When the echoes are gone : a Yolngu musical anthropology

Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 2014

This paper examines the place of creativity amid orthodox musical elements in the manikay (public song) tradition of the Yolŋu people of Northern Australia, particularly the song repertoire belonging to the Wägilak clan from Ŋilipidji. Beginning with the Yolŋu metaphor of raki (string) as it describes an individual’s historical constitution, an examination of productive ambiguities built into the rhythmic (bilma) and intervallic (dämbu) forms of manikay underpins the assertion that tradition speaks with living relevance through performed realisation and improvisation. The Australian Art Orchestra’s collaboration with Wägilak songmen, "Crossing Roper Bar," is introduced as a dramatic example of the manikay tradition working in and through contemporary expressions and contexts. This project sustains the ancestral bones of manikay, dutifully curated through the generations as an integral, orthodox framework with complex social, legal, and religious significances. Here, discur...

Journal of World Popular Music, 2016

This paper explores the capacity for commercially recorded popular music to sustain local culture by presenting the ways in which recordings by the band Paramana Strangers from Papua New Guinea are imbued with meanings that are understood locally as having roots in traditional culture. I present examples in the form of song texts from the album Matha Wa! (1981) to demonstrate how traditional metaphors and cultural practices surrounding music composition are sustained through popular song traditions. I focus my analysis on what the song composers deem important, and explore ways that recordings are utilized to sustain culture, not only as ‘documentations’ of culture, but also through the practices of music making and sharing. By doing so, indigenous ways of knowing and imparting knowledge are given priority, providing local perceptions about traditional culture and its sustainability.

Inaugural Symposium of the ICTMD Study-Group-in-the-Making Multispecies Sound and Movement Studies, 2024

Paper presented at the 'Inaugural Symposium of the ICTMD Study-Group-in-the-Making Multispecies Sound and Movement Studies (Nuremberg University of Music, Germany October 24-26, 2024) Why More-Than-Human Musicking Now? The challenge of defining ‘music’ and ‘sound’ across cultures has been a persistent concern in ethnomusicological research from the outset of the field. The uncritical application of these top-down concepts often eclipses the rich plurality of local classifications for diverse sounding practices and experiences, along with their associated bodies of knowledge. This paper critically examines the relevance of these overarching categories in the context of Sámi acoustemologies, proposing a novel theoretical paradigm derived from and informed by Indigenous sound ontologies. This alternative concept seeks to challenge ethno-anthropocentric characterizations of sonic relationships within past and current ethnographic literature. Its bottom-up nature underscores the necessity of acknowledging both the complexity of local onto-epistemologies and the agencies of human and other Earth beings in academic research practices. To measure the validity of this paradigm, particular emphasis is placed on juoiggus, a Sámi expression that bridges human performativity and aesthetics with voices of other-than-human subjectivities and animate environments. According to Sámi scholar Maj-Lis Skaltje, juoiggus inherited its notes from the sound of birds, streams, and wind. While ethnographic literature dismisses active participation of other-than-human beings in joik performances and defines it as an exclusively human practice, Indigenous onto-epistemologies reinforce how juoiggus cannot be limited to the human realm and is rather voiced by any organic and inorganic feature in the land too. Joik melodies can be heard in the howling of wind, in the cawing of crows, in the buzzing of mosquitoes. But how musical is the mosquito? The paper focuses on this question addressing it through the presentation of joik performances, oral stories and field recordings co-created with Sámi juoigit during doctoral fieldwork. It illustrates how even the voice of such an undesirable non-human being can inspire a paradigm shift across disciplines, compelling us ethno- and eco-musicologists to reconsider our approaches and responsibilities.

The Contemporary Pacific, 2013

2013

Research on music was almost neglected during the history of the anthropology of Lowland South American indigenous societies. This may be due to their difficult accessibility and lack of infrastructure in former research, as well as due to the different focus of researchers. However, the area is now thriving, because many anthropologists and ethnomusicologists have recognised the central role music performance plays in ritual, specifically when ritual action involves non-human agency. The role of animals, plants or spirits in Lowland South American cosmologies has been studied intensely during the last decades, and laid way for the theories of perspectivism and new animism. The authors show how music is used in cosmologies where communication between humans and non-humans is paramount. Further on, they suggest that the sonic domain can help in explaining many indigenous narratives about transformations and non-human agency. 1. Introduction: Considering Music, Humans, and Non-humans . By Bernd Brabec de Mori & Anthony Seeger 2. Apùap World Hearing Revisited: Talking with ‘Animals’, ‘Spirits’ and other Beings, and Listening to the Apparently Inaudible. By Rafael José de Menezes Bastos 3. Flutes, Songs and Dreams: Cycles of Creation and Musical Performance among the Wauja of the Upper Xingu (Brazil) . By Acácio Tadeu de Camargo Piedade 4. Instruments of Power: Musicalising the Other in Lowland South America . By Jonathan D. Hill 5. Shipibo Laughing Songs and the Transformative Faculty: Performing or Becoming the Other. By Bernd Brabec de Mori 6. Focusing Perspectives and Establishing Boundaries and Power: Why the Suyá/ Kïsêdjê Sing for the Whites in the Twenty-first Century. By Anthony Seeger

Studies that examine and document the cultural practices of indigenous groups which have increased in importance. This is due in part to the rapidly increasing influence of foreign culture, which has found its way into the cultural practices of Filipinos even those who are residing in cities or urban areas. One area that has not been widely investigated yet is the musicality and instrumentation, in particular, of the lumads in Bukidnon. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify the musicality and instrumentation of the Lumads in Bukidnon. This study employed the descriptive-normative survey. Recording of the different instruments was done using discography. Also, the researchers used participant observation and interview to identify and elucidate the different rhythmic combinations produced by musical instruments during the tribe's activities.

A Distinctive Voice in the Antipodes: Essays in Honour of Stephen A. Wild, 2017

Elizabeth May, on Aboriginal music on the Laverton Reservation (May and Wild 1967)), despite a steady stream of primary research. More importantly, it was a demonstration of the necessity to adopt an analytical approach that considered music not as a separate realm of human experience, but rather as deeply interconnected with dance and song texts as an integrated whole (and, as a result, it also represented a significant example of interdisciplinary collaboration). Finally, it represented the midpoint of Stephen Wild's long-term engagement with ethnomusicological and ethnographic materials on Arnhem Land music-a second research area for him after his own important work on Warlpiri music, but one to which he adapted effectively and made important contributions (Clunies Ross and Wild 1982; Wild 1986). It is certainly the case that postgraduate 'Formal Performance' exemplified an approach to the analysis of Aboriginal ritual performances that took music, song texts, dance, and ritual context as elements that were each intricately structured in their own terms and that could yield rewarding and worthwhile analyses. What this article more powerfully demonstrates, however, is that a combined analysis, juxtaposing and comparing these co-performed elements when they were contiguous in time and space, is even more powerful as an analytical tool. What becomes abundantly clear is that Anbarra ritual performances are subject to clearly enacted structural principles that are themselves the result of deep thinking, careful coordination, and virtuosic talent.

The 5th International Conference on Climate Change 2020 24-25 September 2020, Bali, Indonesia, 2021

Kelambut is an important instrument for the Waena Tribe and plays a vital role in raising awareness about climate change mitigation. However, until now there has been no indepth study about Kelambut music. The purpose of this study is to identify the traditional music of Kelambut musically and to know the meaning of Kelambut for the Waena tribe. This research was conducted using qualitative methods. The data source is the music of Kelambut itself; the informants are the chief of the Waena tribe, performers, and local cultural observer. All data collected through participative observation, interviews, records, and FGDs were analyzed using ethnic music theory and structural-functional theory. The results are: (1) Kelambut is a traditional musical instrument made from natural environmental wood in the Sentani area. It resembles a boat and is played by hitting the inside part and functions as a communication tool and musical accompaniment to dance. (2) Besides valuing it as a work of art, to balance life with the environment, the Waena tribe also interprets Kelambut as sacred music which provides protection, as a liaison with their ancestors, as a sign of the appointment of a tribal chief (Ondoafi), and as the cultural identity.