Musica Reservata: Two Initiatory Chants for the Vòdún Worship Society in Benin. By Gilbert Rouget. Translated by Cari Friesen.

Rouget analyzes the recordings of two pieces for vòdún initiation ceremonies for the deities of Xɛvyòsò (thunder and lightning) and Sakpàtá (the Earth), which he recorded near Porto Novo, Benin (formerly Dahomey), in 1958 and 1969, respectively. These pieces are performed in great secrecy and differ significantly in form and style from the drumming, dancing, and singing performed for the public “coming-out” ceremonies at the end of the initiates’ period of seclusion. Using staff and sonogram transcriptions, Rouget focuses on melodic and strophic repetition, as well as the function of chromaticism, a rarity in African music. These pieces reflect how the initiates move from a state of “dispossession,” or self-alienation, which the author chronicles in his photographs, before they are symbolically reborn in the public portion of the ceremony. Rouget argues for the pieces’ status as sacred works of art, originating from before colonization, that are worthy of aesthetic appreciation. Citation: Rouget, Gilbert. Musica Reservata: Two Initiatory Chants for the Vòdún Worship Society in Benin. Translated by Cari Friesen. Ethnomusicology Translations, no. 12. Bloomington, IN: Society for Ethnomusicology, 2021. Originally published in French as Musica Reservata. Deux chants initiatiques pour le culte des vôdoun au Bénin. Paris: Palais de l’Institut, 2006.

“Notes and Letters”: Music of the City in Flight / Trans-Migratory Poetry. By Antonio Monte Casablanca. Translated by Crystal Neill, Amanda Minks, and Lila Ellen Gray.

In this essay I draw from memory studies and Latin American cultural studies to reflect on Notas y Letras (Notes and Letters), a collaboration by the Nicaraguan band Nemi Pipali and the poet Adolfo Beteta. I analyze these artistic expressions, music and poetry, at their place of convergence—the city of Managua—making audible some of the mechanisms that combine symbolic universes in Nicaraguan culture. This transdisciplinary reading allows me to propose that 1) music becomes a social marker of performative memory, transmitted by sounds present in hybrid Latin American cities, and 2) the migrant subject is displaced and divided between the center and the periphery. Citation: Monte Casablanca, Antonio. “Notes and Letters”: Music of the City in Flight / Trans-Migratory Poetry. Translated by Crystal Neill, Amanda Minks, and Lila Ellen Gray. Ethnomusicology Translations no. 11. Bloomington, IN: Society for Ethnomusicology, 2021. Originally published in Spanish as “‘Notas y Letras’: Música de la ciudad en fuga / Poesía transmigratoria.” Revista de Historia (Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica) 33/34 (2015): 108-129.

The Akazehe of Burundi: Polyphonic Interlocking Greetings and the Female Ceremonial. By Serena Facci. Translated by Alessandra Ciucci.

Akazehe is one of the names in Burundi for forms of sung greeting performed exclusively by women. Studies carried out during the colonial era (in particular Rodegem 1965, 1973) and in more recent times (Ndimurwanko 1985-6) have shown how the contents of these greetings among women are closely linked to the feminine world in which these greetings are used—in specific private and public spaces in accordance with rural tradition. Although these greetings were becoming less common at the time the research for this article was conducted, the author was able to record a number of akazehe after listening to examples of them in the sound archives of the Centre de civilisation burundaise. A greeting is defined by linguists as a formalized parenthesis that defines, reiterates, and encloses the relation between two participants. The formulaic character of a greeting makes it different from ordinary speech. In the case of the akazehe, the greeting emphasizes gestural and sound qualities to such an extent that it creates a veritable musical texture. This article presents transcriptions and analysis of some models of akazehe, focusing on one that features procedures of vocal interlocking. The two parts—gutera and kwakira—are organized according to musical rules that manifest a strong spirit of cooperation between the two women who sing the two parts in dialogue. Furthermore, well-defined rules of exchange for the two roles semantically remind us of the social equality between the two participants. The musical enrichment of the time reserved for the greeting is experienced as amusing by the performers. The greeting also represents an opportunity for artistic expression in a social reality that otherwise allows few performance spaces for women. Citation: Facci, Serena. The Akazehe of Burundi: Polyphonic Interlocking Greetings and the Female Ceremonial. Translated by Alessandria Ciucci. Ethnomusicology Translations, no. 10. Bloomington, IN: Society for Ethnomusicology, 2020. Originally published in Italian as "Akazehe del Burundi: saluti a incastro polifonico e cerimonialità femminile." In Polifonie: Procedimenti, tassonomi e forme: una reflessione a più voci, edited by Maurizio Agamennone, 123-61. Roma: Bulzoni Editore, 1996.

The Community of Classical Japanese Music Transmission: The Preservation Imperative and the Production of Change in Nō. By Takanori Fujita. Translated by Edgar W. Pope.

A puzzling situation defines the contemporary transmission of nō theater. On one hand, the genre’s community of practice is governed by strict orders to preserve musical sound through repeated imitation and to avoid change at all costs. On the other hand, the community discourages explicit dialogue between teachers and learners concerning what exactly constitutes those ideal musical sounds as well as the extent to which those sonic ideals are being faithfully maintained across performances. With a focus on the transmission of hiranori vocal rhythms, Fujita explores the ambivalent strategies with which participants navigate this conundrum and discovers a paradoxical process by which nō theater’s so-called “preservation imperative” actually encourages musical change. Citation: Fujita, Takanori. The Community of Classical Japanese Music Transmission: The Preservation Imperative and the Production of Change in Nō. Translated by Edgar W. Pope. Ethnomusicology Translations, no. 9. Bloomington, IN: Society for Ethnomusicology, 2019. Originally published in Japanese as “Koten ongaku denshō no kyōdōtai: nō ni okeru hozon meirei to henka no sōshutsu." In Shintai no kōchikugaku: shakaiteki gakushū katei toshite no shintai gihō, edited by Fukushima Masato, 357-413. Tokyo: Hitsuji Shobō, 1995. 藤田隆則 1995年「古典音楽伝承の共同体―能における保存命令と変化の創出」福島真人編『身体の構築学』：357-413

Forbidden Songs of the Pgaz K’Nyau. By Suwichan Phattanaphraiwan (“Chi”). Translated by Benjamin Fairfield.

The “forbidden” songs of the Pkaz K’Nyau (Karen), part of a larger oral tradition (called tha), are on the decline due to lowland Thai modernization campaigns, internalized Baptist missionary attitudes, and the taboo nature of the music itself. Traditionally only heard at funerals and deeply intertwined with the spiritual world, these 7-syllable, 2-stanza poetic couplets housing vast repositories of oral tradition and knowledge have become increasingly feared, banned, and nearly forgotten among Karen populations in Thailand. With the disappearance of the music comes a loss of cosmology, ecological sustainability, and cultural knowledge and identity. Forbidden Songs is an autoethnographic work by Chi Suwichan Phattanaphraiwan, himself an artist and composer working to revive the music’s place in Karen society, that offers an inside glimpse into the many ways in which Karen tradition is regulated, barred, enforced, reworked, interpreted, and denounced. This informative account, rich in ethnographic data, speaks to the multivalent responses to internal and external factors driving modernization in an indigenous and stateless community in northern Thailand. Originally published in Thai as เพลงต้องห้ามของปกาเกอะญอ. Bangkok: Santisiri Press, 2014.

The Essence and Evolution of Song. By Vladimír Úlehla. Translated by Julia Ulehla; edited by Katherine Freeze and Richard K. Wolf.

Vladimír Úlehla (1888-1947) uses his expertise in the biological sciences to perform an in-depth and ecologically situated study of folk songs from his native Czechoslovakia. His posthumous magnum opus Živá Píseň (Living Song, 1949) chronicled the musical traditions of Strážnice, a small town at the western hem of the Carpathian Mountains at the Moravian-Slovakian border. Informed by four decades of ethnographic inquiry, transcription, and several music-analytical methods, in Chapter VI Úlehla considers the songs from Strážnice as living organisms, links them to their ecological environs, and isolates musical characteristics that he believes correspond to stages of their evolution. He discusses modulation, vocal style, ornamentation, melodic and poetic structure, and identifies a diverse array of musical modes—evidence that he uses to refute the prevailing assumption of the day that folk music was derivative of art music.

The Formation of Ruboī Meters in Terms of Musical Rhythmic Rotations. By Abduvalī Abdurashidov. Translated by Evan Rapport, edited by Richard K. Wolf.

In this article, the Tajik maqom master and pedagogue Abduvalī Abdurashidov approaches the problem of ruboī (a type of quatrain) versification from the standpoint of music. He takes us step-by-step through the process by which he arrives at the ruboī meters, with fascinating results that remind us of the interdependent nature of poetry and music. Originally published in Tajik as “Tashakkul-i avzoni ruboī dar matn-i advor-i zarbi-i musiqī.” In Falak va mas’alahoi ta’rixī-nazariyavi-i musiqi-i tojik. Third International Symposium of Falak. Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Tajikistan: Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 2009.

Musical Mourning Rituals in Sicily. By Sergio Bonanzinga. Translated by Giacomo Valentini.

This article surveys various vocal and instrumental performances (chants, laments, calls, sounds of church bells and drums, band music) connected to the ritual celebration and commemoration of the dead that are still characterized in Sicily by a manifest syncretism between Christian Church rules and folk customs and beliefs. These “sounds of mourning” are examined in terms of both their musical aspects and their social and symbolic functions, with special attention given to the changing dynamics between the present day and the recent past. The focus also extends to include celebrations in which “fictitious funerals” are performed, such as those for Christ during the Easter procession and for Nannu (“Grandpa”) in Carnival ceremonies.Originally published in Italian as “Riti musicali del cordoglio in Sicilia,” Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo 17, no. 16, 1 (2014): 113-156. Online at https://www.academia.edu/7954331/Riti_musicali_del_cordoglio.Note to Reader: This 64 mb PDF file includes texts, photographs, musical transcriptions, and embedded audio tracks.

The Influence of Dance-House Tourism on the Social Relationships and Traditions of a Village in Transylvania. By Sándor Varga. Translated by Valér Bedő (with Colin Quigley).

This essay examines the impact of fieldwork on the life of the rural villages in Transylvania that have been the site of significant ethnochoreological and revival-movement research since the 1960s. It challenges well-established norms in methodology, calling for a more reflexive awareness on the part of fieldworkers.Originally published in Hungarian as “A táncházas turizmus hatása egy erdélyi falu társadalmi kapcsolataira és hagyományaihoz való viszonyára,” in Az erdélyi magyar táncművészet és tánctudomány az ezredfordulón II, ed. Könczei Csongor (Kolozsvár: Nemzeti Kisebbségkutató Intézet, 2014), 105-128.

Writing against Europe: On the Necessary Decline of Ethnomusicology. By Martin Greve. Translated by Férdia J. Stone-Davis.

In this appraisal of then-current German-speaking ethnomusicology, Martin Greve calls for much more critical acknowledgment and consideration of recent key debates in cultural studies and cultural anthropology. The essay and its provocative title, certainly written in a constructive spirit, hit a trouble spot, fueling the fear of losing ethnomusicology’s disciplinary raison d’être. A short but telling discussion among German-speaking ethnomusicologists ensued.Originally published in German as “‘Writing against Europe’: Vom notwendigen Verschwinden der Musikethnologie,” Musikforschung 55 (2002): 239-250.