The different aspects of the subject and the corresponding methods.

The life-history of melodies is the subject of comparative melodic research. It offers various aspects and forms of approach, and research has consequently developed in different directions and has employed a variety of methods. These are differentiated not only by nomenclature but by the emphasis laid upon special aspects of the subject-matter.

A myriad of ethnomusicological studies have explored change and modernization in musical cultures across the world. However, few have explored transformational changes with capitalism as the main analytical frame. This is despite the fact that capitalism, in its various forms and phases, has arguably been the key driving force of the modem world for centuries, underpinning or shaping industrialization, nation-state formation, colonialism, rapid or intensive economic growth/crises/disparity, technological innovation, the advent of wage labour, urbanization, and global connectivity. In this article I explore capitalist transformation as a seismic shift in people's relations to and identifications with land, nature, and place, as manifest in song lyrics and videos created/performed in contemporary Tibet.

The Chinese are acknowledged to be one of the four basic ethnic groups that made up Cuba as a nation. Many Chinese joined in the nineteenth-century independence wars against Spanish colonial rule, and several Cubans of Chinese ancestry (hereafter, “Chinese descendants”) turned out to be renowned artists and writers, including, among others, poet Regino Pedroso, painter Flora Fong, and Wifredo Lam, the most universal of all Cuban painters. Chinese influence has been felt in diverse fields of Cuban culture, from culinary art to religion, and from martial arts to music. Specifically, the introduction of a musical instrument, a sort of oboe or shawm called a corneta china, derived from the Han Chinese suona, is one of the most significant Chinese cultural contributions to this island country. Nevertheless, the original instrument is no longer played by Chinese natives, and the corneta china has been appropriated by non-Chinese Cubans since 1915, particularly in the eastern region of the island, where it is played in carnival street bands almost exclusively by performers of African descent. Thus, except for a short-lived attempt to come together in the lion dance during the 1980s and early 1990s, the development of the Chinese community and that of the corneta china have followed divergent paths in Cuba, both of which are succinctly traced in this article.

In March 1987, during the course of extensive interviewing among members of the Cantonese opera community in the southern Chinese city of Guăngzhoū,2 I listened with considerable amazement while Chàhn Keìhyàhn, the director of the Guăngdōng Cantonese Opera Institute, recounted an experience he had while staging a local Cantonese opera version of one of the “model operas” of the Cultural Revolution period. My fascination was only secondarily with the details of the story itself; of greater significance was what transpired on a linguistic, and even physical, level as this man related his story.

This article presents a historical overview of traditional music studies in Chile, pointing out some of the main achievements and problems. It describes the origins of traditional music studies through the establishment of the Chilean Folk Society in 1909 and then offers a periodisation of studies during the twentieth century, followed by a critical review of the preference for facts over processes. Finally, it explores the renaissance of traditional music studies during the last 30 years (1990–2020), analysing 123 dissertations about traditional music and the concepts of “tradition” they employ. It concludes that Chilean folk studies have changed from a scientific to a humanistic approach, using the idea of tradition as a comprehensive concept and the idea of folklore as behaviour or performance.

A recent article by Jairazbhoy in Ethnomusicology is perhaps the first cogent account of the oboe in India. Here I wish to offer a few comments on his paper and give some supplementary material and ideas.

The survival of any type of music in Ghana is dependent upon the extent to which the music is able to satisfy the values the people look for in such music. The values, which may be aesthetic or structural, social or religious, may operate individually or in a simultaneous complexity. In other words the factors that shape and maintain the folk music in Ghana may be found in the music per se, in the artist or in the context of performance.

There are musical norms which the community expect in a musical performance. One such norm is the sound quality. The Ghanaian concept of music (and this may go for other African peoples too) does not unduly discriminate between sounds of definite pitches and sounds of indefinite pitches. It is true that in some situations the emphasis may be on one or the other. However, examples abound in which musical ensembles employ both pitched and unpitched instruments. And both categories of sound are given relatively equal roles in a performance.

Sangyŏ sori are Korean folk songs sung by pallbearers during a funeral procession.

Except for a few casual remarks in the specialized works of historians, linguists, travelers, and ethnographers, the musical folklore of Kirghizia received virtually no attention in pre-Revolutionary publications. But, even though the scattered observations of pre-Revolutionary nonmusician scholars failed to convey a comprehensive idea of this folklore, they continue to provide valuable source material in terms of vivid first impressions of the people's musical life. All of the reports refer to improvisational song-creation as the most typical characteristic. And all remark upon its popular nature, traditionalism, and ties with the soil.

One of the most pressing demands of current Hungarian folk music research is to single out those precise elements in the traditions of Hungarian folk music which can be proved to be archaic residues of an early culture of Finno-Ugric origin. Under the inspiration of the labours of Bartók and Kodály this goal was attacked with enthusiasm as much as with methodical reflection. The methods of investigation which have been applied and also the results of the research attained thus far could arouse objection at many points. On the other hand, there can be no doubt about the justification of formulating the question as such.

Following the model of linguistic science, Hungarian folk music research has used above all comparative as well as historical methods. Through close study of recent collections of melodies recorded from Finno-Ugric peoples living far apart from each other, pains have been taken to establish stylistic coincidence or relationships which justify the tracing back of certain melodic structures and style complexes to Finno-Ugric roots.

In 2022, Prime Minister of Portugal António Costa of the Socialist Party held a celebration of Brazilian music at his residence in Lisbon for the Bicentennial of Brazilian Independence a month before the presidential elections between Bolsonaro and Lula. In contrast to Bolsonaro’s right-wing rallies, Costa featured acts that were feminist, antiracist, and leftist. In this diplomatic event, musical performances criticised Bolsonaro’s Brazil and supported Lula’s campaign, imaginatively aspiring for an alternative Brazil despite the organizers’ directive not to protest. I show how the performers strategically and affectively advanced a comprehensible political critique in this crucial moment of Brazilian political history.

Since the 1980s, I have been observing members of the Polish Górale community teaching their music and dance in Canada. Over these years I have witnessed several generations continuing or being initiated into a “so-called traditional music of a particular place” (Wolf 2009b:5), that is, the mountains of southern Poland, while otherwise participating in a local culture quite different from that being taught in Canada and the US. Both women and men have been devoting their valuable time to teaching children how to sing, dance, and play in the Górale style (po góralsku) in preparation for a variety of ensemble-based performances. Being variously involved in these activities over the years has led me to consider this transmission process. This paper builds from this experience to reflect more generally on music and dance learning in contemporary contexts and deliberately focuses on the ongoing human component in a process now greatly facilitated by new technologies. In particular, it considers music learning as it relates to paradigmatic gendered performance styles that have been recontextualized within evolving intercultural settings.

Rāgī faqīrs are devotees who perform Shah Jo Rāg, a musical tradition for singing Sufi poetry at the shrine of poet-mystic Shāh ‘Abdul Latīf Bhiṭṭāī (1689–1752) in Sindh, Pakistan. Focusing on the life experiences of my teacher Manthār Faqīr, I historicise various subject positions that contemporary rāgī faqīrs refer to as faqīr (devotee), fankār (performing artist), kārīgar (skilled artisan), and artist. Through Manthār Faqīr’s performances, I analyse sonic manifestations of his complex subjectivities that at times shift, at times coexist, to demonstrate how he deploys sounded strategies emerging from different subject positions to balance devotion, artistry, legitimacy, and livelihood.

On 28 September 1990, the city of Qufu, Confucius' home town in northeastern China, celebrated the philosopher's 2541st birthday with the performance of a reconstructed ceremony of ritual offerings, music, and dance. Presented on the terrace of the Hall of Great Achievements (Dacheng dian) of the Confucian Temple in Qufu, the performance was propitious but controversial. While most of the participants and audience appeared to have approved the ceremony as efficacious, some critics contested that it was inappropriately ‘touristy’ and included many inauthentic details. A few even condemned the performance as a misrepresentation of historical sacrifices to Confucius. As a music scholar invited to attend the performance, I found the contrasting reactions and criticisms enlightening because they represent a characteristically vigorous Chinese tradition of pursuing historical truth with its proliferation of written documents about the Chinese past. Above all, the reactions and criticisms highlighted, for me, the roles music performances played in historical understanding of the musical past.