Songs From The Second Float

This book, based on fieldwork spanning a decade, gives a comprehensive analysis of the musical life of a unique Polynesian community whose geographical isolation, together with a local ban on missionaries and churches, combine to allow its 600 members to maintain a level of traditional cultural practices unique to the region. Takü is arguably the only location where traditional Polynesian religion continues to be practiced. This book explores the many ways in which spirit activities impact on both domestic and ritual life, how group singing and dancing give audible and visible expression to a variety of religious beliefs, and how spirit mediums relay songs and dances from the recent dead. Takü’s community is well able to articulate the significance of their own strong performance tradition, and this book allows expert singers and dancers to speak passionately for themselves on subjects they understand intimately. Musical ethnographies from the Pacific are rare. Like Moyle’s earlier landmark volumes on Samoan and Tongan music, and also his trilogy on Australian Aboriginal music, this work will be of immense value to Pacific studies and will assume a place among the recognized staples of ethnomusicological research.

Musicologists have increasingly taken a wide-angled lens on the study of music in society, to explore how it can be intertwined with issues of politics, gender, religion, race, psychology, memory, and space. Recent studies of music in connection with society take in a variety of musical phenomena from diverse periods and genres—medieval, classical, opera, rock, etc. This ten-chapter book not only asks how music and society are, and have been, intertwined and mutually influential, but it also examines the agents behind these connections: who determines musical cultures in society? Which social groups are represented in particular musical contexts? Which social groups are silenced or less well represented in music’s histories, and why?

The fifteen essays of Performing History glimpse the diverse ways music historians “do” history, and the diverse ways in which music histories matter. This book’s chapters are structured into six key areas: historically informed performance; ethnomusicological perspectives; particular musical works that “tell,” “enact,” or “perform” war histories; operatic works that works that “tell,” “enact,” or “perform” power or enlightenment; musical works that deploy the body and a broad range of senses to convey histories; and histories involving popular music and performance. Diverse lines of evidence and manifold methodologies are represented here, ranging from traditional historical archival research to interviewing, performing, and composing. The modes of analyzing music and its associated texts represented here are as various as the kinds of evidence explored, including, for example, reading historical accounts against other contextual backdrops, and reading “between the lines” to access other voices than those provided by mainstream interpretation or traditional musicology.

The island is a powerful metaphor in everyday speech which extends almost naturally into several academic disciplines, including musicology. Islands are imagined as isolated and unique places where strange, exotic, different and unexpected treasures can be found by daring adventurers. The magic inherent within this positioning of islands as places of discovery is an aspect which permeates the theoretical, methodological and analytical boundaries of this edited book. Showcasing the breadth of current musicological research in Australia and New Zealand, this edited collection offers a range of subtle and innovative reflections on this concept both in established and well-charted territories of music research.

"Through the close analysis of musical performance and tradition, the scholarly contributiors to Island Songs provide a global review of how island songs, their lyrics, and their singers engage with the challenges of modernity, migration, and social change uncovering common patterns despite the diversity and local character of their subjects"--Page 4 of cover.

For 31 months between 1979 and 1995, James F. Weiner conducted anthropological research amongst the Foi people in Southern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. This book contains the transcriptions, translations, and descriptions of the songs he recorded. The texts of women’s sago songs (obedobora), men’s ceremonial songs (sorohabora), and women’s sorohabora are included. Men turn the prosaic content of womenís sago songs into their ownsorohabora songs, which are performed the night following large-scale inter-community pig kills, called dawa. While women sing sago songs by themselves, men sing their ceremonial songs in groups of paired men. Women also have their own ceremonial versions of such songs. The songs are memorial in intent; they are designed to commemorate the lives of men who are no longer living. Most commonly they do so by naming the places the deceased inhabited during his lifetime. These song texts and translations are introduced by Weiner. Ethnomusicologist Don Niles then brings together information about each type of song and considers these Foi genres in relation to those of neighbouring groups, highlighting aspects of regional performance styles. Consideration is also given to the poetic devices used in Papua New Guinea songs. Eighteen recordings illustrating the Foi genres discussed in this book are available for download. It remains uncertain how such songs may be affected by the major oil extraction project that has been undertaken in the region for more than two decades. This book will interest students of anthropology, ethnomusicology, linguistics, verbal art, aesthetics, and cultural heritage.

"The 2003 UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage was a major step in addressing concerns about musical diversity and vitality on a global scale. 180 nation-states have ratified the Convention to date. Many have developed policies to address the sustainability of their music practices. On the eve of its twentieth anniversary of the Convention, 14 experts were invited to reflect on two decades of approaching music as Intangible Cultural Heritage. In introducing the contributions to this volume, this chapter introduces the genesis of the Convention, its most prominent features, its workings and successes, and the challenges that have arisen from using this framework to address threats to music sustainability worldwide"--

Professor Huib Schippers has broad, hands-on experience of more than forty years in the practice and study of world music, ethnomusicology and music education. He is a recognised leader of action research projects focusing on cultural diversity, and was responsible for establishing the World Music et Dance Centre (Rotterdam, 1996-2006) and the innovative Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre (Brisbane, 2003-2015). Dr Catherine Grant is a former Endeavour Australia Research Fellow and recipient of Australia's Future Justice medal for her work on issues of music endangerment and sustainability. Her book Music Endangerment: How Language Maintenance can Help was published in 2014 by Oxford University Press.