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Catalyzing creativity: Nurturing a dying music through apprenticeshipby Brian E. Schrag Reprinted from Notes on Anthropology and Intercultural Community Work 21:1–6 | ||
| Abstract | Bess Lomax Hawes has stated that ethnomusicologists should be activist in temperament and support music while it is alive. This paper will illustrate one attempt at such support by isolating the reasons for the decline in the use of a music and the subsequent decision to implement an apprenticeship program to encourage and expand its use. The music under study is that of the Mono people of northwestern Zaire, among whom the author has lived for two years. After the program is described, a theoretical framework explaining its effects will be proposed, which may be useful in helping to revitalize other dying musics. | |
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American ethnomusicologists have a largely unwritten history of applying their theories to promote specific social and moral agendas. Their efforts in the United States, for example, include promoting folk music in the early twentieth century when "the persistent vestiges of colonial attitudes ignored, berated, or denied cultural achievements of 'common' Americans" (Sheehy 1992:326). Though their causes have been noble, some have at times been accused of "elitist condescension, romantic nationalism, and an agenda of racial and ethnic segregation and purity hidden beneath the calls for cultural equity, cultural conservation, and multiculturism" (Titon 1992:320). They have been seen as contributors to a worldwide culture zoo.
In this paper, I will discuss a recent view of activities of ethnomusicologists which counteracts the negative interpretation. Instead, this view recognizes them as examples of nurture. A case study will then be presented from my own work in Zaire. Finally, two explanatory models will be proposed as useful in guiding effective advocacy of a wide range of cultural elements not only by ethnomusicologists but also by anthropologists and others in the human sciences.
Friendship and nurture
What is often referred to as "public sector ethnomusicology" has recently received positive attention. A 1992 issue of the Journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology was dedicated entirely to applied ethnomusicology. And in a 1993 interview (SEM:1), Bess Lomax Hawes of the Folk Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts, made the following comments:
The human species has evolved a great number of musical systems, and each of them have their own individual quality and particular excellence. As with anything else over time, [some are lost]. You lose a lot when you lose a whole human invention like that. And I think that one of the obvious duties of ethnomusicologists is to do what they can to keep these musical systems alive and functioning. And growing. And changing.
Ethnomusicologists should continue being very activist in temperament. They should be supporting the music alive; rather than just teaching it as though it were gone ....
Though my philosophical underpinnings differ from those of Hawes, our goals show a high degree of overlap.1 That is, we both acknowledge the unequal power relationships between the various musics of the world, and want to be advocates of the underdog. The expansion of Western-based music is supported by enormous financial and social resources; many traditional musics have no such resources.
Building on this tradition of advocacy among ethnomusicologists, I would like to propose that all of us involved in the application of the social sciences to various cultural situations adopt the stance suggested by Jeff Titon, a leading ethnomusicologist. He believes that applied ethnomusicology should be based on a model of "friendship between people rather than on a model involving antagonism, surveillance, the observation of physical objects, or the contemplation of abstract ideas" (Titon 1992:321). In the musical application of this view, ours is an "affirmative action program for minority music-cultures" (1992:320). As outsiders, we relate to minority cultures as equal in value, but lacking in access to power structures of the world. This is a nurturing metaphor which I think clearly encompasses the goals of SIL workers.
Kundi apprenticeship
My work has been among the Mono people of northwestern Zaire. Mono is a language in the Band family, spoken by about 75,000 in the Equateur region of Zaire. My family and I lived among the largest dialect group, called Bili, from 1993 to 1995, and are returning there in 1997.
The performance and knowledge of traditional music among the Mono is declining, partially due to the loss of Mono traditional rites of passage. The most notable loss of this kind is that of the gaza male initiation rite. Last performed around 1974 in the Bili region, gaza consisted of a three- to six-month sojourn in the forest. Boys aged five to approximately 15 would live together and with a number of elders, to be taught the basics of Mono values and skills. They would then be circumcised and reintroduced to village life. During the gaza, the boys would learn, among other things, many songs and musical skills. Today, because the gaza no longer occurs, an important means of transmission of musical skills and knowledge has disappeared.
To counteract this loss, I conceived of an apprenticeship program. In this program, an expert Mono musician would teach several other people the rudiments of musical instrument construction, performance, and a basic repertoire of Mono music. I suggested that music played on the kundi harp be the basic musical component of this program because I had already established a relationship with an accomplished player and composer, Punayima. Also, several genres of music may be played on the kundi, which increased the range of music that could be included.
After research through interviews and observation on Mono teaching methods, music genres, and performance practices, Punayima and I devised the format for the program. It was to last approximately one month, with meetings three times a week. Each student was to construct a new harp, learn five Mono songs, and then perform them for an as yet undecided audience. After I presented a seminar on the biblical view of music to leaders of the local Protestant church, they agreed to choose three men to be the students in the program. We began meeting, and the instruction progressed basically as it had been planned.
By the fourth week, Punayima and the other men in the class decided that they would form a kundi choir that would perform in the Protestant church. This was an innovation, as such choirs had not existed previously. They presented their idea to the deacons, played for them, and were given permission to perform in church. The new kundi choir was well received, so much so that kundi players from other villages heard about it and wanted to learn how to create their own choirs.
Explaining the process of nurture
What follows is a model for understanding the nurturing that happened through the kundi apprenticeship program.
Nurture through analysis and catalysis
My role as a nurturer of kundi music was accomplished through the processes of analysis and catalysis. The analysis was accomplished by general study of Mono music and specific studies of traditional methods of transmission of musical skill and knowledge. From this, I was able to devise a forum for energizing music that would fill the void left by the disappearance of gaza and that was consistent with existing cultural forms.
This forum, then, makes up the catalysis part of the nurturing process. The dictionary defines a catalyst as something that acts as a stimulus in bringing about or hastening a result (Webster 1991). In this context, the apprenticeship program was the stimulus introduced, and the reaction I was looking for was the expanding and deepening use of indigenous music. This program provided an environment where the innovation of the kundi choir could emerge from within the culture2 .
The mechanics of musical catalysis
This process of musical catalysis could be viewed as a classical example of Homer Barnett's (1953) model of culture change through innovation. From this perspective, the following process occurred:
- Innovation. The kundi class conceptualized the possibility of playing harps in church, which had never been done before. They adopted the form of a choir, which is accepted and popular in the church, and substituted harp music with Mono melodies and lyrics for the usual popular songs in the trade language, Lingala.
- Social acceptance. The choir performed first for the church leaders, and received permission to perform regularly in church services. They were well received by the congregation.
- Performance.3 The choir began to perform every week, with rehearsals three times a week. New songs were composed for this purpose, and other harp players began to form similar choirs in other villages.
- Integration. As of July 1995, we do not know whether the choir will be integrated into the life of the church or the wider culture.
Another, more ethereal view of catalysis, may be communicated through the use of two metaphors. The first views culture as a fabric made up of many threads. The second sees music as an energizing force. In juxtaposition, these two metaphors suggest the following view of the relationship between music and culture: music is capable of independent movement between various cultural threads in the fabric of a culture, and it has a symbiotic, amplifying relationship with those threads to which it is attached. This view would predict the following scenarios:
An example of the first situation exists in relation to the gaza rite. Gaza was abandoned because of pressure from government and church. The government opposed it because it kept boys from attending school, and the Christian church discouraged gaza because of its basis in traditional religion. In consequence, gaza music no longer had a cultural host, and became an independent agent. It then attached itself to a recently introduced cultural thread, that of performing for visiting dignitaries. Gaza music and dances previously served functions of enforcing conformity to social norms, validation of social institutions and religious rituals, and contribution to the continuity and stability of culture. Now they serve only functions of entertainment and enhancing ethnic identity.
The second scenario is exemplified by the apprenticeship program and describes what happens with nurturing input. In this situation, several traditional musical genres were energized by being learned by more people and by the composition of new songs in these genres. In particular, the gbaguru (proverb) genre attached itself to a church form and retained its basic function of enforcing conformity to social norms.
Conclusion
Titon's model of public sector ethnomusicology as nurture provides a starting point for instituting measures, such as apprenticeship among the Mono people. The changes initiated by such catalyzing efforts can then be profitably interpreted through Barnett's model of culture change by innovation, or through the metaphor of culture as fabric. It was also seen that music plays a unique role as energizer of the threads of culture. Perhaps these views on culture and music can provide a basis for the application of anthropological theory to other situations in minority cultures as well.
Notes
1The two motivations which guide my work are both derived from biblical principles:
- Seeing people use their heart music in their relationships with Christ and the church, and
- preserving traditional music.
"Heart music" is here defined as the musical system which a person learns as a child or youth and which most fully expresses his or her emotions.
2SIL ethnomusicologists are beginning to catalog and make a library of such catalysts that have been used to encourage the use of indigenous music.
3See Merriam, 209-227, for a discussion of the various functions of music in a culture.
References
Barnett, Homer, C. 1953. Innovation: The basis of cultural change. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hawes, Bess Lomax. 1993. Interview in SEM Newsletter 27(4):1,3.
Merriam, Alan P. 1964. The anthropology of music. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Sheehy, Daniel. 1992. "A few notions about philosophy and strategy in applied ethnomusicology." Ethnomusicology 36(3):323-336.
Titon, Jeff Todd. 1992. "Music, the public interest, and the practice of ethnomusicology." Ethnomusicology 36(3):315-322.
Webster. 1991. New world dictionary. [New York: Simon and Schuster.]