Welcome to volume 56, issue 1 of the Yearbook for Traditional Music. This issue includes four research articles broadly situated in musical analysis and performance practice. The opening two articles focus on drum traditions. The first in that percussive duet, “Kendhang Gaya Selo: Aesthetic Choice and Musical Exchange Among Drummers in Central Java,” is based on a decade of collaborative research and music-making between Hannah Standiford, Danis Sugiyanto, and Suyoto. Their research examines the musical dialogue between the plucked selo, a three-stringed variation of the cello, and Javanese kendhang drums in gamelan orchestras. They describe how drummers make aesthetic choices informed by musical and extra-musical contexts to ensure that they are creating sufficient variation and maintaining interest in each performance.
The second article, “This Drum is Not the Devil’s Instrument: The Development and Performance of Drum Tunes in Norwegian Folk Music,” provides a historical overview of Norwegian drum tunes (Trommeslåtter). Birger Mistereggen and Carl Waadeland have written extensively about drumming traditions and military music, but most of their work has only been published in Norwegian. Here, they use Johannes Sundvor’s early-twentieth-century collection of tunes as a window onto this Scandinavian musical tradition. Readers should take note of the accompanying audio and video recordings which are accessible via the online version of this article.
In “Effort in Hindustani Dhrupad Singing: Using Interviews to Develop Effort Inference Models of Acoustic and Movement Features,” Stella Paschalidou revisits interviews she conducted with Dhrupad singers in India, the UK, and the Netherlands over a decade ago. She uses this material to analyse how performers understand the relationship between their hand gestures and vocal improvisations. Her article celebrates a diversity of approaches to and interpretations of the links between sound and movement among her interviewees, who reflect on their physical interactions with imaginary objects while singing as a means of understanding their distinctive approaches to musical creativity.
Finally, Spiros Delegos presents a historical study informed by performance practice in “A Modal Heterotopia: Rethinking Makam Modality and Chordal Harmony in Interwar Rebetiko.” Delegos uses makam Sabâ, a popular Ottoman makam technically unplayable on equal-tempered instruments, as a case study for experimenting with various harmonisations on an equal-tempered guitar. He investigates this predicament further by analysing two recordings from the 1930s and resituating those recordings within their contemporary cultural contexts. Delegos concludes that the terms “equal-tempered makam” and “idiosyncratic harmonisation” mirror expressions of a modal heterotopia (after Foucault) within interwar rebetiko.
Since our last issue, I am pleased to report that we have appointed another dance scholar to our production team. María Gabriela López-Yánez (“Gaby”) joins us as Book Review Editor (Dance) and an active member of the Journal’s Editorial Board. She will work alongside Damascus Kafumbe, whose role has changed to Book Review Editor (Music). In acknowledgement of the close relationship between music and dance, all reviews of books still appear under one heading: Book Reviews. If in doubt about where to send your materials for review, please feel free to contact both editors (see overleaf for their details). This is also the last issue for Yuiko Asaba, our outgoing Editorial Assistant, who has been working diligently in the background on the production of the journal. Thank you for all your support, Yuiko, and welcome to the team, Gaby!
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