Welcome to the Ethics in Music Blog!

For students, performers, and scholars . . .

This blog deals with questions of Ethics in Musical Performance. While most of the entries deal with cross cultural performance, or “world music performance” as it is often called, there are important sections on sacred vs secular, musical hybridization, improvisation, politics, race (Hey! you’re not Japanese why do you play that instrument?), cultural policy, and cross-cultural hybridization. The  focus of this blog is primarily practical. I am a performer and as such, am confronted with these issues daily.

Comments and discussion are encouraged as this will eventually end up as a book. The blog is, I hope, a good way to get this ideas “out there” while refining them for publication. Thank you in advance for your constructive comments and thoughts.

Dr. Gerard Yun
Conductor, Composer, Global Music Performer and Scholar

WLU Choir Audition Link

WLU Choir. . . Putting up this link temporarily here for you.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1D-7mmDk3SkTXx_suQXi2eoninr3Zwdm6olV4JJ8PBmE/viewform?usp=send_form

Choir Day of Gratitude. . . . Starting HERE!

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! — That is how I describe the concert we just gave on Saturday night. The room was absolutely electric and we sang our very best. Bravo to everyone. What a term we’ve had, and what an amazing year. There are so many people to thank. Please help me in expressing gratitude to everyone involved. There are so many. I am doing formal “thank you’s” to many of our key players (soloists, percussionists, etc.). But, there are some who don’t always get thanks for doing crucial work. To produce a concert of this magnitude it really is a community effort. Here are some crucial, behind-the-scenes people to remember. No one applauds for these people. They don’t get time on stage or in front of hundreds of adoring fans. So, please thank them if/when you see them or by email:

Angelica Allen  (musicast@uwaterloo.ca) — Angelica was our main coordinator in the office for this project. She formatted and printed the program, ran the house, did the bulk of the correspondence with instrumentalists, did the check requests, etc. etc. I think she likes chocolate; I’m not sure about wine. But, I will check. She even rented and drove the van on Friday and Saturday, overseeing the moving of the equipment to and from Grebel. Thank this person!

Laura Gray — Our music department chair. Laura kept a close watch on all the details (via Angelica of course) and literally saved the day a few times as various personnel had to leave us for one thing or another. It simply cannot happen without a dedicated and selfless chair like Laura. Please tell her “thank you” when you can or simply bow respectfully as you pass her office door at Grebel. I should also tell you that she has never missed one of our concerts. That is very impressive, as the chairs are very busy especially at the end of the term (i.e. right now) I am not recommending you contact her by email because I know she’s had the worst technological disasters I’ve heard of this term. So, please thank her in person if you have the opportunity. 

John Brownell — (brownell@york.ca) timpanist extraordinaire and percussion coordinator. When we changed the date of the concert we lost our percussion coordinator. John stepped in and gathered together the crack percussion team we had at the concert. None of them could squeeze in a rehearsal prior to dress rehearsal. So, that’s right, they did it in one rehearsal. Which means they were good enough to make adjustments and changes/improvements during the concert. I think we should have a big card for him. I’ll bring it tomorrow night for all of us to sign. He’s a super busy guy working freelance, York University, and Grebel. But, I don’t think he’d mind a few thank you emails from us. 

Jody Waardenburg (jwphotography89@gmail.com) — Jody has been doing the brilliant still photos of us at dress rehearsals and concerts for the past two years. She’s a WLU music student and journalist in training. So, she has a particularly good eye for performance photography. She makes us look good! Please send her a big thank you. I’ll be posting pics soon.

Joanne Berlett (joanne@stmichaelw.ca) — Joanne coordinates things at St. Michael’s Catholic Church. She has been extremely good to us during the scheduling process, as has the pastor of the parish, Reverend (Father) Con. A thank you is in order. . . . yes? 

Earl McCluskie (earlm@chesnuthallmusic.com) — Earl is our recording engineer of choice because there is no one in the region who can make choirs sound better on recordings than Earl. He has the equipment, know-how, and artistry to make it all work. He was the principal recording engineer for State University of New York at Freedonia before making KW his home. This guy is good and always gives us excellent results in our recordings. He is rushing our order so we can hear ourselves tomorrow night at our listening party. Please send him some thanks.

Joan Ang — (joan.ang@uwaterloo.ca) That’s right. Joan! Not only does she sing alto and give announcements. But, she manages this website, the FB site, assists with personnel rosters, site coordination, and who knows what else. She’s amazing. A year ago I thought no one could possibly do a better job than Mads at choir management (and she really was the ultimate. . . started our websites, etc.), but Joan has equalled the amazingly high standards set by Mads and made the position of “choir manager” one of respect and trust. The choir simply cannot work with out Joan. 

 

I’ll have cards for Tuesday night for all of us to sign. We have many more people to thank. Please be there! Watch for the room announcement. 

 

Bravo to you all. Bask in the glow of a job well done. Amazing, Amazing Concert! I am very proud to be part of our team.

Gerard

 

 

 

Authentic Choral Cultural Music vs. “In the Style Of”

     Amoung the western classical ensembles, that is orchestras, bands, and choirs, the world music or cultural music movement has been most deeply felt amongst choirs. There are many reasons for this, the primary one most likely being that the there are appealing songs from many cultures and there are so many choral singers in the world that cultural musics becoming part of the repertoire was probably a forgone conclusion. Folk song arrangements have long been a favourite part of the literature. Still, approaching any song that is not in the Western canon or of a Western musical tradition always involves some special considerations.

     Recently, there have been a large of number of choral works appearing on festival repertory lists that sound “ethnic.” Sometimes they have nonsense texts, but often they have real texts from a non-Western or non-Western-classical tradition. Only, in some of these cases the music is newly composed “in the style of” by a choral arranger. Some, through marketing and wording of preamble materials, attempt to pass themselves off as authentic cultural works, others make no such attempt. These kinds of pieces are being composed as they fill a vacuum between musicians’ desire to perform cultural works and the ability of the publishing companies to provide arrangements or compositions to fill that niche. As a scholar and performer I am deeply suspicious of such works — I tend not to program them for my own groups. But, I understand why a composer would create them. What do we accomplish by rehearsing and performing these works. Are we exposing singers to cultural musics, challenging them with unfamiliar systems, inspiring them with a new window on our world? Or, something else? What?

With newly composed works “in the style of” we run no risk of showing disrespect as we need not strive for cultural authenticity. We simply need to do what is written down in the score. This seems easy enough. But, does programming such works give our singers and audiences the kind of experience they can have with authentic cultural musics? The questions that cultural music performance demands of us is more valuable than the inadequate and rationalized answers we most often generate. It is valuable  to ask ourselves what the music itself is about, why a group of people might have kept singing such a piece, and what it means to share in the experience of singing that piece even if final answers seem trivial or less than insightful. It is the inquiry process itself that reveals the value of striving for authenticity. 

Cultural music performance is a bit about stylistic signifiers (rhythms, modes, scales, articulations), but it is much more about our relationship to others who have carried this music through time and experience. With each person that takes up a piece of music, the piece grows and changes. The remarkable thing is that as we are changing the piece — altering it, arranging it for a Western choir, using our training to communicate it — the piece is also changing us. Cultural music is a remarkable opportunity for transformative experience. Music written “in the style of” is merely a shadow of its cultural originator or inspiration. Some of these works are indeed creative and inspired. This makes me think they should and can be performed effectively. But, a deep opportunity to connect with others through more authentic music is simply not available through such works.

Choral singers love learning and singing cultural musics (think of how beloved the Spiritual has become). Singing songs that were passed down through generations as comfort songs, freedom songs, or even lullabies invites us into a deeper experience and exploration of what it is to be human.

We are mysteries to ourselves. Much of what we are defies our understanding. Music helps us towards something of an understanding, an experience, perhaps a sharing of a piece of the human puzzle. Singing cultural musics, even the attempt, represents an invitation towards connection and sharing across temporal, political, and geographic boundaries with those “others” who also loved to sing. 

Representing Cultures? or Experience?

Western musicians throughout history has tried to represent other cultures within their own style of music. Examples include Puccini’s Madam Butterfly, Debussy’s use of pentatonics, Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin, and many hybridized “cross over” songs from world music and pop labels. Artists wrestle with questions of how they are to represent other cultural musics, or systems within their works. If a composer simply copies or imitates certain musical idiosyncrasies, the result is often unsatisfactory, perhaps with the quality of kitsch (in tacky or poor taste). Even when attempted by master artists the “foreign” elements lend a sense of exoticism to the work. There is a strong sense of “other,” which may be exactly what the composer wishes.

There is another approach to which I often ascribe. That is, don’t imitate at all. Instead, in working in cross-cultural musics, instead look to human experience. If one is writing a song about say, Japanese Internment during World War II in Canada, and assuming one has done their research, one might be tempted to “imitate” a type of music modern Westerners associate with the exoticism of Japan (hints at gagaku and perhaps a koto arpeggiation). But, that music has very little to do with the experience of those who were interned (but perhaps a lot to do with why the government carried out that unspeakable act in the first place). It is always possible to ground experience-informed musical works with one style or system, perhaps a system most appropriate to the composer, the performance medium (Western choral? Orchestral? Rock?). In the case of those who experienced the internment, their musical environment was almost identical to that of everyone in their neighbourhoods at the time. There were cultural differences and the visible difference of race. In a musical work, those issues may be best dealt with through language, and not by trying to adopt a pseudo-Japanese music idiom.

Of course, one of the joys of working in cross-cultural musics are all those wonderful sounds! So what do you use and what do you not use? What is authentic and what is kitsch? How does one show respect for a culture in a cross-cultural work? How does one show disrespect? I’ll tackle those in the next few blog entries!

Authenticity I: On Performance Practice

Musics from all over the globe bombard us daily. They range from European classical, Cape Breton folk, to Chinese pop (Cantonese and Mandarin), from punk to Jamaican Reggae, and beyond. In music performance circles — acapella groups, choirs, rock bands, etc. — authenticity comes up a lot especially when working with cultural musics. There are  unsettling questions. Is it important to perform cultural music in an authentic manner? Is such a thing even possible? What does it mean to be ‘authentic’? What is Cuban about Afro-Cuban music? What does it mean to be authentic in shakuhachi’s honkyoku (original melodies)? Can a non-Native American play Native American flute authentically? Is authenticity related to genetics, culture, belief (a real issue in church music)?

For the past several decades, Western music scholarship engaged in a field of musical study called “performance practice” also referred to as “historical performance practice.” Performance practice is an approach to music that says, “Authenticity depends on ‘the original.’ The closer we perform something to the ‘original’ the more authentic the performance.”

Out of this approach came performances with historical (“original”) instruments, rethinking on ways that musics were sung or played, new notions of tempi (the metronome didn’t exist prior to Beethoven’s works), and research in many other aspects of music from the perspective of performance practice. (What was the original version like? What did it sound like?) The strength of this approach is that it recognizes music as part of a larger context — cultural, historical, technological. Its weakness is that it provides a narrow definition of authenticity not necessarily shared by all musical cultures. Performance practice ignores a basic fact of cultural musical development, that musics are lost and rediscovered, reimagined, and reconstructed in each generation. The “original” version is not necessarily the most authentic, desirable, or most satisfactory. Why? Because musical traditions are “living traditions” whether or not we see them that way or educate our musicians to treat them as such. Western classical musicians are trained in “conservatories” designed around the idea that music is to be conserved or preserved. This is a strongly held notion in Western classical music and completely at odds with the perspective in Western popular music where originality and novelty are valued above historical or stylistic execution.

Musics of many cultures (including many European ones) do not have a “performance practice.” Applying the approach of performance practice to another type of music doesn’t necessarily result in authenticity in practice or performance. Even if one applies the concept of “playing the music as the original was played” strictly to say, the works of J.S. Bach, one quickly gets into a bit of trouble. Bach was a church musician. His works were handed out often just before the service to the choir and orchestra, who had to read from his handwritten manuscript. We know from pay records he seldom had adequate vocal and instrumental forces present. There were no doubt, many notes and rhythms missed or played wrongly, and many of the more difficult scores (those of us who perform Bach know that almost every score is difficult) were surely a muttle. So, to perform Bach as he performed it does necessarily result in what we think of today as satisfactory performance. The discussion after this realization gets into what would Bach want his music to sound like (intentions of the composer). This, taken too far, can venture into the realm of the ridiculous, “If Mozart had access to a synthesizer he would have surely . . . ”

With regard to the singing of songs from certain African cultures performers have told me, “That’s how ‘they’ sound! Shouldn’t we sound that way?” It’s a good question. If we are to be authentic in our musical performances how should we sound? What should we sound like? It’s helpful in these cases to reverse the roles. Instead of North Americans trying to sound more “African”, picture instead a Kenyan choir (kwaya) visiting Canada. They get to hear one or two pretty good Canadian choirs, but that is their entire impression and they proceed to try and recreate all North American pieces based on what they heard during their visit. Is this authentic or merely imitative? Or stated another way, does imitation result in authenticity? Would such a result be satisfactory? What kind of experience might it yield? What would we North Americans think of a Kenyan choir doing a poor imitation of us while singing the works of Healy Willan or William Billings? I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m fairly sure many of us would find such a performance to be bizarre at best.

So, where do we go from here? Well, like a lot of things in our multicultural world, the answer is complex — just as people and cultures themselves are seldom simple. The answer involves the perspective of individuals, communal agreements, politics and policies, economics, and more. After this confusing post you are probably asking yourself, “Is it possible to be authentic in adapting or performing cultural music?” Be cheered good reader, the answer is a definitive “yes.”

Identity and Music

That music and identity go hand in hand In today’s individualistic and multicultural world comes as no surprise. All around us people are “plugged in” listening to their iPods. What are they listening to? Most of them would say that they are listen to “their music.” Or perhaps they would say something like, “Contemporary jazz is my music, What is yours?” Individuals especially identify with music in a more intense and personal way than with other arts. The depth of identification with music is similar to that of a loyal fan and a professional sports team. It is commonly thought that the contents of someone’s iPod are worth knowing because they say a great deal about the person who listens to that particular collection of music. The music is then a sort of mirror of some internal aspect of that person. Whether or not this assumption is true is not the issue here. But, it is the fact that we identify so personally and closely with music that is not even created by ourselves, that deserves attention. It is often not even created by anyone we know, or who knows us. We may deeply identify with musics outside of our immediate cultures! I love reggae music (no, really, I love it! Bob Marley was really cool!) and while my mother was born and raised in Jamaica, she feared Rastafarians and would have nothing to do with “their music.”

Because individuals identify so closely with certain musics (so much so they refer to music as “my music.”) it follows that it is easy to intentionally or unintentionally hurt, insult, or otherwise “harm” them by insulting, criticizing, or even passively disregarding “their music.”

Does this personal identification we observe in individuals apply to communities or cultures? Is it possible to steal the music of another culture? Is it possible to unintentionally or intentionally show disrespect through an uninformed or sloppy performance of a cultural music? Musicians in the West tend to see any music as raw materials for their own “original” creations. But, are there musics that need to be beyond this? Are there places that bands and composers just shouldn’t go?

We know that some peoples hold dearly and identify closely their cultural musics — Canadians raised in the Maritimes, Maoris, Tuvan Throat Singers. So, it follows that adopting, adapting, and performing these musics outside of these cultures, by non-culture members may be in some way disrespectful (insulting?) to at least the official representatives of that culture.

Basing performance standards on cultural respect was never mentioned during my time in graduate school. Even courses on multicultural or world musics didn’t speak much about cross-cultural performance, hybridization, or music in diaspora. It was as if cultures were contained and defined either by race, language, tribe affiliation, or political boundaries. Music, of course, is not easily contained by political borders, language groups, or bloodlines and people outside of cultures of musical origin regularly assimilate and adapt musics identified with other races, politics, or cultures.

But, there are acknowledged cultural musics and through UNESCO at least, these musics are “legally” an acknowledged and important aspect of what is called “intangible cultural heritage.” More on this in another post. So, who can play or perform these musics? Does one have to be Japanese to study and perform Japanese classical music? The big question is this: What is the right, ethical, or moral way to engage the music of another culture — to study it, perform it, adapt it?

What’s Wrong With That?

“Just make up the words. No one will know the difference! It’s just ‘ubaba or something’ ” The choir director of a prominent, nationally renowned choir stated to his group in preparation for a prestigious European festival. A popular composition is featured at festivals. It sounds exotic. The inside cover reads, “Should sound tribal, make it sound like world music.” An immensely popular CD recording uses electronic drumtrack underlay to ethnomusicological recordings of pygmy singing. On the CD cover it states clearly that a portion of proceeds will go to “save the rainforest fund.” The money never arrives despite the recording making millions of dollars. The pygmy tribe whose voices are used also never receives money.

 

To be honest, these and other similar events made me pretty mad. But, they triggered in me a deep and lasting interest in cross-cultural music ethics. Classical conductors are trained in accuracy, precision, and responsible, scholarly-informed performances. But, all that was thrown aside when dealing with an arrangement of a Yoruban song. I watched a children’s choir win a national competition with a mesmerizing piece of music by a well-known and respected composer. I thought he had tried to integrate cultural elements into his contemporary work. But, I was disturbed to discover that his instructions indicated that the performers simply make the work sound “like world music.” What is one teaching children when they work for months rehearsing and performing such a work? And what is the impact when cultural stereotypes are rewarded in competition? And what of the recording? Who really owns music? Those who are the last ones to mix it down in the production studio? Can a culture own music when our system of copyright is based on individual ownership?

Once I began to be sensitized to these issues, many more examples came to my attention. There were so many things “wrong” or at least disturbing. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had taken a deep interest in a very important area. As a classically trained conductor seriously studying Japanese shakuhachi I found myself at the crossroads to many issues in trying to decide what was morally right or wrong in musical practice. And an even bigger issue was how to even begin forming a system of practical ethics for real life, practicing musicians and students.

At this writing, the problems and issues continue unabated with little discussion about a system of performing ethics. My book research, this blog, and the discussions you participate in will help immensely.