scholarly journals Revisiting the Dusunic Boat Lutes of Sabah: Disappearing Musical Traditions

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 115-137
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Pugh-Kitingan

The Kadazan Dusun sundatang from Tambunan, the Rungus sundatang, and the Lotud gagayan are three kinds of boat lutes from Sabah. Each is carved from a single log of jackfruit wood, but vary structurally. Resembling somewhat Philippine boat lutes, they differ from the sape-types of Sarawak and Kalimantan. They are played solo in non-ritual contexts. The gagayan, however, was played in pairs (batangkung) and the Tambunan sundatang was sometimes accompanied by a hand-held gong when accompanying the slow, sedate magarang sundatang dance. Today, there are very few musicians playing the unique Tambunan sundatang, while the Lotud gagayan has recently declined with the demise of older performers. The Rungus sundatang is still extant and continues to be performed in many longhouses. This paper discusses these three types of Dusunic boat lutes, their structures, performance practices and music, and suggests a possible origin for these kinds of instruments found in northern Borneo.

Leonardo ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 252-258
Author(s):  
Hafez Modirzadeh

By introducing a consort of instrumentalists representing musical traditions from Iran to the Philippines, Zimbabwe, Japan, Korea and the Americas, the author presents a paradoxical compost approach of defining while disintegrating musical cultural elements, thus conveying the transformative nature of self and society. Improvisation informs the author's chromodal concept, illustrated in the article with a collapsing pyramid model, thereby illuminating co-existence as a shared creative source that ultimately expands human potential through the extinction of the formal.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57
Author(s):  
Katja Heldt

The present article describes the approaches of five ensembles specialized in transcultural music-making in the context of contemporary music in Germany, the Netherlands, Uzbekistan and Turkey. While facing similar underlying conceptual and practical challenges in the process of combining different musical traditions and cultural backgrounds, such as the question of how to merge oral and notated traditions, tuning systems or musical perceptions, and their presentational performance practices, each ensemble suggests different strategies of implementation, depending on their political, historical and geographical circumstances. The article examines the way in which music derives representational functions within processes of affiliation, delimitation, representation and identity construction.


Letonica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Māra Grudule

The article gives insight into a specific component of the work of Baltic enlightener Gotthard Friedrich Stender (1714–1796) that has heretofore been almost unexplored — the transfer of German musical traditions to the Latvian cultural space. Even though there are no sources that claim that Stender was a composer himself, and none of his books contain musical notation, the texts that had been translated by Stender and published in the collections “Jaunas ziņģes” (New popular songs, 1774) and “Ziņģu lustes” (The Joy of singing, 1785, 1789) were meant for singing and, possibly, also for solo-singing with the accompaniment of some musical instrument. This is suggested, first, by how the form of the translation corresponds to the original’s form; second, by the directions, oftentimes attached to the text, that indicate the melody; and third, by the genres of the German originals cantata and song. Stender translated several compositions into Latvian including the text of the religious cantata “Der Tod Jesu” (The Death of Jesus, 1755) by composer Karl Heinrich Graun (1754–1759); songs by various composers that were widely known in German society; as well as a collection of songs by the composer Johann Gottlieb Naumann (1741–1801) that, in its original form, was published together with notation and was intended for solo-singing (female vocals) with the accompaniment of a piano. This article reveals the context of German musical life in the second half of the 18th century and explains the role of music as an instrument of education in Baltic-German and Latvian societies.


Author(s):  
Kathryn Kalinak

This chapterexamines the diversity of international practices in film music outside Hollywood during the silent film era. It describes performance practices around the globe and offers a broader context in which to consider American practices during this period. It suggests that music functioned as a cultural interface throughout the silent era in a way quite different from the sound era and that music in the silent era had an impressive power to interact with moving images in ways not controlled by films or their producers.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
DEIRDRE O'CONNELL

This study investigates the shifting meanings invested in the ragtime song “A Hot Time in the Old Time, Tonight” at the turn of the twentieth century. Complicating the tune's place in the canon of military, political, and national anthems was its associations with “vice,” black culture, and white supremacy. By mapping the ritual and representational uses of the song, this investigation demonstrates how “A Hot Time” served paradoxical functions that simultaneously affirmed and unsettled American exceptionalism. In doing so, this article traces the processes of obfuscation whereby black musical traditions and white supremacy defined America's distinctive national identity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 025576142199081
Author(s):  
Rhythy Quin

In the West, the music practice of turntablism continues to gain traction and awareness both inside and outside of the music classroom, as DJing becomes more prevalent in mainstream music culture. This qualitative study investigates the extent and type of turntablism pedagogy in China, a country with different cultural and political values where traditional Chinese music remains the centre of Chinese music education. Twelve DJs from cities across China took part in a series of in-depth interviews. They were asked to recall their experiences learning how to DJ in China, as well as their opinions of turntablism’s inclusion in music education. Findings showed that participants preferred independent learning methods. In particular, participants significantly depended on Chinese social media applications to learn about turntablism and develop a national DJing culture. An absence of turntablism and popular music pedagogy in Chinese music education was the main reason for participants’ self-discovery and learning of turntablism. Findings also revealed a cultural disconnect between the younger generation engrossed in DJing versus the older generation’s fixation on traditional Chinese music to uphold nationalism and patriotism in society. This study examines an ongoing struggle regarding the extent to which popular music performance practices can be accommodated to work with the political aims of Chinese music education.


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