| |
SEM
Niagara Chapter, 2005
Abstracts
| 9:00
– 10:30 am |
SESSION
1 |
| Jeremy
Morris
(Ryerson/York) |
Exploring
the Role of Branding in the Popular Music Industry
Branding,
once solely a technique used to distinguish packaged goods and
other commodities, has become an integral marketing tool for a
variety of products and services (Gobé 2001, Klein 2000,
Moore 2003). As marketers strive to differentiate their wares
in a cluttered market, universities, political parties (Team Martin)
and other such “products” have had to examine what
their “brand” means and what it can offer potential
customers. The popular music industry, though traditionally not
discussed in such terms, is no stranger to brands and branding.
The industry relies on legendary brands like U2 and the Rolling
Stones to pack auditoriums around the world and gambles constantly
with new brands and new means of marketing them. With proper branding,
the right artist(s) can climb from relative obscurity to superstardom.
The recent slew of fabricated boy bands and Canadian Idols are
arguably more brand than music.
Despite
this – what I consider to be a plethora of branding activity
– the topic remains relatively unexamined (Negus 1992, however,
provides an excellent starting point). As the onslaught of new
digital technologies (i.e. streaming audio, mp3 compression and
file sharing) presents the music industry its greatest threat
(or, possibly, its greatest opportunity) in the last two decades,
I believe it is an important time to understand the relationship
between “music” and “brand”. The act of
consuming music is integrally linked to consuming music brands.
In this paper I intend to provide an analysis of a music brand:
Radiohead. My case study will assess several key factors that
constitute the brand: packaging, videos, website, press, sound,
image, logo etc. I will begin with a brief overview of the concept
of branding and then discuss the implications of applying this
construct to the music product. Ultimately, I hope to provide
a framework for approaching the complexities of a branded musical
product and offer insights as to how brands influence the act
of music consumption. |
| Jennifer
Taylor
(McMaster) |
Lilith
Fair: A Celebration of Whom?
Lilith
Fair: A celebration of women in music was the first all female
music festival to tour North America. Its founder, Sarah McLachlan,
hoped that Lilith Fair would demonstrate the "great and diverse
music being made by women." Of the 52 women musicians who
performed in the inaugural year, 1997, 49 were white singer/songwriters.
Over the following two years, white, singer/songwriters continued
to dominate the festival’s line-up. Thus, although Lilith
Fair placed gender in a highly visible position, it was the social
fiction of "woman" that was continually constructed.
This is a category rooted in patriarchal oppression and Victorian
ideologies of femininity that subsequently signifies the white,
heterosexual, middle class female. As a consequence, the festival
did not celebrate a diverse range of women musicians, but rather
reinscribed a particular "women’s music" community
that intersected with the notion of respectability. Locating Lilith
Fair in ideologies of gender, race, class and sexuality, this
paper will explore how the music and extra-musical activities
of Lilith Fair constructed this particular "woman."
Finally, it will argue that the festival engaged with the position
of women musicians in popular music and consequently reproduced
the problems of representation evidenced in the popular music
industry. |
| Gordon
Sheard
(York) |
Bakhtin
in Bahia: The Brazilian Carnival Song “Pererê”
and Dialogized Heteroglossia
In
this study I examine the song “Pererê”, as recorded
by the Bahian singer Ivete Sangalo prior to the 2001 carnival
of Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, within the framework of Mikhail
Mikhailovich Bakhtin’s theories known collectively as ‘dialogism’.
Initially developed in the realm of literary criticism, Bakhtin’s
ideas (often in the guise of ‘intertextuality’) have
been increasingly deployed in recent years as a tool for musical
analysis (see, for example, Echard 2002; Middleton 2000; Lacasse
2000; Monson 1996). Here I utilize Bakhtin’s notion of ‘dialogized
heteroglossia’ as an approach to the specific socio-musical
milieu of the Bahian carnival.
‘Heteroglossia’
refers to the stratification of the language of any society into
various forms, including those aligned with groups differentiated
by such factors as age, class, and profession. As they interact
within the context of competing societal forces, and again when
they are (re)presented within a literary work, these various language
types are dialogized (Bakhtin 1981). In the Bahian genre known
as axé music various musical dialects present
in Salvador – often representative of competing identities
in a field of historical tendencies, differentiated global affinities,
and unequal economic and power relations – are brought together.
I will analyze the song “Pererê” as an example
of the workings of this process in this heteroglot genre. |
| |
|
| Jim
Kimball (SUNY Geneseo) |
DISPLAY-DISCUSSION:
Jaw Harps: A Comparative and Historical Display
Jim
Kimball will display, discuss, and teach using his collection
of jaw harps plus related materials and lore from a variety of
European, Asian and American sources. |
| 11:00
am – 12:30 pm |
SESSION
2 |
| Jose
Neglia
(Toronto) |
Madama
Butterfly Part II: Re-“Righting” the Wrongs of
the Butterfly Story in a 2004 Japanese Opera
The
reception of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in the
West, where the work has been a mainstay of the opera repertoire
throughout its one-hundred year history, contrasts with its more
ambivalent reception in the land of its setting, Japan. From revised
and even truncated productions to adaptations in diverse media
such as bunraku and musical theatre, the Butterfly story
in Japan has repeatedly undergone ‘revisions’ that
have resisted the work’s Orientalist and colonialist underpinnings.
And yet, rather than outright rejection, Madama Butterfly
is staged frequently in Japan, maintaining an ambiguous position
between reverence as a monument of Western high culture, and resistance
as a testament to Western hegemony in East Asia.
It
is within this context that composer Saegusa Shigeaki and librettist
Shimada Masahiko embarked upon a sequel to the Butterfly story
in the 2004 Japanese opera, Jr. Butterfly. This paper
examines Jr. Butterfly in order to engage the work within
the contradictory reception history of Madama Butterfly in Japan.
In this regard, Jr. Butterfly at once faithfully adheres
to the Italian opera tradition, borrowing the musical language
and form from the music of Puccini and his contemporaries, while
providing a counter narrative to the Butterfly story, particularly
through its re-contextualized setting, namely Japan during the
Pacific war. I draw upon postcolonial theory, in particular Homi
Bhabha’s theories of mimicry and hybridity, in order to
explicate the work as a site of resistance to Western hegemony
in the context of US-Japan relations of the 20th century. |
| Kate
Galloway
(Toronto) |
The
Revitalization of Ritual in R. Murray Schafer’s Patria
Cycle
R.
Murray Schafer’s Patria cycle is shaped by the
inclusion and implementation of ritual practices and performances.
The integration of ritual into these compositions is Schafer’s
attempt to supplant the ordinary with the extraordinary. Contemporary
society, whether due to increasing secularization or decreasing
spiritualism, has lost touch with ritual, suffering ritual boredom.
In response to this boredom, Schafer has designed a new form of
theatre that has revitalized and rejuvenated the spirituality
of the participants. Patria is an attempt to reintroduce and reinvent
the special and celebratory – the mystery and awe of forgotten
rituals. Ritual in Patria is a transformative experience when
it is enacted and performed within the framework of established
rules and shared values. Many of the Patria works are based on
traditional rituals, adopted from various cultural and historical
sources. Others are unique to the particular performance and have
emerged from Schafer’s imaginative process. Schafer continues
to develop a new non-traditional art form within which he embeds
traditional concepts of ritual. This paper will examine the ways
in which Schafer integrates the structural and experiential elements
of ritual space, time and identity, drawing upon examples from
a selection of Patria works including: Patria the Prologue:
Princess of the Stars, Patria 6: RA, Patria 10: The Spirit Garden,
and Patria the Epilogue: And Wolf Shall Inherit the Moon.
By referencing many of Schafer’s works this paper will illustrate
that ritual not only is the core within each production, but also
serves as a connecting thread among them. |
| Alexander
Glenfield
(York) |
Humor
in the Hybrid: Musical Aesthetics of Pun in Tuvan Shamanism
This
presentation concerns humor as a response to musical stimuli,
specifically, hybrid musical artifacts. The kind of humor explored
here does not include the deliberately funny musical constructions
of P.D.Q. Bach, Weird Al Yankovic, or Frank Zappa. Pejorative
humor, laughing at musical recordings and performances, is in
focus under the lens of the theory. A frequently neglected component
of ethnography, humor, is taken here as a relevant aspect of musical
ethnography, for laughter is a sign of a listener’s reactionary
psychic processes. Humor theories from philosophy, anthropology,
and psychology streams are applied for analysis in musical ethnography.
Based
on recent fieldwork studies in the Russian Republic of Tuva, I
will unveil unique aesthetic perspectives of Tuvan artists and
fans. Two performances at the 2004 Usttuu Huree Festival
in Tuva, the first by local Tuvan musician Kongor-ol Ondar and
the second by the late Sun Ra’s Arkestra, will support the
following theory: A humorous response, pejorative laughter, signifies
harbored aesthetic judgment and fixed authenticity concepts that
have roots in the local Tuvan animistic belief system. The belief
system itself suggests a distinct musical aesthetic based on the
linguistic pun. In Tuvan shamanism, punning, a lowly humor form
in the West, is treated as an elevated aesthetic model for music…and
everything else in nature. |
| 2:00
– 3:30 pm |
SESSION
3 |
Isaac
Akrong
(York) &
Everett Igobwa (York) |
Miziki
wa Kisasa: A Comparative Analysis of Rhythm in Sub-Saharan
African Musics
Rhythm
in Africa has been described in many forms in the wake of ethnological
taxonomy of socio-lingual perspectives of its indigenous people.
Most rhythms are traditionally described in cycles rather than
linear and a connection can be made to aspects of African societal
life.
This
paper will present popular music examples from sub-Saharan Africa,
with an attempt to appreciate rhythm as a common denominator that
links the musics of this diverse region. We aim to tackle selected
rhythmic patterns at a macro and micro level in an effort to foster
discussion on rhythmic sensibilities in this region. |
| Rubén
Esguerra
(York) |
Tuning
the tambor alegre: Establishing a stylistic and aesthetic
identity
This
work is a comparative study of two percussionists from the Atlantic-coast
region of Colombia who are specialists in the tambor alegre performance
tradition. The bullerengue—the most popular genre in which
the tambor alegre is found—is believed by the inhabitants
of the region to have its origin in San Basilio de Palenque, a
maroon village located 50 kilometers southeast of the city of
Cartagena, Colombia. The community of San Basilio is considered
a crucial locale in the preservation of Afro-Colombian culture,
language, and music (Arocha and Friedemann 1984; List 1983). Based
on fieldwork undertaken in December 2002, this study considers
how evolutions in the techniques for tuning the tambor alegre
can be understood in terms of stylistic and aesthetic choices.
The study engages the performance styles of the late Encarnación
Tobar, an orally trained master drummer, and Richard Arnedo, a
young, conservatory-trained virtuoso. Given the contrasting generational
and regional circumstances from which these two performers emerged,
this study of the particular tuning techniques of these individuals
contributes to an explanation of: (i) how individual performers
establish a definitive performance style within a musical tradition;
(ii) some of the socio-historic factors that prompt shifts in
performance aesthetics, and; (iii) new information to be added
to scholarly study of Afro-Colombian musical instruments (e.g.,
List 1983). |
| Mitzie
Collins
(Eastman) |
Children’s
Playground Clapping Games and Chants from Rochester’s 19th
Ward and South Wedge Neighborhoods: A Project in Progress
From
the 19th century to the present, scholars of North American children's
songs have feared that children's clapping games were fast disappearing
from the culture. Yet in Rochester, New York, children still know
a variety of count-outs and clapping games. During the spring
of 2005, I videotaped clapping games and chants from children
living in two neighborhoods in Rochester. I interviewed the children
about the games, asking them when and why they played them, and
what particular skills each game required. The collection and
interview process as well as samples of the games themselves will
be the focus of my presentation. Drawing on the writing of Brian
Sutton-Smith and Patricia Shehan Campbell, I will examine the
special challenges of collecting children's folklore, along with
more general issues of representation, authority and interpretation.
|
| 4:10
– 5:40 pm |
SESSION
4 |
| Kathy
McKinley
(Carleton) |
Cambodian
Popular Music in the Diaspora: Transnational Business and Imaginings
of Home
Following
the UN-brokered democratic elections in 1993, as Cambodia emerged
from decades of political isolation, transnational flows and connections
between Cambodians in diaspora communities and the "homeland"
increased dramatically. Through these transnational linkages a
new independent transnational Cambodian recording industry has
emerged, expanding rapidly within the past few years to include
over 20 companies with more than 60 labels in circulation. Mediated
forms of traditional and popular music on CD and DVD are now readily
available throughout the diaspora. The wide circulation of this
music through vast distribution networks has been enhanced through
its availability on Internet sites that typically include interactive
features such as chat groups, clubs and forums for online discussion
of music. This "Khmer owned" industry has empowered
Cambodians in dispersed communities to attain a level of cultural
autonomy through greater access to "Khmer" music. At
the same time, mediated forms of Cambodian popular music have
become a focal point for the negotiation and reconfiguration of
"Khmer" identity, particularly within the past few years
as the industry has become more diversified. This paper explores
the range of "Khmer" sensibilities arising from these
negotiations and discusses the extent to which Cambodians in local
diasporic spaces are experiencing themselves as part of an expanded
"global" Khmer community through mediated forms of Cambodian
music. |
| Heather
MacLachlan
(Cornell) |
The
Don Dance as an Expression of Karen Nationalism
The
Karen are a Southeast Asian people group of some ten million living
in Thailand and in the Karen State (or division) of Burma. The
Karen National Union has been fighting for independence within
Burma for over fifty years. The civil war has created tremendous
difficulties within Karen State and as a result, thousands of
Karen have fled over the western border to refugee camps located
in Thailand. These camps have become a focal point for the preservation
of Karen culture.
The Karen continue to perform their traditional don dance in the
refugee camps. The don dance is a medium through which social
solidarity, political aspirations and cultural distinctives are
expressed and affirmed. The residents of the Mae Khong Kha refugee
camp express their hope for the future and their pride in their
past as they perform the don dance each year on January 16.
The don dance has been documented once before in the ethnomusicological
literature, by Theodore Stern and Theodore Stern in “I Pluck
My Harp: Musical Acculturation Among the Karen of Western Thailand”
(Ethnomusicology, May, 1971.) The description of the dance they
observed at that time largely resembles the dance which I saw
when I visited Mae Khong Kha refugee camp in January of 2001.
However, some important differences were apparent, and I argue
that these differences may be accounted for by the different situation
the Karen refugees now experience. |
| Heather
Peters
(York) |
A
Semiotic Understanding of the Yugoslavian Immigrant Experience
as Represented in the Nostalgia of Homeland Music
Using
a semiotic perspective, this paper examines the phenomenon of
a prolific collecting of 'homeland' music by Yugoslavian women
who have recently immigrated to an urban area in southwestern
Ontario. The theme of nostalgija (nostalgia) is predominant at
various levels in their selection of repertoire across musical
genres. Based on a framework of Greimas’ “Lexicon
of Nostalgia” and the work of several other theorists, this
discussion explores the interplay of semantic fields inherent
in the cause and coping process of nostalgia as an idealized past
subsumes the painful present. I propose that a semiotic analysis
of homeland music’s role in the immigrant experience reveals
that the discursive and connotative elements of song brought into
an aestheticized and meaningful coherence through form, text and
stylization, produce a natural embodiment of the adaptation process
understood as nostalgia. Several songs popular in the Yugoslavian
community in Stoney Creek, Ontario will be analyzed to demonstrate
the significance in relationships between music, culture and the
immigrant experience regarding both individual and collective
identities. Finally, the home computer will be considered in its
iconic role as a connection between the past and present in collecting
music. |
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