Filipino composer-ethnomusicologist Jose Maceda on ethnomusicology, foreign exploitation of cultures, and the role of the highly-learned local practitioner in the community. Having been published in 1979 at the birth of post-colonial thought, his use of suggestive terms in the article such as ancient and native will have to be excused. At the same time, this proposal should be reviewed and scrutinized once again as we now observe the diverse developments in todays relevant modes of music production and research within the Southeast Asian regions as well as places outside it which actually benefited from cultural appropriation. It can be noted that years ago, Filipino composer and ethnomusicologist Ramon Santos had attempted to spearhead a change toward an interpretation of this mode of instruction within the heavily-Western music theory curriculum in the University of the Philippines without much success. Factors contributing to its lack of success will have to be investigated further for a more informed hypothesis on the matter. In any case, this is why local artists (in whatever sense of context local could be) should be in essence education activists, as coined by Ryan whom I met just recently: they are in essence the practitioners, informers and theorists of their own practice. The study of ethnomusicology probes into ancient cultures, but as its interests spread, the researches tend to diversify, some verging on what is more popular, and veering from the more serious studies on sound and socio-cultural phenomena (Merriam 1975). Bruno Nettl (1975) says there has been no real progress in ethnomusicology since the studies of Stumpf and Hornbostel about three generations ago. In a sister discipline, anthropology, the study of cultures, particularly of colonized peoples, is strongly criticized as an outgrowth of colonialism, which fostered the development of anthropology in former colonies (Current Anthropology 1968; Copans 1975). Its techniques and tools of investigation contributed to exploitation. Foreign investigators gather material which frequently turns out to be less useful to the native country than it is to the first world nations where a whole system exists to use it. This system includes universities, research institutions, museums, publishers, writers, and readers, which support one another. Without this system research would not be profitable, that is there would be no institutions to support, no funds to be raised, no positions to fill, no schools to go to, no students to teach, and no publications to publish. The system has become so complex, however, that it has detached itself from the object of study, the native peoples, who do not read the literature which describes them; they are not a part of the system, and they do not share its discussions. To avoid the weaknesses of this system, and to heed the warning of Freire (1970) regarding education and, Illich (1971) concerning the nightmare of a totally schooled society, I think that a musical orientation for Southeast Asia may be proposed which would be based both on very old traditional concepts and practices of native peoples, and on those developed more recently in urban cultures. For example, in the Philippines or in Indonesia, one sees on television a musical performance or dance in Mindanao, Luzon, Sulawesi, or Kalimantan; but these are art forms that can be taught formally in schools as part of the curriculum. Instead of isolating music research for the specialization of a few individuals, it can be integrated in these schools as part of an overall training in music. In that way, a musician who finishes such a training would be prepared to teach, perform, or explain both a gamelan music as well as a rural folk music of Southeast Asia. There would be no institutional break between research on the one hand and teaching or performance on the other hand. The two would not be divided into separate systems for they are meant to reinforce each other. Researchers, teachers, and performers in the village would become a part of the whole life of the community. - from A Search for an Old and New Music in Southeast Asia, Acta Musicologica, Vol. 51, Fasc. 1 (Jan. - Jun., 1979), pp. 160-168
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 02:37:53 +0000
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