Indigenous Music and Art, at ECC Art Gallery (original) (raw)
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Rethinking the Engagement of Ethnomusicologists with Performance and Applied Music Curricula
Voices of the Field, 2021
The primary focus of music schools and conservatories in the United States and abroad is on training performers; one of the reasons ethnomusicologists have had such difficulty expanding their employment opportunities within such institutions is because they have not given enough thought to how they can productively contribute to applied curricula, coursework that falls outside of academic pursuits as typically defined. Ethnomusicologists engage creatively with many fields in the humanities and social sciences. But while this interdisciplinarity has resulted in countless insightful publications, it has typically held little immediate relevance for students studying performance. A surprising number of ethnomusicology programs do not require applied musical training, and ethnomusicology as a field does not dialogue sufficiently with colleagues in applied areas. This essay makes a case for the greater centrality of performance as a component of ethnomusicological training, both as a way to generate new job opportunities and to engage more productively with musical institutions. The ultimate goal of such a shift is to challenge such institutions on their own terms (aesthetic, performative), to expand the conservative focus of most large-ensemble and recital repertoire, and to demonstrate the relevance of ethnomusicology to the broader arts community. My essay begins with reflections about ethnomusicology and performance based on my own experience. I continue by considering what aspiring performers of the twenty-first century need to know in order to be professionally successful, and how the expertise of ethnomusicologists might more directly contribute directly to the requirements of BM programs. Finally, I suggest an approach to playing and teaching about world music that focuses both on performance degrees and
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OurMusicalWorld-NativeNAmerica.pdf
Against a prolonged vision of values linked to imperialism, colonization and the expansion of European cultures (cultural imperialism) are the voices and values of Indigenous cultures, still virtually absent in modern/mainstream curriculum. This text uses the music and art of Native North American cultures to propose multiple values and perspectives essential to balance the very linear/monolithic or dualistic and argumentative practices of Western academia and cultures, as practiced in Native cultures across America.
2010
This paper examines the modalities and logistics of refocusing indigenous music in formal classroom practice in Kenya in a bid to create partnership between the community and the school. The need to refocus indigenous music for use in classroom stems from the fact that the childhood and youth when the individual traditionally learnt their cultural music practices is now spent in school hence, the need to take this important aspect of music to school to ensure its preservation among the school going youth in the academy. More so, the breakdown in traditional systems of cultural transmission among modernized nations on the continent of Africa has resulted in much of its traditional music being lost or severely misinterpreted. With the urbanized children not having their working parents to induct them into indigenous musical life, the need to take indigenous music to the classroom is more urgent and crucial. But introducing indigenous music in the classroom alone is not enough to deter...