the participatory groups and
institutions involved—that is, the ethnomusicologist, his or her institution, public institu-
tions, the government, audiences, and, most important, the migrants themselves.
As I will thus argue here, a central condition for successful applied work in this situa-
tion is a careful (self-)analysis of the general possibilities of the ethnomusicologist. This
systematization of these various steps and factors notwithstanding, the large number of fac-
tors involved in this applied work indicate that a generalization and theoretization is dif-
ficult. Not only does music play highly different roles in the various contexts, the “human
factor”—be it with regard to the target groups and even the ethnomusicologist him- or
herself—adds an element that is difficult to calculate and systematize, as the various inter-
ests, needs, and assumed role/power expectations often do not correspond with each other.
Framing the Institutional and

Political Context
Following this line of argument, it appears essential to first clearly frame the projects with
regard to the broader political situation, the general role of music in these context, and the
institutional position of the ethnomusicologist. The latter can strongly vary—for example,
the specific situation of an ethnomusicologist within the German-speaking countries
partly strongly deviates from the US situation and related discourses. I will first focus on the
latter aspect, before undertaking a broader political contextualization of the case studies.
The Institutional Contextualization

of the Ethnomusicologist
Unlike the situation as outlined by Harrison (2012: 506–515) and Titon with Fenn (2003),
ethnomusicologists were forced to work outside a strictly academic context in the
German-speaking countries from early on. This was not only a result of the extremely mar-
ginal situation of ethnomusicology (Sweers, 2008b), but also of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s
ideal of a comprehensive university education that was favored as a value in itself—yet not
Music and Conflict Resolution 513
as a subsequent and clearly defined job guarantee (ibid.). This has led to a strong(er) tradi-
tion of non-academic applied activities (including journalism, the commercial music busi-
ness, and diplomatic employment), as well as to a much earlier awareness of the discipline’s
social position than in the United States (cf. Harrison, 2012: 514). Consequently, the work in
the commercial sector might be, but is not necessarily viewed as, an area of applied work in
German-speaking countries. Rather, it is perceived as a normal or at least inevitable form of
subsequent employment—the detachment from more scholarly activities notwithstanding.1
With regard to the projects discussed below, it is further important to realize the
clear difference of applied ethnomusicology, which is tied to an academic infrastruc-
ture (and institutional representation), the situation of ethnomusicologists employed
at non-academic institutions (e.g., civil initiatives), and ethnomusicologists active
as freelance workers who have little or no access to institutional infrastructures and
depend more strongly on comprehensive funding. This chapter will particularly focus
on the first group, that is, full-time employed ethnomusicologists who are connected to
an academic institution. However, unlike the situation of applied ethnomusicology as
depicted by Sheehy (1992) and Seeger (2008), the projects discussed here are not related
to preceding research or fieldwork but rather emerged at the request—often on short
notice—of the communities in which the ethnomusicological post is located.
The Political Context of the Case

Studies: Migration in Germany and
Switzerland
Germany experienced several waves of migration since the end of World War II (Bade
and Oltmer, 2004; Reißlandt, 2005). From 1955 to 1973, foreign workers were specifi-
cally recruited in both Germanys in order to compensate for labor shortage in specific
branches of industry. Thus, West Germany established recruiting contracts with Italy
(1955), Spain and Greece (1960), Turkey (1961), Morocco (1973), Portugal (1964), Tunisia
(1965), and Yugoslavia (1968). In East Germany, these were especially contract workers
from Vietnam, Poland, and Mozambique, yet in total much less than in West Germany.
In the 1970s (the recruiting of so-called “guest workers” was stopped in West Germany
in 1973), this group was succeeded by asylum seekers and refugees, while the 1980s were
likewise shaped by the joining of the family members from the former recruiting coun-
tries. Finally, the 1990s were shaped by the resettlement of the so-called “Spätaussiedler”
(“late repatriates”) from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. This historical
development is also reflected in the distribution of migrants within the counties at the
time of writing with a stronger share in the west of about 12 percent—in contrast to
the eastern counties with an average share of 2 percent.2 As a total, the population of
Germany comprises a share of migrants (7.289149 out of 82.437995 persons).3
Unlike countries like the United States that have been strongly shaped by a clear
awareness of migration, political discourses only started to perceive Germany as a
514 Britta Sweers
migrant country from the mid-1990s on (e.g., Butterwegge, 2005). Within the context
of a democratic system, yet also of an increasing number of conflicts, this has, first of all,
resulted in a relatively supportive situation regarding intercultural research and insti-
tutionalized applied projects in Germany.4 This is clearly different from what Hemetek
(e.g., 2006) depicted in her studies on minorities and what Araujo (e.g., 2010) or Corn
(2012) described with regard to indigenous cultures that are strongly shaped by conflicts
with governmental structures and might require more hidden acting.
This altered political awareness appears to be in striking contrast to the long-existent
presence of migrants especially within (particularly West) German major urban areas that
also have established a rich network of intercultural music-related institutions. For example,
Berlin not only features public events like the Karneval der Kulturen (“carnival of cultures”)
in early June, visible venues like the Haus der Kulturen (“house of cultures”), and world
music radio stations like the Internet station multicult.fm, but also provides integrative and
productive support from the governmental administrative sector (e.g. the Senatskanzlei
[“senate’s chancellery”] Berlin offers sound studio scholarships for world music or migrant
music bands). Similarly, Cologne features a strong network of intercultural agencies,
such as alba Kultur or the Weltmusik, Klezmer und Ästhetik Akademie, Integration- und
Begegnungszentrum e.V. (including an academy for Klezmer music), as well as cultural and
integration centers like Phönix: Kultur- und Integrationszentrum in Köln.5 However, having
been a judge for the counties Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Berlin dur-
ing the world music CREOLE competition in 2008 (see also below), I could clearly observe
a difference between Berlin and the more remote, infrastructurally weaker areas in East
Germany at that time. Not only was it more difficult to locate suitable bands, but also a com-
parable visibility of migrants, as apparent in Berlin, was clearly missing in these regions.
However, the long-neglected political acknowledgment of migration has also been par-
alleled by a large gap in scientific research. On the one hand, one could observe the emer-
gence of the active field of intercultural music education within German school music
pedagogy since the 1980. This is reflected in the studies of, for example, Merkt (1983, 1993),
Schütz (1997), Ott (1998), Barth (2001), Stroh (2002), and Schläbitz (2007). On the other
hand, the situation and the different forms of migrant music have only been marginally
researched in (ethno-)musicological studies, including the contexts and spheres of impact
(e.g., the role of sound studios and independent CD labels). With a few exceptions, such as
the Berlin-based research of Max Peter Baumann (1979) and Brandeis et al. (1990), studies
on migrant music have been mostly focused on Turkish communities (e.g., Baumann, 1984;
Reinhard, 1984a, 1984b; and particularly Greve, 2003; also Wurm, 2006). Different perspec-
tives such as Schedtler’s (1999) analysis of migrant street musicians in Hamburg were long
isolated studies until Clausen, Hemetek, and Saether (2009) added a broader perspective
that included Germany as well. Yet, with regard to a more comprehensive picture, the anal-
ysis of other music cultures is still rare (see, for example, Baily [2005] with regard to Afghan
music cultures or Bertleff with regard to the repertoire of Russian-German migrants).6 This
still comparably sparse research output is also the result of the difficult situation of German
ethnomusicology, which had only been marginally represented at German universities and
music universities until the new millennium (Sweers, 2008b).
Different from Germany, modern Switzerland has long been shaped by a strong migra-
tion (22.4% in 2010). Already in 1914, Switzerland counted an average of 15 percent migra-
tions (in the cities up to 30%–40%), which, however, led to very early discourses about
feared foreign “infiltration” and restrictions, although World War II resulted in another
flow of refugees—not least to the neutral position of Switzerland (Wottreng, 2001).7 In
contrast to war-destroyed Europe, Switzerland could revive its industry very soon after
1945, which led to a very early recruiting of migrant workers, particularly from Italy.
Furthermore, Switzerland experienced a strong political migrant wave, particularly from
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Tibet, and Sri Lanka. Much earlier than Germany, for instance,
Switzerland experienced strong anti-foreigner campaigns as early as the 1970s, which
became particularly apparent with the so-called Schwarzenbach-Initiative.8 The economic
boom of the 1980s saw an additional recruitment campaign. However, while the country
has clearly addressed its integrative problems in public, Switzerland has increasingly like-
wise been shaped by populist anti-migrant slogans—particularly by the dominant lead-
ing party SVP (Schweizer Volkspartei; “Swiss Peoples’ Party”). Given the smaller size of
the country, as well as the even more strongly marginalized situation of ethnomusicology
and a stronger focus on folk music research,9 the musical background of the migrants in
Switzerland has been even less analyzed than in Germany at the time of writing. While
there exists a body of research on migrant cultures in general (see, for instance, McDowell
[1996] with regard to Tamil cultures), the research on music outside journalism10 and out-
side the work of applied institutions like the Geneva-based Ateliers d’Ethnomusicologie
(ADEM)11 has again only been covered by occasional university-based projects in the new
millennium (e.g., Liechti [2012] on world music groups in Bern).12
In summary, these observations indicate that most applied projects addressing
migration in these countries ideally requires long-term research. However, particularly
in the situations outlined below—projects that emerged at a request of the local com-
munities—time and/or funding to adequately undertake this step were clearly lacking.
The conceptualization of the approaches thus required a broader overview of the role
of music within migration contexts. At the same time, the study of especially these rela-
tively small projects allows for a detailed study of the interplay of the multiple factors
that contribute to the outcomes.
The Role of Music within the

Migrant Communities
As music has been intertwined with most of the central life contexts, one can observe a
highly complex situation in Germany (that can, in parts, be transferred to Switzerland).
Just to outline a few selected aspects that should only serve as a framework:
• Many migrants have been continuing their music traditions within their internal
cultural networks. This basically occurs in a private sphere—as apparent with the
516 Britta Sweers
Rostock-based German-Russian choir Nadejda (Sweers, 2011). Many Spätaussiedler,

for instance, had their own singing clubs, which primarily functioned as a central
sociocultural anchor point at the time of the research of the Polyphonie der Kulturen
(“Polyphony of Cultures”) project in Rostock (2004–2006). Public performances
and the connection to various intercultural institutions, particularly within the
larger urban areas, notwithstanding, these activities occur either on an amateur
level or are located within a strongly private sphere. This includes performances
within the life cycle (e.g., fertility celebrities, weddings, or funerals).
• As the Rostock case illustrates, even regions with a small share of migrants (in this
case, 3.2%) are shaped by a broad range of musical activities. For many migrants,
music groups constitute a central contact point into the public sphere and are a cen-
tral source of income, especially in an illegal situation, as the case of the Togolese
migrants in Rostock elucidates (Sweers, 2010a, 2011). At the same time, as is appar-
ent with Schedtler’s (1999) study, migrant performers are also strongly present
within the street music scenes.
• Music is a central expression of identity, especially for the younger generation.
This is often expressed in fusions with modern Western directions. For example,
the second and third Turkish migrant generations have created their own music
language (Oriental hip-hop) on the basis of American hip-hop, while texts (e.g., of
Shakkah and K.S.B. Kanacks with Brain) often reflect on the contemporary situa-
tion of the teenage generation. Something similar could also be observed with the
Spätaussiedler generation (Sweers, 2008a).
• Besides the presence within the various above-sketched intercultural networks,
music can provide a contact point with “official” state-based institutions, which can
be described as Slobin’s (1993) “supercultural sphere.” For example, migrant musi-
cians are increasingly active at the central German Jugendmusikschulen (“Youth
Music Conservatories”). In Hamburg, which features one of the largest Afghan
migrant communities, one can discover an Afghan tabla teacher at the state-based
Jugendmusikschule, while Essen and Berlin already have established local categories
in baglama playing at the transregional Jugend musiziert (“Youth Makes Music”)
competitions (cf. Baily, 2007).
• Migrant musics are also embedded into global networks. For example, within
the Hamburg-based Afghan migrant community, one finds sound studios that
have provided a recording infrastructure for the musicians of the entire diaspora.
Likewise, as is apparent in Switzerland, music performers of “mother countries” are
often booked within migrant communities for concerts, as well as seasonal festivi-
ties, and rituals of the life cycle (e.g., fertility festivities, weddings, funerals)—the
presence of local musicians notwithstanding.
• The emergence of new music directions through the fusion with the “German”/
Western pop culture—for example, within the club scenes, as has been apparent
in Berlin`s Russendisko scene. Named after a novel of the German-Russian author
Wladimir Kaminer, Russendisko (2000) denotes a genre that has been fusing tra-
ditional Russian and modern music genres. Played at a high speed, Russendisko was
popularized in dance events and radio shows by Kaminer and RotFront musician
Yuriy Gurzhy in Berlin in the first decade of the millennium (Eckstedt, 2005).13 In a few
cases (Turkish music, Russendisko) music has become part of the global world music
scene—which is likewise the case with a few migrant groups like the Ensemble Kaboul.
These examples not only indicate a broad range of possibilities for applied ethnomusi-
cology projects working with migrants, they again highlight that the conceptualization of
each project needs to take the specific musical context into consideration—amateur per-
formances directed at private context have different requirements and interests than, for
example, street performers or professional “world musicians.” It appears likewise useful to
be aware of the chosen general form and related possible impacts of the applied approaches.
Staging Minorities: The Range

of Public Display Possibilities
Given the above-mentioned political support of intercultural education in Germany,

this chapter will particularly focus on the applied approach, which I call “public dis-
play” or “staging,” that is, the presentation of migrants through ethnomusicological
work in a visible sphere in order to raise the general awareness of these groups (within
other local communities, the broader public, etc.), yet also in order to strengthen the
groups’ self-affirmation through public affirmation. This includes the support of these
groups in locating and facilitating these spaces for themselves (cf. Pettan, 2008). The
goals of this approach can also be described as a display of migrant groups in spaces
originally not immediately accessible to them, based on the assumption that public
notice plays a central role for the conflict resolution. As could be observed during
Rostock’s Polyphonie der Kulturen project, the desire of becoming publicly acknowl-
edged appears to be an important factor of developing further self-esteem among
migrant groups—besides economic aspects. As the case of the Russian-German
Spätaussiedler group Nadejda indicates here, particularly amateur musicians perceive
a performance at a state-based music conservatory or university as an essential expe-
rience of being noticed. However, as the list below illustrates, there actually exists a
broad range of levels of public display through university-based ethnomusicological
work—again, that clearly differs from the work of public institutions—with different
degrees of control (from the perspective of the migrant groups) and direct interaction
with public audiences:
• Mediatized display: While the outcome (music, documentary, performance) is

ideally based on direct interaction between researcher and interlocutors, a direct
interaction with audiences is not necessary; the final form and range of display are
often under stronger control of the authors and publishers, less of the migrants.
518 Britta Sweers
• Visibility through printed documentation (e.g., in scholarly and journalistic

articles). Digital media possibilities—and related media coverage (e.g., through
newspapers) notwithstanding—a printed documentation still represents a high
form of recognition through its physically comprehensible form, distribution,
and interconnection with institutional (especially academic) sides, although the
production process can be very slow.
• Visibility through audio-visual media like CD recordings and film documen-
tation (as occurred in the Polyphonie der Kulturen project)—which often sym-
bolizes a broader perception and—real sale accounts notwithstanding—broader
public recognition within the physical mass-media sphere.
• Visibility through digital media, for example, Internet platforms that have a
wide range of distribution and can be quickly altered, yet are often perceived of
having less iconic—physical—visibility.
• Other forms of display, such as the transformation of the knowledge into school
teaching material (a large range of Rostock’s Polyphonie der Kulturen material
was transformed into music teaching units).
• Live display (which includes an interaction of the migrant group, the
ethnomusicologist(s), and the audience), for example:
• Public lectures on and with the migrants (as occurred in the Münsingen
Project). This allows a direct reaction of the migrants to their presentation, plus
an interaction with the audiences.
• Public concerts and events with the ethnomusicologist as a host and presenter,
but mostly in a moderating function between musicians and audiences, for
example, Polyphonie der Kulturen; Musik Festival Bern.
• Independent acting of the migrant group, which is in direct control of the interac-
tion with audiences, with the ethnomusicologist as a mediator at most, for example:
• Lectureships and teaching options at schools and universities (e.g., Polyphonie
der Kulturen, Musik Festival Bern)—ideally as a regular implementation, yet
often just as a one-time event.
• Network development, which includes establishing contacts with direct and
indirect policy makers, that is, entrepreneurs, marketers, and so on (cf. Lundberg,
Malm, and Ronström, 2003: 50) for further concerts, and likewise of the sociopo-
litical sphere, including civil initiatives, and so on (e.g., Polyphonie der Kulturen).
• Possibilities of access to recording studios, their equipment, and human knowl-
edge (e.g., of a sound technician)—which is particularly important for amateur
groups, who often have little experience on this level, yet also for more profes-
sional performers who often lack the financial resources.
While the central aim of the projects discussed below has been to provide the migrant
groups with access to public platforms in order to provide more visibility in spheres that
had previously not been accessible for these groups, they also reveal that each approach is
in fact a complex interaction of Pettan’s (2008: 90) fourfold model of action, adjustment,
administrative, and advocative ethnomusicology.14 Each project offered the migrants
space for action in public—in spaces where encounter with other, mostly local, groups
is at the core (adjustment), often including the interaction with institutions (administra-
tive), while the ethnomusicologist often served as mediator between the various groups
(advocative ethnomusicology). In order to analyze the interplay of action, adjustment,
advocacy, and administrative ethnomusicology (Pettan, 2008), this chapter will discuss
three case studies of migrants in national(ist) contexts in Germany and Switzerland.
Three Case Studies from Germany

and Switzerland
As some of the cases presented below have already been discussed in various publica-
tions (e.g., Sweers 2010a, 2010b, 2011), I will briefly sketch the projects according to the
initial conflict and context, conflict/target groups, involved institutions, and display
approach. The German project will be clearly at the focus, yet is relativized by the com-
parison with two projects in related situations in Switzerland.
Project 1: The Polyphonie der Kulturen

Project (Rostock, 2005–2008)
The first—and largest—project was stimulated by an event that took place in Rostock
(East Germany) in August 1992, when several thousand Neo-Nazis attacked a multi-
story building hosting Romanian Roma asylum-seekers and Vietnamese contract
workers. After a siege that lasted several days, the first two floors were set on fire. The
Lichtenhagen pogrom not only led to a restriction of German asylum laws, but also left
Rostock with the stigma of xenophobia. The local population, however, reacted to this
situation and subsequent Neo-Nazi threats with the foundation of various private ini-
tiatives against intolerance that finally resulted in the foundation of the citizens’ group
Bunt statt braun (“Colourful instead of brown”—the latter color being a symbol of the
Neo-Nazis) in 2000.
This conflict situation has been shaped by a strong local xenophobia, which was fur-
ther fueled by right-wing extremist activism (including right-wing extremist music CDs
that were distributed on schoolyards from 2004 on) and a still marginalized situation of
the actual victims, and migrants in the region in general. Given Rostock’s negative repu-
tation in public media even more than a decade after the events, the Ausländerbeirat
(“Advisory Board of Aliens”)—that had, like Bunt statt braun, been founded after
Lichtenhagen—suggested setting a more positive emphasis on the present situation
and variety through a stronger visibility of the migrant groups, rather than only looking
backward at a static picture of the negative past.
520 Britta Sweers
The applied ethnomusicological project, called Polyphonie der Kulturen, was under-
taken between 2005 and 2008 as a collaboration between the Hochschule für Musik and
Theater Rostock (“University of Music and Theatre Rostock,” abbr. HMT Rostock) and
the civil initiative Bunt statt braun (Sweers, 2010a, 2011), which had approached me with
this request. Set in a situation with only few intercultural institutions and limited fund-
ing options, it consisted of the production of a CD (released in 2006; Figure 15.1) and a
CD-ROM (released in 2008) at its core—thus a form of mediaized display. While Bunt
statt braun, as producer of the CD, was responsible for organization and finances, the
HMT Rostock provided the scientific background (and thereby authorization) of the
project, as well as the recording infrastructure. The project also resulted in scholarly
articles and the transformation into school teaching material. This mediatized display
was further enhanced by live presentations in the forms of accompanying concerts and
festivals—that have partly led to a strengthening of independent acting of the migrants,
that is, in form of lectureships and further concerts and networks.
Figure 15.1 The Polyphonie der Kulturen CD cover.

The integrative side of this approach was reflected on the CD that not only comprised
Rostock-based migrant performers with their own music and Germans playing “world
music,” but also intercultural music projects. The CD-ROM contains background infor-
mation on the music and performers, as well as a unit on dealing with Neo-Nazi music
in the classroom in order to strengthen teachers/educationalists (as “indirect policy
makers,” cf. Lundberg et al., 2003) and teenagers. As the latter case indicates, the project
thus addressed three target groups:
• At the core were the migrants whose visibility was strengthened through public
media and concert presentation and the support of independent acting.
• Regarding the local target groups, one central discourse behind the project could be
described as raising tolerance and acceptance through the knowledge of the music
of “other” cultures (which was directed at a teenage audience—as the central tar-
get group of contemporary right-wing extremist groups). This discourse was also
stimulated by a situation that differed—with its small number of migrants (2004:
3.2%; 2011: 1.9%)15—clearly from that of urban contexts like Hamburg, Berlin, and
Cologne), which have been shaped by much larger numbers (2005: Hamburg: 26%;
Berlin: 22%; Cologne: 33%).16
• A third, likewise important, aim of the project, also with regard to the actual bal-
ance of local and migrant population, was a direct confrontation with right-wing
extremism (which was particularly targeted at school teachers and intended to
strengthen their position in the classroom through knowledge).
Case Studies 2 and 3: Switzerland
Project 2: The Münsingen Project (2010–2011)

This small project was conducted at the request of the small city of Münsingen (11,300 inhab-
itants; share of migrants: 8.5%17). Located approximately 20 kilometers southeast of Bern,
the local community of Münsingen had set up an exhibition entitled “Alien in the village?
No-one has always been living here” (“Fremd im Dorf? Niemand war schon immer hier”).
The documentary that was displayed in the castle museum from autumn of 2011 until spring
of 2012 highlighted the migrant history of the community since the 1960s. Focusing on the
Italian guest-worker migration and modern refugee and immigration history, it likewise re-
analyzed the concept of “Swiss” identity by discussing the presence of Celtic and Roman
communities prior to the Alemannic tribes in the sixth century, the latter being considered a
keystone of Swiss-German identity.18 Given the strong anti-immigration paroles of the lead-
ing political party, SVP, which held a share of 26.6 percent19 in the national parliament in
2011, this could also be read as a form of protest—by individuals, but—as became apparent
in the opening speech of the town’s major—of the larger community as well.
522 Britta Sweers
The exhibition was accompanied by public lectures at Münsingen’s Adult Education

Centre. Within this context, I was requested by Therese Beeri—one of the project leaders
and a retired politician who was working for Münsingen’s cultural center—to develop a
one-night lecture. Again, in a situation in which the political debate had contributed to a
strong de-individualization of the migrants, the factor of “visibility” became significant.
The idea of this smaller project—a variant of live displaying—was thus to introduce
the (Swiss) audience to various “world musics” via the musical interests and contexts
of migrant interlocutors (none was an active public performer), thus raising the level
of tolerance within the Swiss audience and strengthening the position of the migrants
in the communities. The presentation in February 2012 was centered on four similarly
structured interviews and was framed by musical sound examples that had been chosen
together with the migrants (Figure 15.2). With the migrants likewise sitting in the audi-
ence, I presented their life stories through their musical preferences, which was further
framed by a general introduction into the music of their region. As a large portion of the
Figure 15.2 Excerpt from the exhibition flyer with Mandi Lutumba and Nada Müller (transl.
of the quotations: “Mandi L.: The possibility of being able to work is important for integra-
tion. Paula B.: I was not prepared for Switzerland, I did not know anything. Lorenzo B.: In
Italy, dealing with government agencies and craftsmen is madness. Kouano Pierre N.: People
are very open in Cote d’Ivoire—which I miss here”).
local Swiss audience has initially been stimulated by their interest in world music, this
presentation resulted in a close interaction between not only myself and the interlocu-
tors, but also with the Swiss audience during the final discussion.
Project 3: The Musik Festival Bern (2011)

In contrast to the previous two examples, the third case study was exclusively sited in
a professional musical context—the third Musik Festival Bern, which was set under
the motto “Flucht” (“flight/escape”) in September 2011. While this theme was mainly
directed at music-theoretical aspects, such as fugue structures, it nevertheless also
thematized the experience of exile. This led to a collaboration of the Festival organiz-
ers with Bern’s Institute of Musicology. At the core of this collaboration was the pre-
sentation of the Geneva-based Afghan Ensemble Kaboul and its rubab player Khaled
Arman (b. 1965) (Figure 15.3). Arman’s nomination as the festival’s Artist in Residence,
as well as the presentation of his music as equivalent to Western classical music, was
clearly intended as a means of empowerment—in form of stronger visibility within
the high art cultural segment—of the exiled performers. My role as ethnomusicolo-
gist was to interview Khaled Arman after a film presentation in public (live display),
Figure 15.3 Khaled Arman teaching at the Institute of Musicology in Bern.
524 Britta Sweers
and to facilitate and organize a practical workshop in Indian and Persian music at the
Institute of Musicology—in which Arman was presented and strengthened in his role as
a teacher authority. As this resulted in a subsequent one-semester lectureship on Indian
music at the Institute of Musicology, we can likewise speak of an independent acting
approach here.
The Role of the Ethnomusicologist:

Between Observer and Actor
Having sketched the projects according to issues such as conflict situation, target groups,
output, and so on, the role of the ethnomusicologist—as a representative, yet as an
authority—also needs to be taken into consideration, as it strongly influences the course
and outcome of the project.20 Furthermore, the reflection on the ethnomusicologist’s
own role within the project reveals the clear tension between a theoretically neutral posi-
tion and the actual interactive situation. With regard to the examples presented above,
we can observe three different layers of partly open, partly hidden role perceptions:
• the ethnomusicologist as a representative of an institution;

• the ethnomusicologist as an academic authority; and
• the ethnomusicologist as a private person.
In contrast to the position of an idealized neutral observer that might be paralleled in the
ethnomusicologist outside the conflict zones or actual acting initiatives,21 these situations
required the ethnomusicologist to become actively involved. How strongly the Swiss polit-
ical situation has been affecting the perception of ethnomusicological work became clearly
apparent when my professorship in Cultural Anthropology of Music was established at the
University of Bern in 2009. I and my assistant Sarah Ross were soon drawn into requests
for an active public involvement. As is even more strongly apparent here, public notice of
ethnomusicological work can be a key factor in the emergence of applied work. In my case,
it started with an article in Der Bund, a leading Swiss newspaper, on my work (Mühlemann,
2011), which included a description of the applied activities in Rostock. This brought me
into contact with several representatives of cultural organizations who had apparently
been looking for institutional collaborations. This perception as an authority figure within
the wider community is a good indicator of the different roles attached to the ethnomu-
sicologist, which go far beyond documentation, ranging from collaborator, institutional
representative, and active political actor, to expert and mediator.
My position as an academic was further challenged by my actual personal back-
ground. In the context of Rostock’s Polyphonie der Kulturen, I clearly had an out-
sider position, because I had not been involved in the conflict from 1992 and was,
moreover, from Hamburg, West Germany (I had moved to Rostock, East Germany,
in 2001). At the same time, I was also acting—being a German citizen—as a rep-
resentative of the power group, that is, the German institutions, the governmental
layer, and Rostock’s population, hereby being in a position to actually criticize the
political situation.
When I moved to Bern, where I undertook the other two projects, I found myself in
a completely different situation. While representing the university—and, thus, seem-
ingly a neutral academic—I now was a migrant myself and in an inferior situation. This
became particularly apparent during my first two months in Bern, which were shaped
by the various campaigns for the Bundesratswahlen (Federal Council Elections) in 2009.
The central negative target group of the leading party SVP had been the largest—at that
time—migrant group, the Germans. I was clearly struggling to position myself in this
situation. Not holding a Swiss passport, immediately recognizable by my Hochdeutsch
(High-German) speaking (that was clearly opposing the dialect that dominated every-
day speaking) and part of the publicly attacked migrant group,22 my voice seemed to
have lost the power it had held only a few months before.
I thus found that I had to develop a different voice through long-term observa-
tion, which I regained two years later, yet in a different position. As I observed dur-
ing the Münsingen Project and the Musik Festival Bern, I had moved to a much more
restrained position—more concerned to give both parties a voice, rather than to speak
out too strongly myself. While the Münsingen Project was part of a larger political
statement—set against the anti-migration policy of the SVP—it likewise required a lot
of diplomacy, for example by protecting the interests of the migrants and my own situa-
tion. Being a migrant myself, I had to be careful about making too direct remarks on the
complex political situation. While I still was in a power position (by representing aca-
demia) and while I also reacted to a specific political situation, my statement has shifted
to more general human issues than a direct criticism. My role as ethnomusicologist thus
took on different features during the three projects:
• Regarding the Polyphonie der Kulturen project, the civil initiative Bunt statt braun
took the position of the HMT Rostock as a neutral public space, also for staging the
cultural festival Nacht der Kulturen (“Night of Cultures”). The ethnomusicologist
was seen as a collaborator and institutional representative, but not active political
actor—rather, as someone who would elevate the project beyond normal recogni-
tion, especially due to the academic background. At the same time, the production
process was a constant mediation between Bunt statt braun’s interests and con-
cepts and the resources of the HMT Rostock (e.g., concerning the capacities of the
recording studio or the financial interests of provost and dean).
• The Münsingen Project viewed the ethnomusicologist as an official expert who
could actually explain the specific situation to not only the organizers, but also the
migrants.
• The Musik Festival Bern clearly regarded the ethnomusicologist as an important
authority figure to adequately present the Afghan Ensemble Kaboul.
526 Britta Sweers
From Science to Applied Work:

Semi-Calculable Factors
Returning to the initial question of the relation of science and applied work, the anal-
ysis of the background, the actual conflict/problem situation, as well as the ethnogra-
phy of the related music traditions, can be described as the scientific basis. Similarly,
there are segments and decisions of the applied project that are based on hard facts
and scientifically grounded aspects, that is, systematic factors, including, besides
approach and output (e.g., passive display through a CD), the identification of the target
groups and involved groups, or the analysis of the infrastructure and financial means.
A well-prepared management side clearly enhances the chances for a successful out-
come of the project. An ethnomusicologist nevertheless needs to be aware of the trans-
formative process occurring during applied project work, not least due to a number of
semi- or even incalculable factors that are the result of the various power interplays that
likewise have a strong impact on the original outline. This can be illustrated in the case
of the Polyphonie der Kulturen project. Figure 15.4 illustrates the results of a statistical
survey of Rostock’s migrant communities. However, the produced CD featured a differ-
ent distribution, shown in Table 15.1.
A comparison of the actual share of migrants (Figure 15.4) with the musicians repre-
sented on the CD (Table 15.1) reveals clear differences, which indicates that the produc-
tion process was not only shaped by pre-investigations and statistics, but also by other
factors. As Askew and Wilk emphasized in the preface of The Anthropology of Media
(2002), each media object represents its own ethnographic history—and this is likewise
reflected in this CD. As the project had been developed at the request of Bunt statt braun,
many groups were connected to the activities of the civil initiative, while the track list
was also shaped by the orientation of the central target group (a teenage audience), and
its political message against right-wing extremism. I will subsequently highlight this
decision-making process in more detail—particularly with regard to the infrastructural
basis and finances.
Former Soviet Union (33%)

Asia (31%)
European Union (18%)
Rest Europe (8%)
Africa (4.9%)
Americas (2.8%)
others (2.3%)
Figure 15.4 Share of migrant communities in Rostock (2004) [6,598 persons = 3.2%].
Source: Statistisches Amt Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Statistische Berichte: Bevölkerungsentwicklung. Ausländische
Bevölkerung in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Ausländerzentralregister) 2004. http://service.mvnet.de/statmv/daten_stam_
berichte/e-bibointerth01/bevoelkerung--haushalte--familien--flaeche/a-i__/a143__/daten/a143-2004-00.pdf.
Table 15.1. Track List of the CD Polyphonie der Kulturen
Country/Region
Represented by the
No. Group Background Music Music Style
1 Schoolchildren German Germany (political Latinized hip-hop

from Rostock (Rostock-based; statement)
one Jewish
choir)
2 Halb & Halb German Jewish music Klezmer
3 Students of the Intercultural Roma Improvization in Roma style
Musikhochschule (Russia/Romania)
4 Percussion Project German Venezuela Jazz/classical composition
Rostock
5 Nadejda Migrant Russia Russian choir singing
(19th/20th-century style)
6 La Prado Band Migrant Latin America Salsa
7 Los Talidos Migrant Latin America Salsa
8 Zartgesottene German Germany (political German-Anglo-American
Melodealer statement) folk
9 InterSquad Migrant Russia Russian-speaking hip-hop
10 Sambucos German Brazil Samba drumming
11 Capoeira Rostock e.V. Intercultural Brazil Capoeira
12 Akanga Migrant Africa (Togo) Traditional drumming/
singing
13 Hikmat al-Sabty Migrant Iraq Oriental pop
14 Nyabinghi Migrant Ghana/Jamaica Reggae
15 Bilwesz German Mecklenburg-West Regional folk music
Pomerania
16 Agua Flamenca German Spain Flamenco
17 Schoolchildren from German Germany (political Latinized hip-hop
Rostock (Rostock-based; statement)
one Jewish
choir)
528 Britta Sweers
Infrastructural Basis, Finances,

and Funding
One central factor of the outcome of these projects was the access to infrastructural
power. For example, Rostock’s Polyphonie der Kulturen project could relate to the insti-
tutional basis of the HMT Rostock, which was necessary in this situation in which larger
intercultural institutions were—in contrast to urban centers like Hamburg, Berlin, and
Cologne—rare. This included free
• access to recording studios and time;

• performance spaces, such as the central concert hall (which relieved additional
considerations such as room renting, insurances, advertisement, handling of
entrance fees, etc.);
• further support of the public affairs office; and
• funded academic publication possibilities.
This infrastructural situation had a strong impact on the application process. Only
because the HMT Rostock could provide such a central basis, was it possible to obtain
and work with funding from a variety of sources—the only way to conduct such a proj-
ect in a financially weak region. At the same time, Bunt statt braun wrote not only the
funding applications (that were more likely to be successful because of its political back-
ground), but also provided a network of performers—which was important due to the
limited time frame, which did not allow for lengthy research.
In the case of the Münsingen Project, the exhibition organizers provided the pre-
sentation infrastructure (lecture hall, advertising) and the interview spaces, or drove
the interlocutors to Bern’s Institute of Musicology. The latter was highly valued by the
interlocutors as they—as private persons—thereby entered a space of institutional (and,
thus, assumed societal) power. In the case of the Musik Festival Bern, the institute was
significant in that it provided financed teaching options and student audiences, while
the festival provided the public spaces for the frame program (e.g., for the film docu-
mentary presentation and discussion) and advertisement.
This institutional basis situation notwithstanding, additional funding is often essen-
tial, not only depending on the intended outcome, but also on the situation of the
migrants:
• In the case of the Polyphonie der Kulturen project, the mixture of amateurs and pro-
fessionals was a clear cost factor. While the amateur performers were obviously sat-
isfied just to be part of the project, they could not provide ready-produced tracks
for the CD (which had been the initial idea of Bunt statt braun), while the pro-
fessional bands could provide the tracks (which would save studio time) but also
expected financial support in some form.
• The Münsingen Project can be described as a relatively easy format. Focused on

one presentational event, it required little funding (except for a few travel expenses
and a small honorarium) that could be easily covered by both institutions.
• In contrast, the Musik Festival Bern presented professional musician(s) living from
teaching and performing, who would expect an adequate payment. In the case of
the Musik Festival Bern, it became only obvious at second sight that the festival
organizers who depended on mixed funding expected the Institute of Musicology
not only to host Khaled Arman’s performances, but also to finance his workshop.
This was only possible because I still had some starting money related to my profes-
sorship, which had been established in 2009. Otherwise, the combination of con-
ference and concert segments has been a highly difficult mix for Swiss sponsors, as
mostly only one component is supported.
Returning to the above outlined deviation of the statistical share and represented
performers on the Polyphonie der Kulturen CD—the ideal production situation for a
CD that accurately represented the statistical data would have been a backing of a large
amount of money without any conditions. Quality CD, CD-ROM, or DVD productions
are expensive if undertaken professionally and if aiming to reach a broader audience
(this includes studio time, sound engineers, packaging, booklet production—and, last
but not least, musical copyright fees). In reality, applied projects often have only a lim-
ited financial means, which—or parts of it—are also subject to further conditions set by
funding organizations, donators, and so on. Finances thus need to be viewed as a like-
wise decisive factor with regard to the outcome, however carefully planned.
The Polyphonie der Kulturen can be described as a low-key project—we acquired
approximately 10,000 euros of financial support. Given the lack of major business
companies in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, we could only fall back on smaller or
publicly funded sponsors. Yet, the variety listed here indicates the possibilities of gain-
ing financial support for applied projects, even in financially struggling regions. The
list of sponsors included the Landesrat für Kriminalitätsprävention M-V (a section
focusing on criminal prevention of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania’s Ministry of the
Interior), the Hansestadt Rostock (“Hansa City Rostock,” i.e., Rostock’s city council), the
Norddeutsche Stiftung für Umwelt und Entwicklung aus Erträgen der Lotterie BINGO!
Die Umweltlotterie (a lottery-sponsored foundation that supports environmental and
developmental issues), the Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend
(Federal Ministry of the Interior [Family, Senior Citizens, Women, and Young People]),
and the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (the regional
center for political education). While these organizations either supported specific parts
of the project or gave general amounts of money, a media storehouse financed the CD
packaging, and a media production company supported the CD design and booklet
production.
I still regard this project as an example of what is possible with little financial means.
However, working with mixed financial sources likewise required awareness of the differ-
ent deadlines and conditions of each sponsor—also with regard to the musical outcome.
530 Britta Sweers
For example, the framing piece (nos. 1 and 17) is a Latin schoolchildren’s hip-hop record-
ing. The song that emphasizes the positive multicultural side of the city developed out
of a request of two sponsors and was recorded with approximately 100 schoolchildren.
Given the large number of participants and soloists, we decided to include two versions
on the CD. While this track most strongly reflected the spirit of this project and was
shaped by pedagogic considerations (we included song sheets and a playback version on
the CD-ROM for further work at school), it also created a strong imbalance on the CD,
which was initially aimed at a more dance-oriented teenage audience.
Science Meets Application: The Issue

of Representation
We thus can discover a strong semi-calculable side by even seemingly clear factors like
financial issues. Yet, as we could observe during all three projects, this transformation
becomes even stronger in the selective process with regard to representation. As is
apparent here, the choice of the performers was actually shaped by multiple interplays
of interests and very pragmatic issues that each required the willingness to work with
compromises. In order to highlight these processes in more depth, I will subsequently
particularly focus on the problematic sides—especially in the case of the successful
Polyphonie der Kulturen project.23
The Selection of the Performers

for the Polyphonie der Kulturen CD
Returning to the Polyphonie der Kulturen project, the representative outcome was
clearly shaped by the actual situation, time/financial restrictions, and pragmatic deci-
sions. Given the small share of 3.2 percent of migrants in the broader region of Rostock,
the question of representation was highly complex: Should we select the few profes-
sional musicians who were likely to have high-quality material at hand, or rather ama-
teurs who might reflect the actual share of migrants more clearly, but did not have any
pre-recorded (and, thus, more affordable) material available, which would present a
financial challenge and delay the production? Set against the political idea of providing
a public platform for migrant performers, we decided to include a much larger share of
amateur musicians than initially calculated. In the end, we had to record approximately
half of the material—of different musical quality, which contributed to the highly het-
erogeneous nature of the CD.
A further deviation from the statistical data was a result of pragmatic decisions. As
outlined above, many groups were connected to the activities of Bunt statt braun as the
central intercultural organization within the region. For example, some members of the
Russian-German amateur choir Nadejda were part of the Advisory Council for Aliens
and were—while again deviating from our teenager target group in age and general
taste—the most accessible Russian-German late migrant group. The obvious dominance
of Latin-American groups (in contrast to their small share of 2.8%) is not only explained
by their involvement in Bunt statt braun’s peace festivals, but also by the orientation to
dance music. It can be debated whether playing or dancing to Latin music indicates a
stance of tolerance. Yet, it clearly mirrored the contemporary taste of German audiences,
which explained why some of Rostock’s best world music performers were Latin groups
at that time. Due to the small size of the migrant communities, we had to work with com-
promises on other levels as well, and sometimes had to face internal group conflicts:
• The Iraqi oud player Hikmat al-Sabty was the best representative of music from the
Middle East in Rostock—one of the few professional performers from this region at
that time. Yet, being a Mandean, he was not fully accepted by the small, but highly
heterogeneous local Islamic community (0.2%).
• The relatively small group of African migrants (325 persons/198,000 inhabitants in
2006) was represented by the group Akanga, which mainly consisted of Togolese
performers. The group apparently came together by coincidence, because this band
formation offered the only occasion to perform in public. As was apparent here,
finding appropriate musical partners within this small musical community with
whom one would also be able to get along personally can be challenging. One could
clearly observe personal tensions between the performers, which became apparent
in that it was already difficult to agree about the recording date, the pieces, length,
and line-up. Most of the women had simply decided not to turn up, and it was con-
stantly debated who was actually the spokesperson of the group, which more or less
fell apart after the recording session.
• Jewish music presented a specific dilemma, because the older—modern—local
community only slowly accepted the growing conservative group of immigrants
from the former Soviet Union. We thus decided for a German group playing
Klezmer. This might make sense from a political and pedagogic perspective, but
also strongly altered Rostock’s actual musical picture on the CD.
One could likewise observe “conflicts” with regard to the musical styles. As Adelaida
Reyes elaborated in Songs of the Caged, Songs of the Free (1999), Vietnamese refugees
based in the United States fell back on (past) traditional styles to indicate ties to their
home country. In contrast, the present was represented through contemporary (e.g., pop
music) styles. One could discover similar tendencies in Rostock, where the migrants
on the CD preferred to be represented by modern styles. Hikmat al-Sabty decided
to contribute a pop piece, while the Russian hip-hop piece by InterSquad was clearly
Anglo-American in style. In contrast to these “urban folk pop” styles, the German per-
formers preferred the older, acoustic styles, that is, they went backward and played “eth-
nically flavored” music to emphasize their stance of tolerance. This also explained why
532 Britta Sweers
no Vietnamese piece (as a reference to the Lichtenhagen conflict) was included in the
end, because the Vietnamese civil initiative could not find a group that represented a
commonly acceptable Vietnamese music identity from their perspective, although we
would later include video segments of a dragon dance performance on the CD-ROM.
Selecting Interlocutors for the

Münsingen Project
The situation was partly similar with the Münsingen Project. In this case, the issue of
representation was related to private persons—who should present an access to their
cultures through their biographies and musical experiences—and therefore not perform-
ers. Again, the chosen group of interlocutors partly deviated from the statistical data,
clearly due to pragmatic reasons. The interlocutors were chosen on the basis of preced-
ing research that had been undertaken by the community of Münsingen. However, the
selection—that was basically undertaken by my central partner, Therese Beeri—strongly
depended on availability, language skills, and willingness to actually reveal the individual’s
own biography in public, which thus led to several shifts in the initially intended group.
Three of the four interlocutors were migrants who had married a partner from
Switzerland: Nada Müller from Albania, who had left her home country independently
from her family soon after finishing school and had also been on one of the refugee ships
of the 1990s; Paula Brechbühler, a former biologist from Brazil; and Mandi Lutumba
from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who initially came to Switzerland to study law.
Only in one case, I deviated from the suggestions of the Münsingen organizers: Given
the strong presence of Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka, I insisted on including a Tamil
family—although it proved difficult to reach into the close-knit Tamil communities—and
to convince someone to participate, something that had already been difficult with the
general exhibition. Finally, the Udayakumar family—who had been one of the first Tamil
families to migrate to Switzerland—agreed to participate, which was fortunate in that Mr.
Udayakumar was one of the religious leaders in the local Hindu temple.
The biographical questions also included themes to which a broader Swiss audience
could relate, for example, childhood musical recollections, musical encounters, and
observations about Switzerland. Some issues that emerged as patterns and were high-
lighted during the presentation included the following:
• The central role of music (besides performance and reception) in the home coun-
tries as part of a broader experience of life-cycle celebrations and dancing;
• The experience of dictatorship, which became particularly apparent in the experi-
ence of media perception;
• The conscious refocusing on the (formerly unconsciously perceived) music of the
mother countries in Switzerland (i.e., the situation of migration).
I also asked the interlocutors for personal musical recommendations, which I further
contextualized for the audience, thereby putting the interlocutors in an authority posi-
tion. However, the dilemma of representation came up particularly here, as the inter-
locutors’ musical tastes often very clearly deviated from what has been stereotypically
associated with these countries—an aspect which I will take up again with regard to
power interplays and expectations (below).
The Representation of Exile within a

Festival Context: The Ensemble Kaboul
Similar issues emerged regarding the representation of the Ensemble Kaboul at the
Musik Festival Bern. While we first discussed the possibilities of having amateur
migrant groups, including one of the many well-known street bands, from the region
of Bern as performers, this was soon repudiated by the festival direction for organiza-
tional reasons—not least because an overview of migrant music groups in Bern was
lacking on ArtLink—the Swiss Bureau of Cultural Cooperation that was also consid-
ered a warrantor for quality. Furthermore, the festival directors regarded the audi-
ence expectations as a significant factor for the financial success of the event, and
were hesitant to include a more amateurish or street performance band. As the target
audience was mainly a group familiar with an art music concert situation and as the
time frame was relatively limited, we finally agreed on the Geneva-based rubab player
Khaled Arman, who appeared professional and prominent enough for this context.
However, what did Khaled Arman actually represent? His father, Hossein Arman, had
been one of the leading Afghan folk revivalists of the 1960s, yet Khaled Arman was initially
a classically trained guitarist. Born in 1965 in Kaboul, Arman first learned tabla, before his
father started to teach him guitar. Khaled Arman was then discovered by a Czech talent
scout and studied classical guitar in Prague, which was followed by a 10-year international
career as a concert guitarist. Only later, Arman started to play the rubab—the instrument
for which he had become known in the world music circuit. In 1995, Arman, his exiled
father, and further family members founded the Ensemble Kaboul in Geneva. The first
CD, Nastaran, appeared in 2001, followed by Radio Kaboul (2003), which was named
“CD of the Month” by the world music magazine Songlines. Arman also collaborated with
the internationally known viola da gamba player Jordi Savall. Arman’s biography is thus
clearly set between different cultures and codes that Arman is clearly aware of and which
he has constantly been displaying in interviews (e.g., Burkhalter, 2004; Cartwright, 2003).
This biography has been strongly contrasted by outside portrayals of the Ensemble
Kaboul, which has been often categorized under “world music.” As Baily (2010) elabo-
rated, in the Afghan music productions with fieldwork recordings had emerged in the
1950s. Baily contrasted these “Music for Non-Afghans (kharejis)” with productions in/
for Afghanistan that—centered around the station Radio Kaboul, which was founded
534 Britta Sweers
in the 1940s—comprised a mixture ranging from Western-influenced popular music

forms to classical Persian/Indian directions. As Baily (ibid.) outlined further, this local
multilayered variety notwithstanding, the global focus was particularly set on the
“Music for Non-Afghans” since the events of September 11, 2001: “In this context, one
particular group of Afghan musicians based in Geneva emerged to take a leading role
in what was now becoming established as the ‘world music market’ ” (ibid.: 83). On their
first CD, Nastaran, the ensemble recorded entertainment love songs from the 1960s, but
became particularly known with their second album, Radio Kaboul, which featured the
formerly popular singer Ustad Mahwash.
Nastaran appeared on the label EthnoMad, which is part of the Ateliers
d’Ethnomusicologie (ADEM) that was founded by the Swiss ethnomusicologist Laurent
Aubert in 1983. The policy of ADEM includes the support of the career of professional
migrant musicians in the Geneva region who are often in a highly difficult situation. In a
personal interview (September 28, 2012), Arman also spoke of the traumatic/depressive
sides of the migration experiences, particularly with regard to the older generation who
often have to deal with health problems that limit musical careers further. The lack of
public performances of the ensemble is apparently thus particularly caused by the illness
of Arman’s father—not so much by the decline of world music, as Baily (2010: 84) sug-
gested. The Ensemble Kaboul belongs to the groups that had been produced as a 10-part
series by EthnoMad between 2001 and 2003. The policy of the label—another example
of the impact of further, partly pragmatic factors into the applied independent acting
approach—not only includes retrospectives, but also the search for innovative concepts
(for example, Arman plays an altered rubab) on a highly qualitative musical level. This
in particular can become the starting point for public attention and the notice of other
labels—but clearly deviates from a strictly documentary approach.
The subsequent success of the Ensemble Kaboul was partly intertwined with the
images related to the 9/11 events. While the Ensemble Kaboul was initially a (however
highly professional) migrant ensemble which performed in more intimate live contexts,
their first CD was noticed as “The record the Taliban wanted to ban” in the online New
Internationalist Magazine,24 while interviews in the British world music magazines
Songlines and fRoots particularly focused on the destruction of Afghanistan through the
Taliban (e.g., Cartwright, 2003). However, it was not only the film Breaking the Silence
(2001) by Songlines journalist Simon Broughton, but also Baily’s articles which contrib-
uted to Western awareness of the ensembles. At the same time, the music of the ensem-
ble has not been depicted as revival (such as the Buena Vista Social Club) or individual
artistic expression, but as a desperate struggle for survival, “a group of musicians strug-
gling to keep alive a once mighty music, now in danger of being crushed by war and its
aftermath” (Cartwright, 2003: 48).
Khaled Arman’s highly reflective stance toward his own position, which I also
observed during the Musik Festival Bern, partly contrasts the representative role he is
associated with in journalistic portrayals. Similar to the previous case studies, this indi-
cates that the issue of representation is inseparably intertwined with the power of inter-
play of the different interest groups involved in these projects.
Power Interplays
As becomes particularly apparent in these smaller projects, the outcome of the three
examples was also strongly shaped by power interplays of the involved institutions and
other makers (Lundberg et al., 2003: 48–49). First of all, with regard to a broader context:
• Rostock: News media (negative descriptions of Rostock), politics (popular inter-

ests—also with regard to elections), and Verfassungsschutz (“the Federal Office for the
Protection of the Constitution”, action against right-wing extremist structures), civil
initiatives (as representatives of population and migrants), educational sector;
• Münsingen Project: Politics (against migrants) and local initiatives (encounter
with the living worlds of migrants);
• Musik Festival Bern: Established cultural business (Musik Festival Bern, as attached
to the art music scene) and academic institution.
These broader interactive layers shaped, for instance, the decisions on a broader level.
For example, the Polyphonie der Kulturen was not only a documentary of the migrants,
but also included a CD-ROM teaching segment against right-wing extremism; it was
furthermore accompanied by news media and politicians during the production pro-
cess (Sweers, 2010a: 210–211). As is apparent on a more focused level, for example dur-
ing the recording, these different intentions result in interplays of different powers (and
interests) into which the actual project is embedded (cf. Lundberg et al., 2003: 44–52).
I will subsequently highlight the interplay of the various perceptions and expectations,
which also highlights different forms of negotiation.
Representation, Authority, and

Negotiations during the Production
Process of the Polyphonie der
Kulturen CD
How strongly the question of representation is also intertwined with authority issues
became clearly apparent during the production process of the Polyphonie der Kulturen
CD. For example, it had been very important for us to include the group of Russian-
German late migrants in the CD production, which were represented by the male hip-
hop group InterSquad and the female choir Nadejda. Counting 2.7 million people, this
group had surpassed the Turkish-speaking migrants (1.7 million) in Germany and
counted as a problematic, yet long overlooked group at the time of the CD production
(cf. Sweers, 2011). It was often depending on state support and thus also often socially
536 Britta Sweers
marginalized (ibid.). It was obvious from the very beginning that this group (and espe-
cially the older generation) had the smallest self-confidence and self-esteem among the
migrants at that time.
Particularly for Nadejda, the recording process, the interaction with the sound engi-
neer, and further CD-related performances became central experiences, which were
at least as important as the finished object. Named “hope for the integration into the
new home country,” Nadejda was founded in 1988. The choir’s central organizer, Adelia
Engel, came to Germany in 1966 to work as a planning engineer for economics on the
island of Rügen. Having worked as linguistic mediator at the University of Rostock since
1974, she later established an integrative project for late migrants by founding the orga-
nization “Friends of the Russian Language.” As she recalled:
The central idea was to set up a context for Russian migrants and German-Russian
late migrants where they could establish social contacts. Arriving in Germany,
many migrants and late migrants lack a stable social network, in which they can
identity outside their former home area.… Yet also the Russian culture should be
mediated to other people—in order to avoid misunderstandings and to diminish
prejudices.
(Interview with Matthias Räther; in Fassnacht and Sweers [2008])
As Adelia Engel elaborated further (ibid.), Nadejda developed from the sheer joy in
singing: “The women always liked to sing Russian Schlager and folk songs during events
and festivities of the organization—and so I had the idea to found [our] own choir.” As is
apparent from the following interview example, choir singing played an essential role in
the everyday life of the members:
The central part of the eleven active members is unemployed or lives on a pension.
The singing in the group is a central alternative for the women. For me, creating a
good atmosphere, which evolves during the singing in a group, is most essential. You
can nicely relax, forget about your daily worries and whole stress that built up during
the week.… The successful public performance in the group and the applause after-
wards is, especially for the women, an essential confirmation of their achievements.
It gives them an opportunity to present themselves to the outside, get accepted and to
strengthen their self-confidence.
(ibid.)
Thus, this approach is very similar to what Pettan (2008) described as action and
advocative ethnomusicology. According to our recording policy, the groups them-
selves could decide which piece to include—which also gave them a position of power
in the project. Nadejda took its repertoire mostly from a choir tradition that emerged
in the early twentieth century, that is, traditional Russian melodies that were set to
late-romantic arrangements. However, these popular Russian songs did not really match
our target audience (youth groups, school classes). When discussing possible tracks
with the choir, we—here taking on a power role as producers—therefore suggested
not including their show-piece (“Kalinka”), as this well-known piece was immediately
associated with a different, older target group. While the choir (here in a decisive power
role) still chose a similar piece (“Kadril”), this was lesser known and allowed for open
associative space.
A further concern was thus how to turn the performance of an amateur choir into a
track that could stand side by side with the professional Reggae and Iraqi pop musicians.
Having never been in a professional recording studio (which likewise represented an
institutional power situation), the singers were understandably nervous. They not only
had to get used to the carefully positioned microphones, but also refused to be separated
by dampers. The interplay of different representative ideas became likewise apparent
when I announced that I wanted to document the recording session: The singers liter-
ally jerked up, raced to the nearest bathroom, added makeup—or, much to the horror
of the university technicians, hair spray within the sensitive setting of the performance
room—but appeared suddenly much more relaxed.
At one point during the recording, Carsten Storm, the recording engineer of the
HMT Rostock, took me aside. He found the performance rather lifeless from his
Western art background experience. Musically, he was right. However, the spokes-
person of Bunt statt braun was concerned: The women had little self-confidence
and could panic—a discussion topic that turned up several times and reflected the
policy of Bunt statt braun—the almost over-protective attitude toward the migrant
groups. Given the Neo-Nazi attacks in 1992, this appeared reasonable, yet became
musically restricting. Regarding Nadejda, the opposite happened—much to our
amazement. When Carsten Storm stopped the recording and asked the group, very
charmingly, to emphasize the beats stronger and to display “a bit more emotion”
(while the musically problematic, yet highly adored accordionist was moved into a
less visible corner), the group suddenly came to life and gave one of its most vivid
performances I had ever experienced. Furthermore, the singers apparently fully
integrated Carsten Storm’s suggestions during subsequent performances—to an
extent that one could argue that we altered the group’s performance practice in the
course of the applied project, yet to an extent that it gave them more stage presence
and self-control.
This issue of classical recording ethics versus protective considerations and different
musical attitudes could also be observed with the African group Akanga, with whom
the recording engineer saw much more musical potential than he was allowed to evoke
through more direct interaction with the performers. Similarly, we were warned by Bunt
statt braun that these performers would have trouble with turning up on time and would
need some time to get adjusted. This was problematic due to the limited studio time that
had been granted by the HMT Rostock, which did not allow us time for adjustment or
experiments. However, most performers were actually quite punctual. Moreover, while
we could indeed observe a constant negotiation between Storm’s classical recording
ethics, which were focused on exact timing versus improvisation, the musicians very
quickly found an easily solution by, for example, helping themselves with an occasional
peek at the visibly displayed mobile phone.
538 Britta Sweers
All the groups became further tied to the CD through the booklet and subse-
quent CD-ROM production, for which we conducted interviews. Also here, we had
to negotiate between the interests and authority of our interlocutors and our per-
spectives and academic background knowledge. For instance, Nadejda perceived
their repertoire as “traditional” in the sense of rural Russian music—which I actu-
ally contradicted, as the choir tradition represented a completely different layer from
what was elsewise recorded in the villages (cf. Olson, 2004). Rather than opting for
one version, I and Bunt statt braun thus decided to elaborate these different per-
spectives on the CD-ROM, which combined Adelia Engel’s interview with a broader
background text, which contextualized the choir’s repertoire. Yet, although we had
thought to have represented the choir with high respect—by also outlining the rep-
ertoire as a specific tradition in its own right—we later found that Adelia Engel was
not completely satisfied with this outcome. This example in particular indicates that
academic knowledge also needs to be taken into consideration when reflecting the
power interplays, here with the self-perception of the interlocutors. Should we have
hidden this knowledge? However, as this was also the basis for school-teaching mate-
rial, this gap would have led to an incomplete or even wrong perception of Russian
music traditions.
The Multilayered Interplay of Power

and Expectation: The Münsingen
Project
In the case of the Münsingen Project, this interaction of different powers became
particularly apparent during the interview process, which was strongly shaped by the
interplay between the ethnomusicologist, the local representative, and the interlocu-
tor. The perception of authority was likewise a strong factor. Just to highlight a few
key interaction points that have been contributing to the outcome of this project:
The role of the community representative versus the actual ethnomusicological
approach: As I was an outsider to the community, Therese Beeri offered to select the
interlocutors and to help me with translations of Swiss-German and Swiss-French
during the interviews. I thus not only integrated a communal representative into the
research process, but also gave Beeri a strong power role in the selection process. This,
however, meant that Beeri, highly educated, preferably chose interlocutors according
to linguistic fluency and education, that is, those whom she deemed to be best to talk
about music. This is not necessary problematic, but was even rather advantageous, as
Beeri’s presence contributed to an interview situation of trust, in which the interlocu-
tors very quickly opened up to me as the outsider. Yet it is nevertheless an important
transformative factor of the representative outcome of the project from a scientific
perspective.
The interlocutors’ realities and expectations of the community representative: Given

the urban-based, middle-class background, the interlocutors rarely referred to distinct
music traditions. Instead, they mostly revealed their preferences of popular Schlager,
both Italian and Albanian (Nada Müller), modern Tamil kollywood music (Udayakumar
family)—or indicated that music played only a marginal role in family life (Mandi
Lutumba). This took Terese Beeri much by surprise, who had hoped for more tradi-
tional, that is, iconic, references. This, like the previous observation, clearly calls for a
clear awareness of the expectations of community representatives, which is also a form
of power within an applied project that aims at public display.
Anticipated interview expectations of researcher and interlocutors: As these migrants
were no musical experts (or performers), we often had to remind the interlocu-
tors that it was especially their personal musical experiences that were important for
us—not any scholarly book knowledge on which they would be evaluated. As Nada
Müller pointed out in retrospect, she had been very nervous about her lacking knowl-
edge about what she considered proper Albanian traditions—thus indicating a fear
of evaluation of her tastes (my preceding interview outlines and intentions notwith-
standing) and hereby putting me, as the assumed knowledgeable academic, into a
high power position. For example, I had avoided any remarks about musical associa-
tions with the regions. However, both Beeri and the migrant interlocutors had both
almost automatically linked the migrant identities with rural traditions, not with
actual individual preferences.
Particularly from this perspective, the interview with the Tamil family
Udayakumar turned out to be the most complex one: The 17-year-old daughter had
been chosen as the most linguistically fluent spokesperson by the family and was thus
in a power position with regard to her parents, who had been at our initial focal inter-
est. At the beginning of the interview, she thus presented mostly material she had
researched on the web—to Beeri and myself who were assumed authorities, not equal
talking partners. Yet it became apparent that this family—among the first to arrive
in Münsingen in the 1980s—remained strongly embedded in religious Hindu and
popular Tamil music traditions—aspects that we only slowly brought out during the
interview process.
The presentation, that is, audience expectations/background and reality/research
interests: These observations were also significant for the final public lecture, which
was geared at presenting the migrants as powerful representatives of their cultures.
I thus put the musical preferences into the center of the presentation, yet without rela-
tivizing the material too strongly by “proper traditional music”—of which our inter-
locutors often had little knowledge. We likewise had to consider an audience that
could easily be threatened by musical presentations that were too theoretical. The
emphasis on the interlocutor’s personal reflections therefore played a significant role
here, as the Swiss audience could relate to experiences (childhood, weddings, yet also
the migrants’ reflections on Swiss music life). The planned interaction was further
enhanced by having invited the interlocutors to the presentation. After each short
540 Britta Sweers
portrayal they had the chance to answer questions from the floor, which again put
them into a power situation.
The Ensemble Kaboul:

Role-Perceptions in a Western
Political and Art Music Context
The examples from the Ensemble Kaboul at the Musik Festival Bern particularly high-
light the power interplays during the displaying process. I will subsequently relate to
fieldnotes taken during two situations—the soloist stage performance of Khaled Arman
during the Festival opening, and an ensemble concert with traditional or popular
Afghan music in the opera house, with further additions from observations from the
film documentary with subsequent public discussion at the opera house.
Situation I: Khaled Arman at the

Festival Opening (September 8, 2011)
It is Thursday evening, we are inside Bern’s old Town Hall. A highly varied audience is
assembled for the opening of the Festival: politicians, journalists, political and intercul-
tural activists. Khaled Arman, who carries a rubab, and his tabla player Siar Hachimi,
both clad in the traditional Afghan shalwar costume, enter the small, platform-like stage.
They sit down, tune their instruments carefully, and start an improvisation. The improvi-
sation starts out like a raga introduction and progresses to increasing levels of virtuosity. At
some point I wonder about the similarities between Afghan-Persian music and the music
of Johann Sebastian Bach (Arman still maintains his initial posture of a rubab player),
until I realize that Arman has indeed moved into a Bach-like guitarist improvisation,
which becomes even more obvious when Arman moves into a more guitar-like posture
(fieldnotes).
As I observe further, the audience appears surprised, as it obviously expected to
hear Afghan musicians in a traditional concert setting to play non-Western Afghan
music—due to the stage setting, the clothing, the initial tuning procedure—and the
political context. At the same time, the audience maintains the habitus of a Western
classical concert audience: silent, almost immobile, and nearly separated from the
musicians (who are, however, on the same level as the audience, not elevated, as with a
Western-classical stage) and applauding. During the unfolding event, it becomes appar-
ent that the audience has adapted to Arman’s fusion approach—for example, by reacting
physically to Arman’s improvisation cascades.
Situation II: Arman at Bern’s

Stadttheater (Opera House)
(September 8, 2011)
A few hours later. It is 10 p.m., and we are inside Bern’s opera house. A small, platform-like
stage with carpets and microphones is standing in the foyer, ready for the night concert of
the Ensemble Kaboul. The group plays a selection of light classical/popular Afghan music.
The situation is very intimate; a part of the audience is sitting or standing next to the musi-
cians. The audience is very perceptive, but mainly observant. It appears slightly detached,
especially at the beginning, maybe also because of the lacking background knowledge of the
related music tradition. Some are sipping at their drinks, others communicate physically
with their neighbors, but appear unsure about how to interact in direction of the musicians
who are perceived as “stars.” Some remark later that they would have liked to see them on
an opera stage (adequate for the star-like status of the artists). However, it is also apparent
that the audience needs time to adapt to the inner time of the concert (fieldnotes).
As these roughly sketched examples indicate, the musicians performed in a variety of
contexts, which are each shaped by different expectations and acting codes, for exam-
ple, during the opening concert, which can be described as a collision with the political
context (and the related audience expectations), which wants to perceive the musicians
stronger in the role of “victims”—which Arman denied through his posture. The audi-
ence expectation is “authentic” (i.e., traditional acoustic regional) Afghan music, not an
artist who plays self-confidently with the codes of different music cultures. Particularly
here, parallels to the above-described associations of the ensemble with the events of 9/11
become apparent. This ambivalent situation is a returning trope for Arman in personal
communications during the festival. On the one hand, this contributed to his popular-
ity; on the other hand, it does not allow the artists to keep an individual artistic identity.
This also relates back to the acting of Bunt statt braun, which, like other civil initiatives,
has often been emphasizing the “victimized” side in order to help, but thereby reduces
the multilayered identity of the artists to one limited imagery.25
The migration side of the identity became especially apparent during the public inter-
views, for example during the film presentation on L’Ensemble Kaboul en Exile (2002) on
Friday, September 9, 2011, which displayed Arman as a political person who can speak
for himself. Especially here, Arman strongly interacted with the audience from the very
beginning. Arman’s extremely eloquent expression might be unusual, yet it indicates the
necessity of creating situations in which equal encounters are possible, even though the
organizers might then have to step back. However, we also encounter Arman here as
a representative of a specific direction of classical Afghan music, whose performance
practice collides with the specific room, the specific audience-musician-relationship,
and the codes of an opera house.26
542 Britta Sweers
This thus raises the question of how we can create—with regard to the highly var-
ied different individual situations—functioning production and active arenas. The
Ensemble Kaboul might have other expectations than a rock or electronic group—which
raises further questions with regard to migrant groups and the role of public institu-
tions: Which spaces are available here—and how can we negotiate between the different
performance expectations?
Long-Term Effects: Developments
from the Finished Projects
All the above-discussed projects led to further developments—in some cases, indeed
from mediatized and/or live display toward independent acting. As might become obvi-
ous from the sketched project results, the above-discussed issues of representation and
power interplay strongly influenced the subsequent outcomes, which were not always
obvious at the beginning. Also, the long-term impact on a financial level—including the
open and hidden expectations of the various partners—should not be underestimated.
The Polyphonie der Kulturen Project

The physical result of the Polyphonie der Kulturen project is a CD/CD-ROM with a color-
ful cover, which, however, avoids any references to any direct event. The highly hetero-
geneous object does not fit well into any sale category (it does not fully work as purely
background, dance, chill-out, or political CD). Yet it worked extremely well as a symbolic
object and as a marker of a specific period—of a political situation, a music scene, and a
specific interaction between different groups, institutions, and persons. However, reflec-
tion on the outcome indicates that the project was embedded into a large number of dif-
ferent expectations by all groups involved. The public presentation of migrant performers
might have been central from an applied ethnomusicological perspective. Yet, given the
ongoing problems with Neo-Nazis, the didactic teaching aid against right-wing extrem-
ism raised the strongest attention by local teaching institutions, political institutions, the
county parliament, and so on, to the Polyphonie der Kulturen project at that time. And
while I would have liked to have the migrants standing in their own right within this proj-
ect, it was particularly through the interest in (or rather fear of) addressing the right-wing
extremist threat that the migrants were likewise noticed on a supercultural level.
From the perspective of the migrant performers, the CD and the subsequent release
concert presentation at the HMT Rostock in February 2007 constituted an important
local public platform (for live displaying) which had previously not been accessible.
The CD thereby not only added a more professional side to their musical work, but the
performers subsequently also received several bookings for gigs and parties. Several
migrant performers hoped to relate to the HMT Rostock as a public institution with
a strong focal role within the city’s cultural life. Their reasons were related not only to
finances, but also to their desire to be heard within the larger community. This par-
ticularly applied to the Russian-German amateur choir Nadejda, which subsequently
became a regular member of the annual Kaleidoskopnacht (“Kaleidoscope Night”)—
an annual concert event during which the international students present music from
their own countries (cf. Sweers, 2007, 2010a). Likewise, members of Akanga have been
performing at various events of the HMT Rostock. Yet, some project participants also
moved toward independent acting. For example, a Ghanaian drummer—who addition-
ally performed as an accompanist for a German-African dance group at the CD release
concert in February 2007—was subsequently invited to teach a drumming workshop,
as part of the practical world music segment of the school music curriculum, in 2008.
Furthermore, one member of the German-Russian hip-hop band InterSquad became
an internee in the sound studio—and could, in return, teach some hip-hop recording
techniques to the students.
Another outcome was the formation of a new music group. My colleague, histori-
cal musicologist and cello player Hartmut Möller, who was documenting the Iraq oud
player Hikmat al-Sabty, teamed up with his interview partner (on electric cello), plus
a Syrian E-bass player and a German tabla player, in the band Ourud Elmahabbe.
Having started out with the existent repertoire of Hikmat al-Sabty, the band increasingly
started to write new material, such as arrangements of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s
West-Östlicher Divan (“West Eastern Divan”). Ourud Elmahabbe was awarded a presti-
gious prize from the Deutsche Musikrat (“German Music Council”) in 2007.
The CD also became a strong marker within the broader national context, specifi-
cally the German-wide world music contest CREOLE,27 which attempts to give migrant
music—in this case fusion world music—a broader public platform.28 The CD led to
the inclusion of the county Mecklenburg-West Pomerania into the 2008 contest, as it
had demonstrated the existence of world music even in this sparsely populated region.
In the end, four groups from the CD—the Klezmer band Halb & Halb, Hikmat al-Sab-
ty’s band Ouroud Elmahabbe, the instrumental fusion band Chiara, and the folk band
Bilwesz—went to the highly competitive regional Berlin contest (with Bilwesz having
managed to succeed to one of the three final competition concerts).
While the public display of the migrants’ cultures had been the central goal from
the ethnomusicological side, it was very obvious that Bunt statt braun—which had
been struggling financially—had hoped to secure its work financially through the CD/
CD-ROM production. Yet, a major financial drawback became copyright issues. It had
been relatively unproblematic to sort out and pay the recordings to the German soci-
ety for musical copyright enforcement, GEMA.29 However, Bunt statt braun received an
unexpected additional bill for the video material after the CD-ROM release. Although
completely self-filmed and produced, and solely used for educational means, the CD/
CD-ROM was nevertheless put into a very expensive category. At the same time, Bunt
statt braun hired the ethnomusicologist Christine Dettmann on a project-base to
undertake further promotional work. Given the tight time frame of the civil initiative
544 Britta Sweers
and the HMT Rostock, only this extra research work enabled us to apply for possible
awards, for instance. This solved the financial problems in the end, when the project was
awarded a prestigious prize from the Bündnis für Demokratie und Toleranz (“Alliance
for Democracy and Tolerance”) in early 2009. The award was combined with a prize that
allowed not only payment of the outstanding dues, but also further support of Bunt statt
braun. Moreover, the project was included in the equally prestigious Stiftung Bürgermut
(“Foundation Civil Courage”) in 2009.30
Some Results from the Münsingen Project

The Münsingen Project also highlights a broad variety of impact layers, particularly on
the level of live displaying:
• Setting up a dialogue between interlocutors and community: Due to the excellent

advertising by Therese Beeri, the presentation had been extremely well-attended.
According to the feedback, this combination of personal experiences/stories and
music indeed had a strong resonance—and we could also observe that the audience
enjoyed the dialogical situation.
• Personal empowerment of the interlocutors who had been the “stars” of the evening
without, however, having been exposed too strongly on a stage (they remained sit-
ting in the audience). Furthermore, as Nada Müller reported afterward, the presen-
tation of her own life through different lenses had helped her to (re-)focus herself
as a personality through music. As she pointed out further, she clearly also enjoyed
learning more about her music and broader context, which she experienced as an
additional process of authorization of herself.
• I likewise gained some valuable research data, which has cast a critical thought on
the dilemma of presenting migrants through traditional music. While traditional/
folk music has taken on an iconic role within the world music sphere and educa-
tion, we might be careful to respect the background of interlocutors who are not
always from traditional communities. How do we deal with this on a public level?
Outcomes from the Musik Festival Bern

The collaboration of the Musik Festival Bern led to a subsequent one-semester lecture-
ship for Khaled Arman at the Institute of Musicology. Located in a more theoretical uni-
versity context with little performance options, the Institute was in demand of practical
workshops. Arman thus developed a class on Indian music—which became a testing
ground for further classes. Having basically taught music students, Arman now had to
deal with academic students with limited or highly heterogeneous practical background,
which required him to develop compromising strategies and new pedagogical concepts.
This was possible, because Arman could fall back on a Western institutionalized training
and professional career. Yet, these practical workshops were often more difficult with per-
formers who had little experience with institutionalized education and the specific needs
of, in this case, more theoretical university-based students. This not only indicates a fur-
ther challenge for the future, but also the problem that Arman’s employment at the uni-
versity could not be repeated on a regular basis, due to the university’s limited finances.
As became particularly apparent here—even more strongly than with the Polyphonie der
Kulturen project—the move toward independent acting within the public sector likewise
requires a profound rethinking of established structures. While this is indeed difficult in
financially tight situations, it is also a challenge for future applied work.
Outlook
Each of the small-scale examples discussed here indeed indicates that applied work
directed at the public visibility of migrant groups is a constant struggle with compro-
mises that lead toward the creation of artificial realities, for example with regard to
the selected groups or the recorded material presented on CDs. However, as the reac-
tions to the newspaper article on my ethnomusicological work indicate, there exists a
larger public demand for ethnomusicological engagement in local communities. This
reflects that the ethnomusicologist is not viewed as a detached academic, but rather as
an authority figure of whom instantaneous applied work of any kind is almost expected.
Returning to the issue of representation and power roles, these requests in particular
confront the ethnomusicologist with a situation that is not necessarily embedded in
preliminary research or related to his or her own field of specialization (as depicted by
Sheehy [1992] and Seeger [2008])—and requires fast action, often toward an imbalance
regarding the research element. However, an awareness of the relation of scientific data
and strategic planning, on the one hand, and knowledge of the nature and processes of
power interplays, on the other, can lead to a scientifically informed approach of public
displaying. The field of ethnomusicology could thus even more strongly contribute to
the solution of conflict situations related to migrants in national(ist) contexts.
Notes
1. Attempts to reconnect both sides are particularly evident within world music journalism,
as is apparent with the Swiss world music network Norient (Network for Local and Global
Sounds and Media Culture (http:www.norient.ch), which was founded in 2002.
2. West German counties like Baden-Württemberg (11.9%), Bremen (13.7%), Hamburg
(14.2%), Hessen (11.4%), Nordrhein-Westfalen (10.7%), and Berlin as capital (13.7%)
are shaped by a high share of foreigners—in contrast to the East German counties
(Brandenburg (2.6%), Sachsen-Anhalt (1.9%), and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (2.3%),
which is the focus of the first project.
546 Britta Sweers
3. See also the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, which provides extensive background
data on migration in Germany on its webpage, http://pdp.de/themen. Statistical data can
be found on http://auslaender-statistik.de/bund/ausl_3.htm; http://www.statistic-portal.
de/Statistik-Portal/de:jb01_jahrtab2.asp; http://www.agaenda21-treffpunkt.de.
4. See MusikForum (January–March 2010), entitled “Über Grenzen hinaus: Multikulti
ade—Wege in transkulturelle Welten” (“Multicultural goodbye—ways into transcultural
worlds”) edited by the Deutscher Musikrat (“German Music Council”) that is a clear reac-
tion to this situation.
5. Further details can be found on the following websites: Berlin: Karneval der Kulturen: http://
www.karneval-berlin.de/de/; Haus der Kulturen: http://www.hkw.de/de/index.php; multi-
cult.fm: http://www.multicult.fm; Senatskanzlei Berlin, Kulturelle Angelegenheiten: http://
www.berlin.de/sen/kultur/foerderung/musik/rock-pop-welt/index.de.html; Cologne: alba
Kultur: http://www.albakultur.de/sites/index.htm; Weltmusik, Klezmer und Ästhetik
Akademie, Integration- und Begegnungszentrum e.V. www.klezmerakademie.org;
Phönix: Kultur- und Integrationszentrum in Köln: http://www.phoenix-cologne.com.
6. See the project description of Ingrid Bertleff, “Russlanddeutsche Lieder: Popularlieder
in transkultureller Lebenswelt,” Universuität Freiburg (2012–2014). http://portal.
uni-freiburg.de/osteuropa/Forschung/Russlanddeutsche Lieder.
7. For further details see Bundesamt für Migration, Migrationsbericht 2010, http://www.bfm.
admin.ch/content/dam/data/migration/berichte/migration/migrationsbericht-2010-d.
pdf. Wottreng (2001).
8. This name relates to the Swiss nationalist politician James Schwarzenbach (1911–1994).
Founder of the Republican Party in 1971, he had started a campaign aimed at restricting the
number of migrants to 10% in each canton (Geneva: 25%) and the expulsion of the superfluous
numbers. While the motion was rejected in the 1970 referendum (with 54% counter-votes), it
also started a highly emotional debate on migration in Switzerland at that time.
9. Local folk music research (that is often also undertaken by performers and amateur col-
lectors) is separated from ethnomusicology in Switzerland. With a few exceptions, folk
music collecting has been mostly undertaken by institutions outside the university-based
musicology context.
10. As is, for instance, apparent in the rich publications on the Norient platform.
11. Ateliers d’Ethnomusicologie (http://www.adem.ch).
12. See also Hannes Liechti, “Eine Stadt voller Menschen, Kulturen und Klänge: Musik der
Welt in Bern.” The Fretless Blog (23.2.2013). http://www.fretlessblog.ch/musik-der-welt-
in-bern/.
13. See Kaminer’s extensive website, “Russendisko”: http://www.russendisko.de.
14. “1. Action ethnomusicology: any use of ethnomusicological knowledge for planned change
by the members of a local cultural group. 2. Adjustment ethnomusicology: (. . .) that makes
social interaction between persons who operate with different cultural codes more pre-
dictable. 3. Administrative ethnomusicology: (. . .) for planned change by those who are
external to a local group. 4. Advocative ethnomusicology: (. . .) by the ethnomusicologist to
increase the power of self-determination for a particular cultural group” (Pettan, 2008: 90).
15. Cf. Statistisches Amt Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Statistische Berichte: Bevölkerungsentwic
klung. Ausländische Bevölkerung in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Ausländerzentralregister)
2011. http://service.mvnet.de/statmv/daten_stam_berichte/e-bibointerth01/bevoelkerung—
haushalte—familien—flaeche/a-i__/a143__/daten/a143-2011-00.pdf.
16. Cf. Bundeszentrale für statistische Bildung, “Statistik: Migrantenanteil in den

deutschen Großstädten wächst.” http://www.bpb.de/gesellschaft/migration/148820/
migrantenanteil-in-deutschen-grossstaedten-waechst.
17. Statistik Schweiz—STAT-TAB: Ständige und Nichtständige Wohnbevölkerung nach
Region, Geschlecht, Nationalität und Alter: http://www.pxweb.bfs.admin.ch/Dialog/
varval.asp?ma=px-d-01-2A01&ti=St%E4ndige+und+Nichtst%E4ndige+Wohnbev%F
6lkerung+nach+Region%2C+Geschlecht%2C+Nationalit%E4t+und++Alter&path=../
Database/German_01%20-%20Bev%F6lkerung/01.2%20-%20Bev%F6lkerungsstand%20
und%20-bewegung/&lang=1&prod=01&openChild=true&secprod=2.
18. See Einwohnergemeinde Münsingen/Kommission Ortsgeschichte, Münsingen: Geschichte
und Geschichten. Münsingen. Fischer Print AG and Museum Schloss Münsingen, ed.,
Ausstellungsdokumentation “Niemand war schon immer da” (Münsingen 2011): http://
www.geschichte-muensingen.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/ortsgeschichte_muensingen/
dokumente/BeglHeftMigrat_V3_web.pdf for a detailed reflection.
19. Bundesverwaltung Schweiz. Nationalratswahlen: Übersicht Schweiz 2011. http://www.poli-
tik-stat.ch/nrw2011CH_de.html.
20. Cf. Lundberg et al. (2003: 44), hereby meaning “who are directly engaged with themati-
cally related activities,” which includes the whole range of active involvement from man-
aging to production, etc. (ibid.: 50).
21. Cf. Seeger (2008) for a deeper reflection on this dilemma.
22. One classical headline from that period that exceeds the actual date of the elections is,
for instance, “Deutschen-Hass: ‘Ach geh doch wieder heim ins Reich’ ” (Runa Reinecke)
in the public newspaper 20 Minuten http://www.20min.ch/news/kreuz_und_quer/
story/31228033. Dec. 20, 2009.
23. Cf. Kisliuk (2008) and Barz (2008) with regard to the complex role of situation and con-
flicts during fieldwork.
24. N.a. 2003. Review Nastaran (Ensemble Kaboul). http://newint.org/features/2003/04/05/
mix/.
25. This one-sided dominance is also apparent with fusion recordings, e.g. with the viola da
gamba player Jordi Savall. On recordings like Orient-Occident, it was Savall who deter-
mined how the ensemble had to realize and to improvise the “orient” musically (cf.
Sweers, 2012).
26. This also within broader world music contexts. Arman was apparently angry about
the prize awarding of the BBC Radio 3 Awards where the ensemble played in front of a
half-drunk audience, which had little interest in acoustic chamber music, but rather
expected electronic music (Cartwright 2003: 49)—which casts doubt on the relation of
mediaized presence, live contexts, and the related audience/hearing expectations.
27. See also http://www.creole-weltmusik.de.
28. CREOLE particularly addresses professional groups experimenting with fusion projects,
but also those who develop styles like Tango or Klezmer further with their own composi-
tion. See also http://www.creole-weltmusik.de.
29. GEMA: “Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungen und mechanische Vervielfäl-
tigungsrechte.”
30. The Stiftung Bürgermut has collected various projects with regard to civil courage in order
to publish these as exemplary in a printed and online collection. See also http://www.
buergermut.de.
548 Britta Sweers
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Pa rt V I
E DU C AT ION
Chapter 16
Strategie s a nd
Opp ortuniti e s i n t h e
E ducation Se c tor for
Susan E. Oehler Herrick
Introduction
The process of becoming a culturally competent musician represents an endur-

ing interest in ethnomusicology. Building musical capacities for expression is part of
socialization, through which humans interpret cultural actions and fashion meaning-
ful identities. Individuals can learn musical culture through formal schooling and tra-
ditional or self-directed studies, which increase avenues for musical participation and
expression. As people learn through music, their interactions often stretch beyond any
single institution and reflect the influence of a range of social groups.
Partnerships among institutions for formal education, cultural organizations, and
professional musicians working as “teaching-artists” have long provided resources to
supplement and enrich schooling (Myers, 2003; Richereme et al., 2012). Such partner-
ships represent streams of institutional interchanges that may bridge distinctive class-
rooms, communities, and pedagogical methods while enhancing access to diverse
cultural and social musical practices. The site represents a rich opportunity to apply
ethnomusicology to support learning through music1 in the education sector, a web of
interrelated—though not necessarily connected—institutions and community groups.
Such work may inform scholarship in both music education research and the ethnomu-
sicology of music acquisition.
This chapter identifies strategies for applied ethnomusicology that may serve oppor-
tunities in the education sector, where partnerships among music specialists substan-
tially contribute to the learning experiences of youth in local primary and secondary
554 Susan E. Oehler Herrick
schools (typically serving 4- or 5-year-olds through 18-year-olds). The chapter aims to

link the analysis of strategies for applied ethnomusicology to the instructional contexts
led by music-makers, teachers, and educational program administrators. The focus here
is the United States in the scope of one urban region, particularly music programs for
the preschool through twelfth grade level (PK–12) in the pluralistic communities of
Cleveland, Ohio, and its environs. Cleveland is a Midwestern city on the south shore
of Lake Erie, expanded by industrial manufacturing through much of the twentieth
century.
Strategies of academically trained ethnomusicologists based in nonprofits, govern-
ment agencies, or universities often have informed approaches to educational initiatives,
within which any theories, methods, or resources of both ethnomusicology and music
education must effectively cooperate to engender meaningful educational impact. The
analysis foregrounds a micro-level perspective, examining what people do with music
to foster learning in social contexts. Implicitly, the approach assumes that ethnomusi-
cologists anticipate an integral and dynamic relationship between music and social con-
texts. Examples illustrate strategies of social interactions in education, seeking to reveal
ways that arts educators, including ethnomusicologists, may engage learners in activi-
ties through music. It reflects a theoretical orientation to ethnomusicology centered on
the social processes of musical practice,2 and constructivist philosophies of education.
The chapter demonstrates that decisions of collaborative strategizing lie at the center
of what defines applied work in the cross-institutional education sector. I contend that
effective strategies for applied ethnomusicology grow dialogically and contextually in
reference to identified educational needs of learners in a specific instructional setting,
which remain linked to larger social and cultural frames.
Applying ethnomusicology in education-sector partnerships may reveal and respond
to the multifaceted, dynamic worlds of music in ways that reflect the aims both of the
partners and those bearing the tools of ethnomusicology. Such outcomes promise value
to discussion of theory and practice in “applied ethnomusicology,” as well as broader
discourse anchored in the academy and the professional field of education. For those
students, however, whose learning seems deeper when they engage with music, such
outcomes may assist in fostering profound personal transformations.
In the United States, contemporary educational trends in the twenty-first
century—particularly those that value music as a practice connected to daily life—have
proven compatible with ethnomusicological approaches, which foundationally asso-
ciate music with lived human experience in social context. Many PK–12 schools have
forged partnerships with music organizations in their larger community to augment
resources for arts education. Music education for PK–12 students often grows within a
stream of programs offered by schools and colleges, cultural organizations, museums,
and religious and other community groups. In such necessarily pluralistic contexts,
decision-makers who shape learning through music must navigate crosscurrents of
beliefs regarding what constitutes music and what makes learning meaningful for young
music-makers. Identifying useful strategies for applied ethnomusicology that emerge in
Strategies and Opportunities in the Education Sector 555
the contexts of complex musical cross-talk and practice may inform the development of
pedagogies for culturally responsive teaching3 or multicultural education.
Since 2004 I have applied ethnomusicology in the education sector as a mid-level
employee at nonprofit organizations in and around Cleveland, Ohio, beginning as
the Education Programs Manager at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
(2004–2008). Much of my work has involved developing and implementing pedagogies
for integrating popular music into PK–12 teaching,4 most often across humanities disci-
plines. These experiences inform the chapter.
Frames for Learning Through Music

across Institutions
With widespread economic challenges related to the “Great Recession” and systems for
funding public schools in the United States, the significance of cross-institutional part-
nerships for formal instruction through music has magnified (Richerme et al., 2012).
This is the case even though music instruction has remained more prevalent in PK–12
schools than other arts disciplines (Parsad and Spiegelman, 2012). Discourse around the
social contexts of public education in the United States notes shifts signaling cultural
change, such as the rising presence of English language learners in many schools and the
growth of populations designated as minority groups in US school populations. Many
educators seek resources for pedagogical methods or materials that acknowledge the
dynamic cultural diversity of the classrooms in which they teach.
Coinciding with these contexts in the early twenty-first century are efforts in pub-
lic schools to foster learning through music in ways that develop every student’s abil-
ity for meaningful self-expression, while fostering core skills for successful schooling
and living (Deasy, 2002; National Association for Music Education, 2007; National Task
Force on Arts and Education, 2009). The federal government has designated the arts
as a core subject area for instruction, specifying music as one of several arts disciplines
(Richerme et al., 2012). The longitudinal studies cited in the National Endowment for
the Arts report “The Arts and Achievement for At-Risk Youth” (Cattell et al., 2012) pro-
vide evidence of a powerful correlation. Among students of low socioeconomic sta-
tus, those who were exposed to the arts in the lower grades were far more likely than
those with little or no arts exposure to pursue higher-level courses and extracurricular
opportunities and to complete their high-school educations (Iyengar, 2012). These find-
ings speak volumes in light of the increasing demand to transform educational systems
across the nation that serve, but too often fail, students living in neighborhoods with
highly concentrated rates of poverty (Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium, 2012; Iyengar,
2012). The goal is a matter of equity in public education.
Within initiatives to develop music education pedagogy and the professional train-
ing of teachers, educators have aimed to better connect musical activities to the life
experiences of students and others in their immediate and extended communities.

Some pedagogical frameworks that link music and daily life seek to expand or deepen
students’ experiences with musical genres or traditions beyond Western European
art music. Instruction may center on repertoire popularized through the commer-
cial music industry or anchored in broadly influential American styles such as jazz,
gospel, or musical theater; it may add ethnic or regional traditions from the school’s
locality, increase students’ interaction with professional musicians in their community
or with contemporary music technologies, enhance culturally relevant instructional
approaches, and/or broaden their understanding of music in global perspective (Burton
and Dunbar-Hall, 2002; Campbell et al, 2008; Clements, 2010; Dunbar-Hall, 2005; Ellis,
n.d.; Music-in-Education National Consortium, 2013; Myers, 2003; Oehler and Hanley,
2009; Schmidt, 2009).
Pedagogy that infuses music into “non-arts disciplines” such as English/language
arts, history and social studies, and STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering,
and math) tends to be taught by instructors who are not certified to teach music. Schools
with arts integration methods at their core may foster a “third space” in which students,
teachers, and visiting artists create and respond together. Arts integration methods teach
to goals in an arts discipline (i.e., dance) and a non-arts discipline (i.e., history) through
instructional methods that engage students actively in relevant skills and concepts in
each discipline. When a learning community experiences authentic self-expression in a
“third space,” it may add relevance and effectiveness to students’ perspectives of school-
ing and its purposes (Stevenson and Deasy, 2005).
The research suggests an explanation for a truism known by educators and ethno-
musicologists: that music sometimes causes connections to blossom in people in ways
that other approaches do not. The phenomenon has been explored in ethnomusicologi-
cal studies of the acquisition of musical culture (including cognition), music-making
in childhood, music as a recurring means for lifelong human growth, or music educa-
tion in schooling and teacher training (Bakan et al, 2008; Berliner, 1994; Blacking, 1967;
Burnim, 1989; Campbell, 1998; Campbell et al., 2008; Fujita, 2006; Nettl, 1995; Monson
1996). Music therapists and educational neuroscientists have also discussed it as one
reflection of how the brain and the human psyche both access and process music (Koen
et al., 2008; Lane, 2012; Sousa, 2006a, 2006b, 2011). Lauren Stevenson and Richard Deasy
characterize “openings” fostered through a transformational “third space” around an
empowering artistry in educational terms:
A large body of research on the effects of the arts in schools has looked at what is
called transfer—how a particular intellectual or social skill developed by participa-
tion in the arts prepares students for learning and success in another area of school
or life. The changes that we saw in the schools [of the case study] were more funda-
mental and more powerful than these one-to-one transfer associations. By forging
new relationships between artists, students, and teachers, the arts created powerful
contexts and conditions for learning in which students played active and meaningful
roles in their own education and through which a sense of community was formed
within and around the schools. We began to see that the lessons offered by these
schools address not only public concerns about how well students learn but how
schools can promote the principles and practices of a democratic society.
(2005: 9–10, authors’ emphasis)
A focus on collaborative process is particularly important when education is

understood in a constructivist framework,5 where teaching facilitates the abil-
ity to make connections that actively grow and shape learners’ knowledge, under-
standing, self-expression, and ability to control their surroundings. Music-making,
whether engaging learners in listening, performing sounds and movements, inter-
preting, or finding and applying musical meaning, may readily foster approaches to
student-centered knowledge-building and expression. In education, any achievement
requires engagement and growth by the participants. Efforts to shape planning, policy,
and practice with theoretical, methodological, or research-driven tools must therefore
keep the experiences of learners in the fore.
Decisions among a Network

of Partners: Examples from Cleveland
Educators ideally look to the varied experiences of students to assess the effectiveness
of strategies for learning based on evidence of students’ increased understanding and
abilities around targeted concepts or skills. Decision-making processes in effective
educational partnerships reveal examples of strategies for learning through music and
desired outcomes for students that may resonate with approaches of ethnomusicology.
The network of Cleveland decision-makers interviewed for this chapter represents this
nexus. Their perspectives provide examples of a practicing network of colleagues in arts
administration, where I applied ethnomusicology to educational aims for PK–12 learn-
ers. This premise is also supported by the work of Joan L. Zaretti, who designed and
managed educational programs for music and global studies at Carnegie Hall (2002,
2003, 2004). Her dissertation (2006) analyzes, in terms of ethnomusicology, the deci-
sions of arts administrators who provide music programs through a “nonprofit niche” in
New York City.
The interviews, which the author conducted in 2012, dialogically inform assertions
about strategies for applied ethnomusicology in education sector partnerships in the
contexts of specific learning communities. Six professionals based in the Cleveland
area with years of experience serving PK–12 students in northeast Ohio provided
30–60-minute interviews on a voluntary basis.6 Each interviewee has partnered with
the Education staff of a local cultural landmark, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and
Museum (also known as the Rock Hall), to serve learners in the greater Cleveland area:
• Deforia Lane, Ph.D., MT-BC, Associate Director and Director of Art and Music
Therapy, Seidman Cancer Center, University Hospitals–Case Medical Center;
• Lauren Onkey, Ph.D., Vice President of Education and Public Programs, Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame and Museum;
• Santina Protopapa, Ed.M., Founder and Executive Director, Progressive Arts
Alliance;
• Dianna Richardson, Orchestra Director and Music Department Chair, Cleveland
School of the Arts, Cleveland Metropolitan School District;
• Judith Ryder, Manager, Cleveland Arts Education Consortium, Cleveland State
University and Music Director of the chamber ensemble Red Campion; formerly
the Founding Director of Cleveland Opera on Tour, the education and outreach
program of the Cleveland Opera;
• Tony F. Sias, M.F.A., Director of Arts Education, Cleveland Metropolitan School
District and Artistic Director, Cleveland School of the Arts.
Glimpses of the informal professional relationships among the above demonstrate

how a web of decision-making partners may inform opportunities for learning through
music in an urban center’s education sector. A sketch of the partnerships that the inter-
viewees have sustained in the region illustrates their significance to arts education in
the greater Cleveland area, where the largest K–12 public school district is the Cleveland
Metropolitan School District (CMSD) of the City of Cleveland.
The Cleveland Metropolitan School District is the largest public school system
in Cuyahoga County and the second largest in the state of Ohio (State Impact Ohio,
2013). Among its successes are the Cleveland School of the Arts, which boasts an excel-
lent rate of graduation and college acceptance among its high school level students. In
the Cleveland area, public schools of several cities face a paradox of declining fund-
ing and a rising concentration of poverty among families whose children are served by
public schools (Alaprantis et al., 2013; Exner, 2010; Nelson, 2008: 45; Schweitzer, 2007).
Education research finds that concentrated poverty in school populations is among the
greatest challenges to students’ success in school (Kahlenberg, 2013; Kennedy, 1986;
Poverty and Race Research Action Council, n.d.; US Department of Housing and Urban
Development, 2011).7
Even as the growth of healthcare industries of Cleveland has countered aspects of
postindustrial decline in the late twentieth century, challenges persist. In Ohio, as in
many states, public school funding generates from local taxes tied to property values.
Suburbs have grown as the population in the City of Cleveland has declined, historically
fed by “white flight” from racial desegregation, exacerbated by biased policies in lend-
ing, including “red-lining” and subprime loans. Numerous American cities have navi-
gated similar structural social economic challenges and their legacies, often aided by
philanthropic partners. Programs for PK–12 arts education in greater Cleveland benefit
from the proximity of vibrant local music scenes and world class arts institutions: an
internationally lauded symphony, large theater district, and one of the nation’s few
museums devoted solely to the history of popular music, among others.
The examples of partnerships for learning through music examined here operate
within a larger, more multifaceted network of cross-institutional arts education with
deep roots. CMSD schools’ official partnerships date to 1915 (CMSD Department of
Arts Education, 2008: 2). CMSD is one among many districts carrying out a strategic
plan for district-wide academic transformation to ensure that all students are provided
with opportunities for a high-quality education. Arts partnerships are crucial to the
CMSD plan. As of September 2007, certified fine-arts and other classroom teachers
engaged CMSD students in educational partner programs with over 40 northeast Ohio
music, visual arts, theater, dance, film, and literary organizations (CMSD Department
of Arts Education, Strategic Plan: 30; Sias, 2012). These have included the Tri-C Jazz
Fest of Cuyahoga Community College, the Cleveland Orchestra, GroundWorks Dance
Theater, the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory, and the Cleveland Institute of
Music, as well as the Cleveland Music School Settlement and the renowned Karamu
House theater (2008 CMSD Arts Strategic Plan: 30). The latter two organizations repre-
sent legacies of the settlement movement of the early twentieth century, which encour-
aged artistry in city neighborhoods with higher concentrations of poverty and, at the
time, many newcomers who had moved to Cleveland from Europe or from black com-
munities in the segregated South (The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History; Witchey and
Vacha, 1994).
Like many large cultural organizations in the City of Cleveland, the Rock Hall’s
Education Department has prioritized partnerships with CMSD. The District’s director
of arts education, Tony Sias, a frequent Rock Hall advisor, suggested that I interview a
classroom music teacher, Dianna Richardson, to augment his perspective of partner-
ing. Where Sias administers arts education at the district level, Richardson’s collabora-
tions with partners are oriented primarily to daily instructional goals at the classroom
and departmental level. As students engage in the resulting programs, she identifies
best practices and shares them with fellow CMSD string teachers (Richardson 2012;
Sias, 2012).
As the director of an arts education nonprofit serving schools in the greater Cleveland
area, Santina Protopapa works among many CMSD teachers, their administrators, and
teaching-artists trained by the Progressive Arts Alliance (PAA). PAA operates largely
through school residency programs that often have served CMSD K–8 level schools,
and Protopapa has facilitated partnerships with the Museum, Tri-C, and other large cul-
tural organizations. PAA has demonstrated best practices for effectively teaching with
rap music and hip-hop culture, as well as documentary filmmaking, in short-term out-
of-school programs and summer camps.
Deforia Lane’s partnerships with the Rock Hall date to 1999, when it enlisted her to
lead music therapists in developing a “music-based outreach/education program for
underserved preschoolers, their parents, caregivers and teachers… to promote positive
interaction… and increase the children’s academic, social, communication and music
skills” (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, 2013). A pilot study found that chil-
dren spending six weeks in the resulting Toddler Rock program improved 72 percent
in maintaining behavior considered “on-task” for three-to-five-year-olds and reduced
“off-task behavior to only 12 times per hour” (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum,
2013). Lane has remained an active leader in Toddler Rock, which explicitly frames
music therapy as a “research-based profession” that applies music:
Skilled music therapists design music interventions aimed at enhancing the pre-aca-
demic skills that have been shown to be most indicative of later success in school,
including letter recognition, rhyming and alliteration, all important for the acquisi-
tion of reading skills.… The music therapist’s education and training equips them to
apply music to accomplish non-musical goals.
(Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, 2013)
Lane’s connection to learning through music also has included supervising music
therapy interns pursuing board certification in programs such as the Cleveland Music
Therapy Consortium. Her partnerships typically involve outreach to apply music ther-
apy to needs in the greater Cleveland area outside the walls of her employer, University
Hospitals, an affiliate of the Medical School of Case Western Reserve University.
Since 1999, the Cleveland Arts Education Consortium (CAEC) has brought together
local cultural organization administrators to coordinate programs, research, and
information-sharing. CAEC hired Judith Ryder in 2008, whose leadership in arts edu-
cation began in 1976 at the Cleveland Opera; Ryder oversees the Consortium office
at the Center for Arts and Innovation at Cleveland State University. CAEC meetings
regularly convene “large and small organizations” from across Cuyahoga County for
presentations by regional, state-level, and sometimes national specialists in arts educa-
tion, including representatives of philanthropic foundations. Topics discussed include
“program evaluation, advocacy in the current economic landscape, funding issues,
best practices in management, effective arts marketing, and new education initiatives”
(Cleveland Arts Education Consortium, 2013).
CAEC has helped to facilitate large scale cross-institutional participation in city-wide
arts education initiatives such as the Art Is Education partnership with the Cleveland
Metropolitan School District led by Young Audiences of Northeast Ohio (YANEO).
Since 2010, YANEO has facilitated teaching-artist residencies in more than 140 schools
in Cuyahoga County, which encompasses the greater Cleveland area, and in 17 addi-
tional counties in Ohio (Young Audiences of Northeast Ohio, 2013). YANEO’s Art Is
Education project received support of major funders, the Cleveland Foundation and the
Ford Foundation, among others. The project drew national attention to the efforts by
dozens of partnering museums (including the Rock Hall), cultural organizations, and
teaching-artists to align offerings with the district’s instructional goals for K–8 literacy
and learning in the arts (Dobrzynski et al., 2007; Ohio Arts Council et al., 2007; YANEO,
2013a). These partnerships helped to raise discussion about methods of infusing the arts
into formal instruction and promoted pedagogy of arts integration, in addition to ongo-
ing approaches that exposed learners to the arts as performers, audiences, and critical
thinkers. The discourse in Cleveland has reflected national trends in education policy,
pedagogy, and related research.
Foundations for Pedagogy for Music

in Daily Life and Connections
to Ethnomusicology
The application of ethnomusicology in the education sector benefits from attending to

pedagogical strategies, their philosophical foundations, and the field’s ongoing contri-
butions to formal music education. In particular, pedagogy for teaching music across
the curriculum through partnerships seems compatible with approaches that under-
stand music as a social process in human life. Also significant are approaches that posi-
tion students’ engagement in music to illuminate its integration in daily life, as opposed
to an isolated practice.
Cross-institutional partnerships have often augmented school musical experiences
offered to students as arts education or a kind of educational enrichment (Myers, 2003).
Typical professional roles in US programs of this kind are of three types:
1. Certified music teachers employed by schools;

2. Arts educators based in cultural organizations (symphonies, museums, etc.) or
programs for community members, including after-school offerings;
3. Established musical performers, who also teach individual or group music lessons
or serve as artists-in-residence.
Growing numbers of teachers who are not necessarily certified in arts education, but
ideally teach in collaboration with certified arts educators, have embraced the arts as
instructional resources, often fueled by early twenty-first-century education research
suggesting that arts engagement supports student-driven interest in schooling and
achievement gains (Stevenson and Deasy, 2005). Teachers certified to teach music may
have encountered models for collaboration with non-music teachers and/or teaching-
artists as pre-service teachers. A number of music education textbooks, for example,
discuss sample instructional units that thread in or unite musical learning activities
with concepts aligned to other subject areas (Campbell et al., 2006: 359–370).
Arts Integration
Approaches to arts integration as pedagogical methods for lessons, project-based learn-
ing activities, and curricular frames for schools have expanded interest among teachers
in infusing arts across disciplines or embracing partnerships that bring expert, active
artists into schools. “Concept-based arts integration”—in its fullest realization—aims
for students to achieve goals for learning in both an arts and a non-arts discipline
through one unit of study8 (Kennedy Center, 2013b; Southeast Center for Education
in the Arts, 2013). Some school systems have faced increasing financial challenges, and
partnerships sometimes have become appealing, stop-gap responses to funding cuts for
arts education (Richerme et al., 2012).9 In theory, all students may learn through effec-
tive arts experiences during instruction led either by general classroom teachers at the
elementary level, or specialists in English/language arts, history and social studies, or
mathematics and sciences at the secondary level. As leading music education organiza-
tions and others have pointed out, however, students may not achieve widely held expec-
tations for learning in music if they have less time to study under the direct guidance of a
certified music teacher, who typically holds an undergraduate- or graduate-level degree
in music (Myers, 2003; Richerme et al., 2012). Within this political climate, music teach-
ers in public schools may be encouraged to design music instruction that reinforces
school-wide efforts to build literacy, numeracy, and other skills critical to student suc-
cess and state evaluation of school performance. Advocates of arts education increas-
ingly tout evidence that learning in the creative arts fosters valuable, transferable skills
that may further student success in academic, social, and emotional terms. Others cau-
tion that banking the value of the arts on its role in supporting growth in other subject
areas may detract from the intrinsic value of learning in arts disciplines.
Many approaches of arts integration align with an ethnomusicological approach that
contextualizes music in human life. In a philosophical sense, arts integration relies on
reminding teachers and learners that each holds the potential for creative expression
simply because they are human beings,10 as discussed by a collective of self-defined
Canadian “a/r/tographers” of visual artists and writers based largely in Vancouver,
British Columbia. Its members, who also specialize in higher education, identify as
artists, researchers, and teachers, who, by working in complementary and multipli-

cious, but supportive ways, have…[entered] into inquiry…. to live artfully in all of the
many facets of our lives and, in particular, re-imaging a more holistic view of facili-
tating integration of the arts in schools and classrooms.
(Weibe, 2007: 264)
Implicitly, being a teaching-artist is part of fulfilling artful living that connects artistry
with a multifaceted life, a perspective concordant with musical artistry. The goal, they
remind their fellow educators, is “to teach students how to embody living practice, to
teach students how to sustain life-long learning, and to teach students how to appre-
ciate the joy of creativity through self-motivation” (2007: 269). This assertion in The
Journal of Educational Thought may read as a statement of the obvious, but the need for
this articulation makes more sense in the context of a climate where accountability for
particular areas of student achievement (often measured by test scores) have become
central concerns of classroom teachers and administrators. An ideal of arts integra-
tion concerns more than students achieving discrete benchmarks across disciplines.
It embraces both the need for maintaining academic rigor with the introduction of
musicking into a social studies unit, for example. It affirms the perspective that educa-
tion is enhanced when teachers “see their students as creative beings—able to connect,
link, cause growth, and develop learning through multiple artful means.… This new-
ness will be different for each student and thus is the dominant means of learning and
transformation” (Weibe, 2007: 269). It reflects that creativity in art forms, such as poetry
performed in the twenty-first century, may traverse across instructional disciplines,
incorporating meters and rhetorical characteristics informed by popular music styles,
intertextual references to printed and multimedia works, intoned dramatic character-
izations, and so forth (American Academy of Poets, 2013; Harris, 2006).
The assertion is echoed in the research-based advocacy of the National Task Force
on the Arts in Education. The group’s final report (2009), for which ethnomusicologist
Lester P. Monts served as steering committee chair, calls on The College Board to help
lead a paradigm shift in education by placing a “new curricular model with the arts at
the core, integrating many subjects and types of learning in order to give them context
and meaning” to better serve K–16 students (kindergarten through undergraduate col-
lege) and “provide a more effective learning environment that would induce the creative
thinking needed for the 21st-century global society” (2009: 5). The report outlines rec-
ommendations for arts integration as one of eight suggestions.
Multicultural Music Education and Culturally

Responsive Approaches
Given advocacy for multicultural music education as well as methods of arts integra-
tion, agencies within the education sector have often furthered relationships among
school-employed music teachers and their students with performing musicians whose
expertise is anchored elsewhere in the community. These agencies may connect pub-
lic, private, and nonprofit/nongovernmental resources and funding requests, missions
and program goals, and staffs. When partnerships include performers whose music is
“traditional” or “popular,” as well as that of long-established “classical” or “highbrow”
arenas,11 students gain more opportunities to draw connections between learning about
music in school and experiencing music in daily life.
This aim has long been incorporated in discussions of the purposes of music edu-
cation, whether connections are intended to provide a moral foundation, inculcate
canonical works, build new music professionals and their audiences, or foster students’
creativity and critical thinking skills through multiple intelligences (Jorgensen, 2002).
Ethnomusicological contributions include expanding the cultural scope of music schol-
arship and illuminating ways in which people integrate music-making with creative
expressions that also represent other ways of knowing (Seeger, 1996). Patricia Shehan
Campbell’s textbook Music in Childhood (2006), for example, orients users to a foun-
dational assumption: that children begin learning music in relation to their parents/
caregivers and early musical encounters. The book’s final chapters demonstrate that the
school curriculum must engage students in the realities of a world of multifaceted musi-
cal experiences, purposes, and cultural associations. Throughout Campbell’s Musician
and Teacher (2008), case studies foster a global perspective for the intended audience of
pre-service music teachers, describing music teaching and learning in varied contexts in
the United States and also in other countries (Gault, 2008: 213–214). Bryan Burton and
Peter Dunbar-Hall (2002), among others, discuss what could be framed as culturally
responsive music education for Native American learners.
Historically, partnerships for music education have created opportunities for K–12
students to examine modes of music-making that figure prominently in daily life, yet
lie beyond the scope of music courses or the professional expertise of K–12 music edu-
cators. Ethnomusicologists in cross-institutional partnerships at times have sought to
counter the marginalization of vernacular, regional, ethnic, religious, or other musi-
cal traditions (Seeger, 1996). Under the auspices of national, state, and local agencies in
domains now embraced as “applied ethnomusicology,” “public sector folklore,” “public
history,” and/or “multicultural music education,” specialists have worked to grow cul-
turally diverse music education in formal and/or informal settings, advance knowledge
of traditional musics and their transmission, and preserve and exhibit musical history
in regional, ethnic, popular, or other performance settings, among other initiatives
(Campbell et al., 1991, 2006; Hawes 1992; Maultsby 1988; Maultsby with Dunlap, 1990;
Reagon 1996–2003; Reagon et al., 1994; Seeger, 1996, 2006; Sheehy 1992; Zaretti, 2006,
1998, 2002, 2003, 2004). Programs and educational resources in this vein have facili-
tated teachers’ relationships with community tradition-bearers—whether shaped-note
singers, hip-hop deejays, or symphony section leaders—and music researchers or other
trained specialists, who may help teachers prepare students and artists.
Formal learning through music is associated with a larger process of acquiring, devel-
oping, and applying musicality over time (Fujita, 2006; Green, 2001, 2008; Szego, 2002).
These sustained interests in ethnomusicological inquiry and theory also remain cen-
tral processes in the core methodology of field research, as well as the cultivation of
any musical performer’s development. Related literature addresses the social matter of
how and why people learn music, including processes of identity formation, encultura-
tion, intercultural exchange, and the construction of tradition (Berliner, 1998; Blacking,
1967; Burnim 1985a; Campbell et al., 2006; Campbell, 1998, 1996; Del Negro and Berger,
2004; Feld, 1990; Fujita, 2006; Kingsbury, 1988; Nettl, 1995; Oehler, 2006). Since the
early 1990s, the number of resources for teaching ethnomusicology—particularly those
designed for undergraduates and graduate students—has grown dramatically, illustrat-
ing a zeitgeist of educational interest.12 The resulting pedagogy, curricula, instructional
resources, and related institutional development reflects an ongoing ebb and flow in the
field and, of course, larger issues in education. Within the Society for Ethnomusicology
(SEM), the Sections for Education and Applied Ethnomusicology each foster discussion
and networking among members.
Specialists collecting and archiving US music represented as “folk,” “traditional,” “eth-
nic,” or “national,” as evident in catalogues of Smithsonian Folkways or the holdings of
the Archive of Folk Culture of the Library of Congress, have facilitated research and
teaching about widespread, commercially popularized, or intergenerationally valued
styles of music. A number of music archives for popular music, based in public libraries
and universities, have provided public access for researching local sites of performance
and the frequently obscured studio recording process. Related materials may reveal
aims of music-makers, audiences, and their social networks, which US adolescents and
young adults have often shaped after 1945.13
Ethnomusicological scholarship has affirmed the value of music as a lifelong prac-
tice involving more than discrete performers or compositions. Books such as My
Music: Explorations of Music in Daily Life (Crafts et al., 1993) and Daniel Cavicchi’s study
of rock fandom, Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning among Springsteen Fans (1998),
have helped to reveal the significance of ways of knowing music in the quotidian of the
digital era—representing frequent routes through which most Americans gain musical
knowledge and interpret what music means. Gospel scholar Mellonee V. Burnim (1985a)
and jazz scholar Ingrid Monson (1996), among others, bring understanding to elusive
communicative and transformational experiences that help put in words the powerful
qualities of live jazz or gospel events, where responsive improvisational performances
resonate philosophical or metaphysical awareness among participants. Recent medi-
cal ethnomusicology studies identify connections between music, as an expressive way
of knowing, and its application in promoting healing and health in the United States
among individual children and their caregivers (Koen et al., 2008).
Opportunities for Applying
Ethnomusicology in the
Cross-Institutional Education Sector
Applications of ethnomusicological practice may assist certified teachers in connect-

ing PK–12 students with musicians, who extend or augment the instructors’ resources
in a given school. The processes of ethnomusicology, or the field’s approaches, also may
assist in navigating distinctive social or cultural contexts for “musicking” in schooling,
among community tradition-bearers or other specialists, and within the daily experi-
ences of those teaching and learning together (Small, 1998). Decisions of partners in
music programs for PK–12 learners in Cleveland describe a range of opportunities for
applying ethnomusicology to further effective learning through music in a specific con-
text. Selected examples reveal aims, approaches, and valued educational outcomes at the
crux of learning through music in these cases.
Expanding Instructional Access to Musical Traditions

in Formal Schooling
Increasing students’ access to exemplary musical performance, as learners who per-
form and also make up audiences, may support goals for effective learning. Cleveland
is characterized by thriving musical communities that include the established traditions
embraced in institutions of higher education and a more widely varied range of musics.
Like many Northern cities fueled by early twentieth-century industrial growth, the
population of the Cleveland area includes many families who connect their distant or
recent history to immigration or large scale rural-to-urban migrations in the twentieth
century. Such regional and ethnic identities have flavored the soundscape of Cleveland.
In order to provide all CMSD students with high-quality educational opportunities
for music-related career and college readiness, it seems critical for students to learn
through music that dominates college-level degree programs. CMSD programming
helps facilitate students’ access to supplemental after-school instruction at no or low
cost (i.e., private lessons, community youth ensembles), which historically have served
as a key component in the preparation of college-level students in the arts (Richardson,
2012). The relevance of this approach is affirmed by a report published by the Ohio
Department of Education (2013) that measures a 100 percent poverty rate among CMSD
students based on data drawn from the US Census and US Department of Education.
The role of music in culturally responsive education may also support students’ social and
emotional development; they may value belonging to a musical group, discover that the arts
open routes for success in school, or find connections to school and community through
music that they identify with home communities (outside school). The fact that “the major-
ity, 69%, of CMSD students are African-American” (State Impact Ohio, 2013) may bear sig-
nificance in considering what constitutes culturally relevant pedagogies in this context.
When CMSD students are viewed as potential members of the Cleveland area arts
scene (as adult residents are often assumed to be), “music in daily life” becomes a
very rich tapestry. The City of Cleveland is home to both the Cleveland Orchestra—a
world-renowned symphony orchestra with residencies in Miami, Florida, and Vienna,
Austria—and the Playhouse Square theaters, each maintaining landmark architectural
sites as performance venues. In the early twenty-first century the greater Cleveland
area has been celebrated as the anchor of music superstars, such as the O’Jays and other
commercially successful recording artists of the recent past. Cleveland’s music scenes
include nightclubs featuring R&B vocalists and rock clubs showcasing metal guitar-
ists. Repertoire explores the standards of straight-ahead jazz, electronic architecture of
industrial rock, or the avant-garde edge to noise music. Community grows in the live
battles of rappers and the exchange of downloaded music videos. Cleveland’s sounds
are shaped by choirs, cantors, dance teams, bugle corps, drum lines, mariachi ensem-
bles, polka bands, pow-wows, classical recitals, and performances by the local School
of Rock. In addition to the Tri-C Jazz Fest, the city hosts crowd-drawing annual music
celebrations, whether to honor an international pool of competitive concert pianists or
a gathering of students and gurus of South Indian music (Cleveland International Piano
Competition, 2013; Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival, 2013; Tri-C Jazz Fest, 2013).
As Stephen Blum notes, when music-making “in the public sphere” is viewed in his-
torical perspective, “the conflicts that have been most audible and visible in the musical
life of the United States are linked to our [sic] long history of injustice toward so-called
peoples of color” (2010: 232). Such a historical legacy bears particular weight in the
context of the 43,000 students served by Cleveland’s public schools, in which 85 per-
cent of students identify as “minorities,” according to demographic reports of the
Ohio Department of Education (2013). Among the city’s resident population in 2010 of
around 396,814, the US Census Bureau (2010) counted 53.3 percent as African American
or Black, 33.4 percent as “White alone,” and 10 percent as Hispanic or Latino. Court bat-
tles over racial desegregation of the Cleveland public schools persisted into the early
1980s (Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, n.d.).
In contradistinction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, few large cul-
tural institutions in northeast Ohio represent a sustained, cultural contribution from
African-American music-makers, though many such organizations offer a range of
resources to explore African-American history in specialized programs or events.14
Northeast Ohio, however, is home to numerous networks of African-American musi-
cians who have sustained music for wide audiences, from the local to the global in scale.
Local school ensembles are rooted in traditions of Western European art music, jazz
maintains institutional presence, many high school–level choral groups have a strong
gospel repertoire,15 and teaching-artists have fostered musical experiences with a broad
range of styles and traditions.
There may be particular value in the opportunity for young people in schools to learn in
partnership with expert musicians whose cultural frames of reference do not require col-
lege and university programs for certification as a music teacher or other degree in music.
The musicians also may gain skills as teaching-artists that could enhance opportunities
to partner with music educators or other classroom teachers. Cleveland’s Progressive
Arts Alliance (PAA), for example, trains teaching-artists to lead residencies or work-
shops. The residencies (10–12 weeks) place PAA teaching-artists in a classroom or across
a grade level in a K–8 level school, and after-school workshops typically involve teach-
ing fourth through eighth graders. The instructional methods of PAA teaching-artists
have engaged students in music anchored in various styles of jazz, works for symphonic
orchestra, rock and roll, rap music, hip-hop deejaying and dance, and West African and
Afro-Cuban drumming. Santina Protopapa notes that some PAA teaching-artists “don’t
have a background in music education, because what they do with music is so unique that
you couldn’t go to a conservatory” (2012). PAA provides professional development to its
teaching-artists around curricula and pedagogical strategies for K–12 instruction through
music.16 Protopapa explains that PAA coaches teaching-artists to consider the relation-
ships between their professional practice and their role as partnering educators in schools:
It’s been [a question of] how can we get teaching-artists to think bigger and broader,
and hip-hop artists to see themselves… as music educators.… It’s finding ways for
music students in the conservatory to understand their roles as an artist in the com-
munity, and the… various contexts [beyond] a concert hall [or]… jazz club.… What
does your work look like outside of performing? And the teaching might not be your
studio practice. Many of the artists we work with, who are now partners to public
schools, said, “I would have never imagined myself having a significant source of
income teaching social studies and jazz at a public, inner-city Cleveland school. But
now I love it, and I [want] this to… be a part of everything else I do.” So how do we
give exposure to the different ways that they can do that?
(2012)
Classroom teachers may learn from teaching-artists’ musical approaches or may vali-
date new pedagogical approaches for engaging students through music. “We’re build-
ing the capacity of classroom teachers as well,” says Protopapa, who contends that
teaching-artists and the curricula they have created during PAA residencies have
inspired certified music teachers to adapt the resulting instructional materials for
ongoing use. “The values of artists who are in the community and are pushing their
art… are doing that in the classroom. They’re not going in this [classroom] and turning
off their values” (2012).
Similarly, Protopapa ascribes opportunities for mutual influence with the large
cultural organizations with which PAA has partnered on a long-term basis, such as
the Recording Arts and Technology Program at Tri-C and the education division of
Playhouse Square; PAA is provided the use of equipment for digital sound production
and recording and venues for after-school programs and summer day camps. According
to Protopapa, PAA staff has assisted other larger partners over time (2012).
Toddler Rock: Learning Through Music as a Social Process

Music therapist Deforia Lane’s approach to partnerships emphasizes the value of a
dialogic process. Lane makes decisions about programs like Toddler Rock by consid-
ering, for example, the objectives for serving targeted individuals in relation to their
caregivers, who may include parents and other family members, teachers, or health-
care providers. Weekly Toddler Rock sessions at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
and Museum must suit the educational objectives mandated for Greater Cleveland
Head Start17 programs and must successfully engage the participating children,
who are accompanied by their Head Start teachers. School administrators’ priori-
ties, mandated educational standards, and partners’ aims are also factors. Lane works
expressly to develop and model varied approaches for involving students in activities
with musical sound, timing, movements, and technology that Head Start teachers
may use again with students back in their own classrooms; Head Start teachers’ com-
fort level in leading musical activities does vary. Lane designs interventions for the
needs of a diverse student population, as well as those of the teachers and caregivers
who may reinforce Toddler Rock activities. Lane explains that she gives the Head
Start instructors
formal and informal instruction on the integration of music in the classroom.

Techniques focus on engaging the youngsters in listening, associating sounds with
letters or words, recall and recognition of concepts, problem-solving, and sequenc-
ing. Interventions for these purposes integrate song, chant, rhythm and movement
in group activities.
(2013)
A team of music therapists first models the specially designed activities held inside
the Rock Hall before the museum opens its doors to the public. Interventions engage
the students and caregivers with provided resources; some therapists use iPads or listen-
ing stations to access audio or video recordings. Given the expectation that all present
will actively participate, the Head Start teachers learn musical activities as their stu-
dents do. Prompted by the music therapists, Head Start teachers model participation
for their classes and positively reinforce on-task behavior designed to foster cognitive
and social-emotional growth. They may repeat or adapt the session’s activities in their
regular classrooms or devise similar music-based activities. Newsletters that describe
Toddler Rock lessons or themes are sent home with students, inviting parents or care-
givers to reinforce skills, too.
Lane expects partnerships to encompass learning through music for all involved.
Because music is so diffusely processed in the brain, it can address many issues—
cognitive, social, physical, psychological and spiritual issues—I can’t think of an area
where music cannot have an impact. But the person with whom I am collaborating
or partnering may not be aware of that. So I think part of my role is to educate; part of
it is to inspire; and part of it is [creative development].
(Lane, 2012)
As Lane collaborates with partners, she anticipates a creative process of “learning as

you go and experiencing those brilliant ‘Ah ha! Moments’ ” and avoids a “cookie cutter
approach.” She adds, “I believe part of learning is exploration. How can we do what we
do better? And when we find what works, sharing those successes with teachers and
children so they will reap the benefits is key” (Lane, 2013).
“Musicking” a Public Voice
A dialogic approach to Cleveland-area partnerships for learning through music points to
another important outcome. Santina Protopapa, like many other arts educators, empha-
sizes that students’ musical expression provides them with opportunities not only to
develop musical interest and skills, but also to voice ideas through a performance form
that has the potential to reach a larger audience. In 2013, for example, with the guidance
of PAA teaching-artists, two teams of students collaboratively created a song as part of
“What’s Going On… NOW,” the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ national “digital
youth arts and media campaign” (2013a) in which students from around the United States
responded to creative works via digital media. The theme references Marvin Gaye’s 1971
album, What’s Going On.
One team at CMSD’s East Technical High School created their song in a voluntary
after-school program. The high school draws students from Cleveland’s Central neigh-
borhood, where highly concentrated poverty has sparked a “community transformation
initiative” to support children’s success in schooling through building community and
social support services in the neighborhood (Sisters of Charity Foundation, 2013: 1–4).

The other student group, the PAA All-Stars, submitted the song “Think Cleveland,”
which was selected for the “What’s Going On… NOW” Youth Showcase at the Kennedy
Center in Washington, D.C. (2013a). The PAA All-Stars is a select ensemble of student
MCs (rappers), deejays, and dancers from the Cleveland area who have attended the
PAA’s annual RHAPSODY Hip-Hop Summer Arts Camp (grades 6–12).
Both the East Tech group and the PAA All-Stars wrote songs that “were really heady”
as students considered problems faced by Clevelanders and the messages of the 1971
album, Protopapa explained (2012). The program
challenged students to create new work based on music and social issues that Marvin
Gaye was examining in that album. As they were talking about that, they were using
quotes and metaphors that you hear in some of the songs in What’s Going On, and it
was a really creative way to tie it all together.… The Kennedy Center had this online
platform, where you could submit your work, and then everybody gets to see it. Even
if they weren’t going to the Kennedy Center to perform, there was all this back-and-
forth with kids exchanging work.
(2012)
According to Protopapa, the PAA All-Stars saw the campaign as a vehicle to position
their song as “part of a bigger platform” (2012). The group periodically performs by invi-
tation at museums and community events, but Protopapa says the students viewed the
national event differently:
[Going] to D.C. and perform[ing] at the Kennedy Center amidst other groups
around the country expanded our students’ view of… the music they created. It
wasn’t just a page on a band [concert] program. It was, “I own this, and I’m going
to present this to… people who don’t know me, aren’t my parents, aren’t my fellow
classmates, aren’t from Cleveland.” It was a really, unbelievably positive experience.
They got invited to a second performance… to do another song, [“We’re Here.”]…
It gave them a vehicle to open the possibilities to what a professional career could
be like.
(2012)
Protopapa describes the role of PAA teaching-artists in supporting students’ projects

and how students’ ownership emerged collaboratively:
They started examining the media: “What does Cleveland report about Cleveland?
What trends do you see? Do you think these trends are accurate? What else do you
see that’s not being recorded or that’s being reported too much?”
It was interesting. Poverty is really high in Cleveland. Not all these kids lived in
poverty-stricken neighborhoods, but they experience it or have friends.… The last
line of the song is, “Think bigger than yourself: think Cleveland.”… The students were
like,… “This [line] encapsulates everything we were trying to do.”… They decided
how many measures everyone would have; who was going to be the person respon-
sible for the refrain [and] the order.
(2012)
The PAA All-Stars’ experiences in Washington, D.C., brought them face-to-face with
selected peers from around the country who digitally submitted recorded songs, vid-
eos, short films, and poetry readings. The culminating Youth Showcase intertwined stu-
dents’ recorded media and live performances of the digital submissions. In addition to
witnessing the positive reception of a larger audience, the PAA All-Stars experienced
membership in a larger arts community that affirmed their style of expression, acknowl-
edged their maturity extended beyond expectations for “a kids’ group,” and sparked
growth. Protopapa recounts that
[o]‌ne of the students said, “I’ve never been in a situation where everybody is into the
same kind of things I’m into, and they respect my work. And they want to know more
about it and were talking really deeply about music.”
And I said, “Well, go to college, and you’ll have that. Be a music major in college.”
[He continued,] “Some people are better and are really pushing me [to be] the
greatest I could possibly be? And it’s all over music!”
It just really blew his mind.… It ended up being a huge validation. It’s not just that
PAA thinks you’re cool.… Other people, kids from D.C., from the Bay Area [are say-
ing], “This is the real thing.”
(2012)
In a time when young people expect to use digital platforms to gain, share, and com-
ment on information, partnerships like “What’s Going On… NOW” 18 provide an
opportunity for engaging students appropriately through educator-facilitated interfaces
of arts communities and the Internet that foster a forum resounding with student voices
to address matters of both civics and culture.
Deepening a Sense of Belonging

Music therapist Deforia Lane affirms the idea that learning on location in a museum like
the Rock Hall helps children to internalize the notion that public institutions for the arts
in Cleveland belong to them, which builds a kind of confidence (2012, 2013). Lane views
Toddler Rock as “an opportunity to invite children who seldom get to experience this
place of elegance and rich history in the Rock Hall to make it a world they can call their
own.… Toddler Rock [engages] the mind, body, and spirit of a child with the art and
science of music” (2013). During class activities, the children “confidently put on ear-
phones, listen to music as far back as Mahalia [Jackson] and Billie Holiday, and go away
[with] more… school readiness” (Lane, 2012). They use museum technology, are able
to “identify the guitar of Les Paul, or dance the twist when they hear Chubby Checker”
(Lane, 2013). According to Lane, parents have proudly shared their surprise when tod-
dlers have recalled the names of artists like Jerry Lee Lewis or B. B. King to identify the
letters in their names (2012, 2013).
Effective programming in the education sector also involves intergenerational connec-
tions. Judith Ryder, in her former position as Founding Director of Cleveland Opera on
Tour, intentionally began in 1995 to involve senior citizens and other adult volunteers as
trained assistants for the opera’s educational programs for residencies in schools, teacher
professional development, and educational opera productions. As lifelong learners, the
trained volunteers would support operatic vocalists in residencies with primary-level
students in the greater Cleveland area. The objectives of instruction remained focused on
the students, but often the volunteers would witness the program’s educational impacts, a
lesson valuable for taxpayers and advocates for public funding of arts education.
In 2012, for example, City of Cleveland voters approved the first levy in 16 years to increase
property taxes and fund CMSD’s Academic Transformation Plan (2010) for dramatically
improving the performance of the city’s public schools (Anderson, 2012; O’Donnell, 2012a).
This vote was of particular significance to sustaining instruction in the arts, which had
been reduced or eliminated from most K–8 schools in 2012 due to district budget cuts.19
Even as the City of Cleveland has addressed these challenges, many children still face what
was termed an “arts opportunity gap” by US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in 2012
(quoted in Richerme et al., 2012: 2). To sustain PK–12 arts education, it may be crucial for
adults to cultivate a sense that northeast Ohioans belong to the CMSD community.
Teaching and learning approaches develop through an emergent process within the
context of distinctive but interrelated learning communities. This fact may resonate
with ethnomusicologists, who often build musical understanding through intensive
engagement in field research or apprenticeship to master performers, while navigating
powerful social dynamics.
Strategies for Applied
Ethnomusicology: A Contextualized
Definition
Given the contexts through which arts administrators approach partnerships for learn-
ing through music, the notion of “applied ethnomusicology” may be most valuable as
an orientation to strategies for thinking about music and what people do with it, where
strategies relate musical knowledge to social actions undertaken through music. These
assumptions reflect a philosophical investment in pragmatism and the phenomenologi-
cal significance of human social experience. In “A Few Notions about Philosophy and
Strategy in Applied Ethnomusicology” (1992), Daniel Sheehy describes “applied ethno-

musicology” as conscious, purposeful professional practice that
shapes our action into concrete lines of strategy that are not preconceived or predeter-
mined by an absolute idea of what these actions should be.… On the part of its practi-
tioners, applied ethnomusicology is perhaps most observable as an implacable tendency
first to see opportunities for a better life for others through the use of music knowledge,
and then immediately to begin devising cultural strategies to achieve those ends.
(1992: 323)
Strategies are framed by ongoing musical experiences for pragmatic aims. In the educa-
tion sector, this may involve collaborating to create educational programs and events or
pedagogical tools and frameworks. Applied ethnomusicology strategies connect ideas
about music with social actions through music.
In the context of navigating partnerships for education, it seems problematic to center
frames for the motivations of educators or ethnomusicologists around terms that seek to
lift up or speak for others. Even if unintended by the author, such language may resonate
with a moral altruism. If altruism functions as a definitive motivation for action, the
power of “others” may be diminished, as the spotlight remains on the power of the edu-
cator or the perspective of the applier of music to generate change on behalf of someone
else. Nonetheless, I certainly agree with Sheehy and others: strategies in applied eth-
nomusicology typically aim to further ameliorative changes that assist individuals and
groups. An ethnomusicologist may join efforts to navigate challenges or solve problems,
as other characterizations of applied ethnomusicology have emphasized (Pettan, 2008;
Titon, 1992). Surely numerous schoolteachers and ethnomusicologists may also ascribe
ameliorative motives to work, even if their academic research and publications are not
considered to be “applied ethnomusicology.”
It seems pragmatic to leave the matter of social amelioration outside the core of the
definition of “applied ethnomusicology,” centering instead on the action’s processes and
relationships. Within Sheehy’s conceptualization in terms of “purpose, strategy, tech-
niques, and evaluation” (1992: 324), strategies are “the ways to solve a particular prob-
lem” and most often
are aimed at affecting the community of origin of a given music… [by] (1) develop-
ing new “frames” for musical performance, (2) “feeding back” musical models to the
communities that created them, (3) providing community members access to strate-
gic models and conservation techniques, and (4) developing broad, structural solu-
tions to broad problems.
(1992: 330–331)
As illustrated by Portia Maultsby’s discussion of applied ethnomusicology in an interview

with Delia Alexander published in 2003, the purpose of applied work may center on pro-
cess and audience in different contexts and roles (Alexander, 2003: 9–11, 13). Maultsby was
teaching a two-part graduate level course, “Ethnomusicology and the Public Sector,” in
Indiana University’s Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. In Maultsby’s eyes,
[p]‌ublic sector and academic work represent different sides of the same coin. My aca-
demic work provides content for public sector projects and the research conducted
for these projects feeds back into my own work and teaching. I expose students to the
latest perspectives on issues drawing from my discussions with scholars of various
disciplines. Another point—public sector work has made my research accessible to
broad audiences and in different formats.
(Alexander, 2003: 11)
Maultsby provides examples of the range of roles, nature of tasks, and special opportuni-
ties to influence “public spaces” through applied work:
I have applied my knowledge as an ethnomusicologist in a variety of contexts, includ-

ing public sector institutions, where I have worked as a researcher, presenter, consul-
tant, author, co-curator, and program designer in museums; consultant for companies
specializing in museum soundtrack and multimedia productions; and consultant/
advisor for PBS and NPR/PRI documentaries. Working part- or full-time in public
sector institutions enables ethnomusicologists to influence the presentation and rep-
resentation of American ethnic minorities and world cultures in public spaces.
(Alexander, 2003: 9)
This statement emphasizes the collaborative work process and possibly a kind of shared
responsibility in the perceived impacts of the resulting projects. The form of the projects
and their routes of dissemination may broadly influence the perceptions and experiences
of people in public spaces in ways that extend Maultsby’s scholarly fueled understand-
ings of the history of African-American music and culture beyond typical academic
audiences. Strategies for applied ethnomusicology in this vein are a potential route for
ethnomusicological participation in creating resources with the potential to broadly
communicate, if not foster, self-directed learning through music. Communications may
engage the media, mass/popular culture, well-funded educational websites, or networks
to localities and communities. The process may expand or open access to the authorita-
tive production of knowledge, in this case, influencing how “American ethnic minorities
and world cultures” are represented in public and ways that the tools of ethnomusicol-
ogy may inform other means for examining music and its significance.
Maultsby focuses on the importance of “negotiation” in a way that distinguishes it as a
kind of collaborative core strategy for applied work:
Negotiation is central to collaborative work and important to debating ideological

positions regarding institutional traditions and practices. Working as music consul-
tant for Eyes on the Prize II, for example, I negotiated the use of songs that contained
lyrics, a practice contrary to traditions of documentary filmmaking [at the time]. In
most cases, lyrics are avoided because of their potential to editorialize or influence
the interpretation of content. Even though this potential does exist, I believe that
song lyrics, if strategically placed in appropriate scenes, can help reinforce impor-
tant issues introduced in the narrative. Through several discussions supported by a
rationale, the producers eventually gave in to my position, which in turn influenced
changes in perspectives on the role of music documentaries.
(Alexander, 2003:14)
This strategy, according to Maultsby, enhanced the opportunity for songs in the film to
function as a primary source within “multimedia narratives on African American his-
tory and culture” in a culturally relevant way:
This is significant because… vocal and instrumental music is central to African

American community life. It expresses a range of emotions and reveals the level of
resilience and creativity of African Americans under changing social conditions and
as a marginalized group in society.… [E]‌thnomusicologists can influence changes in
long-standing practices and perspectives of public sector institutions in ways that
contribute to effective presentations and appropriate representation of cultures… .
(Alexander, 2003:14)
The documentary’s embrace of recorded songs, as well as reinterpretations by artists

anchored in the tradition of freedom songs and related styles of congregational singing,
adds more African-American voices to the historical narrative. The documentary series
features, for the most part, excerpts from oral historical interviews with movement lead-
ers and eyewitnesses, historical stills and moving images, and a narrator’s voiceover. By
including audible lyrics in the documentary film’s quilt of selected historical memories,
the multivalent messages of music performed by black communities and civil rights
activists are represented. Music is documented as a tool of the grassroots nonviolent
Civil Rights movement and a valuable mode of expression, not merely a soundscape.
In contrast to Maultsby’s successful negotiation, where an ethnomusicologist applies
ideas about music in cultural context to influence an approach to decision-making
about a project, collaborative work also may involve negotiations that limit the ethno-
musicologist’s influence. Contracts may restrict ownership of intellectual property, the
right to disseminate information to the public, or to speak on behalf of the organization.
Strategies in applied ethnomusicology must function in light of the potentially con-
flicting expectations of partnering individuals, organizations, and those they aim to
serve (Loughran, 2008; Seeger, 1992). When ethnomusicologists cultivate dialogic rela-
tionships around music with community members, more avenues for negotiation may
open, regardless of the ethnomusicologists’ level of perceived influence or contracted
role. Community members’ requests, requirements, and directions are sought in addi-
tion to those generated or controlled by the partnering ethnomusicologist(s) (Araújo,
2006: 298–309).
The empowerment of the ethnomusicologist cannot be denied (Pettan, 2008: 90–91),
nor the need for methods that base research on sustained, intensive dialogic
relationships negotiated by the both the researcher and the music community in order
to foster a “new knowledge-producing praxis” (Araújo, 2008: 28).20 In the context of
the Cleveland area, dialogic relationships for learning through music navigate social
characteristics that profoundly shape the experiences of schoolchildren and their fami-
lies. Partnerships for learning that welcome lived definitions of music-making benefit
from strategies that seek horizontal pathways for understanding music among people
oriented to differing social positions, cultural frameworks, and community networks.21
When ethnomusicologists join together with arts educators, their negotiations with
other individuals in planning and designing educational programs, resources, or events
are framed by a larger web of institutional policies, communal practices, cultural prefer-
ences, and related values for music-making and learning. In the ideal, the policies and
practices of PK–12 schools and their partners in arts education serve the needs of stu-
dents in ways valued by their families and larger communities. Strategies for applied
ethnomusicology in the PK–12 education sector benefit when collaborative efforts to
design and implement instruction through music ultimately center on the needs of stu-
dents in specific learning contexts, where guidelines for navigating a school’s web of
expectations typically are articulated. Here strategies approach a specific community of
learners in dialogue with partners, where teachers (not only educators) in the learning
community play a leading role. Ultimately, how may students’ current understandings
of music in daily life be connected to music in school and also expanded, in order to sup-
port particular goals for learning?
Navigating Social Barriers and Building Access in Cleveland

In the Cleveland area, social positions related to race, socioeconomic status, and social
mobility are relevant to dialogic relationships. At some level, school partners will navi-
gate such social realities, whether they are overtly acknowledged or not. This includes
positions related to identities of the ethnomusicologist and other decision-making part-
ners.22 Strategies for applied ethnomusicology may benefit from understandings of ways
that schools serving K–12 learners aim to navigate structural barriers while providing
music education.
Some navigation is literally a logistical concern. It is an ongoing challenge to pro-
vide all Cleveland students access to musical experiences in daily life in ways that foster
reflection, participation, and understanding. While foundations and wealthy individ-
uals may fund cultural organizations’ on-site programs, fees for bus transportation to
these events are increasingly considered “incidentals” that are not covered by grant
awards. Tony Sias explains a paradoxical challenge in a “music-rich community” facing
limited transportation funds and rising transportation costs:
One of the barriers is bus transportation… to the various venues.… I think it’s great
to bring programming into the schools, but there’s nothing like going to Severance
Hall and experiencing The Cleveland Orchestra in that acoustically brilliant and
magnificent edifice of a music hall. Nothing like it. There’s nothing like seeing some-
thing at Playhouse Square, [which] has done a phenomenal job of making transporta-
tion a priority in terms of fund development on behalf of Cleveland [CMSD] schools.
(2012)
Sias emphasizes, like many music educators, that the CMSD Department of Arts
Education insists that a high-quality music education should provide all students oppor-
tunities to both perform and think critically about performances by accomplished art-
ists in their professional settings.
The significance of providing access to such experiences in schools in the region is
magnified by the fact that nine Cuyahoga County public school districts indicate levels
of “very high student poverty” or “high student poverty” (38%–88%), according to the
Ohio Department of Education (2013). Nearly one-third of City of Cleveland residents
live in poverty (US Census, 2010), a statistic exceeding poverty rates of most other US
cities of its size (Alaprantis et al., 2013, Exner, 2010; Nelson, 2008:45; Schweitzer, 2007).
The District navigates institutional matters involving curriculum and instruction as
well as the bottom line of funding. To offer a high-quality arts education for all students
in the District, the 2008 Strategic Plan authored by the district’s Department of Arts
Education aims to embrace external partnerships that support goals for the arts in the
CMSD Transformation Plan. The goal is to spread across the District practices integral
to the “proven success” of the Cleveland School of the Arts and arts-focused schools
benefiting from collaborative partnerships, such as Art Is Education (Strategic Plan,
2008: 3). It notes the past role of awards from national and local philanthropic founda-
tions in arts-focused schools (2008: 3).
The Cleveland School of the Arts serves students in grades 6–12 on two campuses,
who gained admission through an audition process. In addition to intensive study in
arts disciplines, project-based learning that integrates the arts across core subject areas
has infused school culture. The high school campus boasts an exceptional rate of gradu-
ation (96% in 2013), and 100 percent of graduates in 2013 matriculated to college and
universities. Through the district’s anticipated PASS program (Premier Arts Specialty
System), additional PK–8 schools in the district may embrace innovative, high-quality
curricula for “arts-focused learning” with “national best practices as benchmarks,”
according to the CMSD Department of Arts Education’s Strategic Plan (2008: 3, 4).
Given the likelihood that most CMSD students face economic barriers to visiting
large cultural organizations and encountering expert performers in Cleveland’s profes-
sional venues, Sias praises opportunities that permit CMSD students to enter cultural
organizations situated geographically within the bounds of the City of Cleveland. One
partner, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, has helped the district’s certified
music teachers, student ensembles, and students’ families explore the history of selected
Inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at no cost. Sias describes how an annual
event of 12 years, the Rock Your World Festival, has drawn large numbers of students
in the district’s musical ensembles and their families to culminating performances that
represent students’ year-long study in music:
[Over] 6,000 Clevelanders attend the festival. We usually have around 2,000 students
who participate, and the balance of the guests are parents, community, and family
members. . . . On that day we have access to the Rock Hall [for CMSD student perform-
ers and their audiences].… One of our agreements with the Rock Hall is that teachers
will select music to be performed: at least one selection by a Rock Hall Inductee.
(2012)
As part of study of concert repertoire in the district’s music education curriculum, stu-
dent performers come to know a song that represents an honored musician’s contribu-
tion to the history of rock and roll music, as defined by the Museum and their teachers.
At a venue that entices larger turnouts than a typical school auditorium, students per-
form for large audiences of their peers and family, as well as other museum visitors.
Sias values experiences that connect students with college campuses. The Museum’s
Library and Archive is available to Cleveland School of the Arts students for special-
ized research projects for the Senior Recital and Exhibition requirement, for which “stu-
dents [write] a research paper about the artist he or she will present, as a part of their
repertoire and performance” (2012). The partnership provides multiple opportunities to
increase familiarity with educational opportunities in music through a library housed at
Cuyahoga Community College.
Dianna Richardson acknowledges the traditional roles of after-school, family-funded
ensembles, and private individual instruction in fostering high-level achievements in
musical technique critical for admission to college-level music study and many profes-
sional opportunities in music. To enrich the string orchestra she directs at the Cleveland
School of the Arts, Richardson has built partnerships with her alma mater, the Cleveland
Institute of Music (which operates in cooperation with Case Western Reserve University)
in Cleveland’s University Circle district, and the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory
of Music, located just south of the City of Cleveland in Berea. Richardson hires and guides
college music majors eligible for work-study positions to provide regularly scheduled,
individual lessons for CSA students during the orchestra class she teaches. Richardson
also seeks opportunities for her students to watch top-level performers, such as those affil-
iated with the Cleveland Orchestra, who present chamber music at the school, at times
just feet away from high school students. The partnerships also grow into mentoring rela-
tionships with students. Richardson sketches a school day in her classroom:
I am working with a group, but I’ve got three private lessons happening in [other]
rooms. Then some days… there’s a quartet performance [by Cleveland Institute of
Music students] right in front of us. And it’s amazing. Think about it: that college stu-
dent is not that far away in age from you.… In a way, you can’t be what you don’t see.
(2012)
Richardson herself helps connect CMSD strings students with out-of-school enrich-
ment offered by the district and pre-college experiences on community college and uni-
versity campuses; Richardson’s involvement in several music programs of this nature
allows her to keep CMSD strings teachers informed about offerings that may support
district goals. Richardson leads the district’s All-City Orchestra, which pulls students
from across the district for after-school and weekend rehearsals, culminating in a pub-
lic performance; summertime All-City Arts programs take place on the Tri-C campus.
Baldwin Wallace University hosts an annual summer String Camp made affordable
to secondary level students with financial need, where Richardson is one of several
conductors.
Music education in the district aims to build in ensemble experiences and individual-
ized enrichment by linking in-school and after-school programs without adding finan-
cial burdens for families. Tony Sias values such partnerships that bring college-affiliated
and active musicians into direct contact with students during and after school, which he
credits as promoting readiness for college and generating mentoring relationships for
career-readiness (Richardson, 2012; Sias, 2012).
Many families of students enrolled in CMSD schools face structural challenges of
poverty and inequality (Avery, 1989; Campbell, 2010). The state of Ohio has wrestled
for years over inequitable systems for funding local public schools through property
taxes; the funding systems were declared unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court
in 1997 (Pittner et al., 2010). Within Cuyahoga County, wealthier suburban neighbor-
hoods outside the City of Cleveland are composed of separately governed municipali-
ties, and none shares responsibility for providing schooling, or other public services, to
City of Cleveland residents. In contrast to greater concentrations of poverty in the City
of Cleveland and several of its “inner ring” suburbs (City of Cleveland, 2011; Piiparinen
and Coulten, 2012), a number of “outer ring” suburbs thrive with a growing population
and economy.
Within and without the City of Cleveland, racial segregation in law and custom—in
addition to social gatekeeping—has erected barriers in neighborhoods, business net-
works, and political factions that reinforce the significance of race, religious affiliation,
ethnicity and nationality, and socioeconomic class, even as labor unions and social
justice organizations such as the NAACP have countered and resisted these barriers.
School populations reflect these realities.
As of 2013, the Ohio Department of Education draws on data from the 2010 US Census
and the US Department of Education to quantify “shared demographic and geographic
characteristics” of school districts across the state, and the report designates 10 urban
school districts in the greater Cleveland area of Cuyahoga County, including CMSD,
with “very high” or “high” rates of student poverty. For research purposes, the report
also assigns a percentage of students classified as “minority” populations for each school
district. Eight of the 10 “large” or “very large” districts with “high” or “very high” pov-
erty have student populations of more than a quarter designated as minorities; six of the
eight districts include a majority population comprising students identified as minorities
(59%–100%). Yet 2012 estimates report that 60.9 percent of Cuyahoga County residents
are classified as White, 30.2 percent as Black, 5.1 percent as Hispanic or Latino, 2.9 percent
as either Asian or Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and less than .3 percent as Native
American; an additional 1.9 percent identified with more than one of the categories (US
Census, 2010).23 The typology lists 21 other Cuyahoga County Districts as “suburban”
areas with “low poverty” (rates ranging from 10% to 61%) or “very low poverty” (rates
ranging from 9% to 32%). Only four school districts in the county show both lower rates
of poverty and a majority of students who are identified as minority group populations.
Urban planning policy, combined with effectual internal policing by neighborhood
residents, has historically exacerbated geographic features that section Cleveland and
its inner-ring suburbs into an “East” and “West” side. Larger Black and Jewish com-
munities were originally established on the East Side than on the West (Encyclopedia
of Cleveland History). Within these East-West sectors of Cleveland, many neighbor-
hoods are associated with working-class, union-affiliated, and/or professional residents,
whose place of work is—or historically was—a nearby factory, hospital, or a city’s pub-
lic services division (i.e., law enforcement, fire protection, etc.) Strongly influential and
distinctive Jewish communities in Cleveland and surrounding suburbs anchored in the
East Side have also exerted national influence on Jewish religious and social institu-
tions (Encyclopedia of Cleveland History). Catholics have outnumbered Protestants in
Cleveland, and many diocesan schools hold high status in the region.
A number of communities in the Cleveland area link identity to the cultural heri-
tage of recent or distant immigrants, their historical neighborhoods, and social orga-
nizations that may foster spoken and written languages and the musical arts from areas
including Western and Eastern Europe, Palestine, Brazil, East and Southeast Asia, and
Pakistan. Waves of migrants from rural southern and Appalachian regions and Puerto
Rico also settled in Cleveland, despite an overall population decline in northeastern
Ohio since the late twentieth century (Grabowski, n.d.). Traditional neighborhoods are
changing as residents of the City of Cleveland and some inner-ring suburbs continue to
move to suburban areas (Smith, 2011).
Demographic statistics of the City of Cleveland and its environs reveal another pat-
tern evident in many Northern industrial centers in the Great Lakes region. People who
identify as Black or Hispanic disproportionately live in neighborhoods with the highest
rates of poverty, and the incomes of families headed by people who identify as Black or
Hispanic disproportionately fall below the federal poverty line (City of Cleveland, 2013).
Socially constructed race matters at a structural level despite past successes of Civil
Rights–era leaders in Cleveland and their continued advocacy. This is the case despite
the prominence of African-American and Hispanic leaders in business, politics, philan-
thropies, and other influential nonprofits.
Ethnomusicological literature often anticipates that understandings of music grow in
relation to the social ebb and flow of communities and ways that people identify them-
selves within them—both in terms of partially shared and more unique experiences,
including those arising from specially valued roles or positions of power. A dialogic
approach to strategies for applied ethnomusicology that attend to the micro-level of
relationships among a specific learning community to support decision-making may
navigate social routes and barriers relevant to schooling. Critics may question where
the functional starting place in the process may be found; indeed, music lessons alone
are unlikely to quickly achieve massive structural social change. Perhaps an effective
beginning is to aim to open K–12 students’ experiences for exploring their identity and
their connections to groups on their own terms.24
For music therapist Deforia Lane, effective interventions may activate an individual’s
pre-existing positive associations or familiarity with musicians, but may also help to
expand them. In the Toddler Rock program, in addition to evidence of cognitive growth
and expanded sense of belonging, Lane has observed students’ personal connections to
musicians celebrated in the Rock Hall (2012)
There are famous people in the Rock Hall who look like them, who have contrib-
uted in ways that are honored and are valued. Just think of the impact that such an
iconic place can have that reflects people with whom they can identify: to watch the
excitement in the eyes of a child when they recognize Michael Jackson’s glove and
say, “I’m going to wear that some day,” or to see the girls admire a sequined gown
of the Supremes. Mary Wilson [of the Supremes] was a guest at Toddler Rock, and
the children proudly sang and performed, “Stop in the Name of Love,” and ‘taught’
her the dance moves. Just think of a 3-year old teaching Mary Wilson how to dance
and sing.
I don’t think children forget that. Those little moments can be very significant and
remembered for years. And when we can learn in an engaging, positive way, in a
beautiful environment among accomplished and talented people—what a privilege!
We’re building skills, teaching concepts, all within the context of music.
(Lane, 2013)
In addition to the interventions gained through word work, improving motor

skills and time-on-task that promote preschoolers’ readiness for learning in
K–12 schools, Lane’s observations suggest that many preschoolers may build
self-awareness and experience a sense of connection to celebrated historical figures
as they learn together through music. Students who come to the Museum for Toddler
Rock from Head Start centers around the greater Cleveland area may identify with
and/or forge new social connections with one another, the staff, figures in popular
music history, and sometimes visiting Inductees. Through developmentally appro-
priate stories about contributions made to the history of rock and roll music, such as
Chuck Berry’s popularization of the duck walk or Aretha Franklin’s recognition as
the “Queen of Soul” (Lane, 2012), the Toddler Rock program teaches Head Start stu-
dents and teachers a bit more about expert musicians than that represented through
mass media.
Ethnomusicological discourse often positions an understanding of music within
frames suited to the complexity of social life and ways people weave musical expression
throughout it. Building children’s readiness for schooling may theoretically occur any-
where, but the partnerships of the Toddler Rock program may foster additional levels of
culturally responsive and/or social-emotional connections in a resource-rich environ-
ment through music.
Judith Ryder agrees, drawing on a 30-year scope of ways that students in Cleveland
can be drawn into the theatrical music and dramatic characters of opera, if logistical
and social barriers are reduced. When directing education programs for the Cleveland
Opera, Ryder had to champion the value of dedicating both time and financial resources
to allow learners to explore cultural sites in ways that forged relationships with
Cleveland’s arts community:
For many years I struggled with funders, who were saying, “You’ve got to do the
opera projects in the schools; the field trips have got to stop.” And I said, “Without
them, the students don’t know about their [larger] community. They have got to
know and experience a museum. They have got to experience walking through the
doors of a theater to know that they are welcome there. [Without these experiences],
how are they going to feel comfortable doing that later in their lives?” That’s our job
to introduce kids to all aspects of life in a community and being a part of that life
[through active participation in the arts].
(Ryder, 2012)
To know creative life, students must experience being part of it (not just visiting it), a
point that resonates with Diana Richardson’s rationale for intertwining accomplished
professional string players into the Cleveland School of the Arts through educational
partnerships.
At Cleveland Opera, Ryder offered a scaffolded series of in-school and on-site expe-
riences to help make of many facets of an opera performance more visible for stu-
dents and teachers by placing students in the opera-making community in Cleveland.
Materials guided classroom teachers and students in a preliminary examination of key
moments in an opera’s plot through reading or acting out scenes, and visiting teach-
ing-artists demonstrated techniques of singing and staging. Next the Cleveland Opera
would welcome student audiences to the theater for a full opera performance with
curtains held back throughout, simultaneously revealing the backstage movement of
characters and props. Some teachers then pursued extended projects, where students
created an original opera in their classrooms (Stevenson and Deasy, 2005: 60–61) or
performed an abbreviated version of an opera alongside teaching-artists (Ryder 2013).
Ryder (2013) offers anecdotal evidence of genuine interest in the form among students a
year or more after their intensive participation culminated. Cleveland Opera teaching-
artists returned to a high school they had visited in the previous academic year. As they
entered the building, students recognized opera staff, a student asked about the opera
season, and Ryder reports, “They all wanted tickets; they all wanted to come to the the-
ater” (Ryder, 2012).
Empowering students’ exploration of identity and relationships in their communities
is of great value. Systemic interventions in Cleveland are massive efforts that require
large-scale partnerships, including funders. Before children engage in effective expe-
riences for learning through music that draw on cross-institutional resources, indi-
viduals have negotiated to set goals, locate the necessary funds, and logistically deliver
appropriate programs of quality. Like many sizable cities in the United States, Cleveland
benefits from initiatives of large philanthropic foundations that offer substantial finan-
cial support to nonprofit and publicly funded agencies that meet residents’ central
needs, furthering their education, health, and quality of life.25 Foundations, ideally, offer
the potential of collective financial power to spark or sustain structural changes or advo-
cate for collective buy-ins for initiatives that promise growth.
When momentum builds among influential funders, large arts education organi-
zations, and the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, initiatives may shape edu-
cational practice broadly. For example, the Cleveland Foundation, Young Audiences
of Northeast Ohio (YANEO), and CMSD leadership played key roles in the devel-
opment of Art Is Education, an initiative supported in part by major federal grants
and sustained largely with the support of Cleveland’s primary philanthropic founda-
tions. The project fostered collaborative sharing of instructional goals for literacy,
best-practices for arts-integrated programs, and critical components in the scope
and sequence of literacy instruction in designated K–8 CMSD schools. The Ford
Foundation, a major funder, identified Cleveland in 2004 as one of nine model sites
for improving urban public education through arts integration programs. The project
was assisted by networks of an earlier program, ICARE, first created by the Cleveland
Arts Consortium to facilitate artists-in-residence at CMSD schools (YANEO, 2008: 5;
YANEO, 2013a).
YANEO project leaders for Art Is Education coordinated dozens of educational
managers of programs in varied art forms housed in Cleveland-area cultural organi-
zations; collaborative committees created new resources for arts-infused instruction
and mounted an advocacy campaign. The Art Is Education Curriculum Committee,
for example, convened in workshops led by a nationally noted consultant in arts
integration to collaboratively design arts activities for CMSD classroom teachers in
alignment with the district’s scope and sequence of third grade literacy instruction.
The relatively time-intensive partnership provided a deeper understanding of goals
and needs of CMSD educators and their students at the grade level, local colleagues’
approaches to arts education, and, in my case, opportunities to enhance Rock Hall
programming targeted for K–4 level learners. Examples of resulting best practices for
teaching and outcomes for selected Cleveland cultural organizations participating
intensively in Art Is Education were discussed before an invited national audience
during the Arts Education Partnership’s 2007 Fall Forum pre-conference presenta-
tions and breakout sessions (Oehler, 2007). Art is Education Project leaders shared
elements of the planning, design, and outcomes of the multiyear project, including
substantial challenges that arose with a change in CMSD leadership (Dobrzynski
et al., 2007).
Partnerships for learning through music in the Cleveland context both reflect
and inform ways in which teachers and other administrators of educational pro-
grams and institutions engage children in musical experiences across institutional
bounds to explore music within the bounds of formal schooling and beyond them.
Ethnomusicologists who prepare to encounter music in the education sector as a site
of cultural negotiation seem particularly skilled to navigate the complex institutional,
cultural, and pedagogical cross-talk required for effective collaboration that fosters
effective, meaningful, and musically differentiated PK–12 learning experiences. In the
United States the field affords perspectives of musical sound and messages that may
help connect a pluralistic representation of music in daily life to learning in schools. To
further pragmatic aims for fostering learning through music in the education sector, it
seems useful to examine strategies for partnerships in the Cleveland context through
the lens of applied ethnomusicology.
Formulating Contextualized
Strategies for Partnerships
for Learning Through Music
It seems clear that decision-making about PK–12 music education in Cleveland’s educa-
tion sector navigates complex histories and contemporary positions informed by the
social dynamics of race and class. For this reason, useful strategies for applied ethno-
musicology in this context overtly maintain awareness of the continual significance of
power relations in approaching interaction with musical communities. Samuel Araújo’s
discussion of his intentionally counterhegemonic, collaborative ethnomusicological
projects in a Brazilian context (2008) provides an example of this approach in applied
ethnomusicology.
Power Relations and the Decisions of Ethnomusicologists

The significance of power relations is undergirded by ongoing discourse concerning
the role of ethnomusicologists in building relationships with, and partially repre-
senting, people who have provided access to musical understandings in the domains
of “academic” and “applied” work. Mellonee Burnim (1985b), Jeff Titon (1985), and
Maureen Loughran (2008) address the topic in terms of negotiating identities and
roles during field research, an emphasis represented in the collection Shadows in the
Field (Barz and Cooley, 1997). Though less frequently the focal point of peer-reviewed
publications, ethnomusicological roles that afford access to musical understandings
also develop through routine work in the course of ongoing professional networks
or collegial relationships—whether or not they are conceptualized as occurring in
the midst of the distinctive power dynamic of field work (Burnim, 1985b; Davis,
1992; Feld, 1990; Jackson, 2006, 2012; Loughran, 2008; Shelemay, 1994). When con-
structing histories of the discipline, ethnomusicologists often turn to narratives that
describe those relationships, networks, and institutions in oral histories, personal
reflections, personal communications, and institutional archives that document the
output of ethnomusicologists at work (Aracena, 2006; Diamond, 2006; Frisbie, 1991,

2006; Jackson, 2006; McAllister, 2006; Nettl, 2006; Seeger, 2006; Stone, 2002; Wade,
2006; Wong, 2006). Strategizing in collaborative work is often routine for applied
ethnomusicologists in nonprofit groups serving the education sector, in contrast to
infrequent, if not rare, opportunities to undertake formal field research or other aca-
demic modes of inquiry. Applied ethnomusicology takes place inside or outside the
frame of research in a web of internal work relationships and external institutional
partnerships that resonate with Klisala Harrison’s notion of “epistemological com-
munities” (2012).
Collaborative strategizing among ethnomusicologists and their partners resonates
with several of Harrison’s characterizations. In addition to “knowledge-based experts,”
Harrison specifies partners in applied ethnomusicology also include “people with work-
ing and authoritative claims to knowledge.” She asserts, “Both have roles to play in artic-
ulating the cause-and-effect relationships of complex problems that involve music, and
in working toward their solution through action and research” (2012: 522).
Many arts education administrators, in my experience, seem to hold authoritative
claims to an expert working knowledge forged through dialogue and written com-
munication, though few consider themselves scholars or ethnomusicologists. They
write narratives that discuss the aims and rationale for work with music and present
them to specialized local, regional, and national audiences. They disseminate grant
proposals and submit program evaluations, publish instructional guides with refer-
ence materials, and communicate via websites, blogs, conferences, and printed media.
Communications may address governmental, philanthropic, and arts initiatives, as well
as the philosophies that infuse them and the financial enterprises that help fund them.
In applying ethnomusicology in the Cleveland context, it seems crucial to seek dia-
logically constituted “rationales for social actions, understandings of involved prac-
tices, and analysis of results” (Harrison, 2012: 522) in order to further goals in schools
where authorization to partner for the purposes of learning through music—or any
subject—comes with a high stakes commitment. In many cases, a partner must deliver
on promises to use school resources, including class time, to significantly advance learn-
ers’ progress toward achieving measurable standards for learning and/or test outcomes.
Harrison’s discussion of epistemic communities as a site of negotiation is applicable:
Analyses of epistemic communities and epistemologies including ideologies involved

in applications of music can serve as bases for analyses of ethics of applications of music
and ethnomusicological research (Whose welfare? How is welfare defined?). The
notion also importantly puts a focus on shared approaches around which practice and
discourse can cohere. Epistemic communities result in knowledge as well as action.
(2012: 522)
In the web-like network of formal and informal partnerships for arts education, per-
sonal dialogue among trusted colleagues may often spread best practices or reveal ratio-
nales driving overarching goals for learning through music. Public presentations often
highlight a project’s clearest successes, reserving the fuller backstory of challenges and
related problem-solving for internal discussion. Strategies for applied ethnomusicology
that build relationships to prioritize trust among partners, while maintaining the capacity
to move independently between “multiple epistemic communities” (Harrison, 2012: 523),
may grow resources for problem-solving in partnerships for learning through music.
Partnerships, in my experience in Cleveland, seem grounded in expectations for lat-
eral flows in relationships, even as participating institutions and individuals often hold
differing motivations for their decisions or operate from hierarchically distinct positions
of influence. When I enter dialogues about a specialized musical style with people who
consider it their own, it often has helped open relationships when I reveal understand-
ings of music that value cultural frames for performance, in addition to knowledge of
relevant recording history or other discrete facts. Academic specialization in the history
of African American music and culture with an ethnomusicological approach centered
around music in daily life has routinely empowered me to contribute efforts for learning
through music in ways valued by partners. But relationships that build partnerships take
place with knowledge attached to whole people, amidst the confluence of our multiple
identities, and in light of the significance of how people may perceive us and accord us
privilege, or not. Classroom teachers, for instance, often value my background as a pub-
lic high school history teacher and current college-level instructor; for some, revealing
this fact seems to visibly reduce skepticism about my way of knowing teaching.
An ethnomusicologist may “aim toward an equality of representation,” as suggested
by Maureen Loughran (2008), but strategies must be fashioned for flexible relation-
ships, rather than stability. Strategizing collaboratively along laterally flowing pathways
may support applied ethnomusicologists who work in nonprofit or for-profit busi-
nesses or under contract. Their actions may be supervised internally through a chain of
decision-makers. The intellectual property that results from their work may be owned
by the contracting organization, rather than the partnering ethnomusicologist.
In this context, Samuel Araújo’s assertion in “From Neutrality to Praxis: The Shifting
Politics of Ethnomusicology in the Contemporary World” (2008) seems very use-
ful. “Musical processes and products are permanently mediated by power relations,”
Araújo writes, “demanding constant action/reflection” (2008: 28), where the ethnomu-
sicologist and other partners “negotiate from the start the… focuses and goals” as well
as the desired results of the partnership and how it will be documented and shared
(2008: 15). Araújo demonstrates ways to “build a new knowledge-producing praxis”
(2008: 28) through pedagogical approaches and research projects in the vein of Paulo
Friere’s participatory action, from which “knowledge will hopefully emerge from a truly
horizontal, intercultural dialogue and not through top-to-bottom neo-colonial systems
of validation” (2008: 14). Strategies to navigate across epistemological communities for
purposes of applied ethnomusicology may support the construction of a new praxis
for knowledge in the education sector. In the context of the institutional characteristics
of most decision-makers described in this article, however, a full embrace of strategies
for sustaining horizontal relationships for the collaborative construction of knowledge
may not truly upend a “top-to-bottom” system. Nevertheless, the pragmatic reality does
not prohibit individuals from choosing an oppositional stance challenging inequitable

structures within their respective spheres of influence.
Summary and Suggestions
Opportunities for ethnomusicologists accompany partnerships supporting arts educa-

tion, which contribute acutely significant resources for public schools, particularly those
serving students living in areas of high concentrations of poverty. Ethnomusicologists
seem primed to work in settings that require the maintenance of social relationships
in cross-institutional collaborative partnership. Also likely is the ethnomusicologist’s
capacity for operating from a heterophonic appreciation for differing musical ideas and
practices that may strongly characterize cultural life of diverse communities.
Strategies for collaborative work and pedagogies that place learners in direct contact
with people of varied musical backgrounds may be cultivated in ethnomusicological
methods and research, in addition to specialized scholarship and collegial discussions
focused on methods of applied ethnomusicology and pedagogical approaches of ethno-
musicology. From these sources, frames for strategies in collaborative ethnomusicologi-
cal work may grow from research-based expectations about how one learns or gains an
understanding of music.
Examples of collaborative cross-institutional partnerships for learning through
music reveal that the decisions and approaches of those involved—the students,
their instructors, audiences, educational institutions, and partnering artists and arts
organizations—offer students a range of opportunities. Through music and perfor-
mance, students may gain increased access to communal, creative expression. Processes
of creating ideas through and about music-making may open an opportunity for school-
children to voice their ideas, successfully participate or flourish in the classroom and
larger community in new ways, or develop a persuasive presentation of their point of
view to advocate for an idea shared with others locally and virtually. Students may dis-
cuss social concerns, further their imaginative fantasies, and create a space for hoping
and dreaming. Experiencing professional musical events as part of a diverse community
may foster learners’ appreciation for and interest in becoming audiences, pursing musi-
cal training, or considering musical careers.
Partnering may offer a vehicle that empowers students (and their teachers) to bridge
classroom learning with musical activities and related cultural knowledge that connect
ways of knowing valued by students to that gained through traditional classroom sites,
approaches, resources, and formally acknowledged centers of knowledge. This, in turn,
may contribute to acknowledgment of the value of new or different musical forms from
those traditionally featured by established institutions. As institutions embrace learning
through music that serves multifaceted needs of children and their caregivers in support
of educational strategies set by educational leaders and classroom teachers, they further
relationships that go beyond the notion of audience-building and outreach. Partners
must negotiate aims with a focus on what learners will know, do, own, discover, make,
voice, or give as a result of a musical activity.
The examples from the contexts of cross-institutional partnerships in Cleveland
illustrated in this chapter suggest that partners routinely negotiate routes for learning
through music that tap into what could be considered multiple epistemological com-
munities around music. Applications of ethnomusicology may be valuable in strategiz-
ing horizontal pathways that recognize and respond to music as a result of a dialogic
process of understanding music in relation to diverse musical lives and dynamic social
experiences—what people expect music to be and what people do with it.
To this end, ethnomusicological strategies will ideally emerge through collaboration in
context to achieve effective partnerships for learning through music. Several foundational
issues and theoretical assumptions about music, which are debated in academic ethno-
musicological discourse, may provide an orienting touchstone from which strategizing
may grow, a place of reflection on the theoretical side of praxis. Three notions about music
relevant to the contexts of Cleveland represented in this chapter provide an example:
1. Music-making is a human experience often woven into daily life. The study
of music, systems for its transmission, and life stories of music-makers benefit
from exploring music not only as repertoire or aesthetic form, but also in social
contexts. These contexts may include memory, individual and group identities,
schooling and informal learning, social history, work and its product, and avenues
for exerting power.
2. Learning about music involves negotiating, understanding, and sharing col-
laborative experiences with people making music—whether as a listener, per-
former, social analyst, or classroom teacher. Ways of talking about music, as
well as performing and experiencing its meanings, reflect cultural expectations
for music within which individual preferences and social affiliations may operate.
Part of learning to collaborate with partners may involve learning how to refer to
music, call it into being, or prohibit disrespectful associations with an iconic musi-
cal form or musician, tradition, or spiritually empowered action. Approaching
collaborative work may require acknowledging that many young people expe-
rience music as an entertainment commodity that exists in digital media, from
audio downloads and film soundtracks to do-it-yourself YouTube videos; live per-
formance may not be closely related to a centering on the digital reality of sound.
When encountering live performances that augment, rather than devalue, such an
orientation, students may access a larger frame of reference for defining, analyz-
ing, discussing, or differentiating among musical sounds, actions, and ideas.
3. Hierarchies informed by social position, cultural aesthetics, and other evaluative
frames enter into decisions about what kinds of musical experiences are appro-
priate for schooling. Inquiring about historical and cultural frames for how people
come to know music may shed light on relevant orientations for learning through
music. These may include experiences within and without school buildings and con-
tent embedded in music curricula, explored across subject areas, or encountered in
project-based learning. Music resources may flow from teacher to students or vice
versa; interchanges among peers may take place during formal activities in class, dur-
ing after-school events, or as a result of informal interactions of students’ social life.
As ethnomusicologists partner to apply orientations such as these and negotiate strat-

egies for learning through music in ways effective for the students at hand, continual
opportunities to contribute to the growth of musical communities arise, both within
and without the education sector as well as academia.
If a strategy of applied ethnomusicology for learning through music must necessarily
be collaborative in order to promise effective work in the education sector, where part-
nering is an essential mechanism for music education, an ethnomusicologist’s strate-
gies should function around decision-making in process, as partners form and apply the
strategies. If teaching occurs in a constructivist framework, plans for learning through
music must keep students’ choices and actions at the center, for their engagement with
music is the crucible in which theory and practice either successfully spark effective
teaching and learning, or fail.
Acknowledgments
The author acknowledges research assistance provided by the Cleveland Public Library,
Cuyahoga County Public Library, and Lakeland Community College Library, and the
detailed feedback of Deforia Lane, Judith Ryder, and Katherine Harper.
Notes
1. In this chapter, “learning through music” refers to any learning experience engaging in
musical sounds, ideas, or actions of music-making or related processes to build under-
standing or ways of knowing in any area of human experience. The use of the term here
does not distinguish between those educational engagements with music for student
mastery of educational standards in music or those for other disciplines, such as English
language arts, science, etc., though many make such distinctions with terminology of
“learning in the arts”/”learning in music” (studies in the arts discipline) versus “learn-
ing through music” (where music serves students’ studies of subjects not considered
arts disciplines, such as biology). As used in this chapter, the phrase, “learning through
music,” intentionally references “learning through the arts,” a notion encouraged
by advocates, such as the Arts Education Partnership, of the value of a “high-quality
arts education” for all learners in arts disciplines but also across disciplines, as stated
in the mission of the Arts Education Partnership on its website in 2013. The National
Endowment for the Arts—a federal agency which established the Arts Education
Partnership in 1995 with the U.S. Department of Education in association with organi-
zations of state level education and arts leaders—has also embraced the phrase to con-
ceptualize arts education (2002).
2. Following phenomenological and performance-centered approaches (Stone 1988; Berger

1999; Monson 1996; Small 1998; Blacking [1969] 1995; Stokes 1997), I locate “music” in
experiences that emerge in the process of performance and shape the construction of
musical meaning, including contexts where people engage with musical ideas, actions,
sounds beyond the bounds of a live performance event (Oehler, 2001).
3. See Geneva Gay’s Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice (2010) as
an example of multicultural educational praxis created in dialogue with dynamic, group
preferences for communication, styles of social interaction, and other valued qualities
associated with “ethnicity and culture” (p. 11) for the purposes of forwarding pedagogical
efforts that may assist in closing achievement gaps for marginalized school populations in
the United States (pp. xvii–21).
4. See Oehler and Hanley (2009) on our approaches to popular music pedagogy at the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.
5. The appeal of constructivist approaches and the rise of studies of cognition may accom-
pany interest in applications of research on the brain to pedagogy for arts integration
(Sousa, 2011; Kennedy Center, 2013) and educators’ embrace of work that affirms stu-
dents’ differentiated routes of learning and expression, as in Howard Gardener’s Frames of
Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (2011), first published in the late 1980s.
6. I also interviewed Fernando Jones, the Chicago-based blues musician and educator,
to gain the perspective of a teaching-artist, who is asked to provide a single, brief learn-
ing experience without the opportunity for sustained interactions. Jones, for example,
has delivered one-hour workshops for teachers at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and
Museum in the mid-2000s. Jones directs The Blues Kids Foundation, instructs the Blues
Ensemble course at Columbia College Chicago, and was a voluntary participation in my
ethnographic field research of the Chicago blues scenes in the late 1990s (Oehler, 2001).
7. For statistical approaches relevant to federal measurement of “educational progress” in the
United States, see National Center for Education Statistics, 2012.
8. A unit of study is a series of related lessons with activities designed for students’ mastery of
a central concept or deeper understanding of a topic.
9. Although music is defined as a core subject by the federal No Child Left Behind Act (2002),
classroom music teachers and their supervisors in the US increasingly have incorporated
advocacy and community engagement in fashioning and sustaining effective curriculum
and the requisite resources it. See Arts for All (2013). A focus on student achievement in
literacy and mathematics means state and federal level agencies monitor test scores and
other markers related to these areas of study, but student achievements in music classes
are not similarly prioritized; school investments in staffing and resources for arts subjects
consequently may fall in the priorities of a district.
10. Music education includes all students, including hearing impaired and deaf learners. See
Darrow (1989) and Hash (2001).
11. The problematic modifiers of “traditional,” “popular,” and “classical” reflect common con-
ceptualizations of broad musical styles and communities, which bear hegemonic weight
(Kassabian, 1999). Vernacular conversation frequently includes the three terms, nonethe-
less, in referencing music in daily life in the United States and arts education. “Highbrow”
is borrowed from Lawrence Levine’s usage for music embraced in or ascribed to elite cul-
tural hierarchy (1988), and I extend the term to describe music routinely framed as “the
fine arts.”
12. For example, consider the expansion of more comprehensive texts and handbooks first
published between 1990 and 2010, such as the Garland series of encyclopedias (Garland
Encyclopedia of World Music, first volume published 2001) and undergraduate level text-
books on music in global perspective (Campbell, 1991; Shelemay, 2006; Titon, 1992b;
Wade, 2009) or in the United States (Alviso, 2011; Lornell and Rasmussen, 1997), and on
ethnomusicological approaches to the history of African-American music and culture
(Burnim and Maultsby, 2006), among other areas.
13. Examples include the Chicago Public Library’s Blues Archive, the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame and Museum Library and Archives at Tri-C, and Indiana University’s Archives of
Traditional Music and Culture and Archives of African American Music and Culture,
among others. Each institution reflects distinctive missions for providing access to the
public at large and scholarly researchers.
14. Discourse regarding the accurate representation of African-American cultural contribu-
tions in the history of rock and roll, as well as what constitutes “rock and roll,” remains
contested by historians, music industry insiders, and fans (Associated Press, 2014;
Maultsby, 2012; Onkey, 2010). Nonetheless, arts educators and other large museums and
cultural organizations have approached the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
Education staff as a resource for representing a racially diverse story about the history of
twentieth-century American culture.
15. The history of jazz, gospel music, and related styles in the greater Cleveland area includes
community performances as well as scenes of influential artists, ensembles, broadcasts,
festivals or special events, and recordings over decades (Mosbrook, 2003; Williams, 2006).
16. See Myers’s (2003) discussion of a similar concept applied at Georgia State University
through its Center for Educational Partnerships in Music. University students in music
education and music performance, as well as members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
who work as teaching-artists, partner with certified music teachers in public schools.
17. The federal Head Start Program of the US Department of Health and Human Services
“promotes the school readiness of children [birth to five years of age] from low-income
families” by enhancing learning environments to grow language, literacy, and physical,
social, and emotional development, while supporting parents’ involvement, according to
websites of the Office of Head Start (2014) and the Council for Economic Opportunities in
Greater Cleveland (2014).
18. The Rock Hall’s Voice Your Choice project allows any teacher to submit students’ work
that persuasively argues for the induction of artists who are not currently in the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame. Selected projects are displayed on the Museum’s website (Onkey, 2012).
19. District finances had forced cuts in staffing and programming following negotiations with
local leaders of teachers unions. By May 2012, Patrick O’Donnell (2012b) reported that the
cuts had shortened the length of the school day and eliminated hundreds of teaching posi-
tions, and reduced planning time, professional development, and employee benefits includ-
ing pay and healthcare. Eric Gordon, CEO of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District,
clarified the urgency of gaining funds to restore this loss in a June 1 presentation to leaders in
the arts sponsored by the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (Gordon, 2012).
20. Relevant to Araújo’s position is also education foundations literature, which applies criti-
cal pedagogy in the vein of Paulo Freire to critique hegemonic dominance in schooling,
such as Antonio Darder’s Culture and Power in the Classroom (2012).
21. See discussions of the significance of social positions of ethnomusicologists’ relationships
(Araújo, 2008; Loughran, 2008: 58) and the teaching of music by teaching-artist Jamie
Topper (2011) and ethnomusicologist Cheryl Keyes (2009).
22. “Position” refers to “power relationships negotiated by persons in reference to particu-
lar social contexts, identities, and purposes” that, in this context, acknowledge the social
construction of race, gender, and culture (Oehler, 2001: xi). I discuss my identity as a white,
middle-class woman in relation to ethnographic field research in my dissertation (Oehler,
2001:xv–xxv, 284–287, 310–317). On the significance of scholars’ racial, gendered, and
other partially shared identities to ethnographic and cultural research in the United States,
see also bell hooks (2004), Mellonee Burnim (1985b), and Charles Gallagher (2004).
23. The typology designates minorities based on the percentages of “African American,
Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander, or multiracial students” in a district, accord-
ing to the Ohio Department of Education’s 2013 School District Typology Methodology
and Descriptors available on its website (2013).
24. On the significance of identity development in pedagogy that confronts histories marked
by mass violence and/or struggles for social justice in pluralistic societies see Gay (2010),
Derman-Sparks and Ramsey (2011), Cole and Barsalou (2006), and Sears (2008).
25. The Cleveland Foundation, established in 1914, is the nation’s oldest community foun-
dation and the nation’s third largest as of January 2010, according to the Encyclopedia of
Cleveland History.
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Chapter 17
Sounds Huma ne
Music and Humanism in the Aga Khan
Humanities Project
John Morgan O’Connell
Applied ethnomusicology has come a long way.1 It has been more than 20 years since the
special issue entitled “Music and the Public Interest” was published in Ethnomusicology
(see Titon, ed., 1992). Since then the field has flourished, being represented in significant
international conferences (such as Vienna, 2007) and in important scholarly outputs
(such as Pettan, ed., 2008). It has also been represented in ancillary study groups (such as
Music and Minorities) and in related subject areas (such as medical ethnomusicology).
Although an applied dimension in ethnomusicology is not new, especially in the areas
of cultural conservation and government policy (see Dirksen, 2012), I was present at the
first meetings of the new field called “applied ethnomusicology” in the United States
(hosted by Brown University in 2003) and in Europe (hosted by Ljubljana University in
2006), where distinctive versions of applied ethnomusicology emerged, one based on a
folkloric model and the other following an anthropological precedent.
Has applied ethnomusicology come far enough? Today, the discipline consid-
ers an eclectic array of interests—ranging from education to legislation, disability to
sustainability—and directions that encompass advocacy and activism, responsibility
and citizenry. Increasingly, the field is self-reflexive, as scholars (like Barz, 2012) find
ways to mediate through collaboration and not to meddle without consultation (see
Araújo and Grupo Musicultura, 2010). Significantly, many scholars are concerned with
conflict, seeking justice at a national level (see Seeger, 2010) or critiquing war at an inter-
national level (see Sugarman, 2010). However, applied ethnomusicology still strives to
find a unified voice, be it in terms of disciplinary definition or philosophical aspiration.
Of course, Harrison (2012) has attempted to formulate a theoretical solution to accom-
modate this intradisciplinary fragmentation. By recognizing interdisciplinary col-
laboration in terms of epistemic association, she in fact highlights the epistemological
divisions in applied ethnomusicology that exist between the United States and Europe,
Sounds Humane 603
divisions that are related to distinctive intellectual traditions and different institutional
structures.
Perhaps, Pettan (2008: 90) has come closest to defining an applied ethnomusicology.
Adapting a taxonomy from cultural anthropology (see Spradley and McCurdy, eds.,
2000), Pettan distinguishes between four key areas: first, action ethnomusicology (that
deploys musical knowledge); second, adjustment ethnomusicology (that nurtures social
interaction); third, administrative ethnomusicology (that activates external change);
and fourth, advocate ethnomusicology (that fosters individual agency). Pettan (with
Harrison) also provides a negative definition of the discipline (see Harrison and Pettan,
2010: 16–17). According to them, applied ethnomusicology is not a field that stands in
opposition to an academic ethnomusicology; it is not a field that is opposed to the con-
sideration of philosophical reflection or theoretical criticism, or a field that is antagonis-
tic toward ethnographic research and artistic expression. Critical here is the distinction
between the applied and the pure. That is, Pettan questions the false dichotomy between
applied research and academic inquiry. Significantly, he proposes a cohesive discipline
in which applied ethnomusicology is an integral part of academic ethnomusicology (see
also Titon, 2011).
Of course, Pettan is essentially interested in the practical. Although theory is rec-
ognized in his negative definition of applied ethnomusicology, Pettan is not primarily
concerned with the theoretical or the philosophical. Here, he is not alone. For example,
Titon (1992) questions the significance of theoretical discourse in his groundbreaking
study of music and the public interest. In this article, Titon interrogates the truth claims
of theoreticians and philosophers who are sponsored by the scholarly community.
Invoking Rorty (1979), he distinguishes between a theoretical aspiration toward Truth
and a practical disclosure of truths. Interestingly, Titon advocates a reflexive theory of
practice that promotes action and that denigrates inaction both within and outside the
academy. In this matter, he sets an important precedent (see, for example, Araújo, 2008).
Yet, Titon’s critique of philosophy is remarkably philosophical. Not only is he conversant
with contemporary issues in philosophical discourse, but he also reveals a remarkable
philosophical insight into his own “being in the world musically” (1992: 319).2
Should applied ethnomusicology subscribe to philosophical reflection? I think so.
Where some scholars are rightly concerned with pragmatic issues, they need to dis-
tinguish between “the how” and “the why,” between the practical and the theoretical.
Further, they need to interrogate their own intentions and aspirations. True, some schol-
ars are now reflexive, questioning an individual positionality with respect to motive and
ambition (see, for example, Seeger, 2010). However, few scholars ask the fundamental
question: Why do I engage in applied ethnomusicology? If the question is obvious, the
answer is not. Looking over the extensive literature in the field, the themes of tolerance
and empathy are stated. The notions of intercultural dialogue and interethic accord are
explicit. Yet, when speaking about a better life in a better world, many scholars resort to
the relative concepts of social responsibility and civic duty, two themes that are informed
by a particular intellectual tradition and a specific cultural worldview.
604 John Morgan O’Connell
True, the issues of human welfare (especially in the realm of education) and human
well-being (especially in the arena of health) feature prominently in the current litera-
ture. True, too, the respect for human value and the desire for human benefit are some-
times mentioned. Yet, the twin ideals of human justice and human rights are often
quoted but rarely interrogated. When cited, they usually reflect a specific humanist tra-
dition with its own historical trajectory. What is missing in the discussion is this: to be
human is to be part of humanity. That is, the human condition is universal. Here, human
understanding is possible precisely because human values are shared. To paraphrase
Morrison (1988) in his hermeneutic consideration of empathy, “I am you.” Although
Morrison unravels the asymmetric relationship between the “I” and the “you” in his
innovative approach to intersubjective understanding, the title of his book (I Am You)
provokes an alternative reading of empathy: that is, “I could be you.”
Is this notion of empathy (the “I could be you”) an overriding principle in applied eth-
nomusicology? Are the aims of applied ethnomusicology consistent with the human-
istic goals of intersubjective understanding? What is the role of music and musicians?
What can academics and activists contribute? This chapter addresses such issues. From a
humanist position, the chapter evaluates the significance of a Muslim version of human-
ism as it relates to an educational program in Central Asia (the Aga Khan Humanities
Project). It also explores the relationship between music and humanity by developing a
hermeneutic approach to music education and music research. Significantly, it adopts a
reflexive methodology organized around the principal tenets of hermeneutics (namely,
experience, reflection, and interpretation). Central to this method is a moment of “dis-
tantiation,” a period of reflection that arises from an episode of experience. That is, it
advances a specific reading of interpretation, one that recognizes music as an integral
component of the human condition.
Applied Ethnomusicology: A
Hermeneutic Method
Sounds Human
Is it possible to be human without music? This is a question I ask my students. Is music an
integral part of the human condition, as Arendt (1958) might argue? Or, is music just an
aberration of human evolution, as Pinker (1997) would contend? Is music a special behav-
ior that is essential to the survival of the human species? On this issue, Blacking (1977)
would probably agree. Or, is music a distinctive intelligence necessary for human prog-
ress? Such an argument Gardner (1983) might proffer. Yet, there are uncertainties. Music
is specific to humans. I suspect that some zoomusicologists and biomusicologists might
dispute this assertion.3 Music is a discrete human activity. However, music often intersects
with language. Again, music frequently overlaps with dance (see Figure 17.1). While such
Sounds Humane 605
Figure 17.1 A professional dancer at a wedding in Bartang.
coincidences call into question the conceptual integrity of music as a human category, it
is evident that the definition of music is relative but that the practice of music is universal.
Music provides an ideal platform for studying humanity. It enables the examina-
tion of music theories as human ideas. It allows for the conceptualization of musical
instruments as human artifacts. It even enables the interrogation of musical activity as
a human behavior that is learned and performed according to the communal interests
and the symbolic constructions of culture. Music can be viewed as a human event that
is configured sonically and practiced socially in a specific time and place. Music is a
way of being human, a lifestyle reflected in the social relations, the economic activities,
the ideological formations and the aesthetic values of society. In this way, music can
be understood as a human endeavor in which musical concepts as human knowledge,
musical materials as human technology, musical activities as human action, and musical
contexts as human event intersect in different ways to help us make sense of our world.
In short, music helps us to be human.
Music is not a medium for studying humanity in isolation. As an expression of cul-
ture, music intersects with (yet is distinguished from) other artistic media (see, for
example, Feld, 1988). In this respect, music is an art form using abstract structures
(musical sounds) and physical materials (musical instruments) to configure and to
deploy respectively musical elements that are perceived by humans to have aesthetic
value. Music is an art process. It invites participation in a deeply felt shared experience
(see Keil, 1987). Music is an art event. It has a functional significance for culture, and it
has a significant place in culture. Music is part of an art world (see O’Connell, 1996). It
operates as a locus for experiencing, reflecting upon, and interpreting culture beyond
(but not limited to) traditional explanations of the human condition. It is a productive
medium for identity formation, as it discloses unique ways of “being in the world,” or
Dasein (Heidegger, 1927).
Music is humanistic. As an expressive art, music offers a unique insight into taste and
beauty, especially from the perspectives of class and ideology, respectively. As a social
art, music presents an alternative medium for expressing social accomplishment and
for displaying social status. As a learned art, music is another way of training good cit-
izens to engage in civil society. Here, the relationship between music and humanism
needs clarification. In a secular humanism, music provides an ideal focus for analyz-
ing and adapting scientific principles and natural laws. In a sacred humanism, music
allows for the interrogation of human beliefs and human emotions freed from (yet con-
sistent with) religious norms. In both traditions, music is a unique expression of human
creativity, another way of speaking eloquently and another means of communicating
effectively. As Sharpe argues (2000: 179), music is a valued expression of human interest,
enabling humans to make sense of the lives they live.
Music is also humane. As an expert in humane education, Weil (2004) argues that
music offers an important means of exciting curiosity and of nurturing creativity. While
her claim that music is civilizing is probably overstated, Weil argues that an education in
the musical is consistent with a training in the humane, especially with respect to rever-
ence, respect, and responsibility when humans are confronted with challenge. Weil is
not only speaking about humanity. She is also speaking about a humane approach to ani-
mals and to nature. Central to her holistic approach to education is the concept of sus-
tainability, where humans live ethically and peaceably with humans and non-humans.
Her notion of sustainability also encompasses the symbiotic relationship between the
animate and the inanimate, the issues of animal protection and environmental steward-
ship being central concerns of a humane education. For Weil, music must go beyond the
humanistic. It must become “humaneistic” (my term).
Music affords a bridge between the humanistic and the “humaneistic.” On this
bridge, applied ethnomusicology might find its voice. This is especially significant in
the realm of sustainability (see Titon, 2011). Either musical practices are no longer sal-
vaged but are now sustained (see Schippers, 2010), or musical materials are no longer
conserved but are now managed (see Impey, 2002). Following a precedent in ecology,
Sounds Humane 607
applied ethnomusicology might have advocated a harmonic equilibrium in the world

or a dynamic equilibrium with the world. Invoking this precedent, the Aga Khan
Humanities Project recognized music as a sustainable art in its balanced promotion of
economic development and ecological conservation. At the time, however, the inter-
section between the musical and the sustainable was only an aspiration. More concrete
was the role of music in threatened communities that had suffered from the trauma of
annihilation consequent to the terror of war. Here, the art of music furnished a human-
istic locus for understanding conflict and a “humaneistic” focus for promoting conflict
resolution.
Music as art presents a structured framework for realizing a human solution to
a humane endeavor. That is, music is an art form, an art process, an art event, and an
art world. Music also permits a hermeneutic methodology to uncover the significance
of expressive culture for humanity. That is, music is a locus for experiencing, reflect-
ing upon, and interpreting culture. Music is also a mediating category between the self
and the other, allowing for a fusion of horizons between one and another (see Rice,
1994). Music provides an ideal locus for intercultural understanding since it promotes
a dialogue between humans, both sonically and socially. Critical here is a moment of
“distantiation.” That is, music enables a detour into the other, an instance of auditory
dislocation that challenges and yet nourishes the audible self. Music allows me to hear
myself through the sounds of others. Music is the crossroads where my understanding
becomes self-understanding (Ricoeur, cited in Reynhout, 2013: 178).
Understanding
Music is a defining characteristic of my humanity. As a form of human knowledge,
music operates as a lens for distilling my experience at a local level and at a global level.
In the former, my training in music at home enabled me to acquire the materials and the
practices of a “Western” tradition. In the latter, my education abroad in anthropology
allowed me to analyze the materials and to interpret the practices of a non-“Western”
tradition. For this reason, I was drawn to ethnomusicology, a subject that allowed me
to combine my knowledge of music and anthropology, and that equipped me with the
skills to teach in a “Western” institution and to research in a non-“Western” context. In
this sense, music is my way of “being in the world,” since my economic means, my social
activities, my ideological biases, and my aesthetic preferences are engaged with a com-
munity of musicians influential upon yet implicated in my life.
Two moments in my life are especially significant. The first is my encounter with
the musical traditions of the Middle East. Here, Ali Jihad Racy at UCLA was a major
influence. Although I had conducted preliminary research on immigrant musics in
Berlin and resident musicians in Istanbul, it was with Racy that I began to understand
the relevant traditions. In his ensemble, I began to experience the music of the Middle
East as a place for ethnography. In his research seminar, I started to analyze the music
of the Middle East as a context for reflection. I completed the hermeneutic cycle by
taking theoretical classes in ethnomusicology (among others) as sites for interpretation.

Central to this hermeneutic process was a moment of “distantiation,”4 a critical moment
of learning new music and of meeting new musicians. Significantly, Racy welcomed a
diverse group of followers. It was his way of promoting interdenominational tolerance
and intercultural understanding through music.
The second was my encounter with the musical traditions of Central Asia. Here,
Rafique Keshavjee of the Aga Khan Humanities Project was an important inspiration.
In contrast to my studies with Racy, my meeting with Keshavjee was accidental. At a
conference in Florida, we literally bumped into each other. At the time he was promot-
ing his project in the humanities that was based in Dushanbe (Tajikistan). Since he had
heard my presentation on a hermeneutic approach to musical instruction in Turkey, he
was interested in discussing my wider interests in music and humanism. At first, I was
circumspect. However, Keshavjee needed a music specialist to supplement his team of
academic advisors, scholars who were especially selected to supervise and to design a
humanities curriculum. Since music was to be a key component in this endeavor (see
“Music” below), I would be in an ideal position to fill an important lacuna. How could
I refuse his invitation?
This was my first time in Central Asia.5 This was also my first time studying the musi-
cal traditions of Central Asia.6 In preparation, I listened to relevant recordings and
I studied pertinent publications. I found that music helped make sense of cultural diver-
sity in a vast heartland. In this respect, cultural difference is disclosed in the structure,
Figure 17.2 A professional musician at home in Khorog.

Sounds Humane 609
the technology, the practice, the context, and the life of music. It is also expressed in lan-
guage, where ethnic difference is broadly classified along Turkic and Persian lines. This
linguistic division between a Turkic domain and a Persian world is found in music. It is
revealed in the melodic scales (five note vs. seven note), the rhythmic structures (asym-
metric vs. symmetric), and the poetic meters (quantitative vs. qualitative) respectively.
The linguistic distinction is evident in music technology, where the morphology of
musical instruments (especially long-necked lutes) conforms to the dualistic taxonomy.
The linguistic divide between a Turkic domain and a Persian realm is apparent in
musical practice. Musical transmission (oral vs. literate), musical performance (solo
vs. group), and musical choreography (no dance vs. dance) are classified accordingly.
So, too, are musical contexts where musicians in the Turkic domain live in rural areas,
play at informal gatherings, and (sometimes) function as religious leaders. By contrast,
musicians in the Persian realm live in urban centers, perform in formal contexts, and
(usually) operate as secular professionals. In sum, the significance of music for the
human condition in Central Asia is not only revealed in the characteristics of its struc-
ture, its technology, its practice, and its context, but it is also exposed in the world of
musicians, where the social organization, the political system, the economic activity,
and the aesthetic disposition of individual groups (broadly speaking) confirm the divi-
sion of the region into distinctive cultural spheres defined according to fundamental
linguistic differences.
This is what I learned in theory. It was not what I experienced in practice. When I
arrived in Tajikistan, I had to revise my reading of music and humanity. Tajik musi-
cians (who speak a dialect of Persian) often performed folk genres and lived in rural
areas reminiscent of the Turkic domain described above (see Figure 17.2). By contrast,
Uzbek musicians (who speak a Turkic language) played classical styles and lived in
urban centers reminiscent of the Persian realm described above. The musical geography
was complicated by a colonial legacy, especially a Russian inheritance (by way of the
Soviet Union) that controlled musical production in terms of institutions (such as con-
servatories) and policies (such as collectivization). The Soviet register was also evident
in the continued patronage of “Western” art music and in the widespread dissemination
of “Western” popular music. Further, ethnic minorities (especially in Badakhshan) had
their own languages and their own musics.7
My critical revision of music provoked a critical reading of humanity. With the col-
lapse of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan was thrust into an extended civil war (1992–1997).
On the one hand, Uzbeks in the north wanted to secede from the Tajiks in the south.
On the other hand, Badakhshan sought independence from Tajikistan.8 Some estimates
put the death toll at 100,000. Even when I arrived (2001), there was sporadic fighting
in the capital, and there were warring militias in the hinterland. Perhaps, music was
more indicative of inhumanity, a sonic inscription of cultural difference that reinforced
competing identities. Was I experiencing another critical moment of “distantantion”?
Would I discover that music in fact unveiled an inhuman condition? Keshavjee taught
me otherwise. Though the humanities project, I had a moment of ontology, an instance
of self-understanding. Under his leadership, I understood that music can indeed be

humane and that music can promote humanism.
Applied Ethnomusicology:
A Humanist Theory
Humanism
The standard account of humanism is decidedly Eurocentric. Generally considered to
have been an intellectual movement that developed in Italy during the Renaissance,
humanism (It., umanesimo) questioned the pragmatic focus of Medieval scholasticism
(which prepared university graduates for professional careers) and offered instead a new
curriculum founded upon the twin tenets of spoken eloquence and written ability. In a
drive to forge a new “man of letters,” contemporary advocates of humanism looked to
the ancients, where the study of grammar and the examination of text allowed for the
rediscovery of classical writings. With a keen interest in philology, humanists began to
interrogate sacred as well as secular sources, derived from Christian and non-Christian
traditions. It was not long before a schism between reason and religion led to a resur-
gence in scientific inquiry (by way of Galileo) and to a questioning of theological verac-
ity (by way of Erasmus). The stage was now set for a new era of humanism, a “religion of
humanity.”
The eighteenth century witnessed the second age of humanism. In contrast to the
Renaissance, when citizens were educated to engage in civic life within the context
of a sacred order, the age of Enlightenment beheld the rise of a secular humanism in
which individuals were endowed with agency freed from the debilitating strictures of
religious dogma and despotic control. In the contexts of a bloody Reformation (initi-
ated in Germany) and an even bloodier revolution (erupting in France), humanism and
nationalism coalesced in a vitriolic assertion of human supremacy, reason and justice
now determining the pathway of human salvation. While the philanthropic potential of
humanism was not underdeveloped, the “deification” of humanity involved the cult of
atheism. Following Comte, a ritualized humanism was founded to discredit the religious
establishment and to espouse a humane altruism. In this way, humanists set a precedent
for the separation of church and state as the guiding principle in “Western” democracy.
Yet, humanism had its darker side. Could the philanthropic become misanthropic? For
example, the civilizing ideals of evangelism can be viewed as part of the colonizing objec-
tives of imperialism. Here, altruism could be said to disguise egotism. When does the
emancipation of humanity become the subjugation of humans? Inspired by the humanis-
tic principles of freedom and brotherhood, Napoleon conquered much of Europe, prom-
ising liberty from tyranny yet practicing tyranny without liberty. Even under the Code
Napoléon, equality was clearly relative (see Adamczyk, 1995: 204–208). At its ugliest,
Sounds Humane 611
humanism became embroiled with fascism by providing a philosophical basis for sup-
porting a German reading of humanity. Heidegger was a principal exponent. Although
the philosopher advocated an anti-humanist position after World War II (see Heidegger,
1947), he was actually countering a humanist outlook that he had originally employed
to validate National Socialism. Indeed, Heidegger became a member of the Nazi Party
(1933), an affiliation for which he was chastised but for which he never apologized.
Critics of humanism have highlighted such paradoxes. They have also emphasized
the ineffectual character of international bodies where humanists have thrived, noting,
for example, how exponents of humanism in the League of Nations were unsuccessful at
halting the rise of fascism and preventing the onset of war. Yet, such critics have them-
selves failed to provide a solution to the pressing issue of improving the human condi-
tion. Perhaps, their search for truth by way of reason was itself informed by the central
principles of secular humanism, a philosophical position that denied the supernatural
but advanced the natural. Here lies the problem. Humanists and anti-humanists employ
the same terms of reference to advance distinctive viewpoints. Further, they both deny
the sacral origins of humanism, especially the desire to educate citizens in the humani-
ties and to create a civil society in ecclesiastical states. As Partner (1979) argues, human-
istic belief and religious conviction were complementary during the Renaissance.
Figure 17.3 A praise singer or madahkhan in Khorog.

Christians were not alone in espousing this version of humanism. For many centu-
ries, Muslims had looked to the ancients for inspiration in the realms of science and
society. Like the humanists in Europe, they translated the works of Aristotle and Plato
(among others) to develop rational solutions to the issues of divine causality and human
agency. Like humanists in the Renaissance, they endeavored to highlight human creativ-
ity in the academic and the artistic realms by emphasizing the distinction between phi-
losophy and theology, even proposing an ethical state that was ruled by a philosopher
king (al-Fārābi) or a single God that was deduced by way of pure reason (al-Bīrūnī).
These humanists of the “East” influenced the humanists of the “West,” especially in
the realms of astronomy (al-Bīrūnī), medicine (Ibn Sīnā), and mathematics (al-Kindī)
among many others. Invoking the naturism of antiquity, they initiated a renaissance in
the Muslim world long before the Renaissance in the Christian world.9
However, this golden age of Islamic humanism was not to persist. The rise of the
“West” marked the decline of the “East,” especially after 1492, when a “new” world
was discovered (from Iberia) and an old world was recovered (in Iberia). The period
also witnessed the demise of the Muslim heartland, which was devastated by succes-
sive incursions of Turkic hordes from Central Asia. The certainties of their past were
replaced by the uncertainties of their present, rational thought now being inadequate to
explain irrational activity. Broadly speaking, Muslims developed two strategies. First,
they resorted to a literal reading of the Qurʾan, a dogmatic reaction to reasoned action
that today has a contemporary relevance. Second, they adopted an esoteric interpreta-
tion of Islam, a mystical version of their religion, which allowed for a subjective response
to an objective reality. Where the first strategy was anti-humanist, the second strategy
was humanist, a different conception of humanism in which mystical experience took
precedence over mental explanation.10
Perhaps, this humanism should be rendered more correctly as “humaneism.”
Although the rational underpinnings of humanism are not foregrounded, the anthro-
pocentric focus in the Muslim version of humanism is. So, too, are the humanistic attri-
butes of tolerance and inclusion. Non-Muslims as well as Muslims were accepted as
human equals. Like their counterparts in the Renaissance, humanists were trained in
the humanities; the “man of letters” represented the “ideal man” who was eloquent in
speech and expert in writing, and who was knowledgeable about prose and conversant
with poetry. Mystical adepts were trained in language and literature, often translating
texts from different languages to advance esoteric wisdom. They were also philologists.
While the rationalist philosophy of some sophists was side-lined (such as Plato), the
metaphysical philosophy of others (such as Plotinus) was not. In other words, philology
played a significant role in the development of gnostic thought among mystics in Islam.
Music
Music transcended the divide between humanism and “humaneism”. As an expres-
sion of humanism, music was an object worthy of rational scrutiny. That is, it could
Sounds Humane 613
be observed, analyzed and explained as a natural phenomenon. In the Muslim world,

music was studied scientifically. Either, a theory of music was developed from perfor-
mance practice, al-Kindī invoking Pythagorean principles (such as the tetrachord) to
represent finger positions on a musical instrument. Or, a theory of music was informed
by philosophical reflection, al-Fārābi also invoking Pythagorean principles (such as a
fixed gamut of pitches) to explain cosmic order and the human spirit. Both theorists
drew upon a scientific study of classical antiquity to provide two readings of music the-
ory, the philosophers presenting either a material explanation or a metaphysical inter-
pretation of music practice. The science of music reached its climax with Safī al-Dīn,
who synthesized the theories of al-Kindī and al-Fārābi to present a systematic treatment
of musical modes (maqāmāt).
In the Christian world, music was also studied scientifically as an expression of the
humanist project. During the Renaissance, theorists consulted Greek treatises to rec-
reate classical conceptions of beauty in music. Greek notions of consonance and dis-
sonance informed a new approach to counterpoint in which the third and the sixth
acquired a new status in music composition. Allied to this, Greek concepts of intonation
enabled the fixity of particular intervals and the development of just intonation, where
simple ratios were devised to create perfect intervals. Here, temperament reflected an
empirical study of contemporary practice, rather than a slavish adherence to historic
principles. The democratic impulse was not ignored. Music was liberated from the
Figure 17.4 A Mevlevî sema in Turkey, ca. 1890.

despotic rule of the cantus firmus. Rather, polyphonic textures attested to a new equality
between voices, whose range and number expanded in the context of a cappella ensem-
ble. The Greek legacy covered other issues related to music and emotion, music and
modality, and even music and declamation.
Yet, here the similarity ends. Where humanism in the Christian world would evolve
into a secular guise, “humaneism” in the Muslim world would revert back into a meta-
physical form. As the humanist impulse in the “West” developed the idea of music as
a universal language (see Sharpe, 2000; Higgins, 2012), the “humaneist” drive in the
“East” re-envisaged music as a divine expression. Critical here were the writings of
al-Ghazzālī. Responding to a contemporary debate about the acceptability of music
in Islam (called “the semāʿ polemic”), al-Ghazzālī advocated the benefits of music and
dance for promoting ecstasy in religious rituals. Although he was cautious about the
time and the place of such ecstatic moments, al-Ghazzālī recovers the theological status
of music, arguing in particular that song, like poetry, was merely an embellishment of
speech. Accordingly, it was lawful. Further, song is the work of God since it is merely
another embellishment of nature (Goodman, 2003: 42).
However, al-Ghazzālī was critical of errant philosophy (falsafah). In part, he disap-
proved of those philosophers who were non-Muslim, especially the great thinkers of
classical antiquity. Further, he was a virulent opponent of neoplatonism, questioning its
monotheistic credentials with mathematical abstraction. It took another sophist to bal-
ance the equation. Ibn al-ʿArabī employed neoplatonic ideas to ground his revolutionary
notion of “unity of being” (waḥdat al-wujūd). That is, al-ʿArabī melded the distinction
between the creator and the created. Differentiating between a divine essence and a cos-
mological emanation, he argued that the cosmos represented different manifestations of
God’s qualities. For al-ʿArabī, the world was both one and many, both divine and mun-
dane. To experience God, it was necessary to uncover the divine within the humane.
That is, each human had the potential of being able to experience God since each person
was simply a microcosm of a divine reality. Predictably, al-ʿArabī is celebrated by mysti-
cal Islam and shunned by orthodox Islam.
Music played a key role in this ontology. For al-ʿArabī, music occupies a liminal space
(barzakh) between heaven and earth. Music is one means by which God is revealed to
humans. Another is dance. By combining music and dance, humans can achieve a state
of enlightened ecstasy as each person unveils the divine within. Musical instruments
may have a similar function. Many instruments are anthropomorphic. For example,
the end-blown reed flute in Turkey (called ney) is believed to symbolize man, its nine
holes representing the nine orifices of man. Music results from the breath of God pass-
ing through the vessel of man. In this way, it reveals sonically the unification of God
with man. For example again, the short-necked lute in Badakhshan (called rubab) has a
human form, being endowed with bodily attributes (such as a face and a rib cage). The
musician (madahkhan) performs poetry (madah) in praise of God (see Figure 17.3). The
instrument is believed to have mystical as well as magical properties.
The two examples described above come from two distant corners of Asia.
However, they represent two manifestations of a singular ideal. In Turkey, the ney is
Sounds Humane 615
intimately associated with the Mevlevî dervishes, a mystical order founded by the
thirteenth-century Sufi saint, Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi. Mevlevî adepts (semazen) emulate in
their ritual (sema) the neoplatonic constellation of cosmic order. Here, each partici-
pant represents a planet rotating around an axis (qutb) symbolizing the sun (or “the
perfect man”). In Tajikistan, the madahkhan performs madah to accompany ecstatic
dance, often employing poetry written by the eleventh-century Sufi mystic, Nasir
Khusraw. Following a neoplatonic precedent, music making reveals the hidden mean-
ing (batin) within the apparent meaning (zaher). Interestingly, both examples involve
choreographic representations of the solar system in the context of mortuary rituals.
Both examples, too, involve neoplatonic philosophers, one who left Tajikistan (namely,
Rumi), the other who came to Tajikistan (namely, Khusraw).
The choreographic connection is especially significant. Rumi was the pupil of
Shams-eTabrīzī (also called Shams al-Dīn) in Tabriz, with whom he had a close rela-
tionship. The Mevlevî sema commemorates Rumi’s inconsolable sorrow at Tabrīzī’s
death (see Figure 17.4), when the mystic was murdered by rival adepts who were
jealous of the intimacy between teacher and student. The sema is remarkably simi-
lar in concept to the mortuary dances associated with the madah (see Figure 17.5).
Interestingly, some mystic groups believe that Tabrīzī was a religious missionary
(daʿī) of the Ismaʿili branch of Shiʿaism.11 More remarkable, some Ismaʿilis believe
that Tabrīzī was actually the twenty-eighth Imām, Imām Shams al-Dīn Muhammad.
What is interesting is this: both Rumi and Tabrīzī were profoundly influenced by
neoplatonic philosophy, each mystic being connected to a place (Tajikistan) and a
sect (Ismaʿilism) where music and dance were utilized to uncover the divine within.12
In this respect, music making is intimately associated with the creation of “the per-
fect man,” a veritable supernatural version of humanism.
Applied Ethnomusicology:
A Humanitarian Project
Man
For Ismaʿilis, man is at the center of a unified universe. Emulating a philosophical prec-
edent set by al-ʿArabī, man is the axis of all things, a being that can approach the limits
of divinity. Like al-ʿArabī too, they believe in a succession of prophets (Imām-s) who
reveal divine truth, the first of whom is the “original Adam.” Each Imām is believed to
be “the perfect man” (al-insān al-kāmail) since he alone manifests divine attributes.
Each Imām is pole of the universe (qutb) divine in nature yet human in form, guiding
mankind along the path to divine revelation. Interestingly, a comparison here with the
incarnation of Jesus Christ is instructive. Further, Ismaʿilis believe in a brotherhood of
man, where no distinctions are made on the basis of ethnicity or creed. In fact, Ismaʿilis
advance the unity of all religions since each religion is of one essence. Love is at the heart
of Ismaʿili belief, love of God and love of man.
Philanthropy is the logical outcome of philosophy. As part of his sacred remit, the
Imām is expected to contribute to the well-being of both believers and non-believers.
In fact, the current Imām (Aga Khan IV) is ambivalent about the term “philanthropy,”
believing it to be a “Western” practice that is intimately associated with sacred institu-
tions. He considers that his benevolent contribution is the institutional responsibility
of the Imām, a responsibility of his office that involves improvements to the worldly life
of underprivileged communities. How was this financed? Traditionally, Ismaʿilis were
required to contribute a tithe (called dasond, or “ten parts”) to the Imām, worth 12.5 per-
cent of their gross income (10% as dasond; 2.5% as zakat). Some of this income was ear-
marked for the upkeep of ritual structures (called jamatkhana-s), while the remainder
was destined for charitable projects. Dasond also included a provision for war booty,
20 percent of the takings being assigned to the poor and the homeless (among others).
In the recent past, the charitable contribution has been considerable. During the
reign of the previous Imām (Aga Khan III), jubilees were marked by donations that
matched his weight in gold and diamonds. Since he was not a slim man and since he was
not short-lived, the resulting levies were substantial. However, this Imām was a major
Figure 17.5 Janbaz Dushanbiyev performing a mortuary dance in Khorog.

Sounds Humane 617
visionary. As a politician, he played a significant role in peace negotiations that followed

the two world wars, after the first in favor of Turkey, after the second in favor of India.
He was also the President of the League of Nations at a critical moment in its history
(1937–1938). As a radical with a socialist inclination, he believed that labor should be
organized and that the subjugated should be enfranchised, especially in those conti-
nents that were colonized by European powers. In particular, he was especially critical of
the British for their discriminatory policies in Africa (see Aziz, 1997–1998).
However, this Imām (Aga Khan III) was best remembered as an educator. He believed
that human brotherhood could be nurtured through international education (both for-
mal as training and informal as travel). He encouraged his followers to learn the lan-
guages and literatures of others. This was especially important at a time of civil strife
between Hindus and Muslims in South Asia. Later, it would also prove important for
nurturing interfaith understanding between Christians and Muslims, and for fostering
interdenominational accord between Shiʿas and Sunnīs. Here, he considered health and
wealth to be the guarantors of international order, education being the mechanism by
which both could be achieved. In his activism on behalf of peace, he viewed literature as
the hallmark of culture, a key to understanding humanity and a key to promoting deity.
In particular, he considered Persian poetry, with its humanist message and its mystical
ethos, to be the “voice of God speaking through the lips of man.”
However, music was missing in this utopian vision of the former Imām (Aga Khan
III). Perhaps this reflected the logocentric focus of Islam, in which the written word is
accorded a principal position. Perhaps, it also reflected the ambivalent position afforded
to music by Muslims throughout history. Yet, music plays an important part in the oral
transmission of esoteric knowledge throughout the Ismaʿili community. For exam-
ple, ginan-s are devotional songs that are believed to have been transmitted by itiner-
ant proselytizers (called Pir-s) during the twelfth century as they converted followers
to Ismaʿilism in South Asia. To suit their converts, ginan-s were composed in a vari-
ety of languages that encompassed local dialects (such as Gujarati) and foreign tongues
(such as Persian). They are identified by two criteria: first, by the mode (here called
raga) employed; second, by the author (usually a Pir) mentioned. Significantly, ginan-s
are almost exclusively studied as an exercise in philology and not as an enterprise in
ethnomusicology.
However, song texts are also missing in this utopian vision of the former Imām (Aga
Khan III). In many classical traditions where Ismaʿilis are resident, Persian is the lan-
guage of song. Usually, lyrics are taken directly from the poetry of great figures in the
Persian tradition (such as the famous poet Hāfez-e Shīrāzī). They may appear as fixed
compositions (as in the tarona section of the Tajik-Uzbek shashmaqam), or they may
be rendered as improvisations (as in the āvāz section of the Iranian dastgāh). The tropes
of Persian poetry are more widespread, appearing in Urdu as devotional songs (such as
qawwali-s) or in Turkish as classical compositions (such as beste-s). In these instances,
a diverse range of musical traditions is unified around a standard vocabulary of Persian
themes. Even in informal contexts, Persian is employed in vocal performance. In this
respect, the madah is especially important. Rendered by the madahkhan on the rubab
using Persian texts, madah is often performed to venerate the Imām-s of Ismaʿilism.
The relationship between music and poetry is not lost on the current Imām (Aga
Khan IV). Mindful of the philological focus of Ismaʿili scholarship, he has endeavored
to introduce a musicological dimension in his cultural agenda. As part of his Trust for
Culture program, the present Imām has highlighted music (by way of the Aga Khan
Music Initiative) as a means to preserve and disseminate folk and classical traditions
in Central Asia. Not only has the initiative sponsored international performances by
relevant artists (by way of the Silk Road Project), but it has also supported the transmis-
sion of relevant musics by means of the “master-apprentice” program. For example in
Tajikistan, the initiative has funded a conservatory (called “The Academy of Maqâm”)
for the teaching of classical music (shashmaqam). Directed by Abduvali Abdurashidov
(see Figure 17.6), the institution now accepts around two hundred students and accom-
modates around one hundred experts.
Project
The Aga Khan Humanities Project is another initiative sponsored by Aga Khan IV. In
contrast to the Music Initiative, which is concerned with music practice in the realms
of transmission and performance, the Humanities Project is focused on curriculum
development, academic instruction, and scholarly research.13 Conceived as an educa-
tional project that serves to promote pluralism and tolerance in Central Asia, the pro-
gram draws upon an international range of pedagogical sources. These encompass the
cultural artifacts of world traditions that foster a new understanding of difference in
the region. Critical here is the development of a civil society that is both democratic
and humane in the wake of Soviet disintegration. As a way of building bridges across
the region, the curriculum is now taught in more than 50 institutions. Since the sylla-
bus involves “core texts” from around the world and the pedagogy emphasizes critical
reasoning in a cross-cultural perspective, the curriculum aims to promote leadership
through a humanist approach to education.
The project acknowledges music in the curriculum. As part of a wider study of expres-
sive culture, the program views music as a human activity that serves both to embed cul-
tural identity and to foster intercultural dialogue. In the first instance, the curriculum
honors the musical traditions of Central Asia, be they of Turkic origin (such as the epic
cycle called Manas in Kyrgyzstan) or Persian derivation (such as the elegiac form called
madah in Tajikistan). The curriculum also looks at the materials of music (such as song
texts) and the artifacts of music (such as instrument design). The curriculum examines
the lives of musicians, tracing how each learned his or her art and how each practiced his
or her tradition. This part of the curriculum draws on the work of the Music Initiative,
especially the master-apprentice program now established in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan (among other countries). Significantly, musical
anthologies of representative performances are available in the form of CDs and DVDs.
Sounds Humane 619
Figure 17.6 Abdulvali Abdurashidov playing the sato in Dushanbe.
The musical content of the curriculum benefits from these resources. Music the-
ory is not described as technical abstraction. Principles are related to practice, the
curriculum emphasizing the relationship between the audible and visible to demon-
strate the sophistication of creativity both as an expression of human cognition and
as a celebration of human sensibility. Music repertoire is related to musical concepts,
showing how musical performances are structured and realized. Here, music cat-
egories are viewed as cultural commodities that are shared and exchanged between
distinctive traditions. True to its humanistic principles, the curriculum honors the
music traditions of different denominations, vedas being representative of Indian
Hinduism, chant being representative of Russian Christianity, and shashmaqam
being representative of Bukharan Judaism. This pluralism is reflected in the repre-
sentation of intradenominational difference. The Turkish sema honors the Sunnī
tradition, and the Iranian dastgāh honors the Shiʿa faith. Of course, musical genres
(such as ginan and madah), which are intimately associated with the Ismaʿili com-
munity, are also included.
Initially, the musical content of the curriculum was presented with other examples of
expressive culture. A section on architecture examined the relationship between sound
and space to study harmonic proportions in a church and a mosque. A section on art
looked at the aesthetic attributes of the visible and the audible in painting and music,
both in the “West” and the “East.” A section on theater observed the use of music and
drama in Italian opera and Iranian drama (called taʿziyeh). However, this productive
dialogue between the arts and music was never realized. As Jonboboev (2010) recounts,
music now has its own volume. Entitled “Rhythm and Movement,” it examines exclu-
sively the intersection between music and life. However, this change in the curriculum
was probably unsuccessful since a new text on music in Central Asia is envisaged. Its
remit is “to sustain, develop and transmit musical traditions.” Here, the implicit aspira-
tion toward the modernization of music is somewhat questionable.
The curriculum is published and taught in English and Russian. At first glance, the
Russian edition might seem problematic. Given the colonial mindset of the past and
the nationalist antipathy of the present, a Russian translation of the humanities project
seemed doomed to failure. At second glance, however, the Russian translation is expe-
dient. For many in Central Asia, Russian is still the lingua franca, a common currency
that transcends the linguistic differences in the region. The use of Russian has another
advantage. It bypasses local antagonisms in which music and language still present a
volatile medium for interethnic discord. Indeed, when I was in Tajikistan, Russian was
often spoken in preference to Tajik or Uzbek. In either case, it represented the cultural
capital of social aspiration. Since many Tajiks wished to speak Russian rather than Tajik,
I was unable to communicate using my halting knowledge of Persian. Or, it allowed
Tajiks to avoid speaking Uzbek. Since I could just be understood in Uzbek by speaking
Turkish, this circumvention was also difficult.
The project was not just concerned with a humanities curriculum. The project spon-
sored a cinema group that attained a number of international accolades. The project
was also home to an Internet technology that was considered advanced in Tajikistan
at the time. The project staged a series of concerts that allowed students to appreciate
the musics of the locality and to engage in the techniques of scholarly research. Here,
academics and technicians collaborated in recording events both to the economic
advantage of musicians and to the academic benefit of the students. In this matter, an
innovative approach to musical production was initiated. It employed the Internet as
a means of empowering musicians by circumventing the mediating stranglehold of
transnational corporations in the recording industry. This was especially effective. Most
important, the project enlisted the support of volunteers from the Ismaʿili community
outside Tajikistan. Further, it solicited the assistance of helpers from within Tajikistan,
especially Russians who now felt alienated within a newly established Tajik state.
The project has evolved in a number of phases. At its outset, international advisers
collaborated with national scholars to develop a university curriculum that was both
innovative and relevant. As Keshavjee (2009) states, local authorities were able to act
with creativity since they were freed from the strictures of Soviet doctrine, while at the
same time they were exposed to the results of Soviet disintegration. As with all projects,
there were casualties over time. The project was absorbed into the emerging University
of Central Asia, where its significance was eclipsed by the concerns and perspectives of
the then-technically oriented staff. As a consequence, significant protagonists found
Sounds Humane 621
other opportunities to develop similar programs outside Tajikistan. That being said,
the humanities curriculum is very much alive.14 It is now scheduled to be taught at
relevant universities in East Africa and South Asia. It is now set to be a humanities pro-
gram for humanity.
Applied Ethnomusicology: A Humane
Application
Application
I was involved at three stages in the development of the project. In 2001, I was invited
as a music specialist to participate in an induction program that involved the training
of teachers and students. In 2002, I was also invited to contribute as a music educator
to design and to write a volume principally devoted to expressive culture. Later in 2002,
I was finally invited as a music anthropologist to supervise research expeditions, one
in the principal capital Dushanbe, the other in the provincial capital Kulob. I was also
involved in the running of a pilot scheme in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan). Further, I undertook
my own research on the madah in Badakhshan. This was an exciting time for me. I was
thrust into a musical world that was familiar yet different from my research in Turkey.
It was also an exciting time for the world since it coincided with the allied invasion of
Afghanistan (following 9/11) and the concomitant transformation of Tajikistan.
In stage one, I participated in the education of instructors and pupils. In this, I worked
with a team of enlightened scholars (mostly from North America) who were principally
involved in research-led teaching in the arts and the humanities. Although our range
of expertise encompassed the fine arts and the performing arts, we were unified in our
search for a humanistic approach to expressive culture. For me, this was a personal and
an intellectual goal. However, our mission was not easy. Since we had all trained in the
United States, our empirical method did not rest easily with the idealist tradition advo-
cated by our wards. This was a clash of civilizations, an intellectual conflict between the
inductive and the deductive, a conflict between an American and a Russian reading of
intellectual endeavor. Keshavjee mediated this divide. Empowering our teachers and
students with democratic agency, he solicited feedback from each. This was new for
them, and they were not forgiving.
I was the target of particular rancor. In some cases, participants found my emphasis
on experience over explanation problematic. Here, music specialists wished to employ
the technical language of musicology to make sense of music, thereby framing all
musics according to the delimitating strictures of a “Western” (albeit a Russian) mind
set. In other instances, participants found my preoccupation with music in the con-
text of a humanistic project difficult. This disclosed a variety of prejudices that ranged
from a gendered to a sacralized perspective in which music was considered either to be
Figure 17.7 Musicians from the Academy of Maqâm in a workshop.
feminine or immoral, depending upon the biases of the individual in question. The cen-
tral questions were as follows: Is it possible to instruct music specialists in the humani-
ties? Is it possible to teach non-music specialists music? This is a persistent problem in
ethnomusicology. While I endeavored to train musicians in theory and non-musicians
in terminology, I am not sure whether I was successful in each instance.
In stage two, these issues were again salient (see Figure 17.7). I was asked to design a les-
son for the curriculum. I chose a piece that could be performed, analyzed, and interpreted
according to the principles of my hermeneutic methodology. I selected a composition
that was different yet familiar to the anticipated audience, a Turkish song (şarkı). To test
my lesson plan, I organized a workshop. After saying the words, after clapping the meter,
and after singing the melody, the participants managed to execute the piece with some
semblance of recognition. I then asked them to analyze the metric structure of the text
(–.––) and the meter (–.–|–.–). In doing so, I demonstrated the polymetric exchange
between poetry and rhythm. This task was not difficult for most participants. However,
the analysis of melody was. It involved identifying a descending contour that consisted
of two symmetrical yet disjunct tetrachords. When I drew the descending contour on
the board, they could see as well as hear.
Finally, I asked them to interpret the piece. I started with the song text. Immediately,
they could understand the lyrics since they employed a standard vocabulary of Persian
terms that is also found in Tajik and Uzbek. For similar reasons, they could recognize
the mystical topoi of Persian poetry. Here, the dialogue between the lover and the
Sounds Humane 623
beloved was standard fare. I then asked them to clap the meter while they spoke the
words. Interestingly, they felt the ways in which the metric cycle helped clarify (through
emphasis) the meaning of the song text. By adding the melody, a new set of corre-
spondences occurred, where the “I” of the lover and the “Thou” of the beloved fused
momentarily in instances of ontology. Further, the symmetries in the poetry matched
the symmetries in the melody. For such an audience, acquainted with the language of lit-
erature, this discovery of correspondences and symmetries was revealing, since it dem-
onstrated the principal role of music in unveiling divine presence.
In stage three, I no longer had to convince the teachers or the students about the sig-
nificance of music. I also did not have to convince members of the design team about my
hermeneutic approach to the form and content of the humanities curriculum. However,
I did have to show participants and specialists alike how to integrate music making into
the curriculum. To do this, I organized two expeditions. In the first expedition, we vis-
ited an instrument museum (the Gurminj Museum) in Dushanbe to describe, analyze,
and interpret musical artifacts. In particular, we examined the rubab to uncover its sym-
bolic meanings. We also visited a music school (the Academy of Maqâm). We attended
a lesson in shashmaqam. At once, we noted the similarities between learning a Turkish
şarkı and a Tajik tarona, especially with respect to analyzing the connection between
poetry and rhythm. Indeed, students at the Academy are expected simultaneously to say
and to clap complex poetic meters and rhythmic patterns.
In the second expedition, we undertook field research in Kulob. In preparation for
this fieldtrip, I taught an introductory seminar on methods in ethnomusicology. In con-
trast to the excursion in Dushanbe, I wanted to show teachers and students how to col-
lect musical materials for a class and how to integrate music makers into a class. In the
former, they employed field techniques learned in my seminars to record, both visually
and audibly, musical performances that were performed inside and outside. Done prop-
erly, this would enrich the educational experience and enhance the library resources. In
the latter, they tested the integration of musicians in a hypothetical classroom. Following
the tripartite model, they attempted to perform, analyze, and interpret a musical item,
using the musicians both as performers and interpreters. Apart from some confusion
(and some sarcasm) on the part of the music practitioners, this case study proved to be
successful, being both simple in conception yet dialogic in character.
Research
To teach is to learn. This is certainly true in my experience. Although invited as an
instructor and as a researcher, I was profoundly indebted to the knowledge that I gleaned
from the participants on the project and from the excursions organized during the proj-
ect. On the one hand, this acquisition of knowledge was informal, often based on a chance
encounter between lessons or after concerts. At first, it allowed me acquire a basic facility
with the principal language (namely Tajik). Later, it enabled me to ask focused questions
about musical practice and cultural value, be it from specialists resident on the project or
from musicians invited to the project. On the other hand, this acquisition of knowledge
could be formal. Like the teachers and the students, I expanded my knowledge of music
technology, music transmission, and music practice on the expeditions in Dushanbe and
to Kulob. Critical here was not only the successful completion of fieldwork by the partici-
pants but also the adequate preparation for field research by me.
The project afforded me a visit to the heartland of the Ismaʿili community in the
mountainous region of Badakhshan. Since I was especially interested in completing
research on the madah, relevant participants on the project provided me with introduc-
tions to prominent musicians. Since many madahkhan-s lived in inaccessible valleys,
I was able to prepare my itinerary in advance. This was especially invaluable. Further,
I was accompanied for a short time by another consultant on the project, Bill Beeman.
This was an ideal combination: Bill the language expert and me the music specialist,
conducting joint research on a genre that had a literary as well as a musical dimension.
In the first instance, we focused our energies on prominent musicians in the capital
(Khorog), recording representative performances and documenting cultural values. In
particular, we benefited from the esoteric knowledge of Janbaz, a respected madahkhan
who explained the significance of cosmological order in dance and who outlined the
place of numerology in music.15
Figure 17.8 A musician playing a maqamboland in Wahan.

Sounds Humane 625
According to Janbaz, the instrument of the madahkhan (the rubab) has five pegs and
five strings.16 He explained that the madah is divided into five sections (three main and
two subsidiary). The madah is organized into five melo-rhythmic modes and by five
distinctive poetic forms (starting with a five-lined poetic genre called mukhammas).
This numerical arrangement has a mystical dimension. Humans are endowed with
10 attributes and 10 feelings, each of which is organized into five exterior (zaher) and
five interior (batin) categories. Five is found in the Badakhshani conception of space.
Here, internal pillars, household shelves, and door lintels (among other elements) fol-
low a similar layout. Further, the “rule of fives” has a wider geographical significance.
Badakhshan is divided into five regions, each with its own distinct language and
each nourished by a tributary of the Panjāb (meaning “Five Rivers”). Simply put, the
Badakhshani conception of sound is consistent with a Badakhshani conception of space.
When Beeman departed, I was fortunate to conduct two excursions into two val-
leys. The first was to Bartang. There, I documented the ecstatic dance that accompanied
madah. This dance embodies cosmic order since it involves the continuous rotation of
the hands and the feet. This symbolizes the constant flux of primal elements (earth, fire,
water, and air) and the continuous interaction of good and evil. Where I had found that
the number five had an Islamic significance in Khorog, I found that the number four
had a pre-Islamic importance in Bartang, be it in architectural construction, clothing
design, or bodily movement. Four is especially important in building. It is found in the
shape of the central skylight (chahar khaneh) (see Figure 17.9), a tangible articulation
of Aryan philosophy, in which the four elements fuse together in a circular fashion and
where the four seasons progress from one to another, maintaining order in the cosmos.
The second excursion was to Wahan. There, I discovered how music reveals the cen-
trality of man in the Ismaʿili universe. Visiting a shrine (mazar), I discovered a musi-
cal instrument (called maqamboland) similar to the rubab but shaped like a man (see
Figure 17.8). Like the rubab, it had another feature, a horse attached to the head of the
instrument. This conflation of horse and man seemed to contradict the anthropocentric
reading of music according to an Ismaʿili worldview.17 Further, ancient hieroglyphics
(dating from pre-Islamic times) represent the rubab (with five strings) as a dancer whose
hands are held out in the form of a swastika. As I traveled along the Panj River, which
marked the remote border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, I witnessed a confusing
assemblage of cosmogonic patterns and symbolic systems reflective of a Central Asian, a
South Asian, and a West Asian reading of cultural identity. Clearly, the “rule of fives” was
just one interpretation of Badakhshani identity.18
How did I make sense of this complexity? At first, I was drawn to a Derridean decon-
struction of Heideggerian ontology (see O’Connell, 2004). At the time, each explanation
of Badakhshani music seemed to disclose a distinctive interpretation of Badakhshani
identity. It was not just the juxtaposition of the five (indicative of a West Asian register)
and the four (indicative of a South Asian register), it also involved the intersection of
a six and a seven, representing the equal and the unequal division of twelve in music
and philosophy throughout Asia.19 It would have been easy to conclude in a colloquial
fashion that the issue was simply a matter of being “at sixes and sevens.”20 But is it?
Figure 17.9 A skylight or chahar khaneh.
Numerology is visible and audible in the music culture of Badakhshan. It is expressed in

musical discourse and it is uncovered in musical practice. It is performed as music. It is
embodied as dance. Perhaps, there is a larger issue at stake here.
I return to Wahan. Inevitably, the car breaks down as night is falling. Aware of the pos-
sible dangers, the Tajik driver, the Russian soldier, and I are invited to stay in the nearest
Pamiri residence. As is typical, the house has five pillars, representing the five key figures
of Shʿia heterodoxy (Mohammad, Ali, Fatima, Hassan, and Hussein). It also has a variety
of designs representing an Aryan influence (especially the swastika) and a Zoroastrian
legacy (especially the hearth). Before we repair to a single bed in the male quarter, we are
invited to a sumptuous meal, followed by a night of entertainment. Animals are removed
from the house for the occasion. The madahkhan plays madah while the family members
dance. The party lasts for hours. Vodka flows freely. This is a lavish gathering, yet the
Sounds Humane 627
family is apparently destitute. Accordingly, I ask the head of the house about this extrava-
gance. He responds without hesitation: “without music we are not human.”
Sounds Humane
Music makes us human. For my host, this was his immediate way of dealing with the
calamity of war and the poverty of circumstance. But was there a hidden answer? Could
he have meant “without music we are not divine”? That is, music helps each man to
uncover the divine within. Is this the meaning behind the one and the many, one God in
many men? Could this be the reason for the different numerologies and the distinctive
symbolisms in Badakhshani culture, different manifestations of the divine in sound and
space? In fact, diversity in culture could be read as complexity in history, where many
peoples and many faiths have inhabited this hallowed terrain located at the epicenter
of Asia. Here, unity in diversity could be understood as a comfortable accommodation
of cultural difference in a highly contested strategic location. Or, it could be read as an
expressive inscription of pluralism where one God is to be found in every man.
Figure 17.10 Rafique Keshavjee in Dushanbe.

This notion of pluralism is explicit in the Aga Khan Humanities Project. When I
returned to Dushanbe, I asked Keshavjee about my discoveries (see Figure 17.10). On
the one hand, he confirmed the pluralist agenda that underpinned the project where all
faiths and all ethnicities are accorded respect and deemed equal.21 On the other hand,
he emphasized the mystical source of this humanism: to love man is to love God. Such
a rationale is quite different from the secular humanism of European Enlightenment.
It does not separate the natural from the supernatural, but it uncovers the supernatural
within the natural. In this sense, it searches for an empirical explanation of the mystical.
That is, the knowledge of humanity is the path to the knowledge of divinity. This is why a
hermeneutic approach to the humanities curriculum is appropriate since it attempts to
understand through experience and reflection—where observation, analysis and inter-
pretation provide a productive framework for uncovering (the) truth.
Should I say “the Truth” or “truths”? This is an important point that Titon (1992)
makes. For him, Truth resides in the theoretical, while truths emerge from the practical.
Although Titon invokes Rorty (1979) in his criticism of philosophical reflection, he is
in fact reiterating a contemporary conversation in anthropology about truth claims in
the social sciences. In particular, his argument is remarkably similar to that of Clifford
(1986),22 whose notion of “partial truths” provides a philosophical bridge between
hermeneutics and post-structuralism, between Heidegger and Derrida. For Heidegger,
there is Truth. For Derrida, there is no Truth. Clifford presents an alternative answer
to this philosophical debate. By recognizing partial truths as they emerge in ethno-
graphic inquiry, Clifford calls for “an interplay of voices” where spoken utterance is not
excluded from written representation, where the observer is engaged dialogically with
the observed. In fact, Clifford significantly upsets the scholarly project by suggesting
that truths are spoken and lies are written.
Applied ethnomusicology is also concerned with the truths that subjects speak. It
allows the subaltern to speak in an academic world where scholars are required to write.
It is a field where truths emerge in practice and not a field where Truth is prescribed
in theory. Yet, should applied ethnomusicology exclude theory? Should applied eth-
nomusicology discount philosophy? I think not. And I am not alone (see Pettan and
Harrison, 2010). In applied ethnomusicology, there are excellent examples of theoretical
approaches to practice (see, for example, Araújo, 2008) and philosophical reflections
on practice (see, for example, Loughran, 2008). Indeed, applied ethnomusicology has
an established place in the academy, where field research is a guiding principle in eth-
nomusicology and in its cognate disciplines (such as anthropology and folklore). What
applied ethnomusicology lacks is a unifying idea, a philosophical principle to under-
score its important mission. In this matter, a humane approach to humanism offers a
possible solution to the pressing issue of disciplinary disarray.
What might applied ethnomusicology consider if guided by the principles of a
humane humanism? Clearly, the issues of tolerance and empathy would remain. So, too,
the aspirations toward conservation would continue, especially in the realms of music
transmission and cultural awareness. Consistent with a humane humanism, human wel-
fare (in the form of music education), human well-being (in the form of music therapy),
Sounds Humane 629
and human rights (in the form of music legislation) would continue to be central con-
cerns. Perhaps, the critique of music in conflict and the advocacy of music in conflict
resolution are more complex (see O’Connell, 2011). However, the notion of sustainability
should provoke further investigation. This might involve a critical appraisal of musical
materials used in the mass production of musical instruments. Or, it might involve the
innovative deployment of music makers in development projects that foster communal
pride and promote economic wealth. Significantly, the Aga Khan Humanities Project set
a precedent in both areas.23
In this chapter, I have explored the central contribution of music to humanity. With
respect to the Aga Khan Humanities Project, I have examined the ways in which music
and humanism are revealed in the methodological, the theoretical, and the applied
domains, three distinctive arenas of academic inquiry that embrace the spiritual, the
scholarly, and the educational realms, respectively. Rather than viewing each as exclu-
sive, I show how these domains interconnect with an alternative reading of humanism,
a religious humanism in a Muslim tradition where tolerance and pluralism are hon-
ored and respected. Here, music provides a place for uncovering the humanistic (the
“I in you”) and for revealing the “humaneistic” (the “I could be you”), the twin tenets
of tolerance and empathy underpinning a motivation to engage in applied research.
Interestingly, I never thought of myself as an applied ethnomusicologist. However,
I have always been an advocate and I have sometimes been an activist. As an applied
ethnomusicologist, I can also be a theoretician and a scholar.
It is more than 10 years since I was in Central Asia. Since then, war has continued
to decimate the region, setting religion against religion, pitting culture against culture.
I believe that music has a central role to play in this apparent “clash of civilizations.”
As a human endeavor, it helps to understand human difference through the humanis-
tic tradition of scholarly reflection. As a humane endeavor, it helps to combat human
indifference through the “humaneistic” aspiration of altruistic intervention. In the first
instance, music can be used to celebrate human achievement, be it a renaissance among
Muslims or a Renaissance among Christians. In the second instance, it can be utilized
to foster human creativity, creating new human relationships as well as new human
artifacts. Of course, some might argue that the power of music to advance a humane
humanism is overstated—some might even say arrogant. I contend that a humane
approach to humanism through music is an obligation. It is an obligation that we as eth-
nomusicologists cannot ignore.
Notes
1. Research in Tajikistan was sponsored by the Aga Khan Humanities Project (AKHP) and
the Institute for Ismaili Studies (IIS). A grant from the Fulbright Commission allowed me
to continue this research at Brown University (2002–2003). In this respect, I am especially
indebted to William Beeman (Brown University) and Rafique Keshavjee (AKHP) for sup-
porting my application. I would also like to thank Fatima Abduraufova, Karima Kara,
Azim Nanji, Samandar Pulatov, Uvaido Pulatov, Tojidin Rahimov, Munira Sharapova,
John Tomarra, and Anise Waljee of the Aga Khan Foundation for their help and encour-
agement. In Badakhshan, I am very grateful to the musicians and their families who made
field research possible. These musicians include Janbaz Dushanbiyev, Mosavar Minakov,
Mamadata Tavalayev, and Haydar Tokayev. In Dushanbe, I would like to acknowledge the
assistance of Abduvali Abdurashidov and Gurminj Zavkibekov. More recently, I would
also like to acknowledge Rafique Keshavjee, who read and amended an earlier draft of this
chapter.
2. Of course, Titon (1992) is invoking the American tradition of pragmatism here. Like Rorty
(1979), he is opposed to those philosophical traditions that seek the Truth. However, he
does not contend that pragmatism is in itself anti-theoretical. May I convey my sincerest
thanks to Jeff Todd Titon for clarifying this significant point.
3. Dario Martinelli (2005) provides a concise introduction to the field of zoomusicology and
its related fields (such as zoosemiotics and biomusicology). Arguing that zoomusicology
is concerned with musical universals, he attempts to apply musical principles to the analy-
sis of bird song and whale song. Here, the author invokes an ongoing conversation that
concerns music and evolution, Pinker (1997) believing it to be a non-essential aspect and
Jordania (2011) believing it to be a vital component of human evolution. See also http://
www.zoosemiotics.helsinki.fi/zm/ (accessed July 19, 2014).
4. During my time at UCLA, hermeneutic philosophy was the subject of considerable inter-
est. Inspired by the intellectual leadership of Roger Savage (currently President of the
Society for Ricoeur Studies), a number of ethnomusicologists adopted a hermeneutic
approach to musical inquiry. These included Timothy Rice, Sonia Seeman, and me.
5. Note on transliteration: I have attempted to provide a scientific transliteration of those
words and names that are represented in Arabic and Persian sources. Where Turkish
terms are found, I provide the modern Turkish spelling rather than the Ottoman trans-
literation. Since no Tajik-English dictionary was extant at the time of this study, I follow
the system of transliteration that is used by the Institute for Ismaʿili Studies (see www.iis.
ac.uk). For example, I spell the Badakhshani lute as rubab, not following the Persian trans-
literation rubāb or the Tajik pronunciation rubōb. The same holds true for other terms
associated with Ismaʿili practice, such as the ritual space jamatkhana (rather than jamāʿat
khāna) and the musical genre madah (rather than maddāh). Since the representation of
plurals is problematic, I employ the English plural suffix (“-s”) instead. Of course, the same
concepts and the same people appear in different languages and in different forms. In this
matter, it is difficult to remain consistent (for example, Jalāl al-Dīn [Rumi] in Persian, but
Calaleddin[-i] Rumi in Turkish), especially when a language (such as Tajik) has employed
an Arabic, a Latin, and a Cyrillic script at various moments in its recent history.
6. In preparation, I read the following sources. For an introduction to the culture and history
of Central Asia, I sourced Curtis (1997), Ferdinand (1994), Manz (1994), Rashid (1994),
and Soucek (2000). For a more specialist overview of minority issues in Central Asia,
I studied Allworth (1973, 1982), Brower and Lazzerini (1997), Kappeler (2001), McCragg
and Silver (1979), and Smith (1998). To understand musical diversity in Central Asia,
I examined Baily (1988), Beliaev (1975), During (1998), Jung (1989), Levin (1996), Parkes
(1994), Sakata (1983), Slobin (1976), and Żerańska-Kominek (1997).
7. In preparation, I also accessed a variety of sources that concern the history and cul-
ture of Badakhshan. These include Badakshi (1988), Grevemeyer (1982), Nurjonov
(1974–1975), Rajabov (1989), and van den Berg (1997). For representative sound recordings
Sounds Humane 631
of Badakhshani music, I listened to During (1993), Fujii and Takahashi (1997), Kasmaï
(2000), and van Belle and van den Berg (1994, 1998).
8. Badakhshsan is situated in the sparsely populated Pamir Mountains. With a population
of around 200,000, Badakhshan is distinguished geographically (mountains vs. plain),
historically, linguistically, ethnically, and theologically (Shiʿa vs. Sunnī) from the rest of
Tajikistan. In the everyday lives of its residents, the distinction is expressed in the special
allocation of a time zone to the region (called Khorog Time), in the special restrictions
governing travel to the region (a Gbau visa is required), and in the special use of an official
language in the region (Russian is preferred to Tajik).
9. Muslims are not alone in this espousal of humanism. As Tu and Daisaku (2011) show,
the Confucian concept of the unity of heaven and humanity and the Buddhist notion of
the oneness of self and universe represent a humanistic impulse to promote a “dialogue
between civilizations.” Like the Aga Khan Humanities Project, education plays a central
role in this aspiration by cultivating an individual understanding of humaneness and
compassion. In this matter, China is not exceptional. Other humanistic traditions can
also be found in India (by way of Hinduism) and in Iran (by way of Zoroastrianism),
where human nature takes precedence over religious dogma. As I emphasize in this
chapter, it is important to distinguish between a religious humanism and a secular
humanism, the former finding expression in many “Eastern” religions, the latter find-
ing voice in a number of “Western” ideologies. See Murry (2006) for a contemporary
discussion of religious humanism with respect to a branch of Christianity, Unitarian
Universalism.
10. Many scholars view the destruction of Baghdad (1258) as a critical moment in this trans-
formation. This event marked the end of the Muslim renaissance that had been promoted
by the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate (750–1258). Conquered by Genghis Khan, many libraries in
Baghdad were destroyed and many scholars in the city were killed. Critical here was the
transformation of the learned men in Islam (ʿulemāʾ) from enlightened scholars to theo-
logical dogmatists, abandoning scientific interpretation for scriptural explanation. Some
scholars have also viewed the proliferation of Sufism in a similar light. For them, mystical
experience offered an alternative to religious doctrine, providing a distinctive pathway at
a time of political instability and social upheaval. See, for example, the classic accounts of
Islam and mysticism written by Trimingham (1998 [1971]) and Geoffroy (2010), among
many others.
11. The Ismaʿilis belong to an esoteric branch of Islam (closely related to the Druze). They
recognize the spiritual power and the temporal authority of the Aga Khan, who himself
is a direct descendent (in contrast to other Shiʿa groups) of the Seventh Imām (Imām
Ismaʿil). Widely dispersed through Asia, Ismaʿilis trace their origins to the diaspora of
Nizari-s from Egypt during the Fatimid Period (909–1171), migrating eastward through
Syria and Iran and settling also in Badakhshan (Tajikistan) and in Gujarat (India). See
Daftary (1990) for an authoritative history of the Ismaʿilis. See Hamawi (2011 [1970]) for an
in-depth study of Ismaʿilism, especially from the perspectives of philosophy and theology.
See Keshavjee (1998) for an anthropological investigation of religious meaning among
Ismaʿili communities in Iran.
12. Of course, Tajikistan did not exist at the time of Rumi or Khusraw. While most Muslims
believe that Rumi was born in Balkh (in Northern Afghanistan), recent research suggests
that he may have been born further north in the Vakhsk Valley (in Central Tajikistan)
(personal communication with Rafique Keshavjee, January 8, 2014). What is interesting is

as follows: Both Rumi and Khusraw influenced the unique development of Ismaʿilism in
Badakhshan, especially with respect to a religious identity founded upon the central tenets
of cosmic order, universal humanism, and imamate supremacy. While the Ismaʿili com-
munity in Badakhshan (like other Ismaʿilis) also subscribes to the five pillars of Shiʿism
(unity, prophesy, judgment, imamate, and justice), their belief system is also informed by
Khusraw’s mystical ideals that melded neoplatonic philosophy with a pragmatic interpre-
tation of Islam (see also Hunsberger 2000a, 2000b).
13. Since its inception, the Aga Khan Humanities Project has published 3,700 pages of texts in
eight volumes, each of which is accompanied by teachers’ guides, involving print, music,
and film media.
14. Concerning changes to the status of the Aga Khan Humanities Project, Keshavjee
explains “Soon after the project got started, the partner faculty, mainly social scien-
tists and philosophers, realized that they had difficulty giving what I called ‘parity to
both reason and imagination.’ They lacked a basic educational understanding of the
arts, so the project organized an intensive training program in the pedagogies of paint-
ing, architecture, music, [. . .] and fiction.” He continues “The Aga Khan Humanities
Project is now much better understood as an unusual and powerful program based at
the University of Central Asia that offers educational outreach to state institutions in
Tajikistan, Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan” (personal communication with Rafique
Keshavjee, February 6, 2015).
15. Numerology has a long-established tradition in Islamic thought. In this respect, music by
way of numerology provides an ideal medium for exploring natural relationships and for
explaining supernatural occurrences. See Meisami (1997) and Malti-Douglas (1997) for a
pertinent examination of cosmic numbers in poetry and literature, respectively. See also
O’Connell (2004) for a relevant study with respect to music.
16. Other scholars have noted the significance of the number five. In particular, Koen
(2003) provides a similar reading of sound and space in his study of devotional music in
Badakhshan. Of course, his research was published after the presentation of my findings
at the Music and Minorities Conference in Lublin (2002). It also postdates the completion
and the acceptance of my original article (which was finalized in 2002 but which was not
published until 2004). While Koen talks about the importance of numerology in perfor-
mance, he does not explore the significance of alternative cosmogonic systems that call
into question a single reading of expressive culture in Badakhshan.
17. In terms of morphology, there are some conflicting narratives about the horse’s head
on the rubab. Since the horse occupies a prominent position in the Badakhshani
imagination, it may indicate a complex exchange between Siberian and Indo-Iranian
cultures in the Himalayan belt during the Bronze and the Iron Ages. In other words,
it may represent a North Asian register in Badakhshani culture in addition to influ-
ences from the eastern, western, and southern corners of the continent. See Francfort
(1998) for an overview of different interpretations of the horse found in Central Asian
petroglyphs.
18. As Hunsberger notes (2000a, 2000b), there are a number of competing cosmogonic
systems in Badakhshan: systems which (broadly speaking) emphasize a fivefold (the
al-Fārābi school) and a fourfold reading (the Khusraw school) of the Badakhshani cos-
mos. These systems demonstrate the ways in which historic conceptions of a pre-Islamic
Sounds Humane 633
and a post-Islamic past have become re-inscribed and re-interpreted within the discur-
sive realm. In this way, traditional practices survive the destabilizing forces of geo-political
fragmentation and ideological control.
19. There is a subtle symbiotic relationship between the numbers five and seven in
Badakhshan. This play has a sonic articulation in Pamiri music (in terms of pentatonic vs.
heptatonic musical structures) and in Pamiri organology (compare, for instance, the five-
fold character of the Pamiri rubab with the sevenfold character of the Pamiri tanbur). This
sense of numerical difference may also be gendered where the materials of music occupy
distinctive but interconnected male and female spaces represented by the numbers five
and seven, respectively. Here, Pamiri design clearly shows an intertextual play between the
numbers five and seven, especially in the layout of the Pamiri house. This numerological
relationship may have a larger significance in other Islamic countries (see, for instance,
Becker and Becker, 1995).
20. As Popescu-Judetz (2002:162–167) argues, the number six has a wider significance in
Asian astrology, where the alignment of the Zodiac in the Medieval period resulted in
two conceptions of cosmic order: that is, the division of the Zodiac into two equal units
of six and six (representing the South Asian position) and the division of the Zodiac
into two unequal units of five and seven (representing the West Asian position). Such
conflicting worldviews are also played out in cosmogonic readings of the rubab, where
some authorities emphasize the sixfold (rather than the fivefold) attributes of the musical
instrument.
21. Concerning pluralism, Keshavjee writes “The stress on pluralism operated at different lev-
els in the Aga Khan Humanities Project. Firstly, there was a plurality of intellectual per-
spective, of which the foremost was [. . .] parity given to works of reason and those of
the imagination, especially in the arts. Secondly, the project aimed at pluralism by accom-
modation, where the texts covered an enormous range, from Lenin, through religious
texts from various traditions, to Tolstoy and Kālidāsa. Thirdly, every civilization and faith
tradition was represented pluralistically. Finally, the pluralism embodied in the Islamic
mystical tradition was given prominence, especially since the then-parent organization
of the project, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, emphasized gnostic thought through its
involvement in the Aga Khan Music Initiative” (personal communication with Rafique
Keshavjee, February 2, 2015).
22. Although Titon (1992) was writing in the 1990s, he is in fact quoting Rorty (1979), who was
writing in the 1970s. In this respect, his concern for a dialogic approach to field research
draws upon Bakhtin’s notion of intersubjectivity (in linguistic terms: the space between
signs) where language always needs to be negotiated. Simply put, meaning can never be
fixed since it is always dependent upon the context of an utterance (see Bernard-Donals,
1994). That Clifford (1986) was also critiquing the concept of absolute truth during the
1980s does not mean that the ethnomusicologist and the anthropologist were in direct
communication at the times of publication. May I convey my sincerest thanks to Jeff Todd
Titon for clarifying this important point.
23. Rafique Keshavjee, in association with the Christensen Fund, was later involved in a sus-
tainability project in Turkey, which funded musicians and dramatists. He employed artists
to educate communities to cope with environmental change and political instability. See
also a lecture by Keshavjee in the series entitled “Sustainability Unbound” at http://www.
sustainableunh.unh.edu/sustainabilityunbound (accessed July 10, 2014).
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Chapter 18
Intersection s Bet we e n
Ethnom u si c ol o g y,
M usic Educat i on, a nd
C om munit y Mu si c
Patricia Shehan Campbell and

Lee Higgins
The intermingling of dynamic activist-musicians in ethnomusicology and education in

recent decades has resulted in changes to curricular content and instructional process
in schools, in community venues, and on university campuses. Particularly in North
American communities, but also in the United Kingdom, across Europe, in Australia,
New Zealand, and Singapore, diversity mandates in schools and society have prompted
teachers to expand and vary the music they feature in their elementary and secondary
school classrooms. Teachers in a wide variety of venues, including university profes-
sors, who seek a multicultural array of songs, instrumental pieces, dance, and listening
selections are locating them in the catalogues of publishing companies with national
and international distribution and on the Internet, where they are finding the results of
fieldwork by ethnomusicologists to apply to their curricular practices and programs.
Tertiary-level students in colleges, conservatories, and universities are increasingly
enrolling in ethnomusicology and world music performance courses in their degree pro-
grams, while their professors of music (often not trained ethnomusicologists) are find-
ing ways to diversify the content of their programs through various resources (including
invitations to local community musicians and culture-bearers). Practicing teachers are
participating as in-service teachers in an array of short- (and longer-) term in-service
courses to fill the gaps of knowledge created by their earlier university degree programs
in music education, and they are learning from collaborative teams of ethnomusicolo-
gists and educators (and following on the works of ethnomusicologists that comprise
the course reading and listening lists) in honing their understandings and skills in world
640 Patricia Shehan Campbell and Lee Higgins
music pedagogy. With the rise of Community Music as a bona fide professional path-
way and influential movement that emphasizes inclusion through non-formal learn-
ing, teachers are growing an ethnomusicological sense of place, an intrigue with and
honoring of local communities, and a resonance with the position that music is situ-
ated within the lives of those who choose to make it—with or without musical training
or extensive experience. As a field of practice, those who work in community music,
or advocate for it, make distinctions between community music, music of a commu-
nity, and communal music making. Music of a community identifies and labels a type
of music; communal music making describes being part of, or exposed to, that music;
while community music is an active intervention between a music leader or facilitator
and participants and is not tied to any particular genre of music. From this perspective
and serving as an illustration, samba reggae reflects particular Afro-Brazilian commu-
nities in Bahia and could be described as music of a community. With the emphasis in
a different place, a music session in a local Irish bar involves musicians and participants
drawn from the communities where music is made. These are communal music-making
events because they strive to bind people together through performance and participa-
tion. Community music is understood as different because it is an intentional approach
to engage participants in active music making and musical knowing outside formal
teaching and learning environments. It involves skilled music leaders, who facilitate
inclusive group music-making experiences with an emphasis on people, participation,
context, equality of opportunity, and diversity. Musicians who work this way seek to
create accessible music-making experiences that emphasis creative music making and
self-expression. Examples of projects might include working with young people to cre-
ate their own songs, running large-scale intergenerational carnival groups, facilitating
a choir or popular music bands within the prison or health service, or working within a
community to enable community members to tell their story through music, song, and
movement. The convergence of music education practice with ethnomusicology, espe-
cially of the applied action-based work of socially responsible professionals, and with
community music, is extending and deepening the potential of music to engage learners
in meaningful ways in various school and out-of-school settings.
This chapter seeks to document and decipher the intersection of applied ethnomusi-
cology and music education, as well as their affiliations with the phenomenon of com-
munity music. Formal, informal, and non-formal educational practices and policies are
described and dissected as they play out in various settings and circumstances, and are
recognized for the myriad ways in which specialist-musicians (again, ethnomusicolo-
gists, music educators, and community musicians) have paralleled and overlapped one
another in their endeavors. An historical chronology of systemic school music educa-
tion, with particular attention to US schools as well as the tertiary-level programs that
train them,1 is offered as a means of contextualizing music education as a long-standing
endeavor. The realms of ethnomusicology pertinent to music teaching and learning,
particularly within institutions, are noted as well, along with the interfaces of ethnomu-
sicologists with music educators. The collaborations among them illustrate the means by
which they have jointly affected change in the lives of children, youth, and other learners
Ethnomusicology, Music Education, and Community Music 641
whose potential it is to think and behave musically. The work of ethnomusicologically

conscious educationists is described, from the production of instructional materials,
including books, recordings, and Internet resources, to the enfolding of culture-specific
processes of music learning and teaching in clinical ways for the diversification of music
in classroom and rehearsal settings. Insights are offered as to how educators with the
sensibilities engendered by studies in ethnomusicology and community music (as well
as with traditional artists and culture-bearers) have developed school and community
projects that celebrate the local. The lens is sharpened for views of the Harlem Samba
project and the Music Alive! in the Yakima Valley in order to clarify the many facets of
ethnomusicological precepts in action within educational contexts. The chapter lands
squarely on the meaning of applied ethnomusicology as it is relevant and useful to those
committed educators in schools and communities who seek global as well as local rel-
evance of music as a human phenomenon. It draws on the experiences of children and
youth, their teachers, facilitators, and group leaders in music-making ventures, espe-
cially those whose identities are shaped by their participation as singers, players, danc-
ers, and active listeners.
Contextualizing Music in Systemic

School Education
Contemporary practices of systemic music teaching and learning emanate from a long
and colorful history, and it can be argued that music education dates to the first his-
toric instances of music’s transmission from expert musician to novice. There is rich
evidence of music education in churches, conservatories, and universities in medieval
Europe, and music joined the curricular array of required subjects in the United States
and the United Kingdom during the nineteenth-century rise of the common school
of tax-supported education for all children and youth. Lowell Mason formally estab-
lished music as an American curricular subject in Boston in 1838, and its song-based
emphasis was heralded as an avenue to the development of children’s moral and physical
well-being (Pemberton, 1985). Other North American cities followed suit, even as music
was also emerging as a school subject in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and
elsewhere in the world. Within a few decades the vocal music education of American
elementary schools had become a way for learning to read staff notation by singing a
repertoire of European-based folk songs and traditional hymns (Pemberton, 1985).
Ensembles of choirs, bands, and orchestras began to appear in American secondary
schools by the late nineteenth century, and performance experiences in the music of
the European tradition rapidly developed for the aesthetic-expressive education of
adolescents. Even as Americans were singing sacred and secular music in their com-
munities (far beyond the realm of schools, in churches, communities, and “singing
societies”), Lowell Mason and his contemporaries were asserting a musical hierarchy
in which music of the German tradition was of such quality that even the “new com-
positions” they were writing for schoolchildren resembled the structures and senti-
ments of German-origin (and some Italian, French, and British) art music (Mark and
Gary, 2007).
Nineteenth-century school music teachers in the United States, the United Kingdom,
and continental Europe focused their efforts on singing, notational literacy, and music
appreciation (Keene, 1982). Canonic works by European composers comprised the
repertoire of musical study in schools, and composed works for school-age singers
and instrumentalists were decidedly European and Euro-American in flavor. With the
invention of the gramophone, listening lessons on the Victrola talking machine offered
homage to the composers of masterworks by composers of the European Baroque,
Classical, and Romantic periods, too, as music appreciation goals gained prominence
in the curriculum in the opening decades of the twentieth century (Mark and Gary,
2007). Group violin lessons and school orchestras were gradually coming into being,
but instrumental music study was rare in schools (especially in the US) until the end of
World War I, when bandsmen from the battlefields in France and Germany were hired
as music teachers in American schools to work with young wind, brass, and percus-
sion musicians in concert and marching bands (Keene, 1982).2 Glee clubs, mixed choirs,
and instrumental ensembles spread like wildfire in the 1920s and 1930s, partly under the
influence of popular touring orchestras and widely available church choirs. An increas-
ing number of secondary schools were staffed by specialist teachers in choral and instru-
mental music, trained in music and eventually graduating from university programs in
music education.
Distinctively original expressive forms of American cultural communities comprised
urban, and even suburban and rural areas, and yet Western art music forms continued
to prevail as the principal curricular content in school music classes well into the twen-
tieth century. In the United States, teachers generally viewed folk music, including the
expressions of Native Americans, African Americans, and Latin Americans, as “primi-
tive” repertoire that was ill-suited for curricular inclusion (Volk, 1998). In fact, the desig-
nation of “folk music” inferred, often inaccurately, a minimalist or simplified expression
when compared to the sophistication of European art music (Campbell, 1991). A perfor-
mance by the Fisk Jubilee Singers at the Music Supervisors National Conference in 1922
was an impressive first encounter for many educators of the power and sophistication
of their choral music, after which spirituals began to surface on the concert programs of
school choirs (Volk, 1998). African American popular music forms were forbidden in
the curriculum of that time, including blues, ragtime, and jazz, in no small part due to
the climate of racial inequality that was rampant in American society of the time. Their
associations with saloons and “after hours” clubs caused concerns by educators that the
music itself was cheap, vulgar, and immoral and thus potentially ruinous to young peo-
ple (Mark and Gary, 2007). Music of the Jazz Age was excluded from the schools, and in
the 1920s neither the popular Charleston nor “the shimmies” were permitted on school
grounds. Jazz was finally allowed into some schools in the 1950s as an extracurricular
club activity in which students met after school to rehearse for the school dances at
which they would perform, yet even then they were referred to as “dance bands” rather
than jazz.
School music teachers understood folk and traditional music of a variety of ori-
gins as interesting but not fully appropriate for the enlightenment of young people for
whom the benefits were greatest through experience in the expressions of high cul-
ture. From the 1920s onward, a gradual awakening of interest in the broader palette of
musical styles and cultures revealed itself in classrooms where immigrant populations
were prominent. Folk dancing (especially from European countries from which immi-
grants were arriving) was featured in community centers, “settlement houses,” and local
schools (Mark and Gary, 2007), and physical education classes featured “folk dances
from around the world” (including US-based square- and contra-dancing, but also Irish
set dances, Germanic-style polkas, circle dances of the Slavic groups, and the Italian tar-
antella). “Songs of many lands” surfaced in school classrooms at both elementary and
secondary levels, and integrated units were developed of folk songs with geography, his-
tory, and literature content. The growth of folk music in schools was aided by the advent
of recordings, so that as schools were equipped, teachers could play Irish, or German, or
Italian music alongside the works of European art music (Campbell, 2004).
Largely through the Good Neighbor Policy established by the Roosevelt administra-
tion to direct cultural exchanges with the countries of Central and South America, a
surge of interest in Latin American music arose in the United States in the 1930s (Volk,
1998). The State Department funded concert performances and educational residen-
cies of artists and educators from Latin America to the United States, as American
music educators traveled south to Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. The Music Educators
National Conference advocated the use of Latin American songs and listening expe-
riences, and textbook companies responded to an urgent demand for “materials.” Yet
rarely was there a school orchestra that was given the opportunity to tackle a work by
Mexican composer Carlos Chavez, or a band that was offered occasions to play a bolero,
rhumba, or other dance form on their wind and brass instruments. American music
educators often sufficed with leading their students in singing The Mexican Hat Dance or
La Cucaracha as demonstration of their attention to the music of their Latin American
neighbors (Volk, 1998).
A number of events were seeding music curricular change in American schools in the
mid-twentieth century, not the least of which were rapid transformations in transporta-
tion and communications. With close of World War II, music educators were inspired to
seek means for achieving international understanding and world peace, and music was
romantically viewed as “the international language.” The United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) established the International Music
Council (IMC), which in turn set up the International Society for Music Education
(ISME) in 1953 with the intent of bridging cultures in classroom practices by fostering
the presence of world music cultures for performance and study in elementary and sec-
ondary schools, and in universities as well (Schippers and Campbell, 2013). Policy state-
ments on music in the curriculum were advocating the importance of knowing “music
of the world’s peoples,” and elementary school textbooks were shifting to the presenta-
tion of musical cultures through authentic field recordings.
Music educators in the United States were challenged by their professional society,
the Music Educators National Conference (now the National Association for Music
Education), to consider the community values of their diverse student populations,
and to rethink repertoire and pedagogical approaches, particularly with the advent
of multiculturalism in American society. By the 1970s, the organization recom-
mended a shifting of policy and practice from a European-based musical content to
an all-inclusive curriculum comprising popular music, jazz, and music of the world’s
cultures (Campbell, 2013). The rhetoric was eloquent, and some teachers were
impassioned by the possibilities, but the reality is that few were prepared to know the
content and method of a more global view of music. First-generation “world music
educators” like William M. Anderson, Barbara Reeder Lundquist, Sally Monsour,
and James Standifer served the cause by contributing to the reform of repertoire in
textbooks and recordings, and modeled content and method of songs and singing,
polyrhythmic percussion ensembles, folk dancing, and listening experiences that
were part analysis and part participation. Their interest in diversifying the curricu-
lum was due in no small part to their own training or professional work at universi-
ties with strong ethnomusicology programs (Anderson, Lundquist, and Standifer),
or due to their own experiences as members of minority populations (Monsour,
Standifer). In the heyday of “multicultural music education”—especially in the
1980s and 1990s, when district mandates were requiring secondary school band,
choir, and orchestra directors as well as elementary music specialists to develop
broader cultural understandings through music—the dissemination of songs,
dances, and instrumental pieces was continued by a second generation of “world
music educators,” including some who were trained in and working at the edges of
ethnomusicology, as well as through the proliferation of multicultural materials in
textbooks, on recordings, and through the Internet (Schippers and Campbell, 2013).
In selected schools, music educators were developing “African drumming ensem-
bles,” gospel choirs, steel bands akin to those in Trinidad, full-fledged Mexican-style
mariachis, Filipino kulintangs, and floor-sized marimba bands modeled after those
found in a handful of Sub-Saharan African cultures. The Folk Arts Division of the
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was funding grants to introduce tradi-
tional artist-musicians and culture-bearers into the schools, a movement whose
ideas were first fostered by ethnomusicologists and public folklorists. In the profes-
sional literature, additional labels were ascribed to the movement to diversify the
school music curriculum, including “world music pedagogy,” “global music educa-
tion,” and “cultural diversity in music education” (Campbell, 2004). Central prin-
ciples were articulated: to engage students in the performance and directed listening
of music in its multiple manifestations; to teach cultural understanding through the
study of music, musicians, and their musical values; and to respond to the identities
and interests of individual students within the school community. Ideally, and in the
hands of dedicated music educators, diversity was gaining a toehold in the music
curriculum.
The funding crisis in the arts that began in the late 1990s has limited the capacity of
music educators to work in schools toward fully embracing the tenets of a multicultural
or world-oriented curriculum. Across the United States, many schools are expending
every effort to hold on to their programs, shoring up against the erosion of long-standing
traditions in band, choir, orchestra, and conventional song-based elementary music
programs. In the post-9/11 period, there have been some indications of a backlash to the
movement to multiculturalize the curriculum, and some music educators are drawing
their attention back to the traditional “American” repertoire of standard school ensem-
bles (Schippers and Campbell, 2013). Opportunities for professional development in
selected world music cultures—especially beyond light treatment via simple songs to
sing—are available but rare, as funding from institutions and public agencies has largely
disappeared. Given dwindling time for music within the school-day schedule, a mono-
cultural approach is still widely in practice to sustain the repertoire of the historical
school-music culture, and experimental world music ensembles and programs of music
consisting of a mix of world cultures are not as common as the rhetorical writing in the
professional literature would have one believe.
Despite the obstacles, there are exemplary models of music education practice
attendant to matters of musical and cultural diversity, some of them traceable to the
work of ethnomusicologists and community music practitioners. The Smithsonian
Folkways certification course in World Music Pedagogy is one such successful col-
laboration of educators, ethnomusicologists, and local artist musicians for offering
participating teachers the opportunity to develop sensibilities and skills for featur-
ing both online recordings and human resources in the experiences they build into
their programs. The emergence of a community consciousness has motivated some
music educators to be in touch with musicians living locally, and in this way gospel
choir singers, Irish fiddlers, Puerto Rican salsa-style percussionists, Japanese koto
players, and Native American singer-storytellers have served as resident artists in
schools, providing up-front and personal experiences with music and musicians.
While federal and state funding has largely disappeared for such programs, local orga-
nizations (such as the nationally networked parent-teacher organizations) have sup-
ported these residencies. Model programs featuring “zimarimba” ensembles based on
Shona-style music of Zimbabwe, bluegrass orchestras, samba bands, mariachis-in-
school (rather than as after-school clubs), and world vocal ensembles are thriving in
some schools due to the work of committed teachers and supportive families. Vibrant
school programs are mixing traditional music education practices with world music
traditions, and a conscientious attention and abiding respect are paid to the musicians
and cultures from which the music comes. In these programs, informal, non-formal,
and formal learning circumstances are wedded, and students are offered personal and
communal expressions of artistic, social, political, and cultural concerns from a wide
span of the world’s musical cultures.
Ethnomusicology in Higher Education
In addition to its place in elementary and secondary school programs (whether mono-
or multicultural in nature), music is a frequent degree option in tertiary-level programs
of study colleges, conservatories, and universities. Alongside performance studies
of the orchestral instruments, and vocal studies for singers, there is in higher educa-
tion a selection of academic programs in musicology, music theory, composition, and
music education. Yet another specialized realm of study in higher education is ethno-
musicology, which may be encompassed within musicology or left to stand alone as
its own entity. Where available, ethnomusicology is more likely featured as a graduate
degree option than as an undergraduate degree, and may appear in the guise of single
undergraduate-level survey courses in world music cultures or as performance oppor-
tunities in music beyond European art music styles. Occasionally, there is a confusion
of the term and concept, positing “ethnomusicology” as interchangeable with “world
music” in performance, as in the case of a Javanese gamelan or an African drumming
ensemble, when in fact the former is the scholarly study of music in culture for which
fieldwork is central (Nettl, 1983). Ethnomusicologists on university faculties of music
are educators themselves by way of the teaching of courses, applied lessons, and ensem-
bles, and while they are more rarely involved in the education of children and youth in
schools, they devote themselves to passing on the musical practices they have studied in
their fieldwork.
Ethnomusicology is a relatively recent arrival to higher education. Despite its
appearance in some American university settings just after World War II and in
Europe under the name “comparative musicology” from the late nineteenth century,
it was with the founding of the Society for Ethnomusicology in 1955 that the curiosity
of university faculties of music was piqued to know the musical expressions of “the
exotic other,” and to find relevance in the study of music as a world phenomenon.
The contributions of ethnomusicologists to university units of music expanded the
palette of sonorities to which students could have access. Where multicultural man-
dates were in place, ethnomusicologists were hired to pay tribute to musical expres-
sions reflecting populations on campus, in the surrounding community, nationally,
and even globally. In universities where ethnomusicology programs were first estab-
lished and at which education programs were already vibrant—at the University of
California Los Angeles, the University of Washington, the University of Michigan,
Indiana University, and the University of Illinois, the door was opening in the 1960s
and 1970s to studies in the music of India, Japan, Indonesia, across the African conti-
nent, and in the Americas, and the ears of prospective music educators was opening
to a wide spectrum of world music. Early in the history of ethnomusicology in higher
education, gamelan “orchestras” dominated by bronze metalophones and gongs
became iconic statements of tertiary-level programs seeking diversity in their con-
tent. These ensembles were exemplar of “high-art Asian music” that began to appear
in courtyards or rehearsal rooms, drawing students directly into music-making

experiences. At the edge of the Civil Rights era, visiting artists from Ghana and
elsewhere in West Africa were invited by university music departments to form
drumming ensembles and to lecture on the musical cultures of their communities.
Students—including music education majors—were made aware of the ngoma tradi-
tion, in which singing, dancing and drumming are equally valued, even as they were
learning to think and act in ways that required their keen attention to rhythmic preci-
sion, physical involvement in synchronous movement, and interactive and commu-
nal performance. Gospel choirs began to appear at universities, too, although more
often within the realm of student activities rather than as a scheduled course within
the music department. Latin American music began to seep into the repertoire of
jazz ensembles, and Mexican mariachi became an occasional presence on selected
campuses in California and Texas. While still uncommon, some students were grad-
uating from university degree programs with the requisite sensitivity and skills for
teaching music from a broader palette of expressions, largely due to the presence of
ethnomusicologists on their campuses.
Of the various faculty in schools and departments of music, ethnomusicologists have
continued to receive especially enthusiastic support from composers and music edu-
cators to run performance ensembles and teach courses in world music cultures that
would meet multicultural mandates (Solis, 2004). Composers sought new sonic sources
from ethnomusicologists who share their fieldwork recordings from far-flung places in
the world, while music educators press ethnomusicologists with questions of “authentic
materials” to add to the multiculturalizing of a curriculum in schools. Music majors,
as well as students with little interest in music but with demands for an arts elective,
are well served by ethnomusicologists through introductory academic courses in the
“Music of Asia,” “African Music,” and “Music of the Americas.” With the presence of
ethnomusicologists on university faculties, a balanced diet of musical experiences is
achievable in an undergraduate music program—although the reality is that most music
programs remain as European-styled conservatories steeped in the study of European
art music. Still, those music students seeking certification as teachers can develop their
commitment to a broader palette of music expressions for the school-age students they
will teach.
The Convergence of Ethnomusicology

and Education
The greater convergence of ethnomusicologists and educators (especially those

with their attention to school music education) began in in the 1960s, and while the
development of understandings and collaborations has been gradual and uneven,
the results of the forging of interests and expertise have been impressive. Some of
the earliest earnest efforts to diversify the curriculum and to develop a resonance of
school music education with local musical communities happened at seminars and
symposia at Yale University (1963), Northwestern University (1965), and Tanglewood
(1967), all think tanks of sorts to examine music practices in schools and universi-
ties, and to consider music “of quality and relevance.” Set against a broader culture of
change that included an increased availability of world music during the 1960s, the
folk music revival, the blues revival, the concert tours of musicians such as Ali Akbar
Khan and Ravi Shankar, and the rise of recordings such as the “Explorer” series
from Nonesuch Records, the meeting at Tanglewood involved educators, along with
musicologists and ethnomusicologists, composers, jazz and popular musicians,
and community leaders for the purpose of examining tidal-wave changes in soci-
ety that would necessitate music educational reform in schools. David McAllester’s
historic proclamation to music educators in 1967 at the Tanglewood Symposium set
the tone—that “music of our time and places in the world” should be taught to chil-
dren, and that the contributions of ethnomusicologists to education should be pre-
sented to teachers at conferences and workshops, in the development of materials for
instructional purposes (films, recordings, and books), and in visits to schools and
community settings where children and youth gather. McAllester, attuned as he was
to the musical cultures of the Navajo, the Hopi, and other Native American peoples,
was also an activist in support of a broader spectrum of music study by schoolchil-
dren. His remarks at the Tanglewood meeting were observant of the beginnings of
curricular change, as he noted in particular the presence in schools of songs from
Israel and various African cultures and the growth of “youth music” (popular and
rock music) for educational purposes. McAllester posed a question that turned the
heads of participants in this historic symposium: “How then can we go on think-
ing of ‘music’ as Western European music, to the exclusion of the infinitely varied
forms of musical expression in other parts of the world?” Of all the gatherings of
that tumultuous decade, Tanglewood stimulated thinking at the national level as to
whose music could be featured in schools.
Ethnomusicologists have notably influenced curriculum and instruction in and
through music, and their advisories and models have radiated into philosophy,
policy, and practice within school music education. Conferences provided venues
for demonstrations, workshopping sessions, and dialogue, particularly at annual
meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), the Music Educators National
Conference (MENC), and the International Society for Music Education (ISME).
In the 1970s, Charles Seeger, David McAllester, and William P. Malm were among
the active participants in Education Committee workshops for teachers at annual
SEM meetings that featured presentations by educators who also had trained in eth-
nomusicology. A banner year of cross-field discussion happened in 1984: Robert
Garfias offered his vision of “thinking globally, acting locally” to teachers at the
1984 MENC meeting; a panel of ethnomusicologists and music educators (includ-
ing Robert Garfias, David McAllester, Edward O’Connor, Abraham Schwadron,
and Patricia Shehan) at the annual SEM meeting addressed the challenges of
representing world music in authentic fashion; and the Wesleyan Symposium on

Becoming Human Through Music brought together John Blacking, Charles Keil,
Adrienne Kaeppler, David McAllester, Timothy Rice, and others to explore the
“practical implications of research findings in other cultures for U.S. music teach-
ers in their daily instruction.” With the re-establishment and strengthening of the
Education Committee by the SEM board in 1985, SEM workshops became an annual
attraction for local teachers in the city in which the annual conference was held.
Sessions at Rochester (1986), Ann Arbor (1987), and Cambridge (1989) were par-
ticularly memorable for their unique formats and features, and considerable length.
In 1990, the efforts of MENC, the SEM, and Smithsonian Folkways were combined
to develop a three-day meeting of music educators with ethnomusicologists and
artist-musicians in response to questions by teachers facing multicultural man-
dates of whose music should be taught, and how it could be integrated into school
music programs (Campbell, 1996); William M. Anderson, Han Kuo-Huang, Dale
Olsen, Bernice Johnson Reagan, Anthony Seeger, Daniel Sheehy were among the
featured clinicians. A considerable number of ethnomusicologists were traveling
the circuit of music teachers to explain and demonstrate the possibilities of world
music expressions in school classes, including Melonee Burnim, Shannon Dudley,
Charlotte Heth, David Locke, Portia Maultsby, Ricardo Trimillos, and Bonnie
C. Wade. Some were influential among music educators internationally, too, such
as J. H. Kwabena Nketia and Bruno Nettl (who twice articulated the importance of
diversifying the musical repertoire in schools in his keynote addresses to members
of the International Society for Music Education in Seoul, Korea, 1994, and Beijing,
China, 2010).
With clear indications that the nation and the world were forever changed by demo-
graphic shifts and efforts at globalization, instructional materials began to appear to
take account of more of the musical world. Textbooks, some with recordings to accom-
pany them, began to appear for use in tertiary-level courses: David Reck’s (1976) com-
pilation of course notes in his Music of the Whole Earth, Jeff Todd Titon’s (1984) launch
of Worlds of Music text and recordings, and Bruno Nettl’s (1992) Excursions in World
Music. The latter two have been highly influential through their multiple editions
in offering several generations of university students an understanding of music as a
world phenomenon. Other collegiate-level textbooks emerged, including Kay Kaufman
Shelemay’s Soundscapes (2001), Michael Bakan’s World Music (2007), Michael Tenzer’s
Analytical Studies in World Music (2006), Terry E. Miller and Andrew Shahriari’s World
Music: A Global Journey (2005), and 26 small books with recordings in the The Global
Music Series edited by Bonnie C. Wade and Patricia Shehan Campbell, beginning in
2004 (Wade, 2004; Campbell, 2004).
Ethnomusicologists were invited by educators and their publishers into advi-
sory roles in the expansion of K–8 repertoire for listening and performing, espe-
cially in American editions. Basal music textbooks (and accompanying recordings)
of the 1970s were presenting art music traditions from China and Japan, and
“rhythm complexes” of West African percussion ensembles for listening and per-
formance. Fueled by the multicultural movement, Multicultural Perspectives in
Music Education (Anderson and Campbell, 1989)3 was published by MENC as a
collaborative effort of educators working with ethnomusicologists to recommend
materials and methods for infusing a broader sampling of musical cultures into the
curriculum; Anthony Seeger wrote the foreword. From the late 1980s onward, books
with associated recordings were churning out of the Connecticut garage of Judith
Cook Tucker, editor-publisher of World Music Press, many of them the products
of collaborations between educators and culture-bearers (who were often trained
as ethnomusicologists, too): Let Your Voice Be Heard (Adzinyah, Dumisani, and
Tucker, 1996), From Rice Paddies and Temple Yards (Nguyen and Campbell, 1990),
The Lion’s Roar (Kuo-huang and Campbell, 1997), and From Bangkok and Beyond
(Phoasavadi and Campbell, 2003). Songs, percussion pieces, choral works, and lis-
tening examples were selected for their authenticity and representation (as well as
for their capacity to be performed and understood by young students), and authors
were eager to ensure that the context, function, and meaning of the music were
accurately represented. Recordings and video-recordings accompanied the music
notation, and a standard caveat was offered: that the notation only more generally
illustrates the sound, but that listening is essential to the learning process of music
far from home.
For choirs of children, adolescents, and university-level singers, the launch in 2001 of
Global Voices in Song was deemed as an important video-source of unison and choral
song from the African continent, Asia, the Pacific Islands, and elsewhere, the result of
work by music educator Mary Goetze and various artist musicians.4 Even as hard-copy
traditional media and materials continued to be available, the Internet soon became a
go-to source of ideas by teachers for teaching world music. Especially noteworthy to
educators were websites of Smithsonian Folkways (especially the “Tools for Teachers”),5
the Association for Cultural Equity (with its lessons “For Teachers”),6 and Mariachi
Online,7 all fruits of the efforts of ethnomusicologists and educators. These and other
developments are opening up the channels for teaching beyond the Western European
canon, not only in regard to repertoire, but also with attention to the pedagogical
approaches that are evident within the various cultures.
The likelihood of the involvement by ethnomusicologists with educators appears
to be directly related to the extent to which they have established themselves as rec-
ognized scholars on specific music-cultures (for example, Garfias on Japanese court
orchestra [1975], McAllester on Navajo music [1973], William P. Malm on Japanese the-
ater music [2001], Nettl on music of Iran and of the Blackfoot of Montana [1989], Wade
on music of North India [1988]). Then, in their capacity as Presidents of the Society
of Ethnomusicology, journal editors, and senior members with track records behind
them, they have responded generously to the call for input and advice on world music
for teachers. Should this pattern continue, there is then a promising future for partner-
ship projects between ethnomusicologists and music educators.
From Transmission to Learning

to Pedagogical Process
One historic topic of ethnomusicologists is the transmission of music, particularly

among those whose interests concern oral tradition as verbally transmitted song,
chants, folk tales, or speech (or sonically transmitted instrumental music). Learning is
another topic of increasing interest in ethnomusicology, and yet with historical roots
as well: Alan P. Merriam’s (1964) declaration of learning as basic to understanding
music-as-culture prompted some to study who teaches and who learns and how it is
done. In classic fieldwork and the musical ethnographies that have resulted from it, the
participant-performance approach to research has naturally placed ethnomusicolo-
gists in the position of students learning repertoire and techniques from artist-teachers
of sitar and sarod, mbira, kora, and instruments such as the metallophones and gongs
of the gamelan orchestra. This student perspective served to raise an awareness of the
teaching-learning process, referred to ethnomusicologically as “transmission and
acquisition,” which is in fact akin to the “pedagogical practice” of music educators’ ongo-
ing attention. Bruno Nettl (1984) wrote of the importance of his consultants as teach-
ers, including the Arapaho Indian, Will Shakespear, who sang a vast array of traditional
melodies for him to learn and transcribe, and the Persian master, Nour Ali-Bouromand,
who taught him the radif collection of micromelodies that are core to improvisation.
Dissertations and monographs, particularly in the last quarter-century, along with
journal articles, conference papers, and even films, have been important channels of
information for knowing who teaches and who learns music, in which contexts music
is taught and learned, and how informal learning of music occurs through encultura-
tion processes. Other issues have been given limited attention by ethnomusicologists,
too, including the politics and economics of music learning. Through these investiga-
tions, not only are specific music cultures known more fully, but a deeper understanding
of the sociological features of music as human thought and behavior is thus developed
(Campbell, 2011; Nettl, 2005).
Some have discussed in fine detail the instructional transactions of learning to play
an instrument, or to sing or dance, within societies that are open and eager to have the
musical participation of all their members, while others have described music learning
within the strictures of social class, gender, or ethnicity. John Blacking (1967) wrote of
the manner in which children learned the music of the Venda by positioning themselves
centrally in the midst of performances and practice sessions, so that they might develop
as if by osmosis into their rightful role as participants in the music-making of their egali-
tarian society. For John Bailey (2001), an ethnomusicologist with 30 years of study of
dutar and rubab, two lutes of Afghanistan, learning to perform invites the practitio-
ner into “the cognition of performance,” the active movements and kinesthetic-spatial
relationships, and the thinking processes of those at the center of musical life within a
culture. Daniel Neuman’s (1980) classic work on the training of classical musicians in
North India is a description of the roles of teachers and students in the gharana system,
in which music training is restricted by family status and heredity. The descriptions of
Timothy Rice (1994) and Michael Bakan (1999) of their journey as cultural outsiders
to learn traditional instruments of selected cultures are revealing of which skills may
transfer, and which do not, from first cultures to second, adopted, cultures.
Ethnomusicologists have studied music learning in formal and informal settings, in
conservatories, schools, private homes, and even in the open air (Rice, 2003). They have
examined the extent of verbal and nonverbal techniques, the use of vocalization and
solmization, the extent of aural and oral techniques, the use of rehearsal strategies, and
the pace of the instructional delivery from the teacher to the student (Campbell, 1991,
2011). Neuman’s (1980) work discussed the disciplined practice (riaz) in the gharanas
of North India, in which students are expected to put in long hours of rigorous work-
ing out of their assigned drills on their instrument, and that the calluses on their hands
and fingerpads are evidence of their time. In the study of the Bulgarian gaida (bagpipe),
Rice (1994) attends to the combination of aural, visual, and tactile means of learning the
phrases that are connected to other phrases and which are later recalled in improvisa-
tion. Likewise, Bakan (1999) focused on the critical importance of combined modalities
that must work in a complementary manner to ensure that skills and repertoire develop,
with students observing the hands of the master while they follow closely in imitation
of them. Blacking (1967, 1995) called attention to the choice of songs learned by Venda
children as not necessarily appearing in a sequential order of simple-to-complex, but
that they will select to learn first the songs that are most often heard over songs that
are simpler in structure. In his study of jazz musicians, Paul Berliner (1994) found that
many would transcribe entire solos from recordings but also use them for extracting
and learning short phrases as vocabulary for improvisations to come.
The field of comparative music education is in its infancy, and yet this research by
ethnomusicologists is relevant to interests by educators in knowing both diverse and
common practices across cultures and systems in pedagogical processes, institutional
models, and curricular structures. An understanding of aural learning, including imi-
tation; improvisation; the presence, partial use, or complete absence of notation; and
rehearsal strategies as they are found in various cultures are more than academic exer-
cises or curious pastimes (Campbell, 1991). They are among the concerns of practicing
teachers who seek the most effective means of instruction for their students, and who
are buoyed by knowing of their effective use by others in the world.
Through the gradual process of ethnomusicology’s convergence with the practice of
musically educating students in the world’s musical cultures, a phenomenon known as
world music pedagogy is emerging (Campbell, 2004). Changing demographics, global-
ization, and mandates of multiculturalism have turned music educators toward a search
for musical sources and the means by which they are transmitted, and have led them
along the well-traveled pathways of ethnomusicologists, whose work has embraced
music, learning, and transmission across cultures. The two streams of musical profes-
sionals have forged a focus on the pedagogy of world music, reaching beyond queries
of “what” and “why” but also “how” with regard to the teaching and learning of music
within cultures, and in the recontextualized settings of classrooms and rehearsal halls.
Those working to evolve this pedagogy have studied with native artist-musicians, and
have come to know that music can be understood through experiences that retain
aspects of the culture’s manner of musical learning and teaching. While “re-enactment”
of a musical tradition in a new context is not the principal point, the pedagogy of world
music encompasses oral/aural techniques, improvisatory methods (when pertinent),
and customary behaviors during the lesson, as well as preliminary to and following
the lesson. Sometimes referred to as “world music educators,” those who have forged
this field have ventured to the borders of their disciplines to blend the expertise and
insights of ethnomusicology and education into a pedagogical system that considers
culture as both “old” (original culture of the music) and “new” (instructional culture of
the classroom).
Case studies of world music pedagogy are played out within classroom contexts that
encompass elementary and secondary school settings, as well as university courses
(Campbell et al., 2005; Schippers, 2010). One prominent theme we hold is the belief
that teachers teach effectively those genres that they themselves have learned from
culture-bearers who are master musicians of their given traditions—even when they may
feel compelled to recast the instruction to fit their students’ needs. That non-Balinese
can teach Balinese gamelan to non-Balinese children and youth is not so controversial
a concept as it once was in educational circles. Still, it is a valued notion that teachers
should train with culture-bearers at some point in their development of gamelan tech-
nique and repertoire, so that “the Balinese way” might deliver to students something of
an inside track on musical and cultural understanding (Dunbar-Hall, 2005). In the view
of those who study Indian classical music in the West, they frequently know an experi-
ence in modified transmission processes (Hamill, 2005), and yet the age-old practice of
aurally learning “one phrase at a time” from a master musician appears to be essential to
their internalization of ragas and their potential for improvisation. For Keith Howard
(2005), who teaches SamulNori percussion ensembles at the tertiary level, his own study
of the music led him to develop “encounters” rather than experiences in the mastery
of the music. He described the aims of his modified SamulNori pedagogy as one that
provides “entry and musical knowledge rather than cultural competence,” using short-
cuts and techniques that “inspire rather than frustrate.” In teaching world music, then,
studies with artist-musicians who bring an insider’s view to the music are balanced by a
belief in the importance of honoring the culture of the students.
Community Music at the Interface

of the Fields
Community music as concept and term has been recently gaining popularity within
the music education profession, particularly in relation to informal and non-formal
learning, as well as cultural diversity in music teaching and learning. Applied ethno-
musicology and community music share a common heritage and thus have overlapping
interest in the social and cultural importance of music and music making (and thus
music learning) within an educational context. On the whole, community musicians are
committed to the idea that all people have the right and ability to make, create, and enjoy
their own music—styles and expressions they prefer, that they grew up on, that they are
still growing to know. Working with music, but cognizant of the social goals, those who
facilitate community music activities seek to enable accessible music-making opportu-
nities for those with whom they are working—children, adolescents, adults, and seniors.
Concerned with encouraging open dialogue among different individuals with differing
perspectives, musicians who work in this way strive to be conscious in developing active
musical knowing while acknowledging both individual and group ownership of the
music that they make. Community music happens in community centers, youth clubs,
churches, senior homes, and prisons, and increasingly the community music processes
are working their way into schools. Ideologically, the notion of cultural democracy is
at the heart of the practice and aids as a compass in pointing toward its historical roots
(Higgins, 2012a).8
Relevant to community music, to music education at large, and to applied ethnomusi-
cology is the concept of cultural democracy as a tool for empowerment. As an early advo-
cate, Charles Keil (1982) believed that beyond the scholarly pursuit and performance
orientations of ethnomusicology, “applied” is another of the field’s critical pursuits. He
explained that applied ethnomusicology “can make a difference… (and) can intersect
both the world outside and the university in more challenging and constructive ways”
(407). A decade later, Jeff Todd Titon’s (1992) introduction to the seminal collection of
essays “Music, the Public Interest, and the Practice of Ethnomusicology” suggested that
applied ethnomusicology has its awareness in practical action rather than the flow of
knowledge inside intellectual communities. This concrete belief in action and agency is
also true of community music, as well as activist school music educators. Somewhat dif-
ferently from ethnomusicology, community music has not had a strong scholarly pres-
ence until relatively recently with the launch of the International Journal of Community
Music in 2007. Community music has therefore been a relatively marginal subject
within the academy, unlike ethnomusicology, whose anchoring can be located within
university departments (Nettl, 2002). Community musicians have sought to challenge
polarities that include formal/informal/non-formal, aesthetic/extra-aesthetic, and con-
sumption/participation (Higgins, 2012a: 31). For a predominantly freelance workforce,
paid opportunities to think, reflect, and write critically about the work has been rare;
community musicians are looking for their next employment opportunity, rather than
to engage in academic inquiry and establish a research culture.
Resonant with past practices in community music, applied ethnomusicologists
have been concerned with the development of projects in the public sphere that
involve and enable musicians and various musical cultures to present, represent, and
affect the dispersion of music (Titon, 1992). Practice-informed theory, the devel-
opment of public sector projects, and a desire to communicate ideas and findings
without generating disengaged and remote scholarship are qualities that have taken
precedence within the community music movement. Pedagogically in line with devel-
opments of non-formal education (Rogers, 2004), community music places emphasis
on music making that supports a “bottom-up” rather than “top-down” approach to
teaching, a stress on the inclusivity and participation, the encouragement of a person-
alized learning experience, and an understanding that the work can have an impact
beyond the music making itself. Initially an “alternative” approach to formal educa-
tion within developing countries, interest in non-formal education emerged from
those who felt that formal education systems alone could not respond to the chal-
lenges of modern society. These included changes in the cultural, social, economic,
and political landscape, such as ideas connected to globalization, government decen-
tralization, and a growing democratization. Coming to prominence around the late
1960s, with the work of Philip Coombs (1968), non-formal education continued its
growth through the 1970s within the context of development, “the idea that deliberate
action can be undertaken to change society in chosen directions considered desirable”
(Rogers, 2004: 13). Although the term “non-formal education” had been used prior to
the 1970s, it was Coombs who claimed the first systematic study of it, laying down a
number of definitional frameworks, the most refined of which states that non-formal
education is “simply any organized activity with educational purposes caried on out-
side the highly structed framework of formal education systerms as they exist today”
(Coombs and Ahmed, 1974: 233). With this in mind, community musicians (as well
as applied ethnomusicologists and enlightened music educators) need to have a keen
understanding that they do intervene within groups and that the very nature of inter-
vention generates issues and challenges of power within those relationships they seek
to foster.
As skilled music leaders, community musicians emphasize active participation,
sensitivity to context, equality of opportunity, and a commitment to diversity in their
practice. Working within flexible learning, teaching, and facilitation modes, commu-
nity musicians are committed to collaborative relationships, aiming for excellence in
both the processes and products of music making. Learning happens in ways that fit the
learners, and at their pace, and with attention to repertoire and techniques they prefer
to learn. Within community music, the social well-being and personal growth of par-
ticipants are as important as their musical development, and as such the framework of
lifelong musical learning has been an important aspect of the work (Jones, 2009; Myers,
2007; Smilde, 2010).9 As a common characteristic, community music facilitators are also
aware of the need to include disenfranchised and disadvantaged individuals or groups,
“recognizing the value of music in fostering inter-societal and inter-cultural acceptance
and understanding” (Higgins and Bartleet, 2012: 496). As an example, in the United
Kingdom during the late 1990s there was increased government support for commu-
nity music activity through the National Foundation of Youth Music.10 Policymakers
have understood that music can play a valuable role in re-engaging young people with
mainstream education, and therefore marginalized, or “at-risk,” young people have ben-
efited from increased music project funding. This has not been without criticism, as
governmental cultural policy can have a negative impact on participatory music activity
(Rimmer, 2009, 2012).
Applied ethnomusicology, like community music, is best understood through the
work that it does rather than any attempt to describe what it is (as opposed to music
education, which is so widely understood through earlier experience). Applied ethno-
musicology examples that resonate with what we are describing here include Kathleen
Van Buren (2010), World AIDS Day event in Sheffield, United Kingdom, Samantha
Fletcher (2007) and the benefit concert she organized in support of the refugee and
social justice committees at the Unitarian Church, Vancouver, Canada, Angela Impey’s
project (2006) that explores the operational interface between ethnomusicology, envi-
ronmental conservation, and sustainable development in South Africa, Samuel Araujo’s
musical culture map in Brazil (2008), Tom van Buren’s community cultural initiative
(2006), Tina Ramnarine’s collaborative project between universities and NGOs (2008),
and Svanibor Pettan’s advocacy work with various communities linked to the terri-
tories of former Yugoslavia (2010). Projects such as Keil’s 12/8 path bands,11 the activ-
ist street bands of the HONK! Festival (Garafalo, 2011), Maureen Loughran’s (2008)
community-powered resistance radio, the Seattle Fandango Project (Dudley, 2012), and
Music for Change12 all support the proposition that applied ethnomusicology intersects
with the “spirit” of community music, and is considerably linked to best practices in
music education. Applied ethnomusicologists and community musicians understand
that music can play a vital role in community development through education, income
generation, and self-esteem.
The Case of Harlem Samba
In 2002, music classes at the Frederick Douglass Academy (FDA) in New York City’s
Harlem neighborhood were not popular.13 The band program had been in steady decline
for years, and in order to get it back on its feet the school administration hired Dana
Monteiro, a trumpet player and music educator from Providence, Rhode Island. After
trying to develop the program for four years, Monteiro felt that he had made little prog-
ress and was faced with significant increases in class sizes and a transient student popu-
lation.14 While on vacation in Brazil, Monteiro met some local Pagode musicians and
they encouraged him to visit an escolar de samba in the Quadra da Villa Isabel favela
in Rio. It was during this trip that Monteiro had the idea that this particular form of
music, with 250 drummers playing batucada, might just resonate with his students back
in the United States. As he reflected about the school environment he was working in, he
recalled that many students had been vocal in expressing that they wanted to play drums
rather than brass or wind instruments. Upon his return to New York City, he decided to
join a community samba group, Samba New York, and experience as a participant how
the music was performed. Beginning with the cavaquinho, a small string instrument,
Monteiro moved on to explore the percussion instruments such as the surdo, tamborim,
caixa, and repinique. After an initial purchase of 10 drums, an after-school club was
started; it eventually consumed the rest of the music program, forming what is known
today as Harlem Samba.
At the FDA, over 200 students play samba every week on instruments imported
from Brazil. Students learn traditional Rio-style samba and sing entire songs in
Portuguese. The ensemble has now performed at Lincoln Center, the Museum of
Modern Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the World Cafe Live in Philadelphia,
and the Broward County Performing Arts Center in Fort Lauderdale. The samba
program has also been featured in the documentary film Beyond Ipanema: Brazilian
Waves in Global Music (Barra and Dranoff, 2009). In 2007 and 2009, Harlem Samba
traveled to Rio de Janeiro, and in 2012 won the Brazilian International Press Award in
the category of Best Institution for the Promotion of Brazilian Culture in the United
States, and Ever since Monteiro decided to introduce samba to the school, his strategy
has been to create an open environment where every student is enabled to participate
in a meaningful musical experience. He reinforces this by asserting that “I have almost
an entire school with someone who is playing an instrument,” and he further notes
that “[w]‌hat I have made here will, I think, get more kids playing later in life than a tra-
ditional program.” The students were aware of the transferable nature of the skills they
were learning in the samba classes. One group of students said that learning music
from a culture other than their own would help them get the most out of study abroad
programs. Others described informal music-making experiences they are currently
having outside school, such as playing bongos with a local street band. Many saw how
their music-making experiences were providing a sense of independence and a thirst
for playing beyond the school gates.
Students at the FDA listen to a lot of hip-hop, R&B, gospel, and reggae. How has play-
ing samba influenced the students’ listening? As Stephen, a student in the program,
explained, “I actually have samba on my iPod and that was actually the biggest thing for
me [. . .] I didn’t have samba as a mind-state in my freshman year but now it is like sec-
ond nature to me now.” Another student, Sarah, explained, “Well… I’ve never listened
to samba before,” and Jay noted, “Yeah, it’s like I hear more the beat and how things are
played than the flow of the music—you hear different instruments inside.” One of the
students explained that when learning a Brazilian song in Portuguese, he listened to it 50
times a day to understand what they were saying. This sort of commitment was common
with those who had become what Monteiro termed “true believers,” meaning those for
whom the samba program had become an important part of their life. Commenting on
being given the opportunity to learn an instrument, Simon, a 16-year-old who now con-
sidered himself a sambista, said, “I think I’m the first person in my family to start with
music so I’m probably the first one to start a generation. I’ll just pass it on.” Student expe-
rience as instrumentalists varied, but the majority had little or no experience in formally
learning an instrument.
Described as a “dynasty” by senior students, samba at the FDA encourages not only
music learning but also peer teaching. Reflecting on her music classes, Juno stated,
“It’s more of teamwork than competition,” and Robert noted that it feels like a family,
“You help each other out.” In the context of the samba band, competition between
students became visible between some students when they were performing, with
drummers trying to outwit the other with fast triplets and inventive improvisations.
This aspect of music-making was discussed among the group with friendly banter,
and was described as “a healthy competition its not like oh I’m definitely better than
you. The competition is almost like friendship—it makes you better we learn from
each other.” In this context, competition was a type of playfulness between musicians
rather than fierce rivalry brought about by pressures of an all-state competition or
jostling to get first position in an orchestra. This is a testament to how the music pro-
gram has been organized, the spirit of which can be found in many community music
projects (Higgins, 2012a). Monteiro embraces what could be called a cultural democ-
racy, in which creative arts opportunities, enjoyment, and celebration become avail-
able to all. Samba was not a part of any students’ cultural heritage; however, as one
student notes, “not only do we have to play [the instruments, but] we have to learn
about the history of the songs.” As a political idea, cultural democracy advocates that
people need to create culture rather than having culture made for them: “Culture
isn’t something you can get. You’ve already got it” (Graves, 2005: 15). The availability
of performance footage from YouTube cannot be underestimated, either, and is an
exemplar of what Schippers (2010) deems recontextualization. Monteiro goes so far
as to suggest that without YouTube the advancement of the program would not have
been possible because the students have immediate access to both the context and
music from within their homes.
One of the most intriguing things about any world music ensemble is how the
sound and form of the music reflects the local context and those who perform it. In
terms of samba, this can be deliberately woven into the band’s ethos or sound, such
as Macumba (samba with bagpipes), Bloco Vomit (samba-punk), and Sambangra
(samba and bhangra), for example. It is more common, however, that commu-
nity samba bands strive for a so-called “authentic” sound, generally understood as
approximating what is perceived as original and true to a Brazilian cultural setting. In
the case of Harlem Samba, their sound does approximate the Rio-style quite closely
but not at all costs. Monteiro’s strategy has been to empower students to feel owner-
ship of the music they make and the various samba bands they inhabit, placing an
emphasis on what students can achieve with the abilities they have. This is reflected
in the day-to-day running of the classes, where students take leadership roles. As a
consequence there are a considerable number of graduates who return each year to
play with the band. “I don’t lose many,” Monteiro says, “once we get past December
10th [end of Fall semester] all those college kids will be here everyday. They will play
when we have a concert; there are always us and the kids who have finished college.
There are kids who are 22 [years of age] who come and play.” This was evident in my
conversations with the budding sambistas, who all explained that after school, “I’m
coming back!”
Some students in the Harlem Samba project perceived Mr. Monteiro as a friend: “Oh
I’m much more of a friend to Mr. Monteiro than my other teachers in my old school
[. . .] I could say that he is definitely more interested in the work.”15 From Monteiro’s
perspective, the teaching is very challenging, “because no matter what I throw at them
they get it—there is a level of comprehension—I think they really get it.” He also rather
modestly feels that students over-value his musicianship. The musicianship is not in
doubt—listening to the band, one could not help but be impressed by the quality of
the samba “groove,” a unified sound that was clearly well-crafted and well-understood.
What then, if anything, made it distinctive from its Brazilian counterparts? In some
respects there was nothing extraordinary in the sound, except if you took a close look
at those who were playing. This was remarkable. It is therefore here, at the point of the
participants and the context, that Harlem Samba gains its distinctiveness. There is an
energy that drifts from the streets right into the rehearsal space and through the drum, a
performance full of New York teenage intensity.
From a non-formal after-school club, the FDA samba program has developed to
include almost every member of the school community. It seems a truism to state,
as Monteiro did, that “[i]‌f you were to go in the hallway, if you were to take a walk
around the building and 40 kids were going by and we dragged them all in they
could probably play: Almost every 9–12th grader in the building knows how to play.”
Initially supported by a principal who believed in the power of music, the program
attracted a private donor, who has now given significant amounts of money to pur-
chase instruments and aid travel. The latest purchase is a collection of Candombe
drums from Uruguay, which offers an opportunity to expand the school musical and
cultural experiences. The program has given some students a stronger sense of iden-
tity, and this is reflected in the number of students who return to play after grad-
uation. Asked about where he got his T-shirt. Stephen replied, “It’s Harem Samba,
yes I’m proud of it. I’m proud to be part of this.” Other participants have a sense of
responsibility that emulates from Monteiro’s teaching strategy, which enables stu-
dents to take active roles in peer teaching and in directorship. Jay stated, “I will never
forget this class—I will never forget.”
As a musician who has embraced ethnomusicological approaches to music learn-
ing, such as those described by Bakan (1999), Rice (1994), and Chernoff (1979),
Monteiro has been visiting the Santa Marta favela and the São Clemente samba school
since 2010. Prior to 2010 he visited every major samba school in Rio and Sao Paulo
and schools in Tokyo, Cape Verde, London, and throughout the United States, hon-
ing his skill and consolidating relationships. Monteiro realizes now that you do not
have to teach trumpet and have a traditional marching band to consider your program
successful. “We can give a concert, we can do parades, so suddenly we had a marching
band, a concert band, and we can do parades—all these things that at one point [the
FDA] did have before it collapsed. Suddenly it was back in this form.” Do you need
to have choir, band, and orchestra to have a successful music program? Monteiro is
emphatic: “Not at all.”
The Case of Music Alive! in the

Yakima Valley
It’s not easy to pack up a group of university music majors for off-campus course activ-
ity for a few days, not when they’re enrolled for a necessary run of multiple scheduled
sessions in a semester’s classes, seminars, ensembles, and studio lessons. Their profes-
sors may ask questions, and rightly so, for student absences mean make-up classes and
assignments for the missing students and a temporary “tilt” and imbalance of the com-
position of the course for those who remain. For the ensemble directors, an absent obo-
ist makes for a lopsided “hole-in-the-middle” sound, and the loss of three sopranos from
the chamber choir can clean out the treble sonorities. It takes a very good reason to shift
a carefully laid-out campus schedule, and a logically articulated rationale (passionately
and persistently proffered to colleagues) is essential in the process of making it happen.
Because of the flexibility of a committed faculty, University of Washington (UW) stu-
dents have been packing up for 13 years for trips across the Cascade Mountains, with
the intent of “making a dent of a difference” in a place far beyond campus. They sing,
they dance, and they play for schoolchildren and youth in rural Toppenish, on the high
plateau of the Yakama Tribal Lands, where Yakama and Mexican-American families live
side by side. When there’s funding (for 10 of the 13 years in this period), the program,
Music Alive! in the Yakima Valley, does well, and benefits stream in two directions: to
the Toppenish community and to the music majors. The project lands at the nexus of
music education, applied ethnomusicology, and community music, and its aims are
multiple: to bridge the gap between privileged university music students and under-
served school populations, to provide a civic engagement of music majors with children
and youth of poor and rural communities, to perform for the Mexican-American and
Yakama children vocally and on instruments they have never heard or seen “live,” and to
listen to and participate in the music made in these communities. With this last action,
we sought also to validate a diversity of musical expressions that is beyond the standard
university music-major repertoire (Soto, Lum, and Campbell, 2009).
Like many college music programs in North America, the University of Washington
(UW) School of Music has offered programs of performance, composition, and scholar-
ship for more than a century. In the 1920s, the School’s mission expanded to include the
preparation of teachers for music positions in K–12 schools.16 With the establishment
of the ethnomusicology program in the 1960s, and the development of multicultural
education studies in the College of Education by late in that decade, a theme was intro-
duced into the content of its music education programs: to approach music and teach-
ing from multiple cultural perspectives, and to develop music teachers who could think
globally and act locally, and who could respond to diversity in the schools with cultural
sensitivity. Seeds were sown a half-century ago for a movement in multicultural music
education where music could be a powerful means of making a pathway to cultural
awareness and understanding. Whether music of the Vietnamese or the Venezuelans,
the Hawaiians or the Hungarians, the Saami or the Samoans, UW students of music
education have provided the model for other multiculturalists to offer song, dance,
and instrumental expressions of a people as a means of knowing music and culture in a
profound way.
For cultural sensitivity to develop more fully into the perspectives of music
majors, firsthand interaction with culturally diverse populations has proven
effective—perhaps even transformative. But how? Through short-term single
cameo-visits of “culture-bearers in the classroom,” in which a song is sung, an instru-
ment is played, and a brief question-answer period ensues? Year-long residencies of
artist-musicians? Field trips to a given cultural community? At the UW, we opted for
a mix of these experiences through an assemblage of guest musicians to our classes
and seminars, arrangements for visiting artists (from Korea, Mexico, northern Ghana,
southern India, Ireland, Indonesia, Puerto Rico, Senegal, Tanzania, Afghanistan, and
elsewhere) who teach their performance craft for a term or a year, and field trips through
Music Alive! in the Yakima Valley (also known as “the MAYV program”). Especially
with MAYV, firsthand interaction is furthered, as students travel to the field of com-
munities that are distinguished by their location, their ethnic-cultural composition, and
their socioeconomic circumstance. There, in the Yakima Valley, they have opportunities
to interact with students musically and socially in the comfort of their hometown, to
feel the rhythm and pace of the people of the community, and to wonder about ways in
which local values are reflected in the music of the conjunto, mariachi, and pow-wow
events.
There are day visits, overnights, and one week-long residency each year by University
of Washington music majors in the Yakima Valley. The day-long visits are very long
indeed, as sleepy-eyed students assemble with their instruments in the parking lot of
the School of Music in the pre-dawn chill, fingers crossed that the mountain pass they
will reach in an hour’s time will be dry and ice-free. Following 10–12 hours of energetic
onsite activity in elementary, secondary, and tribal schools of Toppenish, they arrive
back to a dark campus, fully exhausted and ready for bed. The week-long residency tran-
spires in January, and music majors enjoy homestays when they live in groups of three
with families in town. This becomes an opportunity for music majors to quickly enter
into the town’s cultural environment, as they gain firsthand knowledge of what family
life is like in this community, so far from Seattle’s city lights. Whether for the day or the
week, homestays are filled with time to talk across the boundary that distinguishes rural
from urban life, poor from privileged circumstances, and minority groups of Mexican
Americans and Yakama Indians (Campbell, 2010).
The experience in the Yakima Valley is undergirded with discussion sessions wrapped
into the course, Ethnomusicology in the Schools, that precede and follow the trip, in
order to prepare students for activity and observation and to deconstruct the cultural
experience. At the top of the reading list are classic works by John Blacking (1973),
Charles Keil (1994), E. Thayer Gaston (1968), Christopher Small (1998), Thomas Turino
(2008), and Deborah Wong (2001), all of which refer to a more musical humanity than
is typically acknowledged, with emphasis on the position that all people have need for
musical expression. Small refers to “musicking” as a common sociomusical practice

across communities, and Keil describes all children as “born to groove”—prior to the
unfortunate societal message sent out that “some are, and others never will be, musi-
cal.” (Keil and Campbell, 2006). Turino’s Music in Social Life turns their heads in ques-
tioning why music and dance provide for profound personal and social experiences, in
many times and places. Questions of sameness versus distinctions emerge in class and
on-site discussion, as the students tick off the myriad ways in which the people of the
Yakima Valley think and do music. Without fail, the observation arises among students
that all people are anchored in music, despite variations in sound, behavior, and values
(Soto, Lum, and Campbell, 2009). Students of the MAYV experience are typically music
education majors, but performance, ethnomusicology, and jazz studies majors have also
joined in on the course, the trips, and the discussions.
Music Alive! in the Yakima Valley is an “extra” in the lively work-a-day world of
faculty and students. It works, though it has its bumps along the way, as it is not (yet)
self-sustaining. There is the constant worry of where the next year’s support will be
coming from—for student meals, van rental, fuel, small percussion instruments and
instrument-making materials, and an assistantship for a seasoned graduate student
with performance chops, music education, and/or community music experience, who
can negotiate and arrange for the various details of the approximately 10 trips across
the academic year. Many have committed themselves to “making a dent of a difference”
in the MAYV program, including graduate students of music education and ethnomu-
sicology. Amanda Soto, originally from a Tex-Mex border town, served three years as
“fieldworker” and facilitator of activities in the Yakima Valley, and her bicultural expe-
rience was extraordinary in connecting to the Mexican-American community there.
Robert Pitzer worked in arranging for musical exchanges between music majors and the
Yakama Nation drummers and flute players, so that give-and-take sessions could pro-
ceed in a manner that fit the school-day priorities of the Tribal School. Ethan Chessin’s
efforts were directed toward providing performances (and participatory events) with
his campus klezmer group and with Son de Madera, the university’s visiting artists of
son jarocho music from Veracruz, Mexico. There are educators and activists in the Valley
who support the effort: Robert Roybal, principal of Valley View Elementary School;
Toppenish High School music teacher Nicola Mayes; Earl Lee, the blues-guitar-playing
music teacher at the Yakama Nation Tribal School; Steven Meyer and John Cerna, super-
intendent and assistant superintendant of the Toppenish Schools; and Ricardo Valdez of
Heritage College on the Yakama Tribal Lands (Campbell, 2010).
Projects like Music Alive! in the Yakima Valley are inspired by the works of others.
Public sector music-activist Dan Sheehy, director of Smithsonian Folkways and the
Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, is an inspirational model for
making music happen in communities, for seeking ways to support the continuation
of music by the people and for the people. The outpouring of energy by Charles Keil to
create and sustain live music-making outside formal educational institutions—in 12/8
path bands, the East and West Coast Honk! Festivals, after-school programs, and public
gatherings—is the stuff of legend, and he is always in mind (Garafalo, 2011). University
administrators offered continuing moral and monetary support for our efforts. Close
colleagues in music education and ethnomusicology believe in the project and help to
uphold and continue it, and the School of Music calls it their “community engagement”
program.
“What’s in it for you?” one senior (and distinguished) faculty member from across
campus once asked, in reference to the MAYV program. There is the joy that we see on
the faces of children who are visibly in awe of the university students’ performances on
violin, or saxophone, or guitar, their eyes wide and their jaws dropped open. There is the
positive energy that can be physically felt in the exchanges of university and high school
students over instruments, repertoire, and the meaning of music. There is the way that
university students return to classes, fired up and firm in their belief that they are des-
tined make a difference as musicians and music teachers in their lives ahead by reach-
ing out to the outlying communities (rural? poor? socioculturally distinctive?) they had
previously never connected to. There is their increased and genuine interest in “other”
musics and musicians. Finally, there are more than a few students, over the years, who
have taken the pathway to teaching jobs in places beyond their own familiar and safe
suburban environments, to work with children and youth far from the mainstream who
deserve highly skilled and sincerely dedicated musicians in their midst (Soto, Lum, and
Campbell, 2009).
In the music majors program at the University of Washington, there is strong evi-
dence that the MAYV program has opened ears, eyes, and minds to different but
equally logical ways of conceiving time and space, of thinking and doing, of musick-
ing, learning, and transmission. For some music majors, the program is a “startle
experience,” an “in-their-face” event that is mildly disorienting to them in the midst
of their orderly university lives. After all, there is plenty of adjustment in going from
the gentle flow of campus events to the sometimes raucous and riled-up activity of a
group of schoolchildren (anywhere!), and they also must adjust from a warm room
in the residence hall to a cot in a family’s spare (and sometimes drafty) room. There
is a certain distance, both literal and figurative, between university students and the
children of a culturally distinctive rural community, a crevasse that needs a bridge.
For those who work with Music Alive! in the Yakima Valley, there is our continuing
hope that they can help to lessen the distance, so that Seattle students and the people
of the Yakima Valley might come to know “the other” through meaningful experi-
ences in music.
Revolutionary Potentials
Over 40 years ago, John Blacking predicted that “[e]‌thnomusicology has the power to
create a revolution in the world of music and music education” (1973: 4). This prediction
has come to pass and is now realized in the broader conceptualization of music that finds
its way into academic courses and applied performance experiences for students of all
levels of instruction, and through the questions, frameworks, and processes of research
that straddles the fields. The reverse may be just as plausible, that music education may
be a means by which ethnomusicology is made more relevant, and is revolutionized.
Adding to the works of music educators and ethnomusicologists is the emergence of
community musicians committed to facilitating the music with which a commu-
nity identifies, and which engages learners who seek to express themselves musically.
Overlapping the fields, and in the two case descriptions, there appears a definitive com-
mitment to embracing an ethnomusicological sense of people and place, to honoring the
local, and to understanding that music is situated within the lives of those who choose to
make it. While the future will tell the truth of this challenge, it is nonetheless reasonable
now to accept this premise—that the intersection of ethnomusicology and music educa-
tion, joined by the emergent field of community music, is a point at which the means for
understanding music, education, and culture may be found. It is at this juncture, where
these dynamic fields and their considerable histories merge, that new knowledge may be
developed. From the pure to the practical, this crossroads of specializations may be crit-
ical to future insights in each of these distinctive fields, revealing facets of their shared
interests in music, learning, and education.
Notes
1. The attention to American contexts is due to the extensive experience of the authors in
various US programs and projects, as well as due to an extensive literature that explains
and interprets American-style ethnomusicology and education. Ethnomusicology and
music education activity exist in many settings worldwide, but it was deemed beyond the
scope of this chapter to attempt to be all-inclusive of these perspectives globally.
2. For a wider picture of the impact of brass bands, see Brass Bands of the World: Militarism,
Colonial Legacies, and Local Music Making (Reily and Brucher, 2013).
3. Second and third editions published in 1996 and 2010.
4. See http://www.mjpublishing.com/
5. http://www.folkways.si.edu/
6. http://www.culturalequity.org/
7. 222.youtube.com/user/MariachiOnline.
8. See also (Deane and Mullen, 2013; Rimmer, 2009; Koopman, 2007).
9. For a critique of the notion of lifelong learning in community music see (Mantie, 2012).
10. http://www.youthmusic.org.uk/
11. See http://www.128path.org/.
12. UK-based Music for Change has an emphasis on empowerment through music and runs
projects in the United Kingdom, but also Africa, Asia, and Latin America. See http://www.
musicforchange.org/.
13. The Frederick Douglass Academy (FDA) offers a college preparatory education for grades
6–12. Located in Harlem, in New York City, the school serves an urban population and
seeks to educate young people within a diverse curriculum. Under the motto “without
struggle, there is no progress,” FDA prides itself in giving its students the best possible
chance to be competitive in college applications (http://www.fda1.org/).
14. There are 1,700 students in the school and all of them have to do music in order to gradu-
ate. Until very recently there was only one music teacher seeing up to 50 students at a time.
Another key reason was that in an urban school such as FDA the population can be tran-
sient and this makes it very difficult to cultivate a traditional US band program.
15. This is resonant of previous research. See Higgins (2012b).
16. K–12 is a designation used in the United States among other nations as the sum of elemen-
tary (primary) through secondary education.
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Keil, Charles, and Patricia Shehan Campbell. (2015). Born to Groove. www.borntogroove.com.
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Pa rt V I I
AG E N C I E S
Chapter 19
Archives and A ppl i e d

Dan Lundberg
Can documentation and archiving be regarded as applied ethnomusicology? That, of

course, depends on what we mean, both by applied ethnomusicology and by archiving.
From my perspective, applied ethnomusicology is primarily about ethnomusicological
studies and research activities reaching outside the academic world and in direct interac-
tion with the community—often with an intention to influence and change political and
social structures and conditions. Archives thus can be seen as identity projects with the
aim to create continuity.1 Target groups may be groupings of various kinds and at vari-
ous levels, from nations to different interest groups in society. From that perspective it
can be argued that archives and museums are about democratic and human rights—the
rights to your own history and your cultural identity. In the research project Music, Media,
Multiculture, music was used as the starting point to understand and explain how social
and cultural diversity is constructed and organized in modern societies.2 The project
departed from the idea that music has a twofold significance from this perspective, partly
as that which needs to be explained and partly as that which explains. When viewed from
this angle, people’s increasing desire to invest time, energy, and money on music and dance
can be understood as a consequence of the fact that these activities are in themselves the
goal, aesthetically, emotionally, and socially, while at the same time being the means by
which various types of messages are given shape and communicated, both individually
and collectively. The music archives’ documentation is an active act about selection, often
with a goal beyond the musical material. The archival mission also oscillates between two
poles, which in principle are constant but where the emphasis has varied over time. On
the one hand, the archive is a place for orderly storage—where cultural heritage is given a
secure preservation and is available for research and historiography. On the other hand,
the archive plays an active part in cultural life as a source and inspiration for musicians but
also as an instrument for cultural policy—as a creator of cultural heritage.
The music collecting and archiving, in earlier times as well as today, have almost
always to some extent been related to both poles. But the approaches have varied,
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often dependent on ideology. The work of the early collectors often had an educational
aim—to ensure that the public users, the musicians, or other target groups used and
appreciated, in the collectors’ eyes, the most valuable music. During other periods, the
objectives are better described as Volksbildung—to increase knowledge about history
and musical traditions. In some cases the goal was purely about cultural heritage “to
preserve for future generations.” We can also observe how the collection’s significance,
meaning, and value have varied over time.
It is reasonable to argue that collection works, publication of archive material, and
research in the folk music area are a form of applied ethnomusicology, since the goal was
not only to preserve for the future but also to interact with the music community. There
is, however, an interesting distinction between the collecting work that had nationalistic
aims and, for instance, the work within comparative musicology that was performed
in the circles of the Berlin School by scholars as Erich von Hornbostel, Otto Abraham,
and Curt Sachs. When it comes to archival work, the comparative musicology had pres-
ervation for study and comparative analysis as the main goal. So there is an important
difference between the national folk music archives, which had and still often has a
nationalistic agenda, and comparative musicology, which most often did not. But obvi-
ously there have been ideological motives even behind the work of the Berlin School.
And What about Folk Music?
What is folk music? The question never seems to be definitively answered. And one can,
of course, ask whether it is really necessary to discuss the concept of “folk music” in
almost every major study on the subject. It seems as if folk music researchers consider it
an obligation to take a stand on the question. The concept of folk music, however, is very
complex, and its meanings vary over time and space. A general tendency in the Swedish
context is that the meaning in recent years has come to emphasize music rather than
folk—that is, folk music is in many situations seen as a family of musical styles. In earlier
times, however, the emphasis was rather on folk, that is, the music’s strong connection to
the culture in which it emerged. The American ethnomusiclogist Mark Slobin notes in
Folk Music: A Very Short Introduction that his book
[. . .] will not offer anything like a definition of “folk music,” relying instead on the
principle of “we know it when we hear it.” Understandings of the term have varied so
vividly over space and time that no single summary sentence can pin it down.3
Slobin’s principle—that we know what folk music is, based on sound and previous under-
standing, indicates that folk music in a global perspective has increasingly evolved into a
family of musical styles and that the link to cultural contexts has become less important.
Archives and collection work not only reflect and preserve music traditions, they
also serve as an active part and re-creator of the traditions they preserve. This article
Archives and Applied Ethnomusicology 673
describes the starting point for the early collecting work from the late 1700s onward.
The emphasis is in the description of work of the Swedish Folkmusikkommissionen
(the Folk Music Commission; FMK) during the first half of the twentieth century. The
Commission created Sweden’s largest collections of folk tunes but has also had a great
impact on the definition of the music, in terms of repertoire, instruments, and what is
today perceived as folk music.4
One important aim of the various national collecting projects in European countries
during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was to create a sense of unity and
continuity—to demonstrate that each nation was culturally specific. The familiar rec-
ipe reads “one country, one people, one language, one culture.” An important function of
archives is to provide the raw materials for a constant, ongoing reconstruction of history, and
this reconstruction always reflects the collectors’ and users’ ideas and values. All interpreta-
tions of the past are impregnated by, and filtered through, the ideologies of their own time.
Archives
The keeping and preservation of official documents has deep roots in history. The
word archive comes from the Late Latin term archivum, which means a place where
one receives and retains public records and documents. The Latin word can be traced
back to the Greek arkheion (ἀρχεῖον), which means “place of public administration.”
The term “archive” appears in English and in other European languages, during the
1600s. One of the most well-known historical archives is the clay tablets of the ancient
city-state of Ebla, a town located in present-day Syria. Ebla had its political heyday
around 2400–2250 bc. It ended when the town was conquered and destroyed by King
Naram-Sin of Akkad. A second golden age occurred about 1850–1600 bc.
In 1974 a find of 40 tablets was made during excavations by Italian archaeologists. The next
year another 1,000 were discovered, and some months later more than 15,000 tablets, writ-
ten in an old Semitic language, were found. Nearly 20,000 tablets or fragments were recov-
ered from Ebla. This is the most comprehensive mass of information of the political and
socioeconomic situation in a society during the third millennium bc, with no comparison.
The Ebla find has been described as the discovery of the century, and thanks to its
archives, the history of not only Syria but of the entire region can be written. When the
Italian archaeologist Giovanni Pettinato deciphered and translated the text, it was obvi-
ous that it was really the great city-state of Ebla that had been found and that the tablets
were about 4,500 years old.
Most of the Ebla documents are written on big slabs of clay almost a foot square. There
are texts that, when transliterated, fill almost more than fifty pages of thirty lines each.5
According to Pettinato, the information on the tablets concerned the administra-

tion of Ebla, the organization of the state, diplomatic contacts with other city-states,
674 Dan Lundberg
agricultural business, and trade. There are also word-books and documents about edu-
cation and science, but very few literary texts. We know little about the organization of
the archive and the tablets, since the wooden shelves that they were stored upon had
been destroyed over the centuries. But there is evidence that at least some systematic
criteria existed and that the content was important for the shelving, and that the tablets
were marked in such a way that they could easily be found.6
It is important to notice that “archive” has multiple meanings. On the one hand, it
addresses the building—the archive—and on the other, it refers to the content and the
archiving activities. It is difficult to find a clear and unanimous definition, and we prob-
ably have to live with this double meaning.7
Public archives are matters of power and control over records and documents that
confirm the existence of the state and its decisions. The preservation and organiza-
tion of written documents is a symbolic act and a kind of legitimation and verification
that ensures continuity of power; it is something to refer to when political assessors are
approaching. To create archives is to exercise power—to bring signs, texts, and symbols
to a limited space and to control it.8
The discussion above addresses the archives of national agencies and organizations,
and it is in this sense that we usually mean the word. What then are the differences
between this kind of archive and music archives (or other cultural heritage archives)?
One important difference is of course the purpose. Music archives usually have multiple
purposes—to preserve documents (in the same way as an organization’s archive), but also
to serve as a resource for musicians, scholars, and others. Music archives often use sub-
stantial resources to publish their collections through different channels. Another differ-
ence is that the collections of music archives often have different origins—as, for instance,
donations and deposits from many sources—while the organization’s archive documents
for the most part consist of records and documents generated through the activities of the
organization. This can, of course, also be the case for the collections in music archives,
for instance when the collections are the result of the work of collectors and researchers
employed by the archive institution. But the main difference, in my opinion, is the music
archives’ clear ambition to make their collections available to outsiders, while the archives
of, for example, national agencies are not kept for these purposes in the first place. In this
article, it is primarily the availability aspect of music repositories that is being dealt with,
and the effects that the choices made in the processes of collecting and publishing may
have on the community in which the archive is functioning.
The first music archives of greater importance in Europe were connected to the church
and the monasteries and later also to the music activities at the courts. Notation of Gregorian
chant can be traced back to the eighth century. An essential development—which has had
decisive importance for the development of the folkloristic and later ethnomusicological
archives—is the interest for folk culture that emerged in the late eighteenth century.
Following the Napoleonic wars, a strong desire for vindication grew in many coun-
tries, as it did in Sweden after the loss of Finland in 1809, and several of the country’s
intellectuals turned to Sweden’s “glorious past” to find comfort. With renewed inten-
sity, ancient monuments and other testimonies of the ancient Swedish significance came
in focus. The Icelandic sagas, graves, megalithic graves, stone circles, and inscriptions
became the subject of renewed interest. The view of the “folk” as unspoiled and pristine
had been put forward by the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. According to
him, man is basically good, while evil had its roots in cultural development. New ways of
living had made the Europeans too civilized, if not contrived. It was among the peasants
in the countryside that one could still find the original human nature.
The interest in the “folk” spread rapidly across Europe and the collection of folk epics
started in many countries. The models were found in older poetry, such as the Icelandic
Edda and Homer’s works. The Edda became a model for Elias Lönnrot’s collection work
and the creation of the Finnish national epic Kalevala. Prior to that, James MacPherson
issued Ossian’s songs (1760) in an attempt to present a Scottish historical national epic.
MacPherson gathered his material from the Scottish Highlands, where the most origi-
nal Gaelic folk culture was thought to have survived. In a sense, one can see a Nordic
ideal in Ossian songs. The setting was a barren and windswept landscape with deserted
moors and misty mountains, not far from an idealized Norse world, and the songs
were supposed to have existed in oral tradition since the third century. The author was,
according to MacPherson, the Gaelic bard Ossian. In England, the work received much
attention: suddenly, the British had their own Homer. However, on closer inspection, it
turned out that MacPherson had produced much of the material himself, although the
ballads probably were partly modeled on Scottish folk songs.9
Although Macpherson’s work was questionable, he was a typical representative of the
craze for the “folk” that spread in Europe. Perhaps the most influential proponents of the
1800s were the German folk memory researchers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm and their
publications of German folk tales. In 1812–1815 they released Kinder-und Hausmärchen,
which includes many well-known fairy tales, including Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel
and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Sleeping Beauty. The collections became
immensely popular and were translated into many languages. The Grimm brothers
stressed that these tales originated in the folk tradition and that they had no known
author. In this way they expressed the people’s “pure” culture. The anonymization of the
author became a kind of ideal and the collective creation process normative. There was
also a kind of faith that the selection process of storytellers and singers was a type of filter.
The individual can write poetry and compose, but it is the people who select what should
be preserved. One can see this as a canonization process on a practical level, whereby the
individual creation only survives if it reflects people’s collective aesthetics.
The works of Macpherson, Lönnrot, the Grimm brothers and others became the
foundation of European folk culture archives. The goal was to portray their own nation’s
history, and it is fair to say that they are part of a kind of contest. The Swedish ethnomu-
siclogist Owe Ronström has described these ways to connect music expression, culture,
and nature as the creation of cultural “manuscripts”—to canonize the description form
in itself. It was envisioned, says Ronström:
[. . .] a powerful, collective and spontaneous process of creation, sprung from a

strange and magical union between nature and culture, place, and way of life. It’s the
folk, the race, the nation itself that is the author, “Das Volk dichtet.” “Every epic has to
write itself,” said the famous folktale scholar Jacob Grimm.10
676 Dan Lundberg
The archives became the arena where folk culture’s manuscript could be performed. The
nations could be presented as natural, ethnic, local, regional, and national imagined
communities. Therefore, it became necessary to search for, collect, and publish expres-
sions of these naturally given communities, and among the most important symbols
were folk tales and folk music.
The Nation in a Cabinet and the Collection of the Music

of Mankind: Two Fundamental Perspectives
The key issue that determines whether you can consider a cultural heritage archive as a
form of applied ethnomusicology is connected to the archive’s mission. The archives cre-
ated as part of the national projects had as one of their major aims to present the nation
as uniform and, not least, as distinctively different in relevant areas in relation to other
nations. This is a pronounced applied mission. Other archives, where the collections
themselves and the comparative perspective are the focus, might also have expectations
of creating better conditions, for example, for culture research, but this is, in my eyes, not
primarily an effort to change or influence contemporary culture or the view of a national
history. Below I will present two examples: the large collection of Latvian dainas and the
establishing of the phonogram archive in Berlin. It might be interesting to note that both
these collections have been inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.11
The major collecting projects that came about in the nineteenth century, as described
earlier, were based on emerging nationalism in Europe. The (re-)creation of national
epics, such as Kalevala, Ossian’s songs, and so on, had the more or less explicit purpose
of strengthening the nation as a unit—providing its residents access to a shared history
with national symbols, legends, heroes, and martyrs.
At the Italian Parliament’s first meeting in 1861, the politician Massimo d’Azeglio
noted “L’Italia è fatta. Restano da fare gli italiani” (We have created Italy. Now we must
make Italians). This quote nicely sums up the national projects. The nation-state is not
given by God, it is a created entity, which emerged in the 1800s, partly as a vehicle for a
new class of bourgeoisie against the old elites, partly as a means to deliver the millions of
soldiers that the new modern warfare demanded. The music archives’ role was to collect,
organize, and present the nation’s building blocks.
“The Nation in a cabinet”—that is the way the Swedish cultural historian Anders
Hammarlund has described the Latvian folklorist Krišjānis Barons’s (1835–1923) work.12
Barons was born in the village of Strutele in Kurland. He studied mathematics and
astronomy at Dorpat University in Tartu in present-day Estonia, and after his studies
he worked as a tutor and newspaper editor. In the 1870s Barons began a grand collec-
tion and systematization project based on Latvian folk poetry. Barons was particularly
interested in the dainas, traditional four-line poem stanzas. He took summer walks in
the countryside, where he was looking for people who knew dainas. He also engaged
friends, colleagues, and students in the gathering.
It seemed as if the wells of folk memories, that for a long time have been regarded
dried up and dehydrated, began to spring fresh and wonderful. From all parts of
Latvia came letters with ancient wisdoms and memories from former times, among
which the folk songs occupied a very special place.13
To be able to more easily compare the stanzas, he created a system in which he orga-
nized them by topics, motives, and variants. He also studied the forms of the dainas
carefully, but it was not what he was primarily interested in. It was the content that fas-
cinated Barons—the Latvianness—and his goal was a complete mapping of the content.
Barons had a cabinet built to store his dainas (Figure 19.1a and b). According to Barons,
the Latvian and Lithuanian folk poems showed similarities to the Homeric verses—to
(a)
Figure 19.1a Krišjānis Barons’ cabinet on display in the National Library in Riga.
Photo: Dan Lundberg.
678 Dan Lundberg
(b)
Figure 19.1b One of Barons’ original cigarette paper boxes.

Photo: Aldis Pūtelis.
an original unity of poetry, music and dance. In his view, the people’s language and its
poetry are the highest expressions of a nation’s identity, and they are simultaneously the
most important tools for identity maintenance.
Barons was obviously influenced by Johann Georg Hamann and Johann Gottfried von
Herder, but he was also inspired by a scientific, positivistic approach, which led him to
regard and treat cultural expressions as natural phenomena. In this view the social commu-
nity is an organism that should be grown in accordance with its “natural” predisposition.14
Barons moved to Riga in 1893, where he published the first part of Latvju dainas
(Latvian dainas). The work was completed in 1915. The Latvju dainas consists of six vol-
umes with 217,996 folk lyrics. In the early 1920s, the Ministry of Education ordered that a
selection from the Dainas Collection be included in the Latvian school curriculum, and
Barons’s cabinet was placed in the Latvian National Museum. The cabinet was moved to
the newly built National Library in Riga 2014. In 1983 an exact replica of the cabinet was
placed in Barons’s apartment in Riga, which by then had become a museum, a tribute to
a collector and systematist who, through popular culture, seemed to be able to reach the
Latvian people’s soul—the essence of the Latvian. These measures gave historical legiti-
macy to the new independent Latvia.
On the museum’s website the collector’s character and deed is described reverently:
He was surrounded by the love of his near people at the end of his life giving them
back his quietness and experience. The world of Dainas had changed the life of the
Dainas collector. Even when he was very tired the native wisdom of the folk gave him
satisfaction, clarity and indicated the right order of the eternal things.
By selecting what should be preserved in museums and archives, we distinguish the

valuable from what we consider to be of little importance. With the dainas, Barons built a
national and cultural Latvian identity. One of the functions of cultural heritage is to mark
out specific features and difference—and the choice falls naturally on phenomena that we
have but others lack. The collection and compilation of dainas is perhaps one of the clearest
examples of this. In a time of confusion and disorientation—Latvia was under Russian rule
as part of a long history with various supremacies—the search for a Latvian identity began.
Barons dainas gave the Latvians a specific and independent cultural history that distin-
guished them from Swedes, Poles, Russians, and other influential neighbors. Barons’s work
gained renewed importance after Latvia’s independence from the Soviet Union.
The Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv is a completely different type of archive—not only
regarding the material, as the core of the collection is sound recordings, but also regard-
ing the collection methods and ideology. It is fair to say that the birth of the Berlin
Phonogramm-Archiv was a direct result of the technological achievements of the late
1800s—above all the phonograph, patented in 1877. It is often said that the invention
of the phonograph was the very start of comparative musicology, which then led to the
development of ethnomusicology as a university subject. And clearly, the collecting of
ethnic music received a new breakthrough with the phonograph.
The ability to record sound marked the start of a more scientific approach to music
collecting. Through the analysis of the recordings, more accurately based transcriptions
could be carried out. The phonograph also enabled scientific criticism of the published
material—you could check the result of the transcripts. Many music forms had earlier
been very difficult to transcribe. But now complex polyphony and improvisation could
be caught with the help of the phonograph. The American ethnologist Jesse Walter
Fewkes made the first music ethnological phonograph recordings. During the years
1889–1890, he recorded music of Passamaquoddy and Zuni peoples of North America.
In 1892 Hungarian collector Bela Vikar used phonograph for folk music collecting in
Hungary. In the following years there were many recording projects of folk music in
Europe (see Figure 19.2).
The Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv was established by Professor Carl Stumpf
(1848–1936) at the Institute of Psychology at the University of Berlin. The starting point
was the recording of a Thai theater performance at the Berlin Zoo in September 1900.
Stumpf ’s main areas of interest were acoustics and music psychology, but together
with other colleagues (and perhaps primarily Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Otto
Abraham, who by this time were Stumpf ’s assistants), he developed what came to be
known as the “Berlin School” and its methods of comparative musicology. After
Stumpf ’s recordings of the Thai musicians, other recordings with visiting musicians,
including a Japanese theater company in November 1901, were made. The Berlin
Phonogramm-Archiv was officially founded in 1905 with Hornbostel as the director.
Hornbostel managed to ensure that German ethnological expeditions to other countries
680 Dan Lundberg
Figure 19.2 Wax cylinders from Karl Tirén’s yoik collection in Svenskt visarkiv, 1913–1915.
Photo: Eric Hammarström.
were provided with recording equipment, and the collections grew rapidly. The phono-
graph recording activities lasted until World War II. After Stumpf ’s retirement in 1922,
the archive was taken over by the state and was attached to the Hochschule für Musik.
Twelve years later the archive became attached to the Museum für Völkerkunde, with
Marius Schneider as manager, and moved to Berlin-Dahlem.
Right from the start the archive had developed good contacts with scholars in differ-
ent parts of the world, and the technical knowledge that existed in Berlin was a reason for
them to send material to the archive. As early as 1905, the American anthropologist Franz
Boas sent cylinders with Indian music to the Berlin archive for scientific processing, and
in the coming years many researchers did the same. By 1954 the collections had grown to
over 16,000 cylinders from different parts of the world. But until 1914 the greater part of
the collection originated from the former German colonies in Africa and the Pacific.15
The main concern of Stumpf, Hornbostel, and other members of the Archive was to
collect as many examples of traditional music as possible in order to create and follow
theories about the origin and evaluation of music in general. Thus, on the basis of the
great number of recordings on wax cylinders from all over the world, a new university
came in to being: Comparative musicology or “ethnomusicology,” as it is called today.16
The goal of the archive thus was primarily to investigate and compare music from differ-
ent ethnic groups and cultures, often with an evolutionary perspective. A central idea was
that the study of various aspects of music, like rhythm or tonality, could reveal principles
of the functioning of the human mind. The research could teach us about our own music’s
development in history. The Berlin School’s researchers also stressed the importance of field
recordings and the need for thorough knowledge in order to understand the music culture.
It is always the best if the scientist learns the songs or instrumental pieces so well that
he can perform them for the natives to get their approval. One should choose a critic
with musical talent (who is considered knowledgeable also by his countrymen) and
insure that the approval is not given by courtesy or disinterest.17
The Berlin School, with its scientific approach, in many ways turned the study of music
into a laboratory science, where the sounding object’s physical characteristics and
psychological effects were in focus; at the same time, there was a great respect for the
musicians and an interest in music practice and its social functions. Comparative musi-
cology’s quest for human universals is basically a reflection of Johann Gottfried von
Herder’s ideas about how the cultural diversity of species forms a kind of whole. The
evolutionists’ basic idea is a vision that we all are branches of the same tree of human-
ity. But the new cultural sciences developed in the epoch of imperialism, and one can
also see a different tendency, that is, the notion of a hierarchy of cultures in a Darwinian
sense.18 In such a system (often ethnocentric) the cultures represent different stages of
development, from the primitive to the highly civilized, and the “primitive” may then
serve as an example of lower stages of human “progress.”
Rationales for Archiving Today
In the article “ ‘For My Own Research Purposes?’ Examining Ethnomusicology Field

Methods for a Sustainable Music,” Janet Topp Fargion discusses backgrounds and ratio-
nales for ethnomusicological collection of music through audio recordings. Fargion
assumes that the strongest motive is preservation, but that collection is also linked to an
aim of the continuation of traditions.
The idea of archives is inextricably linked with the concept of preservation, a word,
if not a concept shied away from in today’s ethnomusicology: we no longer do eth-
nomusicology to “preserve” music, to keep it from extinction. Aware of the range of
activities actually engaged in by today’s ethnomusicology archives, I suggest a much
broader definition of preservation, namely, do describe it as the facilitation of the
continuation of tradition.19
Topp Fargion is right that for the ethnomusicological archives, preservation also includes
facilitation of the use of the music—but my question here is of a different kind. Which tradi-
tions’ continuation is facilitated, and which traditions never get the chance because they are
not being collected at all? Archiving always involves choices—when some objects are cho-
sen to represent or to continue certain traditions. This is, of course, at the expense of others.
Those that are not collected therefore will fall by the wayside and eventually disappear.
682 Dan Lundberg
The collection and documentation of folk music and music-making has most often not
been governed by democratic principles of equal rights, but by utopian visions of indi-
viduals and organizations, and sometimes by state and national interests and needs. The
lack of minority or immigrant cultural expressions and traditions, for instance, within
archives and museums is normally not the result of malice or racism—but that might be
a consequence. Instead, it is more often the effect of the museums’ and archives’ role in
the creation of official versions of our common history, and the value placed on what is
determined to be worthy of being collected and archived, and what can be discarded.
From an ideological perspective, there are many good arguments for music archiving.
Music is history. All music, new or old, carries with it traces of earlier times. This is an
important reason to work with music in archives, museums, and libraries.
Music is identity. It can be argued that archives and museums are both democratic
institutions and a human right. By depriving people of the access to archives, you
deprive them of the possibility of a continuous cultural/national identity.
Music is human interaction and communication. Music making is an activity that can
be charged with many, and widely differing, types of messages, opinions, and mean-
ings. With music as a cultural icon, people not only can enhance the self-esteem of their
group, but also can demonstrate to others who they are or what they sympathize with.
Many of today’s more important music archives have long histories with aims and
ambitions that have varied over time. The goals have had to be reformulated to adapt
to new issues and needs in society. An important question to ask is what position the
national archives should take in today’s multicultural contexts. Which music should be
collected? Whose history should be written?
The Concept of Folk Music
That a scientific discipline devotes considerable effort toward precise definitions of key
concepts and activities in its own fields of expertise is, of course, neither surprising nor
uncommon. One finds endless discussions in other aesthetic disciplines about what can
really be regarded as dance, theater, or art. This approach is, in itself, interesting and
shows thoroughness within traditional music research and a willingness to problem-
atize its own field. But it also reveals that the concept is loosely defined and difficult
to use. Part of the problem, of course, is found on the semantic level; the term’s mean-
ing can vary, and continues to vary over time. Major changes have occurred within the
folk music scene and in the use of folk music during the last 100 years. Musical forms
that earlier had clear roots in the rituals of peasant cultures have, over the years, under-
gone shifts in both class and geography. We can use various terms in describing this
process: aestheticization, institutionalization, professionalization, or symbolization. In
other words, the complex meaning of the concept of folk music is characterized by its
delocalization from older meeting spaces (such as community halls and the open spaces
at crossroads) to concert stages, recording studios, music education institutions, and
various media. Folk music has always had a strong connection to place—it is nestled
in the very name, in the romantic sense of the word “folk.” But today we see how music
styles are disconnected from their original context and gain new uses, functions, and
meanings in new contexts. And music is perhaps the aesthetic expression that can most
easily travel across cultural and political boundaries. This has perhaps always been the
case, but it seems clearer now than ever in an increasingly globalized media world.20
Nevertheless, different understandings of the concept of folk music, from different time
periods, persist, continuing to compete over its meaning.
It is clear that the discussion about meaning, in part, has to do with these major
changes. But it is also clear that the discussion has its origins in the complex ideologi-
cal points of departure that characterize the concepts’ emergence. Folk music, as a con-
trasting designation—the other music—that which is not church or court music, which
belonged to “high culture” or the culture of the emerging bourgeoisie of the late eigh-
teenth century. In this positioning lies a clear judgment as well: that folk music does
not belong to the dominant cultural stratum.21 From having involved a majority of the
people, folk music was turned into a subculture.
The Cultural Heritage Process and

the Archives
In the article “Theorizing Heritage,” the American folklorist Barbara Kirshenblatt-

Gimblett discussed cultural heritage as a value-adding process:
Heritage adds value to existing assets that have either ceased to be viable (subsistence
lifestyles, obsolete technologies, abandoned mines, the evidence of past disasters) or that
never were economically productive because an area is too hot, too cold, too wet or too
remote. Heritage organizations ensure that places and practices in danger of disappear-
ing because they are no longer occupied or functioning or valued will survive. It does
this by adding value of pastness, exhibition, difference, and where possible indigeneity.22
In several publications, the Swedish ethnologist Stefan Bohman has developed ideas
around cultural heritage in what he calls “the cultural heritage process,” a mechanism
in which phenomena are selected and given special status as symbols of a culture.
Bohman’s model is concerned with museums and the conscious or unconscious selec-
tions that result in museum collections; perhaps more important, his model addresses
the consequences that these choices have for our understanding of the collections and
for their cultural value. But Bohman’s argument is also applicable to archives and other
memory institutions. In the cultural heritage process, not only does the status of the
collected objects change, but also the way we understand them. In Historia, museer och
nationalism (History, museums and nationalism), Bohman presents a model that also
has been explained and further developed by the Finnish folklorist Johanna Björkholm
684 Dan Lundberg
in her dissertation thesis Immateriellt kulturarv som begrepp och process (Intangible cul-
tural heritage as concept and process).23 Bohman’s model assumes that cultural heritage
is dependent on active staging and maintenance, which means that objects and phe-
nomena are identified and re-created in accordance with the prevailing ideals of society.
Therefore, they will also be reinterpreted in line with changes in the surrounding culture.
Based on Stefan Bohman’s ideas, I will discuss the cultural heritage process in relation
to the collecting and archiving of folk music. Bohman’s model departs, as I stated ear-
lier, from the museum’s activities and has a clear focus on the construction of new sym-
bolic values for the items collected and exhibited. This kind of value shift does, of course,
also take place in the archive context, but a very important difference is that many music
archives, especially folk music archives, have as one of their primary goals to be a resource
for the music scene. For today’s creative folk musicians, archives play a very important
role as a source or stock of musical material. The musicians use the archives to find tunes
as well as inspiration. In this way the archive turns out to be an important, and sometimes
the only, link to previous music traditions. The archive becomes a keyhole for tradition,
and archivists’ and researchers’ work can thus be seen as a kind of gatekeeping.
To describe archives from a theoretical cultural heritage perspective I have identified
four steps of the process: identification–classification–standardization–symbolization.24
In the description below, I speak mainly about instrumental music, but examples might
as well have been vocal genres.
Identification
The first step includes identification of the music form. This may sound simple, but
music forms are constantly changing, and in many cases are more “blurred at the edges”
than they might appear at first glance. Questions about origin, instrumentation, and
playing technique are relevant in the identification of a music form. This leads to dis-
crimination and reduction. Loosely related or “impure” forms are often removed.
Key issues:
• What is the music form? And what is not?

• In what ways does it differ from other genres/musics?
Classification
The next step is to organize various musical expressions within the identified music
practice. This may involve the identifying of sub-styles and hierarchies. Here authentic-
ity, even though this is a very much debated concept, is often used as a criterion. The his-
tory and origin of a musical form may be the basis for this step in the process.
Key issues:
• Are there different forms?

• Is there a hierarchy (values)?
Standardization
A consequence of the identification and classification in the establishing of an archive
or a collection is that the identified music form often becomes more homogenized.
Publications and other resources, such as books, phonograms, theoretical tools, and stan-
dardized repertoire, together with the designation of “rights and wrongs” in the perform-
ing style, can also promote a standardized musical behavior. The selected repertoire and
perhaps also playing techniques and styles will dominate, at the expense of others. Diverse
and ambiguous sub-styles of the music form can be altered in order to fit the model.
Key issue:
• Purification; to remove the “wrong” repertoire, interpretations, and expressions.
Symbolization
An unavoidable result of any institutionalization in archives, as well as in museums,
is symbolization. The symbolic value of a chosen music form can represent a culture,
nation, or style. Symbolization often leads to new forms and uses of the music. This can
also be followed by a re-diversification “on the other side,” that is, when material from
the archive is used in new contexts.
Key issues:
• Development of a musical canon
• Creation of a musical “grammar,”
Swedish Folk Music as

Cultural Heritage
To exemplify the cultural heritage process and how the archives’ and the collectors’
work affects the music community, I have chosen to describe the Swedish Folk Music
Commission’s work during the first half of the twentieth century.
When Professor Jan Ling wrote the textbook Svensk folkmusik. Bondens musik i
helg och söcken (Swedish folk music. The peasants’ music in festivities and daily life)
in 1964, he saw Swedish folk music from a fairly strict historical perspective. Folk
music was still a living tradition, but the number of practitioners was steadily declin-
ing. And it was reasonable to expect that the genre in the near future was in danger
of complete disappearance. What he did not know was that his book would be highly
significant for the strong revival of Swedish folk music that emerged in the 1970s. In
the “folk music vogue”25 that washed over the country, scholars and collectors such
as Ling became important inspirations and guides for young musicians who grew
up in new environments, often with very little connection to rural society. Archival
686 Dan Lundberg
materials were then—which is still the case—often the only sources of older folk
music forms.
Since the 1970s, folk music has developed into a genre that can be said to stand side
by side with other recognized art forms. Folk music has been established in educa-
tion, courses and programs in folk music are given at most Swedish universities, and
folk musician education is offered at Swedish music conservatories. Today, the number
of professional folk musicians is greater than ever. The importance of archives for this
development can hardly be overstated—archives are essential for repertoire, but also a
filter. The collections of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are keyholes to the music
history and usually the only way to find repertoire.
In the article “Sweden” in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, the ideological
and filtering effect of the archives is emphasized:
Swedish folk music is a composite of many heterogeneous styles and genres, accu-
mulated for centuries. These traditions, genres, forms, and styles seem homogeneous
in comparison to today’s musical diversity. Their homogeneity is, however, a result of
powerful processes of ideological filtering-processes that have seriously reduced the
heterogeneity of rural musical traditions.26
The Swedish term folkmusik (folk music) usually denotes music of the rural classes in old
peasant society, while populärmusik (popular music) normally refers to modern music.
As a result of the interchange between these two concepts, there emerged an urban
folklore, which, around 1920, was embodied in gammaldans old-time dance-music.
Since about the 1970s, the term folklig musik (vernacular music) has served as an
umbrella term for folk music, gammaldans, and some other forms of popular music.
In the 1990s, the terms ethnic music and world music were introduced, most often for
modernized forms of non-Swedish folk and popular music.27
Since the 1980s, new forms of ensemble music have been developed with inspiration
from other European folk ensembles, primarily Irish and Hungarian.
The Folk Music Commission
In the early 1900s, the ideas that encouraged the pioneers of folk music collection at
the end of the 1700s was revitalized in Sweden. One might speak of a second or maybe
even third wave of the interest in recording and collecting folk culture. Also at this time,
interest in the older folk music was primarily rooted in intellectual and academic circles.
An appeal in the Nordic Museum’s publication Fataburen, in the summer of 1908, was
signed by the Swedish prince Eugene, as well as some of the most significant intellectual
leaders of that time: Karl Silverstope, member of the ministry of justice and President
of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music; Anders Zorn, internationally well-known

painter; Nils Andersson judge; Lars Johan Zetterqvist, concert master; Richard Steffen,
rector; Bernhard Salin, director of the Nordic Museum; and Nils Keyland, assistant at
the Nordic Museum. The aim was to generate interest in the newly formed FMK, a body
that would promote the collecting of important elements of a rapidly disappearing cul-
tural heritage and preserve it for future generations. The Commission had been formed
the previous year and in a call-to-action that was sent out it was written::
It is a known fact that the Swedish folk music for decades been undergoing decline,
that our genuine old songs and ballads, which by connoisseurs are said to be among
the most beautiful in the world, are about to disappear, and are supplanted by songs
that lack almost all musical value. Degeneration is quick. In the younger generations
these beautiful melodies are already forgotten. Without our intervention they would
now no longer be able to survive in tradition.28
It is stated that the interest is in “genuine old songs and ballads,” and later in the text the
commission declares that there is a particular need for contributions as “transcriptions of
folk songs and old hymns, herding tunes, walking tunes, wedding songs, long dances, pol-
skas, old waltzes etc.”29 Apparently, the interest is largely focused on instrumental music.
This is partly new. In the childhood of the collection of folk culture, the interest was more
focused on vocal music and lyrics. The change of focus can be explained ideologically but
also by the simple fact that the driving enthusiasts had a special interest in instrumental
folk music.
When the Commission was founded at the Nordic Museum at the “First Meeting for
Swedish Folk Knowledge,” Nils Andersson, who was the Commission’s strong man and
the driving force behind the petition, gave a speech that resulted in the following state-
ment from the assembled:
The first meeting of the Swedish folk knowledge states that the assembly consid-
ers that it is, from a scientific, ethnographic and nationally musical interest, highly
desirable that in the near future, records of folk-like melodies may with utmost pas-
sion be conducted. The meeting finds it equally desirable, that in the near future a
large central collection of Swedish folk melodies may be established. The meeting
agrees to the principles for music collecting that were presented by the speaker.30
Nils Andersson succeeded in his ambitions, and FMK was formed with the aim to be
“a central collection of Swedish folk songs.” Its mission was to collect and store selected
repertoires of Swedish folk music. The main task was to implement the survey of
Swedish folk music, region by region, which resulted in the 24 volumes of Svenska låtar
(Swedish tunes) (see Figure 19.3).31 The work was led initially by Nils Andersson and was
then taken over by Nils’s companion, Olof Andersson. The latter had been engaged to
assist with fair copies and field transcriptions, but after Nils’s death in 1921 the collecting
was conducted entirely by Olof Andersson. In 1940 the last of the 24 volumes of Svenska
låtar was published, and the Folk Music Commission’s work was completed.32
688 Dan Lundberg
Figure 19.3 Polska from Ore, Dalarna, in the FMK collection. Transcribed by Nils Andersson,
1906.
In Svenskt visarkiv.
But what ideas about folk music were discussed in the circles around FMK? What
was good music and what was bad—and what music was worth collecting? There are no
clear indications within FMK’s own materials, but when Nils Andersson suggested at
the meeting at the Nordic Museum that the collecting of folk melodies should intensi-
fied, he had a particular repertoire in mind. Nils Andersson draws a clear line between
what should be collected and preserved, and what should, in fact, preferably be forgot-
ten. But the line does not run between folk music and some other genre. He seems to
rather consider which music is good, and which music is bad, within the folk music
genre itself. He calls for the collecting of walking tunes (gånglåtar), polskas, herd-
ing music, and so on. But he also makes it clear that polkas, polkettas, mazurkas, and
Viennese waltzes should not be collected, despite the fact that he undoubtedly sees that
these were a large part of that time’s contemporary folk culture. My understanding is
that FMK’s work had an enormous influence on what has come to be the core of the
genre, and therefore also its meaning—and without the committee explicitly stating
the meaning of the concept folk music. Today, we can also conclude that the collect-
ing work had practical repercussions. The work within FMK had as a goal to collect,
but also to keep the music alive—publications were intended to follow. And the publi-
cation of Svenska låtar (Swedish tunes) meant a fundamental canonization of Swedish
folk music—perhaps to a greater degree than the collectors themselves imagined. By
means of what was selected, one decided what would be preserved and, therefore, what
would be played by coming generations of musicians. In this way, one can say that FMK
defined Swedish folk music through its selections and its work.
The Discussions
The meaning of the concept of folk music has, as mentioned earlier, been discussed by
many Swedish ethnomusicologists. As a starting point, I would like to talk about some
of the more influential proposals of definitions made over the last 30 years by Swedish
scholars. But I would also like to refer to discussions found within the framework of aca-
demic theses about Swedish folk music in more recent years.33
To begin the discussion on the effects of today’s use of the concept, I will highlight four
proposed definitions that have been often used and discussed: Ling (1979), Ronström
(1989), Ramsten (1992), and Lundberg and Ternhag (1996).34 But first I will reveal that
I will be using quotations from these authors, perhaps a little unfairly, in order to delib-
erately polarize the concept of folk music.35
I begin with two definitions, which address the concept’s ideological meaning: Jan
Ling and then Owe Ronström, who uses and deepens Ling’s ideas, 10 years later.
In his classic article, “Folkmusik—en brygd” (Folk Music—a Brew) (1979), Ling
grounds his definition on the aspect of power. The concept of folk music was recognized
and established by an acknowledged cultural elite at the end of the 1700s, and this has
had an almost distancing effect. Ling writes that folk music is an “ideological concept,
coined by the bourgeoisie of the eighteen and nineteen hundreds as a designation for
‘the others,’ the people’s music, which they observe, study, and attempt to incorporate
within their culture.” Ling states that the prerequisite for the development of folk music
as a concept concerns the social changes that took place during the eighteenth century.
In my view, there are two main aspects of Ling’s observation: (1) that folk music is the
culture of “the other,” and (2) that the designation of folk music was a way to gain control
by making the music part of the designator’s own cultural identity. In both cases, it is
about positions of power. It is the new bourgeois class that defines and chooses. “The
people” in this sense, are passive practitioners of the cultural expressions that are attrib-
uted to them. From the viewpoint of those in power, the folk do not choose their culture,
while the bourgeoisie, to some extent, choose their means of expression.
Owe Ronström, in Nationell musik? Bondemusik? Om folkmusikbegreppet (1989)
(National Music? Peasant Music? On the Concept of Folk Music), builds on Ling’s ideas
and further develops what the concept of folk music can be thought to stand for—in theory
and in practice. In the end, he comes up with a sort of sociolinguistic definition of the term.
According to Ronström, folk music is “. . . that which we call folk music. The people who use
the word often decide what it will mean. Musicians, researchers, politicians, and audiences
are all involved in an ongoing tug of war about which direction, and how far the meaning can
be stretched.”36 Ronström observes, unlike Ling, the participants within the music commu-
nity, from different social classes and with various roles. They actively take part in the power
690 Dan Lundberg
struggle over the meaning of the concept of folk music. It is basically Ling’s line of thinking,
but shifted to a more modern platform. In the research project Music, Media, Multiculture,
Ronström’s thoughts were developed around the model “doers—knowers—makers,” three
roles in a kind of discursive and performative power struggle.37
Ling and Ronström view folk music from its importance as an ideological marker.
Folk music is defined, or rather singled out, as “the other.” But the designation of sub-
culture also means that folk music ends up in a defined relationship to the majority’s
culture and becomes, indirectly, a part of it. “Outsider-ness” becomes “insider-ness” as
well—folk music “is incorporated” into the culture of the majority, as Ling expresses it.
A different way to approach the concept of folk music is to consider the music itself.
Folk music has, since the 1700s, been defined through its function. But in its modern
context it hardly differs from other aesthetic music forms—folk music stands side by
side with jazz and art music on the concert stage.
Two definitions that deal with folk music as a genre, or musical style, include Märta
Ramsten’s in her dissertation, Återklang. Svensk folkmusik i förändring 1950–1980
(Echoes: Swedish folk music in transition, 1950–1980) (1992), and four years later, my own
and Gunnar Ternhag’s definition in the textbook Folkmusik i Sverige (Folk music in Sweden).
Ramsten views folk music as “. . . a music genre, in other words, an established rep-
ertoire and a conventional way of performing this repertoire. This performance, of
course, varies during different time periods, but which, even today, is highly dependent
on nineteenth-century folk music collectors’ approach to the material.”38 Ramsten con-
nects it to an established repertoire that is performed in a generally accepted way—folk
music as musical material played in a specific style. In addition, Ramsten links this to
the work of collecting and the collectors’ ideological frameworks. Lundberg and Ternhag
(1996) take the discussion a step further. Folk music is “a family of styles. And as a style,
folk music has certain characteristic traits that one can find in the use of tonal language,
rhythmic patterns, or sound—or in a combination of these.”39 In this definition, the
authors let go of the connection between collecting and an established repertoire—the
music’s attributes are determined solely by its style/sound or musical codes. The folk
music genre, in this version, could be dominated by totally newly composed music that
sounds like folk music.
Schematically described, one could say that the four definitions of folk music are over-
lapping, yet still represent a line of development; from the view of folk music as an ideo-
logically constructed category, to the approach that folk music is an established form for
creating music where the practitioners themselves influence the style’s musical codes
through their musical practice. It is tempting to see these as extremes within a spectrum
of possible definitions, but the paths of thinking definitely complement one another.
There is no obstacle to experiencing folk music as a musical code, while at the same
time recognizing its strong links to national ideologies. It is clear that folk music can
represent both ideology and style—and perhaps this is already captured in Ramsten’s
definition. The definitions themselves, in actuality, represent various levels of meaning
within the folk music concept. Through their differences, they also describe folk music’s
relocations. The historically oriented definitions are, on the one hand, closely tied to folk
music’s social contexts; folk music is folk music because it is connected to a social class
and to a diffuse and loosely defined past. The definitions that pertain to today’s use of
folk music instead refer to musical codes; folk music is characterized by a type of instru-
mentation, playing technique, type of repertoire, and so on.
Everyday Meaning and

the Practitioner’s Perspective
One can, of course, ask oneself whether or not the above definitions are included in
some sort of “everyday meaning” of the concept of folk music. If one should ask “the
man on the street,” that person would hardly be answering that folk music is an ideo-
logically constructed category, or that it is defined based on a sustained drone effect or
modal melodic structures. In our daily use of the concept, we are more likely influenced
by the ideas of folk music’s social connections to rituals, as well as the daily work within
a rural community—“the peasants’ music in festivities and daily life.”40
While teaching “Swedish folk music” in various situations, I have often discussed the
everyday meaning of “folk music” with the students in order to see which criteria one
can agree upon, without analyzing the concept more deeply. It is interesting that it is
actually pretty easy to come to an overall agreement on some sort of meaning of the con-
cept. The following key criteria almost always come up:
Oral tradition
Passed on across generational borders
Tied to rituals
Rural music
From the past.
All of these criteria point to music’s social context and connection to older rural society.
It is quite seldom that the criteria of musical styles come up during such a discussion.
During the fall of 2008, I taught the first-year students of the folk music department
at The Royal College of Music in Stockholm. On this occasion I also asked if any of the
students considered themselves to be a spelman (Swedish folk musician or folk fiddler, con-
sidered to be embedded in a specific playing tradition). Of the group’s 11 students, there
was only one who thought of himself as a spelman. One can ask oneself why? Except for
the three students who studied singing, all of the others were, more or less, established
practitioners and instrumentalists within folk music. These are knowledgeable musicians
who should have identified themselves as spelmän/spelkvinnor (male/female folk musi-
cians)—otherwise, who else would identify themselves as such? Historically, it would have
been a bigger problem for them to call themselves “musicians,” a title that, at least in ear-
lier times, would have brought to mind an educated, professional, and experienced music
692 Dan Lundberg
practitioner in art music. But, according to this student group at the music academy, which
I believe is relatively representative, it is less pretentious to call oneself a (folk) musician
than a spelman.
“I will never be a spelman.” said one.

“I would never be able to play so faithfully in one style. To be a spelman involves
adherence to a bunch of impossible requirements.”
This is a complete turn-around of the meaning and value given to the terms “musician”
and spelman. I believe that this is, in part, an important effect stemming from FMK’s
efforts to connect the music to place and local culture, and not least, to raise the status
of the individual, instrumental musician within folk culture—the spelman. In order to
put some light on this change, we can compare it to the reaction of the folk music col-
lector Karl Sporr, who became very upset when he was called a spelman. In an article in
the newspaper Falukuriren in 1940, he pointed out that he wanted to be called “a vio-
linist and music researcher, and not a spelman.” The background was that when Sporr
received the Hazelius Medal for his contributions to folk music, he refused to accept it,
as the Nordic Museum had presented him with the title spelman.
The Folk Music Commission’s

Folk Music
In order to discuss FMK’s ideas about what folk music is, or rather what good folk music
is, I have chosen to start with Nils Andersson’s lecture, “About Swedish Folk Music,” which
he held in various locations in the region of Skåne during the late winter of 1909.41 Nils
Andersson’s lectures were often presented in the press in a summarized or abstract form,
and these were later commented upon by the Finnish musicologist and collector Professor
Otto Andersson, in an article in 1958.42 Among other things, Otto Andersson remarks on
the fact that the summaries are very much alike and have, for the most part, the same
form. Otto Andersson draws the conclusion that Nils wrote these abstracts himself and
sent them to the newspapers, or gave them to some newspaper reporter. It is certainly pos-
sible that this is true, as Nils Andersson was very eager to get his message out, and a clever
way to do it, of course, was to “do the job” for the journalists. It was easy to just take the
completed summary to the newspaper. But, one can also consider that the newspapers got
their news from one another. Otto Andersson comments on four lectures from around
the same time: in Trelleborg on February 8, in Lund on March 2, in Ängelholm on March
11, and in Kristianstad on April 1. In my example, I will be using the abstract that was pub-
lished in the daily newspaper Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snällposten on March 5, 1909.
Nils Andersson’s lecture presents a clear statement about several aspects of the nature
of folk music, its function, and value. In many ways, Nils Andersson’s evaluation goes
back to Johann Gottfried von Herder’s ideas about folk culture as a sort of expression of
the collective folk soul (Volksgeist)—even though he does not use that term.
Folk Music’s Essence and Origin
Nils Andersson begins by claiming that there are two types of folk music, instrumental
and vocal—a fundamental and, understandably, elemental observation that is interest-
ing only in light of the fact that he never returns to the topic of vocal music in the lecture.
He comments further:
• Embedded in the term “folk music” is that it belongs to the peasantry.

• It has not merely been preserved within tradition, but has originated there as well.
• [Folk music] is… among the finest and best expressions of a people’s temperament
and character.
• . . . as well as a reflection of the people’s way of perceiving the environment in which
they live.
• Each country has, thus, its own particular folk music.
• And in Sweden, it can be said that each province has its own folk music.
• Of the folk music of all countries, Sweden’s is of the highest rank.
Nils Andersson’s thoughts about the essence and origin of folk music fall in line with the
Romantic era’s ideas of folk music’s connection to the soul of the people. The basis for this
is the late eighteenth-century ideas of nation, race ideology, and the idealization of the
simple, wild, or the uncultured. A consistent view was that everything, or rather every
culture, had its own character—a soul. Humans had, of course, their souls, but people
as a whole, as well as nature, had a soul. These ideas can be seen as a reaction against the
Enlightenment’s espousal of reason and rationalism. The new Romantic currents instead
emphasized the importance of the soul of the arts and the emotions. Music was given a
double role as both an expression for, and the bearer of, the soul of the people.
Philosopher and historian Johann Gottfried von Herder is often cited as the author
of the concept of “folk.” Through Herder, the term “folk” began to be used in a way
that can be likened to today’s use of “culture.” People are, at the same time, individuals,
and representatives of a collective. In the latter role, a person expresses a kind of folk
character. Herder’s view of the folk as a collective unit was relative. He meant that all
cultures are different, that human nature is not uniform, but that we all have different
capabilities within our respective basic characters that express the soul of the folk. At
the same time, the various different folk souls are expressions for one and the same
God.43 It is interesting that Nils Andersson maintains that Swedish folk music is fore-
most among all countries. We Swedes are hardly known for emphasizing that our own
culture, celebrating ourselves, is better than the culture of others.44 Nils Andersson’s
694 Dan Lundberg
choice of accenting Swedish folk music’s superiority can understandably be his belief
that it really is outstanding, but also may be an expression of a kind of alienation—a
sort of distancing himself from folk culture. It is easier to highlight Swedish folk music
if one is not actually a part of the folk culture, but only its promoter.
The Bearers of Tradition
“The bearers of folk music were the old fiddlers who, as a rule, were highly regarded.” One
of the most distinctive features of Nils Andersson’s approach and presentation of folk
music material is that he places the fiddler (spelman) in the center (see Figure 19.4). In
the publication Svenska låtar (Swedish tunes), the presentation of the spelman receives
a central place. The folk musician functions also as a principal category for the tunes,
something that Nils Andersson was criticized for by contemporary colleagues from var-
ious quarters. In earlier collections, anonymity of authors functioned just the opposite
way—as a sort of lofty ideal. The collective, creative process of folk culture stood in the
center. The Serbian collector Vuk Karadžić, who gathered epics and ballads in parts of the
Figure 19.4 The music collector Nils Andersson in the home of the fiddler Ante Sundin.
Photo from Svenskt visarkiv.
Balkans in the beginning of the 1800s, wrote: “Everyone denies their involvement, even
the actual poet, and they say that they heard it from someone else.”45 It is a sort of faith
in the process, that people—audience, storytellers, and singers—act as a kind of filter or
selection mechanism. The individual can write poetry and compose music, but it is the
folk who actively choose what will be preserved. One can, in fact, see this as a kind of pro-
cess of canonization on an everyday level. FMK’s approach of accenting the importance of
the musician can instead be seen as a new and modern way of presenting the folk music
and its practitioners. Then, of course, one can wonder if Nils Andersson was correct when
he claims that musicians “as a rule, were highly regarded.”
Threats
One reason for the formation of FMK was that folk music was considered to be dying
out fast. Through the work of collecting, at least parts of the quickly disappearing cul-
tural heritage could be saved for coming generations.
This is reflected in newspaper summaries of Nils Andersson’s lectures, where he
notes that
[t]‌he real folk music in Sweden is almost extinct.

What now goes by the name is extremely trite and burlesque, and infinitely infe-
rior to the genuine, old folk music.
Popular music is a particular threat in this scenario. It is interesting in that it seems that
poplar music gradually evolved into folk music’s leading opponent during the 1800s. It
becomes increasingly clear that art music, in many ways, is allied with collectors—folk
music was used by many classical composers as source material for the composition
of national music during the Romantic period. Popular music, instead, stood directly
in the firing line, and the most pronounced object of hate was the accordion. Nils
Andersson asserts in the lecture that the threats include:
Accordion
One attributes this [folk music’s death] commonly to the accordion.
. . . the old folk music cannot be played on the regular accordion, since it does not have
the notes found in these [folk music’s] scales.
It would be fortuitous if one could eradicate the accordion.
Musical sense and, perhaps even, emotional life [has] become superficial and diluted.
Contributing factors are:
Popularity of quartet songs,
And even more so, brass music.
One reason for the extinction of folk music has also been pietism.
696 Dan Lundberg
The German instrument maker, Friedrich Buschmann, constructed the first accordion
in 1822. He named his invention Handäoline. The instrument had a diatonic tonal range
and each button, connected to two lamella, produced different tones depending on if
it was pressed on the intake or the output of air. In 1829, Austrian Cyrill Demian took
out a patent on his Akkordion, a development variation of Buschmann’s instrument.
Through industrial production that enabled relatively low prices, the accordion spread
rapidly over Europe and North America. The accordion fit well to the new repertoire
of dance music that was spreading throughout these regions at the time, around the
turn of the century. The accordion belongs to the family of instruments called free-reed
and includes, for example, harmonica (mouth harp) and pump organ, and is related to
Asian instruments such as the mouth organ (for example, the Chinese sheng), which has
existed in southeastern regions of Asia for at least two thousand years. It is believed that
the idea for the accordion was modeled on these Asian mouth organs. But the accor-
dion also has much in common with European bagpipes, mostly in the construction
that includes a bellows, and base and melody functions.
By the middle of the 1800s, there were different kinds of accordions with various
names. The accordion was also called by many local, vernacular names such as hand
klaver, knäorgel, piglock, and drängkammarorgel (hand keyboard, knee organ, maid
charmer, workman’s organ)—that witness to the fact of the importance of the accor-
dion among Sweden’s lower classes. The accordion’s rapid spread also put its mark on
folk music. In many ways, one can say that the accordion represents an important shift
in musical thinking. In the older stratum, the music was built with only the melody in
mind. The most important components in the music were melody and rhythm—one
used to say that music was “linear.” But, in that one can begin to harmonize and put
chords to the melody, there arises a new way of thinking about music. Music gains a
vertical dimension. The accordion’s huge popularity meant that much of the older music
was adapted to a harmonic way of thinking. And it was exactly that which upset Nils
Andersson and other folk music enthusiasts. They felt that the accordion simplified
the older music and made the intricate melodies coarser. But the accordion also stood
for the new era—industrialization and urbanization. In this way and in many people’s
eyes, it became a symbol of the culture’s superficiality—something that must be fought
against if folk music was to be preserved.
The accordion, along with the harmonica, was manufactured industrially during the
latter part of the 1800s and spread quickly across Europe. Together with modern brass
orchestras and string ensembles, accordion players began to gradually take over more
and more of the dance music function, previously held by violin and clarinet musicians.46
Local instrument traditions were also regarded as threatened—as for instance the Swedish
nyckelharpa and older types of wind instruments belonging to the herding traditions.
But it was not only the changing trends that threatened folk music. It had more ene-
mies. During the latter years of the nineteenth century, a religious revivalist movement
campaigned against alcohol, dancing, and other worldly pleasures of indulgence—a
crusade that also affected music making, which was closely associated with contexts in
which immorality and sin could be expected to occur.47
The Identification of the

“Authentic” Folk Music
In FMK’s archive there are many examples of clarifications on what is valuable or what
is reprehensible from a collecting perspective. In a letter to Professor Tobias Norlind
in 1912, Nils Andersson explains that his collections consist “of truly ancient fiddle
tunes and therefore, do not bother with the likes of polkett, mazurka, Viennese waltz,
galop, etc.”
In the commentary in Sydsvenskan, Nils Andersson describes the oldest and the
“most peculiar” material as the most important.
• Among the oldest and most peculiar were

• Those so-called herding tunes, which the herders played on animal horns or
birch-bark trumpets (näverlurar).
• Walking tunes were those played while walking [and] wedding processions.
• Dance music comprised, however, a considerable part of folk music.
• The foremost here being polskas.
• While the names of these indicate foreign origin, it is not the music that matters,
but only a certain kind of dance.
• Of old, some of these melodies have been played for a long dance.
Folk music’s value was dependent on its ability to symbolize a national character, and to
be authentic, distinctive, and not least, very old. In addition, it must differ from the folk
culture of other countries. Swedish music must have something different from that of
the Danish or Finnish. Thus we see the worthiness that Nils Andersson puts on the most
peculiar songs. Nils Andersson saw a very special value in the herding music, thanks to
its archaic sound, but also because it is distinctly Swedish.
The End Goal
FMK’s aim was to preserve folk music. But, above all, the Commission wanted to make
the music available through the publication of Svenska låtar (Swedish tunes). In his lec-
ture, Nils Andersson points out two goals for FMK’s activity:
• . . . that the rich treasure, that our folk music contains and which, at the last moment
was captured, could again become alive and be assimilated by our people and used
for cultivating and enriching spiritual life.
• And even our composers would have a very rewarding goldmine from which they
could take motifs and ideas.
698 Dan Lundberg
The work of collecting carried out in the 1800s had, in many cases, the aim to publish
songs and tunes so that they could be sung and played. But the intended audience was
not the musicians and singers of the rural society. An example is Richard Dybeck’s
efforts to implement folk culture in a theatrical setting. One form of this was the
so-called evening entertainments, which he arranged in Stockholm. He combined dif-
ferent folk traditions in scenes that he named, for example, “festive pieces,” “dance rhap-
sodies,” “lyrical folksongs,” and “scenes from the herding woods” (where cattle grazed).
The pieces were arranged with a wide variety of instrumental groups, choirs, orches-
tras, and soloists. An important detail is that, as stated before, the performances never
made use of peasant musicians or singers. Dybeck let professional musicians, singers,
and college music students take the roles. Dybeck’s efforts show how important it was
for him to find a balance between what was aesthetically acceptable to the bourgeois
audiences of Stockholm, and the “authentic” folk music as it was performed in the farm-
ing communities—in church, for dancing, or in the summer pastures. FMK had a very
different target group in mind—those musicians who were interested in finding good
repertoire from their own regions. And this came to be. The publication Svenska låtar
functioned as a priceless source for the organized fiddle groups. But FMK also wanted to
make the collections available to composers and researchers.
New Perspectives on Folk Music
It is clear that, according to FMK, the threats to folk music do not come from art music,
but from popular culture and new music trends coming from continental Europe, spread
across Europe through new media. In his lectures, Nils Andersson points out that young
people are misled into forgetting the old melodies by new, foreign, trendy melodies and
instruments. For him, classical music and its composers were rather allies in the fight for
the preservation of folk music. This was, of course, not unique for FMK but, in fact, was a
common feature of the Romantic era. The fear that the youth would be misled by foreign
influences was ongoing in many later events during the twentieth century.48
On the basis of Nils Andersson’s lectures and FMK’s other writings, one can construct
a of hierarchy of values that coincides well with the Romantic era’s ideals about national
culture.49 The scale stretches between poles that can be designated in different ways:
Good–Bad
Old–New
Authentic–Modern
Natural–Artificial
Rural–Urban
Minor key–Major key
Polska dance–Polka
March–Foxtrot
GOOD MUSIC
Herding music
Songs and
instrumental - Wedding tunes,
music connected long dances, polskas,
to the life cycle marches and waltzes, etc.
- Violin, clarinet,
Older instruments
and nyckelharpa
Modern dances
such as polka,
polkett, and galopp
Popular music and

mass culture - Accordion, harmonica
BAD MUSIC
Figure 19.5 The ladder is an illustration the value scale of FMK. At the bottom we find the
music that represents modernity and international influences. At the top we find pastoral
music that stands for the good old peasant society.
Illustration: Lena Drake
With the help of Nils Andersson’s lectures, we can construct FMK’s value scale (see
Figure 19.5)
FMK’s Impact and the Cultural

Heritage Process
Nils Andersson’s lecture is a sermon—a proclamation of the folk music gospel. He took his
arguments about the folk culture that springs from the collective soul and which mirrors
nature from ideologies of the Romantic era. And he had a burning passion for this work.
700 Dan Lundberg
Nils Andersson did not work with some explicit definition of folk music, but in his
arguments, one can catch a glimpse of the same conceptual content as in the “every-
day meaning” that I described earlier. Nils Andersson’s folk music is rural music, from
older times that have a clear connection to function—rituals, work in the woods and at
the summer pasture. Folk music’s lifeblood is the old farming community, which was
passed down from generation to generation. Consequently, folk music was threatened
by modernity, internationalization, and fast-paced changes.
For Nils Andersson, it seems that it was not necessary for him to define folk music—it
was self-evident. Even so, one can say that he and FMK, through their work more than
any other, shaped the concept. Through the clear focus on instrumental music, from
certain geographical regions, a focus on certain types of tunes, and sanctioning of cer-
tain instruments, FMK has, in tangible ways, narrowed down the concept.
Through their extensive and diligent work, FMK created a clear and distinct reper-
toire for future generations—a canon for Swedish folk music that is still in use.
FMK’s work can be described by the four steps of the cultural heritage process.
Identification
The Folk Music Commission concluded that certain styles and dance types would
be preserved, so identification is perhaps the most obvious part, and it was the
Commission’s very starting point. Here is an outspoken appreciation of the older lay-
ers of folk music and this, combined with a clear desire to preserve the most distinc-
tive musical forms in Swedish folk music, with the aim that Swedish music should
be conceived as different from other countries’ folk music. One consequence of this
was that melodies collected close to the Norwegian border sometimes sounded too
Norwegian. A collected material of this type was in some cases sent to Norwegian col-
lectors.50 The hunt for elderly and distinctive forms of music directed the collecting
work toward shepherd music and dance music with roots in the eighteenth-century
folk culture.
Classification
This step is especially evident in the presentation of the material in the publication
Svenska låtar, where the folk musicians’ repertoires were consistently presented by
melody type. Another result of FMK’s work is that the polska melodies were grouped
into three main types, based on the notated rhythm. The publication in Svenska
låtar also creates a clear geographical division of the Swedish folk music by region,
with regions profiled against each other. We can also observe that the classifica-
tion of a tune as “polska” led to a rise of its status and thus increased the tradition
bearer’s prestige. It is clear that many musicians adapted their repertoire after collec-
tors’ preferences—explicit or implicit—and this meant a shift of the folk music genre
toward older repertoires.
Standardization
The Swedish folk music of today is based very much on the collections created by
FMK. The polska has become the overall dominating melody and dance type in
Swedish folk music. As a result of FMK’s focus on a few musical instruments, folk
music today is largely dominated by violin music. The orientation toward older folk
music practice has also counteracted the ensemble types developed in the 1900s
with the accordion as a central instrument. Until the last few decades, this kind of
ensemble has not been regarded as folk—unlike in many other European countries,
where the ensembles have been seen as a natural development within the tradition.
FMK’s ideal folk musician was the nineteenth-century spelman, a romanticized and
mythical maverick, a strong-willed natural artist who maintained traditions without
allowing himself to be influenced by contemporary trends and musical fashions. The
musician was a man, an instrumentalist who usually played to dance, alone without
accompaniment. The effect of this was, of course, that the Swedish folk music by FMK
became a more male-dominated instrumental genre throughout most of the twenti-
eth century.51
Symbolization
A fundamental effect of FMK’s collecting work has been the creation of a distinct
“Swedish” folk music idiom. The nationalistic ideas during the Romantic era had their
roots in Johann Gottfried von Herder’s ideas of national folk characters. These ideas
were the basis for FMK’s collections and the publication of Svenska låtar. The collec-
tors’ focus on typical or distinctive features, in terms of melody types and modal struc-
tures, have turned these into stylistic cannons. From this perspective, it is possible to
say that FMK made Swedish folk music more Swedish, or at least more distinct. In the
early twentieth century, instruments such as the Swedish nyckelharpa were threatened
by new factory-made musical instruments, especially the accordion and harmonica. In
the work of FMK, the nyckelharpa was identified as particularly important to preserve.
The result that we can see today is that the nyckelharpa has developed into a national
symbol. Without FMK, this would hardly have been possible.
Conclusions
FMK’s ideological importance to the folk music concept in practice may be summarized
as the following:
• The spelman as the focus

• The individual musician becomes visible in the tradition
• Sorting of good and poor musicians
• The older the better as a basic idea
702 Dan Lundberg
• Focus on “passing on to the next” (tune learned from… which was learned
from, etc.)
• Collecting becomes focused on instrumental music
• A shift from a female to a male focus
• Local distinctiveness
• From national to regional
• Certain types of tunes become established standards
• Polska dances, waltzes, marches, herding music, and long dances
• A clearer picture of the threat from popular music
• Art music composers considered to be allies
• Accordion music and popular dances end up on the outside
• Strong demands on helpers and other collectors to avoid collecting polkas,
polkettas, and galops
• The instruments are standardized.
• Focusing on fiddle, clarinet, and nyckelharpa—as well as the cow and sheep horn
and bark trumpet (lur).
• Less focus on bagpipe, fipple flute, diddling—singing of dance tunes (trall),
bowed lyre (stråkharpa)
• Absolutely no accordion, harmonica, other bowed instruments, or transverse
flutes.
Music collecting and archive work were important parts of the homogenization and
establishing of Swedish folk music—a Swedish folk music that was different from
other countries’ musics. From this perspective, the work of FMK is definitely a form
of applied ethnomusicology, where the aim was to interact with and influence the
music community and, in a way, on a higher level, take an active part in the creation
of a Swedish identity. The quote “history is written by the victors “ is sometimes said to
originate from Winston Churchill. That is possible, but more important is the mean-
ing of the sentence—that history writing is a matter of the exercise of power. This is
also true for memory institutions. The records of bygone times are, of course, important
for our understanding of history. By taking the initiative in the collecting work, FMK
could decide what should be preserved concerning genres and tunes. And this was not
unproblematic—in several cases there were tensions and power struggles between com-
peting collectors and institutions. FMK emerged victorious from this power struggle,
and the material that became published in Svenska låtar is dominant among Swedish
practitioners of folk music today.
FMK employees had very little contact with other European collectors. Apart from
the Nordic network, where scholars exchanged ideas and materials, there were, as far as
one can see in the documentation, almost no contacts with collectors in Central Europe,
the Berlin School, or with British or Hungarian collectors. This might explain why they
so stubbornly clung to the use of pen and paper without using the modern technical aids
of that time. But in the work of FMK, which of course was conducted much later, the
phonograph was used only on a few occasions. Perhaps this had to do with the fact that
FMK had as its primary goal to publish the material in printed form and that the collec-
tors were very skilled at transcribing and felt that it was unnecessary to lug heavy equip-
ment for fieldwork. But it is also possible that this was a way to control the situation—to
have the exclusive right to the interpretation. Because there have not been recordings
available, FMK’s transcriptions are the only sources. There is thus little opportunity to
question the versions published in Svenska låtar.
Anthony Seeger is probably right when he says that ethnomusicologists in the first
place will be remembered for their collections, not for their theories or methods.52 But
possibly, one can draw his reasoning a step further and argue that it is primarily the
collections themselves that will live on, and in most cases, both the collectors and the
motives for the works will be forgotten. However, from a research perspective, this is
extremely important—if we do not understand how and why the collections were gener-
ated, we cannot fully interpret or comprehend them.
No one can predict the ways their collections will be used. Some will become one of
the building blocks of cultural and political movements; some will bring alive the
voice of a legendary ancestor for an individual; some will stimulate budding musi-
cians, some will soothe the pain of exile, and some will be used for restudies of pri-
mary data that may revolutionize approaches to world music.53
A very important and difficult task of responsibility for applied ethnomusicology is to try
to ensure that the fruits of ethnomusicological work cannot be misused. In Sweden, nation-
alistic and xenophobic forces in recent years often used folk culture archives as arguments,
as examples of the “real” Swedish culture that must be defended against other cultures that
threaten to take over. FMK’s efforts to describe Swedish folk music as something distinctly
different from the music of other countries by identifying and collecting older distinctive
music forms of course appealing to such forces. Applied ethnomusicology then then has a
particular responsibility to explain the origin of our archives and provide a perspective on
their background and role in history. And folk music is still a question of definition.
Notes
1. Cf. Fargion (2009).
2. Lundberg, Malm, and Ronström (2004).
3. Slobin (2010: 1). The concept is also recently discussed in connection to “world music” by
Philip Bohlman (2002).
4. The work of the Folk Music Commission has been discussed and described by the Swedish
ethnomusicologist Mathias Boström (2006, 2010). Different aspects of the Commission’s
activities are investigated in the anthology Det stora uppdraget (2010).
5. Pattinato (1991).
6. Cf. Lidman (2012: 5–6).
7. Ibid.
8. Cf. Hammarlund (2015).
704 Dan Lundberg
9. Cf. Hugh Trevor-Roper’s article “The Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of

Scotland” (1983).
10. Ronström (2010). My translation from Swedish.
11. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/flagship-project-
activities/memory-of-the-world/homepage/.
12. Hammarlund (2015).
13. Quote from Barons reprinted in Nordiska museet (1985). “Folkdiktning från Lettland.
About the Latvian folk poem collector Krišjānis Barons.” My translation.
14. Hammarlund (2015).
15. Koch et al. (2004: 228).
16. Ibid.
17. Abraham and Hornbostel (1909: 15). Am besten ist es, wenn der Forscher selbst die Gesänge
oder Instrumentalstücke so erlernt, dass er sie zur Zufriedenheit der Eingeboren en wiederge-
ben kann. Als Kritiker muss man sich musikalisch besonders Begabte—(wieder nach dem
Urteil ihrer Landsleute)—wählen und auch die Sicherheit haben, dass die Zustimmung nicht
nur aus Höflichkeit oder aus Interesselosigkeit erfolgt.
18. Cf. Hammarlund (2015).
19. Fargion (2009: 76).
20. Cf. Lundberg et al. (2003: 400–412) in the chapter “The Play of Opposites,” and Anthony
Giddens’s concept “disembedding mechanisms” (1991).
21. Mark Slobin uses the term “superculture” to mean the dominant culture (Subcultural
Sounds: Micromusics of the West, 1993). Slobin, in his turn, builds on the Italian Marxist
philosopher Antonio Gramsci. Peter Burke 2009, makes the same distinction between
what Robert Redfield called “the great” and “the little tradition” in Popular Culture in Early
Modern Europe.
22. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1995: 370).
23. Bohman (1997) and Björkholm (2011).
24. Cf. Bohman (2010) who uses: defining—coding—change of context—objectification. See
also Lundberg, “It Goes Without Saying” (2011).
25. Kjellström (1985).
26. Kjellberg, Ling, and Ronström (2000: 437).
27. Kjellberg, Ling, and Ronström (2000: 436–437).
28. “Upprop” (Call). Archive of the Folk Music Commission.
29. “Polska” is a very common dance in the Swedish folk culture. The word means “Polish.” At
the end of the 16th century couple dances came to Sweden. The most significant types had
their origin in different parts of Northern Europe. The term probably has its roots in the
Polish dances danced in the Swedish noblemen’s halls from the late 1500s. The popular-
ity of the polska is manifested through the great variety of the dance types called polska.
Many older dances (also different chain dances) had locally been called polskas. The pol-
ska of the Renaissance had a two-part form, in full accordance with the demands of bal-
ance and proportion in art (cf. other two-part dances, such as pavan-gaillard). The original
Polish dances were composed of a slow first part in duple meter and a more lively second
part in triple meter. Eventually, the second part, the livelier spring dance, became more
and more important. And it is that part that survived and became the polska that is still
danced in Sweden.
30. Fataburen (1908: s. 186).
31. Svenska låtar published by Nils Andersson and Olof Andersson (1921–1940).
32. The entire collection from FMK was published on the Internet by Svenskt visarkiv
(the Centre for Folk Music and Jazz Research) Folkmusikkommissionens notsamling
och Musikmuseets spelmansböcker (2007). The collection consists of around 45,000
handwritten pages with folk melodies. http://www.smus.se/earkiv/fmk/index.
php?lang=en.
33. In her dissertation, Bland polskor, gånglåtar och valser. Hallands spelmansförbund och den
halländska folkmusiken (2004) (Among Polskas, Walking tunes, and Waltzes: Halland’s
Fiddler’s Association and the Music of Halland), Karin Eriksson discusses Swedish folk
music as an “open concept” in which the meaning is always recharged with new meanings.
She highlights how Halland’s (region in southwest Sweden) Fiddler’s Association, through
its activities, presents, in various ways, what can be considered to be a regional folk music of
Halland, and what the consequences are for the repertoire that is emphasized as folk music
from Halland. In Med rösten som instrument. Perspektiv på nutida svensk vokal folkmusik
(2007) (With the Voice as Instrument: Perspectives on Contemporary Swedish Vocal Folk
Music), Ingrid Åkesson, from the Svenskt visarkiv (Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz
Research) discusses, among other things, how the process of transmission within the genre
of folk music involves more than a direct taking over of the older singers’ (and fiddlers’)
practices. In his book Från bondson till folkmusikikon. Otto Andersson och formandet av
“finlandssvensk folkmusik” (2007) (From Farmer’s Son to Folk Music Icon: Otto Andersson
and the Forming of “Finnish-Swedish Folk Music”), Niklas Nyqvist takes up a discussion
of Otto Andersson’s large collecting project of music of the Finland Swedes. Andersson’s
work went, in many ways, parallel to that of the FMK and also had significant implica-
tions for the meaning of the folk music concept within the context of the Finland Swedes.
Finally, I will also name American ethnomusicologist David Kaminsky’s Hidden Traditions.
Conceptualizing Swedish Folk Music in the Twenty-First Century (2005), in which he dis-
cusses, in detail, the folk music concept within the Swedish academic tradition and sets it
against the practical use of the term by musicians and those interested in music.
34. David Kaminsky has done a thorough examination of these definitions in his thesis
from 2005.
35. It can thus seem like the authors completely disagree on the question of what folk music
means. It is not that way, of course—all the authors recognize a much more nuanced pic-
ture of what the concept of folk music stands for. I have simply chosen to use the quotes
that draw the apart the meanings and create apparent contradictions between the authors.
I hope that they forgive me for this.
36. Ronström (1989: 7).
37. The model in Musik, Medier, Mångkultur—“doers-knowers-makers”—is based on the
roles of three different actors within a music culture. See also Lundberg and Ternhag,
Folkmusik i Sverige (2005), and Lundberg’s “Bjårskpip in blossom: on the revitalization pro-
cess of a folk music instrument” (2007).
38. Ramsten (1992: 7–8).
39. We wrote the book together and, during the process, put the definition of folk music
through the ringer, but the basic wording is Gunnar Ternhag’s (Lundberg and Ternhag,
2005: 14).
40. The subtitle to Jan Ling’s textbook from 1964, Svensk folkmusik. Bondens musik i helg och
söcken.
41. The Swedish title of the lecture was “Om svensk folkmusik.”
706 Dan Lundberg
42. The article “ Melodisamlaren Nils Andersson. Minnen och anteckningar” is part of
Budkavlen XIX, 1940. Nils Andersson’s lecture was also commented upon by Otto
Andersson in Spel opp, I spelemänner: Nils Andersson och den svenska spelmansrörelsen
(1958).
43. Johann Gottfried von Herder, Stimmen der Völker in Liedern (1978).
44. Cf. Kaminsky (2007).
45. Peter Burke (2009: 134); cf. Owe Ronström (1990).
46. Cf. Dan Lundberg and Gunnar Ternhag, Folkmusik i Sverige, och Owe Ronström
“Inledning” in Arwidsson, 1989.
47. Cf. Lundberg and Ternhag (2005: 82).
48. Cf. The Swedish ethnologist Jonas Frykman (1988) in his book “Dansbaneeländet”—The
Dance Pavilion Misery.
49. Cf. Richard Carlins interesting article about folk music aesthetics, “The Good, the Bad,
and the Folk” (2004).
50. Roempke (1994).
51. In much of the earlier collection works the interest was on the texts and, to some extent
song melodies. This meant that more women were recorded. Folk Commission’s focus on
the instrumental folk tradition was a clear new trend. The male dominance among folk
practitioners has been broken in recent years and today many music educators report a
preponderance of women among the students.
52. Seeger (1986: 267); cf. Fargion (2009: 76).
53. Seeger (1986: 264).
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Chapter 20
The Appl i e d
Et hnom u sic ol o g i st as
Public Folkl ori st
Ethnomusicological Practice in the Context of
a Government Agency in the United States
Clifford R. Murphy
In the United States, the work of applied ethnomusicologists often intersects with the
sister discipline of public folklore. While it is understood that the term “folklore” is prob-
lematic and that the discipline has been the subject of a thorough international critique,
its history in the United States is considered less problematic (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett,
1998). While folklore in the United States includes the study of myths and tales of
“the folk” (das volk), its primary focus has been—for nearly 50 years now—the ethno-
graphic inquiry into what our international colleagues call “intangible cultural heri-
tage” (ICH), and what will be referred to throughout this article under the American
term of practice, “folklife.” This disciplinary shift is due in no small part to the progres-
sive work of folklorists trained in universities, but not necessarily employed by them
(Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998). The majority of public folklorists working in the United
States are affiliated or funded in some way by state and federal initiatives to document,
celebrate, and sustain living traditions (folklife) in their region, and in collaboration
with the cultural communities documented therein. As such, references to “public
folklore,” “folklorists,” and “folklife” are to be understood in the context of practice in
the United States, where the institutional structures and nomenclature of public folk-
lore grow out of a practice distinct to the United States, but with likely equivalencies
worldwide.
In 2008, I began working in the state of Maryland as a public folklorist—the same
year that I graduated with a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Brown University. Prior
to graduate school, my working life had consisted mainly of touring and recording as
710 Clifford R. Murphy
a member of two professional rock and country bands. After nearly a decade spent at
the intersection of music and corporate commerce, I felt increasingly drawn toward
field recordings of American vernacular music made by the likes of Alan Lomax for the
Library of Congress in the mid-twentieth century. It was these recordings—made by
public folklorists and applied ethnomusicologists in the service of government agen-
cies in the United States—that drew me to pursue a degree in ethnomusicology. And, as
director of Maryland Traditions—the folklife program for the state of Maryland—it is
the making and archiving of such recordings that constitute an important component of
my career as a public folklorist.
This essay chronicles the work of the ethnomusicologist-as-public-folklorist in
the United States, explores disciplinary connections between applied ethnomusicol-
ogy and public folklore, and asks the question “How can an applied ethnomusicolo-
gist work meaningfully within the institutional and intellectual framework of public
folklore?” While public folklore has an established history and theoretical frame-
work (Baron and Spitzer, 2007), the terms “public folklore” and “public folklorist” are
being used here more narrowly to mean those trained ethnographers who work in
local, county, state, and federal government folklife programs, as well as nongovern-
mental organizations (NGO), such as the National Council for the Traditional Arts
(NCTA), that work in close concert with governmental folklife initiatives. Such work
entails connecting folklife practitioners (individuals and communities) to resources
such as grant monies, public programs (festivals, documentaries, exhibitions, media
projects), and infrastructures (archives, long-term community partnerships), pri-
marily through documenting, promoting, and presenting the expressive traditions
of cultural communities. Grant making—that is, the deskwork required to extend
monetary governmental grants to folklife practitioners—is the tool by which pub-
lic folklorists justify their employment, while the fieldwork carried out in advance
of such grant making and the interpretive work of curating public programs from
such fieldwork are their occupational lifeblood. Public folklorists working in ser-
vice of governmental agencies are tasked with engaging broadly with folklife (cul-
tural knowledge learned through oral transmission or by example). This finds the
ethnographer documenting everything from the traditional nonverbal communi-
cation of steelworkers to the decorative tack of horse-drawn carriages. Fieldwork
documentation is archived and serves as the foundation for public programs, grant
making, and scholarly research. The frequent focus on the non-musical challenges
the ethnomusicologist-as-public-folklorist to apply disciplinary training in new
ways. And while the output of public folklorists over the course of the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries has shown a substantial focus on music and dance traditions,
fieldwork inquiry must have—by nature of the job description—a narrow focus on
traditional music and dance, however defined by the agency’s folklife program. So
while the focus on folklife (occupational, devotional, architectural, musical, mate-
rial, etc.) may appear wide open at first glance, it can at times feel constraining for the
ethnomusicologist on account of its focus on the “traditional.”
The Applied Ethnomusicologist as Public Folklorist 711
Origins of Public Folklore and Applied

Ethnomusicology in Federal and State
Government
Federal government folklife programs emerged slowly from the late nineteenth century
until the 1930s. We are writing in an age when ethnomusicologists are typically persons
with academic degrees in ethnomusicology. This has not always been the case, of course,
as many of the first few generations of ethnomusicologists held (and hold) degrees in
related fields, from anthropology to folklore to musicology and American studies. So
in addressing the history of ethnomusicologists in federal government, there is a rather
murky period from the late 1800s, when ethnographers like Fewkes and Densmore were
recording Native Americans, through the rise of early to mid-twentieth-century com-
parative musicologists like Herzog and Seeger, when the discipline of ethnomusicology
was in its primordial stages of development.
Contemporary government folklife programs can look to ethnomusicologist
Charles Seeger as their logical starting point (Dirksen, 2012). When the Society for
Ethnomusicology (SEM) was founded in 1955, Charles Seeger had spent most of the pre-
vious two decades working for the federal government. Trained in comparative musi-
cology, Seeger had a series of teaching positions from 1912 to 1935. With the nation mired
in the Depression, the Roosevelt administration created a series of initiatives through
the New Deal that were intended as employment opportunities and became places
where artists and folklorists flourished. Benjamin Botkin, one of the foremost folklorists
of his time, oversaw the Federal Writers Project (1938–1941), and directed the Archive
of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress (1942–1945). Seeger worked for several differ-
ent New Deal programs, including the music division of the Resettlement Agency, and
the Federal Music Project (a program of the Works Project Administration, or WPA).
Seeger’s work involved many different forms of musical inquiry, style, and engage-
ment, and—unlike the work of many contemporary applied ethnomusicologists in
government—was not restricted to vernacular musics. Behind the work of scholars like
Botkin and Seeger (and on account of their dynamic work together), significant inroads
and administrative infrastructure were built for the support of working folklorists and
ethnomusicologists in federal government.
It was through his work with New Deal programs that Charles Seeger became a close
ally and collaborator with folk song collectors John and Alan Lomax at the Library of
Congress’s Archive of Folk Song. The relationship between the Seegers (Charles and
his wife, composer Ruth Crawford Seeger) and the Lomaxes spawned a wide-ranging
variety of public folklore and applied ethnomusicological projects. The Library of
Congress had established the Archive of Folk Song in 1928 under the guidance of Robert
Winslow Gordon, who conducted extensive field recordings and accessioned the early
field recordings of John A. Lomax. Carl Engle, head of the Library of Congress’s Music
Division, had hoped to create a Department of Musicology at the Library, and saw the
Archive of Folk Song as part of its foundation. However, the Department never materi-
alized. Gordon was an ineffective administrator and was unable to secure the requisite
grant funding to keep his position afloat. He left the Library of Congress in 1932 (Kodish,
1978). Direction of the Archive soon fell to John A. Lomax in 1933 (under the title of
Honorary Consultant and Curator, which came with no salary) and his son, Alan, held
the title of Assistant in Charge from 1937 (when the library secured funding for the posi-
tion) until 1942. In time, the collection expanded to contain far more than music, and it
was renamed the Archive of Folk Culture. When the American Folklife Center (AFC)
was founded at the Library of Congress in 1976, the Archive of Folk Culture became a
component of the AFC.
John and Alan Lomax were folklorists who carried out their most noteworthy field-
work under the auspices of the Archive of Folk Song at the Library of Congress. Their
extraordinary experiences documenting musical traditions in rural and incarcerated
communities is the stuff of legend. By 1934, the Lomaxes had published their first col-
lection of American folk songs, American Ballads and Folk Songs (Lomax, Lomax, and
Kittredge 1934), followed by Our Singing Country (Lomax et al., 1941) and Folk Song,
U.S.A. (Lomax et al., 1947). Charles Seeger provided some guidance for these latter two
projects (Our Singing Country and Folk Song U.S.A.), but it was Ruth Crawford Seeger
who carried out the exhaustive work required to create accurate (and highly innovative
for the time) musical transcriptions of field recordings for the publications. Alan and
his sister, Bess, were deeply involved in selecting songs for these projects, inspiring Bess
to make a career as a folk singer, music instructor, and public folklorist. Alan published
one final collection of American folk songs, the ambitious Folk Songs of North America,
in the English Language, with musical transcriptions made by Charles and Ruth Seeger’s
daughter, Peggy (Lomax, 1960). While Alan Lomax was not shy in his critique of the
fields of folklore and ethnomusicology—and at times distanced himself from both—it
was his yeoman work for the Library of Congress that provided the serious study and
documentation of American vernacular music within the federal government, and his
collections became a cornerstone of the American Folklife Center in 1976 (Szwed, 2010).
Overview of Federal
Folklife Programs
There are three programs of the federal government that have a lengthy history of
employment for ethnomusicologists: the American Folklife Center at the Library of
Congress (which today contains the Archive of Folk Culture), the National Endowment
for the Arts, and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. All
of these came about in the wake of the folk revival, of which Charles Seeger’s
children—folksingers Pete, Mike, and Peggy—played significant roles in fostering.
In 1967, the Smithsonian Museum—which originated as the nation’s central educa-

tional museum in the mid-nineteenth century—launched the Festival of American
Folklife (since renamed the Smithsonian Folklife Festival), a two-week festival on the
National Mall in Washington, DC. Folklorists Jim Morris, Ralph Rinzler, and Henry
Glassie planned the first festival, and it featured a strong focus on American vernacu-
lar music. The festival became a major annual event, drawing millions over the 4th of
July holiday, and began employing ethnomusicologists as ethnographers and curators
as early as 1974. Tom Vennum, an expert on Native American music and folklife, was the
first ethnomusicologist to work for the Festival. By 1975, Bess Lomax Hawes was hired
by the Smithsonian as Deputy Director for Presentation to curate the 1975 festival and
the 1976 Bicentennial Festival of American Folklife on the National Mall, focusing on
the expressive culture of every state and territory in the United States over three summer
months. Hawes was familiar with ethnomusicologist Dan Sheehy, who was then com-
pleting his Ph.D. at UCLA, and contracted him to conduct fieldwork with Mexican and
Mexican-American mariachi musicians in Los Angeles in advance of the 1975 and 1976
festivals. Sheehy recalls his first serious conversations with Hawes as being “mind open-
ing. She began to put new tools into my intellectual toolkit” (Sheehy, 2013).
Following the 1976 festival, Hawes moved to the National Endowment for the Arts
(known as the NEA, this is an independent agency of the federal government that
funds artists, arts activities, and arts organizations nationwide), where she spear-
headed the creation of the NEA’s Folk Arts division. Prior to Hawes’s arrival, folklorist
Alan Jabbour, with the assistance of anthropologist Claire Farrar, had handled all folk
arts projects that came to the NEA for consideration (he left the NEA in 1976 prior to
Hawes’s arrival); under Jabbour’s watch, folk arts projects would eventually find their
way into larger disciplines (music, theater, dance) for consideration alongside fine art
projects. Hawes observed that folk arts projects were at a consistent and significant
disadvantage within such an arrangement, and so the Folk Arts program began in
1977 (Hawes, 2008: 118–139). Hawes had a small staff, consisting of a secretary, a folk-
lorist (Sally Yerkovich), and an ethnomusicologist. She hired Dan Sheehy for this lat-
ter role, believing that Yerkovich’s knowledge of the folklore field and material culture
would complement Sheehy’s strengths in music and fieldwork (Sheehy, 2013). Hawes
directed the Folk and Traditional Arts Division from its inception in 1977 until 1992,
and her tenure at the NEA yielded remarkable results. She proposed the creation of the
National Heritage Fellowships—the nation’s highest federal honor given to traditional
artists—which was inspired by the Japanese government’s Living National Treasures of
Japan program, whose mission since 1950 has been to identify “Important Intangible
Cultural Properties.” Hawes’s proposed program was shaped over the course of years
through dialogue and debate with folklorists and ethnomusicologists, and was approved
by the National Council on the Arts (the NEA’s governing council) and launched by
the NEA in 1982 (Hawes, 2008: 161–168). Hawes also helped seed state folklife programs
at state arts agencies in nearly every state and territory in the United States. Upon her
retirement in 1992, Sheehy succeeded Hawes as Director of the Folk and Traditional Arts
Division and remained there until moving to the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and
Cultural Heritage in 2000.
Through their work at the NEA, Hawes and Sheehy shaped the future of Public
Folklore and Applied Ethnomusicology. Not only did they cultivate a more nuanced
and sophisticated understanding and appreciation for vernacular culture within an
organization possessed of a strong orientation toward conservatory arts, they engaged
a great many folklorists and ethnomusicologists (Bill Ivey, Barbara Hampton, Jeff
Todd Titon, and Robert Garfias, to name but a few) in the process of evaluating appli-
cations for grant funding and in deliberating over nominees for the National Heritage
Fellowships. Their most significant achievements were seeding state and regional
folklife programs throughout the country, creating a program of folk arts apprentice-
ships (whereby a master traditional artist was funded to pass his or her knowledge on to
a dedicated apprentice—a wildly successful program that was subsequently turned over
by the NEA to state folklife programs), and successfully proposing the creation of the
National Heritage Fellowships. In turn, each of these accomplishments created a signifi-
cant resource for—and about—folklife practitioners in the United States and generated
permanent and part-time employment for hundreds of folklorists, ethnomusicolo-
gists, and anthropologists over the ensuing decades. It is a testament to Hawes’s dedica-
tion to elevating the appreciation of the profession of public folklore that President Bill
Clinton appointed ethnomusicologist and folklorist Bill Ivey (MA Ethnomusicology
and Folklore, Indiana University) to be the Chair of the NEA, where he served in that
role from 1998 to 2001.
Hawes was not the first folklorist at the NEA, however, having been preceded by Alan
Jabbour. Jabbour, who received a Ph.D. in English from Duke University in 1968 (with
a focus on folk ballads), taught Ethnomusicology at UCLA in 1968–1969, after which
he directed the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress (1969–1974), and
then worked at the NEA (1974–1976). While Jabbour’s tenure at the NEA was brief, he
made a significant contribution to the field by creating the first federally funded state
folklife programs in the United States in 1974 at the Maryland State Arts Council and the
Tennessee Arts Commission. He left the NEA to become the Director of the American
Folklife Center from its inception in 1976 until his retirement in 1999.
When the American Folklife Center was established at the Library of Congress in
1976, with a significant lobbying assist from folklorist Archie Green, the topics Green
held most dear (American vernacular music, working-class culture) helped form the
focus of the Center and have influenced the work of public folklorists through today.
The topics covered by the American Folklife Center’s collections mirror the strengths
of a staff that consists of both folklorists and ethnomusicologists and demonstrates
an evolving sense of what constitutes an “American.” Disciplinary lines between staff
folklorists and ethnomusicologists are somewhat hazy, yet affiliations come to the fore
when staff chooses which academic conference they will attend. Staff members tend to
self-select with regard to attendance at American Folklore Society (AFS) or SEM annual
meetings. This dynamic has existed since Jabbour’s days at the AFC:
At the American Folklife Center we had something of a division of labor, with some
of us concentrating on AFS and some on SEM, so I chose the AFS assignment. By
now it’s been so long since I attended an SEM meeting that I feel like a fellow traveler,
whereas I identify myself as a folklorist without any qualification.
(Jabbour 2013)
“Fellow travelers” is an apt description of ethnomusicologists and folklorists on staff

of the American Folklife Center, as well as at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and
Cultural Heritage and beyond. Funds typically do not allow for staff to travel to both
SEM and AFS, and divisions of labor such as Jabbour describes appear to exist today,
with notable exceptions.
Over the years, the AFC has employed a number of ethnomusicologists, as well as
other scholar/researchers with training in ethnomusicology, including Nora Yeh,
Ron Wolcott, Joe Hickerson, and Ed Schupman (today, Schupman is the Education
Product Developer at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian).
AFC has also directed special projects involving ethnomusicologists, such as the Native
American component of the Federal Cylinder Project, on which David McAllester,
Maria La Vigna, Tom Vennum, Dorothy Sara Lee, and Judith Gray played an impor-
tant role (Myers 1992: 410–411). Today, the AFC employs three ethnomusicologists on
staff: Jennifer Cutting, Judith Gray, and Nancy Groce. SEM President Harris Berger is an
ex-officio member of the AFC’s Board of Trustees, and Kay Kauffman Shelemay was a
long-standing Congressional appointee on the AFC’s Board.
The mid-1970s through the early 1980s marked the most significant time of growth
for the field of public folklore (and, by extension, applied ethnomusicology), with the
creation of the AFC, the Folk Arts division of the NEA, the proliferation of state folklife
positions seeded by the NEA, the high-profile bicentennial Festival of American Folklife,
and the formal creation of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
(CFCH). The CFCH’s chief initiative was—and remains—the annual Smithsonian
Folklife Festival. However, the Center was augmented substantially with the acquisition
of Moe Asch’s Folkways record label, which became Smithsonian Folkways in 1987, and
the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. More than any other governmen-
tal organization, the Smithsonian—and Smithsonian Folkways in particular—has been
an employer of—and a tool for—applied ethnomusicologists. Ethnomusicologists—or
persons with significant training in ethnomusicology—work in a variety of Smithsonian
museums: Rayna Green and John Edward Hasse at the National Museum of American
History, Adrienne Kaeppler at the National Museum of Natural History, and Joanna
Pecore and Michael Wilpers at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.
Nevertheless, the most significant concentration is at the CFCH, and at Smithsonian
Folkways in particular: Jeff Place (Archivist), Stephanie Smith (Assistant Archivist),
and Greg C. Adams (Processing Archivist), Merideth Holmgren (Web Production and
Education Specialist), and Joan Hua (Program Assistant). Most visibly, anthropolo-
gist and ethnomusicologist Anthony Seeger, grandson of Charles Seeger, served as the
Director of Smithsonian Folkways from 1988 until 2000, at which point Dan Sheehy
(Director and Curator, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and Folkways Collections)

assumed direction of the label. Ethnomusicologist D. A. Sonneborn has been Associate
Director at the label since 1998 (Heritage, 2013).
Anthony Seeger made ethics of cultural ownership and copyright a hallmark of
Folkways’ engagement with global musics (Seeger, 1996) and was a significant shap-
ing force behind the creation of Smithsonian Global Sound (launched in 2005 with
the involvement of ethnomusicologist Jon Kertzer). For Sheehy, the work of the CFCH
and Smithsonian Folkways helps to “right a wrong” that he was personally awakened to
while playing music in the late 1960s in R&B bands in the Compton neighborhood of
Los Angeles, in mariachi groups, and with West African drummers while a student at
UCLA. “I had been done an injustice,” Sheehy recalls feeling. “I felt the artists [and] the
cultures had been done an injustice. And I thought the public at large had been done an
injustice.” The injustice was what Sheehy saw as the privileging of Western art music in
childhood education (and cultural education) in the United States. Sheehy felt he—and
the public at large—had been misled to believe that the Western art aesthetic was a cul-
turally superior form (Sheehy, 2013). Sheehy’s interest in cultural equity is well matched
to the mission of Smithsonian Folkways:
We are dedicated to supporting cultural diversity and increased understanding

among peoples through the documentation, preservation, and dissemination of
sound. We believe that musical and cultural diversity contributes to the vitality and
quality of life throughout the world. Through the dissemination of audio recordings
and educational materials we seek to strengthen people’s engagement with their own
cultural heritage and to enhance their awareness and appreciation of the cultural
heritage of others.
(Folkways 2013)
Folkways’ founder Moses Asch worked closely with artists associated with Alan Lomax
(Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger). Asch also produced fieldwork projects
by folklorists and ethnomusicologists, such as Ruth and Verlon Stone’s “Music of the
Kpelle of Liberia” (1971). Under Seeger, Sonneborn, and Sheehy, however, Smithsonian
Folkways has become more deeply engaged with ethnomusicologists on field record-
ing projects as diverse as Stephen Feld’s Voices of the Rainforest (1991), Jeff Todd Titon’s
Old Regular Baptists: Lined-Out Hymnody from Southeastern Kentucky (1997), and most
recently, Jeff Summit’s Delicious Peace: Coffee, Music and Interfaith Harmony in Uganda
(2013), based on Summit’s field recordings from an interfaith coffee cooperative in
Uganda. On the whole, the content of the Smithsonian Folkways catalog—much like the
staff of the CFCH and the American Folklife Center—is profoundly shaped by the work
of “fellow travelers”: ethnomusicologists and folklorists working side by side.
By 2003, federal government folklife programs engaged with enough “fellow travel-
ers” as to make up a substantial percentage of applied ethnomusicological careers, as
witnessed by the fact that over half of the speakers at the first-ever conference on applied
ethnomusicology, convened at Brown University in 2003 (not to be confused with a
second conference on applied ethnomusicology that was convened later that year in
Venice [Pettan, 2008]), consisted of people who had been involved in some way (many
significantly) with the NEA (through state folklife programs or grant review panels),
the AFC (through the Federal Cylinder Project or through collaborative research and
archival repatriation initiatives), or the CFCH (through Smithsonian Folkways or the
Smithsonian Folklife Festival) (Titon, 2003).
Overview of State Folklife Programs

and State Folklorists
While Alan Jabbour and Bess Lomax Hawes created the blueprint for folklife programs
at state arts agencies across the United States in the 1970s, the nation’s first state folklor-
ist position was created by the state of Pennsylvania in 1948 and was filled by Henry
W. Shoemaker at the Pennsylvania Historical Commission until 1956. A journalist and
former Ambassador to Bulgaria, Shoemaker was much derided by his folklore colleagues
in academia, such as Samuel Bayard, for being a “fakelorist”—a play on the derogatory
term “fakelore,” coined by folklorist Richard Dorson to describe “deliberately con-
trived” folklore such as the tales of legendary North American woodcutter Paul Bunyan
(Dorson, 1949). Nevertheless, Shoemaker was a significant popularizer of folklore, and
the position stuck for several decades (Bronner, 1996). From 1967 to 1969 folklorist
Henry Glassie served as Pennsylvania state folklorist (under the title of “Director of the
Ethnic Culture Survey”), and was succeeded in that role by David Hufford. Though the
program was dissolved when Hufford departed to teach at Newfoundland University in
1970, it had established enough institutional credibility to positively influence the neigh-
boring state of Maryland to seek out the creation of a comparable program. While in
the role of Pennsylvania State Folklorist, Glassie consulted with University of Maryland
folklorist George Carey on the Maryland Gubernatorial Commission to Study the Need
for the Establishment of an Archive of Maryland Folklife. The ensuing public report,
commissioned by Governor Spiro Agnew in 1968 and issued in 1970, reflected the
nation’s growing introspection with regard to heritage as it approached the bicentennial,
and an anxiety that all that was once beautiful was being lost to mass culture and inter-
state highways. The report concluded (in all caps) that
THE UNRECORDED HISTORY OF MARYLAND AND ITEMS OF MATERIAL

FOLK CULTURE AND FOLKLORE ARE DAILY BEING LOST PERHAPS
FOREVER TO THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE AND THEIR CHILDREN. THERE
IS INTEREST AMONG THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE IN THIS HISTORY,
MATERIAL CULTURE, AND FOLKLORE, AND IN THEIR PRESERVATION.
THERE ARE PROFESSIONAL FOLKLORISTS IN THE STATE WHO WOULD
AID IN THIS PRESERVATION. COOPERATION OF OTHERS IS ASSURED. BUT
GUIDANCE IS NEEDED.
TODAY, MARYLAND HAS THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE IN THE VANGUARD

OF STATE GOVERNMENTS AS THEY COME TO REALIZE THAT THE
PRESERVATION OF ONE’S FOLKLIFE IS NOT ONLY IMPORTANT BUT VITAL.
(Carey, 1970: 25)
Anxieties aside, Carey’s report presented a convincing argument for the creation of
a state folklorist position and a state folklore archive and laid the groundwork for the
creation of the Maryland Folklife Program. In 1972, Carey was involved in produc-
ing the Smithsonian’s 1972 Festival of American Folklife Maryland Program. In 1973,
Alan Jabbour—then at the NEA—initiated discussions with Maryland State Arts
Council (MSAC) Director James Backas about the possibility of creating a pilot pro-
gram that could be used as a national model for state folklife programs that—unlike
the Pennsylvania program, which was hosted at the Pennsylvania State Historical
Museum—would be based at state arts agencies. These programs were to be directed
by a state folklorist. The MSAC and the NEA developed a formal agreement and
hired George Carey as its first state folklorist in 1974. The agreement set in motion a
federal-state funding dynamic that remains mostly intact today, whereby the NEA
provides some seed monies for a folklorist position; the host agency is responsible for
making the position financially sustainable within a fixed number of years. Jabbour also
created a pilot program that same year in Tennessee, but the Tennessee program closed
shop within two years. Today, the Maryland Folklife Program (renamed Maryland
Traditions in 2001) is the longest-running state folklife program in the nation.
The Maryland program was fruitful within its first three years, producing an annual
Maryland Folklife Festival beginning in 1975 (based entirely on fieldwork), producing
films, books, and symposia, and generating a groundswell of support from Maryland
residents, administrators, and government officials. As such, it became an effective
example of success for the NEA to promote to other state arts agencies throughout the
country. When Bess Lomax Hawes started the Folk Arts division at the NEA in 1977, she
made it a goal to have a state folklife program at every state arts agency in the nation,
famously using a map with multicolored pins to show where folklife programs had
been funded (Hawes, 2008). During Hawes’s 15 years at the NEA, she grew the division’s
budget from $100,000 annually to $4 million, created folklife programs in 50 of the 56
states and territories, and expanded the folk arts staff from one to six (Heritage, 2013).
Dan Sheehy worked alongside Hawes for much of this time, though he was not imme-
diately employed in the Folk Arts Division; rather, he first served as an in-house expert
on non-Western art musics before moving into the Folk Arts Division. Through both
Hawes and Sheehy, ethnomusicologists became a known entity within state and federal
folklife agencies and a disciplinary orientation that was considered an acceptable fit for
state folklife programs.
The roots of Hawes’s considerable success at the NEA is to be found in her work at
the Smithsonian, where she had directed the 1976 Bicentennial Festival of American
Folklife on the National Mall. The Bicentennial festival had enabled Hawes to con-
solidate a number of experts and folklife practitioners state by state, which ultimately
became a rich resource when it came to fostering new state folklife programs. Indeed,
many of the participants in the Smithsonian’s 1972 Maryland Program were engaged
with the Maryland Folklife Program at MSAC as soon as it began. This was a pattern
that repeated itself elsewhere, both with regards to artists and ethnographers. As Hawes
remembered it,
Almost every person I know who is active today in the area of public folklore par-
ticipated at least in some small fashion in the 1976 Festival. Historians will eventually
look in wonder at the far-reaching effects of the 1976 Festival of American Folklife.
(Heritage, 2013)
A rising generation of new professionals coming of age in the arts world in the 1970s
expected to see festivals involving music and dance. The Smithsonian Folklife Festival,
the National Folk Festival (NCTA), and the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals (not to
mention Woodstock and the Monterey Pop Festival) had inspired an entire generation
of Americans to engage in fieldwork; many of these individuals filled the professional
ranks of folklorists and ethnomusicologists by the late 1970s. The Smithsonian Folklife
Festival had, in particular, become an innovator in folklife studies and a generator of
work for folklorists and ethnomusicologists as fieldworkers, curators, writers, and pre-
senters. As burgeoning state folklife programs looked for ways to showcase traditional
folklife on the local level, they turned frequently to the festival format. Likewise, the
post–Alex Haley/Roots world had been awakened to the rich expressive traditions of
multicultural urban centers. As such, folklorists who had cut their teeth solely on the
rural English-language American vernacular musical styles found in the Lomaxes’
songbooks were not always prepared to curate programs on Lithuanian, Chinese,
Senegalese, or South Indian cultural traditions. Ethnomusicologist Jill Linzee recalls
that the growing demand for such expertise was readily met by ethnomusicologists who
not only had sophisticated musical training, but had also learned “well developed cul-
tural sensitivities toward working with different cultural and/or ethnic groups (espe-
cially those very different from one’s own ethnic origin).” Bess Lomax Hawes recognized
that—in the 1970s—ethnomusicologists tended to be internationally focused, whereas
their folklore contemporaries tended to be domestically focused; this was a strength that
ethnomusicologists could, and did, contribute in collaborative settings with folklorists
(Sheehy, 2013). Ethnomusicology’s focus on cultural context was (and is), in Linzee’s
view, a transferrable skill to non-musical activities (Linzee, 2013).
The first ethnomusicologist to hold the position of State Folklorist in the United
States was Roberta Singer, who held the position in Massachusetts from 1983 to 1984.
The position was created after ethnomusicologist Jeff Todd Titon and folklorist Jane
Beck (founder of the Vermont Folklife Center), both of whom served on the NEA Folk
Arts Panel under Bess Lomax Hawes, approached Massachusetts Arts Council Director
Anne Hawley with the idea of launching a state folklife program using the NEA’s typi-
cal “ramp-up-ramp-down” funding model (three years of funding to get the position
started, after which the host agency would fund the position). Singer left the position to
return home to New York City, where she helped develop the New York State Council
on the Arts’ (NYSCA) Apprenticeship Program within NYSCA’s Folk Arts Program
directed by Robert Baron. A group of folklorists formed the New York City Chapter
of the New York Folklore Society, which, in 1986, incorporated as City Lore—The
New York Center for Urban Folk Culture, a part of NYSCA’s state-funded network of
folklife partnerships. Singer has worked for City Lore since its inception, where her eth-
nomusicology training and experience laid a foundation for the research, documen-
tation, and presentation of Puerto Rican and Cuban music. At City Lore, Singer has
produced several CDs of New York Puerto Rican music, a national tour of Afro-Cuban
and Puerto Rican music and dance, a documentary film on the Afro-Puerto Rican
bomba tradition, and an exchange between Puerto Rican musicians from New York and
Puerto Rico (Singer, 2014).
Singer was succeeded in Massachusetts by Dillon Bustin to direct the state’s Folklife
and Ethnic Arts Program. Bustin held that position from 1985 until the Massachusetts
Arts Council was shuttered in 1991 in the wake of controversial public funding of art
exhibitions deemed “obscene” by some members of the state legislature. The agency
re-emerged soon after as the Massachusetts Cultural Council, who re-launched their
folklife program in 1999 as the Folk Arts and Heritage program under the direction of
state folklorist Maggie Holtzberg. Holtzberg majored in ethnomusicology as an under-
graduate at Wesleyan (1979) and went on to receive a Ph.D. in Folklore from University
of Pennsylvania in 1987. A fiddle player who identifies professionally as a folklorist,
Holtzberg has done significant documentation and interpretation of living traditions in
Massachusetts, which she has summarized thusly:
With camera and sound recorder in hand, we have interviewed scrimshanders on

Nantucket, feast-day organizers in Boston’s North End, contra-dance fiddlers in
Greenfield, and Native American regalia makers on Cape Cod. Vital folk art tradi-
tions are being carried on all across the state within both long-settled ethnic and new
immigrant communities.
(Holtzberg et al., 2008: xi)
Holtzberg has observed that ethnomusicologists bring special skills to musical field-
work that many folklorists lack. In part because the festival format was such an impor-
tant point of origin for the field of public folklore, traditional music has been a major
component of folklife programs and an important entry point for cross-cultural under-
standing. Holtzberg feels that ethnomusicology plays an important role in document-
ing and interpreting living musical traditions. Though she is perhaps best known for
her examination of the occupational folklife and craft of the printing trade (Holtzberg,
1992), as well as her work with traditional Irish musicians like accordionist Joe Derrane,
Holtzberg has documented a broad range of musical traditions, from Trinidadian car-
nival music to African-American tap dance (Holtzberg et al., 2008). In her previous
roles with the Alabama State Council on the Arts (1988–1989) and as state folklorist
in Georgia (1992–1997), she worked with African-American sacred and occupational
singers and produced the documentary film Gandy Dancers (1994) with Barry Dornfeld.
Adding an additional layer to the state/federal/NGO folklife relationship, Holtzberg
has been on “loan” from the state of Massachusetts to the National Park Service in the
post-industrial mill city of Lowell, Massachusetts, where she coordinates programming
for the state folklife program, the Lowell National Historical Park, and for the annual
Lowell Folk Festival, produced by the NCTA.
Other states have hired ethnomusicologists in central positions (the so-called
“state folklorist” position) or as folklorists who directed regional partnerships.
Ethnomusicologist Steve Grauberger has been a Folklife Specialist at the Alabama
State Council on the Arts’ Alabama Center for Traditional Culture since 1998.
Ethnomusicologist Jill Linzee was the Traditional Arts Coordinator (state folklorist) for
the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts from 1993 to 1996. By this time, the pres-
ence of an ethnomusicologist in the role of a folklorist had become common enough.
For some folklore professionals, this was—and remains—a source of mild frustration, as
can be seen in this anecdote from Linzee:
One of my public folklore colleagues who had been formally trained in the field of
folklore once confronted me with this question: As an ethnomusicologist, you are
competing with folklorists for public folklore jobs—but what kind of jobs has the
field of ethnomusicology helped to establish that folklorists can apply for?
(Linzee, 2013)
For most, however, like folklorist Robert Baron—the New York State folklorist and a sig-
nificant figure in the development of public folklore theory—the increase in numbers of
ethnomusicologists in state folklife programs is both welcoming and non-threatening.
In Baron’s opinion, the joint meeting of MACSEM (the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of SEM)
and MAFA (the Mid-Atlantic Folklife Association) in 2007 was particularly fruitful
(Baron, 2013). Baron’s sentiment—that joint meetings of regional chapters of SEM and
AFS, as well as of the parent organizations, are mutually beneficial and should be more
frequent—is common in conversations among public folklorists and applied ethno-
musicologists. As Holtzberg has observed, “good fieldwork is good fieldwork, whether
it was done by someone trained in Folklore, Ethnomusicology, or American Studies”
(Holtzberg, 2013).
From State Folklorists to State

Folklife Partnerships
The work of the state folklorist has changed over the course of four decades of state
folklife programs. At the Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC), where I have worked as
the state folklorist since 2008, that change can be characterized as a shift from a mostly
singular pursuit to that of a partnership approach. Founded in 1974 as the Maryland

Folklife Program, the program changed its name to Maryland Traditions in 2001 as part
of an evolution in state folklife programs nationwide. For its first 26 years, the Maryland
Folklife Program—like most in the nation—was an office of one (the state folklor-
ist), operating out of the city of Baltimore, with occasional discretionary projects that
employed ethnographers of varying disciplines on short-term contracts. In 2001, MSAC
and the Maryland Historical Trust (the state’s historical preservation office) collabo-
rated on the creation of a state folklife infrastructure program. The state folklife infra-
structure program (an NEA term) was modeled after innovative programs in the states
of Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, where the state folklife program
seeded networks of regional long-term partnerships throughout the state. Each part-
nership would employ a folklorist to conduct regional fieldwork. Fieldwork would be
archived both locally and in a central statewide folklife archive. Regional partners would
connect local folklife practitioners to statewide grants (apprenticeships) and local non-
profits to statewide project grants. In its most basic sense, the state folklife infrastructure
concept grew out of the idea that it is hard to develop trust and long-term resources
for local communities when working remotely out of a centralized government office.
Likewise, regional partners could engage in a kind of local, grassroots work that is
impossible and not always appropriate for a state agency to become involved in.
Partnerships add significant flexibility for state folklife programs, enabling local part-
ners to engage in grassroots initiatives, to act as mediators of community conflict, and to
develop long-term support for communities involved in maintaining living traditions.
Each partnership has a focus distinct to its parent organization’s mission and the needs
and demands of the communities in the region. As such, one partner might require a
folklorist to have significant expertise in material culture, or occupational folklife, while
another requires an ability to work with a broad range of musical traditions. As such,
state folklife infrastructure programs such as Maryland Traditions provide additional
opportunities for which ethnomusicologists are well suited.
In Maryland, musical inquiry has been an effective ambassador for the program’s
continued support by the state. In 1974, the aim of the Maryland folklife program was
to “amplify” the voice of Maryland tradition bearers, in vernacular performing, verbal,
occupational, architectural, and material arts through public programs and publica-
tions based on fieldwork (Carey, 1976). Today the aims of the program mix pragmatism
with the ideals of cultural equity that inspired the program’s founding: to document,
celebrate, and sustain living traditions in Maryland. These living traditions can be
indigenous, or they can be new to Maryland. Maryland Traditions works to achieve
its mission primarily through the aforementioned seed grants for the development of
regional folklife programs statewide, and the development of more sophisticated means
of extending the resources of the state to celebrate and sustain living traditions through
apprenticeship grants and project grants. As such, the program is built to work statewide
and regionally, with organizations (through Project Grants and Partnerships) and with
individuals (through Apprenticeship grants and other awards and programs for indi-
vidual artists).
Public Folklore as Strategic

Governmental Outreach
In government folklife work, there are political and philosophical motivations behind
the focus on traditional arts and culture. A governmental agency is at its core a public
service entity with an obligation to serve all of its residents in a wide variety of capaci-
ties from roadways to revenues to research. So, politically, any agency that is not serving
the entirety of its residents is vulnerable to critique, censure, and defunding. Given that
government work is public service, there are those residents who are readily “served”
and those who are not. In the language of government, this latter category is defined
as “underserved.” In the realm of state arts agencies, where the vast majority of state
folklife programs are housed, there are both underserved communities and expressive
forms. These tend to be communities and expressive forms of working-class, rural, agri-
cultural, maritime, occupational, or non-Western orientation, as well as the disabled.
Very often, these same underserved communities consist of persons of color, non-native
English speakers, and/or persons who do not tend to fill out grant applications. Folklife
programs focus on those communities and their expressive cultural traditions that are
passed on through word of mouth or by example. This is what is implied in “traditional”
and can be a source of consternation for those who astutely point out that some musical
traditions that rely on oral tradition (such as heavy metal music) are excluded, just as
many conservatory arts are also endowed with “tradition.” These latter traditions, how-
ever, are not associated with either underserved expressive forms or communities in the
realm of arts funding. The political value of government folklife programs is to be found
in their effectiveness at reaching underserved communities.
The philosophical value of folklife programs comes from ideas of social and cul-
tural equity—this is a philosophy espoused by a great many culture workers engaged
in folklife programs, rather than an explicit part of the mission of the programs them-
selves. There are folklife programs with overt social justice missions, but they are NGO
programs, such as the Philadelphia Folklore Project (PFP), which utilizes folklorists,
ethnomusicologists, and other ethnographers to carry out grassroots social justice work
(Kodish, 2011) (Debora Kodish, the founder and Executive Director of PFP, was brought
by the Applied Ethnomusicology Section of the Society for Ethnomusicology to speak
at the 2011 annual conference about the intersection of applied ethnomusicology and
social justice work). Finally, a history of government folklife programs shows a recur-
ring and problematic interest in developing, galvanizing, and promoting nationalis-
tic and regional identities. This latter philosophical mission was most prominently on
display during the World War II era. Each of these political and philosophical strands
is at work at some level in government folklife programs, and the federal government
is responsible for creating the blueprint that has been replicated by state, county, and
municipal governments.
Strategic outreach in a state such as Maryland comes with its own distinct challenges,
ones well met by partnerships that can respond to specific regional/community needs.
Maryland is the ninth smallest state in the United States and is bordered to the south by
Washington, DC, and Virginia, to the east by Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean, to the
north by Pennsylvania and Delaware, and to the west by Virginia and West Virginia.
Its northern border constitutes the Mason-Dixon. Maryland is the 19th most popu-
lous state (5.8 million) and the fifth most densely populated state in the nation (2011
US Census). It is both highly urbanized—with urban centers in Baltimore and Metro
DC—and has long-standing agricultural, maritime, and mining occupational groups.
Maryland’s defining geographical attributes are the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic
Ocean to the east and the Appalachian Mountains to the West. The city of Baltimore is
home to the second-largest deepwater port on Eastern Seaboard—this distinction has,
historically, meant that the city has been a major port of entry for immigrants. In the
late twentieth century, however, Baltimore’s port and its close proximity to the Eastern
seaboard cities of New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Richmond made it a
major port of entry for illegal drugs, a fact that—combined with mass deindustrializa-
tion and the devastating effects of race riots in the 1970s—has created a swath of crip-
pling poverty and urban blight. This urban blight—the backdrop to Baltimore’s drug
culture, as portrayed on David Simon’s popular HBO television series The Wire—stands
in stark contrast to the state’s enormous wealth. Maryland is the wealthiest state in the
nation, and its proximity to Washington, DC, has transformed it into one of the most
multicultural regions in the nation. Such diversity in geography and demographics
makes for a region of significant variation in areas of cultural inquiry.
With such a diverse cultural geography, Maryland Traditions has worked to build
strategic regional partnerships in distinct sub-regions of the state. Partnerships over
the first 12 years of the program have consisted of a mixture of museums, universities,
county arts councils, local municipalities, and nonprofits. Maryland Traditions’ part-
nerships currently include organizations as different as the National Council for the
Traditional Arts in Silver Spring, Maryland (the nation’s oldest folk arts nonprofit,
producers of the annual National Folk Festival since 1934), and the Ward Museum of
Wildfowl Art in Salisbury (a museum dedicated to Maryland’s indigenous, functional
duck decoy carving/painting traditions and the international fine art wildfowl sculpture
tradition). Over the past decade, Maryland Traditions’ partners have employed ethno-
musicologists in a variety of roles—from targeted short-term contracts (e.g., Dr. Harold
Anderson, who documented the musical traditions of Old West Baltimore in 2004, and
African-American sacred expressive traditions in Prince George’s County in 2010) to
longer-term, full-time positions (ethnomusicologist Mark Puryear was a staff folklor-
ist at the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County from 2005 to 2010).
Ethnomusicologists are also active in other partner institutions, such as the NCTA,
whether as employees (such as Anne Kogan) or as fieldworkers and stage present-
ers. Additionally, ethnomusicologists are active in the archives: since 2011, Maryland
Traditions has employed ethnomusicologists Greg C. Adams and Hannah Rogers to
process and organize 40 years of ethnographic materials.
For the average ethnomusicologist, the working list of living traditions in Maryland
folklife is dizzying—ranging from boatbuilding to hog-butchering, Native American
regalia-making to quilting, South Indian Kuchipudi dance to Piedmont blues, and sil-
versmithing to muskrat-skinning. Clearly, such a list encompasses far more than the
study of people making music. However intimidating such a range might appear at first
glance, in practice it is invigorating and a constant reminder that, no matter our aca-
demic credentials or the size of our archives, we really know very little about anything.
In my five plus years as state folklorist, I have found the broader context of folklife to be
a healthy reminder that music is not always the primary point of cultural expression for
everybody. In fact, while Titon defines ethnomusicology as the study of people making
music (Titon, 2009), for the ethnomusicologist-as-state-folklorist, it is also the study of
music in context (Merriam and Herbert M. Halpert Collection, 1964). And sometimes
that context is highly non-musical, pushing the ethnomusicologist into “the study of
people making _______.”
On the Job
The work of the ethnomusicologist-as-folklorist requires administrative and produc-

tion skills not imparted during graduate school: management of budgets and personnel,
evaluation of grant applications, convening of grant review panels, advocating for bud-
get increases from senior administrators and government officials, producing festivals,
advocating for artists, producing media projects, curating museum exhibitions, negoti-
ating salaries with university provosts, advocating for cultural policies that acknowledge
and respect the existence of folklife, writing grants, working with university and com-
munity scholars, or advising on all of the above. In short, the job requires a fair amount
of diplomacy and fieldwork and a steady diet of desk work.
When Curt Sachs critiqued comparative musicology’s practice of “desk work”
(Sachs and Kunst, 1962: 16–32), he was addressing the privileged place that transcrip-
tion and analysis of sound artifacts (field recordings and fieldwork conducted by oth-
ers) had within the discipline over ethnographic inquiry. David McAllester’s Enemy
Way Music signified a departure from “desk work” (or “armchair” ethnomusicology) in
favor of ethnography augmented by transcription and analysis of one’s own fieldwork
(McAllester, 1954). For the contemporary director of a statewide folklife program—or,
for that matter, for equivalents in federal programs—the job requires both fieldwork and
deskwork: conducting one’s own fieldwork and frequently coordinating, transcribing,
analyzing, and interpreting the fieldwork efforts of colleagues and contract fieldwork-
ers conducted in service of the state program. And while armchair ethnomusicology
is carried out to some degree by the public folklorist in the manner that Sachs, Hood,
and others would have defined it (Hood, 1971: 30), there is an altogether different form
of armchair ethnomusicology distinct to this work that is far more engaging and mean-
ingful. A team of collaborating folklorists and ethnomusicologists, each with a distinct
set of strengths, expertise, and objectives, can be of far greater service to the people of
the state than a singular ethnographer who is averse to armchair ethnomusicology.
Collaborative presentations and symposia about Maryland folklife are invigorating and
informative, particularly when they involve community members (“tradition bearers”
in the language of public folklore; “informants” in the language of anthropologists), but
such presentations have their limitations as well, with regard to both logistics and clear
narrative, and are not always the right choice in cases of cultural policy and institutional
advocacy.
Another positive piece of armchair ethnomusicology comes in curating events and
exhibitions that draw from the entirety of the ethnographic inquiry of the full Maryland
Traditions partnership, including now-historical fieldwork (that is, archived fieldwork
conducted in decades past by ethnographers who no longer work for the folklife pro-
gram). In 2009, I was invited, as state folklorist, to participate in the programming com-
mittee for the Asian-Pacific-American (APA) Program of the 2010 Smithsonian Folklife
Festival. The Program, which sought to celebrate the APA community of Metropolitan
DC as a microcosm of the APA experience broadly, included five other ethnomusicolo-
gists: Dan Sheehy, Dr. Joanna Pecore (Education Specialist, Smithsonian Freer and
Sackler Galleries), Michael Wilpers (Performing Arts Programmer, Smithsonian Freer
and Sackler Galleries), Dr. Terry Liu (Educational Specialist at the NEA), and Mark
Puryear. At the time, Puryear was directing the Maryland Traditions partnership at the
Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County. Pecore was—and remains—an
active musician in the DC region’s Cambodian music and dance community (her dis-
sertation focused on this music/refugee/sacred community). The overall committee was
quite large, and each of us was called upon to introduce artists for consideration in the
Program. In Pecore’s case, this was deep ethnographic inquiry into local Khmer classi-
cal court music and dance traditions. For Puryear and myself, we introduced artists that
had been vetted by Maryland Traditions fieldwork, though not always fieldwork that
had been carried out ourselves. Rather, we were introducing participants for consider-
ation who had been documented by ourselves and our colleagues, past and present. As
such, the APA artists documented in our archives constituted a kind of roster that could
be considered for inclusion in the program. Ultimately, Maryland-based artists and
cultural communities were represented in significant numbers over the course of the
two-week program, ranging from Cambodian pin peat musicians to Nepalese sarangi
players to Kuchipudi dancers.
Such collaboration between federal, state, and local governmental folklife programs
is common and also fosters a professional environment that is conducive for lateral and
horizontal movement. Many professional colleagues in public folklore have moved
within federal, state, and local programs, including ethnomusicologists such as Jill
Linzee (American Folklife Center, Smithsonian, NEA, NH State Council on the Arts).
Other ethnomusicologists have moved from governmental work to NGO/nonprofit
work, such as Lisa Richardson (folklorist for the L.A. County Arts Commission and the
City of L.A. Dept. of Cultural Affairs), who is currently the Director of the nonprofit
California Traditional Music Society (Richardson, 2011).
Terry Liu has been another long-standing applied ethnomusicologist who has
moved in and out of federal, state, and local folklife programs, though he is most
closely associated with his longtime service for the NEA. Liu has served the NEA as
Folk and Traditional Arts Specialist (1990–1996) and as Arts Education Specialist
(2000–present). In 1989 he taught ethnomusicology at Kent State. He has also served
as an administrator, grants panelist, and consultant in arts funding at the federal, state,
regional, and local government levels, as well as for private foundations across the coun-
try. Originally a conservatory violinist, Liu studied ethnomusicology at University of
Hawai’i at Manoa (M.A. in 1982) and at Kent State University (Ph.D. in 1988). From 1996
to 1999 Liu was a program specialist at the Arts Council for Long Beach, California,
where he conducted fieldwork and offered technical assistance to traditional artists.
He also served as regional coordinator to develop folk arts infrastructure in Southern
California in coordination with the California Arts Council. He was a cofounder of
the Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) and served on grant review panels
across the country. Terry is also an active musician, playing violin with Mariachi Los
Amigos (Dan Sheehy also plays trumpet with this group) in the Metro DC region.
Liu’s work at the NEA requires a great deal of grants management and consultation
to hundreds of applicants from nonprofit organizations throughout the country. At the
time of this writing, Liu was managing 170 applications for arts education projects, with
a total request of over $9 million. Each grant application is reviewed by a panel of 20
evaluators, and four separate panels will be convened (Liu, 2013). Each division of the
NEA recruits experts in a variety of disciplines for its review panels, and ethnomusi-
cologists are often called upon to serve as reviewers for music, folklife, education, and
National Heritage Award panels. The same is true for state arts agencies, which draw
upon folklorists and ethnomusicologists to review their folklife grant applications. My
first interaction with this aspect of public folklore occurred in graduate school, first as an
observer of the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Folk Arts Apprenticeships panel, and
soon after as member of a folklife panel for the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.
Panels serve as a driver of professional community, providing opportunities for young
ethnographers to interact (and debate) with senior colleagues and fellow travelers from
across the country (and from both public sector and university places of employment)
in a collegial environment.
Such panels are also a tremendous opportunity to gain insight on issues affecting the
field and the communities with which applied ethnomusicologists engage. From fund-
ing crises to political or community strife, grant panels—like a miniature SEM or AFS
meeting—help provide a broad view of the field and its various challenges. For example,
Maryland is experiencing a period of robust support for state folklife initiatives, but
the same cannot be said for many other states in the country. Personal and professional
bonds developed at conferences and panel meetings help to forge a strong network of
advocacy and political capital that can be drawn from in key moments (a recent example
being the mobilization of public folklorists and applied ethnomusicologists to save the
National Heritage Fellowships from being eliminated in 2011). Advocacy and cultural
policy are part and parcel of the work of public folklorists.
In the realm of cultural policy—engaging with elected officials, governmental agen-

cies, and community organizations—it is not only highly effective to have an armchair
ethnomusicologist (or folklorist) involved, it is often critical to any hope of sensitive
cultural intervention on the part of the government. For the state folklorist, they must
utilize their perspective and their insight to advocate for greater attention and equity for
traditional artists and underserved communities. This sort of work must be done with
great diplomacy; otherwise, equitable allocation of funding and other resources is jeop-
ardized. Outside the state arts agency, such a role is most often demanded in the realm of
cultural/heritage tourism.
Cultural policy work constitutes an important, if small, part of the job, however.
The bread-and-butter of most state arts agencies is grants administration. For the state
folklorist—as for the regional partner—reviewing grant applications and convening
grant panels to evaluate grant applications is a major part of the job. Being able to evalu-
ate narratives as well as budgets is critical to long-term success. It may sound ridicu-
lously obvious, but being able to show up to staff meetings is also important, despite
the fact that the day-to-day work of the agency as a whole is conducted in a different
administrative dialect than that of the folklife program. Likewise, the job requires field-
work, making the job description significantly different from that of one’s arts agency
peers. For too many state folklorists, this has been a fatal flaw, magnified by the very
earnest and intense sense of purpose the ethnographer often brings with him to work.
This means that the incoming state folklorist has often been stereotyped before arriving
on the job, and it is a stereotype that is best addressed head-on by showing up on time,
following dress codes, attending meetings and other mandatory events—all while con-
necting the relevancy of folklife to the work of arts agency colleagues approaching cul-
ture work from a decidedly different angle.
The state folklorist must be able to effectively justify her existence and her ongoing
fieldwork activities in order to build credibility and institutional support. Connecting
fieldwork engagement to grant work is crucial to achieving this transformation. For
example, for the past five years I have been engaged in ongoing fieldwork with a commu-
nity in northeastern Maryland that came about as a result of a Depression-era migration
of Appalachian people. This migration contained a number of musicians significant in
the early history of country and bluegrass music: Ola Belle Reed, Fields Ward, and Hazel
Dickens foremost among them. While I have an intellectual interest in this migration
and in regional forms of country music that persist primarily as “people’s music” (Keil.
1985), I also wish—as an applied ethnomusicologist, and as a public folklorist who was
hired to conduct outreach work to underserved communities—to connect this commu-
nity to the resources of the Maryland State Arts Council. This has been accomplished by
engaging the community with Maryland Traditions Project Grants and Apprenticeship
Grants. Project grants help to fund not-for-profit organizations such as the Cecil
County Public Library conduct a community gathering focused on the oral testimony
of first- and second-generation Appalachian migrants. Apprenticeships have focused
on a number of first- and second-generation musicians from the migration who seek to
pass on living traditions from one generation to the next. Apprenticeships pair a master
artist (e.g., banjo player David Reed, son of the late Ola Belle Reed) with an apprentice
for one year to fortify the transmission of living traditions. Apprenticeships consist of a
monetary award as well as publicity that can sometimes be significant. Apprenticeship
teams are documented through photographs and field recordings, and audiovisual
vignettes are produced and published on YouTube. Field documentation is placed in the
Maryland Traditions Archives.
For the host agency, fieldwork is, then, practical work. Folklife apprenticeships focus
primarily on traditions rooted in working-class, agricultural, rural, and immigrant
communities—communities that do not always prioritize grant-writing. Applicants
often do not to have a college education, or when they do, many speak English as a sec-
ond (or third) language. Without fieldwork—or, in the language of the state arts agency,
“outreach” or “technical assistance”—these artists would never find their way into the
grant programs of the agency. And for a state agency whose mission is to serve all of
the residents of the state, it is a liability when one’s grant programs fall short of this mis-
sion. So fieldwork/outreach is crucial, as the state folklorist—and the regional folklife
partners throughout the state—offers considerable technical assistance with regard to
grant work. The apprenticeship demographic also has a very high percentage of appli-
cants who do not use computers at all. As such, the Maryland Traditions Apprenticeship
grants are the last grants of MSAC that are able to filled out by hand—all others (includ-
ing Maryland Traditions Project Grants) must be completed via electronic/online
grant applications. And so the technical assistance work provided by the state folklor-
ist is decidedly out of step with the high-tech grant world of the twenty-first century,
but would be entirely at home in Charles Seeger’s WPA era of government work that
spawned the field of public folklore.
In addition to grant work, the state folklorist produces public programs such as
festivals, radio programs, and symposia. The quality of such public programs can do
wonders for building credibility and institutional buy-in. Since 2011, the Maryland
Traditions Folklife Festival has greatly elevated the profile of not only the Maryland
Traditions program, but of MSAC and folklife in Maryland in general. As mentioned
before, the bread-and-butter of state arts agency work is grant making. And while this
means the thoughtful and careful infusion of millions of dollars of state funds into non-
profit arts activities ranging from symphony orchestras to arts in education to theater
programs for persons with special needs, grant making does not always appear to be
“active” engagement with the public. So the state folklorist is also an unusual colleague at
a state arts agency in this respect: she is involved in a good deal of public programming.
These programs generate considerable good will toward the agency through publicity
and through the events themselves. Nowhere is this more apparent than at the Maryland
Traditions Folklife Festival, where programs make it plain that the festival participants
have also been recognized by Maryland Traditions/MSAC folklife grants and awards. So
in this arena, the festival induces a form of performative grant making (and fieldwork).
Radio programs are by far the most gratifying work for the Maryland state folklor-
ist. Ongoing collaborations with the Baltimore NPR affiliate (88.1-FM, WYPR) have
resulted in a considerable body of feature-length (one-hour) radio programs focused on
Maryland’s musical folklife. These features use key individuals as the lens through which
a given cultural community is understood, and each is based entirely on interviews and
field recordings. Features have ranged from Piedmont blues musicians in Metro DC to
Persian classical musicians in Baltimore; African-American sacred music to bluegrass;
West African griots to Lumbee Indian pow-wow musicians and dancers. Each of these
programs has been the result of considerable fieldwork, and each provides a stage not
only for the airing of field recordings and interviews, but for thoughtful reflection and
interpretation of culture by the applied ethnomusicologist. These programs not only
help to serve the public through education and awareness—the fact that each radio pro-
gram is also available for download and podcast has made it an effective tool for featured
artists to promote themselves within their home communities, to repurpose on social
media, or to provide the validating stamp of community outsiders that has been one of
the hallmarks of public folklorists for a century.
Disciplinary Challenges to the

Ethnomusicologist as Government
Folklorist
For the aspiring applied ethnomusicologist considering a career in public folklore, the
most obvious disciplinary challenge is likely to be the prodigious amount of non-musical
areas of inquiry. This is as true for the state folklorist as it is for an ethnomusicologist
such as Jennifer Cutting on the reference desk at the American Folklife Center:
Truth is, though, that all of us who work on the Reference Desk… end up answering
questions about everything from Norwegian sod houses to “How the Leopard Got
His Spots.” So we have to have a passing knowledge of folklore genres from vernacu-
lar architecture to folk tales and everything in between.
(Cutting, 2011)
A secondary challenge is the narrower “folklife” or “traditional” paradigm that is not

necessarily applied by ethnomusicologists in other professional realms. Disciplinary
challenges to the ethnomusicologist-as-folklorist are not restricted to the focus on
traditional music, however: the nature of public service and state-funded public pro-
grams complicate the application—in public settings—of bi-musicality and participant
observation. Public displays of bi-musicality by a state employee give the appearance
of contradicting the mission of state-driven public service. However, effective field-
work requires the ethnomusicologist-as-folklorist to practice bi-musicality behind
the scenes. Traditional music communities tend to be somewhat skeptical of govern-
ment employees until bi-musicality comes into play. Likewise, fieldwork communities
expect the government folklorist to be useful to them in some way. Sometimes, however,
the most useful action calls for overt advocacy. A veteran of state and federal folklife
programs, ethnomusicologist Jill Linzee has found greater freedom as the Executive
Director of Northwest Heritage (an NGO based in Lake Forest Park, Washington) to
become involved in the intersection between applied ethnomusicology and social jus-
tice work. For the state folklorist constrained from overt acts of social justice, then, the
challenge is to connect fieldwork communities to organizations that can effectively col-
laborate with (or advocate for) them in a dynamic and open way not available to (or
appropriate for) a state agency.
Other challenges may seem small on the surface: primarily, Jabbour’s “fellow trav-
eler” syndrome. For the ethnomusiclogist as public folklorist, it can be difficult to
justify (to one’s host agency) attendance at the annual meetings for the Society for
Ethnomusicology (let alone ICTM or others). State arts agencies have hard-earned bat-
tle scars from the culture wars of the 1980s, when political forces tried to eradicate the
National Endowment for the Arts. During this time, federal (and, often, state) fund-
ing for the arts was cut deeply, and equally deep skepticism of arts funding was stoked
by such politicians as US Senator Jesse Helms over cases such as the 1989 NEA-funded
“The Perfect Moment” exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe fine art photographs. As such,
state arts agencies have been conservative in their expenditures. In other words, a state
arts agency does not cover the cost of conference travel as much as a university might.
Typically, I am financially (and philosophically) supported to attend the annual meet-
ing of the American Folklore Society. And while I am an Americanist and a working
folklorist and find AFS utterly relevant and enriching, I am a trained ethnomusicolo-
gist who has much to gain (professionally, personally, and intellectually) from attend-
ing SEM. Indeed, SEM is my disciplinary “home.” However, in five years of working at
MSAC, I have had conference travel supported for two of six SEM conferences. This has
an effect, over time, of distancing the state folklorist from professional colleagues and
innovative new thinking within the field of ethnomusicology. My host agency does not
think of me as an ethnomusicologist—to them I am a folklorist—and so I have to choose
my SEM conferences with great care.
In a similar way, scholarly publication is not a priority for the state arts agency. For the
state agency, there is little obvious benefit to publication of scholarly articles. Popular
publications are another matter, so long as they serve the core mission of the agency and
the state folklorist can convince the administration that time spent on publishing will
not interfere with the day-to-day work of the folklorist. This encompasses CD releases,
liner notes, DVD projects, book projects and the like. The benefits of scholarly publica-
tions are more elusive to the agency. However, I would argue that it is crucial to the field
of applied ethnomusicology and public folklore that we prioritize publication—whether
this be on our own personal time, or that we advocate to do so on work hours. Without
publication, we will miss countless opportunities to educate and train those who will
someday replace us at our work. We also risk that the field will not advance to a stronger
position within the world of government work. Not publishing will continue a dynamic
lamented by many applied ethnomusicologists in the folklife field—that we are not pre-
sented as professional or intellectual role models to graduate students (Dirksen, 2012;
Holtzberg, 2013; Sheehy 2013). And, finally, we risk continuing a “road of no return”
dynamic in which an applied/public career path is perceived as incompatible with enter-
ing the academic workforce. In my opinion, the academy would be greatly served by
using public folklore as a training ground for its graduate students and for its junior
professors. Seeing a broad diversity of music in culture/context via fieldwork is a far cry
from learning about it in a classroom. Connecting ethnomusicologists’ international
work with the diasporic communities with whom local folklife programs have built trust
(and archival documentation) is good common sense. Doing cultural interpretation
in close proximity of those communities we are interpreting is also healthy—if utterly
inconvenient—for culture is dynamic and ever-changing. Often, our cultural interpre-
tations as both applied and university-based ethnomusicologists are instantly outdated.
In the realm of applied work, cultural communities will point this fact out onstage at
public events and in museum galleries. This is good for all ethnographers to be mindful
of when teaching ethnography or when presenting our work. Finally, it would be hard
for any ethnomusicologist to emerge from working as a public folklorist without the
profound sense that any and all fieldwork inquiry should benefit the community as well
as the ambitious scholar. State arts agencies can and should be both ethnographic train-
ing grounds for graduate students, just as state folklife archives can and should be a deep
research resource for scholars and folklife communities.
For the ethnomusicologist-as-public-folklorist, there is a reversal of the pres-
sures facing our tenure-track university colleagues. For instance, aspiring univer-
sity professionals are reminded that applied work will not count toward tenure, so
any applied work done during the first seven years on the job is to be conducted on
one’s own personal time. The priority, then, is research/publication and teaching.
For the applied ethnomusicologist, research (fieldwork) is also a priority. But so is
applied work. Publication, however—at least peer-reviewed scholarly publications
such as books published by university presses and academic journals—is something
to be done on one’s own time, unless it is perceived as being central to the public
folklife program’s core mission. For academic publications, the core audience is typi-
cally not the local community—rather, it is fellow colleagues and researchers. Public
folklorists publish a great deal of material in a broad range of mediums (film, radio,
television, print, CD, DVD, etc.), but the primary audience is the local/regional con-
stituency. How, then, do we move both of these worlds forward? How do we convince
agencies—universities and state arts agencies alike—of the value of publications and
programs of community engagement, both applied and theoretical? It is in the best
interest of our society to do so, and it is in the best interest of our discipline to do so.
Some of this requires that we apply our ethnographic skills to our own host institu-
tions: What are the value systems of these institutions? How do we communicate in
the language of this culture? How do we learn to communicate cross culturally/insti-
tutionally? In learning the answers to these questions, we can better argue the merits
of those changes we seek to effect.
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Chapter 21

in Chi na
An Analytical Review of Practice
Zhang Boyu
Edited by
Sarah Stanton
General Introduction
Scope
When I first heard the term “applied ethnomusicology” 10 years ago, I did not under-
stand its exact meaning, but I was nevertheless intrigued. Years of study have rewarded
me with a more thorough understanding of applied ethnomusicology, which I now see
as a music-related activity that engages in or manages, from the perspective of ethno-
musicology, traditional music in different nations throughout the world. It is a practice
that utilizes music within society.
At the present time, there are few academics in China who would refer to themselves
as applied ethnomusicologists, but we can nevertheless trace the nature and meaning
of applied ethnomusicology in China, as well as its contributions to Chinese society,
through events and activities such as various types of traditional music festivals, the
publication of traditional music CDs, the organization of academic conferences and
seminars on traditional music, the selection of “intangible cultural heritages,” which are
organized in China by various levels of government as well as the United Nations, col-
lections of musical instruments as museums, the production of programs on traditional
music by radio and television stations, and so on. These combined elements create a
clear picture of applied ethnomusicology in China.
736 Zhang Boyu AND Sarah Stanton
Meanwhile, the significance of “music” to social development, as well as to the lives

of the Chinese people, can be perceived from the community musical events organized
by the government at all levels. It is important to note that the term “music” here is not
restricted to the traditional or folk music that usually concerns ethnomusicologists; it
also refers to Western music, as well as to popular music. These practices therefore fall
under the umbrella of “applied musicology.” However, this chapter also examines the
subject at the individual level, addressing my own exploration and practice of applied
ethnomusicology while I was director of the Musicology Department in the Central
Conservatory of Music. Some of the projects mentioned are ongoing.
Although the word “applied” as used in this chapter refers to the ways in which music
is used in social and personal activities, the section headings may lead readers to think
that this chapter is proposing a catalogue for all music activities in China, including
those that may not be seen as applied. For example, a music database seems far more
research-oriented than concerned with anything “applied.” It is worth discussing this
issue here for the following reasons. Chinese music scholarship is currently divided
into theoretical discussion and material collection. The difference between these two
domains is that the former offers increased knowledge and better understanding of the
music from across the world, whereas the latter offers practical access to a variety of
materials, some of which may be accessible via other resources. Generally speaking,
databases are based on research; however, they may be considered part of the archiving
work of applied ethnomusicology where the catalogues may at some point be made
accessible to the general public, including the people whose music is contained within.
In fact, it is the data collected in these databases that lead to the development of research
theories; a database is also a way to organize data, making access more convenient for its
users. Potential financial benefit coming from databases is also an important factor dif-
ferentiating research and applied ethnomusicology.
If we can understand why this chapter has devoted so much time to databases, we can
also understand why the organization of conferences and the establishment of music
museums are discussed as personal applied ethnomusicology practices. A research
activity and an activity for research may not be the same thing.
Another important factor to be considered is that many types of traditional music
in China are functional music, in that they perform various social functions, including
religious, funerary, marital, medicinal, and educational, as well playing a role in com-
munal work. These functions do not reflect “applied ethnomusicology,” since they are
the main focus of ethnomusicological research. Rather, the domain of applied ethno-
musicology is those functions that have been created in order to negotiate contempo-
rary social situations. These divisions may or may not be totally appropriate in Western
applied ethnomusicology.
It is worth emphasizing again that applied ethnomusicology is still a relatively new
field in China; Chinese ethnomusicologists have not yet developed an applied ethno-
musicology to suit China’s specific circumstances. This chapter is the first true dialogue
between Chinese ethnomusicologists and their colleagues in the West.
Applied Ethnomusicology in China 737
Research Findings
“Applied ethnomusicology” is a relatively new term in China, and so far there has been
little in-depth research on this topic. There are no books published specializing in this
subject, and articles discussing applied ethnomusicology are few and far between.
A search for “applied ethnomusicology” on http://www.cnki.net,1 a database of Chinese
academic journals and dissertations, returned just five results.
In “Chinese Minorities’ Music in View of the Protection of Intangible Cultural
Heritage: The View and Methodology of Applied Ethnomusicology,” published in 2008,
Yang Xifan discusses the protection and utilization of ethnic minority music in China
from the perspective of applied ethnomusicology. This article borrows Japanese ethno-
musicologist Yamaguti Osamu’s definition of applied ethnomusicology, which argues
that “as a study of humanities, musicology derives from society and should be applied
to society. Applied musicology is the result of a mutually beneficial interaction between
the study of music and society.” (2008: 123). In view of this interaction, Yang explores
the various problems that ethnic minority music in China has encountered, addressing
the difficulties such music has confronted against the backdrop of social changes caused
by “demographic structure,” “transformation of society,” and “external culture,” as well
as emphasizing the role of government and the importance of educational continuity.
However, with regard to the theory of applied ethnomusicology, this article primarily
tackles the continuity of ethnic minority music in China from the perspective of the
relationship between music and society (Yang Xifan, 2008).
Lü Lulu was the first to discuss the difference between ethnomusicology and applied
ethnomusicology. In her 2012 article, “Applied Ethnomusicology and Local Music
Education,” Lü argues that the First Annual Conference of the Chinese Traditional
Music Association, which was held at the Nanjing University of Arts in 1980, set the tone
and direction of the professional development of China’s ethnomusicology scholarship
for 30 years, and that all future study of Chinese ethnomusicology should be directed
toward applied ethnomusicology. This article takes local music education as its starting
point, exploring the practice and application of Chinese ethnomusicology in the educa-
tion and continuity of local music (Lü, 2012).
In the article “On Ethnomusicology’s Role in Chinese Music Education: Applied
Ethnomusicology, Current Music Education and the Course Syllabus in China” (2012),
Cao Jun argues that it is necessary to integrate the theory of ethnomusicology into
the present Chinese music education system, so as to help reverse or eradicate—both
in methodology and ideology—engrained, unhelpful practices negatively affected by
Eurocentrism. He goes on to argue that applied ethnomusicology can provide scien-
tific and discussable solutions in terms of methodology for other musical subjects such
as music history, music morphology, music analysis, music recording, and music com-
munication. Lü also suggests that courses such as “Chinese Cultural Studies,” “Guqin
(seven-stringed zither) Music,” “Beijing Opera,” “Kunqu Opera,” and “World Music” be
added to the current music educational system.
Zhou Xianbao’s “Western Ethnomusicology and Chinese Traditional Music

Research: Reviews of the Theory and Methodology of Applied Ethnomusicology” (2012)
is chiefly a discussion of the spread and application of Western ethnomusicological the-
ory in China, which spurred a transition within the study of Chinese traditional music
from focusing on the music itself to emphasizing musical culture. The author poses this
question: Since we already have applied mathematics, applied economics, and applied
anthropology, isn’t it fair to have applied ethnomusicology as a part of musicology?
Above all, “the ultimate goal of the establishment of any subject is not the study of this
subject itself, but to apply the theory and methodology of this subject so as to explore the
unknown, and to see whether studies of this subject could be applied to benefit society
and the nation as well as the survival and development of mankind” (2012: 16). Zhou
does not provide a specific theory or methodology of applied ethnomusicology; rather,
he offers a hypothesis, which intends to integrate the study of ethnomusicology into
the realities of society, so as to give full play to the social value of ethnomusicological
studies. Zhou also offers his opinion on the relationship between ethnomusicology and
musicology, stating unequivocally that ethnomusicology is part of musicology.
Zhang Xiaoyan and Su Qianzhong’s “Approach to Applied Musicology: A Review of
Japanese Ethnomusicologist Yamaguti Osamu’s Academic Summit Series,” which was
published in 2007, serves as an introduction to a series of lectures made by the famous
Japanese ethnomusicologist Yamaguti, speeches given at the invitation of Shanghai
Conservatory of Music. Yamagutii defined the study of music as being divided into three
categories: historical musicology, comparative musicology, and applied musicology, and
illustrated the historical contributions made by applied ethnomusicology to the renais-
sance of Vietnamese court music (Zhang Xiaoyan and Su Qianzhong, 2007).
The above articles reveal that the theoretical exploration of applied ethnomusicology
is still very limited in China, lacking precise subject orientation and in-depth studies of
the definition, scope, and methodology of this subject. It is fair to say that the study of
applied ethnomusicology is a field that still requires cultivation. The lack of theoretical
studies, however, does not mean the absence of practical explorations. The practice of
applied ethnomusicology manifests itself in various ways. The following sections will
introduce two aspects of this practice in China: the social, and the personal.
From the Social Perspective
Applied Ethnomusicology in Political Construction: Music

Activities within Communities
There are multiple levels within each Chinese administrative district. The highest level
consists of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, the State Council, and
the People’s Congress. Ministries that report to the State Council, including the Ministry
of Culture, are viewed by the Chinese people as national institutions. Second to this is
the provincial level, which includes those four municipalities directly under the cen-
tral government (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing), as well as the 23 prov-
inces and five autonomous regions.2 Each province and autonomous region has its own
Culture Department or Culture Bureau. Below the provinces and autonomous regions
is the prefecture level, each city or district with its own Culture Bureau. Fourth is the
county level; each region is composed of several counties, and each county has its own
Culture Institute. The final level includes towns and villages, which have their own
Culture Stations. These levels, as well as their respective cultural establishments, can be
illustrated by this simple list:
The State Council

The Ministry of Culture
The Culture Department (Provincial level)
The Culture Bureau (Prefectural level)
The Culture Institute (County level)
The Culture Station (Town level)
It is clear from this that there is a huge network in place for the management of culture in
China, from the national Culture Ministry down to the provincial Culture Departments,
the prefecture-level Culture Bureaus, the county-level Culture Institutes, and finally, the
town-level Culture Stations. At each level, there are professionals in charge of the man-
agement of music-related events and activities. Music activities are used at all levels of
government to enrich people’s cultural and spiritual lives; cultural management is an
essential part of government. There are also numerous music organizations and groups
affiliated to the Ministry of Culture, such as the Central National Music Orchestra, the
Central Symphony Orchestra, the Central Opera House, the Beijing Opera Theatre of
China, the Central Ballet Theatre, the National Theatre Company of China, and so on.
These groups represent the best of Chinese professional music and performance. In addi-
tion, each province and autonomous region has its own professional musical groups,
including symphony orchestras and local opera theaters. According to the annual report
issued by the Chinese Musicians Association (China Federation of Literary and Art
Circles, 2013: 113–139), there are 57 symphony orchestras in China (including Hong Kong
and Macao). In 2006, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Culture, and Ministry of
Finance jointly initiated the “Advanced Arts Going into Campuses” program3 to enrich
college students’ humanistic understandings and expand their cultural horizons (China
Federation of Literary and Art Circles, 2013: 116.) In the wake of the cultural institutional
reforms of recent years, many professional music groups are now taking the economic
road to independent management. However, according to national requirements, each
province and city still maintains at least one group or institution sponsored by the gov-
ernment, in order to protect the local arts.
On the national and provincial levels, it is professional musical groups that play the most
prominent role. On the prefecture and county level, however, the Culture Institutes and
Stations take charge of organizing and managing the people’s cultural activities. A balanced
relationship between material affluence and spiritual development has in fact been empha-
sized by the Chinese government, and managing the people’s cultural activities is seen as
an important part of government business, aiming to enrich people’s lives with a variety
of musical and cultural activities. This is also a path to the construction of a harmonious
society, which is not an empty political slogan but a government requirement at all levels.
Such activities include the performance of music by local folk musicians, who are managed
by the cultural institutes and stations, with various types of musical ensembles, such as the
Western brass band and the Chinese traditional orchestra; ethnomusicological researches,
such as recording, transcription, ethnographical introduction, done by the local officials;
folk activities, such as the performance of folk music as well as exhibitions at temple fairs
and during festivals; and local music competitions. It is important to note that perfor-
mances organized by the government have played an essential role in the development of
Chinese musical culture. Currently there are more than 300 types of local opera, one-third
of which emerged and developed after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. This
was a direct result of governmentally organized art performances, which encouraged the
production of arts that represented local cultures and customs, rather than historical lega-
cies (Zhang Zhentao, 2008). In June 2013, I took part in a music fair organized by the Beijing
Financial Street Administration.4 Beijing Financial Street is famous for being home to the
headquarters of many Chinese national banks and foreign financial corporations. The
street administrative office recruited college graduates from Wuhan Conservatory of Music
to work in the area, making music the bridge linking government departments, companies,
and the people. They also invited famous musicians from overseas to perform on a regular
basis. Figure 21.1 shows Finnish jazz musicians playing on Financial Street in June 2013.
Figure 21.1 Finnish Jazz musicians playing at the Financial Street in Beijing.
Photographed by Zhang Boyu in June 2013.
The music featured in activities organized by the government is generally local. This
protects and preserves local music on the one hand, while serving the people and society
on the other.
Discussion
Although Socialist China has undergone hardships, it is now enjoying a golden age;
under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, the economy is developing
swiftly and strongly. In fact, the Chinese government has attached great importance to
the building and development of mass culture, not only during boom times but also
during periods when economic development is flagging. In most Chinese cities, it is
not uncommon to spot elderly people in matching costumes dancing popular rural folk
dances together. In remote towns and villages, people get together to play cards and
Mahjong. When the people are enjoying themselves, the government’s efforts to enrich
their cultural lives are well rewarded.
At the same time, however, we should also be aware that top-down administrative
cultural management has the potential to produce conformity within cultural activities
throughout China. Events and developments at one particular place or time can also be
seen at other places or times, which is not conducive to displays of individuality within a
diversified culture. Under this management system, many activities also risk acquiring
a political flavor.
Applied Ethnomusicology in Social Construction: The Local

Application of Musical Intangible Cultural Heritages
In China, the management of intangible cultural heritage is currently divided into five
levels: the United Nations level, the national level, the provincial level, the prefecture
level, and the county level.
In 2004, the Chinese government signed the “Convention for the Production of
Intangible Cultural Heritage” issued by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Since then, the concept of “intangible cultural heri-
tage” has been widely recognized in China. Government at all levels, from the central to
the local, sees the task of protecting intangible cultural heritage as a significant one, and
systematic protective measures have been carried out with positive results. By 2012, the
Chinese State Council had announced three lists of national intangible cultural heri-
tages, containing 1,219 items in total, as well as four lists of national intangible cultural
heritage representatives, with a total of 1,986 people. By 2013, 37 Chinese intangible cul-
tural heritages had been added to the “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural
Heritage of Humanity” and six to the “List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of
Urgent Protection,” making China the country with the most intangible cultural heri-
tages on these lists. Meanwhile, the provinces and autonomous regions also began to
identify and name intangible cultural heritage items and representatives at various lev-
els. In the first three rounds, a total of 6,332 people were named as representatives of
the provincial-level intangible cultural heritages, while 870,000 intangible cultural heri-
tages were named on the recommendation of various regions.5 In 2008, the government
began to sponsor national intangible cultural heritages, providing 200,000–300,000
yuan for each project. In 2011, sponsorship for national intangible cultural heritage rep-
resentatives was increased to 10,000 yuan from the previous 8,000 per year. The prov-
inces and autonomous regions also began to sponsor their local intangible cultural
heritages and representatives according to their own circumstances.6
Government officials at various levels have organized a series of events and activities
to promote intangible cultural heritages. These activities reflect the nature of applied
ethnomusicology. First celebrated in 2006, the second Saturday in June is China’s
“Cultural Heritage Day,” when regions and institutions throughout China hold cultural
events and activities. Below are some examples of such activities:
1. In February, 2006, the first “Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition” was
held at the National Museum in Beijing. The exhibition period was extended from
10 days to a month.7
2 The biennial “China International Intangible Cultural Heritage Festival” was held
in Chengdu from 2007 to 2011.8
3. During the Lantern Festival in 2009, 14 members of the Interministerial
Conference for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage, including the
Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Culture, and the National Reform and
Development Commission, jointly held the “China’s Intangible Cultural Heritage
Traditional Craft Exhibition”9 in Beijing’s Agriculture Exhibition Centre.
4. In February 2012, the “Productive Protection of China’s Intangible Cultural
Heritage Exhibition” was held in the Agriculture Exhibition Centre in Beijing.10
5. In 2011 and 2012, the Zhihua Temple in Beijing held activities to commemorate
“Cultural Heritage Day,” inviting folk music groups from different regions to give
performances in Beijing.11
6. In November 2012, the first “Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage Traditional
Craft Exhibition” was held in Huangshan, Anhui province.12
Improvement of facilities represents an important aspect of intangible cultural heri-

tage protection. According to Kuaner (2011), the provinces (including autonomous
regions and municipalities) have established a total of 424 intangible cultural heritage
museums, 179 folk museums, and 96 galleries, as well as 1,216 training institutes. These
facilities and sites assume the responsibility of collecting, protecting, studying, and
ensuring the continuation of intangible cultural heritages.
When it comes to local applications for musical intangible cultural heritages, the
question of local traditional music and tourism is unavoidable. The tourist industry has
developed very rapidly in China. 10 years ago, Chinese tourists were an unusual sight
in most countries; now they come in droves. This is especially true for domestic tour-
ism: since the vast majority of people are still unable to go abroad, domestic travel has
become a way for them to see more of the world. International tourism is only available
to the middle classes; domestic tourism suffers from no such limitations. As a result,
the domestic tourism industry is booming. Besides natural and historical sites, people
are increasingly focusing on local cultural life. Although modernization helped the
Chinese people escape poverty, it also resulted in the loss of many of their traditions.
Postmodernism allowed the Chinese to value their traditions once more, with the result
that they now appreciate these traditions from a modernized perspective.
Since tourism is an important path to economic development, naturally, regions
with tourism resources will make use of these resources. In fact, even those who pos-
sess few such resources have been exploring the potential for tourism, and local tradi-
tional music has become an essential tourism resource. The Naxi traditional music of
Lijiang, Yunnan, is a well-known example of a successfully explored tourism resource.
The Dongjing music of Yunnan is a subgenre of Han Chinese Taoist music, which usu-
ally takes the form of scripture recitation to accompany worship ceremonies. According
to historical records, Dongjing performances were once held in Lijiang, the home of the
Naxi people; however, performance ceased a long time ago, and many elements have
now been lost, particularly the scriptures and worship ceremonies. Only a few instru-
mental pieces, played on Naxi instruments such as the pipa (a four-stringed lute bigger
than the Han pipa) and the suogudu (three-stringed lute), remain. As these instruments
possess significant Naxi characteristics, pieces played with them are generally consid-
ered to be Naxi traditional music. Dayan Guyue She, a group that performs these pieces,
gives daily concerts at the center of Lijiang, and has become a must-see for any tourist
who comes to Lijiang.
At the same time, some scholars are unhappy with the concept of “Naxi traditional
music,” arguing that such music was never exclusively played or owned by the Naxi eth-
nicity. One scholar went so far as to write an article asking “What Kind of a Thing Is
Naxi Traditional Music?” (Wu Xueyuan, 2003). The Dayan Guyue She were so offended
by this that they sued the scholar in question, who was later requested by the court to
pay 20,000 yuan in compensation, while the journal that published the article paid
100,000 yuan. In this case, there was a significant discrepancy between academic truth
and the commercial interests of society. Many scholars sympathized with Mr. Wu; how-
ever, according to the court, the decision was made based not on academic truth but
rather the words used in the title, “What Kind of a Thing Is Naxi Traditional Music?”
(Naxi Guyue Shi Shenme Dongxi) which were perceived as implying disrespect for the
music. If nothing else, this served as a reminder to Chinese scholars that all critical opin-
ions expressed should be based on rational analysis rather than emotion, even though
most scholars today agree that Naxi traditional music is little more than a fabrication.
Ironically, a theater for the performance of Naxi traditional music was constructed just
opposite Dayan Guyue She, but was not popular with tourists, and the Dongba Palace, as
it was known, eventually was turned into a bar.
Discussion
The significance of protecting intangible cultural heritages in China is multifaceted, with
different elements having different significance at different levels. At the national level,
the protection of intangible cultural heritage also protects China’s traditional culture,
establishing China’s own cultural system and striving to make Chinese culture promi-
nent in the vast mosaic of world cultures. At the 2009 “Bo’ao Youth Forum” in Hong
Kong, Vice-Minister of Culture Zhou Heping delivered the keynote speech “Protect
Intangible Cultural Heritage: Build a Spiritual Paradise for the Chinese Nation.” He
argued that “the renaissance of the Chinese nation should start from the renaissance of
the Chinese culture” (Zhou Heping, 2009).13
Guided by the idea that cultural renaissance plays an important role in national
revitalization, the government has invested heavily in the protection of intangible cul-
tural heritage; each national project receives 200,000–300,000 yuan to be used in the
maintenance of heritage continuity. Contradictions are not uncommon in the protec-
tion process. Intangible cultural heritage represents the extension and legacy of history;
in many projects, elements left over from the agricultural era come into conflict with
modern developments. Meanwhile, the folk beliefs reflected in some of these projects
contradict the atheism officially advocated by the Chinese Communist Party. Dongjing
performances in Yunnan are effectively the recitation of scriptures, and are mostly
held in local temples that were not approved by local government. There is therefore a
conflict between protecting something that has been recognized as an intangible cul-
tural heritage and allowing chanting in unauthorized temples (Zhang Boyu, 2012). It
is worth mentioning that the government has not removed those temples or restricted
Dongjing performance activities, which shows that since the beginning of the Reform
and Opening Up policy, the scope of “opening up” has expanded from the economic to
the social. It also suggests that the Chinese government, faced with the might of Western
culture, has found a way to counterbalance its impact with China’s own unique tradi-
tional culture.
On the local level (provincial, prefecture, and county level), the protection of intan-
gible cultural heritage has a different meaning. Although China’s Reform and Opening
Up policy began in the economic realm, it has now extended to almost all aspects of
society. Reform and Opening Up has provided us with the opportunity to realize the
“Chinese Dream,” which is not solely materially defined but also has spiritual connota-
tions. It has already become a consensus among the Chinese people that culture plays an
essential role in realizing the “Chinese Dream,” and the significance of culture has there-
fore been repeatedly emphasized as the economy has developed. People from different
regions and districts are eager to display the unique nature of their own local cultures
so as to strengthen their sense of identity. At the same time, however, economic benefits
are always a motivating factor, even in the protection of intangible cultural heritage, as
most people would prefer to accumulate rather than spend money in the process of pro-
tecting these heritages. Unlike the central government, local governments are exploring
the economic potential of intangible cultural heritages, on the one hand, and protect-
ing them for the sake of their local identity, on the other (see Figures 21.2.and 21.3). The
phrase “Protection for Development; Development for Better Protection” exemplifies
the idea that only through proper utilization can protection be effective. Tourism has
become a major and viable method to utilize traditional music resources, whether or
Figure 21.2 Folk instrumental ensembles competition held in Jincheng city, Shanxi prov-
ince, in 2013. This is one of the village folk bands that joined the competition. Such activities
can be found everywhere across the country.
Photographed by Zhang Boyu in January 2013.
Figure 21.3 Villages in Wuan county, Hebei province, joining a local opera performance
during a Taoist temple affair. This is still an important way of spiritual life for contemporary
Chinese in rural areas.
Photographed by Zhang Boyu in January 2013.
not a region has tourism resources. For those regions that do have tourism resources,
traditional music will often form part of local tourism projects. In regions with few or
no tourism resources, local governments will often encourage private investment in rec-
reation sites such as vacation villages, which is an important path to economic develop-
ment for many towns and villages. As a result of this process, local folk music resources
have attracted attention from government officials at a number of different levels.
The owners of these intangible cultural heritages are the common people, most of
whom are underprivileged, rooted in their local cultures, and unable to adapt to external
cultural influences. Such people can benefit in a small way from their own customs and
cultures by giving traditional cultural performances. In the past, this was looked down
upon, and musicians who performed for money were often seen as inferior. However, the
establishment of the intangible cultural heritage system transformed the current crop of
village musicians overnight into representatives of China’s local traditional cultures, rec-
ognized nationwide. They are frequently invited to give performances by cultural institu-
tions in Beijing, Shanghai, and other large cities, and they make frequent appearances on
television. Some of them even enjoy national subsidies simply for being cultural repre-
sentatives, a state of affairs that they could never have dreamed of before. This new social
identity has not only promoted them in terms of social hierarchy, but has also brought
them huge economic benefits. Unfortunately, this has led to fake “intangible cultural
heritages” popping up in regions across the country. Take percussion music, for exam-
ple: there are more than 10 types of percussion ensembles in Shan’xi province, and while
all of them have been identified as “intangible cultural heritages,” some of them are in fact
newly created, with few or none of the historical values they supposedly possess.
From the multiple manifestations of the protection of intangible cultural heritage
discussed above, we can understand the following with regard to applied ethnomusi-
cology. Intangible cultural heritages, when applied to the development of society, can
be tainted with strong political flavors but are nevertheless powerful cultural weapons,
as traditions inherited from thousands of years ago, against the impact or intrusion of
Westernization and globalization.
Intangible cultural heritages, both when used to satisfy a need for recreation and
amusement in people’s lives and as tourist resources, are targets for research in the study
of applied ethnomusicology.
Intangible cultural heritages, when used for academic purposes, are spiritual food for
ethnomusicologists and sources of deductive thinking for scholars. (For more informa-
tion, see the following discussion.)
Applied Ethnomusicology in Academia: The Establishment

of a Musical Database
In the study of Chinese applied ethnomusicology, research for the pur-
pose of research—that is, the establishment of a database for a certain type of
music—has recently been given a lot of attention. Such databases generally concern
Chinese traditional music, and are intended for practical use. In this they share certain
characteristics with applied ethnomusicology. The target beneficiaries of these data-
bases, however, are ethnomusicologists, and they are mainly used for the sole purpose
of research. In this sense, such databases are also representative of research-oriented
ethnomusicology. The following two databases can be seen as typical of the various tra-
ditional music databases.
Uyghur Muqam Database in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region

Muqam is a famous example of Uyghur musical art, a form of large-scale musical per-
formance that includes vocals, instrumental music, and dancing. Since the Uyghur
people live in different districts throughout the Xinjiang autonomous region, there are
different types of Muqam, which can be further divided into various branches, such
as Daolang Muqam, Hami Muqam, Turfan Muqam, and Twelve Muqam, the most
representative branch. The art of Muqam was listed by UNESCO as a “Masterpiece
of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” in 2005 (Li Jilian, Zhou Ji, and Li
Kairong, 2005).
Muqam has been a focus of Chinese music academic research, with a large number
of related research findings. In order to organize the music, images, graphics, scores,
and lyrics of Uyghur Muqam, and record them through modern digitization for
long-term storage and ease of retrieval, the Central Conservatory of Music, Xinjiang
Arts Research Institute, and the Cultural Department of Xinjiang Autonomous
Region jointly initiated the Uyghur Muqam Database in 2007. The database includes
research papers, performances (audio and video), instruments, bands, costumes
and stage sets, important figures, associations, musical events, historical records,
scores and lyrics, and relevant materials, as well as information on Muqam in foreign
countries.
The Central Conservatory of Music, Xinjiang Arts Research Institute, and the
Cultural Department of Xinjiang Autonomous Region have invested 600,000 yuan for
the construction of this database. Meanwhile, the Central Conservatory of Music and
Xinjiang Arts Research Institute have held several joint seminars and have organized
scholars as well as students to do field research in Moyu, Pishan, Hetian, Akesu, Kuche,
and Tashikurgan. Unfortunately, the death of Zhou Ji, the director of the database proj-
ect and a preeminent scholar of Muqam, has made it difficult for the project to pro-
ceed. The database was completed in 2011, but not as expected. It still lacks any practical
applications.
Chinese Guqin Musical Culture Database

The 2006 “Key Project” planned by the Musicology Research Institute affiliated with
the Central Conservatory of Music (a key research base for the humanities, recog-
nized by the Education Ministry of China) and the 2008 “Third-Phase Building of Key
Disciplines” of the “211 Project” both listed the Chinese Guqin Musical Culture Database
as an important research project. This database was established in 2006, led by Professor
Yuan Jingfang from the Central Conservatory of Music.14
The Chinese Guqin Musical Culture Database contains 68 theoretical books on

Guqin from the pre-Qin dynasty to the Qing dynasty, as well as 77 on modern Guqin. It
collects a total of 5,679 articles on Guqin music in the Ming and Qing dynasties (1,612 of
which were written after 1911), 9 collections of theses, 126 issues of periodicals published
since the year 1911, 51 reports, and 165 collections of musical scores from different dynas-
ties (both written by hand and printed), containing a total of 4,799 pieces and covering
all the Guqin scores handed down since the Tang Dynasty. There are also 9,481 min-
utes of recorded Guqin music, with 1,411 tracks on 129 CDs. The database also includes
information on 841 Guqin performers from the pre-Qin period to the Qing dynasty, as
well as hundreds of performers since the founding of the Republic. There are more than
30 groups established after the late Qing dynasty, as well as a total of 82 commemora-
tive activities, gatherings of literati, academic seminars, and concerts. The database also
includes more than 749 articles on performance techniques, indexed in each dynasty’s
collection of musical scores. In addition, there are 1,080 poems, 25 iambic verses, 31
articles, 25 poetic essays, 8 frescos, 55 sculptures, 51 paintings, and other literature and
images. Construction of this database was completed in 2011 (Yuan, 2009).
Discussion
Database-building is of great practical value and significance to the study of ethnomu-
sicology. China has a great many types of music; however, database capacity was inevi-
tably limited in the era of paper media, and data retrieval relatively difficult to conduct.
Advances in technology have resolved many issues that could not be addressed before,
and the future is bright for the development of database building. However, none of
these musical databases has been put to use, with the exception of CNKI. The reason
for this is that there was no clear purpose for building these databases. Should a data-
base be used for data collecting and compilation, or for research purposes? The inten-
tion of the former is to collect and store traditional music before it disappears, while
the latter aims to provide literature for the study of a certain type of music, as well as
creating commercial value through the operation of the database. Since most musical
databases are run by music scholars, many databases are more like paper archives that
happen to exist in electronic forms. A great deal of effort goes into the construction
of the databases, and their creators often hesitate to let others use their work for free.
Unfortunately, if fees were charged for the use of these databases, few people would be
willing to pay them. For this reason, most music databases are currently left unused.
Applied Ethnomusicology in Mass Entertainment: China

Central Television (CCTV) Programs on Chinese
Traditional Music
There are any number of options for entertainment available to the masses: go to a con-
cert, see a movie, sing at a karaoke television, dance in a public park, and so on. All of
these are common pastimes for the Chinese people. What cannot be denied, however,
is that television, in China as well as other parts of the world, is a major form of enter-
tainment and an indispensable part of modern life. In China, the connection between
applied ethnomusicology and television manifests itself in several TV programs on
Chinese folk music. CCTV, for example, broadcasts the Television Grand Prix, Folk
Music Performance Competition, Elegant Chinese Music, and the Opera Channel
(Channel 11).
Television Grand Prix for Young Singers

The Television Grand Prix for Young Singers is a program launched by CCTV, which
integrates music and entertainment with an element of competition. Every two years,
local TV stations send their chosen candidates to participate in a competition held in
Beijing. The Grand Prix has been successfully held 15 times since the first competition
in 1984. The judging panel is usually made up of famous singers. There used to be three
categories within the contest: bel canto, Chinese style singing, and popular singing.
However, in 2006, original-style singing15 was added as a fourth category. Mongolian
“Changdiao (Wurdindu)” and “Humai (Thoat singing),” as well as the Dong people’s
“Dage” (Kalau) and the Yi people’s “Haicai Qiang,” have all won prizes in this competi-
tion. This original-style singing has been the subject of much discussion among China’s
ethnomusicologists. How do we define “original-style singing?” Does to refer to orig-
inal voices, or is it that the style itself should present an original context? It is fair to
say that the discussion on original-style singing reflects what applied ethnomusicology
has done for ethnomusicology. The Television Grand Prix has received wide recogni-
tion in China, and the program itself is a major topic of discussion among the masses.
Because of this, entering the competition is also an effective way for new singers to make
themselves known.
Traditional Instrumental Music Performance Competition

CCTV has held two Traditional Instrumental Music Performance Competitions, one
in 2009 and one in 2012. The candidates are selected or recommended by television
stations in the provinces, autonomous regions, and cities, as well as by the following
groups in Beijing: artistic and cultural organizations, art schools, university art depart-
ments, and art groups affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army. The judging panel is
composed of famous Chinese traditional instrument performers and composers, and
the candidates are divided into juvenile and adult categories. The competition itself is
divided into two categories: soloists and ensembles. Instruments for solo performance
include erhu (fiddle), banhu (fiddle), pipa (lute), yangqin (dulcimer), guzheng (zither),
guqin (zither), dizi (flute), suona (cornet), sheng (mouth organ), and percussion, with
gold, silver, and copper prizes going to outstanding players. Ensembles may include
local instrumental genres, ensembles composed of traditional instruments, and ensem-
bles composed of both traditional and non-traditional instruments. There should be
2–15 performers in each group, and gold, silver, and copper prizes are awarded in each of
the three categories. This competition has become a bridge to success for many profes-
sional Chinese folk instrument performers.
Fenghua Guoyue (Elegant Chinese Music)

Fenghua Guoyue (Elegant Chinese Music) is an entertainment program broadcast on
CCTV. Fenghua Guoyue focuses on the appreciation of Chinese traditional music and
instrumental performances, serving as an introduction to China’s traditional music cul-
ture and providing a platform for traditional music performers to showcase themselves
and their music. The program has three sections: Jiaqu Youyue (Fine Music), Lingting
Tianlai (Elegant Voices), and Women Yongyou (What We have), each of which has a
weekday edition and a weekend edition. The show airs at 6.20 p.m. Monday to Sunday,
and is replayed at 6.30 a.m. Monday to Sunday. Apart from instrumental performances,
the program also includes vivid pictures and explanations, and is popular among fans of
folk music instruments.
The Opera Channel (Channel 11)

Many people complain that traditional music is not paid enough attention when com-
pared to the popularity and publicity enjoyed by popular music. Although that may be
true in most other countries, it is not the case in China. As a matter of fact, Chinese tra-
ditional music receives special attention both from the government and from the public,
and is strongly represented in the media as well as in concert halls. CCTV’s Chinese
Opera Channel is a typical example of this. The channel started broadcasting on July 9,
2001, and mainly presents performances of various types of Chinese music—not only
Beijing Opera, but also music from other regions.
Apart from promoting Chinese opera culture, this channel also emphasizes the
importance of mass participation and entertainment. Opera amateurs, for example, are
often invited to give performances on this channel. Since all programs on this channel
are opera-related and are broadcast non-stop during the day, they are grouped into sev-
eral subdivisions: Mingduan Xinshang (Appreciation of Famous Stories), Liyuan Leitai
(Opera Competitions), Dianbo Shijian (Request Time), Xiqu Fengcai (Opera Beauties),
Nanqiang Beidiao (Northern and Southern Operas), Xiyuan Baijia (Various Types of
Operas), Difangxi Zhichuang (Local Operas), CCTV Kongzhong Juyuan (CCTV Sky
Theatre), Genwo Xue (Learn With Me), Guoba Yin (Enjoying Opera), and Jiuzhou
Daxitai (Opera Stages from All Regions), among others.
Chinese opera possesses an intense musicality. There are 300 local operas in China,
mainly distinguished by their different music. Promoting Chinese opera via mass
media, and promoting traditional music through modern methods of communication,
so as to integrate traditional music into modern musical life, represent another typical
case for us to consider in our study of applied ethnomusicology.
Discussion
Having considered the promotion of Chinese traditional music via mass media, we can
come to the following conclusions. First, culture is a group behavior. When people share
and abide by common behaviors, a series of customs and conventions form, which evolve
over time into a culture. Urbanization has separated people into different units, buildings,
and residential compounds. Through such segregation, the space for group behavior has
been shrinking, and so the common behaviors of the people are reflected instead via tele-
vision. People in different units, buildings, and even cities all watch the same television
program at the same time. As a result, television has created a new type of group behavior,
one in which interactions between people are rendered redundant. The songs that should
have been heard in traditional theaters and out in the fields are now broadcast via television
channels. The songs remain, but the interactions between audience members do not.
Second, the introduction of original-style singing in the Television Grand Prix for
Young Singers is an initiative that reflects both the organizers’ love for Chinese traditional
music and their sense of responsibility toward it. However, original-style singing can only
present original sounds, for the original way of life for its performers cannot be re-created
on a stage in Beijing. In this sense, the connection between the sound of traditional music
and the way of life it represents has disappeared, replaced by a connection between sound
and stage for the sake of professional performance. The beauty to be found only in a wild
cry in the fields, therefore, has no value on CCTV’s professional stage (Xu Shuyun, 2003;
Wu Xiulin and Zhang Xia, 2012; Li Sue, 2006; Yu Renhao, 2006).
Third, the professional development of Chinese ethnic music has contributed to the
development of Chinese ethnic musical instrument–playing techniques, as well as help-
ing to nurture a large group of ethnic musical instrument performers, many of which are
now prominent in the field. Professional Chinese instrumental music is the pursuit of
superb performance skills; the ability to read music is essential. Sight-reading has been
added to some musical instrument competitions. Chinese traditional music, however,
employs traditional Chinese music notation, and the capacity to produce impromptu
variations is not considered part of professional development. The original features of
Chinese traditional instrumental music and the processes necessary to create it have
been completely lost (Zhang Boyu, 2010a).
Applied Ethnomusicology in Social Life: The Musical Lives

of Beijing Seniors
The capabilities of music are endless. In ancient China, Confucius’s observations of soci-
ety were not based on sociopolitical or economic factors; rather, he judged the merit of a
society on the music that its people liked and disliked. He also believed that the best way to
change social customs was through music.16 In ancient China, people used music to deliver
commands during war. The saying “Drive the soldiers forward when playing the drum,
withdraw the army when beating the gong”17 reflects the idea that music could encour-
age soldiers during a war. Chairman Mao Zedong used music to educate the people; as a
result, music became a political tool. Today, music has a wide variety of functions in China.
Several Chinese conservatories offer majors in music therapy; although many schools
around the world now offer similar programs, fighting illness with music is particularly
common in China. Traditional Chinese medicine emphasizes the balance between Yin
and Yang in the human body, so emotional adjustment is an important method employed
by Chinese medicine to treat the sick. In the Temple of Heaven, a famous park in Beijing
and one of the most popular tourism sites, people gather every Saturday to sing together
(see Figure 21.4). One of the groups is called Shanting Teshu Hechangdui (Fan Pavilion
Unique Chorus). Most of the members are cancer patients, and they use their songs to
fight against cancer. The female conductor is a gastric cancer patient; she teaches each new
song to the group, as well as conducting. Every day the choir becomes more famous, and
more and more people flock to join it. When singing, people forget their illnesses, reflect-
ing a new, optimistic spirit; they find a new, beautiful world in music and integrate them-
selves into it. Through their singing, they taste the width and depth of life, and seek out
another pillar of the soul. Beijing Television has reported on the chorus, noting that cure
rates and life expectancies among its members are higher than the average.
Discussion
Currently, musical activities and events organized by the public are ubiquitous in
Chinese cities. In parks and on the streets, groups of elderly people get together to sing,
dance, and perform local operas. Such activities represent not only a valuable form of
recreation but also an effective method of exercise, as well as reflecting the reality of life
for Chinese seniors and their attitude toward that life (see Figure 21.5). Chinese people
are generally reserved, and are seldom willing to sing, even in front of their families. In
Figure 21.4 A choir holds its regular rehearsal at the Temple of Heaven Park in Beijing on
a Saturday morning.
Photographed by Zhang Hong on August 3, 2013.
Figure 21.5 A choir holds its regular rehearsal at Zizhuyuan Park in Beijing on a Sunday
morning.
Photographed by Zhang Hong on August 4, 2013.
public gatherings such as these, however, singing is considered natural, and most people
in the neighborhood are happy for them to take place. These activities are a beautiful
illustration of the urban lives of many Chinese seniors.
Music is inextricably caught up with life, and ethnomusicology has a profound under-
standing of this relationship. Due to its artistic values, Western classical music is usually
performed in concert halls, which makes going to a concert a spiritual benefit as well as
a high art that is out of reach for the ordinary masses. The musical activities in Chinese
parks and streets, however, are part of people’s daily lives. It is fair to say that it is gener-
ally the socially privileged who go to concerts, with the ordinary masses more likely to
participate in musical activities. However, in the fight against illness, everyone becomes
equal, turning as one to music to combat their diseases. This is one of the reasons we see
so many music activities in non-musical settings.
From the Individual Perspective
Background
Graduates of the Central Conservatory of Music’s Musicology Department generally
find jobs at music schools, concert halls, and television or radio stations. Due to the
lack of a systematic approach in the courses offered, they often find it difficult to apply
what they have learned to their jobs. That said, those who go on to teach in colleges find
the program extremely useful, as they can simply review the material they studied and
then start to teach. Could our graduates be better adapted to different jobs through the
restructuring of the current academic program?
In 1999, the Central Conservatory of Music’s Musicology Department initiated
reforms to improve the courses and majors offered. At first, they intended to add a
major in applied ethnomusicology to the course list, but later renamed it the “Major
in Music Communication, Experimental Class.” In later course restructures, “Music
Communication” became “Music Management,” a brand new major to parallel the
Musicology major. Nevertheless, the Musicology Department still encourages involve-
ment in applied musicology/ethnomusicology through the following activities: the
holding of “World Music Days,” encouraging students to participate in the organization
of academic conferences; creating opportunities for students to take part in proofread-
ing for the Central Conservatory of Music Press; English translations (English–Chinese/
Chinese–English); publishing CDs to showcase the folk music recorded in fieldwork;
and establishing a musical instrument exhibition center.
Through activities such as these, the Musicology Department faculty and students
have not only contributed to the construction and development of the Musicology
Department and its courses, but also gained precious opportunities to learn, to further
explore the significance of applied ethnomusicology, and to better understand what
applied ethnomusicology is. Applied ethnomusicology not only includes specific prac-
tices and procedures, but also theoretical questions worthy of consideration, including
reflections on the organization of the aforementioned academic activities. In the follow-
ing passages, I will provide three examples, which illustrate the above: (1) the globaliza-
tion of folk festivals manifested in the organization of “World Music Days”; (2) cultural
continuity within translations of Chinese musical terminology in English-language
editions; and (3) the migration and display of culture during the establishment of the
Musical Instrument Exhibition Centre.
World Music Days: The Created Stage Reality and the Social

Position of Traditional Music
In 2004, Professor Akin Euba from the University of Pittsburg was invited to give
a series of lectures at the Central Conservatory of Music. During our conversa-
tion, he expressed the desire to hold a small-scale seminar on African music, an idea
that appealed to us and was supported by the head of the school. Later, the Central
Conservatory of Music decided to make the seminar a conference that integrated aca-
demic discussions, musical performances, lectures, and musical workshops. We also
invited scholars from China, the United States, and Africa to attend. During the confer-
ence, folk musicians from Hebei province, Yunnan province, and the United States gave
special concerts, and a number of African-American musicians presented workshops
on African drum music and African dancing for the students. Outside these activities,
the dialogue and exchange between musicians from home and abroad were inspiring.
The entire event was a success. In November 2006, while I was attending the Society for
Ethnomusicology (SEM) Conference in Atlanta, I had the opportunity to have lunch
with Professor Akin Euba, Dr. Kimasi Brown, and Dr. Kimberlin Cynthia. They had all
attended the Sino-African conference held by the Central Conservatory of Music, and
spoke highly of the experience. We all found the idea of holding a second Sino-Africa
conference on music extremely exciting.
After two years of preparation, and with a great deal of support and guidance from
school leaders, the second Sino-African Music Dialogue was held as planned. It was dur-
ing this conference, composed of seminars, musical performances, lectures, and musical
workshops, that the concept of “World Music Days” was first proposed. The workshops
were held a week prior to the conference proper, with scholars from abroad arriving
in Beijing in advance to give workshops on African music and dancing to Musicology
Department students—who, for the first time since the founding of the department, held
their own special concerts and performances (see Figure 21.6). With the second session
of the Sino-African Music Dialogue complete, we realized that such activities would
not only promote academic exchange and communication, but also provide valuable
opportunities to learn from music in other parts of the world. Up until this point, there
had been a lack of world music content in activities held by the conservatory, and the
Sino-African Music Dialogue represented an effective supplement to the conservatory’s
current teaching and academic systems. We decided to continue with these activities,
Figure 21.6 Musicology Department students at the Central Conservatory of Music giv-

ing their first public performance at the Recital Hall of the Conservatory during the World
Music Days, 2010.
Photographed by Zhao Liang in November 2010.
going on to hold World Music Days 2008: China-Finland Festival and Symposium
Dialogue in Music, World Music Days 2009: China–New Zealand and Pacific Festival
and Symposium Dialogue in Music, World Music Days 2010: China-India Festival
and Symposium Dialogue in Music, World Music Days 2011: China-Japan Festival and
Symposium Dialogue in Music, and World Music Days 2012: China–Indonesia Festival
and Symposium Dialogue in Music. The name “Festival and Symposium Dialogue in
Music” indicates that the conferences featured musical festivals as well as academic dis-
cussion and research.
Discussion
Cultural diversity is not a new phenomenon; exchanges between different regions and
cultures have been taking place since the early stages of human history. No culture
can exist in isolation, and it is only by selecting, absorbing, and integrating elements
from external sources that a culture can gain momentum for sustained development.
As the Western world began to lead the process of industrialization and moderniza-
tion, Western culture also ascended to a position of supreme global power. In this era
of “superculture,” exchanges between Western and non-Western cultures more closely
resemble a one-way transfer of Western culture to non-Western areas. Many regional
cultures confront a common dilemma: whether to cling to the traditional and reject
modernization, or to embrace modernization and abandon tradition. During the same
period, exchanges between regional cultures have diminished, swallowed up by the vast
shadow of globalization. Today’s world, however, is working hard to move out of this
shadow. It is a world in which different cultures can and do coexist, and in which com-
prehensive exchanges between different regions are increasingly frequent. Today, the
capacity to manage cross-cultural communication is an extremely significant asset (see
Figure 21.7).
World Music Days, an initiative that promotes equal dialogue between cultures of
different regions, is an active contribution to the world’s multicultural development.
Studying world music is one of the best ways to understand and appreciate the cultures
of other countries and regions, and the current system for teaching world music repre-
sents an effective integration of academic research and practice. Through a combination
of seminars, lectures, workshops, and performances, the “World Music Days” project
advances the development of course syllabuses, theoretical musicology, and ethnomusi-
cology, as well as the attendees’ personal experience and understanding of world music.
In practice, however, there are still some questions worthy of further consider-
ation: notably, the relationship between “reality on the stage” and “reality in real life.” The
American ethnomusicologist Jeff Titon has noted that if intangible cultural heritages are
placed on stage, this new context can have unintended negative consequences, one of
which is that staged authenticity for tourists is self-defeating, for such a scripted per-
formance can never be authentic (Titon, 2010). In the workshops organized for World
Music Days, professors and students from the Musicology Department danced African
dances, participated in the Samoa chorus, and enjoyed Cook Islands percussion music.
The music and dances featured in these workshops were all altered to make the task
Figure 21.7 Foreign professors and musicians visited Quantou village at the Baiyangdian
Lake region, Hebei province, and played folk music with the folk musicians during the World
Music Days in 2007. This was the first time the residents saw foreigners in their village.
Photographed by Rong Yingtao on October 2007.
of teaching them to foreigners easier, and although all the pieces chosen were authen-
tic, they were also very carefully selected. Nettl once criticized the American method
of instrumental teaching, pointing out that expecting students to understand the musi-
cal connotations of other cultures within a semester or two may cause them to come
to incorrect conclusions (Nettl, 1983: 264). Some universities in the United States offer
courses on Chinese instrumental ensembles, generally teaching simplified pieces such
as Xiyangyang (Happiness) and Bubugao (Stepping High). The students lack basic train-
ing on the instruments, and could easily develop misunderstandings about Chinese
instrumental ensembles during group performance. During World Music Days, stu-
dents from the Musicology Department experience the beauty of multiculturalism and
a sense of fulfillment by participating in the creation of cultural diversity. However, it is
important to note that while this has helped us to nurture positive attitudes toward cul-
tural diversity in our students, it does not necessarily enhance the students’ capacity to
understand a diversified culture, since these activities are out of our regular syllabus and
the music itself is out of their social contexts.
The World Music Days project also invited several performance groups from other
regions in China, and those folk musicians brought their local music to the Central
Conservatory of Music, China’s “musical shrine.” Although they were excited to per-
form at the conservatory, they also found it difficult to adapt—partly for psychological
reasons, and partly due to the change in performance space. Not only did this change
influence the acoustics, it also gave rise to cultural contradictions. A local opera group
from Shanxi province was once invited to give a concert during the festival. The per-
formers employed a special kind of male singing, one that is very loud and husky. The
sound was so ear-splitting that one-third of the audience left the concert hall; as it turned
out, the sound system had not been properly adjusted. Musicians performing in differ-
ent regions may also encounter cultural barriers. Performing folk music in its original
setting is obviously different from performing it in a conservatory. Should the music be
adjusted to fit to the space? Folk music festivals tend to showcase music from different
cultures on the same stage without any attempt to reflect their different backgrounds.
This is a new, self-inflicted kind of globalization, one in which it is impossible to ensure
the authenticity of either music or context.
Music festivals are one of the ways in which applied ethnomusicology has contributed
to the promotion of musical exchange and communication among different nations. At
the same time, juxtaposing voices from different cultural systems can have unexpected
results. The definition of “world music” (at least, in the Chinese sense) is the display of
music from different cultures within a global context. But is it still world music? The
World Music Days held at the Central Conservatory of Music were a showcase for dif-
ferent music cultures throughout the world, which is itself a kind of globalization, albeit
in the name of “cultural diversity.” Meanwhile, according to Li Xuanying’s observations
of the Nanning Folk Music Festival, “the success of folk music festivals contributes to
a strengthening of national spirit and a sense of national identity, as well as playing an
active role in enhancing national cohesion” (Li Xuanying, 2009: 294–295). She also notes
that “traditional folk music, especially original-style singing, has not had a regular pres-
ence in recent festivals, reflecting the fact that there is a lack of confidence in traditional
music; folk music is a combination of a number of different arts, and folk music festi-
vals could lose their original spiritual aims and aesthetic purposes if they overemphasize
modern and popular music just to satisfy the tastes of the masses” (2009: 296).
English Translations of Chinese Music Records:

Transmissions of Knowledge, Culture, and Thought
Chinese scholars have spent decades in the study of music, accumulating rich experi-
ences in the field. However, we still lack confidence when presenting our research find-
ings at international academic conferences, due to our lack of foreign language abilities.
Currently it is Sinologists, rather than Chinese scholars and professionals, who are the
spokespeople for research in Chinese music. Many Chinese scholars do not agree with
all of their research findings, but they are not able to present their own arguments due
to language difficulties. Beginning in 2010, and supported by a “211” sponsorship, I initi-
ated the translation and publication of several collected works on musicology, includ-
ing Discourse in Music: Collected Essays of the Central Conservatory of Music Musicology
Department (Zhang Boyu, 2010), Contemplations of Music: A Collection of Articles by
Yu Runyang (Yu Runyang, 2012), Africa Meets Asia: Proceedings of the 2005 and 2007
International Symposia on African and Chinese Music (Zhang Boyu, 2011), Traditional
Chinese Music in a Changing Contemporary Society: A Field Report and Music Collection
of the Quantou Village Music Association, Baiyangdian Lake Region, Hebei Province
(Zhang Boyu, 2013), and an English translation of 900 Chinese Musical Terms (Zhang
Boyu, 2010).
The Central Conservatory of Music, China Conservatory of Music, and Shanghai
Conservatory of Music, among others, are currently undertaking translation work for
the publication of English versions of various Chinese books and periodicals on music.
It is believed that such undertakings will only increase in the future.
Discussion
It is a common misconception that translation is all about language. In one sense, this is
correct, but translation practices have proved that the most difficult part of translation is
not language, but culture.
First, there is the translation of specialized vocabularies. According to Merriam, the
creation of music begins with concepts—that is, with the external expression of human
thought. These concepts reflect the different ways in which different people think. The
same holds true for music: Chinese music, for example, reflects the way Chinese people
think about the creation of music. Some concepts are similar in Chinese and English,
which reflects a common ground between the two peoples and makes translation much
easier. This includes concepts such as yueqi (musical instrument) and yinjie (scale). Most
of the time, however, there is no equivalent for a given Chinese musical term, whether
it be a theoretical term such as qupai, gongdiao, or banyan; an instrument name such as
pipa or erhu, an operatic genre such as Jingju, Chuanju, or Ganju, a form of instrumen-
tal ensemble such as Jiangnan Sizhu or Guangdong Yinyue, or a type of folksong such
as Xintianyou, Shanqu, and so on.18 Each of these words has rich connotations, which
translation cannot adequately reflect. But if we attempt to express those connotations,
then we are not translating but merely explaining.
The second thing to consider is the historical and cultural backgrounds of such words.
The study of music has been taking place in China for thousands of years, and there
is a historical background to many of these musical terms. The term zhudi, for exam-
ple, can be translated as “bamboo flute.” However, the same translation also perfectly
describes xiao, another traditional Chinese musical instrument quite different from
a zhudi. A xiao requires the player to blow vertically, while a zhudi is blown horizon-
tally. Because of this, zhudi was eventually translated as “transverse bamboo flute,” while
xiao was translated as “vertical bamboo flute.” Not only do these translations indicate
how the instruments are played, they also respect the long academic history of Chinese
music: historically, the zhudi was also known as a hengchui—“transverse blowing”—
while the xiao was called shuchui, or “vertically blowing.” The pipa is another example.
A frequently used translation for pipa is “a pear-shaped lute with four-stringed and a
bent neck.” Here, several different elements are combined to describe the instrument
in English: “pear-shaped,” “lute,” “four strings,” and “bent neck.” But how do we decide
which of these to include when creating a shorter translation? In ancient times, two dif-
ferent types of pipa were popular in China: the quxiang (bent neck) and the wuxian (five
strings). The terms “bent neck” and “five strings” are therefore essential in differentiat-
ing the two instruments. It is important to note that the phrase “pear-shaped” was never
historically used, and that the commonly used translation “pear-shaped lute” is incom-
patible with historical practices. From this, it is clear that the process of translation is a
process of comprehension and understanding. A good translation cannot exist without
a profound understanding of the relevant culture and history.
Aesthetics are a particular difficulty in translation. For example, the titles of certain
famous music compositions and books are inseparable from ancient Chinese aesthetic
awareness. Chun Jiang Hua Yue Ye, a popular instrumental piece, can be translated lit-
erally as “Spring, River, Flower, Moon and Night.” However, this title conveys not only
a beautiful image but also the cadences of the tones; the Chinese characters are com-
bined as Chunjiang Huayueye. The translation “Spring River and Flowery Moon Night,”
therefore, better respects the rhythm and 2 + 3 structure of the original Chinese title.
Generally speaking, it is possible to translate basic connotations from one language to
another, but it is impossible to maintain the original rhymes and rhythms.
Musical Instrument Exhibition Centre: A Decorative Art?

In 2009, the Central Conservatory launched the third phase of the “211” project, estab-
lishing the Musical Instrument Exhibition Centre. This project was expected to be com-
pleted in 2010.
At present, the Musical Instrument Exhibition Centre is located on the first floor
of the conservatory’s new teaching building, with an area of 150 square meters (see
Figures 21.8 and 21.9). Three groups of instruments have been collected thus far for dis-
play. The first group consists replicas of ancient musical instruments, such as the Ling
bell from Xiangfen, Shanxi province, and the Ling bell from Yanshi, Henan province, the
originals of which are the oldest metal musical instruments to be found from the Shang
period; a Nao set composed of three pieces, the originals of which were unearthed from
No. 699 tomb at Yinxu, Anyang, in Henan province; Bozhong, a replica of one of the 65
bells from the “Chime-Bells of the Tomb of Marquis of Zeng”; Duo, a replica of one of
the oldest bells made during the Spring and Autumn period; Goudiao, a replica of one
of eight bells made during the Han dynasty for the King of Yue State; Zheng, a replica
of the original gong unearthed from Zigui county, Hubei province in 1985; Tonghuan
Shouzheng, a zheng with a ring on the top, the original of which was unearthed from
Hongshan Qiuchengdun in Wuxi, Jiangxu province, in 2004; Zenghouyi Bianzhong,
replicas of 24 of the 65 bells from the “Chime-Bells of the Tomb of Marquis of Zeng”;
Zenghouyi Bianqing, a replica of the “Stone-Chime of the Tomb of Marquis of Zeng”;
Xuangu, a suspended drum, the original of which was unearthed from Hongshan
Qiuchengdun in Wuxi, Jiangxu province, in 2004; Luozhuang Bianzhong, a replica of a
set of 19 chime-bells unearthed from Luozhuang in Shandong province; Erxing Zhong,
Figure 21.8 The Musical Instrument Exhibition Centre at the Central Conservatory of Music.
Photographed by Wang Xianyan in May 2010.
Figure 21.9 A set of copied bells exhibited at the Musical Instrument Exhibition Centre at
the Central Conservatory of Music.
Photographed by Wang Xianyan in May 2010.
replicas of four bells made during the Western Zhou dynasty and unearthed from pit
No. 1 at Fufeng in Shaanxi province; a large Nao with elephant ornamentations, the orig-
inal of which was unearthed from Shiguzhai village, Ningxiang county, Hunan prov-
ince in 1959; Chunyu, a replica of a metal jar used as a military instrument, the original
of which was unearthed from Qianyuping village, Changyang county, Hubei province
in 1964; Tonggu, a metal drum, the original of which was unearthed from Wanjiaba,
Chuxiong city, Yunnan province, in 1975; and Yangjiao Zhong, a goat horn bell, the origi-
nal of which was unearthed from Chuxiong, Yunnan province, in 1975.
The second group includes instruments collected from different areas in China,
including Tibetan musical instruments, folk music instruments from the Xinjiang
Autonomous Region, instruments from the Wa and Naxi ethnic groups in Yunnan
province and of the Dong ethnic group in Guangxi province, and so on. There are also
some Han musical instruments—some old, some newly made or polished—which were
collected from Fujian, Chaozhou, Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu, Tianjin, Beijing,
and Heilongjiang. The last group consists of frequently used musical instruments of the
Han majority such as the erhu, pipa, guzheng and guqin, and so on. The collection con-
tains more than 250 items in total.
Discussion
Purpose of Construction
Establishing a musical instrument museum has been a dream for generations of
Chinese music scholars. Professors from the Music Research Institute of the China Arts
Academy worked for years to establish a new era of Chinese musical instrument col-
lection (Zhang Zhentao, 2009). Research funds for Chinese universities are increasing
year by year, which has provided scholars with the financial support required to realize
the dream of building such museums. After the project was launched, more and more
universities began to participate, investing varying levels of funds. China is a vast coun-
try, and it should not be considered unusual for such a country to have several musi-
cal instrument museums. After all, there are museums in each of the provinces as well
as on the national level. The question is, should musical instruments be viewed as cul-
tural relics? Of course, ancient instruments that have been excavated are cultural relics;
however, these are already preserved in provincial museums. The Musical Instrument
Exhibition Centre is closer to an exhibition of music cultures, or perhaps a small-scale
display of cultural ornaments. In this sense, the items we choose to display can be viewed
as cultural relics (as in other museums), cultural representatives (as in large-scale dis-
plays of musical instruments), and ornaments (as in small-scale displays). However,
the significance of each of these three aspects is different. As cultural relics, the items
on display represent the remains of history, glimpses into the workings of time; as cul-
tural representatives, these items are tokens of another culture, offering insights into the
lives of the people who played them; as decorations, we can observe the connection and
interaction between the items and their environments. Each instrument is displayed
in a precise order, according to how it is viewed. For example, cultural relics cannot
be touched, whereas cultural representatives should be experienced by the visitors in
person, and decorations should not upstage the other elements. It is only with thorough
and in-depth consideration of these factors that the exhibition space can be rendered
meaningful and rewarding.
Cultural Migration
Ethnomusicologists believe that it is their responsibility to protect the musical heritages
of human beings. Under the flag of cultural relativism, they uphold the value of music
in the past, the present, and the future. They emphasize the relationship between music
and its environment, arguing that music cannot be studied alone but must be considered
together with its home environment A musical instrument museum, however, extracts
its subject—the instrument—from its musical system, and places it in a new, relatively
isolated environment, so as to determine targets and channels for cultural apprecia-
tion and comprehension, both by people inside and outside the original musical sys-
tem. The building of such museums is a purely material affair, one that is separated from
other factors such as sound, performance, and culture, and that leads to the removal of
musical instruments from the cultural regions they originally belonged to. A pertinent
example is the transportation of musical instruments from all around the country to the
Exhibition Centre at the Central Conservatory of Music. There is a wooden drum from
the Wa ethnic group in the conservatory’s collection, which was purchased in Ximeng
County, Yunnan province. With the assistance of the County’s Culture Bureau and
Culture Institute, we had selected a drum that was perfectly made, with almost no flaws.
During the ceremony for moving the drum from Ximeng to Beijing, I said to it, “You
are about to leave home, and you might feel lonely.” The director of the Culture Institute
added, “You are going to live a better life in Beijing.” Unfortunately, due to the long jour-
ney and the change of climate, there are now some cracks on the drum. Not only does
this represent the physical sacrifice of cultural migration, but it is also a shock to the
original culture and spirits—for the Wa people do believe that these wooden drums
have spirits.
Beneficiaries of Construction
Museums are an essential part of cultural development, with social responsibilities and
the obligation to open to the public after construction is completed. The exhibition of
musical instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York functions as a
collection as well as a public display. The Musical Instruments Museum in Stockholm
focuses on exhibition and public education, allowing visitors to enjoy the subtle beauty
of music while experiencing the wonders of technology. The Sibelius Museum in Turku,
Finland, is part of the Abo Academi University’s Musicology Department and, though
small, reflects the academic structure of the department. All of the above museums are
open to the public, and all have become destinations for local visitors. The Exhibition
Centre at the Central Conservatory of Music is located inside the teaching building. The
question must be asked: Who can visit this room? If the visitors are the Conservatory’s
own students, how can we update the collection to provide them with new information?
The musical instrument display room in the China Arts Research Institute originates
from the 1950s, and has relocated from a fourth-floor space in Xinyuanli to a new build-
ing in Xiaoying. The display room holds hundreds of instruments, including dozens of
priceless guqin, and has been home to several Chinese and foreign traveling exhibitions
(Zhang Zhentao, 2009). However, it must be acknowledged that there is still no musical
instrument museum in any real sense at the present time in China.
Theoretical Bases
Museums are places of specialization, not only in the field of musicology, but also in any
and all fields related to the items they have on display. Exhibitions of musical instru-
ments, therefore, have much to do with the study of musical instruments, organology,
and musicology. The classification, manufacture, use, and proscription of such musical
instruments are all connected fields, as are fields related to the music, people, customs,
and aesthetics behind the instruments on display. So what is the theoretical basis for the
construction of these exhibitions? Zhang Zhentao believes that “we should not view the
collection of musical instruments as a historical activity, but rather one that reflects both
the national consciousness and the spirit of an era; the musical and historical signifi-
cance of constructing musical instrument exhibitions gives rise to even more academic
topics for further discussion” (Zhang Zhentao, 2009). Unfortunately, the collection of
instruments that began with Li Yuanqing and Yang Yinliu, both former directors of the
Music Research Institute, has not yet given rise to any such topics.
Conclusion
Applied ethnomusicology is steadily attracting more and more attention, as it combines

academic research with real life practices and thus directly serves society. A conference
convened by the International Community of Traditional Music (ICTM) in Hanoi,
2010, was themed “applied ethnomusicology”; a conference convened by SEM in Los
Angeles, 2010, also took applied ethnomusicology as one of its themes. Topics covered at
this conference included music migrations and disasters; music, copyright, and human
rights; music and social activism; and film soundtracks (see http://www.ethnomusicol-
ogy.org/?Groups_SectionsAE). As ethnomusicologists, we hope that our work can be
of practical use to society, as well as providing perspectives for understanding music as
a social phenomenon. Applied ethnomusicology is an ideal way for us to add practical
value to the academic value of ethnomusicological study.
Social practice and theoretical reflection are two sides of the same coin, and any
new practice must be tested through theoretical analysis. This is how social practice
and social criticism can exist as opposing dimensions in a balanced relationship. There
are two aspects of applied ethnomusicology in China: social activities of an academic
nature performed by ethnomusicologists, and social practices that are supported and
sponsored by the government. In this case, applied ethnomusicology is not only a social
construction but the reflection of a social mechanism that balances the increase of
economic benefits with the building of a harmonious society. The difference between
the nature of applied ethnomusicology and that of theoretic ethnomusicology is clearly
manifest in both of these aspects. Applied ethnomusicology concerns itself not only
with individual choices but with group choices, and it has a positive impact on culture
and on society. Applied ethnomusicology also explores how traditional music can be of
value in today’s society, both as a “living heritage” and as evidence for its own protec-
tion, demonstrating that such traditions are still of great value to the modern world. It is
worth mentioning that reflections on current practices tend to focus on their problems,
as well as providing a theoretical basis for their improvement. Applied ethnomusicol-
ogy, therefore, should not be separated from theoretical ethnomusicology, for the latter
has the potential to provide value judgments for applied ethnomusicology both from
critical and practical perspectives.
Notes
1. CNKI, China National Knowledge Infrastructure net.
2. According to the map of PRC, Taiwan is included as one of the 23 provinces.
3. Gaoya Yishu Jin Xiaoyuan.
4. Bejing Jinrongjie Banshichu.
5. As of 2013, there have been three evaluations of intangible cultural heritage on the national
level in China. The first evaluation was published on May 20, 2006, with a total of 518 items
being approved. The second evaluation was published on June 14, 2008, with a total of
510 items being approved. The third evaluation was published on June 10, 2011; 191 items
were approved on this occasion, with 164 other items being placed on an expanded list of
items from the second evaluation. According to Chinese selection criteria, a national-level
project must first be listed at the province level. Therefore, each province must carry out its
own evaluation before submitting a project for national-level protection.
6. The above data are available on the Ministry of Culture’s Intangible Cultural Heritage
Department website (http://www.ccnt.gov.cn/sjzznew2011/fwzwhycs/), as well as the
Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage website (http://www.ihchina.cn/). See also Wang
Wenzhang’s book On the Research of Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection (in Chinese)
(Beijing: Culture and Arts Publishing House, 2013: 427, 437).
7. For a related report, see Zhu Yi’s “Impressions of China’s First Intangible Cultural
Heritage Exhibition,” Newspaper of People’s Political Consultative Committee (Renmin
Zhengxie Bao). February 15, 2006. Also available at http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2006-02-
15/09269105836.shtml.
8. Related reports, including videos, can be found on a large number of different Chinese
websites.
9. See “Series of Activities from the ‘Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage Tradition Skills
Exhibition,’ ” http://wenku.baidu.com/view/2e9edfaad1f34693daef3e75.html (accessed 29
July 29, 2013). This article can also be found in Chaozhou Daily, February 19, 2009, under
the title “To make Traditional Skills Embrace Modern Life.”
10. See “ ‘Achievements in the Production and Protection of Chinese Intangible Cultural
Heritage’ Exhibition Opens in Beijing,” http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2012-02/05/con-
tent_2058920.htm (accessed July 29, 2013).
11. Two of these activities were personally attended by the author.

12. See “The Inaugural China (Huangshan) Intangible Cultural Heritage Traditional Skills
Exhibition Opened on the 7th,” http://native.cnr.cn/city/201211/t20121106_511314960.html
13. See http://www.ccnt.gov.cn/sjzznew2011/fwzwhycs/ (accessed July 29, 2013).
14. There are two essential terms that need to be explained here. The Key Research Base for
Humanities and Social Sciences was a plan executed by the education administration in
1999. It aimed to set up 151 key research bases for the humanities and social sciences in 66
universities. The Musicology Research Institute at the Central Conservatory of Music is
currently the only research base for the arts. The “211 Project,” on the other hand, was a
strategic project proposed in the early 1990s. Looking toward the twenty-first century, it
aimed to build around 100 high-level education universities, which was the largest key
construction project in the field of high-level education since the founding of New China.
The Central Conservatory of Music is the only art school listed in the “211 project.” Chinese
government defines a term as three years, and provided three terms’ worth of capital for
the Central Conservatory of Music’s education facilities, teacher training, and research.
15. Yuansheng Tai.
16. See Xiaojing (The Classic of Filial Piety), chapter 12, “Broad and Crucial Doctrine”: Yifeng
Yisu, Moshan Yuyue, English translation as “for changing the customs and traditions there
is nothing better than music.” For English version of Xiaojing, see website:
http://www.tsoidug.org/Xiao/Xiao_Jing_Comment.pdf.
For Confucius’s music thought, see also Lunyu (Confucian Analects), Book III.
Payi, chapters 1, 20, and 25; Book VII. Shuer, chapter 13, translated by James Legge
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893, reprinted by Cosimo in 2006).
17. Yigu Zuoqi, Mingjin Shoubing.
18. Qupai (labeled tunes); gongdiao (pitch and mode); banyan (beat and eyes, or “metre”); pipa
(four-stringed lute); erhu (two-stringed fiddle); Jingju (Beijing opera); Chuanju (Sichuan
opera); Ganju (Gan opera, a local opera Jiangxi province); Jiangnan Sizhu (silk-and-bamboo,
a local ensemble popular in Southern Jiangsu province); Guangdong Yinyue (an instrumen-
tal ensemble in Guangdong); Xintainyou (floating on sky, a type of folksong popular in West
Shaanxi province); Shanqu (mountain songs, a type of folksong popular in Shanxi province).
Glossary
Akesu 阿克苏
Baiyangdian 白洋淀
banhu 板胡
banyan 板眼
Bejing Jinrongjie Banshichu 北京金融街办事处
Bozhong 镈钟
Bubugao 步步高
Cao Jun 曹军
Changdiao 长调
Chuanju 川剧
Chun Jiang Hua Yue Ye 春江花月夜
Chunyu 大錞于
Chuxiong, Yunnan province 云南楚雄
Dage 大歌
Daolang Muqam 刀朗木卡姆
Dayan Guyue She 大研古乐社
Dianbo Shijian 点播时间
Difangxi Zhichuang 地方戏之窗
dizi 笛子
Dong ethnic group 侗族
Dongba Palace 东巴宫
Dongjing 洞经
Dongzu Dage 侗族大歌
Duo 铎
erhu 二胡
Erxing Zhong 二兴钟
Fenghua Guoyue 风华国乐
Fufeng in Shaanxi province 陕西扶风
Ganju 赣剧
Gaoya Yishu Jin Xiaoyuan 高雅艺术进校园
Genwo Xue 跟我学
gongdiao 宫调
Goudiao 勾鑃
Guangdong Yinyue 广东音乐
Guoba Yin 过把瘾
Guqin (guqin) 古琴
guzheng 古筝
Haicai Qiang 海菜腔
Hami Muqam 哈密木卡姆
Han pipa 汉族琵琶
Hengchui 横吹
Hetian 和田
Hongshan Qiuchengdun in Wuxi 无锡鸿山丘承墩
Humai 呼麦
Jiangnan Sizhu 江南丝竹
Jiaqu Youyue 佳曲有约
Jingju 京剧
Jiuzhou Daxitai 九洲大戏台
Kongzhong Juyuan 空中剧院
Kuche 库车
Kunqu 昆曲
Li Jilian 李季莲
Li Kairong 李开荣
Li Sue 李素娥
Li Xuanying 李宣颖
Lijiang 丽江
Ling 铃
Lingting Tianlai 聆听天籁
Liyuan Leitai 梨园擂台
Luozhuang Bianzhong 洛庄编钟
Luozhuang in Shandong province 山东洛庄
Lü Lulu 吕路路
Mingduan Xinshang 名段欣赏
Moyu 墨玉
Nanqiang Beidiao 南腔北调
Nao 大铙
Nao set 编铙
Naxi 纳西
pipa 琵琶
Pishan 皮山
Qianyuping village, Changyang county, Hubei province 湖北长阳千渔坪
Quantou Village Music Association 圈头村“音乐会”
Qupai 曲牌
Quxiang 曲项
Shanqu 山曲
sheng 笙
Shiguzhai village, Ningxiang county, Hunan province 湖南宁乡师古寨
Shuchui 竖吹
Su Qianzhong 苏前忠
suogudu 索古都
suona 唢呐
Tashikurgan 塔什库尔干
Tiantan Shanting Teshu Hechangdui 天坛扇亭特殊合唱队
Tonggu 铜鼓
Tonghuan Shouzheng 铜环首钲
Turfan Muqam 吐鲁番木卡姆
Twelve Muqam 十二木卡姆
Wa ethnic group 佤族
Wanjiaba, Chuxiong city, Yunnan province 云南楚雄万家坝
Women Youyue 我们有约
Wu Xiulin 吴修林
Wu Xueyuan 吴学源
Wuxian 五弦
Xiangfen, Shanxi province 山西襄汾

Xiao 箫
Xiaoying 小营
Ximeng County 西蒙县
Xintianyou 信天游
Xinyuanli 新源里
Xiqu Fengcai 戏曲风采
Xiyangyang 喜洋洋
Xiyuan Baijia 戏苑百家
Xu Shuyun 徐淑云
Xuangu 悬鼓
Yang Xifan 杨曦帆
yangqin 扬琴
Yangjiao Zhong 羊角钟
Yanshi, Henan province 河南偃师
Yigu Zuoqi, Mingjin Shoubing 一鼓作气, 鸣金收兵
Yinxu, Anyang in Henan province 河南安阳殷虚
Yizu Haicaiqiang 彝族海菜腔
Yu Renhao 俞人豪
Yu Runyang 于润洋
Yuan Jingfang 袁静芳
Yuansheng Tai 原生态
Yueqi 乐器
Zhang Boyu 张伯瑜
Zhang Xia 张霞
Zhang Xiaoyan 张晓艳
Zhang Zhentao 张振涛
Zheng 筝
Zhou Heping 周和平
Zhou Ji 周吉
Zhou Xianbao 周显宝
Zhudi 竹笛
Zenghouyi Bianqing 曾侯乙墓编磬
Zenghouyi Bianzhong 曾侯乙墓编钟
Zigui county, Hubei province 湖北秭归
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http://www.ethnomusicology.org
http://www.ccnt.gov.cn/sjzznew2011/fwzwhycs/
http://www.ihchina.cn
http://wenku.baidu.com/view/
http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/
http://native.cnr.cn/city/
http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/
Chapter 22
The Probl e m a nd
P otential of C omme rc e
Alan Williams
Ethnomusicology and its related disciplines, anthropology and folklore studies, have
a long and often difficult history of commercial encounters. Examples of conflicting
agendas and accusations of exploitation abound, and nowhere are they more present
than in instances where concerned parties attempted to do something with the results of
scholastic inquiry. John and Alan Lomax’s representation of Leadbelly and Steven Feld’s
attempts to disseminate his recordings in the marketplace1 are but two case studies of
uneasy alliances between academy and industry (Feld, 1991a; Filene, 2000; Szwed, 2010).
Yet, the dictum of applied ethnography—serve those who contribute to the
research—sometimes leads to partnerships in commercial endeavors, and examples of
such partnerships have increased exponentially in the post-Internet age. This chapter
investigates some of these historical case studies, and documents more recent projects
that attempt to disseminate information while simultaneously generating capital, often
with the ostensible goal of benefiting those whose musical activities provide the primary
and most commercially valuable content.
I focus on the intersection of technology, media, and marketing—a cultural space
where all three factors contribute to the creation, capture, and dissemination of musi-
cal practices transformed into musical products. Recorded music in any form can both
inform and entertain, and there are numerous examples of research-generated artifacts
becoming commoditized product, just as commercial releases form the body of mate-
rial of thousands of research studies. Perhaps more important, communication technol-
ogy provides a platform for distribution of these audiovisual artifacts far beyond the
limited points of access provided by libraries and record stores.
The discipline of ethnomusicology emerged in part as a challenge to previously held
conceptions of what constituted music scholarship. In the commercial realm, figures
within the culture industry present alternative definitions of “scholar” and “institu-
tion.” In recent decades, a number of popular Western musicians—Paul Simon, Peter
Gabriel, David Byrne, Ry Cooder, Damon Albarn, and others—have served as cultural
brokers, simultaneously exploiting and promoting music and musicians from outside
The Problem and Potential of Commerce 773
the Western mainstream. Undoubtedly as complicated as the cases of Lomax and Feld, it
is apparent that their efforts have benefited a number of musicians directly, while estab-
lishing a market that indirectly serves many hundreds more.
Can such commercial ventures be viewed as applied ethnomusicology? Beyond the
question of whether a pop star can be considered a scholar, or whether a multinational
media conglomerate an academic institution, I argue that projects like Real World
Records, or the Buena Vista Social Club, disseminate cultural knowledge far beyond
the walls of the academy. While degree-validated scholars can certainly question the
legitimacy of such “knowledge,” the impact of these projects highlights the disconnect
between traditional scholarly research and those outside the academy. To paraphrase
the famous marketing slogan/album title, “50 million Ladysmith Black Mambazo fans
can’t be wrong.”
But just as activist/curious pop stars used the power of the industry that produced
them, seismic shifts in Internet-based communication have undermined the hege-
monic power of the twentieth-century culture industries. Amateur music enthusiasts
with little to no support from any institution, academic or commercial, have harnessed
the power of the Web to initiate a discourse and system of knowledge exchange with a
socially activist agenda. In turn, both the academy and the commercial industry have
begun to mirror strategies and methodologies developed by wi-fi-enabled armchair
activists. In recent years, largely as a result of the collapse of the record industry in the
wake of peer-to-peer file sharing, a common truism has emerged in music business
discourse—“we are no longer a product industry; we are a service industry.” The empha-
sis (perhaps more accurately stated as a dependence) on service aligns neatly, if some-
what uncomfortably, with the aims of applied scholarship. And academic institutions,
where the Open Source movement began (Friedman, 2007), have increasingly opened
their storehouses of secrets to the general public, engaging in dialog concerned with
access to knowledge, providing resource to community, and facilitating exchange.
From my own experience as an instructor in music business degree programs, I can
attest to a shift in the interest, goals, and methodologies of the newer generation of cul-
ture industry managers. Rather than a focus on commercial exploitation and career
advancement, many of these students approach the music business as a platform for
connecting musicians and audiences, and see their role as facilitator rather than profi-
teer. This generation, raised on the connectivity of the Internet, sees grassroots activ-
ism as a given, a normative model for any exchange of music, commoditized or not.
While prior generations of corporate-based moguls may tout “service” as the new mode
of operations, the immediate future of the industry lies in the hands of people whose
biggest challenge is sustainability, rather than distribution or promotion.
I argue that these are all positive developments, not inherently in conflict, and poten-
tially transformative in ways that we have only begun to envision. As I see it, the role of
an academically based applied ethnomusicologist will be to contribute to the discourse
by providing guidance based on decades of lessons learned about the potential dangers
of exploitation, unrealistic expectations, and missed opportunities. If the challenge is
whether to get involved, or get out of the way, perhaps we can provide the wisdom to
know the difference.
774 Alan Williams
Cultural Merchants and Brokers
The primary goal of any academic research is to produce “knowledge” of some form
or another. Data is knowledge; history is knowledge; ideas are knowledge. But what to
do with all this acquired knowledge? For some, knowledge was produced for the ben-
efit of the elitist cult of the academy, where encounters with knowledge produces still
more knowledge. But for many, a good idea needs to be shared, and shared beyond the
ivy-coated walls of the university. For almost any trained academician, publishing text
is the natural outcome of knowledge production. But for ethnomusicologists and other
field-centered, humanities-based researchers, it is often the people encountered in the
course of research that should be “shared” with the world. Musicians present some of
the most obvious non-text-related opportunities for public presentation, either in the
form of sound (and video) recordings, or in concert performances. According to Daniel
Sheehy, “the fundamental importance of the role of the folklorist is “transcontextualiz-
ing,” if you will, or transferring the folk musician from a traditional context to a public,
non-traditional setting” (Sheehy, 1999: 220).
The impulse to “share” is not unique to folklorists; indeed it is a common response
for many who encounter culture that resonates on a personal level. But academics with
institutional support are in a privileged position that amplifies their voices and dissemi-
nates their tastes and agendas beyond the means available to most music fans. In this
way, when ethnomusicologists champion an artist, they are in essence promoting their
personal ideologies. The power of the gatekeeper lies in their ability to have other voices
substitute for their own, and for a multiplicity of those voices to more effectively com-
municate the ideas of the solitary “voice” of authority. When radio hosts select a collec-
tion of music for broadcast, they are certainly promoting the individual musicians given
airtime, but the collection itself is a statement, authored by the equally identified on-air
personality. Promoting the music of others is a form of self-promotion as well.
The role of ego in such promotion does not undercut the benefits that the promoted
musicians receive. Income-producing, artistically validating careers often result from
temporary partnerships with public folklorists and ethnomusicologists. Some per-
formers have then gone on to eclipse their gatekeeping patrons in terms of impact and
influence. My main argument here is that conditions of self-promotion and cultural
promotion exist in any effort to share the outcomes of a collaborative endeavor, and that
neither inherently negates the value of the other.
Consider the case of Alan Lomax, the first widely recognized folklorist, nearly as
well-known as his most famous discoveries. The term “discoveries” is itself highly
charged, implying that individuals, cultures, and indeed entire civilizations don’t truly
exist until encountered and subsequently represented by (historically Western male) cul-
tural capitalists. But while folklorists like Lomax merely recorded musical practices that
had been in play in some form since the dawn of time, the moment of their recording
signals a decisive turn, one that in many cases permanently alters the course of both the
culture captured by the recording device, and all of those who subsequently encounter the
recorded sounds. In this regard, Lomax was a pyromaniac non pareil, with musical culture
as tinderwood, recording technology as accelerant, and the folklorist striking the match.
Alan Lomax began his career assisting his father John on a number of song-collecting
fieldtrips. But whereas Lomax senior was primarily concerned with collating texts, Alan
became obsessed with the possibilities that sound recording had for both capturing and
transmitting musical cultures as they existed, free from the mediation of scholars who
often “corrected” the texts they compiled, or rearranged and composed in the form of
notated “transcriptions.” Of course, as many have observed, the act of recording is far
from un-mediated, but this does not change the fact that Lomax viewed his efforts from
that perspective. And while the results may be flawed, the sheer amount of recorded
material he produced in his lifetime now serves as a repository of global musical prac-
tices that, while failing to represent the history of music over time and across borders,
stands as a towering achievement in documenting sounds of human inhabitants of
planet earth in the mid-twentieth century.
But documenting alone was never the end goal for Lomax. To be truly useful, the
music had to be made available to the public. While many of his field trips were funded
by government agencies such as the Library of Congress, ostensibly to be cataloged and
archived, Lomax went to great efforts to share the results with the public by arranging
for the commercial release of recordings, by broadcasting the music on radio programs
that he conceived, scripted, and hosted, by promoting and staging concert events large
and small, and in the case of Leadbelly, by acting as a professional agent and manager.2
The significance of Lomax and his accomplishments lies in his dual role as archivist and
popularizer. For Lomax, the music industry was a vital tool for establishing the value of
folk cultures, and facilitating cross-cultural understanding in ways that had both artistic
and political consequences, even as he would later lament the impact of the same indus-
try in permanently altering the cultures he sought to praise and promote.
As biographer John Szwed points out, Lomax the folklorist was never far removed
from Lomax the music business professional. For every instance of professional efforts
following folklore-inspired enterprise (as was the case with Leadbelly), many contri-
butions to folkloric scholarship resulted from field trips sponsored by commercial
interests. For many observers, much of his work was conducted under suspicious cir-
cumstances, and accusations of conflicts of interest dogged him even from the earliest
days of his career. Lomax was not insensitive to the potential for exploitation, even
if inadvertent, and made considerable efforts to share in any financial rewards that
his fieldwork produced. But as a man struggling to feed a family, he did not see him-
self as someone in the position to act out of purely altruistic motivation. According
to Szwed,
Alan (Lomax)’s view was that the folklorist who recorded a song in the field was
obliged to ensure that the singer was paid for his work, but should also have a share
of the royalties in consideration for his or her role as a collector if the record was ever
sold commercially. Alan’s reasoning was that composers of folk songs were not likely
776 Alan Williams
ever to be recorded nor ever to earn any money from their songs without the help
and guidance of someone devoted to the music and its preservation.
(Szwed, 2010: 294)
Profits resulted from combined forces of labor, and Lomax clearly understood the value
of his efforts in the marketplace. The “help and guidance” that Szwed refers to encom-
pass both his roles: as gatekeeper, assessing the musical worth of a song or performance,
and as music industry liaison, establishing conditions that would transform artistic
value into commodity value. The key word in Szwed’s description is “devoted,” a concept
that ostensibly separates Lomax from artists and repertoire (A&R) scouts like Victor’s
Ralph Peer or ARC’s Don Law. For me, the distinction is far from clear, with men like
Peer and Law (as well as Columbia scout John Hammond, and later figures like Ahmet
Ertegun and the Chess Brothers) acquiring and exercising enough understanding of
the music they encountered to successfully document and present to appreciative audi-
ences, while in many cases establishing long-term relationships with the musicians they
“exploited” (Kennedy and McNutt, 1999).
For Lomax, his relationships with his informants resulted in partnerships where
each collaborator brought a different set of skills and resources to the table. If
Leadbelly contributed both a knowledge of a body of folksongs, and the ability to
creatively mold those traditions to craft personal artistic statements, Lomax brought
a critical ear that could filter those statements for maximum resonance with the audi-
ences that Lomax knew how to reach through both public sector and commercial
realms. If Leadbelly proved a quick study, learning to assess an audience, and provide
what they were willing to pay for, Lomax also learned how to turn cultural traditions
into vehicles for personal expression. On many occasions, Lomax was called upon to
perform himself, singing ballads and worksongs learned in the course of fieldwork,
and inextricably weaving his voice into the tapestry of American musical culture. If
anything, Lomax’s own performing career is evidence of an ego-driven exploiter-
artist, content to receive the attention, accolades, and bounty otherwise due to those
whose music and culture he endeavored to enact. Neither Peer, Law, Hammond,
Ertegun, or the Chess Brothers ever placed their picture on the cover of an album
(though their names were often present in liner notes, or in the logos for the labels
they worked for or owned).3
Issues of copyright ownership plague both the history of the music business and that
of documented folklore. Publishing and licensing fees account for the largest source of
music industry revenue, and many songwriters have seen others amass considerable
wealth by controlling the copyright to their work. Lomax was not immune to these con-
ditions, and while he often claimed copyright for music at the behest of book publishers
and record companies hoping to avoid eventual litigation, his estate has received consid-
erable income from more recent uses of some of the recordings and compositions under
his control. In this regard, he is no different from any number of music industry giants,
though in many instances he made considerable efforts to direct funds to those who
contributed to his archive (a clear break from standard “industry practice”).
Some of the most complicated aspects of folklore/commercial partnerships concern

the visible presence of the folklorist in the end product, and Lomax is somewhat unique
in this regard. As Lomax gradually amassed both more recordings and an enhanced
public visibility, this name association took on a commodity value of its own. Though
this conversion of cultural capital to commodity capital was greatly accelerated after his
death, Lomax himself took advantage of his public reputation, and was well aware of the
market value of his name. The notoriety of the public figure worked against Lomax in
terms of his acceptance by the academy. Indeed, the value of an academic’s scholarship
is often inversely proportional to his or her existence as a public intellectual. The work
of Henry Louis Gates or Neil Degrasse Tyson becomes less citation-worthy with every
television appearance. For scholars whose work catches the public’s attention, issues of
exploitation become complicated further. While the impulse to share that often drives
the collaboration between scholars and industry is borne from the kind of devotion
Szwed attributes to Lomax, the results of a project that “hits” in the commercial realm
are often more than anyone bargained for.
Steven Feld’s participation in disseminating the music of the Kaluli peoples of
the Bosavi region of Papua, New Guinea, is a case in point, made all the more vivid
by Feld’s grappling with the issues in scholarly forums (Feld, 1990).4 The Voices of the
Rainforest CD, produced by Feld and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart and issued
by Rykodisc, illustrates many of the tensions that arise from conflicting agendas, even
when those differences are matters of degree rather than diametric opposition. For Feld,
a recording that highlighted the significant relationship between music and environ-
ment was an extension of scholastic enterprise, in a form that presented his ideas in ways
that surpassed the capabilities of text-based publication. Even if the alliance required
that the culturally sensitive scholar grapple with issues of representation posed by the
realities of CD artwork packaging, and so on, the relationship with a globally distributed
independent company held the promise that revenue would be generated and directed
to the peoples with whom Feld had bonded after years of research. As cultural interme-
diary, Feld was well aware of the forces that threated the Kaluli and their way of life; a
recording that made the case for environmental conservation and brought the precari-
ous status of Bosavi to the attention of the world could potentially do even more to aid
his informants than the profits generated by the enterprise.
But Feld was also keenly aware that the outside world was already encroaching on
Bosavi, irrevocably impacting the Kaluli, and that his audio representation of a way of
life was myopically idealistic in its exclusion of the sounds of the modern world, both
industrial and musical. The fact that the roar of a jet airplane was already part of the
environmental soundscape was not lost on Feld. Yet his desire to craft an idealized and
heavily nostalgic Bosavi soundscape depended upon considerable technological medi-
ation. Working methodically with his field recordings, he carefully layered fragments
of environmental sounds interspersed with those of the Kaluli, to craft a sound collage
meant to represent “twenty-four hours of a day in the life of Bosavi in one continuous
hour” (Feld, 1991: 134). The presence of industrial engines in this soundscape would
presumably have been as distressing for the consumer as it was for Feld. This (mis)
778 Alan Williams
representation is an example of how scholars frame their research outcomes according

to their own agendas, as well as how the entertainment industry attempts to fulfill an
audience’s expectations, to “give the people what they want.”
If the construct of Voices of the Rainforest gave Feld pause, his subsequent efforts at
presenting the music of the region sought to acknowledge, and perhaps begrudg-
ingly accept, the full range of sonic experience in New Guinea, including new forms of
technologically mediated Kaluli culture. A three-disc set entitled Bosavi, compiled by
Feld and issued by Smithsonian Folkways, included several examples of amplified gui-
tar bands recasting older, now vanished, Kaluli musical practices in the timbres of the
modern Western world.5 The presence of these recordings alongside examples drawn
from Feld’s earlier field recordings gives the listener a more complete aural picture of the
region, and illustrates how an increasingly hybridized global culture yields results coun-
ter to Lomax’s oft-referenced “cultural grey-out.”
Feld continued to explore the intersection of technology and musical creation in
his subsequent work on jazz in Accra, Ghana. Encountering music in the field that is
expressly the result of globalized networks of cultural distribution, Feld has imposed
a similar impressionist framework to present his personal experience of the musical
expressions of others. While continuing to publish books and articles in scholarly jour-
nals, he also produces recordings that simultaneously represent the music he researches
while standing as expressions of his own artistic sensibilities. He is scholar, activist,
and artist. He is also a willing participant in the commoditization of culture. In 2003,
Feld founded VoxLox, a company that, according to its website, “publish(es) CD, DVD,
and book projects at the crossroads of anthropology and sound and visual art” (Feld,
2013).6 The VoxLox catalog is an intriguing mixture of field recordings, collaborations
with musicians encountered in New Guinea and Ghana, and Feld’s own artistic creative
expressions. In this manner, he utilizes his understanding of music industry operations
to extend opportunities for his research partners to reach audiences beyond their local
region. At the same time, by placing his own creative output alongside his collaborators,
he levels the hierarchical distance between resource-privileged Westerner and fieldwork
informants.
In broad strokes, Feld serves as a model for how an applied ethnomusicologist can
work with and within the music industry to both spread the knowledge gained through
research beyond the walls of the academy, and serve the needs of his informants, in terms
of publicizing their plight as well as generating income. For example, Feld established a
foundation to direct funds toward initiatives intended to help battle the encroachment
of disease, and the decimation of an environment that supplies food and shelter to the
Kaluli (Feld, 1991a). Everyone wins, even if no one escapes without a few bumps and
bruises. Examining the specifics of the case study reveals many of the potential pitfalls
surrounding any enterprise that must balance the needs of commerce, the needs of the
academy, and most important, the needs of the community. These collaborations gener-
ate another field of knowledge—the history of their own creation—that can aid in guid-
ing the efforts of others endeavoring to promote, advocate, and provide for all those who
contribute to research.
Creative Alliances: Mutually
Beneficial Exploitation
In a film documenting the making of Paul Simon’s Graceland album and subsequent pro-
motional tours, South African guitarist Ray Phiri emphatically states, “It was two-way
traffic; we used Paul as much as he used us. There was no abuse.”7 Graceland was both
the product of and the leading example of the world music genre that emerged in the
1980s. In its wake, several musicians associated with the project experienced substan-
tially increased exposure, resulting in commercial viability of their own in the global
marketplace. Simon’s record label Warner Brothers issued albums by Ladysmith Black
Mambazo (produced by Simon’s recording engineer, Roy Halee), and Miriam Makeba,
whose career was resurrected as opening act and support vocalist for the Graceland
world tour. Additionally, many of the musicians, such as Phiri, who served as back-
ing musicians for Simon live and on record developed careers of their own as session
musicians, in some cases leaving South Africa for the more lucrative session scene of
New York. Clearly, their prominence in the marketing of the album established their
names and faces in the public sphere, putting them in much better stead after their work
with Simon than before he made his controversial trek to Johannesburg.
Here the benefits of exploitation worked in both directions. While Simon was a
well-established star, with massive success for both his partnership with Art Garfunkel,
and his early and mid-1970s solo work, his career trajectory took a downward turn fol-
lowing a lukewarm reunion event with Garfunkel in 1980. Graceland eventually not only
brought Simon back to the top of the charts, but became his most successful solo record-
ing to date. Whether intentional or not, the savvy marketing of late twentieth-century
exoticism boosted Simon’s commercial value to its highest point in decades, a peak he
has not since come close to matching. Certainly many musical figures have benefited
from generalized exoticized othering—Debussy, Stravinsky, Bartok, Colin McPhee,
Lou Harrison, Bing Crosby, and Dizzy Gillespie come quickly to mind—but few have
brought the sources of their inspiration to such prominence, preferring to keep their
encounters as more generally “cultural” than to forge alliances with specific individuals.
While Simon did not abandon his own career to devote his energies solely to those
of the South African musicians he championed, he clearly used his commercial and
cultural capital to help his collaborators secure solid backing from the corporate-level
music industry. This role as industry liaison put a new spin on earlier Western pop
star/world music performers alliances. When the Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones
made a recording of Moroccan musicians (eventually released posthumously in 1971),
the album was titled Brian Jones Presents the Pan Pipes of Jajouka. And while George
Harrison maintained a long relationship with sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, frequently
citing his mentor and providing exposure as an opening act in his 1970s live perfor-
mances, he was less directly involved in Shankar’s own industry connections (in large
part because Shankar had already established himself to some degree on the world
780 Alan Williams
stage prior to his association with Harrison). Simon’s efforts on behalf of the Graceland
musicians are noteworthy in transforming his role from one of cheerleader to that of
advocate.
It is one thing to celebrate the musical practices of others in the moment; it is another
to make a long-term commitment to advancing the careers of under-supported musi-
cians and the cultures they represent. David Byrne and Peter Gabriel are examples of
Western pop artists drawn to non-Western music, who have in turn devoted energies
toward promoting the music they admire and draw inspiration from. Both stars have
leveraged their cultural capital to create enterprises that work within the structures
of the music industry to further the cause of the music, and the careers of the musi-
cians that make it. Byrne’s Luaka Bop and Gabriel’s Real World record labels present
non-Western acts to Western audiences by issuing recordings that are created with the
same care and attention to detail, and often in the same facilities, afforded their own
recorded work, and benefit from the same distribution channels as their own com-
mercial output. If Simon protégés Ladysmith Black Mambazo demonstrated the com-
mercial viability of non-Western artists, the catalogs of both labels provided a bulk of
content with which to populate the newly allocated bin space in the world music section
of record stores across North American and Europe. Each label bore the unmistakable
imprint of their founders, with Luaka Bop tending toward idiosyncratic pop music from
around the globe, while Real World records presented more traditional regional styles,
though recorded in state of the art facilities, and mirroring the sonic detail of Gabriel’s
own work.8
The packaging of these releases extends the mission of presenting alternative views of
the value of non-Western music. Real World releases generally feature intriguing images
that often have little to do directly with the cultures that produce the music, but firmly
establish the recordings as “art” product. For Byrne, album artwork is a powerful tool for
reframing the exoticized “other” as a contemporary cultural equal.
Overall, we think of the music we work with as contemporary pop music, and we
try to present it as such. While something like Zap Mama’s first record could be, and
sometimes was, perceived as an “ethnic” record, we did our damnedest to alter that
perception. The CD covers go a long way, in my opinion, to creating this attitude. We
don’t do covers that look like folkloric records or like academic records of obscure
material of interest only to musicologists and a few weird fringe types… we work with
the designers to come up with a graphic statement that says “this music is as relevant
to your life and is as contemporary as Prodigy, Fiona Apple, or Cornershop.”
(Byrne, 2013)9
Though one could argue that the sumptuous artwork and pristine sonics of Luaka Bop
and Real World releases propagate an extension of a hegemonic contemporary Western
aesthetic, packaging the recorded performances of non-Western musicians in the same
manner as mainstream Western pop stars positions world music artists as equals in
the record store bins and living rooms in which the product is intended to reside. Yes,
the music is framed through Western ears and eyes, but these recordings are also evi-
dence that a number of culture brokers have deemed the music worthy of the frame.
Why shouldn’t a musician from Sudan be afforded the opportunity to record in a state of
the art facility, and be presented in a manner that differs markedly from commercially
released “ethnic” recordings of the mid-twentieth century? Gabriel was particularly sen-
sitive to accusations of exploitation as his 1980s musical statements began to borrow
heavily from non-Western sources. In his view, he was collaborating with musicians in
much the same way as he did with Western session musicians, exploring creative pos-
sibilities, in the search for something compellingly new.
I know all the arguments concerning appropriation, but at the end of the day, provid-
ing you try and balance the exchange and allow for the promotion of the collaborat-
ing artist and their own music, rather than just taking, I feel very comfortable with
this idea of dialogue.… So, given these parameters, more is gained than is lost… it is
possible now for artists from different cultures and countries to reach a limited audi-
ence worldwide, making a living from it, and there is much more focus now than
there was ten years ago.
(quoted in Taylor, 1997: 50)
Gabriel’s belief in the potential benefit to non-Western collaborators involved in his

recorded work was not a naive dream, but rather the demonstrable results of his own
substantial labors in creating a structure to facilitate these musicians’ ability to reach
a much broader audience. The outcome of extended promotional efforts from labels
such as Real World and Luaka Bop did not simply stoke interest in global musical tradi-
tions for bored Western pop music consumers, but rather established ongoing careers
for the stand-out performers of those traditions. According to Gabriel, “An artist can
come from another country and get onto a circuit that they will find very hard to achieve
anywhere else—and get visibility, get heard, and hopefully find an audience that will
allow them the following year to come back and tour under their own steam” (quoted
in Taylor, 1997: 51). Real World’s focus on promoting identifiable “stars” such as Youssou
N’Dour and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, rather than compilations of regional styles, paral-
lels a trend in ethnomusicology during the 1980s and 1990s that emphasized the value
of individual musicians over more generalized practices (for example, Rice, 1994), and
record releases tied to individual names and faces accomplish the goal more effectively
than the ever-changing line-up of the folk festival culture show.
Yet Gabriel pursued this path as well, launching the first WOMAD (World of Music
and Dance) festival in 1982 near his home in southwest England. Though well attended,
the festival ran considerably over budget in an effort to present the music most effec-
tively, and to provide fair compensation to the performers. On the brink of bankruptcy,
Gabriel was forced to approach his old band members in Genesis to stage a one-off
reunion concert to pay the bills. Though WOMAD was on shaky ground in its early
days, it has since flourished and is now in its third decade, with events staged around
the world, reaching audiences in the millions. One benefit to understanding how
782 Alan Williams
industry practices such as concert promotion staging and marketing actually work is
that once the machine is built and fired up, it can run without the constant attention of
its founders.
Simon, Gabriel, and Byrne became the most visible cultural brokers in the popu-
lar music marketplace in part by underscoring the contemporary relevance of the
non-Western musical practices they adopted and adapted. But a decade earlier, Van
Dyke Parks and Ry Cooder, two Los Angeles–based musicians with pop music creden-
tials10 embarked on cross-cultural pathways with a decidedly nostalgic bent. Parks issued
an album featuring re-recordings of 1930s calypso music entitled Discover America and
later produced albums by the Esso Trinidad Steel Band and The Mighty Sparrow. Both
Discover America and its Caribbean-flavored follow-up, Clang of the Mighty Reaper,
were complete commercial failures, as much a result of Park’s relative obscurity as
it was of the contemporary irrelevancy of the music. But Cooder methodically estab-
lished a mid-level career for himself by specializing in an amalgam of Depression-era
American blues, jazz, and country music. Along the way, he began to collaborate with
musicians who could lend a more directly associative authenticity to his music while
simultaneously expanding his palette of stylistic borrowings—Earl “Fatha” Hines con-
tributing a touch of stride piano, Flaco Jimenez on norteno-styled renditions of 1950s
doo wop, and Gabby Pahanui bridging the gap between Hawaiian slack-key guitar and
Cooder’s renditions of Delta blues. Indeed, the selling point for Cooder’s audience was
the very out-of-sync nature of the music. Steadfastly avoiding any resemblance to cur-
rent popular music trends, Cooder’s 1970s catalog appealed to a similar nostalgic hip-
sterism found in the folk revivalists of the 1960s, or the British “trad” jazz scene intent
on re-creating early twentieth-century New Orleans in the 1950s London suburbs. The
longevity and sweep of Cooder’s career bestowed upon him a measure of “authority,” a
public radio–validated gentleman scholar.11
Cooder’s participation in the Buena Vista Social Club12 project deserves closer
inspection. His guitar work is present on many of the recordings, but is rarely featured.
Instead, primary attention is given to the vocalists, and to some extent pianist Gonzalo
Rubalcaba. If any non-Cuban is prominent, it is Cooder’s son Joachim, whose percus-
sion work is central to many of the performances. In essence, both Cooders are con-
tinuing a well-established history of musical collaboration in the search of knowledge
and understanding. Since Mantle Hood first championed “bi-musicality” as a prereq-
uisite for any aspiring ethnomusicologist, one-on-one musical exchanges have formed
the basis for much of the discipline’s canonical works of scholarship. Cooder’s role as
background support player, simply “one of the band,” downplays his importance to
the project. As shown in the similarly titled Wim Wenders film documenting subse-
quent recording sessions for an Ibraham Ferrer album and two concert performances
in Amsterdam and New York,13 Cooder hovers in the background, only occasionally
commenting on the proceedings, choosing to shape the flow of the music with his guitar
work. The cameras capture several moments where Cooder and the Cuban musicians
exchange knowing smiles in response to one another’s musical expressions. When the
music begins, everyone is on equal footing. At least, potentially. In truth, Cooder adds
far less musical input than in his supporting work with Western musicians from the
Rolling Stones to John Hiatt, ceding the musical landscape to the local musicians, appar-
ently acknowledging his neophyte status as a purveyor of Cuban son.
Though it would appear from scenes in the Wenders documentary that the Cuban
musicians respect Cooder as a player, his key contribution is in lending the cultural
capital of his name in the general marketing plan. The project was conceived and the
musicians initially assembled by Nick Gold, the owner of British record label World
Circuit. Cooder’s presence in the studio helped quietly steer the musical performances
in a direction that might prove more palatable to Western audiences looking for new
sounds that fit their NPR-formed aesthetic. But he does not appear to have taken a direct
role in producing the sessions, or directing the concert performances. He did oversee
the mixing of the record, and to that extent employs his decades of professional studio
experience in an area where he can claim a measure of expertise. But tellingly, the end
product was not another time-traveling/globe-trotting Ry Cooder album meant to dis-
play his mastery of yet another musical genre. Nor is Cooder “presenting” a “discovery.”
Cooder on stage and in the studio fades into the background. Cooder as the figure with
the most cultural capital to spend only becomes a featured star in the marketing of the
project. To the extent that his own career benefits from the exposure, this prominence
is, to a degree, self-serving. But clearly, the Cuban musicians stand to gain exponentially
more from their collaboration. Ferrer and Rubalcaba were able to release new record-
ings using the same production team and label/distribution deal following the commer-
cial success of the initial release, and many of the musicians found agents and embarked
on world tours that would never have happened without Cooder’s participation in the
project.
So, the activist/patron role is firmly established, but is the work they produce schol-
arship? The answer depends upon one’s definition of “scholarship.” Bertrand Russell
famously established two categories of knowledge—that which is obtained by “descrip-
tion,” and that which is derived from “acquaintance” (Russell, 2005 [1905]). Cultural
brokers serve valuable roles in knowledge production both by helping to create a system
for encounters with culture (acquaintance), and by providing a contextual framework
for understanding those encounters (description). When an audience actively engages
with the products of the culture industry as a result of their acquaintance with the cre-
ative expressions of others, even a modicum of description can lead to a deeper under-
standing of the human condition. Viewing a project like the Buena Vista Social Club
through this lens, the recordings and films serve as evidence—“Hey folks, here’s some
music”—and the context provided by a culturally brokered marketing plan poses the
questions: Where has this music been all this time? Who are these people? What are
these songs about? What’s Ry Cooder doing in the middle of all of this? When can we go
to Cuba to hear some more?
Academically initiated recording projects have significantly contributed to the for-
mation of hybridized world music culture and thus bear some responsibility for foster-
ing the mediated encounter and encouraging creative individuals to do something with
the knowledge they have gleaned. Writing in 1991, Kay Kaufmann Shelemay notes that
784 Alan Williams
[n]‌early a century of ethnic recordings, many prepared by or in collaboration with

ethnomusicologists or “ethno-recordists,” has contributed to a growing trend for
cross-cultural synthesis in musical composition and performance.… Much of the
inspiration and raw material for these new fusions stems directly from the ethnomu-
sicological presence in the university, public-sector agencies, and the music industry
itself.
(Shelemay, 1991: 287)
Just as academics have played a significant role in establishing an emergent “world

music” pop culture, Western pop stars have made meaningful contributions to music
scholarship. If the results of cross-cultural encounters yield a body of knowledge, then
perhaps those cultural intermediaries are doing ethnomusicological work. When
Simon travels to Johannesburg, he is doing fieldwork—fieldwork that results in the
production of a form of knowledge. When David Byrne pores through the vaults of
EGREM, the record company of the Cuban government, searching for unreleased gems
to issue on lavishly packaged compilations, he is doing fieldwork. When Peter Gabriel
creates a platform for the presentation of various global traditions, he is advocating for
the musicians who make the music. All of their endeavors have a broader impact than
that measured by the record charts. It is not a stretch to say that Western awareness of
South African politics was heightened by the attention paid to Graceland, and may have
hastened the release of Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid. The cross-cultural
coalition of WOMAD performers and attendees does not merely reflect a growing mul-
ticulturalism; it facilitates it. In this way, pop star–driven projects utilizing the power of
the music industry promotional machine benefit the communities they both work with
and establish, and are therefore highly effective examples of applied ethnomusicology.
Shifting Industry: From Resource

Exploitation to Service Enterprise
The discipline of ethnomusicology is built upon sound recording technology, which

supplanted notated transcription as the primary data collected in the course of research.
Moreover, field recordings were not solely in the domain of the academic. As Kay
Kaufmann Shelemay points out,
[i]‌f early ethnomusicologists and the record industry shared technologies through
the first decade of the twentieth century, they also shared working methods and
interests of a diverse repertory for an even longer period. In many instances, repre-
sentatives of the early record companies preceded ethnomusicologists in the field,
themselves functioning as fieldworkers in locating and then recording local talent.
(Shelemay, 1991: 280)
The intersection of the academy and the music industry, though closely aligned in the
early years of sound recording, became less common as record labels eschewed the
limited commercial rewards yielded by “ethnic” records in favor of much more prof-
itable popular musical forms. Though folklorists and record company scouts utilized
many of the same technological processes and social practices in the course of capturing
recorded performances, the purposes of their work “in the field” differed tremendously.
Record companies sought to maximize profit from recordings by marketing each release
as an excitingly new product, soon to be replaced by even more exciting new products in
the near future, assuming a “shelf life” of weeks rather than years, decades, or centuries.14
Most ethnomusicologists made sound recordings as a means of documenting musical
practices, intending that the recordings serve as the basis for research while simultane-
ously preserving examples of musical cultures on the verge of extinction. As Nicholas
Spitzer writes, “To me, sowing the seeds of musical performances in the vinyl furrows
of LPs or the digital fields of CDs is a way of documentary cultivation as a practicing
folklorist” (Spitzer, 1992: 98). But what happens to the fruits of such cultivation? Are
these the furrows of a garden plot? Is the harvest bound for the farmer’s table, or is it des-
tined to be converted into cash at the farmer’s market? Once the seeds are planted, will
the land and its crop become the property of the Archer Daniel Midlands Corporation?
And what if those seeds are genetically altered, what sort of inorganic fruits does the
harvest yield?
The nature of this form of documentation is that, once captured, the sounds can be
as readily commoditized as they can be archived. In some cases, field recordings were
made specifically to be packaged and sold in the marketplace. For example, Alan Lomax
was commissioned by Columbia Records in the early 1950s to create a series of LPs enti-
tled World Library of Folk and Primitive Music (Szwed, 2010). Lomax spent years trav-
eling through Europe, amassing hundreds of hours of recordings, knowing that most
of the documents would likely be kept in storage, while keeping an ear out for mate-
rial that could be issued commercially through Columbia. In other cases, Lomax’s
efforts were initially intended as a means of preserving musical cultures that he worried
would die off with their aging practitioners. But while considered archive material at
the time of their capture, many of these recordings were later issued on commercially
released LPs and CDs. Gray areas abound. Lomax is simultaneously a folklorist and
an A&R talent scout. When Moses Asch released Lomax’s recordings on his Folkways
label, the recordings became commoditized, though the nearly nonexistent marketing
of those LPs casts Asch’s enterprise as closer to a one-man Library of Congress than a
chart-topping, profit-generating machine. Even more curious is the desire of Columbia
to create a series such as the World Library of Folk and Primitive Music. This project
and others like it represent the first attempts at creating a world music market. A key
difference between the 1950s and the 1980s versions of world music marketing lies in
the assumed uses of the music for listening audiences. Whereas late twentieth-century
world music was marketed as pop, intended to fill a never-quenched thirst for the “new,”
mid-twentieth-century commercial releases stressed the edifying quality of getting to
know the world beyond the backyard. In many ways, this resembles other large media
786 Alan Williams
efforts to inform while entertaining, such as the CBS television broadcasts of Leonard
Bernstein conducting programs for children (and their curious parents), a form of
noblesse oblige exercised by corporations operating with the best interests of their cus-
tomers in mind.
One further complication surrounding the act of the field recording concerns the
assumptions and aspirations of the musicians being recorded. Far from fearing that
their performances might become commercialized product, many contributors to field
research desire just such an outcome and view the researcher as their conduit to the
marketplace. Jeff Todd Titon has identified the many and varied expectations of field-
work informants and the roles they may assign to the intruders in their midst, a condi-
tion he labels “stance” (Titon, 1985). Nicholas Spitzer describes experiencing a similar
phenomenon while recording Cajun and Zydeco musicians in Louisiana.
As I learned from musicians about their lives, ambitions, repertoires, and styles,
I realized the value they placed on the tangible results of this project; their music and
life stories on a recording. If the project was flawed, in their view, it was because I had
no connections to Motown or any other national record company catering to black
listeners that fulfilled some of their ideas about success as musicians.
(Spitzer, 1992: 79)
If Spitzer were to truly serve his collaborators in the spirit of applied folklore, he would
have to endeavor to make such connections to mainstream record labels, especially
those that issued recordings that his informants were familiar with. It’s all well and good
to be in the Library of Congress, but having a record on the radio or local jukebox would
be a far more validating result. In Spitzer’s case, he subsequently oversaw the commer-
cial release of some his recordings, albeit on the small Arhoolie label, a far cry from
Motown. In later years as a widely syndicated radio host, he has helped to popularize
all manner of American roots music, in essence adopting the stance that his fieldwork
informants initially imposed upon him and, I would argue, effectively doing applied
ethnomusicology in his capacity as cultural gatekeeper and broker.
It is important to clarify what is meant by “music industry.” For many casual observ-
ers, the term signifies records in all their various format incarnations from 78s to down-
loadable soundfiles. But record sales are but one component of a much larger system of
revenue-generating uses of musical performance and related technologies. Concerts,
broadcasts, print publications and associated merchandise, licensed uses for inclusion in
film, television, and Web content all contribute to a musician’s potential earnings. By focus-
ing on records, it is easy to overlook other aspects of music industry practice that resemble
some of the forms that applied folklore and ethnomusicology have already taken.
For several decades, the most publicly visible role for folklorists and ethnomusicolo-
gists has been in the presentation of traditional music in a festival setting. Academics
often serve as cultural brokers, sometimes by promoting musicians they have worked
with in the course of research activities to festival organizers, sometimes by providing
scholarly validation of the merits of traditional music performers in the form of program
notes, or as voices of authority in promotional campaigns. Accompanying these activi-

ties, many of these academics have published hand-wringing and soul-searching trea-
tises attempting to resolve/absolve their role in shaping/diminishing/corrupting the
music and musicians they champion.
Issues of representation abound in the realm of the culture show, as they do in any
mediated presentation of culture. Some scholars have argued that the culture show
inherently misrepresents the culture presented by performers framed by the stage pro-
scenium, while others see the festival stage as an empowering space for claiming identity
(Harker, 1985; Hobsbawm, 1983; Kishenblatt-Gimblett, 1992, 1998; Sarkissian, 2000).15
For me, the more problematic aspect of the culture show is the illusory notion that
these festivals operate outside the realm of the commercial concert promotion industry.
Frequently, the intellectual discourse of the seminar room that has propelled the folklor-
ist onto the festival grounds fades into the background when confronting the logistics of
the concert stage. The challenge for the folklorist involved in the culture show enterprise
is to navigate the myriad issues surrounding “culture” while simultaneously grappling
with the practicalities of the “show.”
For example, the National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA) organizes the
annual Lowell Folk Festival, one of many large-scale arts festivals they oversee across
the country. As a professor at the local university, I have frequently served as a “scholar/
presenter,” announcing the performing acts, supplying brief biographical information,
and providing a small measure of cultural context about the music. In reality, I am an
emcee, and the primary task at hand is to keep the show moving according to a highly
regimented timetable. In the course of an afternoon, I will make numerous requests
for donations and read extensive lists of sponsors for the event. This is perhaps the pri-
mary distinction between the folk fest and more pop music–oriented events such as
Coachella, Bonaroo, Glastonbury, or Roskilde—it’s free.
However, in all other respects, the folk fest operates like any of the above-mentioned
commercial spectacles. All the acts receive payment; most of them are represented by
booking agents who have mastered the fine art of calling for bids, negotiating fee for
service, and stipulating conditions for travel, food, and lodging. Tents are set up for the
specific purpose of selling CDs, T-shirts, and other merchandise. Robert Cantwell’s
probing consideration of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Ethnomimesis, took issue
with the treatment of individual humans as little more than troublesome artifacts that
failed to show up for a 6 a.m. bus, or seemed to need to eat at some point during the day
(Cantwell, 1993). Even more troubling for Cantwell were the forms of representation
imposed upon the performers by the festival organizers, and the basic construct of the
festival itself. His point is well taken, but in recent decades, the goals and outcomes of
most folk festivals are right in line with those of the acts that are presented—a studied
professionalism is demonstrated by both performers and organizers: from set lists that
time out to the second, practiced stage banter that entertains and informs like a jocular
World Book entry, to carefully mapped stage plots, piezo pick-ups mounted in all man-
ner of “traditional” instruments, to checks made out in advance, with federal tax duti-
fully reported.
788 Alan Williams
All of this is to say that a professional circuit exists to serve a growing legion of musi-
cal performers who have benefited directly and indirectly from the efforts of applied
folklorists and ethnomusicologists to present specific musicians and musical practices
to audiences much more sizable than the local communities from which they sprang.
And for many academics working in the public sphere, these musicians are the most
effective “transcontextualizers.” As Daniel Sheehy writes,
Many musicians, once known to but a few, became important communicators of

their cultural group’s values, worldview, life-style, and potential for creating expres-
sions of beauty. I think it is fair to say that the public impact of these collaborators has
been great, and they have done much to bring traditional arts, artists, and even com-
munities the respect they deserve, but all too often do not receive.
(Sheehy, 1992: 222)
What gives some observers pause is the degree to which many traditional performers
master the art of transcontextualization, deftly sizing up their audiences, and target-
ing their messages and performances to fit. Some would argue that this professionalism
signifies the incarnation of “fakelore,” an empty sham of gestures meant to satisfy an
audience’s desire for the “real thing,” a ruse made all the more convincing due to its per-
formers’ “authentic” cultural history. But I would argue that such a view severely under-
estimates the abilities of these professional transcontextualizers to craft performances
of real depth and meaning, working with an audience’s expectations, manipulating the
surface gestures to communicate something about themselves as individuals, and about
the cultures they represent. As George Lipsitz cautions in his conclusion to Dangerous
Crossroads,
It is important to document the harm done by uncomprehending appropriation of

cultural creations, to face squarely the consequences of mistakes in reception, rep-
resentation, and reproduction of cultural images, sounds, and ideas. But the biggest
mistake of all would be to underestimate how creative people are and how much they
find out about the world that the people in power never intended for them to know
in the first place.
(Lipsitz, 1994: 169)
Recent endeavors within the business world parallel the concept of applied work in the
academic sector. Their successes and failures provide some useful insights as to how
applied ethnomusicologists can more effectively partner with commercial enterprise.
Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative and the One for One
project developed by Toms Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie are two high-profile exercises
in corporate-based activism. Both endeavors have received praise for their plans to use
private sector manufacturing and distributions models to advance social causes, while
simultaneously enduring criticism for the inconsistent effectiveness of their attempts to
put theory into practice.
Negroponte, former director of the MIT Media Lab and author of Being Digital
(Negroponte, 1995), identified a significant problem for non-industrialized nations
in the post-Internet era—the inability of those populations to connect with the digi-
tal world, further increasing the marginalization of those societies. His solution was to
make connectivity possible by getting computer technology into the hands of children,
and utilizing satellite technology to link those computers to the Internet. Transforming
dream into reality required significant innovation in technological design and manu-
facturing processes. Negroponte announced his plan to create “$100 Laptops” for sale to
the governments of under-industrialized nations (Warschauer and Ames, 2010). These
computers were built to withstand harsh environmental conditions, and to operate with
hand-cranked battery chargers. The education-based software emphasized graphics to
facilitate learning for non-literate children.
Immediately, the project stumbled on obstacles both technological and economic.
When the OLPC computers were brought to market, their cost was nearly double that
of the announced $100 price tag—though surely a $200 laptop was a minor miracle of
its own. Distributing the units and providing sufficient instruction and support to the
new owners proved more difficult than OLPC had anticipated. While the laptops were
relatively intuitive to operate, communicating the concept of advancement through
connectivity to governments, teachers, parents, and even students presented an even
greater challenge. One persistent issue that dogged the project was the disparity between
the “have-not-a-lot” and the “have-none-at-all.” Nations that were able to pony up the
funds necessary to obtain the laptops balked at the notion that they would be subsidiz-
ing those that could not afford the purchase price. Smaller orders in turn meant higher
manufacturing costs for OLPC. Confusing the issue further, OLPC was the recipient
of several grants, legitimizing the claims of unfair competitive practices made by other
manufacturers.
In 2010, a solution was reached that addressed both of these concerns. The organiza-
tion was split into two—the OLPC Foundation would provide fully subsidized laptops
to politically and economically unstable regions such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Gaza,
while the OLPC Association operated as a for-profit enterprise, providing low-cost
though unsubsidized laptops in developing markets such as Uruguay and Peru. Though
the laptops themselves were never made available to Western consumers, a recent ini-
tiative by the OLPC Association to make low-cost tablets available through giant
retailers like Walmart and Amazon directly challenges the hegemony of technological
giants such as Apple and Hewitt Packard in the United States and elsewhere. The profits
gleaned from the sales of these tablets will in turn lower the cost of the laptops for the
association’s customers, a condition in which Western consumers in effect subsidize the
market for computer technology outside the industrialized world.
Blake Mycoskie, the founder of Toms Shoes, has established a model that makes such
consumer subsidy its overt mission. The One for One project directly correlates the act of
purchase with an act of charity—for every set of shoes bought by a customer, another pair
is donated to an individual in need (Chu and Weiss, 2013). The most important aspect
of the enterprise is that it uses altruism as a marketing strategy, a strategy geared to earn
790 Alan Williams
profit for the company. The global economy based upon the production of wearable goods
has a far uglier history of exploitation than that of the culture show or music industry. To
counter this, Toms Shoes uses workers from impoverished nations, but pays a fair wage
and is vigilant in monitoring the conditions of its laborers. Outsourcing labor has a nega-
tive impact on domestic economies, but serves the greater good by elevating the global
workforce. The effect is twofold—low-cost shoes introduce competition into Western
markets, while providing higher standards of living for their factory workers induces
other manufacturers to better the pay and working conditions of their own employees.
The endeavor hit some bumps in its earliest years. Ineffective manufacturing over-
sight led to defective products making their way to dissatisfied customers. The impera-
tive to better the labor conditions proved more costly than originally anticipated, and
the differential substantially cut into the profit margin. But the company has effec-
tively addressed many of these issues, and has been able to deliver on the promise of
its mission, while adding revenue to its coffers. Perhaps most strikingly, the charitable
component of One for One operates increasingly in the background, a corporate altru-
ism that is the pleasant side effect of having a hit in the marketplace. The product line
is now popular with consumers who may have little awareness of the impact of their
purchase—they just like the shoes.
Though neither Real World nor Luaka Bop operate as nonprofits, they do have a
mission to connect audiences with music, while simultaneously providing previously
marginalized musicians with the means to expand their audiences and benefit directly
from the commoditization of their creative endeavors. This mission can only be met if
the product itself is appealing to music consumers, and in this way, the success of these
record companies mirrors that of the One for One product line. I underscore the impor-
tance of harnessing the power of commerce by creating product or presenting per-
formances that have viability in the marketplace. Music is rarely completely free from
notions of value exchange—instruments never materialize from nothing, and indi-
viduals and communities often endeavor to demonstrate an appreciation for musical
expression by providing food, services, or other forms of compensation. While issues
of representation and exploitation are always present in these exchanges, intersections
between music and commerce are nearly unavoidable. Simon Frith maintains that
[t]‌he industrialization of music cannot be understood as something which happens

to music, since it describes a process in which music itself is made—a process, that is,
which fuses (and confuses) capital, technical and musical arguments.
(Frith, 2006: 231)
The music industry that emerged in the wake of sound recording technology bore a
close resemblance to the primary economic engine of the nineteenth century—mining.
Companies sought out raw materials that could be quickly and efficiently excavated,
then sold as the basic elements of a developing world—steel for constructing the bridges
and skyscrapers of the industrial world, coal to burn in the furnaces and engines of
the machinery produced in the factory. Likewise, musicians were discovered, molded,
shaped and refined, packaged and sold, the profits held by the companies behind the
products. In industry parlance, “exploitation” is what the music business does. Just as
the search for ore and gold brought European interests into the mountains, valleys, and
plains of Africa, Asia, and the Americas, the corporate interests behind the music indus-
try spread across the globe in search of both raw material and customers. As Jacques
Attali contends, “Show business, the star system, and the hit parade signal a profound
institutional and cultural colonization” (Attali, 1989: 4).
The global music industry was built by Western interests at first content to operate
within their own geographic sphere. But even as manufactured culture for consumption
generated substantial revenues, companies looked to further increase profits by expand-
ing into foreign territories. Though the Gramophone Company sponsored recording
field trips across the globe in the early 1900s with the purpose of creating product that
would appeal to regional tastes, it became apparent that it was far easier and cheaper
to create a demand for Western musical practices over indigenous ones. The hege-
monic reign of the Western pop star, from Elvis to Madonna, continued well into the
twenty-first century. As Keith Negus wrote in 1992, “The globalization of communica-
tions media and geographical expansion of transnational corporations has provided
more opportunities for, and increased the significance of the marketing and promotion
of recording artists across the planet” (Negus, 1992: 7). The structure Negus describes
had the potential to develop and promote music careers for non-Western musicians as
well as Western ones, though, as he points out,
[i]‌f the dominance of Anglo-American repertoire around the world provides oppor-
tunities for successful British and North American artists to gain extra sales, at the
same time it severely restricts the opportunities for local artists. Although the major
corporations are—in theory—concerned with finding and developing local talent
throughout the world, in practice this has taken second place to the marketing of acts
from Britain and the United States.
(Negus, 1992: 11)
Yet, curious developments were already taking place, operating just below surface of
global superstars and multiplatinum albums. As Simon Frith points out, vibrant music
scenes, supported by regional systems of creation, promotion, and distribution, are
beginning to challenge the hegemony of Western pop, a process he labels “globaliza-
tion from below” (Frith, 2000: 319). These subterranean rumblings of the late twentieth
century gave way to earth-shaking seismic events at the dawn of the new millennium.
Suddenly, non-Western acts like Shakira were taking their place on the Western charts,
while performers like Khaled could sell multiple millions of copies without ever mount-
ing an American promotional campaign. These changes occurred simultaneously with
the rise of the Internet, and the emergence of information as the primary commodity of
the global economy.
The popular music business of the twentieth century grew into a multibillion-dollar
industry built upon the commodification of sound recording technology. In the rock
792 Alan Williams
era, record sales generated the largest profits, and the album served as the centerpiece
for most associated promotional activity, from radio airplay to concert tours. But in
the post-Napster Internet age, the sales of recorded music plummeted, and the collapse
of the record-centric industry model dramatically altered the way the music business
operated. While a few entrepreneurs found ways to monetize the exchange of informa-
tion happening over fiber optic lines and cellular networks, the Internet largely enabled
voices to be heard, but not to be sold. Audiences exercised a newfound agency, exerting
far more control over the ways they accessed music, and demanding far more interac-
tion with the artists they supported. Social media served as the conduit for artist/fan
exchanges, and recorded music became one of many elements that formed a fan’s expe-
rience. Artists and companies began to cater to this hunger for experience, and soon the
music business began to reconfigure itself from a system based on commodity exchange
into one geared toward providing “service.”
The term “service” is also central to the tenets of applied ethnomusicology, folklore,
and anthropology, and while the relationship may appear merely semantic, I argue that
the shared use of the term reveals some commonly desired outcomes, even if the meth-
odologies and motivations differ considerably. When any life is enhanced by an encoun-
ter with knowledge, or more specifically the expression of knowledge, a service has been
provided. Rather than view the goals of the academy and the corporate industry as anti-
thetical, it may be useful to recognize one another as partners in service. And if it’s true
that the academy and the industry are giant behemoths casting large shadows over cre-
ative endeavors, there are figures within both institutions who have taken on the role
of activists and advocates: Alan Lomax is to Dan Sheehy is to Peter Gabriel. It is equally
useful to consider the power exerted by technologically empowered individuals operat-
ing without the support of a university or record company. Audiences and consumers,
too, are potential partners in affecting social change. The following section examines a
few examples of informed activism, using the tools of music distribution and the dis-
semination of information without the support of government grants, the validation of
a Doctoral degree, or the notoriety of a magazine cover.
Pop(ulist) Activism
The oft-debated democratizing power of the Internet enables users to circumvent tradi-
tional centers of control and authority, including academic institutions and music indus-
try corporations. Likewise, the role of gatekeeper once served by scholars and record
company executives is now shared by an entire population, a condition that essentially
nullifies the concept of the gate itself. Rather than protect the exclusivity of existing ter-
ritory, a number of populist activists have engaged in endeavors designed to make con-
nections and facilitate exchange, to transform fences and gates into bridges. Working
outside the academy, many of these individuals have established new models of applied
fieldwork that might be emulated by future folklorists and ethnomusicologists. Two
such projects illustrate the common goals shared by both academic and non-academic
service initiatives, harnessing the potential of the Internet for connecting individuals
and disseminating ideas to an immense audience. Though differing somewhat in the
methodologies they employ and the philosophies they espouse, the Voice Project and
Playing For Change are both ongoing efforts to effect social change through collective
music-making.
The Voice Project grew from an encounter between American NGO volunteer Hunter
Heaney and a group of Ugandan women in 2008 (Macsai, 2011). In a move reminiscent of
Anthony Seeger’s experience with the Suyá people of the Amazon region wherein he was
asked to share his music with his informants in the same spirit with which they shared
theirs with him, Heaney taught the Ugandan women a song by American folk musi-
cian Joe Purdy entitled, “Suitcase.” After leaving Uganda, Heaney was emailed a video
in which the women performed a brief version of “Suitcase.” Heaney was struck by the
connection the music had made, and wondered if this connection could be extended. He
contacted Purdy, sent him the video, and asked if he might wish to contribute a response.
Unfamiliar with Ugandan music, Purdy elected to perform a song by American rock
group R.E.M., mirroring the act of connecting via someone else’s music. Heaney then
came up with the idea of a song chain wherein one musician covers the song of another,
and that musician in turn covers a song by an artist of their choice, and so forth.
Heaney realized that this kind of musical exchange could be the centerpiece of a
grassroots political initiative to address the plight of the Ugandan women whose fami-
lies had been wrenched apart by sectarian violence. Partnering with Chris Holmes and
Anna Gabriel (daughter of Peter), Heaney founded The Voice Project in 2009. Through
Gabriel’s industry connections, the foundation was able to enlist a variety of Western
pop stars to the cause. With recognizable faces—and voices—attached, the project
gained validation, and the Voice Project enticed a number of mid-level indie-rock art-
ists, with the occasional contribution by stars such as Peter Gabriel and members of
R.E.M., to create a number of “song chains.” Each performance is captured on video
with minimal technology employed, often with the musicians performing in their living
rooms or basement practice spaces. The constructed candid intimacy serves to human-
ize the stars as they run through often charmingly unpolished versions of the song they
have selected. Each video includes brief moments of awkward conversation before the
songs begin, and is presented in widescreen black and white imagery, establishing a
highbrow low-fi aesthetic that provides a measure of consistency from video to video.
The videos are made available through streaming sites such as YouTube and Vimeo,
and point the viewer to the organization’s website, where one can find out about the most
recent contribution, get information about the history of the project and any current ini-
tiatives, and support the cause with a donation or by purchasing merchandise. The web-
site is designed to resemble, and in many ways functions in the same way as the online
homes of pop stars and record labels. But the activist mission of the organization is always
front and center. The video performances are the promotional devices meant to lure fans
to the site where the real work of the organization is presented in well-crafted informa-
tional videos and images. Interestingly, the mission of the Voice Project maintains its focus
794 Alan Williams
on the use of music to affect social and political change. While the first influx of funds
was utilized for job-training courses and micro-loan programs, the current initiative,
conducted in partnership with the United Nations, involves constructing radio towers in
Uganda and other regions of central Africa, and broadcasting messages and songs meant
to reach the thousands of children kidnapped and conscripted by Joseph Kony’s notorious
Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Songs sung by the mothers of these children, urging them
to return home and forgiving them for their participation in horrific acts of violence, have
proven remarkably effective. According to the organization’s website, 50 such children
recently appeared in refugee camps, having fled Kony’s army after hearing the broadcasts.
An interesting contrast can be made with Playing For Change, a less overtly political
project that has reached a considerably wider audience. The published mission statement
reads like a typical beauty pageant parody—“to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the
world through music.”16 Whereas the musical content of the Voice Project is primarily
concerned with luring in contributors to an activist cause, the videos created by Playing
For Change are an example of a McLuhan-esque medium as message. Though the Playing
For Change Foundation has founded a number of music schools in Africa and Asia, the
primary purpose of the project appears to be to demonstrate that peoples from around the
world can find common ground in performing (decidedly Western) pop songs together.
“Together” is a decidedly more complex construct in the creation of the Playing
For Change videos, though this complexity is also its most effective marketing ploy.
Founders Mark Johnson and Enzo Buono hit upon the idea after persuading a Los
Angeles–based street musician, Roger Ridley, to allow them to capture his performance
on video, using simple but professional quality audio and video recording technology.
They then traveled the world, enlisting the participation of other street performers
who played along to recordings of Ridley and others. Johnson and Buono then care-
fully pieced together fairly elaborate arrangements, layering fragments of the various
recorded performances to create a composite ensemble performance. In this manner,
each musician “collaborated” in the creation of the video.
The results highlight several interesting aspects of music making in the early
twenty-first century. The technology that makes these performances possible is incred-
ibly powerful, allowing for an assembly of sonic and visual elements that would have
been nearly impossible just a few decades prior. Even more noteworthy is the portability
of the technology, a fact made quite obvious to the viewer as each musician is filmed in
a variety of locations, often on street corners where they would normally perform, or on
postcard-perfect vistas that present the beauty of the natural (and somewhat exoticized)
world. The message seems to be that “it’s a rather large world made smaller by music.” To
underscore the breadth of the undertaking, each musician is identified by name and by
location; a generic street corner becomes “Rome,” a grassy hilltop “South Africa.”
The songs that the musicians work with demonstrate the extent to which Western pop
music has traversed the globe. While some of the performers appear to have learned the
songs especially for the video, others seem completely at ease, their familiarity with Ben
E. King or Bob Marley evident in the confident command of the material. The role of the
directors of the project in selecting and presenting the songs to the musicians deserves
further inquiry. Clearly, some of the early contributors simply ran through their stan-
dard repertoire, and it is not surprising that two American musicians well into their
golden years would find some overlap in their song bags. But it seems unlikely that every
performer of “Stand By Me” already knew the song before Johnson and Buono arrived
with their cameras and microphones. Disappointingly, there are no examples of music
flowing in the other direction, with New Orleans street musicians grappling with a folk
song from Nepal. One unspoken message of Playing For Change is that “Western pop
music is a universal language.”
Though both Playing For Change and the Voice Project have succeeded in further-
ing their causes, there is a significant difference in the size of their respective audiences,
and this difference raises questions about the efficacy of their approaches to culturally
situated social activism. As is the case with all US-based nonprofits, the organization
must disclose its financial statements. Remarkably, the Voice Project does so with a
link directly from the website. Such transparency is laudable, and the graphs illustrat-
ing the relatively low administrative costs, coupled with a detailed explanation of how
the funds are allocated, serve to assuage any reluctant supporters that their contribu-
tions will be well spent. But the numbers themselves in the 2011 statement are less than
impressive. Despite attention from media outlets such as Rolling Stone, and the glossy
business-oriented Fast Company, the organization managed to raise little more than
a quarter million dollars. Certainly the Voice Project is accomplishing demonstrable
results, but in financial terms, perhaps not on a scale commensurate with the star power
used to promote their endeavors. It is likely that the overtly political message of the
Voice Project inherently limits its appeal. The cause may be noble, and the song threads
“cool,” but they aren’t necessarily “fun.” The Playing For Change videos are celebratory,
communicating a message that is far more encouraging and comforting, and there-
fore succeed in the marketplace as a form of escapist entertainment—indeed, the 1999
Playing For Change tour included performances of Bobby McFerrin’s oft-derided hit,
“Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
But the impact of the projects and the size of their receptive audiences may also reflect
the degree to which the required presence of “pop stars” is no longer the dominant para-
digm in popular music experience. Once the viewers get over the novelty of the tech-
nologically enabled collaboration, their eyes and ears are open to the power of music
made by people they may have literally passed on the street. To be a fan of Playing For
Change is to champion the artistic merit of the unheralded, everyday musician, unsup-
ported by the culture industry machine. The videos initially posted to YouTube con-
sisted exclusively of unknown faces, voices, and fingers. Once the project became more
visible, other professional musicians began to appear, notably Israeli guitarist David
Broza, American folk-blues musician Keb Mo, and, most disconcertingly in a Bob
Marley medley of “War/No More Trouble,” U2’s Bono. Bono’s appearance comes as a
shock after watching a stream of unfamiliar figures producing remarkably captivating
performances, and illustrates how out of place the music industry of the late twentieth
century is in the Internet age. Greil Marcus insightfully critiqued the star-powered char-
ity spectacles of the 1980s, such as “We Are The World” and the Live Aid concert event,
796 Alan Williams
contending that such projects functioned mainly as career-enhancing self-promotion

for its stars more than as truly effective forms of social activism (Marcus, 1993). A hold-
over from that era, Bono may have the best of intentions, but his presence dulls the
impact of the celebratory, everyman quality of most of the Playing For Change videos,
though it would appear that the creators of the project are quite pleased with his par-
ticipation. They shoot the rock star as a rock star, then apply many of the tropes of rock
music videos to the rest of the “War/No More Trouble,” with African children moving in
slow motion, dreadlocks swaying in sun-drenched silhouette.
The contrasting aesthetics of the Voice Project and Playing For Change illustrate two
different approaches to trading on the cultural capital of the “star.” Whereas the pop
star contributors to the Voice Project are presented as ordinary musicians, the minimal
technology employed and lack of editing and other enhancements serving to humanize
the performers, the Playing For Change videos take the opposite tack, letting the faces
of the musicians fill the screen, or framing them in artfully positioned locales, shot in
full color, and carefully filtered and mixed so that their performances take on the sheen
of million-dollar-budget pop releases. The resulting disparity in audience reception is
equally telling. Slumming pop stars are far less interesting than “untainted” and “authen-
tic” unknowns, and this distinction is reflected in realm of YouTube, where the difference
between the most successful viral amateur videos and those calculated to reach audi-
ences as part of a marketing campaign is substantial. A case in point, the first Playing For
Change video, “Stand By Me,” has amassed well over 50 million views on YouTube; the
Bono-included “War/No More Trouble” has reached less than 5% of that audience.
Like Simon’s Graceland and Gabriel’s Real World releases and WOMAD festival,
Playing For Change greatly enhanced the professional status of many of its participants.
Partnering with the Concord Music Group label (responsible for massive hit records from
mainstays such as Ray Charles and Paul McCartney), a CD/DVD package was released in
2009. Later that year, a full-length documentary, Peace Through Music, further promoted
the phenomenon, and the following year, Playing For Change undertook a concert tour,
presenting many of the musicians from the project performing on their own, and in the
more traditional sense of “together” for sold out performances across North America. In
doing so, the founders of the project harnessed both new forms of media communication
via the Internet, and more traditional music industry structures with commercial record-
ings and concert tour packages. The crucial distinction for both Playing For Change and
the Voice Project is that the impetus for establishing each endeavor came from outside
either the industry or the academy, initially bypassing the channels of communication,
creation, and distribution established in the previous century. These outsiders found ways
to reclaim aspects of the existing music industry to serve as tools in creating new models of
a more holistic intersection between entertainment, edification, and activism.
The university can also play a role in redefining how institutions, both academic and
corporate, can provide resource and support for the public good. The 100 Songs Project,
a joint undertaking between Queensland University of Technology and several recording
industry professionals, is such an example. A call for submissions of songs and performers
goes out to all of Australia. Thousands of demos are submitted, and a panel of producers,
publishers, journalists, and academics narrows the list to 100. These performers are then
given four hours of free studio time in QUT’s commercial facilities, overseen by a group
of seasoned record producers, assisted by students earning degrees in sound engineer-
ing and production. The resulting recordings are owned and controlled by the musicians,
who are free to sell or use them in any way they wish to promote their music. A select
group from the 100 is afforded more studio time to craft a more professional final mix, and
the results are collected on a CD, promoted to radio, and sold in major retail outlets.17
While the university benefits from the visibility of the project, even more significantly,
its students gain invaluable “real world” experience during the sessions. The industry is
able to use the submissions as a way of scouting for new talent, and then can test the
acts’ commercial potential based upon the reaction at radio and retail. And the hun-
dreds of musicians from across the country are given access to high-quality recording
facilities and guidance from recording professionals, with the top results presented to
the general public, supported by a promotional machine far beyond the means of most
self-managed performers.
At this date, the existing music industry functions as less of a hegemonic monstros-
ity than a sometimes useful skeleton of its former self. Commercial releases and con-
cert tours can aid in connecting musicians to fans, but they are not the sole, nor even
the most effective, ways of reaching and creating audiences. Projects like Playing For
Change and the Voice Project operate in a similar fashion to many professional pop
musical acts, harnessing the power of the Internet initially to broadcast their mes-
sages, then subsequently to maintain a dialog with their fans, extending that discourse
to include older industry mainstays such as recordings for sale and concert perfor-
mances. The nineteenth century depended upon the arterial networks of transportation
facilitated by railways, but by the twenty-first century, thousands of miles of track lay
abandoned, their purpose usurped by superhighways and airliners. Those same tracks
are now often reclaimed as bike paths and walking trails, and I propose that the music
industry structure is undergoing a similar reclamation.
Conclusion: All for One
Playing For Change and the Voice Project are but two examples of applied ethnomusicology
that fall outside the purview of the academy or the culture industry. Bypassing traditional
gatekeepers—whether they be journal editors or record company A&R scouts—these proj-
ects connect musicians, promoters, and audiences at a speed and scope that dwarfs the “com-
petition” of universities and corporations. Crowd-sourced, crowd-driven, crowd-funded
enterprises challenge the hegemonic power of both industry and the academy. Perhaps the
clearest counter to the irrelevancy of both institutions is to recognize commonalities, and
to develop partnerships that create shared agendas and serve them effectively. Product-line
managers and marketing geniuses have much to contribute to the success of activist endeav-
ors; intellectually engaged advocates can help to shape the agendas behind the initiatives.
798 Alan Williams
The role of the applied ethnomusicologist is not to be the sole voice of authority, but
rather to be a useful contributor to a network of actors involved in the endeavor. The
value of the contribution stems from the training that has heightened an awareness
of the potential pitfalls of (re)presentation of culture from macro to micro levels. As
culture brokers, applied ethnomusicologists should be less concerned with preventing
misrepresentation, than with facilitating forms of representation that serve the needs
of performers and promoters alike, to help guide these forces to arrive at mutually ben-
eficial outcomes. In other words, the profit-driven motivations of the industry are not
inherently antithetical to those of either the performing musician or the research aca-
demic. The forces of business are far less concerned with the forms of representation
than they are with the efficacy of those forms in generating revenue. The practicalities
of marketing require condensed, simple images and text that can communicate a rich
spectrum of meaning. Ugly cultural stereotypes do this well, and thus have been effec-
tively used for centuries. The challenge lies in constructing reductionist representations
that respect traditions, performers, and audiences alike. Here is an area for the applied
ethnomusicologist to make a useful contribution—not to avoid dirtying the hands by
delving into marketing campaigns, but rather to make marketing campaigns less dirty.
The history of the music business is fraught with examples of crass exploitation,
examples that highlight the forms of abuse that have often been standard industry prac-
tice. A knowledge of this history, even if only cursory and apocryphal, has led many
folklorists to attempt to steer their informants away from the inevitably doomed out-
comes of any encounters with culture merchants. But academics must also be receptive
to the desires of their collaborators—including those that dream of a professional career
within the music industry. In this case, applied ethnomusicologists can make signifi-
cant contributions to the communities they work with by helping musicians to navigate
unchartered waters of copyright ownership, contractual obligations, and marketing
strategies. Indeed, an understanding of the basic operations of the music industry may
be the most valuable information they can share with their partners in research.
In many ways, the knee-jerk casting of music industrialists as arbiters of evil is as con-
descending as those of the images the music industry has often used to sell its products.
The history of the record business, for example, is filled with figures who approached the
music they profited from with love and respect, even if their fortunes far exceeded those
of the musicians they championed. And even as the record industry became ever more
absorbed by larger corporate interests, the people at the helm of these companies did not
set out to destroy the music they marketed, but inadvertently damaged the culture that
gave rise to the music by opting for short-term gains over long-term profit. In all of these
instances, a more insightful voice attuned to the needs of commerce as well as art would
have helped prevent some of the worst abuses, and could have created a more viable
and sustainable culture of music-related commerce, where artistic expression generates
profits, and the system facilitates expression.
There are many examples of such systems, though historically they have often been
relegated to the very few stars whose industrial clout ensured that the system worked
for them. While the most successful musicians of all time, the Beatles, were the
recipients of only a small fraction of the moneys they generated, they also clearly ben-
efited from the technological resources provided by the corporate interests that owned
their recorded output, utilizing the machines of the machine as vehicles of creative
expression. The key now is to make the technology that enables creative expression and
the means to present those creations to welcoming audiences available to a much larger
number of musicians. In turn, these individuals will reclaim their agency over a system
that was either completely closed to them, or only briefly open, in order to find new
bodies—and bodies of work—to exploit. George Lipsitz notes, “the interconnected-
ness of capitalist culture might help create collective solutions to the systematic and
unrelenting injustice and austerity which characterizes life for so many people on this
planet” (Lipsitz, 1994: 17).
Many such endeavors are already underway. The world music market, so markedly
shaped by successful pop artists establishing systems of musical exchange that value
musicians and musical cultures, is a prime example of “long tail” viability (Anderson,
2008). Inarguably, many more figures currently earn comfortable livings from their
music than even two or three decades ago. Perhaps there are fewer musician-owned
yachts and jet planes, but there are significantly more two-bedroom home mortgage
payments being made by professional musicians. Countering the outdated stereotypes
of the rock star lifestyle is another area where applied ethnomusicologists can make a
contribution, clarifying what is possible for aspiring musicians and helping to reshape
fantasy into a more practical and sustainable reality.
“Sustainability” is the current buzzword, applied as often to the production of
food or energy as to that of culture and its byproducts. A sustainable business model
engenders a fundamental sense of respect for both the consumers of products and for
those responsible for providing the products for consumption. The products them-
selves must be cultivated and renewed. Fields are harvested, but are also enriched
in cycles of productivity and rest. Such an approach requires that a commercial
institution develop patience, reducing the amount of immediate profit in exchange
for longer-term continual rewards. I have seen this philosophy enacted by my own
students earning degrees in music business. Far from embodying the stereotypical
cigar-chomping exploiter of musicians and audiences, squeezing the last bit of profit
out of a performer before discarding him on the slag heap of irrelevant pop stars and
moving on to the next vein of unrefined ore/talent, this generation is primarily con-
cerned with facilitating musical encounters, helping musicians and audiences find
one another, while simultaneously enriching the experience for all involved. They are
coming of age at a time when concepts like “service enterprise” and “open source” are
no longer novel ideas, but practical realities. The next generation of music industrial-
ists may have a social agenda equal to that of the growing numbers of applied ethno-
musicologists. The future of both academia and the industry may indeed hinge upon
a redefinition of the terms “service,” “institutions,” “scholarship,” and “activism” as a
nexus of music production and dissemination, placing the academy within the culture
industry, acknowledging commercial interests as knowledge producers, and empow-
ering music fans as social activists.
800 Alan Williams
Notes
1. Feld published articles on the issues that arose in his efforts to create and release Voices of
the Rainforest (Rykodisc 10173, 1991), see Feld, Steven. “Voices of the Rainforest” Public
Culture 4(1) (1991a): 131–140.
2. John Lomax was most responsible for the initial presentation of Leadbelly to the general
public, and many of the issues of representation subsequently identified by scholars also
troubled Alan Lomax. Even more perplexing for the younger Lomax was Leadbelly’s con-
tinued use of the prison overalls and hay bale stage sets originally conceived by the elder
Lomax, even after Alan took over the role of agent and manager.
3. Jeff Todd Titon suggests that Lomax’s marketing of self may have something to do with his
familiarity with the academy and its notions of authored scholarship, in contrast to “com-
pany men” such as Peer et al., whose accomplishments were recognized with a paycheck,
or ownership stake in the products. I thank him for this insight.
4. Feld observed the close connection between the sound of the environment, and the musi-
cal culture of the Kaluli in Sound and Sentiment (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1990).
5. Bosavi: Rainforest Music from Papua, New Guinea (Smithsonian Folkways, 40487, 2001).
6. VoxLox website, http://voxlox.myshopify.com/pages/about-us, accessed August 27, 2013.
7. Classic Albums—Paul Simon: Graceland, Rhino Home Video 105845RHDVD, 1997.
8. Luaka Bop’s stable included such artists as Brazilian experimentalist Tom Ze, Indian filmi
music composer Vijaya Anand, Zap Mama, the female vocal group from Zimbabwe, and
the British bangrha band, Cornershop. Real World Records initially focused on Gabriel
collaborators such as Senegalese vocalist Youssou N’Dour and Pakistani qawwalli singer
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan before branching out to more traditional global folk musics, albeit
wrapped in a cloud of digitally enhanced sonics.
9. Byrne, David. “Luaka Bop History” (http://luakabop.com/history/, accessed August
26, 2013).
10. Parks wrote the lyrics for Brian Wilson’s aborted Smile album, and Cooder played on sev-
eral Rolling Stones sessions, famously showing Keith Richards the open G tuning that
became central to the band’s classic 1970s recordings.
11. Jeff Todd Titon points out that Taj Mahal, Cooder’s former bandmate in The Rising Sons,
pursued a similar musical career in the 1970s, moving from electrified Chicago-style
blues, through a sepia-toned embrace of 1920s and 1930s American delta blues, to an
extended survey of traditional and contemporary Haitian musical practices. I posit that
race factored into the difference in visibility and viability in the careers of Ry Cooder and
Taj Mahal, with racial “othering” positioning Cooder as the more “unique” of the two
musicians.
12. Buena Vista Social Club (Nonesuch/World Circuit 79478, 1997).
13. Buena Vista Social Club (Artisan DVD 10176, 1999).
14. The value of back catalog became most apparent to the industry only in the late 1980s when
compact disc reissues of product from the vaults, such as Columbia’s Robert Johnson
boxed set, Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings (Columbia C2K 46222, 1990), gener-
ated millions of dollars in hitherto unexplored revenue streams.
15. Eric Hobsbawm demonstrated that once an authored work has been naturalized as “tra-
ditional,” it replicates and evolves in the same manner as non-authored work, in time
becoming as traditional as the form it was crafted to resemble (Hobsbawm, 1983). Dave
Harker calls attention to the political agendas and commercial interests that such invented
traditions often serve (Harker, 1985). Hobsbawm and Harker have a point, but such logic
rests on the assumption that an “authentic” exists, a real lore to contrast the fake lore they
identify. Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett counters that, “the folkloristic enterprise is not
and cannot be beyond ideology, national political interests, and economic concerns”
(Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1992: 32), and that folkloric festival representations push these
undercurrents to the visible surface (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998). Margaret Sarkissian
makes a convincing argument that festival staging empowers marginalized populations to
establish and reclaim their cultural and political identity (Sarkissian, 2000).
16. Playing For Change website, http://playingforchange.com/journey/introduction
(accessed August 25, 2013).
17. Howlett, Mike, and Phil Graham. “Creating New Music Ecologies: QUT’s 100 Songs
Project,” presented at the 2013 Art of Record Production Conference, Université Laval,
Quebec City, Canada, unpublished paper.
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Index
Abdurashidov, Abdulvali, 619f advocacy and activism in, 211–217, 213f

Abraham, Otto, 679–680 community partnerships in, 208–210
Abrahams, Roger, 174 education in, 218–220
Academia, in China, 746–748 other partnerships in, 210–211
Access, on music education, 576–583 service in, 217–218
Accordion, 695–696 sustainability in, 220–221
Acoustemology, 96 Clifford on, 199
Action ethnomusicology, 546 concerts as, 463–464
Action points, for scholars, 339–340 energy and commitment in, 221–222
Action research, 109 expectations in, success and, 223
Action research, participatory, 109–131, 128. history of, early, 28–29
See also Participatory approaches impact of
empowerment in, 128, 130 reciprocal, 224–225
ethnomusicologist role in, 128–129 on research, 223–224
Activism as intercultural mediation (See Intercultural
in CASES methodology, 211–217, 213f mediation)
marginalized music of South Asia and personal motivation for, 200–203
(See South Asia, activism and Pettan and Harrison on, 210–211
marginalized music of) scholar vs. advocate roles in, 199
musical, 368 service learning in, lessons from, 203–205
pop(ulist), 792–797 (See also Pop(ulist) setting limits in, 222–223
activism) in survivors’ music, 498
in survivors’ music, 498–501 in Uganda, 200, 201f
university-based (See Conflict resolution) Aesthetics, in survivors’ music, 487–488
Activist ethnomusicology, 350 A(pplied) Ethnomusicology, Dr., 381,
Adaptive management, 159. See also 386–392
Sustainability, resilience, and Afghanistan conflicts
adaptive management cultural redevelopment in, 462–463
resilience and, 180–182, 193 refugees from, 462–463
in Old Regular Baptists, 183–187, 184f, 191 Africa, 36
in old-time string band music revival, Aga Khan Development Network, 462
183, 188–191 Aga Khan Humanities Project, 607, 615–621
Adler, Guido, 229–230 application of, 621–623, 622f
Advocacy, 7, 28–29, 54–55, 199–226, 350 cinema group in, 620
in Austria (See Intercultural mediation) humane humanism in, 628
capacity assessment and project music in curriculum in, 618–620, 619f
conceptualization in, 205–208, 206f phases of evolution of, 620–621
CASES methodology in, 208–221 pluralism in, 626–628, 627f, 633
804 Index
Aga Khan Humanities Project (Cont.) Applied

publications of, 631 meaning of, 387
Rafique Keshavjee of, 608, 608f in other disciplines, 34–35
research on, 621, 622, 623–626, 624f, 626f Applied anthropologists, early work of, 20–21
sponsorship of, 618 Applied ethnomusicology. See also
status of, changes to, 631–632 specific topics
truth in, 627–628 advocacy in, 7, 28–29, 54–55, 199–226, 350
Aga Khan Music Initiative, 462–463 (See also Advocacy)
Aga Khan Trust for Culture, 462 being, knowing, and doing in, 9–10
Akanga, 527t, 531, 537, 543 Berger on, 32
Akiva, Rabbi, 200 as conscious practice, 30–31
Alabama, folklife program in, 721 cultural policy interventions in, 6–7
al-Ārabī, Ibn, 614 definitions of, 4–5, 59, 278, 603, 737
al-Dīn, Safī, 613 contextualized, 572–576 (See also under
al Dīn, Shams, 615 Education sector, in United States)
Alevism, 272 early work in, 20–22
Alexander, Delia, 573–575 education in, 7
Alexeyeff, Kalissa, 76 as emergent movement, 3
al-Fārābi, 612, 613 empathy in, 604
al-Ghazzālī, 614 in environmental sound activism and
al-Kīndi, 612, 613 ecojustice, 8
Allen, Catherine, 400 in epistemological orientation, 9
All for one, 797–799 four strategies of, Sheehy’s, 143
All-Stars, PAA, 569–571 hermeneutic method for, 604–610
al-Sabty, Hikmat, 527t, 531, 543 humane application of, 621–629
Altments, Miervaldis, 86, 86f, 88 humanist theory of, 610–615 (See also
Ambedkar, Ramji, 370 Humanism)
American Folklife Center (Library of humanism in, 610–615, 611f, 613f (See also
Congress), 24, 163, 164–165 Humanism)
ethnomusicologists at, 714–715 humanitarian project in, 615–621 (See also
founding of, 712, 714 Aga Khan Humanities Project)
programs of, 712–715 insularity in, 10
Analytical categories, 321–322 International Council for Traditional Music
Andersson, Nils, 687–688, 688f, 692–700, on, 45–47
694f, 699f. See also Folk Music in journalism, 8
Commission, Swedish in law and music industry, 8
Andes to Amazon on River Q’eros. See River in libraries, museums, and sound archives, 8
Q’eros, Andes to Amazon on in medicine, 8
Ang, Ien, 259 vs. non-academic work, 31
The Anthropology of Media, 526 in North America, 5–9
Antipodean approach, 72 peace and conflict resolution in, 7–8
Apasa, Santos Machacca, 416, 417 philosophical reflection on, 603–604
Appaduria, Arjun, 129, 131 power imbalance in, 31–32
Appalachian mountain, southern, cultural professionalization of, 18–20
policy interventions in, 6 public (sector), 8
Appavoo, Rev. J. Theophilus, 361, 362–365, 371 as reflexive, 95, 97
Index 805
scope of, 4–5 Artism Ensemble, 278, 294–295

Sheehy’s categorization of, 245 Exploratory World Music Playground and,
theory vs. practice in, 603 294–295
as unified voice, 602–603 origins of, 285–296
in United States, 10–29 (See also History of Artism Music Project, 278–279, 285–286
ethnomusicology, U.S.) Artistic events, 321
Applied Ethnomusicology: Historical and Artistic genre, 321
Contemporary Approaches, 28, 30–31 Artistry, 321
Apprenticeships, 728–729 Artists, teaching, 553
Araújo, Samuel, 110, 131, 586, 591 in Cleveland, 559–562, 567–570, 582, 590, 591
Archer, William Kay, 134 Arts integration, 561–563
Archive of Folk Song, 711–712 Asch, Moses, 716
Archives, folk music, 671–706 Askew, Kelly, 526
as applied ethnomusicology, 671 Ateliers d’Ethnomusicologie (ADEM), 534
issues in, 676 Attali, Jacques, 791
nation in a cabinet in, 676–681, Audio-visual media, 518
677f–678f, 680f Australia, 36
Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv in, 679–681 Austria. See also specific minorities
cultural heritage process and, 683–685 advocacy in (See Intercultural mediation)
Folk Music Commission’s impact on, comparative musicology origins in, 229–230
699–703 immigrants and minorities in
everyday meaning and practitioner’s discrimination against, 236
perspective on, 691–692 integration process for, 236
folk music in Turkish, 239, 257–269, 270–271
bearers of tradition of, 694–695, 694f immigration to, 234–235
definitions of, 672, 689–691 intangible cultural heritage in, 272
essence and origin of, 693–694 minorities in
history of, 673–676 autochthonous, 235
Kriŝjāanis Baron’s collection in, 676–679, Bosnian refugees in, 238–239, 250–257,
677f–678f, 680f 270 (See also specific minorities)
objectives of, 671–672 ethnic groups in, 235–236, 235t
rationales for, modern, 681–682 historical and political background of,
Swedish, 672–703 (See also Swedish folk 234–238, 235t, 272
music archives) Initiative Minderheitin for, 237
Arendt, Hannah, 604 music and, 229–234
Arman, Khaled, 540–542 Roma in, 238, 239–250, 270 (See also
at Bern’s Stadttheater, 541–542 Roma, in Austria)
at festival opening, 540 Authenticity
at Musik Festival Bern, 523–524, 524f in ecosystems of music, 139
Armchair ethnomusicology, 725–726 of folk music, identification of, 697
Art Is Education, 560, 577, 583 indexical, 408
Artism, 279, 281 indigenous tourism and, 406–409, 407f
applied ethnomusicology and, 297–299 performative, 407–408, 423
critique of, from Autistic Self-Advocacy Autism, 278–311
community, 299–302 application of, 283–286
participants in, 309 Artism Ensemble in, 278, 285–286, 294–295
806 Index
Autism (Cont.) Balfa, Dewey, 174–175

Artism in, 279, 281, 297–299 Balinese music education, 652
critique of, from Autistic Self-Advocacy Baron, Kriŝjāanis, 676–679, 677f–678f
community, 299–302 Baron, Robert, 721
participants in, 309 Barz, Gregory, 204, 217, 270, 385, 584
Artism Music Project in, 278–279, 285–286 Bascom, Julia, 287, 292
autism awareness in, scourge of, 302–303 Battiste, M., 389
"Autism Fact Sheet" on, NIND, 290–292 Bauböck, Rainer, 236
autism spectrum disorder and, 290, 309 Bausinger, Hermann, 267–268
Bascom on, 287, 292 Bearers of tradition, of folk music,
beginnings of, 281–283 694–695, 694f
concluding thoughts on, 307–308 Beaudry, Nicole, 72
criticisms of, 303–305 Behar, Ruth, 75
deficit-centrism in, 291–293 Beijing seniors, musical lives of, 751–753,
ethnography applications in, 296–297 752f, 753f
Grandin on, 291 Being-in-relation, 392–393
Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking on, Being in the world, 606
287, 292, 310 Being, knowing, and doing, 9–10
Music-Play Project for, 281, 284–285, 309 Belonging, deepening sense of, 571–572
music therapy and medical Berger, Harris M., 32, 340, 357–358, 363, 372
ethnomusicology for, 279–281 Berliner, Paul, 25–26, 76–77, 177
Ne’eman and self-advocates on, 292–293 Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv, 679–681
neurodiverse approach to, 293–294 Berlin School archives, 679–681
polyvocal narrative approach to, 278 Bezić, Jerko, 39, 231
self-advocates for, 292–293 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 356–357
Siebers on, 296 Bildik, Mansur, 262–264, 262f, 263f
Sinclair on, 296–297 Bi-musicality, 17, 23, 74, 354, 730, 782
spinny chairs and Mara in, 286–289, Biopower, 193
305–308 Blacking, John, 362–363, 371, 372, 604, 650,
Straus on, 296 651, 662
Walker on, 294 Blues Kids Foundation, 509
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 290, 309 Blum, Stephen, 566
Autistic Self Advocacy Network, 292 Boas, Franz, 11, 13
Ayni, 399–400, 414, 440, 445. See also Bogdal, Klaus Michael, 239–240
Reciprocity Bohman, Stefan, 683–684
Azariah, Bishop M., 361–362 Boniface, Priscilla, 406, 422, 444
Azra project, 33–34, 250, 466 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 453–478. See also
Post-conflict and post-catastrophe
Babiracki, Carol, 75 communities
Badakhshsan, 609, 621, 624–627, 628, commemorations in, 468–469
630, 632 concert advocacy in, 463–464
Bajrektarević, Sofija, 251 cultural institution closure or changes in,
Bakan, Michael, 651 475–476
Balance of nature, theory of, 170 humanitarian aid in, 454
abandonment in, 173 market shifts in, 470
ecosystem resilience and, 181–182 Mostar bridge in, 477
Index 807
Mozaik Community Development CASES methodology, 208–221

Foundation and Guča Gora advocacy and activism in, 211–217, 213f
in, 454–458 (See also Mozaik community partnerships in, 208–210
Community Development education in, 218–220
Foundation and Guča Gora) other partnerships in, 210–211
musical venues in, 460–461 service in, 217–218
post-catastrophe aid environments in, 458–460 sustainability in, 220–221
Pro Helvetia–Gramofon Records Ca tru Vietnam project, 152–153, 153f–154f
partnership in, 471–475 CD recordings, 518. See also specific recordings
War Child and Pavarotti Music Center in, Čengić, Aida, 471–475
464–468, 478 Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict (CFCH), 715–716
ethno-religious nature of, 456–457 Central Conservatory of Music (China), 747,
Non-Governmental Organization 763, 766
Development Foundation after, Chinese Guqin musical culture database of,
454–458 747–748
Bosnia Living Heritage Network, 455 English translation of music by, 758–759
Bosnian refugees, in Austria, 238–239, "Key Project" of, 2006, 747
250–257, 270 Musical Instrument Exhibition Centre of,
Bosnian refugees, in Norway, 33–34 760–762, 761f
"Bosnian evening" in, 254 music course reforms of, 754
"Dunjaluče" in, 252–254 Uyghur Muqam database of, 747
as forced migrants, 250 World Music Days at, 754–758, 755f
indirect intervention in, results of, 257 Ceribašić, Naila, 245
"Kraj tanana šadrvana" in, 255–256 Chahar khaneh, 626f
Petrović and Levin on, 250–251 Chatterjee, Partha, 356–357
Pettan’s work on, 250 Chicago, 6
Ševko Pekmezović’s music on, 251–257, 251f The Chicago Guide to Collaborative
"When I Sing My Thoughts Fly to Bosnia" Ethnography, 437
in, 251–252, 251f CHIMP (Children’s Happiness Integrative
Botkin, Benjamin, 711 Music Project), 284
Brian Jones Presents the Pan Piles of China, 735–766
Jajouka, 779 cultural diversity in, 756
Buber, Martin, 200 history of applied ethnomusicology in,
Buena Vista Social Club, 773, 782–783 735–738
Bufo Variations, 96–97 individual perspective on, 753–764
Bustin, Dillon, 720 background on, 753–754
Butler, Richard, 406 Chinese music records in, English
Byrne, David, 780, 784 translations of, 758–760
Musical Instrument Exhibition Centre
Cáceras, Renato, 433, 439 in, 760–764 (See also Musical
Cambodian Living Arts organization, 463 Instrument Exhibition Centre)
Cambodia, travel disruption and forced World Music Days in, 754–758, 755f, 757f
migration in, 463, 478 Key Research Base for Humanities and
Campbell, Patricia Shehan, 21, 563–564 Social Sciences in, 747, 766
Capacity, assessment of, 205–208, 206f Musicology Research Institute in, 747, 766
808 Index
China (Cont.) frames for learning in, institutional, 555–557

research findings in, 737–738 partners’ network in, decisions of,
scope of, 735–736 557–560, 587
social perspectives on, 738–753 Cleveland Arts Education Consortium
in academia, musical databases, 746–748 in, 560–561
in mass entertainment, Chinese Central Cleveland Metropolitan School District
Television, 748–751 (See also in, 558–559
Chinese Central Television (CCTV) Cleveland Music Therapy Consortium
programs) in, 560
in political construction, communities, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
738–741, 740f in, 557–560, 577–578
in social construction, intangible cultural Young Audiences of Northeast Cleveland
heritages, 741–746, 745f, 765 in, 560, 582–583
in social life, musical lives of Beijing Progressive Arts Alliance in, 567–568
seniors in, 751–753, 752f, 753f social barriers and access in, 576–583 (See
Chinese Central Television (CCTV) also under Education sector, in
programs, 748–751 United States)
discussion of, 750–751 Young Audiences of Northeast Cleveland,
Fenghua Guoye in, 750 560, 582–583
Opera Channel in, 750 Clifford, James, 199
Television Grand Prix for Young Singers Climati, Antonio, 29
in, 749 Coca leaves, 400, 401, 414, 425–426, 443
Traditional Instrumental Music Cohen, Judah M., 204
Performance Competitions in, Collaboration
749–750 with folklorists, 726
Chinese Guqin musical culture database, researcher vulnerability in, 72
747–748 in survivors’ music, 492–493
Christchurch Latvian diaspora, Uz Tēvu Colonial(ism), 381
Mājām and, 84–88, 86f cultural impoverishment of minorities
Christensen, Dieter, 51 from, 317
Church, in India, 360–361, 370 Colonized, 381
Civil society, 477 Colonizer, 381
Classical ten percent, 352–353 Comfort women, 481, 507. See also
Classification Survivors’ music
in cultural heritage process, 684 Commemorations
of music, 590 peer-to-peer file sharing and, 773
Cleveland Arts Education Consortium, 560–561 in post-conflict and post-catastrophe
Cleveland, music education in. See also communities, 468–469
Education sector, in United States Commerce, 772–801
Art Is Education in, 560, 577, 583 all for one in, 797–799
cross-institutional applications in, 565–572 as applied ethnomusicology?, 772–773
belonging in, deepening sense of, 571–572 Buena Vista Social Club in, 773, 782–783
formal schooling instructional access copyright ownership in, 776
expansions in, 565–568 cultural merchants and brokers in, 774–778
"musicking" a public voice in, 569–571 (See also Cultural merchants and
Toddler Rock in, 559–560, 568–569, 571, brokers)
580–581 folklorist presence in end product in, 777
Index 809
music business degree programs in, 773 Community arts survey, performing basic,
mutually beneficial exploitation in, 779–784 342–344
(See also Exploitation, mutually Community-based tourism, 410–411
beneficial) Community music, 640
pop(ulist) activism in, 792–797 (See also popularity of, 652–653
Pop(ulist) activism) scope and applications of, 653–655
Real World Records in, 773, 780–781, 790 Community partnerships, in CASES
from resource exploitation to service methodology, 208–210
enterprise in, 784–792 (See also Community service learning, Usner on,
under Exploitation) 208–209
academics’ role in, 786–787 Comparative musicology, 13–14
assumptions of musicians recorded vs. folk music research and
in, 786 ethnomusicology, 37, 37t
field recordings in, commoditization of, Conceptualization, of project, 205–208, 206f
785–786 Concert advocacy, 463–464
field recordings in, non-academic, Concerts, public, 518
784–785 Conflict resolution, music for, 511–547
global music industry in, 790–792 case studies on, 519–524
Lomax, Alan’s work in, 785–786 East Germany: Polyphonie der Kulturen
music industry in, 786 Project ( Rostock, 2005-2008),
One Laptop Per Child in, 788–789 519–521, 520f
Real World Records and Luaka Bop in, Switzerland: Münsingen Project in,
780–781, 790, 800 521–523, 522f
representation in, 787 Switzerland: Musik Festival Bern in,
service in, 792 523–524, 524f
Toms Shoes in, 788, 789–790 CD production in: representation,
traditional music circuit in, 787–788 authority, and negotiations in,
self-promotion and cultural promotion in, 535–538
774–776 Ensemble Kaboul as representation of
sustainability in, 799 exiles in
technology, media, and marketing in, 772 Arman at Bern’s Stadttheater in, 541–542
Commitment, to project, 221–222 Arman at festival opening in, 540
Committee on Applied Ethnomusicology, Ensemble Kaboul in
SEM, 27 as representation of exiles in festival,
Communication, ebb and flow of, 324–328 540–542
diglossia in, 325 role-perceptions of, 534
fusions in, 327 infrastructural basis, finances, and funding
interactions between genres in, 326–327 of, 528–530
Kera language in, 325 institutional contexualization of, 512–513
languages in, 325 long-term effects of, 542–545
pidgins and creoles in, 325 in Münsingen Project, 544
Siberian Sakha dièrétii sung genre in, in Musik Festival Bern, 544–545
325–326 in Polyphonie der Kulturen Project,
West Cameroon’s DAKASTUM in, 326 542–544
Communities, 321. See also specific music’s role in, 515–517
communities between observer and actor, 524–525
Chinese, 738–741, 740f outlook for, 545
810 Index
Conflict resolution, music for (cont.) Convention for the Safeguarding of the
performers and interlocutors for, Intangible Cultural Heritage,
selection of 2003, 168
in Münsingen Project, 532–533 Cooley, Timothy, 244, 245, 270, 385, 584
in Polyphonie der Kulturen Project, Cooperation models,
530–532 consultant–researcher, 270
political context of Copyright ownership, 776
in Germany, 512–513 Corntassel, J., 394
in Switzerland, 514 Creating Local Arts Together (CLAT),
power and expectation in, in Münsingen 337–339, 338f
Project, 538–540 “Creativity and Ambiance: An Ecstatic
power interplays in, 535 Feedback Model from Arab
public display in, 517–519 Music,” 328
representation in, 530 Creoles, 325
semi-calculable factors in, 526, 527t Critical evaluation, 112
Connections, from music, 556–557 Critical race theory, 380
Conscientization, 114 Croatia, 38–39, 41–42
Conscious practice, 352 Cultural anthropology, sustainability in, 172
Conservation, 160–167 Cultural-artistic associations (KUDs), 456, 477
cultural, 175 Cultural conservation, 175. See also
resilience in, 182 Conservation
definition of, 165 resilience in, 182
history of Cultural Conservation, 164–165
cultural resources in, Europe, 161–162 safeguarding in, 168, 182
cultural resources in, U.S., 162–167 Cultural democracy, for empowerment, 653
(See also History of cultural Cultural diversity, in China, 756
conservation, U.S.) Cultural engagement and ownership, through
natural resources in, 161 participatory approaches. See
preservation and, 160, 162 Participatory approaches
archival, 162 Cultural heritage
digital, 162 ecology and, 134–135
UNESCO on, 167–168 intangible (See Intangible cultural heritage)
in resilience, 182 Cultural Heritage Day, in China, 742
restoration in, 162 Cultural heritage process, 683–685
UNESCO definition of, 168 Bohman on, 683–684
Conservation biology, 172 classification in, 684
Conservation ecology, 172–173 identification in, 684
Constructivist framework, 509, 557 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett on, 683
Consultant–researcher cooperation standardization in, 685
models, 270 Swedish Folk Music Commission’s impact
Context on, 699–703
in applied ethnomusicology, 572–576 symbolization in, 685
in ecosystems of music, 139 Cultural impoverishment, of minorities, 317
Contexts and constructs. See also specific types Cultural institutions. See also specific institutions
in five domains, 141f, 144–146, 145t in post-conflict and post-catastrophe
in Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures, 151 communities, 475–476
Index 811
Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Subaltern Sing (and drum!) in, 358–361

Research, and Practice, 589 Tamil folk music as Dalit theology in,
Cultural merchants and brokers, 774–778 362–365
Alan Lomax as, 774–777 "polluting" aspects of, 352–353, 359, 365–366
copyright ownership and, 776 scholars’ ignorance of, 352
David Byrne and Peter Gabriel in, Dalit theology movement, 361–362, 371
780–782, 784 Daly, Herman E., 171–172
Ry Cooder as, 782–783 Dariquebe, Estela, 428f, 429
self-promotion and cultural promotion by, Databases, musical, in China, 746–748
774–776 Chinese Guqin musical culture database in,
Steven Feld as, 777–778 747–748
Cultural migration, Musical Instrument Uyghur Muqam database in, 747
Exhibition Centre of China and, 763 Davidova, Eva, 247
Cultural policy, 728 Davis, Martha Ellen, 27
Cultural policy interventions, 6–7 Davis, Wade, 443
Cultural redevelopment. See Post-conflict and Dayton Accord, 457
post-catastrophe communities Deasy, Richard, 556–557
Cultural resources, history of conservation of. Decolonization, 26, 379–394
See also specific types Barz and Cooley on, 385
in Europe, 161–162 beginnings of, 379–382
in U.S., 162–167 (See also History of cultural colonizer–colonized shared culture in, 381
conservation, U.S.) critical race theory in, 380
Cultural trauma, 6 Dr. A(pplied) Ethnomusicology meets
Curriculum Professor Decolonization in, 381,
ethnomusicology in, 647–648 386–392
music in, in Aga Khan Humanities Project, Gourlay on, 384–385
618–620, 619f Meizel on, 385–386
teaching, applied domain in, 50 Ms. White Settler Colonial in, 381,
Cusick, Susanne, 484 382–384
Cutting, Jennifer, 730 as non-indigenous narrator, 379
person-is-political story in, 379
DAKASTUM, 326 response-ability and being-in-relation in,
Dalit, 371 392–393
Christian, 360–361 story-ing fundamentals in, 379–380
Christianizing of, 361–362 talks about, 393–394
cultural value of, transformative musical uncomfortable reflexivity in, 379–380
meaning/action as, 351–352 whispering about, 384–386
as oppositional politics, 351, 369 wide-awakeness in, 384, 393
rejection of Hinduism by, 371–372 Decolonization, Professor, 381, 386–392
terminology for, 351, 370 Deep Forest, 327
Dalit Action Theory, 351–352 Deficit-centrism, in autism, 291–293
in ethnomusicology, 357–360, 369 Delicious Peace coffee, 223
Dalit music and culture Democracy, cultural, for empowerment, 653
case studies on Dersim, 272
drumming Dalit documentary film in, Dersim Rebellion (massacre), 272
365–369 Desk work, 725–726
812 Index
Development Drumming Dalit documentary film, 365–369

community, participatory approaches Drums, Indian frame (parai), 352, 370. See also
for, 129 Dalit; Parai
conventional vs. participatory approaches in drumming Dalit documentary film,
to, 111–112 (See also Participatory 365–369
approaches) as "polluted," 352–353, 359, 365–366
cultural, in post-conflict and trance states from, 360
post-catastrophe communities, 453 Dub music, 478
network, 518 Dukuduku Forest residents (South Africa), 110
programs for (See also specific types) Dumont, Louis, 98
critical evaluation of, 112 Duri, Pak, 508
sustainable (See Sustainable development) Dyen, Doris, 27
Development, sustainable, 111, 158, 160. See
also Sustainability East Germany, migrant music in, 519–521, 520f
economists on, 169–172 Ecojustice, 8
environmentalists on, 169–170 Ecology, 179, 333
origins and meaning of, 169 conservation, 172–173
vs. sustainable growth, 171 Haeckel’s definition of, 135–136
DeWitt, Mark, 178 music cultures and, 134–135
Dialogic research, 110 Ecomusicology, 8
Didi-Huberman, Georges, 349 Economists, on sustainable development,
Dièrétii sung genre (Siberian Sakha), 325–326 169–172
Digital media, 518 Ecosystem, 58, 136, 179–182
Digital music, market shifts from, 470 definitions and applications of, 58, 136
Digital preservation, 162 in sustainability, 137
Diglossia, 325 Tansley on, 136
Direct mediation, 34 Ecosystems of music, 135–141
Dirksen, Rebecca, 28, 350, 354 applicability of, to ethnomusicology, 58,
Distantiation, 607, 608 136–137, 179–182
Diversification, 181–182 definition and scope of, 134–135, 137, 138
Diversity intruders in, 140
cultural, in China, 756 key clusters of forces in, mapping, 140, 141f
in global music maintaining in, 137
decline in, 142 music genres in, rise and fall of, 137–138
sustaining of, 142 not interfering in, 140
in sustainability, 177 preservation of, factors in, 137–138
Documentation. See also Archives; sustainability in
specific topics concept of, 137–138, 179–182
oral history, in George Town, Penang, 121 what to sustain in, 138–139
printed, 518 Tansley on, 137
for social intervention, 129 tradition, authenticity, and context in, 139
of survivors’ music, 501 Education
Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 505 CASES methodology in, 218–220
Dongjing music, Yunnan, 743 music (See Music education)
Dorson, Richard, 18 community music and (See Music
Dower, John, 354 education, community music, and
Dr. A(pplied) Ethnomusicology, 381, 386–392 ethnomusicology)
Index 813
Education sector, 553–592 building momentum in, 582–583

ethnomusicologists’ strategies in, 555 Cleveland Opera in, 581–582
outcomes of, 555 Cleveland School of the Arts in,
partnerships among institutions in, 553–554, 577–578
587–588 empowering students in, 582
teaching artists in, 553 geographic and demographic features in,
Education sector, in United States, 553–592. 579–580
See also Cleveland, music immigrant populations in, 580
education in logistics of, 576–577
background on, 553–555 out-of-school enrichment in, 577–579
contextualized strategies in, definition of, poverty and economic barriers in,
572–576 577, 579
Alexander on, 573–575 racial segregation in, 579
in education partnerships, 573 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in, 577–578
Maultsby on, 573–575 summary and suggestions for, 587–589
negotiations and partnerships in, Edwards, Bob, 477
575–576 Elegant Chinese Music, 750
of Sheehy, 572–573 Ellis, Alexander, 13
contextualized strategies in, for Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, 461
partnerships for learning music, Empathy, 604
584–586 Empowerment
cross-institutional applications in, 565–572 of community as activists, 215
belonging in, deepening sense of, 571–572 cultural democracy for, 653
formal schooling instructional access ethnomusicologist role in, 128–129
expansions in, 565–568 from participatory approaches, 128, 130
"musicking" a public voice in, 569–571 of students, in Cleveland, 582
Toddler Rock in, 559–560, 568–569, 571, Enactment, 322
580–581 Enactment, genre, 322
decisions among network of partners in, fusions in liminal space in, 326–327
557–560 gbaguru, 331–332, 331t
frames for learning in, institutional, 555–557 integral and liminal, 322–323
connecting music and life experiences in, rock enactments in, 324
555–556 Enemy Way Music, 97
connections from music in, 556–557 Energy, in advocacy, 221–222
constructivist framework in, 557 The Engaged Observer: Anthropology,
economic challenges in, 555 Advocacy, and Activism, 483
learning through music in, 555 Engagement
music in non–arts disciplines in, 556 cultural, through participatory approaches
pedagogy foundations for music in, 561–565 (See Participatory approaches)
arts integration in, 561–563 university in, 202
multicultural music education in, Engel, Adelia, 536, 538
563–565 Engle, Carl, 711–712
professional roles in, 561 Eno, Brian, 464
power relations and ethnomusicologists’ Ensemble Kaboul
decisions in, 584–586 as exiles in festival, 540–542
social barriers and access in Cleveland in, Arman at Bern’s Stadttheater in,
navigating, 576–583 541–542
814 Index
Ensemble Kaboul (Cont.) nationalism in, 511

Arman at festival opening in, 540 Europe Invents the Gypsies, 239–240
at Musik Festival Bern, 523–524, 524f Europs erfindet die Zigeuner, 239–240
role-perceptions of, 534 Evaluation. See also specific programs and types
Environmental sound activism, 8 critical, 112
Epistemological orientation, 9 folk, 97
Esüwa healing songs, 429–431, 431f, 445 of values (See Values, evaluating)
safeguarding of, and song ownership, Events, artistic, 321
431–434 Expectations in advocacy, success and, 223
Ethics, in survivors’ music, 486–487 Exploitation
Ethnicity in music industry, 798
construction of, through music in diaspora, mutually beneficial, 779–784
258–260 Brian Jones and Moroccan musicians
definition of, 258 in, 779
as different, 259 David Byrne and Peter Gabriel in,
Ethnologue, 320 780–782, 784
The Ethnomusicologist, 9, 175 George Harrison and Ravi Shankar in,
Ethnomusicologists. See also specific 779–780
individuals Paul Simon and Graceland in,
early U.S., 175–176 779–780, 784
personalities and attitudes of, 9–10 Ry Cooder in, 782–783
place of employment of, 4 Van Dyke Parks in, 782
Ethnomusicology. See also specific topics resource, to service enterprise, 784–792
applied (See Applied ethnomusicology) Exploratory World Music Playground
definitions of, 4, 14, 58 (E-WoMP), 286, 294–295
education and, 646–649
vs. folk music research and comparative Fanon, F., 389
musicology, 37–38, 37t Fan Pavilion Unique Chorus, 752
in higher education, 645–646 Fargion, Janet Topp, 178, 681
humanized, 25–26 Farrar, Claire, 713
work in, 6–7 Father Sebastian Englert Anthropological
Ethno-Musicology, 14 Museum (MAPSE), 78–79
Ethnomusicology (journal of the Society for Faux, Tom, 178
Ethnomusicology), 9 Fein, Elizabeth, 298, 309
articles on minorities’ music in, Feintuch, B., 143
336–337, 337f Feld, Steven
subjects of articles in, historic perspectives on applied ethnomusicology, 107
on, 336 Bufo Variations CD of, 96–97
Ethnomusicology: A Very Short Introduction, 59 Kalululi work of, 177, 204
Ethnomusicology Review, 28 commerce and, 777–778, 800
Euba, Akin, 754–755 Sound and Sentiment of, 508
Eurocentric hegemony, 354–355 Fellow traveler syndrome, 715, 716, 727, 731
Europe Fenghua Guoye, 750
ethnomusicologies in, 37–40, 37t Ferris, William, 174
applied, 40–42 Festival of American Folklife, 6, 175, 713, 719
"guest-workers" in, 511 Field recording, 785–786
migration in, 511 Fieldwork, 725–726
Index 815
grant work and, connecting, 728–729 panels on, creating, 727

partnership model of, 243 public, 24–26, 53, 710
Film. See also specific films origins of, 711
participatory ethnographic, 350 as strategic governmental outreach,
Firth, Simon, 791 723–725
Flam, Gila, 484 in U.S., 24–25
Fletcher, Alice Cunningham, 11–12, 230 Folklore Forum, on applied musicology, 28
Flores, Agustín Machacca, 419–420 Folklorist, public (U.S.), 709–732
Flores, Beatríz Apasa, 416 disciplinary challenges in, 730–732
Flores, Francisco Quispe, 416, 417 focus and work of, 709–710
Fock, Eva, 233 folklife programs for
Foley, Michael, 477 federal, 712–717 (See also Folklife
Folk and Traditional Arts Division, 713–714 programs, U.S. federal)
Folk Arts Division of National Endowment for state, 717–721 (See also Folklife programs,
the Arts, 24–25, 163–166 U.S. state)
Folk evaluation, 97 state, partnerships in, 721–722
Folklife, 709 folklore in, 709
Folklife paradigm, 730 governmental outreach in, strategic,
Folklife programs, U.S. federal, 712–717 723–725
American Folklife Center in, 24, 163, grantmaking as tool for, 710
164–165, 712–715 history of, 711–712
Archive of Folk Culture (Library of job of, 725–730
Congress), 713 apprenticeships in, 728–729
Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in, armchair ethnomusicology in, 725–726
715–716 collaborations in, 726
conferences in, 716–717 connecting fieldwork to grant work in,
Festival of American Folklife (Smithsonian 728–729
Folklife Festival) in, 6, 175, 713, 719 cultural policy in, 728
Folk and Traditional Arts Division, 713–714 desk work in, 725–726
Important Intangible Cultural Properties fieldwork in, 725–726
in, 713 grants management and consultation
in National Endowment of the Arts, 713–714 in, 727
National Heritage Fellowships in, 713–714 panels in, 727
Folklife programs, U.S. state, 717–721 public programs in, 729
in Alabama, 721 radio programs in, 729–730
in Maryland, 717–718 Terry Liu’s work in, 727
in Massachusetts, 719–720 origins of, 711
in New Hampshire, 721 in public and state government, 711–712
in New York City, 720 Folk music, 188–192, 672–673. See also specific
partnerships with, 721–722 regions and types
in Pennsylvania, 717 archives of, 671–706 (See also Archives,
in Tennessee, 718 folk music)
Folklore bearers of tradition of, 694–695, 694f
history of ethnomusicology and, 11, 13, 18, concept of, 682–683
24, 39–41, 43 as cultural heritage, 685–686
as intangible cultural heritage, 709 definitions of, 672, 689–691
Lomax, Alan, and, 23–24 essence and origin of, 693–694
816 Index
Folk music (Cont.) rise and fall of, 137–138

everyday meaning and practitioner’s George Town, Penang
perspective on, 691–692 culture and population of, 116–117
research on, vs. comparative musicology Democratic Action Party in, 130
and ethnomusicology, 37–38, 37t history and geography of, 116
revival of, 23–24 George Town, Penang, theater for
Swedish (See Swedish folk music) development
threats to, 695–696 George Town Heritage Celebrations in,
Folk Music: A Very Short Introduction, 672 117–123
Folk Music Commission, Swedish participatory and interactive activities in
on cultural heritage process, 699–703 community celebrations in, 120–121
end goal of, 697–698 oral history documentation in, 121
folk music of Stories under the Stars in, 122, 122f
"authentic," identification of, 697 George Town Heritage Celebrations in,
definition and scope of, 692–693 participatory
founding and early history of, 686–689, 688f evaluations in, 123
value scale of, 698–699, 699f planning, training, and bottom-up
Folkmusikkommissionen. See Folk Music organization in, 118–119
Commission, Swedish presentations in, 119
Folk-revival musicians, 174, 188–192 research on needs, problems, and action, 119
Folksingers, 163 social impact and outcomes of, 123
Folk Songs of North America, in the English Malaysia in
Language, 712 national forms of culture in, creation of,
Folk Song U.S.A., 712 116, 130
Folkways Collections, 716 pluralistic society in, 115
Folkways Records, 176 top-down cultural policies in, 116
Anthony Seeger at, 176, 715–716 George Town, Penang, theater for
Foucault, Michel, 193–194 development in, 115–127
Frame drums, India. See Parai (frame drum) advocacy projects with young people in,
Frederick Douglass Academy, Harlem Samba participatory, 123–127, 124f
at, 655–658, 663–664 creation and performance in, 125–126
Freire, Paolo, 110, 113–114, 586 evaluations in, 126
Fuchs, Bernhard, 262–263 planning in, 124–125
Fusions, 327 research, learning, and mapping in, 125
social impact and outcomes of, 126–127
Gabriel, Anna, 793–794 training in, 125
Gabriel, Peter, 780–782, 793 Bangsa Malaysia and OneMalaysia in, 116
Gardner, Howard, 604 Germany
Garfias, Robert, 26 migrant music in, 519–521, 520f
Gay, Geneva, 589 migration to, 512–513
Genre. See also specific types The Gift, 399
artistic, 321 Gilbert, Shirl, 484, 496–497, 505
graded health analysis of, 332, 332t Giving back, 12
music in Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures,
interest in, 137 152–155
key clusters of forces in, mapping, in Ca tru Vietnam project, 152–153,
140, 141f 153f–154f
Index 817
five domains ecosystem in, 155 Graded genre health analysis, 332, 332t

Glassie, Henry, 717 Gramofon Records, Pro Helvetia funding
Global arena, 29–53 of, 471–475
Africa in, 36 Gramsci, Antonio, 358
applied ethnomusicology definition and Grandin, Temple, 291
scope in, 30–32 Grants management and consultation, 727
applied part of, in other disciplines, 34–35 Grant work, connecting fieldwork and, 728–729
Australia in, 35–36 Grauberger, Steve, 721
European views on Gray, Judith, 176
applied ethnomusicologies in, 40–42 Greeley, William, 161
ethnomusicologies in, 37–40, 37t Green, Archie, 714
individual views on, 48–51 Greene, M., 393
academic vs. applied work in, 49–50 Grimm brothers, 675
applied domain in teaching Guča Gora, 454–458
curricula in, 50 Guča Gora Sloga, 455–458
definitions in, 48 "Guest-workers," 511
projects in, 48–49 Gunderson, Lance, 180, 181
university courses in, 50 Guqin musical culture database, 747–748
International Council for Traditional Music Gypsy. See Roma, in Austria
in, 42–44
on applied ethnomusicology, 45–47 Haeckel, Ernst, 135
Society for Ethnomusicology and, 51–53 Hahn, Tomie, 362, 366
intervention in, 29–30, 31 Haitian Arts Alliance, 463
North America in, 36–37 Hall, Stuart, 270–271
overview of, 35–37 Hamera, Judith, 478
personal stance on, 32–34 Hammarlund, Anders, 676
power imbalance in, 31–32 Han Chinese Taoist music, 743
South America in, 36 Hanson, Thomas, 356
Southeast Asia in, 36 harajin, 351, 370
vignette on, 29–30 Harker, D., 800–801
Global music Harlem Samba, 655–658
diversity of Harrison, George, promotion of Ravi Shankar
decline in, 142 by, 779–780
sustaining of, 142 Harrison, Klisala, 28, 210–211, 512–513,
homogenization of, 317 584–585, 602–603
in systemic music education, 643–644 Harris, Robin, 335
Global music industry, 790–792 Hawes, Bess Lomax, 165, 175, 712, 713, 718–719
Global Voices in Song, 649 Haydon, Glen, 13–14
Goetze, Mary, 649 Head Start Program, 568–569, 581, 591
Goldstein, Kenneth, 174 Health of humanity’s artistic traditions
Górale, 244 in 2010s, 330–332
Gordon, Robert Winslow, 711 ethnolinguistic community’s artistic
Gourlay, Kenneth, 26, 384–385 genres in, 330–331
Government. See also specific graded genre health analysis in, 332, 332t
government-sponsored programs quick and dirty genre health sketch of,
public folklorists in, 711–712 331–332, 331t
Graceland, 779–780, 784 global assessment of, 333–335
818 Index
Health of humanity’s artistic traditions (Cont.) Boas in, 11, 13

loss of artistic traditions in, examples of, 334 comparative musicology in, 13–14
testimonials on, 334–336 critiques in, undesirable ends in, 28
Healy, Ann Marie, 183 doctoral training in, 23
Heaney, Hunter, 793–794 Dorson in, 18
Help, 465, 478 Dorson-List-Merriam era in, 18
Hemetek, Ursula, 37–38, 41 Dyen and Davis in, 27
on minorities, 232 Ethnomusicology in, 14–15, 16
on Roma, 239–240 European roots of, 13–14
Henderson, Youngblood, 388 Fletcher in, 11–12
Hermeneutic method, 604–610 Folk Arts Division of NEA in, 24–25, 163–166
sounds human in, 604–607, 605f folklore in, 24
understanding in, 607–610, 608f folk music revival in, 23–24
Herzog, George, 13, 15–16, 23–24 founding generation’s research in, 22
Heschel, Abraham Joshua, 225 giving back in, 12
Heth, Charlotte, 26, 176 Herzog in, 13, 15–16, 23–24
Higher education, ethnomusicology in, Hood in, 22
645–646 humanistic turn in, 25–26
Hinch, Thomas, 406 institutional demand for professors of, 23
Hindman Settlement School, 173 institutional growth in, 22–23
Hinduism, 371 International Folk Music Council and, 17–18
contemporary fundamentalist movement Keil in, 25–27
in, 356 Kunst in, 11, 14
Dalit rejection of, 371–372 Lomax in, 6, 12, 23–24
Hindustani music, 348–349, 352–353 Matthews in, 11
early treatises on, 355–356 McAllester, Merriam, Rhodes, and Seeger’s
History of cultural conservation, U.S., 162–167 new direction in, 16–17
American Folklife Center of Library of Merriam and McAllester in, 15
Congress in, 24, 163, 164–165, Merriam in, 15, 17–20
712–715 music as culture in, move to, 25
critics of, 167 Nettl in, 13–16
Cultural Conservation in, 164–165 Newsletter in, 16
digital preservation in, 162 popular interest in, 22–23
Folk Arts Division of NEA in, 24–25, postcolonial applied
163–166 ethnomusicology in, 26
folksingers in, 163 pre-1950, 11
Hawes, Bess Lomax, in, 165 professionalization of
Loomis in, 164–165 ethnomusicology in, 19
Office of Folklife Studies in, 24, 163 Seeger in, Anthony, 12
restoration in, 162 Seeger in, Charles, 12
revivalists in, 163 Sheehy in, 12, 26
source musicians in, 163 skepticism in, 20
tradition-bearers in, 163 Smithsonian in, 24–25
History of ethnomusicology, U.S., 10–29, 26 Society for Ethnomusicology in, 14–15, 16
in 1950, 11, 14 Committee on Applied
advocacy in, 7, 28–29, 54–55 Ethnomusicology in, 27
applied, origins and early work in, 18–22 current activity of, 28
Index 819
Section on Applied humanist theory in, 610–615, 611f, 613f (See

Ethnomusicology in, 27 also Humanism)
theorization in, 28 humanist turn in ethnomusicology in,
Hobwbawm, Eric, 800–801 25–26, 385
Hofman, Ana, 203, 204, 216–217 humanitarian project in, 615–621 (See also
The Hold Life Has, 400 Aga Khan Humanities Project)
Holmes, Chris, 793–794 philosophical reflection in, 603–604
Holtzberg, Maggie, 720–721 Hurricane Katrina, 461
Homogenization, global music, 317
Hood, Mantle, 9, 22, 71, 74, 175, 354 ICH (Intangible Cultural Heritage)
Hooks, Bell, 393 masterpieces, 168–169
"Hope," 468 Identification
Horvath, Gisela, 247 of authenticity of folk music, 697
House of Sharing, 489–491 in cultural heritage process, 684
Howard, Keith, 652 Identity. See also specific cultures
Humane application, 621–629 construction of, through music in diaspora,
Humaneism, 612–613, 614 258–260
Humane, music as, 606 for minorities, 233
Humanism, 610–615, 611f, 613f national, 243
Christians on, 611 Illich, Ivan, 204
in Christian world, 613–614 Immersion, ethnomusicological method
critics of, 611–612 of, 369
history of, 610–611 Immigrants. See Migration and migrant
Islamic, golden age of, 612, 613f, 630–631 communities, music in
man in, 614–618, 615f Impey, Angela, 110
music in, 611f, 612–615, 613f Important Intangible Cultural Properties, 713
Muslims on, 612 Independent acting, migrant group, 518
in Muslim world, 612–614, 613f India. See also South Asia
standard account of, 610 church in, 360–361
Humanistic, music as, 606 frame drames in (See Parai (frame drum))
Humanist theory, 610–615, 611f, 613f. See also Indigenous tourism
Humanism authenticity and, 406–409, 407f
Humanitarian aid, 454. See also Post-conflict community-based, 410–411
and post-catastrophe communities indigenous music in, 404–405
Humanitarian project, 615–621. See also Aga Indigenous tourism, with Quechua Q’eros, 404–415
Khan Humanities Project active voice in, 440–441
Humanities, 602–633 case study on Q’eros–tourist exchange in,
empathy in, 604 music in, 411–415, 413f–416f
hermeneutic method and, 604–610 Ministry of Culture and, 409, 441
music role in, 604–607, 605f mutually beneficial exchange in, 415–422
understanding in, 607–610, 608f Q’eros identity and, 409–411
humane application in, 621–629 reciprocity in indigenous tourism with, 414,
application in, 621–623, 622f 423–425, 440
humane humanism in, 628 Indigenous tourism, with Wachiperi, 425–440
music as humane in, 626–629 CD self-production by, 434–440, 437f, 438f,
research in, 621, 622, 623–626, 624f, 626f 441–442
truth in, 627–628 Esüwa healing songs of, 429–431, 431f, 445
820 Index
Indigenous tourism, with Wachiperi (Cont.) Loughran on, 229

Ministry of Culture and, 441 Pettan on, 269, 272
safeguarding Esüwa and song ownership in, Rice on, 270
431–434 in Roma, 238, 239–250, 270
song revival and UNESCO in, 425–429, 428f Slobin on, 269–270
Indirect mediation, 34 theoretical background on, 229–238
Indomania, 355–356 Austrian minority in, 234–238, 235t, 272
Indophobia, 355 music and minorities in, 229–234
Initiative Minderheitin, 237 in Turkish immigrants, 239, 257–269,
Institute of Folk Music Research and 270–271
Ethnomusicology at University of International Council for Traditional Music
Music and Performing Arts Vienna, (ICTM), 42–44
269, 271 on applied ethnomusicology, 45–47
Instructional materials, 648–649 intention of, current, 44
Instruction, music, 647–648. See also Music name of, 60
education objectives of, 43
Insularity, 10 origins of, 42–43
Intangible cultural heritage, 134–155 post-WW II intention of, 43–44
in Austria, 272 Society for Ethnomusicology in, 51–53
in China, 741–746, 745f, 765 Study Group on Music and Minorities of,
ecology and, 134–135 231–234
ecosystems of music in, 135–141, 141f (See International Folk Music Council (IFMC),
also Ecosystems of music) 17–18, 42
five domains of, 141f, 143–146, 145t Interpretation, in survivors’ music, 492–493
folklore as, 709 Intersquad, 527t, 531, 535, 543
international perspectives and initiatives in, Intervention, 29–30, 31
142–143 Introduction to Musicology, 13–14
origins of, UNESCO, 168 Invested in Community: Ethnomusicology and
sustainable futures in, 146–155 (See also Musical Advocacy, 60
Sustainable Futures for Music Isma’ilis, 615–620, 624, 625, 630, 631
Cultures: Toward an Ecology of
Musical Diversity) Jabbour, Alan, 713, 714–715, 718
tradition, authenticity, and context in, 139 Jacob, Prema, 349, 369
Integral enactments, 322–323 Japanese military sexual slavery, 481, 507. See
definition of, 323 also Survivors’ music
genre, 322–323 Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra, 96–97, 107
vs. liminal enactments in, 328–330 Jeongsun, Han, 494–495
Intercultural mediation, 229–272 Jerewa, Carmen, 428f, 429–431, 431f
Barz and Cooley on, 270 Johnson, Robert, 800
in Bosnian refugees, 238–239, 250–257, 270 Jones, Brian, 779
consultant–researcher cooperation models Jones, Fernando, 509
in, 270 Jones, Sir William, 355
ethnicity in, 270 Jones, Stacey Holman, 75
at Institute of Folk Music Research and Journalism, 8
Ethnomusicology at University of Jun, Cao, 735
Music and Performing Arts Vienna,
269, 271 Kalululi, Feld’s work with, 777–778
Index 821
Karadžić, Vuk, 694–695 Learning music, systems of

Karnatak music, 348–349, 352–353 in five domains, 141f, 144–146, 145t
Brahmin control of, 369–370 in Sustainable Futures for Music
early treatises on, 355–356 Cultures, 150
Karpeles, Maud, 42–43, 51–52 Learning through music, 555, 589. See also
Kedia, Satish, 74 Education sector
Keil, Charles, 25–27, 653, 660–661 Lectureships, 518
Keki, J. J., 213–215, 213f Lectures, public, 518
Keogh, Brent, 178–179 Ledbetter, Huddie (Leadbelly), 174, 772,
Kera language, 325 775–776, 800
Kertzer, Jon, 716 Lederach, Jean Paul, 215
Keshavjee, Rafique, 608, 608f, 620–621, 627, Levin, Theodore, 77, 251–252
627f, 631–632, 633. See also Aga Khan Libraries, 8
Humanities Project destroying of, post-conflict and
Key Research Base for Humanities and Social post-catastrophe, 459
Sciences, 747, 766 Library of Congress
King, B. B., 174 American Folklife Center of, 24, 163,
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara, 350, 683, 801 164–165, 712–715
Kisliuk, Michelle, 77, 177 Archive of Folk Song of, 711–712
Knowledge for its own sake, 4, 5, 20 Liminal enactments, 322–323
Knudsen, B. T., 407–408, 411, 412, 422 definition of, 323
Koreans, as Japanese sex slaves. See genre, 322–323
Survivors’ music vs. integral enactments in, 328–330
Krauss, Michael, 334 Liminal space, fusions in, 326–327
Krauze, Rūdis, 86 Ling, Jan, 685, 689–690
Kravanh, Daran, 493–494, 498, 505 Linzee, Jill, 719, 721, 731
KUDs, 456, 477 Lipsitz, George, 788, 799
Kugelmass, Jack, 225 Liu, Terry, 727
Kuhač, Franjo, 38–39 Live display, 518
Kuhn, Thomas, 73 Lodish, Debora, 27–28
Kunst, Jaap, 11, 14, 42, 58 Lomax, Alan
Kvitka, Kliment, 60 "Appeal for Cultural Equity" of, 12
as cultural merchant and broker, 774–777
LaCapra, Dominic, 483 early ethnomusicology work of, 173, 175, 177
Lach, Robert, 39 as early folklorist, 711–712
Ladysmith Black Mambazo, 779–780, 784 in folk music revival, 23–24
Lake, Philip S., 180 Herzog’s encounter with, 23–24
Laks, Szymon, 497–498, 505 Leadbelly collaboration with, 174, 800
Lane, Deforia, 558, 559–560, 568–569, 571, on Leadbelly’s representation, 800
580–591 radio broadcasts of, 6
Languages, 325 World Library of Folk and Primitive Music
Lanzmann, Claude, 496 recordings of, 785
Lassiter, Luke, 437 Lomax, John A., 711, 712, 800
Latvian diaspora (Christchurch), Uz Tēvu Lönnrot, Elias, 675
Mājām and, 84–88, 86f Loomis, Ormond, 164–165
Law, 8 Lorde, Audre, 392
Leadbelly, 174, 772, 775–776, 800 Losses, in longer artistic traditions, 334
822 Index
Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking, 287, Masterpieces, ICH, 168–169

292, 310 Matthews, Washington, 11
Loughram, Maureen, 229, 586 Maultsby, Portia, 573–575
Lovari Roma, 247–249 Mauss, Marcel, 399, 401, 443
Luaka Bop, 780–781, 790, 800 Mautner, Konrad, 245
Lucas, Lazy Bill, 174 Maya, 113
Lulu, Lü, 737 McAllester, David, 15, 17, 21, 97, 175
Lunsford, Bascom Lamar, 174 McCann, Anthony, 76
Lyon, Patricia, 404, 405f, 427, 436 Media and music industry. See also Music
industry
Mackinlay, Elisabeth, 28 in five domains, 141f, 144–146, 145t
MacPherson, James, 675 in Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures,
Madah and Madahkhan, 611f, 614–615, 618, 619 151–152
research on, 621, 622, 623–626, 624f, 626f Mediation
Maintaining, 137 direct vs. indirect, 34
Makhampom, 113 intercultural, 229–272 (See also Intercultural
Malar, Kurinji, 366, 368, 373 mediation)
Malaysia Mediatized display, 517–518
Bangsa Malaysia and OneMalaysia in, 116 Medical ethnomusicology, 8, 56
national forms of culture in, creation of, for autism (See Autism)
116, 130 definition of, 281
participatory approaches in, via theater music therapy and, 279–281
for development, 109–131 (See Medjugorje, 464, 478
also Theater for development Meizel, K., 385–386
(Malaysia)) Merchants and brokers, cultural, 774–778. See
as pluralistic society, 115 also Cultural merchants and brokers
secret societies in, 131 Merriam, Alan P., 15, 17–20, 51–52, 97, 650
top-down cultural policies in, 116 Mevlevî sema, Turkey, 613f, 614
Malm, Krister, 41 Micro-grants, from Pro Helvetia, 473, 475, 478
Manqueriapa, Alberto, 433 Micro-patronage, 478
Maqamboland, 624f, 625 Migration and migrant communities
Marginalized music, 348 in Austria
of South Asia, activism and (See South Asia, discrimination against, 236
activism and marginalized music of) integration process for, 236
Market shifts, in post-conflict/-catastrophe Turkish
communities, 470 in Germany, 272
Martinelli, Dario, 630 in Vienna, 239, 257–269, 261, 270–271 (See
Marx, Karl, 193–194 also Turkish immigrants, in Vienna)
Maryland Folklife Program, 717–718 In U.S., Cleveland, 580
Maryland State Arts Council, 718–719, 721–722 Migration and migrant communities, music
partnerships in, 721–722 in. See also Conflict resolution,
Maryland Traditions, 724 music for; specific communities and
Maslow, Abraham, 329 projects
Massachusetts, folklife program in, 719–720 case studies on, 519–524
Mass entertainment, in China, 748–751. See forced, in post-conflict and post-catastrophe
also Chinese Central Television communities, 461–463
(CCTV) programs modern
Index 823
in Europe, 511 loss of artistic traditions in, examples

in Germany, 512–513 of, 334
in Switzerland, 514 testimonials on, 334–336
music’s role in, 515–517 health of artistic traditions in, 2010s,
public display for music in, 517–519 330–332
reason for, 250 ethnolinguistic artistic genres in,
Migration, cultural, Musical Instrument 330–331
Exhibition Centre of China and, 763 graded genre health analysis in,
Minorities. See also specific groups 332, 332t
in Austria (See Austria) quick and dirty genre health sketch of,
cultural impoverishment of, 317 331–332, 331t
definition of, 231 liminality and integrality in
Fock on, 233 definitions of, 323
Hemetek on, 232 genre enactments in, 322–323
identity for, 233 liminality and integrality in, sussing out
ITCTM Study Group on Music and ebb and flow of communication in,
Minorities on, 231–234 324–328 (See also Communication,
music and, 229–234 (See also specific ebb and flow of)
minorities) integral vs. liminal enactments in,
Nettl on, 232–233 328–330
Reyes on, 232–233 rock enactments in, 324
Stokes on, 233–234 minorities’ cultural impoverishment in,
Minorities research 317–318
in Austria (See Austria; specific minorities) priorities in, rethinking, 341–342
Fletcher on, 230 SIL International’s work on, 341
ICTM Study Group on Music and thriving global artistic life in, 335–340
Minorities in, 231–234 action points in, 339–340
Pettan on, 230–231 global interest in longer artistic traditions
and urban ethnomusicology, 230 in, 336–337, 337f
Mondo films, 59 therapeutic approach to communities
Monism, 98, 100t and arts-making in, 337–339, 338f
with stable levels, 100t, 101, 104f Mozaik Community Development
strong, 99–101, 100t, 104f Foundation and Guča Gora,
Moore, James F., 171–172 454–458
The Moral Imagination, 215 Bosnia Living Heritage Network in, 455
Moreton-Robinson, A., 391 civil society building in, 457
Morra, Mario, 29 cultural-artistic associations in, 456, 477
Mortuary dances, Islamic, 611f, 615 Franciscan monks in, 455, 456
Mostar bridge, 477 Guča Gora Sloga in, 455–457
Motivations and methods for encouraging village focus of, 455
artists, 317–344 Ms. White Settler Colonial, 381, 382–384
basic community arts survey in, 342–344 Muir, John, 161
foundational concepts of, 319–322 Multicultural music education, 563–565
analytical categories in, 321–322 Münsingen Project, 521–523, 522f
return to coherence in, 319–321 ethnomusicologist role in, 525
global community artistic health infrastructural basis, finances, and
assessment in, 333–335 funding of, 529
824 Index
Münsingen Project (Cont.) popularity of, 652–653

interlocutors’ selection for, 532–533 scope and applications of, 652–655
long-term effects of, 544 ethnomusicology and education in,
power and expectation in, 538–540 646–649
power interplays in, 535 in 1960s, 646–647
Muqam, 747 advisory work in, 648–649
Murra, John, 443 curriculum and instruction in, 647–648
Museums, 8 Global Voices in Song in, 649
Music. See also specific topics and cultures instructional materials in, 648–649
as art, 606, 607 in higher education, 645–646
cultural domain of, 4 pedagogy in, from transmission to learning
distantiation in, 607, 608 in, 650–652
as humane, 606 revolutionary potentials of, 662–663
as humanistic–humaneistic bridge, scope of practice of, 638–639
606–607, 629 in systemic school education, 640–644
studying humanity via, 605–606 in Europe, 641
Musical databases, in China, 746–748 Music for Change, 655, 663
Guqin musical culture database in, 747–748 Music genres, 137
Uyghur Muqam database in, 747 interest in, 137
Musical Instrument Exhibition Centre key clusters of forces in, mapping, 140, 141f
(China), 760–764 rise and fall of, 137–138
beneficiaries of construction of, 763–764 Musician and Teachers, 563–564
collections in, 760–762, 761f Musicians and communities. See also specific
cultural migration and, 763 musicians and communities
purpose of construction of, 762–763 in five domains, 141f, 144–146, 145t
theoretical bases of, 764 in Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures,
Music Alive! in the Yakima Valley (MAYV), 150–151
659–662 Musician’s Village (New Orleans), 461, 477
Musical Performance in the Diaspora, 259 Music industry, 8, 786
"Musical," survivors’ music as, 493–496 exploitation in, 798
Musical venues, in post-conflict/-catastrophe in five domains, 141f, 144–146, 145t
communities, 460–461 global, 790–792
Music and Conflict, 94 in pop(ulist) activism, 797
Music and Poverty, 94 in Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures,
"Music and Sustainability," 177–178 151–152
Music business degree programs, 773 Music in Social Life, 661
Music education, 7, 55–56. See also Pedagogy Music in the Holocaust, 484, 496–497, 505
comparative, 650–652 Musicking, 139, 661
as core subject, 562, 590 "Musicking" a public voice, 569–571
Music education, community music, and Music, Media, and Multiculture, 671
ethnomusicology, 638–664 Music of Another World, 497–498, 505
case examples of, 655–662 (See also specific Musicologica: A Study of the Nature of
programs) Ethno-musicology, Its Problems,
Harlem Samba in, 655–658 Methods, and Representative
Music Alive! in the Yakima Valley in, Personalities, 42
659–662 Musicology, comparative, and history of
community music in, 640 ethnomusicology, 11, 13–14, 16–17
Index 825
Musicology Research Institute, 747, 766 ICTM work of, 52

Music-Play Project (MPP), 281 on losses in artistic traditions, 334
2005-2009 history of, 284–285 on minorities, 232
origins of, 284 Network development, 518
participants in, 309 Neuman, Daniel, 650–651
Music therapy Neurodiversity, 294
definition and scope of, 280 Neurodiversity paradigm, 294
medical ethnomusicology and, 279–281 Neurominority, 294
at Pavarotti Music Center as, 466–467 Neurotypicals, 293–294
Musik Festival Bern, 523–524 Newell, Wayne, 178
ethnomusicologist role in, 525 New Hampshire, folklife program in, 721
infrastructural basis, finances, and funding New Orleans
of, 529 Habitat Musician’s Village in, 461, 477
long-term effects of, 544–545 post-Hurricane Katrina, 461
power interplays in, 535 Newport Folk Festival, 174–175
Mutually beneficial exchange, with Q’eros, Newsletter, ethnomusicology, 16
415–422 New York City, folklife program in, 719–720
Mutually beneficial exploitation, 779–784. See New York, cultural policy interventions in, 6
also under Exploitation Nikolić-Lakatos, Ruža, 241f, 248–249
Mycoskie, Blake, 788, 789–790 Non–arts disciplines, music in, 556
Norient, 545
Nabutta, Saban, 224–225 North America, 5–9, 36–37
Nadejda, 516, 517, 527t, 531, 535–537, 543 Numerology, in Islamic thought and music,
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). See 624, 626, 632–633
also Conflict resolution
Folk Arts Division of, 24–25, 163–166 Oasamu, Yamaguti, 737, 738
folklorists at, 713–714 Office of Folklife Studies, 24, 163
National Folk Festival, 719 OKC Abrašević Youth Center (Mostar), 468
National Heritage Fellowships, 713–714 Okseon, Yi, 489–491, 493
National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Old Regular Baptists
Heritage, Austria, 272 adaptive management and resilience in,
Nationalism, 57 183–187, 184f, 191
in Europe, 511 ethnomusicologists’ preservation work in,
Nation in a cabinet (Sweden), 676–681, 191–192
677f–678f, 680f Old-time string band music revival
Natural resource conservation, history of, 161 adaptive management and resilience in, 183,
Naxi traditional music, Yunnan, 743 188–191
Ne’eman, Ari, 292–293 ethnomusicologists’ preservation work in,
Negroponte, Nicholas, 788–789 191–192
Negus, Keith, 791 revivalists on, 192
Neocolonialism, cultural impoverishment of Olsen, Paul Rovsing, 60
minorities from, 317 100 Songs Project, 796–797
Neo-orientalism, 353–357 One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), 788–789
Nettl, Bruno, 52 Orientalism, 353–357
on consultants as teachers, 650 Orientation, epistemological, 9
early work of, 13–16, 20–21 Ortner, Sherry, 358, 360–361, 368
on health of artistic traditions, 317, 330 Orwell, Charles, 193–194
826 Index
Our Singing Country, 712 Peace Kawomera Fair Trade Coffee

Outcast. See Dalit cooperative, 213–221, 213f
Pedagogy. See also Music education
PAA All-Stars, 569–571 in theater for development, participatory,
Panels, creating folklore, 727 113–115
Paradigm, 73 world music, 650–652 (See also Music
Paradigm shift, 73 education, community music, and
Parai (frame drum), 352, 370. See also Dalit ethnomusicology)
in drumming Dalit documentary film, Pedagogy, music, 647–648
365–369 Peer-to-peer file sharing, 773
oral system of drumming in, 372 Pekmezović, Ševko, 251–257, 251f
as "polluted," 352–353, 359, 365–366 Penang. See George Town, Penang
trance states from, 360 Pennsylvania, folklife program in, 717
Parks, Van Dyke, 782 Performance. See also specific artists, programs,
Participant observation, 199 and performances
Participatory approaches, 109–131 participatory creation and, in George Town,
in action research, 109–110, 129–130 Penang, 125–126
for community development, 129 vs. process, in Malaysia, 114–115
empowerment from, 128, 130 public, as promotion for Roma in Austria,
ethnomusicology in 245–250, 246f, 248f
for social intervention, 127–129 of survivors’ music, 493
theater for development in George Perlman, Marc, 354
Town, Penang in, 115–127 (See also Personal-political-possible, "storying." See
George Town, Penang, theater for Decolonization
development in) Person-is-political story, 379
George Town Festival in, 130 Petrović, Ankica, 250–251
in Global South Pettan, Svanibor, 250, 466
initiatives for, 110 on action and advocacy, 210–211, 499, 536
NGO work in, 109–110 on applied ethnomusicology, 28, 603
principles of, 128 fourfold model of, 518–519
theater for development in, 110–127 (See also on intercultural mediation, 269, 272
Theater for development) on minorities, 230–231
Partners for Urban Action and Research Philadelphia Folklore Project, 723
(PUKAR), 129 Philippines Educational Theatre Association
Partnerships (PEA), 112
among institutions, 553–554 Philosophical reflection, 603–604
in CASES methodology Pidgins, 325
community, 208–210 Pinchot, Gifford, 161
other, 210–211 Pinker, Steven, 604
in fieldwork, 243 Place, construction of, through music in
Passamaquoddy recordings, 178 diaspora, 258–260
"Passing it on," 178 Planning and testing praxis, 94
Pate, Kiko, 78 Playing For Change, 794–796
Pathology paradigm, 294 Pluralism, 98, 100t
Pavarotti Music Center, 464–468 stable, 100t, 101–102, 104f
Peace and conflict resolution, 7–8 unsettled, 100t, 102–103, 104f
cooperation and, 56 Polska, 698, 699f, 700, 701, 702, 704, 705
Index 827
Polyphonie der Kulturen Project, 519–521, 520f Pro Helvetia–Gramofon Records

CD production in: representation, partnership in, 471–475
authority, and negotiations in, travel disruption and forced migration in,
535–538 461–463
CD tracks in, 526, 527t in Afghanistan, 462–463
ethnomusicologist role in, 524–525 in Cambodia, 463, 478
infrastructural basis, finances, and funding War Child and Pavarotti Music Center in,
of, 528–530 464–468, 478
long-term effects of, 542–544 Power interplays, 535
migrants in, 516 Power relations in education,
performers for, selection of, 530–532 ethnomusicologists’ decisions and,
power interplays in, 535 584–586
representation in, 530 Practical analytics, for survivors’ music,
Pommer, Josef, 245 488–492
Pop(ulist) activism, 792–797 Practice theory, 481
100 Songs Project in, 796–797 Praise singing (madahkhan), 611f, 614–615,
individuals’ work in, 792–793 618, 619
music industry in, 797 research on, 621, 622, 623–626, 624f, 626f
Playing For Change in, 794–796 Preservation. See also specific cultures, types,
Voice Project in, 793–794, 795, 796 and topics
Position (social), 591 conservation and, 160, 162
"Position Statement against the Use of Music UNESCO on, 167–168
as Torture," 29 digital, 162
Postcolonial ethnomusicology, 10, 26–27. See UNESCO definition of, 168
also Decolonization Price, David, 354
Post-conflict and post-catastrophe Printed documentation, 518
communities, 453–478 Professor Decolonization, 381, 386–392
commemorations in, 468–469 Progressive Arts Alliance (PAA), 567–568
communities in Pro Helvetia
post-catastrophe, 458–478 Gramofon Records funding by, 471–475
post-conflict, 453–458 micro-grants from, 473, 475, 478
concert advocacy in, 463–464 Project conceptualization, 205–208, 206f
conflict resolution and cultural Protopapa, Santina, 558, 559–560, 567–571
development in, 453 Prototype theory, 320–321
cultural institution closure or changes in, Public concerts, 518
475–476 Public (sector) ethnomusicology, 8
Dayton Accord in, 457 Public folklore, 24–26, 710. See also
humanitarian aid function in, 454 Folklorist, public
market shifts in, 470 origins of, 711
Mozaik Community Development as strategic governmental outreach,
Foundation and Guča Gora 723–725
in, 454–458 (See also Mozaik Public folklorist. See Folklorist, public
Community Development Public lectures, 518
Foundation and Guča Gora) Public programs. See also specific types
musical venues in, 460–461 producing, 729
post-catastrophe aid environments in, Puriņš, Paulis, 86, 86f
458–460 Pythagorean principles, 613
828 Index
Q’eros, Quechua, 404–425. See also River Regulations and infrastructure

Q’eros, Andes to Amazon on in five domains, 141f, 144–146, 145t
active resistance in, 399 in Sustainable Futures for Music
background on, 404–425 Cultures, 151
efficacy and success in music projects Relationships, negotiated, 202
in, 440 Religion, in university, 201–202
indigenous tourism with, 404–415 Relocation. See also Migration and migrant
(See also Indigenous tourism; communities
Indigenous tourism, with sevdalinke as means of, 251–257 (See also
Quechua Q’eros) Bosnian refugees, in Austria)
active voice in, 440 Research. See also specific researchers and
Q’eros identity and, 409–411 projects
reciprocity in, 414, 423–425 applied ethnomusicology, 94–95
mutually beneficial exchange with, 415–422 for its own sake, 19
reciprocity in, 399–401, 414 pure vs. applied, 5
Wachiperi and, 443–444 Research agenda, of ethnomusicologists,
Q’eros River, Andes to Amazon on. See River 319–320
Q’eros, Andes to Amazon on prototype theory and, 320–321
Q’eros–tourist exchange, 411–415, 413f–416f SIL’s Ethnologue in, 320
Qianzhong, Su, 738 Researcher vulnerability. See Vulnerability,
Quechua Q’eros. See Q’eros, Quechua researcher
Resilience, 159, 180–192. See also Sustainability,
Racy, Jihad, 328–329 Resilience, and adaptive
Radio programs, 729–730 management
Rajasekaran, Jesudasan, 353 adaptive management in, 180–182, 193
Ramnarine, Tina, 259 in Old Regular Baptists, 183–187, 184f, 191
Ramsten, Märta, 690 in old-time string band music revival,
Rapanui digital music archive, creation of, 183, 188–191
78–84, 81f, 89 characteristics favoring, 183
Rasmussen, Ljerka, Vidić, 59 conservation in, 182
Ravi Shankar, George Harrison promotion definition and scope of, 180, 193
of, 779–780 diversification in, 181–182
Real World Records, 773, 780–781, 790 in ecology, 180
Reciprocity, 398–401, 440, 445 ethnomusicologists’ work in, 191–192
in Q’eros and Wachiperi, 399–401, 414, 426 in popular usage, 180
with Quechua Q’eros, indigenous tourism resource recovery vs. collapse in, 181
in, 414, 423–425 strategies for, 180–182
Recordings, CD, 518. See also specific recordings vs. sustainability, 181
Redemptive narratives, survivors’ music as, sustainability and tipping point in, 182–183
496–498 The Resonant Community, 33, 40
Reflexivity, 95, 97 Resource exploitation, from, to service
self-, 349, 365 enterprise, 784–792. See also under
uncomfortable, 379–380 Exploitation
Refugees Response-ability, 381, 392–393
from Afghanistan conflicts, 462–463 Restoration, in conservation, 162
from Cambodian conflicts, 463, 478 Revivalists, 163
Index 829
Reyes, Adelaida, 230, 232–233, 250, 258, 260, definition and scope of, 591
478, 531 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum,
Rhodes, Willard, 52 557–560, 577–578
Rice, Timothy, 59, 142–143, 270, 651 Rock enactments, 324
Rich, Adrienne, 226 Rock Under Siege concerts, 477
Richardson, Dianna, 558, 559, 566, 578 Roma, in Austria, 238, 239–250, 270
Richardson, L., 380 as antisocial elements and criminals, 243
Ricoeur, Paul, 327–328 Bogdal on, 239–240
Rinzler, Ralph, 174–175 Ceija Stojka in, 241, 242f, 247
Ritchie, Jean, 173 diversity of, 241–242, 241t
River Q’eros, Andes to Amazon on, 398–445 ethnicity of, invention of, 244–245
efficacy and success in music projects as Gypsy, 239
in, 440 Harri Stojka in, 247–248
Quechua Q’eros in, 404–425 Hemetek on, 239–240
active resistance in, 399 identity markers for, inaccurate, 242–243
background on, 401–404, 402f–404f identity of, national, 243
indigenous tourism with, 404–415 (See Lovari Roma in, 247–249
also Indigenous tourism, with music and cultural identification of, 242
Quechua Q’eros) public performance as promotion for,
indigenous tourism with, reciprocity in, 245–250, 246f, 248f
414, 423–425 Romano Centro in, 247, 249
mutually beneficial exchange with, Ruža Nikolić-Lakatos in, 241f, 248–249
415–422 Serbian, 247–248, 248f
reciprocity in, 414 Silverman on, 240
reciprocity in, 398–401 Romani Routes. Cultural Politics and Balkan
Wachiperi in, 425–440 Music, 240
active resistance in, 399 Romano Centro, 247, 249
background on, 401–404, 402f–404f, Ronström, Owe, 689–690
425–427, 444 Rosch, Eleanor, 320
CD self-production in, 434–440, 437f, Rostock, 2005–2008. See Polyphonie der
438f, 441–442 Kulturen Project
Esüwa healing songs of, 429–431, 431f, 445 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 675
Manuel Yonaje of, 427–428, 428f, Roy, Don, 178
442–443, 442f Russell, Ian, 229, 243
reciprocity in, 399–401, 426 Ryan, Chris, 422
safeguarding Esüwa and song ownership Ryder, Judith, 558, 560, 572, 581–582
in, 431–434
song revival and UNESCO in, Safeguarding, 167–169, 182
425–429, 428f Sağlam, Hande, 260, 261
R-Kan, 264–266, 264f SamulNori, 652
Robbins, Joel, 98–99, 98–104, 100t, 104f Sanford, Victoria, 483
Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings, 800 Sarajevo Jazz Festival, 471
Robinson, Michael, 406, 422, 444 Sarkissian, Margaret, 801
Rock and roll Savage Man Savage Beast, 29
African-American cultural contributions SAZ-Verein Wien, 262–263, 262f
in, 567, 591 Scheduled caste. See Dalit
830 Index
School education, systemic music education in on approaches to problems, 202

exemplary models of, 644 on benefitting informants and
funding crisis on, recent, 644 communities, 74
history of, in Europe, 641 on conscious practice, 33, 74, 352, 370, 387
history of, in U.S., 640–644, 663 on empowering community as activists, 215
in 1800s, 640–641 Festival of American Folklife work of,
in 1900-1950, 641–642 175, 713
in 1950-2000+, 642–644 as Folk and Traditional Arts Division
multicultural music education in, 643 Director, 713–714
world and global music in, 643–644 Folk Arts Division (NEA) work of, 176,
Schooling, formal, instructional access 713, 718
expansion in, 565–568 on folklorist role, 774
Schwarzenbach, James, 546 four stages of applied ethnomusicology of,
Science, 59 143–144
Scott, James, 505 on giving back, 152
Secret societies, in Malaysia, 131 on history of applied ethnomusicology, 12
Seeger, Anthony on making music happen in
on copyright laws, 439 communities, 661
as early ethnomusicologist, 12 as Smithsonian Folkways Director,
fieldwork of, 177 715–716
at Folkways Records, 176, 715–716 on traditional music circuit, 787–788
on intangible cultural heritage, global risks two aspects of applied ethnomusicology
to, 138 of, 245
on loss of small traditions, 318 Shelemay, Kay Kaufmann, 202, 204, 784
on music cultures being "disappeared," 425 Shirky, Clay, 340
Suyá collaboration of, 204 Shoah, 496
in Why Suyá Sing, 76 Shoemaker, Henry W., 717
Seeger, Charles, 12, 97, 711, 712 Sias, Tony F., 558, 559, 576–579
Seeger, Peggy, 712 Siberian Sakha dièrétii sung genre, 325–326
Seeger, Ruth Crawford, 711, 712 Siebers, Tobin, 296
Self-actualization, 329 Sierra Club, 161
Self-reflexivity, 349 SIL International
Serbia, 39–40 Ethnologue of, 320
Roma from, 247, 248f ethnomusicology work of, 341
Service, in CASES methodology, 217–218 Silverman, Carol, 240
Service learning, lessons from, 203–205 Simon, Paul, 779–780, 784
Sevdalinke, as means of relocation, 251–257. Sinclair, Jim, 296–297
See also Bosnian refugees, in Austria Singer, Roberta, 719–720
Sexual slavery, Japanese military, 481, 507. See Singing for Survival, 484
also Survivors’ music Sino-African Music Dialogue, 755–756, 755f
Shadows in the Field, 72, 270, 385, 584 Skylight, 626f
Shams-eTabrīzī, 615 Skyllstad, Kjell, 40, 466
Shanting Teshu Hechangdui, 752 Slobin, Mark, 269–270, 365, 672
Sharpe, Robert, 606 Sloga, 455–458
Sheehy, Daniel Slovenia, 38–39, 41–42
on applied ethnomusicology, 26, 31, 351, Small, Christopher, 660–661
572–573 Smith, L. T., 389–390
Index 831
Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, 6, drumming Dalit documentary film in,

175, 713, 719 365–369
Smithsonian Folk Festival, 163 Subaltern Sing (and drum!) in, 358–361
Smithsonian Folklife Festival, 6, 175, 713, 719 Tamil folk music as Dalit theology in,
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 716 362–365
World Music Pedagogy certification course classical ten percent in, 352–353
of, 644 conscious tools and theories in, 369
Smithsonian Global Sound, 716 cultural politics in, 348–349
Smithsonian Institution Dalit Action Theory in, on the ground,
Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage of, 357–360, 369
715–716 film use in, participatory
employment of ethnomusicologists ethnographic, 350
by, 24–25 vs. Hindustani and Karnatak music,
Office of Folklife Studies at, 24, 163 348–349, 352–353
Social barriers, on music education, 576–583 orientalism and neo-orientalism in, 353–357
Social intervention Asian classical music study in, 355
ethnomusicology for (See Participatory Asian elite court and temple culture focus
approaches) of study in, 355–356
research and documentation for, 129 early treatises on Indian music in, 355–356
Society for Applied Microbiology, 59 Hindu fundamentalist movement in,
Society for Applied Spectroscopy, 59 contemporary, 356–357
Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), 6 local sociopolitical identify of musical
applied ethnomusicology activity in, style in, 357
current, 28 value-free scholarship and, 354
founding and early history of, 14–15, 16, 175 Wong’s research through performance
interests of members of, historic, 336 practice in, 354
International Council for Traditional Music participant–activist methodology for, 350
and, 51–53 shift in methods via shift in subject in,
Section on Applied Ethnomusicology in, 27 348–351
Solomon, Olga, 291 transformative musical meaning/action and
Solomon, Tom, 259, 266–267 Dalits’ cultural value in, 351–352
Songs of the Caged, Songs of the Free, 531 South Asian music
Sonneborn, D.A., 716 classical, 348
Soulé, Michael, 172–173 composer and score as focus in, 348–349
Sound and Sentiment, 177, 508 folk culture in, 350
Sound archives, 8 marginalized, alternative engagement
Source musicians, 163 with, 349
South America, 36 participant–activist methodology for, 350
South Asia people, context, and processes in, 349
musical value hierarchy in, 353 sympathetic listening to, 349
music of, 348 Southeast Asia, 36
South Asia, activism and marginalized music South Koreans, as Japanese sex slaves. See
of, 348–373 Survivors’ music
activist and advocate ethnomusicology Spinny chairs, 286–289, 305–308
in, 350 Spiritual beliefs, in university, 200–202
case studies on, Dalit movement Spitzer, Nicholas, 167, 785
Christianizing Dalit in, 361–362 Spivak, Gayatri, 358–359
832 Index
Standardization, in cultural heritage political positions on, 482–483

process, 685 practice theory and, 481
Stevenson, Lauren, 556–557 precedents for study of, 484
Stoecker, Randy, 203 recording and documentation of, 501
Stojka, Ceija, 241, 242f, 247 scholars on, 483–484
Stojka, Harri, 247–248 scope of study of, 484
Stojka, Karl, 245 study of, 482
Stokes, Martin, 233–234, 258 teaching of, 505–506
Stoppard, Tom, 464 terminology for, 485–486
"Storying," the personal-political-possible. See Sustainability, 6, 58
Decolonization Sustainability, in applied ethnomusicology,
Straus, Joseph, 296, 310 173–179
Štrekelj, Karel, 39 in 1980s and 1990s, 176–177
String band music revival, old-time, 183, 188–191 as analogy, 179
Strong monism, 99–101, 100t, 104f blues and bluegrass in, 174
Study Group on Music and Minorities, ICTM, in CASES methodology, 220–221
231–234 in commerce, 799
The Study of Ethnomusicology, 20 critique of, 178–179
Stumpf, Carl, 13, 679–680 cultural conservation and, 175
Subaltern action theory, 358–359 diversity in, 177
Subaltern Sing (and drum!), 358–361 ecosystems in, 137
Sundar, Pavitra, 371, 372 in ecosystems of music
Survey, basic community arts, 342–344 concept of, 137–138
Survivors’ music, 481–508 what to sustain in, 138–139
archiving, accessing, and exhibition of, five domains on, 141f, 143–146, 145t
502–504 folk festivals in, early, 174
definition of, 482 folk-revival musicians in, 174
in Holocaust, 484 Hawes and Lomax in, 175
importance of centrality of, 483 Hindman Settlement School and origins
key issues in, 486–501 of, 173
advocacy and activism in, 498––501 Lomax in, 173, 177
aesthetics in, 487–488 McAllester and Hood in, 175
ethics in, 486–487 musical, work on, 96
interpretation and collaboration in, "Music and Sustainability" panel on,
492–493 177–178
the "musical" in, 493–496 origins of, 111
performance in, 493 outcomes vs. intentions in, 179
practical analytics in, 488–492 "passing it on" in, 178
redemptive narratives in, 496–498 repatriation of archival recordings in, 178
listening perspective on, 482–483 vs. resilience, 181
performers of Rinzler and Balfa in, 174–175
Daran Kravanh in, 493–494, 498, 505 Ritchie in, 173
Han Jeongsun in, 494–495 Sheehy in, 175, 176
Szymon Laks in, 497–498, 505 at Smithsonian, 175–176
Yi Okseon in, 489–491, 493 tipping point and, 182–183
Yi Yongnyeo in, 504 Titon on, 428
Yi Yongsu in, 499–501 Vennum in, 175, 176
Index 833
Sustainability, in ethnomusicology, 137–139. Sustainable growth, 171

See also Ecosystems of music Svensk folkmusik. Bondens musik i helg och
Sustainability, in theory, 169–173 söcken, 685
in conservation ecology, 172–173 Swedish folk music
critics of, 170–171 "authentic," identification of, 697
in cultural anthropology, 172–173 threats to, 695–696
Daly in, 171–172 Swedish folk music archives, 672–703
economists on, 169–172 bearers of tradition in, 694–695, 694f
environmentalists on, 169–170 concept of, 682–683
finite resources in, 170 as cultural heritage, 685–686
Moore in, 171–172 cultural heritage process and, 683–685
Worster on, 172 Folk Music Commission’s impact on,
Sustainability, resilience, and adaptive 699–703
management, 158–194 discussions on, 689–691
adaptive management in, 159, 180–192 (See Folk Music Commission in (See Folk Music
also Adaptive management) Commission, Swedish)
biopower in, 193 new perspectives on, 698–699, 699f
conservation in, 160–167 (See also Swedish Folk Music Commission. See Folk
Conservation) Music Commission, Swedish
Foucault, Marx, and Orwell on, 193–194 Switzerland
resilience in, 159, 180–192 (See also migration to, 514
Resilience) Münsingen Project in, 521–523, 522f
safeguarding in, 167–169 Musik Festival Bern in, 523–524, 524f
sustainability in, 137–139, 158–159, 169–179 Switzerland’s Art Council, 472
(See also Sustainability) Symbolization, in cultural heritage
in applied ethnomusicology, 173–179 process, 685
sustainable development in, 169–170 Sympathetic listening, 349
in theory, 169–173 Systems of learning music
Sustainable development, 111, 158, 160, 169. See in five domains, 141f, 144–146, 145t
also Sustainability in Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures, 150
origins and meaning of, 169 Širola, Božidar, 38–39
vs. sustainable growth, 171
Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures: Toward Tajik music, 609
an Ecology of Musical Diversity, Taj Mahal, 800
146–155 Talking circles, 95
aims of, 147 Talmud, 200
in Ca tru Vietnam project, 152–153, 153f–154f Tamil folk music
contexts and constructs in, 151 as Dalit theology, 362–365
giving back in, 152–155 Rajasekaran’s studies of, 353
in Ca tru Vietnam project, 152–153, 153f–154f Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary (TTS),
five domains ecosystem in, 155 362–365
media and music industry in, 151–152 Tansley, A. G., 136–137
musicians and communities in, 150–151 Taoist music, Han Chinese, 743
origin and funding of, 146–147 Tapati Rapa Nui cultural festival, 78
questions to be answered in, 147–150 Tarfon, Rabbi, 200
regulations and infrastructure in, 151 Teaching artists, 553
systems of learning music in, 150 in Cleveland, 559–562, 567–570, 582, 590, 591
834 Index
Teaching options, 518 Tourism, 57–58

"Tear-Soaked Duman River," 489–491, 493 Chinese, 742–743
Teater Arena (Yogyakarta, Indonesia), 112–113 indigenous (See Indigenous tourism)
Tennessee, folklife program in, 718 Tourism and Indigenous Peoples, 406
Tepano, Tote, 79–83, 79f, 89 Tradition
Thanksgiving Coffee Company, 214–216, 223 in ecosystems of music, 139
Theater for development (Malaysia), 110–127 as living process, 327–328, 330
in applied musicology for development, Ricoeur on, 327–328
115–127 (See also Participatory Traditional Instrumental Music Performance
approaches) Competitions, 749–750
in Asian education, non-formal, 112 Traditional paradigm, 730
in civil society development projects in the Tradition-bearers, 163
South, 112 Training. See also Education; Music education
Freire’s influence on, 110, 113–114 of ethnomusicologists, 342
Maya and Makhampom in, 113 Trauma, cultural, 6
overview of, 110–111 Trautmann, Thomas, 355
pedagogy and participatory approaches in, Travel disruption, in
113–115 post-conflict/-catastrophe
Philippines Educational Theatre communities, 461–463
Association in, 112 Tryon, Elizabeth, 203
process vs. performance in, 114–115 Tschernokoscheva, Elka, 268
Teater Arena and Teater Arena in, 112–113 Tsukasa, Yajima, 502
Theater for liberation, 130 Tuck, E., 390–391, 394
This Is a Music: Reclaiming an Untouchable Tufts University, 204
Drum, 365–367 Turino, Thomas, 660–661
Tikkun olam, 200, 226 Turkish immigrants, in Germany, 272
Tipping point, 182–183 Turkish immigrants, in Vienna, 239, 257–269,
Titon, Jeff Todd 270–271
on applied ethnomusicology, 95, 653 Bausinger on, 267–268
on authenticity, 408 challenging discourses on, 267–269
on cultural and musical rights and "Embedded Industries–Immigrant Cultural
ownership, 134–135 Entrepreneurs in Vienna" on, 260
on expectations of field work heterogeneity of population in, 260
informants, 786 hip-hop youth culture in, 264–267, 264f
on field research, 202, 633 Mansur Bildik work for, 262–264, 262f, 263f
on intangible cultural heritages, 756 "Music Making of Immigrants in Vienna"
on Lomax’s marketing, 800 on, 260
on national troupes and orchestras, 143 place, ethnicity, and identity through music
on practice, 603, 629 in, 258–260
on self-reflexivity and transformation, 365 prejudices, stereotypes, and xenophobia
on sustainability and activism, 177, 204, on, 261
308, 428 SAZ-Verein of, 262–263, 262f
on Taj Mahal, 800 social and religious backgrounds of,
world music class of, 95 260–261, 261f
Toddler Rock, 559–560, 568–569, 571, 580–581 Tschernokoscheva on, 268
Toms Shoes, 788, 789–790 urban area as field of research in, 260–264
Torture, use of music as, 29 Wien 10 in, 264–267, 264f
Index 835
years or research on, 257–258 new model for, 98–104, 100t, 104f

Turner, Victor, 323 monism in, 98, 100t
2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the monism with stable levels in, 100t,
Intangible Cultural Heritage, 168 101, 104f
pluralism in, 98, 100t
Uganda pluralism in, stable, 100t, 101–102, 104f
Abayudaya in, 205–208, 206f pluralism in, unsettled, 100t,
advocacy in, 199–226 (See also Advocacy) 102–103, 104f
CASES methodology in, 208–221 (See also strong monism in, 99–101, 100t, 104f
CASES methodology) planning and testing praxis and, 94
J. J. Keki and Peace Kawomera Fair Trade research and, 94–95
Coffee cooperative in, 213–221, 213f talking circles on, 95
map of, 201f theorization in, 93
Thanksgiving Coffee Company in, value system to support in, 104–105
214–216, 223 Value systems, to support, 104–105
Ultime grida dalla savana, 29 van Gennep, Arnold, 323
UNESCO, 6 van Willigen, John, 18, 74
on intangible cultural heritage, 168 Vass, G., 385
on preservation and conservation, 167–168 Vennum, Thomas, 175, 176, 713
The Unheard Voices: Community Venues, musical. See also specific venues
Organizations and Service in post-conflict/-catastrophe communities,
Learning, 203 460–461
United States, applied ethnomusicology Veršnik, Vojko, 220
history in, 10–29. See also History of Vienna 10, 264–267, 264f
ethnomusicology, U.S. Village harmony, 455–458
University Voice Project, 793–794, 795, 796
engaged, 202 Voices of the Rainforest, 777
religion in, 201–202 von Hornbostel, Erich Moritz, 679–680
University-based ethnomusicological von Humboldt, Wilhelm, 512–513
activism. See Conflict resolution VoxLox, 778
Untouchable. See Dalit Vulnerability, researcher, 71–89
Urban ethnomusicology, 230 Antipodean approach in, 72
Adelaida Reyes’ research on, 260–264 applied ethnomusicology in, 73–74
in Turkish immigrants in Vienna, 260–264 Beaudry on, 72
Usner, Eric Martin, 202, 208 case studies on
Uyghur Muqam database, Xinjiang digital music archive for Rapanui in, 78–84,
autonomous region, 747 81f, 89
Uzbek music, 609 Uz Tēvu Mājām and Christchurch
Uz Tēvu Mājām, Christchurch Latvian Latvian diaspora in, 84–88, 86f
diaspora and, 84–88, 86f collaborator engagement in, 72
definition of, 72
Value-free scholarship, 354 focus on, 72
Values, 93 Hood on, 71
Values, evaluating intimate, emotional fieldwork in, 71
definitions in, 93 professional and personal, 75–78
in ethnomusicology and applied
ethnomusicology, 95–97 Wong on, 72
836 Index
Waade, A. M., 407–408, 411, 412, 422 World Intellectual Property Organization

Wachiperi, 425–440 (WIPO), 8
active resistance in, 399 World Library of Folk and Primitive Music
background on, 401–404, 402f–404f, recordings, 785
425–427, 444 World music. See also specific artists,
CD self-production in, 434–440, 437f, 438f, promoters, and types
441–442 rise in popularity of, 1960s, 22–23
efficacy and success in music projects World Music Days (China), 754–758, 755f, 757f
in, 440 World Music Pedagogy certification
Esüwa healing songs of, 429–431, 431f, 445 course, 644
safeguarding of, and song ownership, Worster, Donald, 172
431–434
Kapiro song of, 428 Xianbao, Zhou, 738
Manuel Yonaje of, 442–443, 442f Xiaoyan, Zhang, 738
Q’eros and, 443–444 Xifan, Yang, 737
reciprocity in, 399–401, 426
song revival and UNESCO in, 425–429, 428f Yakima Valley, Music Alive! in, 659–662
Walker, Nick, 294 Yang, K. W., 390–391, 394
Wang, N., 408 Yonaje, Manuel, 436, 442–443, 442f
War Child, 464–468, 478 Yongnyeo, Yi, 504
Weil, Zoe, 606 Yongsu, Yi, 499–501
West Cameroon’s DAKASTUM, 326 Young Audiences of Northeast Cleveland
Western music, composer and score as focus (YANEO), 560, 582–583
in, 348–349 Yugoslavia, 39
White Settler Colonial, Ms., 381, 382–384
Wide-awakeness, 384, 393 Zaretti, Joan L., 557
Wien 10, 264–267, 264f Zavala, M., 393–394
Wilk, Richard R., 526 Zebec, Tvrtko, 42
Willard, Augustus, 355 Zolli, Andrew, 183
Winter, Penni, 291 Zubčević, Edin, 471–475
WOMAD festival, 781–782 Žganec, Vinko, 39
Wong, Deborah, 31, 72, 354–355

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

List of Figures and Tables ix

5. Sustainability, Resilience, and Adaptive Management for Applied

14. The Study of Survivors’ Music 481

7.9. R-Kan. 264

I.1. Comparative Musicology, Folk Music Research, and Ethnomusicology. 37

Michael B. Bakan is Professor of Ethnomusicology and Head of World Music at Florida

John Morgan O’Connell is Director of the Program in Ethnomusicology at Cardiff

Oxford has created a website to accompany The Oxford Handbook of Applied

The list of sound recordings available online is given below:

Sound 12.1. “Wiquntuy” (pukllay taki—carnival song). Recording: Holly Wissler,

Section 1. Applied

Ethnomusicology and Applied Ethnomusicology

Applied Ethnomusicology in Contemporary

Applied Ethnomusicology: Being, Knowing, and Doing

Applied Ethnomusicology in the United States:

“Giving back” is the usual term North American ethnomusicologists employ to

textbook, Introduction to Musicology (Haydon, 1941). As outlined there, its purpose

in anthropology departments, sometimes music) and only a few professors avail-

1963b: 135). Merriam expanded on his comments a year later in The Anthropology of

Another prominent ethnomusicologist in the founding generation, Mantle Hood,

of Congress for several years—field-collecting, acquiring from others, and curating

work in community-based institutions. With 300 members, Applied Ethnomusicology

of musicians to travel freely internationally. It has passed position statements on rights

Section 2. Applied Ethnomusicology

a. The decision whether to intervene or not has moral implications.

What Is Applied Ethnomusicology, and What Isn’t It?

1. Applied ethnomusicology does not stand in opposition to the academic domain,

The introductory article to the above-mentioned volume ends with a quotation of

Bosnia-Herzegovina in Norway, and (2) stimulating mutually beneficial cross-cultural

“Applied” in Other Disciplines

A Brief Worldwide Overview

Some European Views: Ethnomusicologies

Table I.1 Comparative Musicology, Folk Music Research, and Ethnomusicology

The International Council for Traditional Music

In her capacity as Honourable Secretary of the International (Advisory) Folk Dance

The International Council for Traditional Music

The next instances were my report on ethnomusicology in Croatia (Bulletin of the

in worldwide contexts; presentation and evaluation of individual projects, with an

1. How would you define applied ethnomusicology, or

The International Council for Traditional Music and

IFMC/ICTM cherished various languages in its scholarly publications until 1985,

The Forum will focus on ethnomusicological praxis and collaborative strategies in

Section 3. An Introduction

Jeff Todd Titon and Svanibor Pettan

In the Introduction we have identified several activities of contemporary applied eth-

conservation. O’Connell envisions the space for applied ethnomusicology in par-

Pilzer (Chapter 14), and O’Connell (Chapter 17), remind us in various ways, to vari-

branch of applied ethnomusicology involving music and law, forensic ethnomu-

18. For instance, Dan Lundberg, Owe Ronström.

36. Scholarly journal, published by the Department of Musicology of the University of

Bose, Fritz. (1953). Musikalische Völkerkunde. Freiburg in Breislau: Atlantis.

Kovačič, Mojca, and Urša Šivic. (2007). “Ethnomusicology and Ethnochoreology in

Schneider, Albrecht. (2006). “Comparative and Systematic Musicology in Relation to

Success in field work depends on the combination of three things: techni-

ethnomusicological works in which various contrasting instances of researcher vulner-

The Applied Ethnomusicology