I feel that I'm treading on dangerous grounds here since Dr Fiol is the author of the main reading this week! That said, I wish these readings were placed at he beginning of the semester since they provide clear and accessible real-life examples of the categorizations that we have been wrestling with. All three readings this week are concerned with the myriad relationships between folk, and pop - or more appropriately, 'folk-pop', and how they interrelate and influence each other. Since all three articles are very clear and succinct, I think there aren't as many questions of understanding per se as there have been in previous readings. Some useful starting points for discussion may be: 1: To compare how the relationships between folk and the reworkings of folk - git, lok pop, etc. - differ in these readings 2. To assess the positive/negative/mixed impact commercialisation and technology have had on the folk traditions
Since I'm the facilitator this week perhaps I'll act more as a commentator and interract with what you guys may have to say.
Below are links of songs in Bollywood films that draw heavily on styles of Indian folk music. We won't have time to watch all these in class, so please check them out and think about the ways that folk are evoked through film. We'll discuss in class!
• Assamese Bihu with “Chadh gayo paapi bichua” from Madhumati (1958) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJNZALQYO48&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS&index=42
• Bhojpuri folk: “Nain lad jayiye hai” from Ganga Jamuna (1961) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKGhcTDEOcM&index=39&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS
• Bangla folk: “Wahan kaun hai tera”, Guide (1965) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KR67xAVj5U
• Gujarati garba: “Main to chali bhool babul ka des” from Saraswati Chandra (1968) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFMl1rMJeww&index=41&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS
• Marathi koligeet (fisherman’s song): “Jhooth bole kauwa kaate” from Bobby (1973) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfTC5cJpmwA&index=40&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS
• Pahadi folk: “Sun sahiba sun pyar ki dhun” from Ram teri Ganga maili (1985) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5JR_0u5zg4&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS&index=44
• Kashmiri folk: “Bhumro” in Mission Kashmir (2000) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9ZUWVtZq0k&index=45&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS
• Rajasthani maand: “Kesariya baalam padhaaro mhare des” from Dor (2006) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbkfUVDQkgU&index=43&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS
These are interesting. I don't think, as an outsider, I would have known that there was any "folk" influence in these clips. To me it just sounds like Indian pop music, which I suppose is heavily influenced by folk and classical music in the same way that Western classical and folk musics influence Western pop.
Patterns: Most of the videos are outdoors, involve dancing, village-like settings such as thatched-roof huts, deal with love. Musically, I agree with Doug, there is a lot of overlap between classical, especially with instruments.
Greene’s first article (2001) seemed to tread familiar ground. He frames folk song culture as a dynamic, vibrant, expressive lived tradition that is partially obliterated by highly produced or mediated versions. He seems to be lamenting the loss of folk performance practices, which are being replaced by fixed texts. This decline in self-made musics is a problem we've seen throughout this seminar, and I feel that Greene’s larger argument about the impact of technology stands on firmer ground than those earlier ones based on perceived weaknesses or failures of “the folk.”
I thought that Greene’s second article (2002) presented some stunning interpretations of the ways place and space are evoked with musical and electronic means. These ideas have always fascinated me (for Western popular music, Adam Krims is the definitive scholar, and well worth the read), and it was interesting to see the ideas mapped onto Asian musics. I also thought that his readings of these effects as depicting memory to be a fascinating one (for example, the idea that the effects can recreate a sense of place/space while simultaneously enacting the sounds of those lost places/spaces).
I found Fiol’s article interesting partially because of the writing (the transition from festivals to studios via an example that moved from one to the other was neat in both senses of the word), and partially because of the “folk process” he describes. The idea that both areas impact the performance, composition, and reception of the others (they are “continually refashioned”) is similar to processes at work in American music. For example, to return to my presentation from last week, Foster’s songs and melodies were originally composed parlor songs that through time and shifts in intended/original performance context, gradually entered the folk repertoire. The idea that both Foster and festival dance songs create and recreate the other was an interesting one, although ethnographies of shifts in the former might be off to too late a start. I was unclear about the term “feedback,” which I often associate with the audio distortion of microphones, etc. I understand that this process involves the looping of sound, and I wonder if that’s what he was getting at?
"This decline in self-made musics is a problem we've seen throughout this seminar." I was thinking that too. I chalk it up as a natural consequence of the process of increasing accessibility of technology and the recording. Not sure it's good or bad though.
I was fascinated by these two ideas from Fiol's article: 1. "After 100 years it will become a folk song" 2. The idea of "filtering" over years and years, and the fact that the performer viewed the product of this filtering as perfect. I was glad that Fiol pointed out that these views both disregard the commercial elements of the production of these sorts of folk recordings/cassettes.
These articles also discussed the idea that studio recordings are sold by mimicking regional practices - for example, the rhythmic calling cards we read about, or the nonsense syllables. I found myself thinking of these songs (festival dance songs, rurally associated songs, etc.) as a garment that the performers or listeners choose to wear. Think of it this way -- when we dress ourselves, the clothing we choose to wear says something about who we are. And beyond that, the exact same garment on one person's body will look completely different and mean something different when worn by another person, because each person has a different body shape and size, and each person has a different personality context for the wearing of that garment. For example, if I choose to wear an XL football jersey it would mean something completely different and also look completely different than if the team quarterback wore that exact same XL football jersey. I think these songs operate in a similar way. (Greene speaks to this a little bit on p. 46 of his 2002 article.)
Continuing with the jersey metaphor, it seems that the song modifications discussed in Greene's 2001 article may be considered akin to wearing a jersey but removing any team affiliations from that jersey (and thereby removing any regional or city-specific associations), and simply wearing it to appear generically athletic or sporty.
In general, these articles seem to be getting at the fact that commercialization is often a homogenizing factor. I wonder, though, WHY exactly that homogenization occurs when commercial interests enter into a particular realm? Is it a result of the sellers needing to collect a market (a group of people to whom they can sell their wares)? Is it a result of the "lemming" tendency of people to want to belong to a group and to follow group behaviors? I'm sure there's plenty of wisdom and research out there on this subject, and I'm curious what you all might have to say.
Additionally, the second Greene article (2002) spoke about musical ways of achieving a sort of musical nostalgia in lok pop. I think this I'll-be-home-for-christmas effect of nostalgia is something that can be found in many, many kinds of music (examples: Chopin, especially his Mazuarkas; Wilco; Frank Sinatra-type crooners, even those who are still working and recording today; nearly every country song ever recorded... etc.). I wonder if there has been any work/research done on nostalgia and music in general?
I think that the homogenization comes from the attempt to make something appeal to the masses. In the case of Greene's article, Kuppuswarny took out all the qualities that would identify a certain song with a certain village (I am thinking of nonsense syllables). I don't necessarily think it is good or bad though. Is it a bad thing if this homogenization waters down the tradition, but keeps it alive at the same time?
I know I've read some studies that deal with nostalgia and music in topic theory - and maybe Meyer's *Emotion and Meaning in Music* and Ratner's *Classic Music* and something about Brahms? But just for nostalgia and sentimentality there's also Shirley Samuels *The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender, and Sentimentality* and an article, "Music-evoked nostalgia."
Greene’s 2001 article on “Authoring the Folk” demonstrated the “beautifying” and normalizing of village songs on cassette tapes; pride in village culture becomes more widespread and has been used politically to some degree, but musically the availability of canned village music has limited the local versions and decreased the number of jobs open for live musicians. The article showed some of the same things we’ve seen in American revivals – a version of a village song, once recorded, can be accepted as the version. In this article, though, I didn’t notice the use of words like “authenticity” or “purity” to justify one version over another, though – unlike in some of the American revival articles we read. Instead, singer/songwriters were justifying that they were real villagers (or had done their homework and studied/recorded village music). Many of the recording musicians seemed to have a similar attitude of preservation, like the American revivalists.
Greene’s 2002 article on Nepal was fantastic. I’d like to be able write as clearly as he does, one of these days! The tensions that the music faces, as well as the country as a whole, were fascinating. The most interesting point for me was that the lok pop musicians know that they are presenting the mountain village music as a nostalgic memory, knowing that village and mountain music is still an active performing tradition in other formats. Child and many of the others didn’t seem to realize, at first, that singing ballads hadn’t disappeared. Even if urbanite consumers of lok pop are geographically separated from the mountains, it seems interesting that it’s really presented as a sort of reminiscing fantasy. How it’s aurally accomplished and interpreted is incredible.
Fiol’s article on the loop from folk to popular (even if it is a pretty regional popularity yet, it seemed) and back was interesting and took a slightly different view from Greene’s 2001 article. Greene presented it as limiting the options available for musicians, both in terms of jobs and versions. Fiol’s slightly longer article was able to explore attempts to normalize the music in more depth, and also examine how, even when the reworked pop-folk music reentered village life, it was modified by performers. I did wonder at the seeming contradiction on p. 32 and 33, though: “git will necessarily be altered in terms of tempo, texture, melodic structure, instrumentation, and overall form….. these superficial stylistic alterations…” To most Western musicians, changing all of the above musical characteristics is far more than a superficial alteration. Even when Fiol walked through the process of taking a round-dance and turning it into pop, the changes seemed fairly significant to me; is the text the most important feature of most Indian village music?
More questions: I’m even less informed about class structures in Nepal and India than in America. There seems to be a bit of a preservationist bent to much of the pop/folk and village-influenced music being produced in those countries – are the consumers, musicians, or sound engineers middle-class or intelligentsia, like we’ve seen in other folk music movements? Can we think of the sound engineers’ techniques in Nepal’s lok pop as creating a “soundscape?”
From what I know about India, musicians in the traditional sense are from lower castes, while the patrons were from higher castes. However, I think the people who are performing and engineering more popular forms of music in India these days could be considered middle class. I could be wrong about all of this but that's my generalized impression of the situation.
I found the discussion of the relationships between standardisation, in-betweenness and vernacularisation in Fiol's article fascinating. Here we see a vibrant picture of a musical traditions in which categories are reinvented: 'The Values for modernity and tradition thus overlap and intersect.' The role of power in the process of recordings and commercialisation was remarkable since it had a profound impact on how the villagers 'standardised' their songs. Recordings almost became the test of authenticity of local variants rather than the other way round. It seems that the sort of standardisation that mass media impose on local traditions would only deepen as these traditions interract with the outside world. It's almost like a 'Platonic impulse' in all of us to standardise particulars and come up with definite 'things' that seem more ontologically real. The co-existence of the imagined folk and 'real' folk in the Greene articles was very interesting, too - folklore versus fakelore. In this context Kappuswamy's statement that his music is village music because he's a villager becomes almost circular. In addition, the nationalistic agenda that Greene notes in fostering a sense of 'Nepali' through lok sit further undermines the static separations of different categories of folk. Nonetheless the co-existence of folk and a creation of a genre that directly invokes the folk in Nepal seems a unique scenario (at least in the degree of their co-existence) among the peoples we have studied this semester. Do you think there is a direct correlation between the emergence of an urban society and the difficulty of finding/defining the folk in that culture?
Fiol—This process of recordings influencing rural festival music and vice versa is interesting to me, especially since “there is no grand, circular design in the minds of most studio or festival participants.” (25)
Question regarding methodology or process in ethnogrophies (Dr. Fiol can answer I’m sure): As someone who has not read a whole lot of ethnographical work, I wonder how language barriers work in collecting this type of information. Especially in India I imagine this would be a problem, with so many languages. For instance, on p. 31, Dr. Fiol describes the romantic lyrics that young men directed toward young women. I assume Dr. Fiol speaks the language that those young men were using, but I imagine that there were a whole lot of languages floating around at this festival. Does that present difficulties in collecting this information?
I also found the interview with Negi fascinating, where he described the “filtering” process.
Greene Authoring—I found this reading interesting, but I wonder if anyone else worries that, while his assertions seem accurate, they made kind of anecdotally. I think this is probably due to the nature of this type of research. Also, why did he change the name of the village? I assume it was because of an ethical issue?
Greene Nepal—I liked that Greene discussed this music in relation to a sort of nostalgia. He didn’t ever say that word that I remember, but he did say that the music helped in remembering and imagining the village cultures. My discussion question stems from this nostalgia in relation to Greene’s musical analysis of the echo effects. Greene compares Lok pop to certain American genres that might also promote a type of nostalgia (country, bluegrass, etc.). Are there musical elements of these genres that help do this in the same way that the echoing does in Lok pop?
I thought the filtering process was also interesting! I think the filtering idea happens in music more than we realize - even in classical music! For instance, classical musicians are strongly encouraged to listen to recordings while preparing a piece for performance. There are usually a fair amount of recordings available (depending on the popularity of the piece), and him/her will choose which one(s) which are the most striking, filtering out the "bad" to aid in the creation of the artist ideal interpretation.
Yes - to both yours and Brianna's comments - the concept of "filtering" was great. I've been using the term "mediated" in some of my presentations, but I don't think the classes I've talked to have understood that.
Fiol – very fascinating ethnography. What I find interesting is that many uttarkandis consider the two settings (lacking a better word), festival and recording studio, as separate entities each deserving of their own distinct style. But if there is some overlap in terms of the musicians in both, then it seems logical that there would be some stylistic bleed-over. It would be interesting to hear the two different styles because I wonder how different they sound on the surface. I would be curious to see whether my initial reaction would be to consider them separate genres or hear some of the connections Dr. Fiol talked about. I guess I'm biased now after reading though. This is sort of what my paper deals with, showing how the music of someone who is typically considered as a composer of absolute art music, Mozart, actually draws substantially on what would traditionally be considered folk music and how there is some bleed-over in his "art music." More deconstruction, I guess. Also, the paragraph on gender roles was really fascinating and something I hope we explore in the discussion, although its an aside. I think you could write a whole paper on that, Dr. Fiol.
Greene 2001 – Everyone seems interested in how technology has affected the dissemination and conception of ‘folksong’ especially after Keil’s “technology has made folk of us all” or something. Recordings (audio cassettes nonetheless, not even CDs) certainly have a serious impact on the repertory. It seems from the article that instead of appropriating one region to sell//market to a larger national consumer base, the gramiya cassettes are being sold to the very people who were being recorded in the first place. This is quite unusual from what we’ve seen so far I think. It seems like such a small consumer base but maybe it has to do with the language or to region-specific content. Maybe I’m simply underestimating the size/sales too. There are 55 million people in Tamil nadu after all.
Greene 2002 – Does Lok git have the same rural connotations as lok pop?? The comparison of lok git to country music is helpful for me. I appreciate his argument but I had another thought: because these echoes are ‘ubiquitous’ in South Asian recordings, is this idea that engineers are evoking mountain echoes specific to lok pop? I think this weakens the argument a little bit, but he seems to say that this is done in all styles of South Asian music, classical, folk, popular, etc. For example, do recordings of South Asian classical music have this same rural/mountain connotation? I guess it comes down to: are the engineers intentionally adding the effects all the time, just in some genres, etc. I like this idea but I’m not sure I’m sold. Do you buy this argument?
From my extensive research on advertising (mostly consisting of watching every season of Mad Men) I know that a good business person tries to sell to people an idealized image of themselves -- people will buy what they want themselves to be, in other words. So in that sense, perhaps the cassettes are less unusual than they seem at first glance.
I was thinking that the specificity of some of these markets were also due to the pervasive plurality in India. There are so many languages and groups of people there that perhaps some music is ONLY marketable to small populations.
I do actually buy the sound effects argument. From the description in the article, reverb may be added generically to a lot of South Asian pop throughout the entire piece, but that's different than a delay added to the end of a phrase. In sound engineering, reverb and delay and a delay at the end rather than the middle of a phrase will sound very distinct.
in fiol's article I saw the circulative effect between th commercial recording and festival performance in the indian society. the awareness of two different perfomance environment has influenced to standardize and recreate the thepopular music in indian local(village) music. Negi's explanation about composition; a continuous process of "flitering" into cummunal make me imagine how people add and cut their music in public stage. " the fundamental trasformation of the identity of a song,however, will result nor from these superficial stylistic alterations, but from more gradual process of commucal identifiation and adaptation." then where is the root of the gradual alternating process? Green's first article explains the aspect of local village recoding.Even though village song is still a commercial genre of folk songs, i think it has many merits to be defined as the folk as well. Because as the article says ' recording of village music were circulated only thorugh small, localized market",( i could contain the local favorite music), and when the recoding becoming widely spared, it would open to be recognized as theautheticity of folks as well. after reading another Green's article, i've think the village music would spontaneously choose to be urbarnized for prserving their folk in capitalized society.I could find specific example how people alternated the music in oder to match the studio surroung for example, echo effect etc.
One topic that all the articles dealt with this week was how the commercialization (studio gimmicks, mass production of recordings, etc.) of different musical genres in India affected some/all of the original performance practices associated with the music. The first Greene article discusses the Gramiya songs from the Tamil Nadu region. Greene states that the cassette recordings of these songs have nearly halted epic ballad singing that has been a tradition in tea shops for generations. The second Green article from 2002 details how the different mountain music genres (lok git, lok pop) have become the more authentic and traditional music of Nepal. However, in an effort to make this music an identifier for the “cosmopolitan” state of Nepal, the music has gone through heavy commercialization. Fiol discussed how the efforts of some videographers wishing to capture the rural essence of the Uttarakhand region have actually done the opposite due to their desires make the films seem more mainstream and modern. All of these instances lead me to wonder why the producers and popular musicians felt it was so necessary to change and/or streamline the original music so much (other than it benefiting the global appearance of the state)? The Indian and South Asian cultures have always seemed to present a great deal of cultural wealth. So, one would think they would want to preserve something so distinct and use it as a cultural identifier?
In the Greene article from 2002, he notes that in Lok Pop, narratives and metaphors present in the lyrics create a sense of separation from the “folk,” thus making it feel more nostalgic. Does a separation from the “folk” and the creation of nostalgia that follows add to the dilemma on defining what exactly the “folk” is since we are relying on our own thoughts and dreams to make those inferences instead of the “cold, hard facts?”
I found the differing opinions on technology and commercialism’s influence on “folk music” very interesting, especially since two of the articles were by the same author. In Greene’s article, Authorin the Folk, technology and commercialism are looked at from a more negative standpoint. Greene states that the Gramiya recordings present a narrower more limited version of folksongs. In his other article, Nepal’ Lok Pop Music…, Green discusses Lok Git distribution through cassette tapes in a much more positive light than he does Gramiya recordings. I may be wrong, but I feel like Lok git is similar to grimaya songs. However, Green seems to support Lok git as a good thing whereas he argued that grimaya songs as having a negative influence on rural culture. His main argument was that since they are recorded they limit the listener’s scope of the music. I feel that would be true of Lok git as well, since they are distributed in a similar way. I realize this was not the focus of his paper, but I found it interesting either way. I felt that Greene was trying to label things as good or bad in his articles. It seemed clear to me that Greene feels that Lok pop is inferior to Lok git for many reasons, and while I do not disagree entirely, shouldn’t that kind of opinion be left out of a research document? Did anyone else feel this way? Fiol’s article, for me, was a less slanted. He presented both the advantages and disadvantages of commercialism and technology in Uttarakhandi music. Fiol acknowledged that many people disagree with the use of cassettes for learning round dance-songs, but also showed the benefits that commercialism had on the rural community (i.e Negi’s Nanda Devi round dance-song recordings). Here are my questions, 1. We have discussed “folk music” as ever changing. If this is true, is the use of technology an appropriate way to distribute “folk music”? 2. Is it possible to remain “authentic” when you are trying to make something commercially successful?
1. We have discussed “folk music” as ever changing. If this is true, is the use of technology an appropriate way to distribute “folk music”?
I think one thing that the recording can do is create the idea of "THE version" and gets back to this authenticity debate. But at the same time, youtube fosters unlimited versions so it seems to contradict the idea of "THE version."
It seems that technology in this situation is the modern equivalent of a 'codex' the existence of which gives the impression/illusion of an authentic final word. I guess it depends on how one defines authenticity?
1. I do think technology is a good way to distribute the ever changing "folk music" because technology is ever changing as well. Some new gadget may come along or some improvement may be made to some existing technological artifact that would be perfect for distributing, recording, or preserving a piece of folklore/music.
2. If the item(s) that one is trying to keep "authentic" are simple enough in nature or are readily recognizable to the masses, then yes. Otherwise one would have to "dumb-down" the item so that it is appealing to everyone.
I agree with the idea on a single version of a song being problematic. However, both Vaughan Williams and Negi agree that we are at a point where these songs should not be changed because they are in their best form. Although I think that point is strange since it is completely objective.
I feel that I'm treading on dangerous grounds here since Dr Fiol is the author of the main reading this week! That said, I wish these readings were placed at he beginning of the semester since they provide clear and accessible real-life examples of the categorizations that we have been wrestling with.
ReplyDeleteAll three readings this week are concerned with the myriad relationships between folk, and pop - or more appropriately, 'folk-pop', and how they interrelate and influence each other. Since all three articles are very clear and succinct, I think there aren't as many questions of understanding per se as there have been in previous readings. Some useful starting points for discussion may be:
1: To compare how the relationships between folk and the reworkings of folk - git, lok pop, etc. - differ in these readings
2. To assess the positive/negative/mixed impact commercialisation and technology have had on the folk traditions
Since I'm the facilitator this week perhaps I'll act more as a commentator and interract with what you guys may have to say.
Below are links of songs in Bollywood films that draw heavily on styles of Indian folk music. We won't have time to watch all these in class, so please check them out and think about the ways that folk are evoked through film. We'll discuss in class!
ReplyDelete• Assamese Bihu with “Chadh gayo paapi bichua” from Madhumati (1958)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJNZALQYO48&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS&index=42
• Bhojpuri folk: “Nain lad jayiye hai” from Ganga Jamuna (1961)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKGhcTDEOcM&index=39&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS
• Bangla folk: “Wahan kaun hai tera”, Guide (1965)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KR67xAVj5U
• Gujarati garba: “Main to chali bhool babul ka des” from Saraswati Chandra (1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFMl1rMJeww&index=41&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS
• Marathi koligeet (fisherman’s song): “Jhooth bole kauwa kaate” from Bobby (1973)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfTC5cJpmwA&index=40&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS
• Pahadi folk: “Sun sahiba sun pyar ki dhun” from Ram teri Ganga maili (1985)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5JR_0u5zg4&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS&index=44
• Kashmiri folk: “Bhumro” in Mission Kashmir (2000)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9ZUWVtZq0k&index=45&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS
• Rajasthani maand: “Kesariya baalam padhaaro mhare des” from Dor (2006)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbkfUVDQkgU&index=43&list=PLRZMVF4BPy06R90CpBvQKk1OgWaM4ahfS
These are interesting. I don't think, as an outsider, I would have known that there was any "folk" influence in these clips. To me it just sounds like Indian pop music, which I suppose is heavily influenced by folk and classical music in the same way that Western classical and folk musics influence Western pop.
DeletePatterns: Most of the videos are outdoors, involve dancing, village-like settings such as thatched-roof huts, deal with love. Musically, I agree with Doug, there is a lot of overlap between classical, especially with instruments.
DeleteGreene’s first article (2001) seemed to tread familiar ground. He frames folk song culture as a dynamic, vibrant, expressive lived tradition that is partially obliterated by highly produced or mediated versions. He seems to be lamenting the loss of folk performance practices, which are being replaced by fixed texts. This decline in self-made musics is a problem we've seen throughout this seminar, and I feel that Greene’s larger argument about the impact of technology stands on firmer ground than those earlier ones based on perceived weaknesses or failures of “the folk.”
ReplyDeleteI thought that Greene’s second article (2002) presented some stunning interpretations of the ways place and space are evoked with musical and electronic means. These ideas have always fascinated me (for Western popular music, Adam Krims is the definitive scholar, and well worth the read), and it was interesting to see the ideas mapped onto Asian musics. I also thought that his readings of these effects as depicting memory to be a fascinating one (for example, the idea that the effects can recreate a sense of place/space while simultaneously enacting the sounds of those lost places/spaces).
I found Fiol’s article interesting partially because of the writing (the transition from festivals to studios via an example that moved from one to the other was neat in both senses of the word), and partially because of the “folk process” he describes. The idea that both areas impact the performance, composition, and reception of the others (they are “continually refashioned”) is similar to processes at work in American music. For example, to return to my presentation from last week, Foster’s songs and melodies were originally composed parlor songs that through time and shifts in intended/original performance context, gradually entered the folk repertoire. The idea that both Foster and festival dance songs create and recreate the other was an interesting one, although ethnographies of shifts in the former might be off to too late a start. I was unclear about the term “feedback,” which I often associate with the audio distortion of microphones, etc. I understand that this process involves the looping of sound, and I wonder if that’s what he was getting at?
"This decline in self-made musics is a problem we've seen throughout this seminar." I was thinking that too. I chalk it up as a natural consequence of the process of increasing accessibility of technology and the recording. Not sure it's good or bad though.
DeleteI was fascinated by these two ideas from Fiol's article:
ReplyDelete1. "After 100 years it will become a folk song"
2. The idea of "filtering" over years and years, and the fact that the performer viewed the product of this filtering as perfect.
I was glad that Fiol pointed out that these views both disregard the commercial elements of the production of these sorts of folk recordings/cassettes.
These articles also discussed the idea that studio recordings are sold by mimicking regional practices - for example, the rhythmic calling cards we read about, or the nonsense syllables. I found myself thinking of these songs (festival dance songs, rurally associated songs, etc.) as a garment that the performers or listeners choose to wear. Think of it this way -- when we dress ourselves, the clothing we choose to wear says something about who we are. And beyond that, the exact same garment on one person's body will look completely different and mean something different when worn by another person, because each person has a different body shape and size, and each person has a different personality context for the wearing of that garment. For example, if I choose to wear an XL football jersey it would mean something completely different and also look completely different than if the team quarterback wore that exact same XL football jersey. I think these songs operate in a similar way. (Greene speaks to this a little bit on p. 46 of his 2002 article.)
Continuing with the jersey metaphor, it seems that the song modifications discussed in Greene's 2001 article may be considered akin to wearing a jersey but removing any team affiliations from that jersey (and thereby removing any regional or city-specific associations), and simply wearing it to appear generically athletic or sporty.
In general, these articles seem to be getting at the fact that commercialization is often a homogenizing factor. I wonder, though, WHY exactly that homogenization occurs when commercial interests enter into a particular realm? Is it a result of the sellers needing to collect a market (a group of people to whom they can sell their wares)? Is it a result of the "lemming" tendency of people to want to belong to a group and to follow group behaviors? I'm sure there's plenty of wisdom and research out there on this subject, and I'm curious what you all might have to say.
Additionally, the second Greene article (2002) spoke about musical ways of achieving a sort of musical nostalgia in lok pop. I think this I'll-be-home-for-christmas effect of nostalgia is something that can be found in many, many kinds of music (examples: Chopin, especially his Mazuarkas; Wilco; Frank Sinatra-type crooners, even those who are still working and recording today; nearly every country song ever recorded... etc.). I wonder if there has been any work/research done on nostalgia and music in general?
Your metaphor of clothing is very interesting to me, especially in removing team associations.
DeleteJessica Frost, a recent MM Music History Graduate, wrote her thesis on nostalgia in the songs of Stephen Foster!
I think that the homogenization comes from the attempt to make something appeal to the masses. In the case of Greene's article, Kuppuswarny took out all the qualities that would identify a certain song with a certain village (I am thinking of nonsense syllables). I don't necessarily think it is good or bad though. Is it a bad thing if this homogenization waters down the tradition, but keeps it alive at the same time?
DeleteI know I've read some studies that deal with nostalgia and music in topic theory - and maybe Meyer's *Emotion and Meaning in Music* and Ratner's *Classic Music* and something about Brahms? But just for nostalgia and sentimentality there's also Shirley Samuels *The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender, and Sentimentality* and an article, "Music-evoked nostalgia."
DeleteGreene’s 2001 article on “Authoring the Folk” demonstrated the “beautifying” and normalizing of village songs on cassette tapes; pride in village culture becomes more widespread and has been used politically to some degree, but musically the availability of canned village music has limited the local versions and decreased the number of jobs open for live musicians. The article showed some of the same things we’ve seen in American revivals – a version of a village song, once recorded, can be accepted as the version. In this article, though, I didn’t notice the use of words like “authenticity” or “purity” to justify one version over another, though – unlike in some of the American revival articles we read. Instead, singer/songwriters were justifying that they were real villagers (or had done their homework and studied/recorded village music). Many of the recording musicians seemed to have a similar attitude of preservation, like the American revivalists.
ReplyDeleteGreene’s 2002 article on Nepal was fantastic. I’d like to be able write as clearly as he does, one of these days! The tensions that the music faces, as well as the country as a whole, were fascinating. The most interesting point for me was that the lok pop musicians know that they are presenting the mountain village music as a nostalgic memory, knowing that village and mountain music is still an active performing tradition in other formats. Child and many of the others didn’t seem to realize, at first, that singing ballads hadn’t disappeared. Even if urbanite consumers of lok pop are geographically separated from the mountains, it seems interesting that it’s really presented as a sort of reminiscing fantasy. How it’s aurally accomplished and interpreted is incredible.
Fiol’s article on the loop from folk to popular (even if it is a pretty regional popularity yet, it seemed) and back was interesting and took a slightly different view from Greene’s 2001 article. Greene presented it as limiting the options available for musicians, both in terms of jobs and versions. Fiol’s slightly longer article was able to explore attempts to normalize the music in more depth, and also examine how, even when the reworked pop-folk music reentered village life, it was modified by performers. I did wonder at the seeming contradiction on p. 32 and 33, though: “git will necessarily be altered in terms of tempo, texture, melodic structure, instrumentation, and overall form….. these superficial stylistic alterations…” To most Western musicians, changing all of the above musical characteristics is far more than a superficial alteration. Even when Fiol walked through the process of taking a round-dance and turning it into pop, the changes seemed fairly significant to me; is the text the most important feature of most Indian village music?
More questions:
I’m even less informed about class structures in Nepal and India than in America. There seems to be a bit of a preservationist bent to much of the pop/folk and village-influenced music being produced in those countries – are the consumers, musicians, or sound engineers middle-class or intelligentsia, like we’ve seen in other folk music movements?
Can we think of the sound engineers’ techniques in Nepal’s lok pop as creating a “soundscape?”
From what I know about India, musicians in the traditional sense are from lower castes, while the patrons were from higher castes. However, I think the people who are performing and engineering more popular forms of music in India these days could be considered middle class. I could be wrong about all of this but that's my generalized impression of the situation.
DeleteI found the discussion of the relationships between standardisation, in-betweenness and vernacularisation in Fiol's article fascinating. Here we see a vibrant picture of a musical traditions in which categories are reinvented: 'The Values for modernity and tradition thus overlap and intersect.' The role of power in the process of recordings and commercialisation was remarkable since it had a profound impact on how the villagers 'standardised' their songs. Recordings almost became the test of authenticity of local variants rather than the other way round. It seems that the sort of standardisation that mass media impose on local traditions would only deepen as these traditions interract with the outside world. It's almost like a 'Platonic impulse' in all of us to standardise particulars and come up with definite 'things' that seem more ontologically real.
ReplyDeleteThe co-existence of the imagined folk and 'real' folk in the Greene articles was very interesting, too - folklore versus fakelore. In this context Kappuswamy's statement that his music is village music because he's a villager becomes almost circular. In addition, the nationalistic agenda that Greene notes in fostering a sense of 'Nepali' through lok sit further undermines the static separations of different categories of folk. Nonetheless the co-existence of folk and a creation of a genre that directly invokes the folk in Nepal seems a unique scenario (at least in the degree of their co-existence) among the peoples we have studied this semester.
Do you think there is a direct correlation between the emergence of an urban society and the difficulty of finding/defining the folk in that culture?
Fiol—This process of recordings influencing rural festival music and vice versa is interesting to me, especially since “there is no grand, circular design in the minds of most studio or festival participants.” (25)
ReplyDeleteQuestion regarding methodology or process in ethnogrophies (Dr. Fiol can answer I’m sure): As someone who has not read a whole lot of ethnographical work, I wonder how language barriers work in collecting this type of information. Especially in India I imagine this would be a problem, with so many languages. For instance, on p. 31, Dr. Fiol describes the romantic lyrics that young men directed toward young women. I assume Dr. Fiol speaks the language that those young men were using, but I imagine that there were a whole lot of languages floating around at this festival. Does that present difficulties in collecting this information?
I also found the interview with Negi fascinating, where he described the “filtering” process.
Greene Authoring—I found this reading interesting, but I wonder if anyone else worries that, while his assertions seem accurate, they made kind of anecdotally. I think this is probably due to the nature of this type of research. Also, why did he change the name of the village? I assume it was because of an ethical issue?
Greene Nepal—I liked that Greene discussed this music in relation to a sort of nostalgia. He didn’t ever say that word that I remember, but he did say that the music helped in remembering and imagining the village cultures. My discussion question stems from this nostalgia in relation to Greene’s musical analysis of the echo effects. Greene compares Lok pop to certain American genres that might also promote a type of nostalgia (country, bluegrass, etc.). Are there musical elements of these genres that help do this in the same way that the echoing does in Lok pop?
Regarding you last question: I am wondering the same thing!
DeleteI thought the filtering process was also interesting! I think the filtering idea happens in music more than we realize - even in classical music! For instance, classical musicians are strongly encouraged to listen to recordings while preparing a piece for performance. There are usually a fair amount of recordings available (depending on the popularity of the piece), and him/her will choose which one(s) which are the most striking, filtering out the "bad" to aid in the creation of the artist ideal interpretation.
DeleteYes - to both yours and Brianna's comments - the concept of "filtering" was great. I've been using the term "mediated" in some of my presentations, but I don't think the classes I've talked to have understood that.
DeleteFiol – very fascinating ethnography. What I find interesting is that many uttarkandis consider the two settings (lacking a better word), festival and recording studio, as separate entities each deserving of their own distinct style. But if there is some overlap in terms of the musicians in both, then it seems logical that there would be some stylistic bleed-over. It would be interesting to hear the two different styles because I wonder how different they sound on the surface. I would be curious to see whether my initial reaction would be to consider them separate genres or hear some of the connections Dr. Fiol talked about. I guess I'm biased now after reading though. This is sort of what my paper deals with, showing how the music of someone who is typically considered as a composer of absolute art music, Mozart, actually draws substantially on what would traditionally be considered folk music and how there is some bleed-over in his "art music." More deconstruction, I guess. Also, the paragraph on gender roles was really fascinating and something I hope we explore in the discussion, although its an aside. I think you could write a whole paper on that, Dr. Fiol.
ReplyDeleteGreene 2001 – Everyone seems interested in how technology has affected the dissemination and conception of ‘folksong’ especially after Keil’s “technology has made folk of us all” or something. Recordings (audio cassettes nonetheless, not even CDs) certainly have a serious impact on the repertory. It seems from the article that instead of appropriating one region to sell//market to a larger national consumer base, the gramiya cassettes are being sold to the very people who were being recorded in the first place. This is quite unusual from what we’ve seen so far I think. It seems like such a small consumer base but maybe it has to do with the language or to region-specific content. Maybe I’m simply underestimating the size/sales too. There are 55 million people in Tamil nadu after all.
Greene 2002 – Does Lok git have the same rural connotations as lok pop?? The comparison of lok git to country music is helpful for me. I appreciate his argument but I had another thought: because these echoes are ‘ubiquitous’ in South Asian recordings, is this idea that engineers are evoking mountain echoes specific to lok pop? I think this weakens the argument a little bit, but he seems to say that this is done in all styles of South Asian music, classical, folk, popular, etc. For example, do recordings of South Asian classical music have this same rural/mountain connotation? I guess it comes down to: are the engineers intentionally adding the effects all the time, just in some genres, etc. I like this idea but I’m not sure I’m sold. Do you buy this argument?
From my extensive research on advertising (mostly consisting of watching every season of Mad Men) I know that a good business person tries to sell to people an idealized image of themselves -- people will buy what they want themselves to be, in other words. So in that sense, perhaps the cassettes are less unusual than they seem at first glance.
DeleteI was thinking that the specificity of some of these markets were also due to the pervasive plurality in India. There are so many languages and groups of people there that perhaps some music is ONLY marketable to small populations.
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DeleteIt does sound like they're adding those effects pretty often judging from the readings...
DeleteI do actually buy the sound effects argument. From the description in the article, reverb may be added generically to a lot of South Asian pop throughout the entire piece, but that's different than a delay added to the end of a phrase. In sound engineering, reverb and delay and a delay at the end rather than the middle of a phrase will sound very distinct.
Deletein fiol's article I saw the circulative effect between th commercial recording and festival performance in the indian society. the awareness of two different perfomance environment has influenced to standardize and recreate the thepopular music in indian local(village) music. Negi's explanation about composition; a continuous process of "flitering" into cummunal make me imagine how people add and cut their music in public stage. " the fundamental trasformation of the identity of a song,however, will result nor from these superficial stylistic alterations, but from more gradual process of commucal identifiation and adaptation." then where is the root of the gradual alternating process?
ReplyDeleteGreen's first article explains the aspect of local village recoding.Even though village song is still a commercial genre of folk songs, i think it has many merits to be defined as the folk as well. Because as the article says ' recording of village music were circulated only thorugh small, localized market",( i could contain the local favorite music), and when the recoding becoming widely spared, it would open to be recognized as theautheticity of folks as well.
after reading another Green's article, i've think the village music would spontaneously choose to be urbarnized for prserving their folk in capitalized society.I could find specific example how people alternated the music in oder to match the studio surroung for example, echo effect etc.
One topic that all the articles dealt with this week was how the commercialization (studio gimmicks, mass production of recordings, etc.) of different musical genres in India affected some/all of the original performance practices associated with the music. The first Greene article discusses the Gramiya songs from the Tamil Nadu region. Greene states that the cassette recordings of these songs have nearly halted epic ballad singing that has been a tradition in tea shops for generations. The second Green article from 2002 details how the different mountain music genres (lok git, lok pop) have become the more authentic and traditional music of Nepal. However, in an effort to make this music an identifier for the “cosmopolitan” state of Nepal, the music has gone through heavy commercialization. Fiol discussed how the efforts of some videographers wishing to capture the rural essence of the Uttarakhand region have actually done the opposite due to their desires make the films seem more mainstream and modern. All of these instances lead me to wonder why the producers and popular musicians felt it was so necessary to change and/or streamline the original music so much (other than it benefiting the global appearance of the state)? The Indian and South Asian cultures have always seemed to present a great deal of cultural wealth. So, one would think they would want to preserve something so distinct and use it as a cultural identifier?
ReplyDeleteIn the Greene article from 2002, he notes that in Lok Pop, narratives and metaphors present in the lyrics create a sense of separation from the “folk,” thus making it feel more nostalgic. Does a separation from the “folk” and the creation of nostalgia that follows add to the dilemma on defining what exactly the “folk” is since we are relying on our own thoughts and dreams to make those inferences instead of the “cold, hard facts?”
"The Indian and South Asian cultures have always seemed to present a great deal of cultural wealth." Agreed, and cultural variety too, I think.
DeleteI think you spelled out an inherent paradox here - it makes the definition of 'folk' contradictory.
DeleteI found the differing opinions on technology and commercialism’s influence on “folk music” very interesting, especially since two of the articles were by the same author.
ReplyDeleteIn Greene’s article, Authorin the Folk, technology and commercialism are looked at from a more negative standpoint. Greene states that the Gramiya recordings present a narrower more limited version of folksongs.
In his other article, Nepal’ Lok Pop Music…, Green discusses Lok Git distribution through cassette tapes in a much more positive light than he does Gramiya recordings. I may be wrong, but I feel like Lok git is similar to grimaya songs. However, Green seems to support Lok git as a good thing whereas he argued that grimaya songs as having a negative influence on rural culture. His main argument was that since they are recorded they limit the listener’s scope of the music. I feel that would be true of Lok git as well, since they are distributed in a similar way. I realize this was not the focus of his paper, but I found it interesting either way. I felt that Greene was trying to label things as good or bad in his articles. It seemed clear to me that Greene feels that Lok pop is inferior to Lok git for many reasons, and while I do not disagree entirely, shouldn’t that kind of opinion be left out of a research document? Did anyone else feel this way?
Fiol’s article, for me, was a less slanted. He presented both the advantages and disadvantages of commercialism and technology in Uttarakhandi music. Fiol acknowledged that many people disagree with the use of cassettes for learning round dance-songs, but also showed the benefits that commercialism had on the rural community (i.e Negi’s Nanda Devi round dance-song recordings).
Here are my questions,
1. We have discussed “folk music” as ever changing. If this is true, is the use of technology an appropriate way to distribute “folk music”?
2. Is it possible to remain “authentic” when you are trying to make something commercially successful?
1. We have discussed “folk music” as ever changing. If this is true, is the use of technology an appropriate way to distribute “folk music”?
DeleteI think one thing that the recording can do is create the idea of "THE version" and gets back to this authenticity debate. But at the same time, youtube fosters unlimited versions so it seems to contradict the idea of "THE version."
It seems that technology in this situation is the modern equivalent of a 'codex' the existence of which gives the impression/illusion of an authentic final word. I guess it depends on how one defines authenticity?
Delete1. I do think technology is a good way to distribute the ever changing "folk music" because technology is ever changing as well. Some new gadget may come along or some improvement may be made to some existing technological artifact that would be perfect for distributing, recording, or preserving a piece of folklore/music.
Delete2. If the item(s) that one is trying to keep "authentic" are simple enough in nature or are readily recognizable to the masses, then yes. Otherwise one would have to "dumb-down" the item so that it is appealing to everyone.
I agree with the idea on a single version of a song being problematic. However, both Vaughan Williams and Negi agree that we are at a point where these songs should not be changed because they are in their best form. Although I think that point is strange since it is completely objective.
Delete