The Art(s) of Getting Lost: Halting Places for Culturally Responsive Research Methods

This chapter revisits the ideas of radical empiricism and sensuous scholarship, embedded in current music education research. Focusing on the development of methodological implications of cultural responsiveness and arts-based research methods, the chapter argues for epistemic openness. The discussion is located within the author’s own experiences of course development for Swedish music teacher students in Gambia, field studies in multicultural classrooms in Sweden, and research design that includes the fiddle, opening up for music to ask the questions. Borrowing from anthropological research the concepts of radical empiricism and sensuous scholarship, music education researchers might find useful tools to approach project planning, to perform the analysis of the material and to communicate the results in culturally responsive forms that inform both research and praxis. By studying music transmission with culturally sensitive research methods, this chapter suggests possibilities to do more than observing and reporting. There is a possibility to engage with different knowledge systems and politics, in all types of retrieved material – and to generate inclusive knowledge building.

The Community of Classical Japanese Music Transmission: The Preservation Imperative and the Production of Change in Nō. By Takanori Fujita. Translated by Edgar W. Pope.

A puzzling situation defines the contemporary transmission of nō theater. On one hand, the genre’s community of practice is governed by strict orders to preserve musical sound through repeated imitation and to avoid change at all costs. On the other hand, the community discourages explicit dialogue between teachers and learners concerning what exactly constitutes those ideal musical sounds as well as the extent to which those sonic ideals are being faithfully maintained across performances. With a focus on the transmission of hiranori vocal rhythms, Fujita explores the ambivalent strategies with which participants navigate this conundrum and discovers a paradoxical process by which nō theater’s so-called “preservation imperative” actually encourages musical change. Citation: Fujita, Takanori. The Community of Classical Japanese Music Transmission: The Preservation Imperative and the Production of Change in Nō. Translated by Edgar W. Pope. Ethnomusicology Translations, no. 9. Bloomington, IN: Society for Ethnomusicology, 2019. Originally published in Japanese as “Koten ongaku denshō no kyōdōtai: nō ni okeru hozon meirei to henka no sōshutsu." In Shintai no kōchikugaku: shakaiteki gakushū katei toshite no shintai gihō, edited by Fukushima Masato, 357-413. Tokyo: Hitsuji Shobō, 1995. 藤田隆則 1995年「古典音楽伝承の共同体―能における保存命令と変化の創出」福島真人編『身体の構築学』：357-413

Melancholic Genealogies

Chapter 3 analyzes the pedagogical underpinnings of affective practice and melancholic musicking in the context of music transmission (meşk). The chapter argues that as meşk works to recreate a master’s sensibility and knowledge anew in the apprentice, master musicians inculcate feeling practices and spiritual discourses alongside music techniques in lessons with students. It is observed that students, in turn, validate their authentic experiences of melancholy through religious discourse and the memorializing of their musical lineage (meşk silsilesi). Chapter 3 also introduces the concept of bi-aurality as an approach for ethnomusicologists to develop new geographies of listening to musics outside of western canons.

Our culture is who we are! “Rescuing” Grenadian identity through musicking and music education

In this article I explore the relationships between identities and musicking in Grenada, West Indies, taking into account the understandings of community and nationhood that foreground and inform identity discourse in the Grenadian context. Through the dual lenses of music education and ethnomusicology, I analyze musicking and music education initiatives intended to “rescue” Grenadian identity and Grenadian values as articulated by an older generation of Grenadians and by governmental agencies. I argue that musicking in Grenada is intertwined with identity in complex ways, and that there is a perceived lack of transmission of folk musicking practices whose consequences extend well beyond losing musical traditions. This article illuminates conflicts of identity, the deep sense of loss of “who we are” that has occurred in Grenadian society in recent times, and controversies of music transmission.

Transmission of Araquio Music, Songs, and Movement Conventions: Learning, Experience, and Meaning in Devotional Theatre

Araquio, a verse play on the search of the holy cross, is an indigenous folk theatre in the town of Peñaranda, province of Nueva Ecija, Philippines that has survived for over a hundred years. This ethnographic-phenomenological study explores the holistic nature of the transmission and learning processes of araquio music and songs as a theatre-ritual. Its transmission as a social phenomenon is an avenue for music learning that may in fact overshadow its being a diminishing tradition. Using the framework of three modes of enculturation (Merriam, 1964) and interpretation of culture (Geertz, 1973), I investigate the music transmission and learning processes and sought to reveal how these processes were meaningful to the practitioners. Participants in this inquiry involve 21 adult practitioners, namely: 4 maestros (teachers of araquio), 3 female and 5 male personajes (characters of the verse play), and 9 musikeros (community musicians). An ethnographic method is employed using participant-observation and informal semi-structured interview script. Guiding questions have centered on how transmission and learning strategies, and meaning define these experiences. As a living oral tradition, intergenerational learning is found to be the product of transmission by enculturation occurring in the araquio and happens within genealogical generation. The practitioners, through the unspoken meaning of the tradition, have certain unspoken factors: unity of purpose, ancestral adhesion, unification of tribal strength, and shared experiences.

The Notion of Authenticity in Multicultural Music: Approaching Proximal Simulation

As countries become increasingly multicultural, it can be argued that the authentic teaching and learning of multicultural music in educational settings is essential. Crucial to this is the provision of cultural context to retain as much of the original meaning of the music as possible. This paper discusses the main arguments for authenticity in multicultural music and the implications for its learning and teaching. Researchers argue that the formal aspect of music transmission has been overlooked in multicultural music teaching and learning. The intention of the author is to introduce the concept of <em>Proximal Simulation</em> and its constituting elements, namely <em>Authentic Performance Conventions; Authentic Audiation; Authentic Sensory Experiences and Emotions,</em> and offer suggestions for safeguarding musical traditions through <em>Authentic Transmission</em> (teaching and learning) practices. This discussion also explores the qualities of the &lsquo;Transcontextualisation&rsquo; theory proposed by musicologist Osamu Yamaguti in 1994, in the contexts of multicultural music performance and transmission.<em><br /> <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br /> <!--[endif]--></em>

Pieter Dirksen, Heinrich Scheidemann’s Keyboard Music: Transmission, Style and Chronology (2007)

A review of Pieter Dirksen, Heinrich Scheidemann’s Keyboard Music: Transmission, Style and Chronology (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), ISBN 978-0-7546-5441-4, xxiii + 254 pp, £55/$99.95