Recording Review:Field Recordings of Dutch Ethnomusicologists 1938-2000

Field Recordings of Dutch Ethnomusicologists 1938-2000
Published/distributed: Leiden,Netherlands:Bake Society ;Leiden,Netherlands:distributed by Pan Records,© 2003
Publisher number: AB 9103 Bake Society
Performer: Various performers
Archive Call Number: ARCD 2193

The Dutch Society for Ethnomusicology and World Music ‘Arnold Bake,’ produced this compact disc that contains nineteen selections,twelve of which were collected since 1990,three during the 1980s,and two during the 1970s. The disc’s first two excerpts feature Arnold Bake’s 1938 journey of India and Sri Lanka. Part of a Sinhala folk performance from Sri Lanka,“Kalamaitu” interchanges singing with a flute solo consisting of two alternating high pitches. Drums,and perhaps shell rattles accompany this selection. Bake (who taught my dissertation advisor Dr. Nazir Jairazbhoy) traveled to nearby Karnataka in Southern India where he recorded a ritual of a young girl that included “Hadaga.” A drone instrument accompanies her.

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Among the remaining selections,“Urai Nangnangin” from Siberut,an island off the west coast of Sumatra,stands out because the island’s music is unlike that found elsewhere in Indonesia,and because unlike the other collectors,Gus Schneemann died as a result of fieldwork. He succumbed to malaria at age 28 during his 1986 fieldtrip a few weeks after collecting the example on the compact disc. Near the end of a healing ritual,a group of medicine men were consulting a chicken’s stomach that they consider to be an oracle. Just before this,the soul returned to the sick individual,hence he? she? was healed (the sex of the person is not indicated). Sung in a wide vibrato and sustained pitches,the music consists of a phrase repeated or slightly varied that,after three ascending pitches,descends in a jagged line. The phrase is sung more and more out of tune each time it is performed,until at the end it is about a fourth lower than in the beginning. While Western unaccompanied singers may not be aware of this while performing,such practice may be intentional in Siberut and perhaps other non-Western societies.

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For two other selections,the performers’ ethnicity is not prototypical of the region. The Vlachs are Romanians who settled in Epirus,Northern Greece. Although the notes accompanying the compact disc suggest a Turkish modal influence,the music is closer to that found in Bulgaria,because of complex meters such as 28/16,than that of the best known Turkish music such as that accompanying belly dance and whirling dervishes. A clarinet,violin and a plucked string instrument,the lauto accompanies the strophic song ”Sygkathistos.” With the exception of the Arnold Bake selections,this is the earliest example. Unfortunately,since Wouter Swets’ 1970 fieldtrip to Epirus,he realized that he failed to obtain information about the lyrics or the musicians.

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The Kalmyks are Mongol Buddhists who settled in Southern Russia. According to Erika Bourguignon and Lenora Greenbaum’s Diversity and Homogeneity in World Societies,only five of the 412 clusters they examined contain societies from a neighboring region,the Kalmyks being one of them. The music style is closer to that found in the nearby former Soviet republics of Central Asia,than that of Mongolia and its neighbors,such as Tibet;however,their two-string lute (dombra) is typical to Mongolia. They are known for their fast,energetic dances whose performers tend to be old female singers In this example,the fishing song “Kök Tengs,” the meter and tempo resemble that of a tarantella,with a garnoshka bell marking each downbeat. The zithers and horsehair fiddles died out,the accordion having replaced them.

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Through the church,Western music is prototypical of Northern Sulawesi and the Moluccas. Although colonial music is found elsewhere,especially in Java,Saparua Island in the Moluccas,the region under consideration,is not known for the gamelan. The song “Oh Beilohy” accompanied by a lead and accompanying guitar,and a dustbin used as a drum,praises a small village. The singers hail from various churches. The song resembles Polynesian sacred music,but the lead guitarist’s performing style of bending pitches is similar to Mississippi blues.

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Of the nineteen selections,one is a solo,four are solos with an accompanying instrument,five small ensembles,and the rest,large ensembles or ensembles of unknown size. A folk instrument maker performs a yueqin (moon lute) solo from Yunnan,China. The remaining solos are vocal:the girl’s ritual song already mentioned,an Afghan ghazal in which a former Radio Kabul singer accompanies himself on the two-string dambura plucked lute,a bhajan from India with harmonium accompaniment,and a selection from Malawi featuring a speaker accompanying himself on the malimba nyonga-nyonga,a lamellophone similar to a large mbira. The small ensembles are:two male rappers originally from Caracas,settled among the Yanomami society of Venezuela’s Amazon region. An unnamed drum accompanies them. One male singer performs the Cypriot phonos genre to the accompaniment of violin and lauto. Two girls sing a Yunnan love song,with the soloist mentioned above and his friend on the three-string plucked sanxien lute accompanying them. A Malian griot singer performs with a guitar and a lute called a ngoni. They render a bimodal,ancestral praise song. The guitar is tuned to major,but the ngoni to mixolydian (in etic terminology). The singer performs primarily in the latter mode. The remaining small ensemble renders the Vlach song mentioned earlier.
Among the seventeen collectors are six ethnomusicologists,five anthropologists,three musicologists,one unknown (perhaps a member of the community where the music was found),one music journalist,and one Sinologist. The latter established the European Foundation of Chinese Music Research. One of the ethnomusicologists majored in theoretical physics,but while teaching mathematics at the University of Malawi,became interested in the native music of that country. The ethnomusicologist who collected Kalmyk songs and dances is also a Tuvan throat singer. Like the Kalmyks,the music of Tuva,which borders Mongolia,uses the two-string lute.

Overall,the collection is biased toward Asia,with eight nations represented. Three examples were collected in the former Dutch colony of Indonesia,two in India,two in Yunnan China,and one example for each of the remaining nations. Oceania is represented by a single example,a church anniversary celebration in Tuvalu. South America is represented by Venezuela,Africa by Mali and Malawi,and Europe by Greece and Southern Russia. Despite the bias toward Asia and post-1990,this compact disc is an important contribution toward ethnomusicology.

- Review by Sam Parnes