Chapter 1 Introduction

1 Chapter 1 Introduction This Ph.D. project investigates processes and concepts involved in present-day transcultural violin performance practice. The creative practice driven research engages with the aural traditions of Celtic and modern Sundanese (Indonesian) popular musics. This Ph.D. comprises several components: 1. Written Exegesis; the dissertation component of the project. 2. Portfolio of Notated Compositions and Arrangements; creative outcomes of the research. 3. Audio Compact Disc of Compositions and Arrangements (including unscored arrangements); performance examples. 4. DVD-1: Recital One, St. Patrick’s Day Concert, 17 March 2010; present-day Celtic music performance practices. 5. DVD-2: Recital Two, a performance with the Macquarie University Gamelan ensemble, 17 November 2011; adapting the violin to Indonesian gamelan. The DVD and CD recordings accompanying this exegesis are a representative sample of performance work, undertaken throughout the course of the research. Performances during this time were targeted towards avenues of research investigation, direction, or in response to research outcomes. The intention was not to show bias or to proceed with a ‘purist’ perspective towards any particular genre or style of music. The aim was to proceed on the basis of musical 2 engagement and practical experience, informed and developed out of a systematic, analytical approach to performance and composition. The compilation of research data and formulation of creative outcomes has been facilitated via processes of aural analysis, dialogue, literature review and practical application of the research. Sources included: field journal notes from workshop and performance attendance, interview content with performers, observations from recorded rehearsals and performances, website information and involvement in on-line discussion groups, scholarly writing, contemporary journal articles and magazines and the ‘unspoken dialogue’ that took place during performances. Personal reflections were limited to relevant background experiences as a student of Western Classical and World music - as violinist, fiddler, professional musician and teacher, residing in Australia. Global Cultural Flows and the Violin The sound-producing devices we call musical instruments are firmly embedded in local music cultures worldwide as well as a part of global cultural flows in which they are swept up and relocated (whether in the hands of musicians, tourists, collectors, or museum curators). The forces that move musical instruments around the globe are tied to multifarious systems of social, cultural, economic, and political exchange, their value and meaning negotiated and contested in a variety of cultural arenas (Dawe 2003:274). Musical instruments are frequently understood to be emblematic of people, places and repertoires. Yet, as Dawe suggests, the symbolic meaning of instruments can be contested and re-imagined when they are adopted by musicians in new geographic locations around the globe. Conventions must be re-evaluated as instruments migrate across cultural boundaries. ‘World instruments’, as Dawe (ibid.) labels them, might be those that are 3 ‘caught up in the transnational movement of consumer goods’. Conventional approaches to organology and instrument classification as well as the interpretation of an instrument’s symbolic meaning are severely challenged in these transcultural locations. The violin is clearly one of these transnational instruments – an essential part of numerous musical traditions around the world. This Ph.D. project examines the place of the instrument in several of these locations/traditions and documents some of the procedures and adaptations that must be undertaken by the performer when crossing cultural boundaries. Through performance, composition, arrangement and written analysis, the violin’s transcultural flexibility is explored. Dawe’s research is motivated by his interest in musical instruments as cultural objects. He suggests that early twentieth century attempts at musical instrument classification schemes incorporated clusters of morphological, technomorphic, sociological, and anthropomorphic information in addition to facets of performance practice and sound production (Dawe 2003:281). From the performer’s perspective, it is impossible to avoid entering into a debate about the relationship between objectification and modernity. Any undertaking associated with the study of musical instruments has to take into account how a people and their cultural artefacts are represented, misrepresented or not represented at all (Dawe 2003:287-8). What exactly may be considered traditional or non-traditional in newly globalized communities is increasingly difficult. Given that the traditional music of any region or group remains a contested concept, at the same time, it serves to bind together musical practices of groups of people associated with a particular historical chronology. This chapter introduces the theoretical framework that guides this Ph.D. project. At the core of the project is an assumption that understanding musical performance requires both practical creative actions as well as analytically directed logocentric arguments. The 4 creative tasks documented herein are not simply the products of a transcultural investigation. Rather, they are activities through which an understanding of the dynamics of transcultural music production has been gained. This Ph.D. project is clearly focused on one instrument – the violin. Yet in various ways the one instrument has been expanded and manipulated to achieve particular tasks. Strings have sometimes been retuned. Conventional bowing techniques have been re-evaluated when necessary. Left hand finger positions have been adjusted when required. Contemporary electronic versions of the instrument have been used when new repertoire ideas require it. These are the kinds of physical adaptations required for the performance aspects of this project. Underlying these physical adaptations and performance events is a theoretical framework that seeks to understand two things about the place of the violin in a contemporary transcultural setting. First, how music moves between and across cultures and second, the way notation and performance interact in the contemporary world. Not surprisingly, the notion of what constitutes a tradition, or what constitutes conventional practice, are re- evaluated through consideration of the violin’s place in numerous different geographic locations and numerous different conceptual spaces. The violin has evolved into an instrument identifiable in numerous specific cultural contexts from Hungary and the Balkans to Cape Breton and the Shetland Isles, India, Africa and Japan. Its portability, flexibility and popularity offer avenues of exploration into cultural assimilation from one music to another. With the explosion of the public domain and the big business of world music, the violin can be heard, viewed or transcribed in print, playing Irish or Scottish jigs and reels, Jewish wedding music and old Gypsy airs, American Bluegrass contest pieces and Australian bush dance tune sets. It appears in 5 Cajun fiddle and contemporary rock concerts, at jazz and blues festivals, and in performances of melodic lines or rhythmic accompaniment with Indonesian gamelan and in pop Sunda YouTube songs. In spite of this breadth of practice, one also finds large populations of musicians and non-musicians alike who identify the violin as an instrument symbolic of particular national styles of music (such as Celtic, Folk or Klezmer). Since one part of this project deals with the violin in its Celtic form, a brief discussion of this particular location (conceptual and geographic) is needed to clarify the background to the project. A Brief Overview of the Celtic Violin as World Instrument Mary Anne Alburger, author of Scottish Fiddlers and Their Music (1996), records her belief that ‘music is always changing, even if the differences are imperceptible to those in the midst of them’ (Alburger 1996:209). Her book situates the performer within the Scottish fiddling tradition both historically and culturally. The types of demands that are placed on fiddlers varies, depending on what, where and whom with they are playing; that is, at a céilidh with a dance band, as soloist at a competition or in a folk group at a club or festival. The variable demands placed on the fiddler in different situations is significant: In no two [situations], are the performance demands the same, no more than a player will play the same tune in the same way twenty years from today (ibid.). Nonetheless, as she continues to write, amateur Scottish fiddlers have contributed to the creation of the fiddle’s identification, alongside the pipes, as an instrument iconic of Scotland. 6 Jordi Savall is a key figure in the contemporary transcultural world of Celtic viol/vielle performance. Savall (2009:23) pays homage to the ‘amateur’ musicians who keep music traditions alive, reflecting the spirit of their identity as a group of people, whose cultural identity takes shape over time from individual origins. He says this results in a collective image of a cultural space, unique and specific to that people. In his The Celtic Viol CD booklet he reflects further as follows: All music passed on and preserved by the oral tradition is the result of a felicitous survival following a long process of selection and synthesis. Unlike some Oriental cultures which have evolved chiefly within an oral tradition, in the West

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