This performance study is situated within the twentieth century and into the present, a period characterized by a number of sociohistorical developments. This epoch, as noted by Oyewumi (2004:1), “witnessed a host of social and cultural transformations.” During this period, gender appeared as one of the determining factors for categorizing and analysing societies. Given that gender is fundamentally a sociocultural construct, its discursive formations through the performance of égwú àmàlà are peculiar to the Ogbaru people. Égwú àmàlà is a women's dance genre that employs music, dance, and drama as media for enacting the culture of the Ogbaru community. Because it vivifies and mirrors Ogbaru traditions in music and dance, égwú àmàlà occupies a prime place in the social life of the Ogbaru people. In performance, the genre exhibits some gender issues that I will expatiate on in the course of this article.

“Vajtim,” mourning, is an expression of women’s grief and cannot be counted in months or years: it is a continued expression of the inner world that for many women can take decades. In this paper, I examine how women have carried and preserved the lament songs of the Southern Albania region from generation to generation. Field research in my hometown, Gjirokastër, reveals how the laments songs are connected from mother to daughter within the families. Using descriptions of lamenting rituals, personal interviews with mourners, and analysis of lyrics and field recordings, I demonstrate how women continue this tradition through generations.

In his article “The Ethnomusicology of Music Learning and Teaching,” Timothy Rice argues that the practices of teaching and learning music are fundamental to the ways in which music is conceptualised, transmitted, and invested with symbolic meanings (2003). Ethnomusicologists studying music and diaspora have also drawn attention to the significance of music education as a key medium for the construction and maintenance of diasporic identities.1 In diasporic communities, music education can be a principal means for transmitting perspectives on the historical and political forces that have shaped the diaspora and for developing the linguistic and cultural competency of younger generations. Music schools and other institutions of musical learning can also play important roles in the public representation of diasporic communities and in articulating the relationship of the diaspora to the linguistic, musical, religious, and national heritage of its perceived homeland.

In anthropological research one usually turns to cultures where social bonds are still closely knit, and as a result “primitive” or tribal peoples are often the centre of interest in Western anthropology. But in many areas of Europe peasant culture has retained highly integrated patterns of life with relatively little disturbance almost up to the present day. Professionally organised field work reveals astonishing features of culture unexpectedly so close at hand in neighbouring industralised Europe.

Shamanism in North Asia has been widely investigated by anthropologists since the last century. The symbolism of shamanic drums, in particular, has been treated by many authors from various points of view as summarized in, for example, Eliade (1964), Nowak & Durrant (1977) and Grim (1983). However, there are still many questions undiscussed or less recognized in the literature.

This article deals with field methodology. It describes conceptual, analytical and practical tools used to study musical scales and proposes an interactive method that was recently developed and tested with the vocal polyphonies of the Bedzan Pygmies of Cameroon. The issues involved are largely cognitive, and they are addressed with experimental procedures using new technologies and work in real time, in the field. Such methods also significantly alter the relationship between the “observer” and the “observed”, with the musicians playing a decisive role in the research process and in all of the steps that characterise this type of study method, guiding the investigator in his work. The subject becomes a partner and plays an active role in the research process.

Cet article a moins pour objet la description des instruments de musique des Yezidi, instruments qui ne présentent en eux-mêmes aucune singularité remarquable, que celle de l'usage qui en est fait dans cette communauté religieuse, usage qui offre d'intéressantes particularités sur lesquelles, à notre connaissance tout au moins, aucune étude n'a encore été publiée. Corollairement, la description portera sur le statut social des instrumentistes, médiateurs entre ces instruments de musique et leur fonction sociale.

References in early writings to African music in pre-European times often indicate the existence of harmony. On entering Mossell Bay in December, 1497, Vasco da Gama's men heard four or five flutes played by negroes, “some producing high notes and others low ones, thus making a pretty harmony” (Davidson, 1964). At Malindi, in 1498, Vasco da Gama's Logbook referred to “two trumpets of ivory … of the size of a man,” whose music “made sweet harmony” with those of anafils. Writing on the music of Ashanti and other peoples of the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Bowdich mentioned “several instances of thirds” (Bowdich, 1819).

In his essay, “The Cultivation of Various European Traditions in the Americas”, Charles Seeger stated that:

Norwegian television is broadcasting a “Good Old Days” type of program and an engaged audience of elderly people all over the country is tuning in. An informal competition is announced: What kind of dance is this couple dancing? Let's imagine we can take in answers from people all over the country: “Oh, it's the hoppvals, just as I did it in my youth!”–“Isn't it the hamburger, it's not done anymore here.”—“That's trippar, for sure.” There are different names for this dance all over the country. Then the TV host presents the correct answer: “I'm sure you all recognised this dance, it was: the polka!” (Figure 1) Hardly any elderly traditional dancer in Norway would use the present official name polka for this dance, (Bakka 1978: 102) and the point of departure for my paper is the question Why?—Why are there many popular names for this dance in Norway, different from the “official” one?

In order to understand what “folklore” stood for in the period after the socialist revolution in Bulgaria in 1944, we should consider five important factors:

1. • First, proceeding from the National Revival traditions of Bulgarian ethnology, Bulgarian scholars continued studying folklore as knowledge of the people about itself. In the 1970s the aspiration towards a more systemic comprehension of this knowledge produced the theoretical concept of the study of folklore as a type of aesthetic culture, with a dominant sociological approach. The next decade saw a focus on people as the agents of folk culture and began the anthropological approach to culture.

2. • Second, the first state ensemble for folk song and dance was set up in accordance with the Soviet model in 1952. The concept of its founders was that the “rather simple” art of the people ought to be developed, embellished and enriched in line with contemporary aesthetic needs. The socialist ideology of culture needed an art for the people. Thus in the 1980s small Bulgaria had no fewer than 17 state professional folk song and dance ensembles financially supported by the state.

3. • Third, a centre for amateur art activities was set up. This centre's institutional network and organisational structure covered the entire country via special directives and culture management methods, and “folk amateur art” was one of its priorities. This included groups for arranged folklore and groups for so called “original” (authentic) folklore from the villages. Groups for arranged folklore generally repeated the choreography of professional ensembles on a smaller scale. Groups for original folklore tried to enact on the stage customs, dances, and songs that were only recently part of their life.

4. • Fourth, the forums of folk amateur art activities were municipal, district and national festivals for arranged and for original folklore. There were juries, ratings and prizes in both cases. But while the jury at arranged folklore festivals was made up of choreographers who rated performers depending on whether their own works figured in the repertoire so that they would get their production fees, there was place for scholars on juries at shows of original folklore-scholars who were trying to preserve and keep the Bulgarian folk phenomena alive.

5. • Fifth, along with staged folk festivals, wedding traditions survived in their traditional cultural context and created spontaneous performances of folk works in a natural folk environment. Thus the full annual cycle of feasts and rituals with music and dance that had governed the cultural life of Bulgarian villages and had been preserved until the 1940s, splintered into a rich kaleidoscope of separate elements and fragments.

In the summer of 1986 I made a trip to Lotus Mountain of Gansu Province in China. The occasion was the Festival of Flower Song Singing, which takes place once a year there. This was the first time that outside visitors were allowed to come to this region and witness the activities. Our party consisted of half a dozen Chinese scholars, two visitors from Japan, an American graduate student, and myself, whom the Chinese authorities regarded as a visitor from abroad.

In this article we examine the way local, national, and regional politics affect the policies and practices of “intangible cultural heritage” (ICH)—a notion derived from the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage—in two detailed case studies from the Republic of Macedonia. While our conclusions are particular to our case studies, we hope that researchers in other national settings will find them useful for describing and analysing their own situations. We begin with a discussion of heritagization and recontextualization, which are inherent in ICH safeguarding processes. Next, we provide background on the external contestation of a distinct Macedonian ethnic and national identity, and the ways that UNESCO ICH safeguarding processes have been perceived and applied in Macedonia. Against that backdrop, we then describe and analyse two contrasting cases of ICH—the social dance “Kopackata” and the Galicnik Wedding—both of which illustrate how the cultural heritage concept itself can sometimes be used for national, commercial, and political ends.

In various studies scholars have asserted that two or more melodies are similar. In many cases the scholar does not offer a method by which the reader can determine that the melodies offered are indeed alike; He merely places the melodies in juxtaposition and assumes that the reader will perceive, as the author apparently does, that they are similar. This is the procedure followed by George Pullen Jackson in his attempt to prove that Black spirituals derive from white hymn tunes (Jackson 1933:242–261). On examining the melodies presented by Jackson, I find them similar in some respects and dissimilar in many other respects. I am by no means certain that they are versions of the same melody. In other cases the scholar does not offer full melodies or even full first sections of melodies. This occurs, for example, when Peter Gradenwitz offers melodic analogues of the Zionist and Israeli anthem, “Hatiqvah” (Gradenwitz 1949:302–303).

On 23 June 2011, the Seongnam Municipal Troupe of Korean Traditional Performing Arts (hereafter, Seongnam Municipal Troupe) presented its twenty-eighth concert, entitled Hana toenŭn kyŭre ŭi ŭmak (Unifying Korean national music). The South Korean government has designated June as a month of commemoration for the nation's patriots and veterans. As many government troupes in South Korea would do in June, the Seongnam Municipal Troupe dedicated its regular concert series to the remembrance of national heroes, cherishing their patriotism and sacrifice. As stated in the concert programme, “this performance is put together to bless the people who died protecting their nation and to express compassion for the 10 million families separated between the two Koreas … wishing for the nation's reunion and unification in the near future” (Han 2011:2). In order to memorialize war victims and the tragedy of partition, the Seongnam Municipal Troupe was to showcase musical works selected from both North and South Korea. In the programme, Ch'oe Sang-hwa, guest director of the Troupe, remarked: