Myranda Harris | The University of Texas at Austin (original) (raw)
Papers by Myranda Harris
Oxford Scholarship Online, 2017
This chapter investigates the general curricular requirements of two of the most popular music de... more This chapter investigates the general curricular requirements of two of the most popular music degrees undertaken by undergraduates—performance and music education—in order to consider how current coursework could be reconfigured into a more student-driven, inclusive framework that reflects the dynamics and needs of modern musical careers. In looking at the core courses as well as the upper-division, more specialized courses in each particular major, we address questions such as how to streamline core courses, how to allow students to have more active roles their degree trajectories without increasing the time it takes to graduate, and how to use the current degree models as jumping-off points for curricular reform. Specifically, the chapter examines representative music programs that have already successfully implemented curricula in entrepreneurial training, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and international exchanges, among other areas.
Harris, Myranda Leigh, Performing the "Classical": The Gurukula System in Karnatic Music Society.... more Harris, Myranda Leigh, Performing the "Classical": The Gurukula System in Karnatic Music Society. Master of Musicology (Ethnomusicology), August 2012, 127 pp., 6 figures, references, 136 titles. Recent scholarship has revealed that the representation of Karnatic music as a "classical" art form in South Indian society was a complicated process bound to the agendas of larger early twentieth-century nationalist projects in India. This thesis explores the notions of classicalness as they are enacted in Karnatic music society through the oral transmission process from guru to shishya, or disciple. Still considered one of the most important emblems of the "classical," the gurukula (lit. "guru-family") system has been transformed to accommodate more contemporary lifestyles and reinscribed within many other social and musical processes in South Indian classical music society. This thesis examines the everyday interactions between members of Karnatic music society, particularly the clapping of tāla during a Karnatic music concert and the musical exchanges between percussionists onstage during the tani āvartanam (Karnatic percussion solo), as public performances reminiscent of the relationship between guru and shishya.
In this paper, I explore the way improvisation served as a symbol of freedom and resistance and a... more In this paper, I explore the way improvisation served as a symbol of freedom and resistance and as a mediator for transnational artistic exchanges in the wake of 1960s counterculture and civil rights movements. I am particularly interested in the way that narratives on freedom and resistance circulated through discourses on improvisation as Indian and jazz musicians in the U.S. and U.K. collaborated to form a new type of improvised music, known as “Indo-jazz fusion,” which combines elements of Indian classical music with jazz and rock. Musicians and scholars typically cite improvisation as the common ground (or mediator) that enabled jazz and Indian classical musicians to interact with one another musically and, more precisely, to create a new genre of music during this period. As this paper will show, however, while the musicians involved in Indo-jazz may have been operating within shared experiences of music improvisation, they may not have been operating within a shared ideology about improvisation as a form of freedom and resistance. Indo-jazz makes an interesting case for the study of improvisation because it is rooted in two music traditions, both of which place a heavy emphasis on improvisation as a crucial element of music performance, but which are associated with different understandings of improvisation as an agent of liberation and/ or resistance in social and musical practice. By highlighting the ways that musicians negotiated these conflicting understandings of improvisation in early Indo-jazz musical encounters, I intend to raise questions about the persistence of tropes on freedom and resistance in discussions of improvisation today.
Recent scholarship has demonstrated that music was an important site for the negotiation of natio... more Recent scholarship has demonstrated that music was an important site for the negotiation of nationalist discourses in India at the turn of the twentieth century. Seeking to highlight the country’s pristine and ancient heritage, nationalist projects emphasized the antiquity, importance, and purity of Indian classical music by locating its origins in Sanskritic Hindu ritual, specifically in the chants of the Sāmaveda. This line of discourse (which is still perpetuated by Indian classical musicians today) positions Indian classical music within the ideologies of the Hindu ethos as a śāstric (“scientific”) practice worthy of the same disciplined, scholarly study and respect as European classical music. This paper examines the curious intersection between Indian music and Sanskritic Hindu values, texts, and ritual by looking at the ways in which the Vedic origins of India’s music are reified in modern-day classical music practice. Focusing specifically on the music practices of Karṇatak percussion artists in South India, I demonstrate how the verbalization of rhythmic patterns and processes of rhythmic improvisation performed by these percussionists are congruent with the methods used by Hindu priests to aid in the transmission, memorization, and recitation of ancient Vedic texts. While many scholars have been quick to dismiss the relationship between current Indian music practices and ancient Sanskrit texts, I aim to highlight the ways in which this origin story (as propagated in modern music discourses and as reified in current music practices) has helped to legitimize Indian classical music both on an international stage and within Indian society itself.
Oxford Scholarship Online, 2017
This chapter investigates the general curricular requirements of two of the most popular music de... more This chapter investigates the general curricular requirements of two of the most popular music degrees undertaken by undergraduates—performance and music education—in order to consider how current coursework could be reconfigured into a more student-driven, inclusive framework that reflects the dynamics and needs of modern musical careers. In looking at the core courses as well as the upper-division, more specialized courses in each particular major, we address questions such as how to streamline core courses, how to allow students to have more active roles their degree trajectories without increasing the time it takes to graduate, and how to use the current degree models as jumping-off points for curricular reform. Specifically, the chapter examines representative music programs that have already successfully implemented curricula in entrepreneurial training, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and international exchanges, among other areas.
Harris, Myranda Leigh, Performing the "Classical": The Gurukula System in Karnatic Music Society.... more Harris, Myranda Leigh, Performing the "Classical": The Gurukula System in Karnatic Music Society. Master of Musicology (Ethnomusicology), August 2012, 127 pp., 6 figures, references, 136 titles. Recent scholarship has revealed that the representation of Karnatic music as a "classical" art form in South Indian society was a complicated process bound to the agendas of larger early twentieth-century nationalist projects in India. This thesis explores the notions of classicalness as they are enacted in Karnatic music society through the oral transmission process from guru to shishya, or disciple. Still considered one of the most important emblems of the "classical," the gurukula (lit. "guru-family") system has been transformed to accommodate more contemporary lifestyles and reinscribed within many other social and musical processes in South Indian classical music society. This thesis examines the everyday interactions between members of Karnatic music society, particularly the clapping of tāla during a Karnatic music concert and the musical exchanges between percussionists onstage during the tani āvartanam (Karnatic percussion solo), as public performances reminiscent of the relationship between guru and shishya.
In this paper, I explore the way improvisation served as a symbol of freedom and resistance and a... more In this paper, I explore the way improvisation served as a symbol of freedom and resistance and as a mediator for transnational artistic exchanges in the wake of 1960s counterculture and civil rights movements. I am particularly interested in the way that narratives on freedom and resistance circulated through discourses on improvisation as Indian and jazz musicians in the U.S. and U.K. collaborated to form a new type of improvised music, known as “Indo-jazz fusion,” which combines elements of Indian classical music with jazz and rock. Musicians and scholars typically cite improvisation as the common ground (or mediator) that enabled jazz and Indian classical musicians to interact with one another musically and, more precisely, to create a new genre of music during this period. As this paper will show, however, while the musicians involved in Indo-jazz may have been operating within shared experiences of music improvisation, they may not have been operating within a shared ideology about improvisation as a form of freedom and resistance. Indo-jazz makes an interesting case for the study of improvisation because it is rooted in two music traditions, both of which place a heavy emphasis on improvisation as a crucial element of music performance, but which are associated with different understandings of improvisation as an agent of liberation and/ or resistance in social and musical practice. By highlighting the ways that musicians negotiated these conflicting understandings of improvisation in early Indo-jazz musical encounters, I intend to raise questions about the persistence of tropes on freedom and resistance in discussions of improvisation today.
Recent scholarship has demonstrated that music was an important site for the negotiation of natio... more Recent scholarship has demonstrated that music was an important site for the negotiation of nationalist discourses in India at the turn of the twentieth century. Seeking to highlight the country’s pristine and ancient heritage, nationalist projects emphasized the antiquity, importance, and purity of Indian classical music by locating its origins in Sanskritic Hindu ritual, specifically in the chants of the Sāmaveda. This line of discourse (which is still perpetuated by Indian classical musicians today) positions Indian classical music within the ideologies of the Hindu ethos as a śāstric (“scientific”) practice worthy of the same disciplined, scholarly study and respect as European classical music. This paper examines the curious intersection between Indian music and Sanskritic Hindu values, texts, and ritual by looking at the ways in which the Vedic origins of India’s music are reified in modern-day classical music practice. Focusing specifically on the music practices of Karṇatak percussion artists in South India, I demonstrate how the verbalization of rhythmic patterns and processes of rhythmic improvisation performed by these percussionists are congruent with the methods used by Hindu priests to aid in the transmission, memorization, and recitation of ancient Vedic texts. While many scholars have been quick to dismiss the relationship between current Indian music practices and ancient Sanskrit texts, I aim to highlight the ways in which this origin story (as propagated in modern music discourses and as reified in current music practices) has helped to legitimize Indian classical music both on an international stage and within Indian society itself.