Society for Ethnomusicology Abstracts
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Society for Ethnomusicology Abstracts Musicianship in Exile: Afghan Refugee Musicians in Finland Facets of the Film Score: Synergy, Psyche, and Studio Lari Aaltonen, University of Tampere Jessica Abbazio, University of Maryland, College Park My presentation deals with the professional Afghan refugee musicians in The study of film music is an emerging area of research in ethnomusicology. Finland. As a displaced music culture, the music of these refugees Seminal publications by Gorbman (1987) and others present the Hollywood immediately raises questions of diaspora and the changes of cultural and film score as narrator, the primary conveyance of the message in the filmic professional identity. I argue that the concepts of displacement and forced image. The synergistic relationship between film and image communicates a migration could function as a key to understanding musicianship on a wider meaning to the viewer that is unintelligible when one element is taken scale. Adelaida Reyes (1999) discusses similar ideas in her book Songs of the without the other. This panel seeks to enrich ethnomusicology by broadening Caged, Songs of the Free. Music and the Vietnamese Refugee Experience. By perspectives on film music in an exploration of films of four diverse types. interacting and conducting interviews with Afghan musicians in Finland, I Existing on a continuum of concrete to abstract, these papers evaluate the have been researching the change of the lives of these music professionals. communicative role of music in relation to filmic image. The first paper The change takes place in a musical environment which is if not hostile, at presents iconic Hollywood Western films from the studio era, assessing the least unresponsive towards their music culture. Musicians who used to enjoy ways in which white and Indian stereotypical associations are cued and wide recognition and popularity are now forced into a life of outsiders without reinforced through the musical score. The second describes Dancer in the any relevant skills or expertise that their new home country demands. As Dark, a film that places the score within the protagonist‘s inner psyche; this John Baily suggests in his article So Near, So Far: Kabul‟s Music in Exile examination of music and emotion tests the boundaries of the traditional (Baily 2005), music and dance can be used to maintain aspects of former musical. A discussion of music in the non-narrative silent film investigates the cultural identity but also to create new forms which help in dealing with new relationship between rhythm, ambiance, and Dadaist image in a paper on life. Among the Afghan musicians in Finland, new ways of maintaining Rene Clair‘s Entr‘acte. The final paper delves into the genre of animated musicianship are emerging. At the same time the musicians are adapting to sound, a recording technique in which sound is created by optically recording the lamentable situation where their expertise is not needed. My research sound waves onto film strip. This presentation explores the relationship indicates that the study of music and refugee musicians in Finland has added between sound and the abstract image that creates it. Despite the varied value when discussing the politics of migration in Finland. dimensions of these films, each paper addresses the communicative interplay between sound and image. “Music in the Non-narrative Silent Film: Erik Satie and Rene Clair‟s Entr‟acte” “What is at Stake and for Whom?”: Nurturing a Collaborative Jessica Abbazio, University of Maryland, College Park Environment for Banjo Roots Research Greg C. Adams, University of Maryland, College Park The function of music as combined with visual spectacle in the staged melodrama and the narrative silent film of the late nineteenth and early During an informal conversation about banjo roots research at the 2008 SEM twentieth centuries was clear: these genres relied upon the interaction Conference, Dr. Jerry Wever (Spelman College) posed the question, ―What is between musical conventions and artful staging to accentuate the emotional at stake, and for whom?‖ The question was about what it means to truly qualities inherent in their plot lines. The non-narrative silent film, with its address issues of race, slavery, exploitation, and appropriation as it pertains lack of coherent plot, marks a unique interaction between music and image. In to the banjo‘s African American and multicultural history. This same question this paper, I explore the role Erik Satie‘s score plays in Rene Clair‘s short is applicable to asking why disparate groups of banjo-focused stakeholders Dada film Entr‟acte (1924), a film that has no specific plot to illustrate and no have not yet collectively shaped a deeper narrative clarifying certain facets of distinct emotions to convey. The atmospheric and rhythmic elements provided the banjo‘s nearly four hundred year history. by music create connections between image and sound and endow the non- narrative silent film with coherence despite its lack of a logical, progressive In this paper I wish to present how three groups of stakeholders might more plot line. An analysis of Satie‘s score illustrates the lengths to which the effectively work together as part of a hypothetical tripartite collaborative composer went to provide structure for a seemingly random collection of environment. The first group, professional scholars, generally consists of images through the creation of rhythm and ambiance. By examining the ethnomusicologists, historians, educators, and other formally trained and relationship between the music and film through a shot-by-shot analysis, I affiliated researchers. The second group includes a composite of non- explore the ways in which music regulates the rapidly shifting images in professional researchers, non-academic scholars, and musicians who have Entr‟acte and provides a context in which the viewer can interpret the film as taken seriously the importance of digging deeply into the banjo‘s past by a whole. An understanding of the role music plays in the viewer‘s studying, in part, West African living traditions. The third group consists of interpretation of this abstract film opens the door for an ethnomusicological vernacular and professional musicians in or from West Africa whose traditions approach to modern film music from a variety of cultures and genres. are increasingly recognized by the public as ―African banjo antecedents.‖ 55th Annual Conference 1 November 10-14, 2010 • Los Angeles, California Society for Ethnomusicology Abstracts Ultimately, the issues surrounding these banjo-focused stakeholder groups multiple identities (i.e. leftist, Kurdish, or Alevi) reflected on the music of reflect similar issues found in other areas of study. Kurdish Alevis. I will analyze album covers, liner notes, locatable audio sources, arrangement styles, use of instruments, linguistic choices, and A Theater of the Spirits: Oral Tradition and Communal Memory in themes in order to devise a fuzzy scoring rubric to quantify the relative Northeast Thai Healing Rituals membership values for each identity in the last three decades. Supeena I. Adler, University of California, Riverside A Question of Genocide, a Question of Self: Music, Trauma, and Spirit mediums in Sisaket province practice an animist healing renewal Political Identity in the Armenian Diaspora ceremony in which poetry, music and the body of the medium bridge the Sylvia Alajaji, Franklin and Marshall College human and spirit realms. The ritual process transmits local knowledge to the community and publicly pays respect to the spirits ensuring everyone‘s The 1915 Genocide that claimed the lives of approximately one million continued good health. Mediums chant about life crises and the critical Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and resulted in the mass dispersion of moment between life and death, providing counsel and advice and teaching survivors is one of the most contested events of recent history. Through an patients and participants to value their Lao heritage. As part of the renewal examination of three case studies (in the Ottoman Empire; Beirut, Lebanon; ceremony, ritual participants compose and perform a commonly known ritual and Los Angeles), I propose that since 1915, the boundaries of Armenian epic story in theatrical form. This story conveys communal knowledge about music have been continually redrawn, adjusting to the realities presented by the provincial landscape and history, ancestors and local literary heroes, ways years of occupation, the Genocide and its aftermath, and the consequences of of life in the past, the relationship between humans and nature spirits, how to the state of conflict over the very existence of that event. Published material survive in the wild, and social roles. Under the guidance of the spirits, on Armenian music rarely takes into consideration the various diasporic participants call upon the wisdom of ancient Lao kings of local literature and communities and tends to focus on establishing a field of study for general become part of the past, imagining themselves in an ancient environment, Armenian folk and religious music. This presupposes the existence of a single learning communal values and the meaning of life. Building on methodologies cultural ―Armenia,‖ somehow continuous, united across physical boundaries. A of ritual interpretation by Roseman (1991) and Feld (1982), in this paper I study of the role of music within the various communities reveals a more interpret this oral theatrical tradition