Thread #AltMusicEd#MusicEd
Purple Silk Foundation based in Oakland to support music education for inner-city youth to instill in young people appreciation of music from all cultures through instruction in traditional Chinese instruments.
“The Tamburitzans ensemble expanded its repertoire throughout the past eight decades to include a wide variety of folk dance and music representing international cultures.”
“...continuing the rich Indian...musical tradition by teaching...the next generation of artists and musicians...to transform our students passion in Carnatic/Hindustani Music into a life long journey of reward and fulfillment.”
“The Old Town School of Folk Music teaches and celebrates music and cultural expressions rooted in the traditions of diverse American and global communities.”
“range...dominated by whole class & smaller ensemble opps & orch. instruments. The authors...noted "a core repertoire of mainly classical & chamb. mus., tiered progression ensembles" & “few examples of hip-hop, digital, folk/ethnic/world ensembles".” theguardian.com/culture-profes…
#AltMusicEd#MusicEd
"Mariachi Herencia de Mexico (herencia means "heritage") currently involves 90 students at three skill levels, and the band that appears onstage consists of 16 advanced and intermediate players drawn from that larger group."
"Maples Elementary School Arabic Music Ensemble...performs drumming pieces, sings multi-cultural songs, plays recorder selections and presents Middle Eastern dances all while wearing traditional Arabic Costumes."
Compiling a bibliography on adopting ethnic music styles into #MusicEducation. We tend to underestimate how having a connection to a cultural background in arts instruction can lead to greater satisfaction/engagement for members of that ethnicity.
"The article concludes with an effort to imagine philosophy as a tool for questioning and challenging the epistemological colonialism that too often lingers within music education's philosophical discourses."
"Zambia embarked on curriculum reforms to ensure inclusion of...African indigenous cultures...to transform the colonial school curriculum which was dominated Eurocentric values, beliefs & practices...to make education relevant to the Zambian child."
Photos from Gregoria Going’s performing arts school from the early 60s. She also founded what was probably the first Black Women’s Orchestras in the US—the Corda Club!m (1910-1920)!
#MusicEd
"To educate youth about their Filipino heritage through dance, music, culture, social issues, etc. & create a sense of Filipino pride & identity, while creating a space of community through relationships & through discovering one’s identity."
/15 filipinoculturalschool.org
"Professor Akosua Addo grew up listening to her mother singing Jamaican folk music as they walked the roads of Ghana together. Half-Jamaican, half-Ghanaian, learning about and teaching music around the world is literally in her DNA."
/16
While working on the database of Popular Music Schools, I came across a piece with a bio of the child prodigy Cecil Cowles (1893-1968) which stated that:
"In recent years [1920s-1940] Miss Cowles has been active in the field of composition, particularly in Oriental music."
A San Francisco Chronicle piece about Cecil Cowles from 17 June 1923 says: "The other occasion was a recital of her own in which she played her Song Without Words, In a Rickshaw , Chinese Dance and Valse Caprice..."
The main thesis of my piece “Orientalism, Perpetually Foreign Musics, and Asian Exclusion” is that that the systematic exclusion of Asian/American musics led to a vacuum filled by racial fantasy works composed and performed by white Americans in both classical and popular musics.
Normalize not centering Western Chord labels in Music Theory. In quintal harmony, it'd be a C2; In a quartal one it's a D5/2; not sus chords at all. Parallel seconds (and ninths) are way common in Eastern Orthodox traditions.
"The notations of znamenny polyphony require a special approach to their transcription; but when correctly read the music of the ‘scores’ abounds in harsh sonorities in the form of extended parallel seconds & fifths.”
Brazhnikov, qtd in Swan "Russian Music & its Sources..." p45
“The voices enter at the interval of the second and, within a short period of time, four more vertical intervals of the second appear in a row. In the process, the voices cross.”
Vladislav Uspensky, quoted in Johann von Gardner's "Russian Church Singing" Vol. 2, pg. 316
"An organ was installed on a Northwest Stratocruiser in the 1950s through an arrangement with local musician Swanee Swanson. The organists received free flights to New York and other East Coast destinations."
Welsh Harp tablature from the *Robert ap Huw manuscript* (1613). The manuscript is the oldest extant source of primarily Late Medieval eisteddfod repertory that dates to 1340-1500 and was compiled by Robert ap Huw (c.1580-1665).
Short segment on the *Robert ap Huw manuscript* in Rhodri McDonagh's wonderful "Welsh Trad Music | A Beginner's Guide" video (cued up to that segment below). The whole vid is worth a watch and is only 24 minutes.
Bangor University's "Music of the Robert ap Huw Manuscript" page with other resources for Cerdd Dant and other British Isles harp traditions.
One of the things I love about Georgian Harmony is that it's based on what's essentially close to a functionally 7TET/EDO collection of pitches. Many global harmonic systems are built on different tuning systems than those in what's typically referred to as Western harmony.
The above image from Malkhaz Erkvanidze's "On Georgian Scale System" pg. 181