- Bernard Kleikamp has been a key person—an influencer avant-la-lettre—in the folk revival of The Netherlands in the mi... moreBernard Kleikamp
has been a key person—an influencer avant-la-lettre—in the folk revival of The Netherlands in the mid- and late-1970s and 1980s. He is an ethnomusicologist and businessman, who studied drama, ethnomusicology, and literature at the University of Amsterdam in the late 1970s. He has organised the Leiden Folk Festival for 16 years (1975-1990). He was director of music festivals ‘Brass Worldwide’ and ‘Festmed’ in the 1990s. He is president/owner of Pan Records since the mid-1980s, with 350+ productions (CDs, LPs, DVDs, books, music cassettes) to his credit, and has run Paradox Concerts (a concert agency for folk and ethnic music) from 1978 until 2003, thereby organising an estimated 500 concert tours in that period. In 1997 he graduated as a music publisher. He did fieldwork in Hungary, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Netherlands, Russia (Khakassia, Yeletz and Saratov regions), Azerbaijan, China (Tibet, Qinghai, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Yunnan Provinces), Nepal, Morocco, England, USA, Lithuania, and Sicily.
After the economic crisis when work was down to one day a week, he went back to University and got his MA in Asian Studies at Leiden University in 2020.
Interests: overtones in human voice and music instruments; music and culture of Tibet; folk music of The Low Countries; author's rights.
I write a blog mostly about Tibet-related stuff and about music, at: pansdelight.blogspot.comedit
This is the fourth and last paper catalogue of Pan Records (Leiden, Netherlands). It lists all releases and publications from 1988 till 2001 in the areas of ethnic and traditional music. For each release there is a photo of the front and... more
This is the fourth and last paper catalogue of Pan Records (Leiden, Netherlands). It lists all releases and publications from 1988 till 2001 in the areas of ethnic and traditional music. For each release there is a photo of the front and a small description. There is a list (p. 35) of the ethnomusicologist co-operators of CD-releases. There is a list (p. 38) of releases categorized by country or region. LP-releases from 1976 till 1988 are not listed in the Millennium catalogue itself, but are added as a 4-page addendum in a 1991 publication
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English translation from the Tibetan of Norsang Choegyal, one of the corpus of eight famous Tibetan Operas, with several essays detailing aspects of Tibetan Opera. Prince Nhosang. Tibetan Opera Transcribed according to the oral rendering... more
English translation from the Tibetan of Norsang Choegyal, one of the corpus of eight famous Tibetan Operas, with several essays detailing aspects of Tibetan Opera.
Prince Nhosang. Tibetan Opera Transcribed according to the oral rendering of Perna Dhundrup, written down by the Yalong Art Troupe, and translated from the Tibetan into English by Tenzin Shenphen.
ISBN 90-75718-020-0
Prince Nhosang. Tibetan Opera Transcribed according to the oral rendering of Perna Dhundrup, written down by the Yalong Art Troupe, and translated from the Tibetan into English by Tenzin Shenphen.
ISBN 90-75718-020-0
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This essay introduces the vocal art of Tuvan throat singing khöömei and also the musical instrument igil. These two are important in the musical culture of the Tuvans. In the Tuvan worldview, khöömei and igil are connected with nature.... more
This essay introduces the vocal art of Tuvan throat singing khöömei and also the musical instrument igil. These two are important in the musical culture of the Tuvans. In the Tuvan worldview, khöömei and igil are connected with nature. Tuvans say that man is a child of nature. Everything that sounds is subordinated to and equal to the highest standard of sound: the sound of nature. In this essay, we show that the human voice is a body instrument when performing khöömei. When traditional musicians accompany their khöömei with the igil, the fullness of the whole symphony of nature is shown. In legends about the origins of khöömei and igil, we read that the sound is sacral and khöömei and igil were given to the Tuvans by the spirits of nature. Khöömei and igil are not human products.
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Boudha, located on the ancient trade route from Lhasa to Lalitpur, is now a suburb of Kathmandu in Nepal and home to a large population of Tibetans. There are around 40 Tibetan-Buddhist monasteries in the immediate vivcinity of the 7th c.... more
Boudha, located on the ancient trade route from Lhasa to Lalitpur, is now a suburb of Kathmandu in Nepal and home to a large population of Tibetans. There are around 40 Tibetan-Buddhist monasteries in the immediate vivcinity of the 7th c. large stupa on a surface of 5 sq. km. After the occupation of Tibet in 1959 many refugees settled here, and Boudha is now considered a Little Tibet. Although Kathmandu is near, for some reason Boudha inhabitants rarely visit the rest of Kathmandu, hence it's facetiously called the "Boudha Bubble". Boudha attracts tourist and pilgrims alike. I've lived under the stupa for nearly half a year (in several time periods) as a student and as a researcher. I will describe daily life in the Boudha Bubble focusing on pilgrimage and tourism and set that in a theoretical cadre with comparisons to Tibetan pilgrimage elsewhere and to comparable rituals in other religions. I posit several new ideas in this paper, the most important of which is new term, pan-heterotopia, which is an extension of Foucoult's heterotopia ("a utopia where you can go to", "another place"). In my definition, a pan-heterotopia is a space that consists of a number of related heterotopias within a limited area.
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Collected folk revival interviews and reports 1978-1980, originally published in the monthly Dutch-language folk music magazine Janviool. In 1976 I was one of the founders of folk music magazine Janviool ("John the Fiddle") and... more
Collected folk revival interviews and reports 1978-1980, originally published in the monthly Dutch-language folk music magazine Janviool. In 1976 I was one of the founders of folk music magazine Janviool ("John the Fiddle") and consequently became a member of the editorial staff. Apart from attending staff meeting once a month, I kept myself busy with book reviews, interviews, song analyses, and the occasional report. My interviews with (what later appeared to be groundbreaking) folk musicians and my reports on major organisations in the 1970s folk revival, are of considerable interest and may be interesting for researchers, hence I've put these interviews and reports into a combined readable pdf. Janviool published 85 issues from 1977 till 1989, after which its name was changed into New Folksounds that continued to be published quarterly until no. 138 in 2011. After 2011 paper publication ceased and New Folksounds turned into an online publication. It still exists today. I left the editorial staff in 1981.
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This text is an amalgamation of the liner notes to four Pan Records CDs of music from Tuva in Central Siberia, Russian Federation, but leave out the specific repertoire annotations, and combines the sources lists and paragraphs on musical... more
This text is an amalgamation of the liner notes to four Pan Records CDs of music from Tuva in Central Siberia, Russian Federation, but leave out the specific repertoire annotations, and combines the sources lists and paragraphs on musical instruments. This is not an academic paper: these liner notes were written with the aim of providing specific background information on the artists, repertoire, and culture, written in a smooth journalistic style and not bothered by footnotes and/or literature references. It's likely that some information from the sources was included not as quotes but as paraphrases in the various liner notes, but at this point in time (2020) it is not possible to tell exactly which what. The paragraph on Harmonic Series in the liner notes to Pan 2005 was written by Rein Spoorman. All the rest was written by Bernard Kleikamp.
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Lhamo, in the West called Tibetan Opera, is a form of total theatre combining dance, song, recitation, colorful costumes, and music, that traditionally is performed in the open air in Tibetan communities after harvest and at festive days.... more
Lhamo, in the West called Tibetan Opera, is a form of total theatre combining dance, song, recitation, colorful costumes, and music, that traditionally is performed in the open air in Tibetan communities after harvest and at festive days. Within lhamo a number of conventions exist, one of which is the convention of percussion patterns.
The musical accompaniment of lhamo is done by two musicians, one of whom plays a drum (rnga) and another who plays cymbals (rol mo).
The drummer is the "master of ceremonies". By means of drum pattern variations, he indicates and controls which character(s) go on and off stage and when and how they move on stage. For that the drummer has a number of drum patterns at his disposal, that can be played singly or in various combinations and at various speeds. The cymbals player merely follows the drummer's lead.
During my fieldwork in Boudhanath near Kathmandu with the Nepal Tibetan Lhamo Association (NTLA), I made an inventarisation of the lhamo drum patterns, which are described in this paper.
The drum patterns areall recorded and come as appendix as sound files. Attention is given to organology of the instruments and lineage of drum pattern traditions. It appears that the traditional teaching method of oral transmission from teacher to student is not the only method used by NTLA. Often multiple instructors teach simultaneously. By teaching with multiple instructors, it is possible to learn a complete lhamo play in three or four rehearsals.
A chapter is devoted to rhythm in Tibetan music. Attention is given to a few new notions regarding the classification of several Tibetan instruments (dungchen, kangling, conch shell, boots)
This is the first published inventarisation of lhamo drum patterns in the Lhasa style.
The musical accompaniment of lhamo is done by two musicians, one of whom plays a drum (rnga) and another who plays cymbals (rol mo).
The drummer is the "master of ceremonies". By means of drum pattern variations, he indicates and controls which character(s) go on and off stage and when and how they move on stage. For that the drummer has a number of drum patterns at his disposal, that can be played singly or in various combinations and at various speeds. The cymbals player merely follows the drummer's lead.
During my fieldwork in Boudhanath near Kathmandu with the Nepal Tibetan Lhamo Association (NTLA), I made an inventarisation of the lhamo drum patterns, which are described in this paper.
The drum patterns areall recorded and come as appendix as sound files. Attention is given to organology of the instruments and lineage of drum pattern traditions. It appears that the traditional teaching method of oral transmission from teacher to student is not the only method used by NTLA. Often multiple instructors teach simultaneously. By teaching with multiple instructors, it is possible to learn a complete lhamo play in three or four rehearsals.
A chapter is devoted to rhythm in Tibetan music. Attention is given to a few new notions regarding the classification of several Tibetan instruments (dungchen, kangling, conch shell, boots)
This is the first published inventarisation of lhamo drum patterns in the Lhasa style.
Research Interests:
Title says it all
Research Interests:
Until the 1990s khöömei or throat singing from Tuva was virtually unknown outside the then-USSR. Russian researchers like Aksenov and Shchurov had published the results of their fieldwork in Tuva, but their work was hardly known outside... more
Until the 1990s khöömei or throat singing from Tuva was virtually unknown outside the then-USSR. Russian researchers like Aksenov and Shchurov had published the results of their fieldwork in Tuva, but their work was hardly known outside the USSR. In the 1980s researchers from outside the USSR like Tran Quang Hai and Ted Levin started paying attention to the subject, but it took until the early 1990s before a Western audience could make its acquaintance with Tuvan throat singers on stage.
I ran the Paradox concert agency from 1978 until 2003, and it so happened that Paradox was the first to bring ensembles of Tuvan throat singers to Europe and to North America in the early 1990s. The Iron Curtain had just fallen and it became possible to invite musicians from behind the Curtain without assistance from state agencies.
My essay presents the story of the first concert of Tuvan khöömei singers in the USA in 1992 to which I was an eye witness (and also shortly explains the process of throat singing). This is an iconic story, because not only it describes how concert tours were organised in an age before the internet but also it documents the start of a hype.
After that first concert in just a few years bands from Tuva were traveling all over the world and many audiences got to experience the phenomenon of throat singing. But in 1992 it was all new.
I ran the Paradox concert agency from 1978 until 2003, and it so happened that Paradox was the first to bring ensembles of Tuvan throat singers to Europe and to North America in the early 1990s. The Iron Curtain had just fallen and it became possible to invite musicians from behind the Curtain without assistance from state agencies.
My essay presents the story of the first concert of Tuvan khöömei singers in the USA in 1992 to which I was an eye witness (and also shortly explains the process of throat singing). This is an iconic story, because not only it describes how concert tours were organised in an age before the internet but also it documents the start of a hype.
After that first concert in just a few years bands from Tuva were traveling all over the world and many audiences got to experience the phenomenon of throat singing. But in 1992 it was all new.
Research Interests:
Bisserov Sisters Lyubimka, Neda, and Mitra were born in Pirin Village, in south-west Bulgaria. The area is known for a particular style of female two-voiced singing, diaphony, that is totally different from other Bulgarian song styles.... more
Bisserov Sisters Lyubimka, Neda, and Mitra were born in Pirin Village, in south-west Bulgaria. The area is known for a particular style of female two-voiced singing, diaphony, that is totally different from other Bulgarian song styles. One singer leads the melody, the others sing a drone line. The songs that stand out most have a drone with an interval of just a second, causing the singing to sound shrill. The sisters learned this style of singing from their mother and her three sisters, known locally as the Popov Sisters, and they passed on the tradition to Neda's daughter Gergana and Mitra's daughters Rositsa and Vera, the latter three thus becoming the third generation of singers in the family.
In my paper I describe my work with the Bisserov Sisters, their songs, and their song style.
In my paper I describe my work with the Bisserov Sisters, their songs, and their song style.
Research Interests:
The Rebgong drum was observed in a shaman ritual on 16 February 2016 in the Zhang Jia village temple in Tongren, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. The Tibetan name for Tongren is Rebgong. The ritual in the... more
The Rebgong drum was observed in a shaman ritual on 16 February 2016 in the Zhang Jia village temple in Tongren, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. The Tibetan name for Tongren is Rebgong. The ritual in the Zhang Jia temple is a Tibetan-Buddhist ritual, with high overtones of folk religion. Performers and audience are ethnic Tibetans, who are the majority (75%) in the town. Hence I’m using the Tibetan names of places and objects as well.
The local name for the drum is langa (in Wylie transcription: lha rnga, god drum) and the beater is called ngayuk (Wylie: rnga dbyug(s), drum stick, drum swing), which is the common name for a drum beater in Tibetan.
I argue in this paper that the Rebgong drum is a shaman drum within the shaman ritual. But like many other drums that are characterized as shaman drums, they can also be used outside shaman rituals.
Some researchers argue that if a drum meets certain criteria, that then it's a shaman drum and that the person playing that drum is a shaman and that he or she is the only person allowed to play that drum. Other researchers (including myself) argue vice versa: the drum that is played in a shaman ritual is a shaman drum, but can be played outside the ritual as well.
The local name for the drum is langa (in Wylie transcription: lha rnga, god drum) and the beater is called ngayuk (Wylie: rnga dbyug(s), drum stick, drum swing), which is the common name for a drum beater in Tibetan.
I argue in this paper that the Rebgong drum is a shaman drum within the shaman ritual. But like many other drums that are characterized as shaman drums, they can also be used outside shaman rituals.
Some researchers argue that if a drum meets certain criteria, that then it's a shaman drum and that the person playing that drum is a shaman and that he or she is the only person allowed to play that drum. Other researchers (including myself) argue vice versa: the drum that is played in a shaman ritual is a shaman drum, but can be played outside the ritual as well.
Research Interests:
The dharmachakra (dharma wheel) festival on the 4th day of the 6th lunar month of the Tibetan calendar is held in memory of the Buddha's first sermon. In the Nyingma school of Tibetan-Buddhism the birth date of Padmasambhava is celebrated... more
The dharmachakra (dharma wheel) festival on the 4th day of the 6th lunar month of the Tibetan calendar is held in memory of the Buddha's first sermon. In the Nyingma school of Tibetan-Buddhism the birth date of Padmasambhava is celebrated on that date too.
The Nyingma school is the oldest school in Tibetan-Buddhism, dating from the 11th c. CE, and their lineages all trace their origins to Padmasambhava who lived in the 8th c. CE.
In the Düdjom Gompa (Monastery) in Boudhanath, a suburb of Kathmandu with a high population percentage of ethnic Tibetans, Padmasambhava's birthday is celebrated with three days of 'cham religious dances. A dakini dance is performed three times on the second day. Although dakinis are female celestial beings, their roles in Tibetan- Buddhist 'cham practice are traditionally played by monks. In the early 2000s Düdjom Gompa's innovative dance instructor löpon Kunjab Dorje decided to have the dakini roles danced by nuns. His decision was doubtlessly made easier by the fact that the Düdjom Gompa is a mixed monk-nun monastery. I have produced a video of one full dakini dance, called kadenchenma (bka' drin can ma "benevolent goddesses"), as well as a transcription of the text dealing with kadenchenma in the 'chams yig (dance script) of Düdjom Gompa.
The Nyingma school is the oldest school in Tibetan-Buddhism, dating from the 11th c. CE, and their lineages all trace their origins to Padmasambhava who lived in the 8th c. CE.
In the Düdjom Gompa (Monastery) in Boudhanath, a suburb of Kathmandu with a high population percentage of ethnic Tibetans, Padmasambhava's birthday is celebrated with three days of 'cham religious dances. A dakini dance is performed three times on the second day. Although dakinis are female celestial beings, their roles in Tibetan- Buddhist 'cham practice are traditionally played by monks. In the early 2000s Düdjom Gompa's innovative dance instructor löpon Kunjab Dorje decided to have the dakini roles danced by nuns. His decision was doubtlessly made easier by the fact that the Düdjom Gompa is a mixed monk-nun monastery. I have produced a video of one full dakini dance, called kadenchenma (bka' drin can ma "benevolent goddesses"), as well as a transcription of the text dealing with kadenchenma in the 'chams yig (dance script) of Düdjom Gompa.
Research Interests:
Ever since the Belgian folklorist and school teacher Jan Frans Willems (1793-1846) (posthumously in 1848) published the first version of the Ballad of Halewijn in the Dutch language, the (supposedly mediaeval) ballad attracted attention... more
Ever since the Belgian folklorist and school teacher Jan Frans Willems (1793-1846) (posthumously in 1848) published the first version of the Ballad of Halewijn in the Dutch language, the (supposedly mediaeval) ballad attracted attention among scholars, poets, painters, composers and musicians. It became and has continued to be one of the most popular ballads in the Low Countries.
Many more variants were noted down since then and published in song collections. Derivations, adaptations and new versions found their way into literature, classical music and art. From the 1970s onwards folk music ensembles in the Low Countries recorded a number of versions.
In this paper I give a synopsis of the contents, themes, motifs and origins of the Ballad of Halewijn, and a brief overview of its reception- and adaptation history in the Low Countries.
I investigate the criteria of the members of these folk music ensembles in selecting which version(s) to perform and secondly to find out if they made adaptations to source materials. In connection to that, thirdly I investigate if adaptations in general are applied in the selection of traditional song materials for performance purposes. I investigate which elements are taken into consideration when presenting an adapted version to an audience.
By doing so, I hope to have answered the question if there is a future for new forms of an old shape.
Many more variants were noted down since then and published in song collections. Derivations, adaptations and new versions found their way into literature, classical music and art. From the 1970s onwards folk music ensembles in the Low Countries recorded a number of versions.
In this paper I give a synopsis of the contents, themes, motifs and origins of the Ballad of Halewijn, and a brief overview of its reception- and adaptation history in the Low Countries.
I investigate the criteria of the members of these folk music ensembles in selecting which version(s) to perform and secondly to find out if they made adaptations to source materials. In connection to that, thirdly I investigate if adaptations in general are applied in the selection of traditional song materials for performance purposes. I investigate which elements are taken into consideration when presenting an adapted version to an audience.
By doing so, I hope to have answered the question if there is a future for new forms of an old shape.
Research Interests:
The subject of this article is the Dutch folklorist Henk Arends (1922 - 1994) and the sound recordings that he made of Northumbrian Smallpipes players in the mid-1960s. It gives a biography of Henk Arends and an inventarisation of his... more
The subject of this article is the Dutch folklorist Henk Arends (1922 - 1994) and the sound recordings that he made of Northumbrian Smallpipes players in the mid-1960s. It gives a biography of Henk Arends and an inventarisation of his Northumbrian Smallpipes recordings and the names of the players that he recorded.
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Title says it all
Research Interests:
The Zhou family is a family of musicians from Lingbi in Anhui Province, China. They are best known for their suona and percussion playing. The Zhou family traces its suona lineage back for seven generations and it likely goes back way... more
The Zhou family is a family of musicians from Lingbi in Anhui Province, China. They are best known for their suona and percussion playing. The Zhou family traces its suona lineage back for seven generations and it likely goes back way further until the early 17th century, which would make them the family with the longest lineage in China, as other families of which the suona lineage is also known go back only to the 18th century. Suona-and-percussion bands are by no means rare in China. What makes the Zhou Family unique, apart form their long lineage, is the way that over the generations their leaders, "lingban" have been innovating approach, style, and repertoire. The Zhou Family Band have become quite famous in the past decade, doing extensive tours outside China in Europe (2017) and USA (2018, 2019, 2020). In this paper I will go into aspects of lineage, career, and innovations of the Zhou Family. I relate lineage in Chinese suona family bands to lineage in other (musical) cultures, and shortly pay attention to the history of the suona in China.