Volume 1 (2021-2022)
Exploring the Intersections of Western and Non-Western Music Traditions, special issue of the Journal of Undergraduate Research in Music
In recent years, Western institutions of classical music have slowly but surely begun providing opportunities for undergraduate students to study music outside the European canon. Through ensembles, seminars, and global music classes, students have begun to tackle both the history and performance of non-Western music as well as answer questions about collisions of the two worlds and their impact. In accordance with our mission, JURM has made it a point to compile and showcase these discussions. This year's special issue contains such topics as the role of Western music in the survival of an "othered" ethnic group, globalization's effect on music education in Southeast Asia, and other discussions concerning the intersections of Western and non-Western traditions.
Paige Balut
Pacific Lutheran University
Survival Through Shared Expression: How the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz-Birkenau Found Comradery
During World War II, the use of detainment camps became more widespread as the Nazi Party grew and began to take more power over Europe. The camp of Auschwitz, which was later expanded to include the sub camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, became the largest and most infamous camp. In all of these camps, the officers would create musical ensembles comprised of prisoners. While these ensembles were intended to be used to control prisoners and aid in their practice of psychological torture, they also brought the prisoners closer together. This can be seen in the members of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Women’s Orchestra. This paper will focus on the profile of four different women of the Women's Orchestra. Through their point of view, it shows what life as a musician was like in a concentration camp. After going over the background information of musical ensembles within the walls of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the paper will then go more in depth about the creation and development of the Women’s Orchestra. Then the lives of Alma Rosé, Anita Lasker, Fania Fénelon, and Helena Dunicz Niwińska will be introduced with details about their work and life experiences within the Auschwitz-Birkenau Women’s Orchestra and show how they preserved their sense of hope through music.
Sarah Kindley
Indiana State University
Interstitiality and Musical Transnationalism in Chen Yi's Not Alone
As a luminary figure of contemporary music in the 21st century, Chen Yi stands as an important testament to her philosophy of and commitment to composing music that bridges the cultural gap between China and the West. Her compositional idioms and methodologies are a reflection of her extensive training in both traditions, with examples of such found in her structural formatting, harmonic connotations, and idiomatic incorporation of extended technique in unique instrumental configurations. Such gestures characterize Chen Yi’s fourth commission for the PRISM Saxophone Quartet, Not Alone. Initially conceived of for an interdisciplinary premiere with the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, the work displays elements of Chen’s cultural past involving stage aesthetics, with potential influences reminiscent of her time with the Guangzhou Beijing Opera troupe and the yangbanxi orchestras of the Cultural Revolution. Recent scholarship, such as Leta E. Miller and J. Michele Edwards’ biography warns against resulting to surface level manifestations of Chen’s heritage, in order to discourage “a reductionist exoticism”. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how her saxophone quartet, Not Alone, occupies a synecdochical role in Chen’s oeuvre as a culmination of her influences, in order to accomplish a masterful blend of traditions and carve out an interstitial, musical space that is neither strictly Eastern nor Western. This is accomplished by reaching beyond the superficial, and examining transferable technique on the saxophone to emulate traditional, Chinese instruments, identifying moments of pentatonic modality and intervallic focus, and discussing the thematic relationship to the quartet’s textual inspiration.
Natalie Laurie
University of California, Davis
Alissa Liu
Oregon State University
China in the last forty years has developed rapidly in many cultural aspects, from its meteoric rise to the top of the global economy to the Westernization of popular media and entertainment. While this type of cultural globalization is neither foreign nor unwelcome in China and East Asian countries and societies, it raises a concern of Westernization making traditional cultural practices obsolete. The extinction of traditional practices is commonplace in contemporary societies; however, East Asian cultures (in our case, specifically China) have managed to both preserve and celebrate traditional practices in the arts and in music. Even in 21st-century popular music, traditional melodies and instruments are used side-by-side with electronic music and music technology in the world of East Asian popular music. Chinese contemporary styles and popular music offer a special glimpse into the cultural hybridization that exists in Chinese society. Analysis of the evolution of Chinese music and its unique use of both Western and Chinese musical traditions offers insight into the greater effects of cultural and social change on music and art expression.
In this paper, I discuss the history of traditional Chinese music and performance practices and their seemingly incompatible nature with Western art music traditions and notational practices. The discussion of traditional Chinese musical practices also highlights the continued existence of these customs in contemporary Chinese society. Next, I examine music’s historical role in Chinese society and the evolution of Communist Party policies surrounding music education, particularly in the practices of folk traditions and early education. From this context, an analysis of two musical examples, one each from Chinese contemporary and popular music, illustrates the coexistence of tradition and social change in contemporary Chinese society.
Ryan Ruhde
Emory University
What Is in Time in Time Out: An Analysis of Metrical Complexity in "Blue Rondo à la Turk" and "Take Five"
This essay examines the use of non-isochronous (NI) meters and metrical dissonance as forms of metrical complexity in Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo à la Turk” and “Take Five.” In his experiments with metrical complexity, Brubeck drew inspiration from non-Western music. “Blue Rondo à la Turk” features a non-isochronous division (2+2+2+3) of a meter notated in 9/8, which Brubeck first heard in 1958 during a tour of Turkey. This meter emphasizes the importance of metrical analysis techniques that account for meters that are not standard in Western music. Additionally, the grouping structure of “Blue Rondo à la Turk” introduces metrical dissonance every fourth measure. “Take Five” features a NI meter in 5/4 which may also be analyzed as a NI meter in ten, based on the eighth note subdivision of the five quarter notes in each measure. Analyzed in this way, the meter is both not well-formed and openly dissonant. The metrical complexities of these songs allow them to stand out as some of the most innovative pieces in jazz music.