Between, Within and Across Cultures1
ROBERT GLUCK
Department of Music, University at Albany, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, New York 12208 USA
E-mail: gluckr@albany.edu
The phenomenon of contemporary composers reaching across
cultures in search of inspiration, musical materials and forms,
and new ideas is not a new one, but it is occurring now with
greater frequency. Some seek to join inherited traditions from
within their own ancestral cultures with new traditions from
the West or with new technologies. Some are Westerners
exploring traditional musical forms and aesthetics from
cultures different from their own. The process of engaging
interculturally raises complex issues, at times challenging
historical attitudes towards the culture of ‘the other’. The
author considers a wide range of motivations for this
emerging body of work, surveying the range of approaches
that composers have taken, and urges the cultivation of
cultural sensitivity. This essay proposes what the author
terms a ‘reflective compositional process’ with which
composers can explore their motivations and compositional
strategies and consider the relationships inhering between
materials and cultural origins. Implications for works
engaging new technologies are considered throughout the
essay.
1. INTRODUCTION
Issues of culture have recently become an increasing
focus of interest in electroacoustic music (De Souza
2005; Fischman 1999; Gluck 2005c, 2006a, 2006b;
Keyes 2005; Whalley 2005). This reflects a departure
from earlier assumptions that the aesthetics of this field
transcended cultural boundaries, despite the European
and North American aesthetics characteristic of its
founding era of the 1950s and 1960s. The notion that
sounds within electroacoustic music might be listened to
for their cultural content, rather than as objects,
represented a shift from the original thinking of the
studios in Paris and Cologne. One finds the seeds of a
new perspective as early as Luc Ferrari’s Presque Rien
(1970) and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Telemusik (1966)
and Hymnen (1966–67). Telemusik, in particular,
represented the beginning of a new trend, which has
only recently begun to expand, of composers incorporating into their work aspects of cultures other than their
own. This development comes as no surprise since
1
Many thanks to Warren Burt, Aileen Gluck, Pamela Lerman,
Alireza Mashayekhi, Philip Royster, Richard Teitelbaum and
Barry Truax for their critical comments and responses to the
various drafts of this essay.
composers are increasingly becoming more aware of
other cultures due to mass media, expansion of the
Internet, global trade, the availability of recordings of
music from many cultures, legacies of colonialism,
perceptions of ecological crisis, and the ubiquity of
sampling technology.
A global perspective in which national boundaries
become less important can potentially expand the pool
of resources available to spark the musical imagination.
Such a perspective is prefigured in the work of early
Modern European composers. For some, new ideas,
aesthetics, forms and materials from the East helped
provide new strategies to organise and structure musical
materials, as tonality became exhausted in the late
nineteenth century. Claude Debussy drew upon ideas
from Japan and Javanese gamelan in search of new
conceptions of time, space, timbre, directionality or its
lack, gestural shape and pitch organisation. Debussy
discovered in the woodcuts of Katsushika Hokusai
(1760–1849) a sensibility that influenced his use of
sounds to convey sense impressions and symbols,
analogies to reflections of light and shading, and
shifting patterns (Metropolitan Museum of Art website,
accessed 2007).
The search for new ideas within other cultures
continued among twentieth-century composers, among
them Lou Harrison, Henry Cowell, Béla Bartók, John
Cage, Olivier Messiaen, LeMonte Young, Colin
McPhee, Terry Riley and Steve Reich. Cowell studied
the music of several Asian cultures as he developed his
highly personal approach, one that collapsed national
and stylistic boundaries, declaring: ‘I want to live in the
whole world of music!’ (Weisgall 1959: 498). Bartók
explored folk traditions within his own Central
European culture and, like Cowell, he used them largely
for musical inspiration rather than as quoted material.
Many of the folk elements within his works are actually
of Bartók’s own invention (Hungarian Academy of
Sciences Institute for Musicology 2005). John Cage
found in East Asian culture processes that could be used
in the composition and performance of his music (Cage
1961; Corbett 2000). Another example of intracultural
influence is the movement by white musicians in the
United States and Great Britain to draw upon the music
Organised Sound 13(2): 141–152 ß 2008 Cambridge University Press. Printed in the United Kingdom.
doi:10.1017/S1355771808000186
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Robert Gluck
of African-American blues, jazz, soul, and rhythm and
blues to create their own versions of these forms, the
most famous being rock and roll. Cage specifically
rejected improvisational means found in these traditions
(Corbett 2000; Lewis 1996).
Although many composers have been influenced by
or borrowed from other cultures, cultural artefacts do
not exist in a vacuum and art forms are not separable
from the wholeness of a group’s culture (Bruyn 1966;
Hall 1959, 1966, 1976; Sprague 1980). The expressive
arts are a core means by which members of a society
articulate their sense of self, their history, struggles and
strivings. Artistic traditions develop within contexts that
are weighted with rich webs of historical and political
meanings. Drawing upon other traditions raises issues
about freedom of expression, cultural boundaries,
ownership and understanding, ethics and propriety,
and cultural, ethnic and national identity. What a
composer may view as a natural aspect of the creative
process may be interpreted, by others, as an act of
cultural appropriation.
This is especially the case when intercultural relationships take place within a context of unequal power
relations. The availability of Japanese prints in France
was a consequence of the economic power of Europe,
which had long sought to open Japanese markets for
trade. By means of forced trade, consumer goods and
designs viewed as exotic and fashionable became
available throughout Europe, among them ‘Oriental’
fabric motifs and carpets, along with pentatonic
melodies, which became available for absorption into
the fabric of western musical compositions (Wade
2005). Likewise, the emergence of rock and roll took
place within the context of asymmetrical power
relations between races in American society, the
influence of the marketplace in popular music, and
issues of cultural authenticity (among others: Baraka
1963, 1991; Davis 1995; Friedlander and Miller 2006;
Mahon 2004; Phinney 2005; Rabinowitz 1991; Rogin
1998; Wilson 1983). Some parallel issues may be found
in societies, such as Australia, that include aboriginal
cultures (Burt 2007). It is in light of these concerns that
some cultural theorists have suggested that crosscultural
borrowing can take the form of cultural appropriation
(Coombe 1997; hooks 1990; Said 1978).
Another question relevant to a consideration of
crosscultural borrowing is whether a particular musical
tradition can travel across cultures with its musical
integrity intact. Composer Toru Takemitsu observes
that western music is more ‘transportable’ than
Japanese music because the former can generally be
abstracted into relations between fixed pitches, tying the
essence of a work to notes rather than to specific
instrumentation. In contrast, the nature of the Japanese
biwa, a stringed instrument whose construction introduces a noise element, renders its music unrealisable
with other instruments and thus not transportable
(Takemitsu 1995: 59–67). Similarly, Christopher
Dobrian comments that a distinguishing feature of the
Korean stringed instrument, the daegeum, is ‘constant
fluctuation in the course of a note’ (Dobrian 2007). He
discovered inherent difficulties when attempting pitch
tracking with a computer because pitch stability, a
feature of western European instruments, is not a
quality of the daegeum or, more generally, of Korean
musical aesthetics (Dobrian 2004). The lack of pitch
stability renders daegeum music non-transportable to
western instruments. This raises the question of whether
it is possible for a composer to borrow from another
culture’s tradition when its music is not easily transportable.
The advent of sound recording and, subsequently,
Pierre Schaeffer’s conception of the object sonore (sound
object) (Schaeffer 1966) would appear to render all
sounds transportable since musical sounds became
artefacts, subject to being infinitely copied. The
experience of listening becomes abstracted not only
from the sound source, a phenomenon termed ‘schizophonia’ by R. Murray Schafer (Schafer 1977), and
original acoustical environment, but also from cultural
context. It would stand to reason, therefore, that a
recorded sound from another culture is a sound object
like any other, available for use in whatever way a
composer wishes.
In fact, recorded sounds can capture a living,
breathing aspect of cultural or natural life and
composers have the choice to give them new life when
replayed or treat them as objects for use, with the
potential for misuse. A fear expressed by Walter
Benjamin that technology allowing infinite copying
might lead to a loss of the ‘traditional values of cultural
heritage’ (Benjamin 1969) is reasonable but not
inevitable. To offer one counter argument, the availability of recordings of traditions that have gone out of
vogue have at times led to the rediscovery of those
traditions within the culture of origin. As access to
digital compositional and recording tools broaden,
culturally sensitive compositional practice means placing self-limitations on one’s freedom to treat material
however one wishes. Is it not already the case that every
composer self-censors her or his own work during the
editing process? Are not all compositional practices
already to some degree self-reflective?
To further complicate these issues for composers,
electroacoustic music is a field that has historically
viewed itself as culturally neutral, although its artistic
values were grounded in European cultural history. We
sometimes fail to recognise that while the world may
appear to be smaller, most of us remain creatures of
local concerns, loyalties, motivations and tastes. We
love the things we know from childhood, we are loyal to
the people we view as most like us, and we view the
particular lens through which we see the world as
normative. When we consider our own aesthetic
Between, Within and Across Cultures
assumptions to be neutral or reflecting a universal, we
become less able to objectively analyse these issues. It is
with the supposition that the obstacles lie largely in our
habituated perceptions and attitudes that I propose a
self-reflective process for composers who seek to engage
crossculturally.
2. REFLECTIVE COMPOSITIONAL PROCESS:
MOTIVATIONS AND SELF-QUESTIONING
In previous articles (Gluck 2005a, 2005b, 2007a), I
considered particular instances in my own work where I
adapted non-western musical instruments, within the
context of questions about crosscultural borrowing. In
an essay published in Organised Sound (Gluck 2005a), I
pointed out that art making has always relied on
borrowing and crosscultural exchange, from folk
traditions to Bach’s reuse of his (and others’) own
work, to Ives’ use of American hymns and patriotic
tunes to the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
European use of Turkish melodies, to the evolution of
the banjo, none of which prevented the original authors
from representing their own culture. I concluded that
borrowing is unavoidable and that crosscultural borrowing can be respectful and legitimate, if not invaluable. I noted, however, that three elements must be
present to achieve respectful adaptation: an appreciation of the contents and value of the other culture on its
own terms; a desire to speak from one’s own personal
artistic voice without mimicking the other culture, and
an awareness that can be articulated to an audience of
the fine line between creative borrowing and disrespectful appropriation.
I reached this conclusion with substantial unease and
turmoil. My initial conclusions were less optimistic, and
were challenged by a number of colleagues. They had a
point, but not one that settled the issue for me,
prompting further examination. I discovered an opportunity to test my observations while writing about music
by Iranian composer Alireza Mashayekhi. To offer a
single example, when I came upon shifting sound masses
in Mashayekhi’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, op.
96 (1988) (Sound example 1), I reflexively referenced
Gyorgi Ligeti and Krysztof Penderecki. Upon further
reflection, I realised that this was but one of several ways
to contextualise these features. Visual images came to
mind, of light refracted through a slowly shifting prism,
revealing changing details of sonic colour, density,
shape and gesture. These could be referenced as Sufi
mystical conceptions of unity and multiplicity. This
experience suggested to me how unconscious are the
culturally grounded assumptions that I make in my
musical life. It was also a reminder that Henry Cowell
was correct when he observed: ‘all music is ethnic music’
(Adams 2001), irrespective of our cultural background,
aesthetic perspective, or musical milieu, including
western standard practice.
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The implications of the criteria that I suggested in my
2005 article – appreciation for original context, nonimitation and respect – are that compositional practice
should be reflective. The term ‘reflective practice’ has
two roots: the first, from the field of educational
pedagogy, refers to learning as a continual process in
which the practitioner carefully contemplates the
implications of what one learns during and after
concrete personal experience (Schon 1983). The second
is grounded in the practice of Vipassana, a form of
Buddhist meditation often translated as ‘Mindfulness’,
in which the practitioner observes her or his thoughts
without judgement. There are many fields, from
psychology to organisational development to nursing,
that synthesise ideas and practices deriving from both
uses of the term. Related ideas have been developed in
other fields: sociologists and anthropologists (Bruyn
1966; Hall 1976; Spradley 1980) have long considered
how an observer can learn to understand another
culture on its own terms; educators have developed the
term ‘reflexivity’ to refer to a process of self-questioning
to increase self-awareness (Nagata 2004). Spradley
(1980) speaks of the importance of introspection for
the participant observer in anthropology.
For purposes of this essay, reflective compositional
process is defined as an approach by which the
composer engages in a repeated process of selfreflection, carefully considering motivations, context
and implications of compositional decisions, complementary to considerations of formal and aesthetic
artistic criteria. Like a social scientist, the perspective
of the composer is one of empathy for the culture under
consideration:
by taking the role of his subjects he re-creates in his own
imagination and experience the thoughts and feelings
which are in the minds of those he studies. It is through a
process of symbolic interpretation of the ‘experienced
culture’ that the observer works with his data and
discovers meanings in them. (Bruyn 1966: 12)
Ethnomusicologist Mantle Hood offers a useful
model that can inform a self-reflective process, a
concept that he calls ‘bi-musicality’. This is the ability
to function competently and with understanding within
the musical practice of another culture. Hood notes that
every culture’s music can be appreciated only on its own
terms and he offers the example that basic western
musicianship, such as having perfect pitch, actually
represents a ‘conditioned prejudice to overcome’ interfering with the musician’s ability to hear ‘microtonal
inflections’ (Hood 1960: 56). The needed skill set can be
gained through learned sensitivity and actual musical
performance experience. ‘If his desire is to comprehend
a particular Oriental musical expression so that his
observations and analysis as a musicologist do not
prove to be embarrassing, he will have to persist in
practical studies until his basic musicianship is secure’
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(Hood 1960: 58). ‘Bi-musicality’ requires developing an
awareness of the assumptions and conditioned
responses that colour our musical experience and thus
our ability to engage with the music of an unfamiliar
culture.
Composers approach their work in many different
ways, from how they draw upon experience and
inspiration, tap the unconscious (Harvey 1999) and
approach choice of materials, form and compositional
process. It is thus difficult to outline a single model for a
reflective compositional process. There are composers
who begin their work by selecting materials, others who
begin with ideas about structure, followed by the
selection of forms, and others yet whose models are
hybrids. And of course there are approaches utterly
distinct from these more conventional approaches. A
reflective composition process relating to cultural issues,
however, potentially includes five stages. The first is a
consideration of the composer’s motivations for her or
his choice of materials and forms. This stage may be
repeated before and after choices are made, and yet
again further into the compositional effort. The second
is a consideration of one’s relationship with the culture
in question. The focus of stage three is selecting a
strategy for crosscultural engagement. Fourth is a
reconsideration of all aspects of the work from two
perspectives: that of a member of the culture in question
and that of an observer external to that culture. The fifth
and final stage is a consideration of the overall effort in
light of initial motivations, strategies and other factors,
in light of any revisions made during prior stages in this
engagement.
2.1. Motivations
Let us first consider the issue of motivations, of which
many possibilities can be identified. A few examples
follow.
2.1.1. Curiosity
Gaining access to recordings and performances of
unfamiliar forms of music can suggest new ideas for
one’s own work. One can begin with more distanced
musicological study, empathetic personal encounter or
more casual exploration.
2.1.2. Search for new ideas and options to address
compositional issues, roadblocks and constraints within
one’s own work or cultural milieu
Claude Debussy, discussed above, is an example of a
composer who sought crosscultural models to address
difficulties encountered by European composers at the
threshold of Modernity. Debussy’s practice was to seek
inspiration from, rather than literal quotation of,
materials from other cultures.
2.1.3. Coming home: the discovery or affirmation of
one’s own family’s cultural heritage
A child of immigrants who has become largely or fully
acculturated into the dominant culture awakens to a
new awareness of her or his ancestral culture.
Sometimes this discovery may be its first occurrence in
generations. In some cases, this composer considers the
implications of the recovered legacy for his or her own
hyphenated identity or work. Another possibility is the
composer born in one country, but adopted by parents
who come from a different culture. Later in life, the
composer explores the biological parents’ culture and
may view him- or herself as a member of a community in
cultural disapora.
2.1.4. Global consciousness
This interest may be motivated by a desire to discover
and express underlying commonalities between peoples.
One expression of this is soundscape composition that
encompasses a multiplicity of cultures or seeks to
transcend their boundaries. Another motivation is the
experience of people becoming long-term residents or
citizens in countries culturally different from that of
their birth, a phenomenon that can be experienced in
many different ways, with ease, confusion, dislocation,
loss, relief …
2.1.5. Vogue
This includes use of cultural materials for decorative
purposes: for example, to represent the exotic.
Motivations can include naivety, ignorance, popularity
or commercial gain and the results can be viewed as
benign or as cultural imperialism.
2.1.6. Boundary testing
Here the composer seeks to challenge the norms and
limits of his or her own culture. This can include trying
on the symbols and materials of others. This can be due
to boredom with one’s own culture or a desire to engage
in behaviour viewed as transgressive.
There are times when one’s motivation is relatively
transparent. Sometimes it can be elusive, especially
when one’s stated goals do not coincide with what is
discovered through a process of self-reflection or review
by others. Critical feedback can provide a useful check
on one’s own assumptions, solicited from members of a
culture, including peers within one’s own musical
community and others outside of it. Few of us are as
self-aware of our motivations as we think we are. I list
these motivations largely without making value judgements, believing that honesty can lead to critical
assessment on the part of composers themselves
regarding appropriateness of choices.
Between, Within and Across Cultures
2.2. Self-questioning
Stage two is no doubt the thorniest of the five because it
involves issues that are rarely considered in discussions
about music. It is not my intent to suggest strict rules nor
is it to suggest policing creative decision-making. Nor
does any specific answer to these questions imply any
particular course of action. Rather, my goal is to
encourage self-questioning which might lead towards
greater clarity and thus informed choices. Here are
several sample questions about materials and forms to
ponder:
N
N
N
N
N
N
N
N
N
N
N
Have I accurately and with specificity identified
and researched the cultural origin?
To what degree am I familiar with relevant
meanings and import within the culture of origin?
What is the relationship between my own culture
and the other? What is the history of those
relations? Do they involve issues of unequal power
relations, economic, political or other, and, if so,
what might be implications for present practice?
What is my personal relationship with the culture
in question?
Are the materials in question well represented in
recordings by traditional practitioners? Are they in
danger of becoming lost or considered obsolete?
Is there an existing non-traditional musical practice within that culture that engages these materials?
Does the material remain recognisably identifiable? Does its original integrity remain intact?
What is the relationship between my use of the
material and traditional practice? Are there issues
of cultural sensitivity on the part of traditional
practitioners about the non-traditional use of these
materials? Are there relevant issues of provenance
– that is, to what degree is the material considered
by its own practitioners to be protected from
outside use?
What has been the reaction of members of the
culture in question to my new work? Can I imagine
performing the new work to members of that
culture or within that country?
How do I define my motivations within the
options listed in stage 1? What is my comfort level
with acting on that motivation?
Do any of these questions trouble my conscience?
If I had to begin again, would I make the same
decisions?
3. STRATEGIES OF CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT
The third stage is reflection with respect to models for
engagement. I now consider several possibilities that
have been utilised by composers. Some of these flow out
of or suggest motivations outlined above.
145
3.1. Incorporating traditional elements from one’s own
culture into a new work that is aesthetically and
formally removed from the original source.
This can include electronic treatment of traditional
instruments or voice, such as pipa in Chinese composer
Dajuin Yao’s cinnabar red drizzle (1999) (Yao 1999), tar
in Persian-American composer Dariush Dolat-shahi’s
Sama (1985) (Dolat-shahi 1985), the ram’s horn in
Jewish-American composer Alvin Curran’s Shofar
(1990, with subsequent versions in 1994 and 2006) and
in my own Sshofar (2002), Shofar (2002) and
Shofaralong (2001) (Gluck 2003), daegeum in Korean
composer Sung Ho Hwang’s Contrast (1993) (Hwang
1999), and sitar and robotic Indian drummer in IndianAmerican Ajay Kapur’s Digital Sankirna (2007) (Kapur
2007a) and other works. Kapur explores human–
computer interaction, drawing upon classical Indian
rules of improvisation (Kapur 2007b).
In most of these examples, instrumental techniques
tend to retain a close relationship with traditional
performance practices. A related approach incorporates
traditional musical elements, such as mambo dance
rhythms in Peruvian-Israeli-British composer Rajmil
Fischman’s Alma Latina (1997) (Fischman 2001) and
structural ideas from the Persian radif in IranianAmerican composer Shahrokh Yadegari’s Tear (1999)
and Migration (2005) (Gluck 2005c, 2006a, 2006b,
2006c; Yadegari 2004). What is so successful about
Fischman’s and Yadegari’s work is how integrally and
unselfconsciously each composer integrates culturally
specific ideas into the overarching fabric of their music.
Fischman often shapes the rate of motion of the musical
materials to suggest a perception of dance rhythms, and
his quotations from Cuban ‘Mambo King’ Dámaso
Perez Prado subtly punctuate complex electronic
musical gestures. Yadegari’s work displays its cultural
influences simply and directly in the manner that the
musical patterns unfold in time, as if continually turning
a prism through which light streams.
3.2. Use of traditional instrumental or vocal sounds by
composers outside the culture from which the materials
originate.
Examples abound in popular music, most notably Paul
Simon’s use of rhythms and performers from South
Africa in Graceland (1986) (Simon 1997) and from
Brazil in The Rhythm of the Saints (1990) (Simon 2004),
and Peter Gabriel’s use of Middle Eastern and African
musical materials in Passion (1989) (Gabriel 2002). In
the works on his recording entitled Al Nur (2001)
(Cipriani 2001), electroacoustic music composer
Alessandro Cipriani layers, loops and processes traditional vocal and instrumental performances to create ‘a
rewrite of pieces of oral traditions (more or less
complex)’ (Cipriani 2001). Sometimes the sources are
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Robert Gluck
derived from a single culture (the Chinese song
‘Reflection of the Moon over Two Springs’ combined
with his own ‘Into the Light’) and at other times interrelate multiple cultures – for example ‘Trilogy’, which
incorporates elements of Islamic, Christian and Jewish
chant, seeking points of commonality within the sonic
and modal characteristics of the three. Cipriani’s goal
was to be guided by the material itself and to consider
where it led him.
There are also works where a composer from one
culture reaches into the traditional instrumental
resources of another culture to create a work. One
example that shows understanding of and empathy for
the other culture is Christopher Dobrian’s
Interproviplaytion VI: Mannam (Encounter) (2003) for
daegeum and interactive computer system. In some
respects, the work is composed in a distinctly nontraditional aesthetic whereby the computer tracks
information about daegeum pitch, loudness and timbre,
and ‘modifies the sound of the daegeum in real time,
stores and reconfigures excerpts of the played music,
and provides harmonic accompaniment in ‘intelligent’
response to the daegeum notes’. But at the same time,
the written score for daegeum remains relatively close to
inherited traditions, ‘composed in idiomatic style’. The
performer must be comfortable with both the inherited
and new traditions, since the score ‘leaves the performer
considerable opportunity for rubato, ornamentation,
and even occasional reordering of phrases, in order to
respond to the computer’s performance, which is
different every time the piece is played’ (Dobrian 2003).
Some composers seek mentors within another culture
to offer more of an inside view of a musical tradition
other than one’s own. Richard Teitelbaum recalls
(Teitelbaum 2007):
To prepare to compose ‘Blends’ (1977) for shakuhachi,
synthesiser and percussion, I apprenticed for a year with
shakuhachi master Katsuya Yokoyama in Tokyo. Later,
when I decided to incorporate Turkish musical traditions
within my opera ‘Z’vi’ (2005), a work very much about
meetings between cultures, I chose to create an improvisational part within the score for a master of traditional
Turkish music, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, who sings and
plays ney, zurna and Turkish percussion instruments.
Curtis Bahn, composer, performer and designer of
interfaces for what he terms ‘electronically enhanced
acoustic instruments’, discovered within his personal
spiritual practice an affinity for the music of another
culture (Bahn 2007):
I have been a serious yogi for several years and this has
led me to a study of Hindu and Buddhist chant,
philosophy, meditation, and an interest in musics that
reflected these practices. In terms of musical instrument
design, the acoustic basis of Indian instruments such as
the Sitar and the Sarangi reflect the notion of resonance
through the use of a set of sympathetic strings tuned to
the particular raga being performed. This also reflects the
larger cosmological notion of the practitioner being
attuned to, and resonating with, the vibrational energies
of the universe. Several years ago, I contacted an Indian
music teacher saying that I was interested in talking to
her about Indian music theory – not really knowing fully
what I was getting myself into. She said that the only way
to understand the music was to practice and embody the
concepts, and that I should come over to begin sitar
lessons that day. What followed has now been three years
of listening, practice and study, and I am just beginning. I
have traveled to India numerous times to exchange ideas
and work with traditional musicians and contemporary
media artists. Through the Academy of Electronic Arts in
Delhi, I have helped to organize several new media
conferences, and an upcoming workshop on interactive
electronics and ‘culturally sensitive’ interfaces for Indian
music including a DIY workshop.
I am now ‘sitting with’ the American bansuri (Indian flute)
virtuoso Steve Gorn on a weekly basis. The concepts I learn
are applied both to my emerging practice of Hindustani
classical music, and to the development of my current
interactive performance systems. I have worked with
Indian instrument makers to modify my sitar and dilruba
(a small bowed string instrument) with sensors and
electronic pick-ups, and I have written an interactive
interface which is sensitive to instrumental gestures such as
meend (the bending of the sitar string), and the articulation
of numerous ragas. I’m not sure where this practice will
take me, but I am finding a very fruitful area of exploration
in the relationships between raga as an improvisational
form, and contemporary electronic media performance.
Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Telemusik (1966) interrelates recorded music from Japan, Bali, China,
Hungary, Vietnam and other cultures with electronic
sounds. Using a compositional approach the composer calls ‘intermodulation’ (Stockhausen 1978),
Stockhausen offers the work as an exemplar of a future
global compositional model, the culmination of an
unfolding process that moves from the destruction of
distinctive cultural forms through amalgamation, to a
period of distinct cultural conservation, to a stage of
individualistic free expression in which composers can
draw from an intercultural reservoir of possibilities
(Stockhausen 1978):
This first phase of the intermingling and integration of all
the earth’s musical cultures will be followed by the
opening of a second where – just like a mounting spiral
whose windings constantly bring it to the same point one
level higher – a powerful trend opposing the move
towards uniformity will establish itself. After a time when
conservation predominates, the emphasis in individual
spheres of culture will once again be on developing
original forms as a contribution to harmony between all
cultural groups. There will even be created a kind of
artificial new folklore, utilizing electronic equipment and
heaven only knows what other technical apparatus. (In
this context, for once ‘artificial’ really means ‘artfully
made.’) Such individual styles, consciously shaped from
the most remarkable hybridization of all historical and
Between, Within and Across Cultures
freely-invented possibilities, will then extend the world of
musical forms and rites of performance in a completely
new way.
Frances White (1990) is highly critical of
Stockhausen’s approach, questioning whether the
actual composition matches his rhetorical description.
White holds that Stockhausen almost exclusively selects
non-western musical examples, often unidentifiable,
which are treated to ‘unification through annihilation’.
White believes that the result of modulating the
culturally grounded recordings with electronic sounds
(and vice versa) is less a world music than an expression
of a ‘subject and object’ relationship in which only the
composer has a voice. White contrasts the Stockhausen
work with Charles Dodge’s ‘Any resemblance is purely
accidental’ (1980), which she views as a respectful
treatment of a recording (of tenor Enrico Caruso) from
within the composer’s own culture.
My own perception of Telemusik is that it is best
considered within the context of acousmatic music,
rendering the identity of its source material largely
incidental. The listener who is not familiar with
Stockhausen’s conceptual programme for this work is
likely to detect neither the identity of his sound sources
nor the core idea motivating its composition. One
utilises acousmatic listening to experience this work,
thus depriving the sound sources of any potential
culturally defined meaning. The goal of musique
concrète is indeed to annihilate one’s sources. The
problem here, as White observes, is that Stockhausen’s
sources are treated as objects and not as active agents
participating in a collaborative process. In the context of
musique concrète, this is not problematic. But
Stockhausen presents a contradictory message, asserting that the idealised future composer who functions as
an individualistic creator, drawing upon material from
other cultures, creates a form of expression that is
universal. Stockhausen brings us full circle to the early
Modern idealised concept of the western composer as
autonomous genius. Lack of sensitivity to sources is
implicitly considered to be a tool that results in a music
for all peoples.
3.3. Use of recordings from human and natural
environments within one’s own culture.
Alberto Villalpando’s Bolivianos! (Bolivia, 1973),
Ricardo Teruel’s Nuestra Cultura Vegeta (Venezuela,
1976) and Joaquin Orellana’s Humanofonia
(Guatemala, 1971) use human voices and environmental sounds to articulate sociopolitical messages (Dal
Farra 2003, Gluck 2006b). Bolivianos opens with highpitched electronic sounds, possibly suggesting radio
transmissions, and dense clusters of sustained sounds.
Suddenly, two or more recognisable voices begin to
recite the word ‘Bolivianos’: one lyrical and female,
another gravel-like and male, laughing in a sardonic
147
fashion, suggesting the horror of the disastrous Chaco
War between Bolivia and Paraguay during the early
1930s that eventually led to a political revolution in
Bolivia. Spoken texts are juxtaposed with the electronic
sounds, addressing the social and educational problems
faced by the country. The effectiveness of this work
owes to its juxtaposition of diverse elements which come
together to create a unified message.
Soundscape compositions, by definition referencing a
specific geographical place, take a very distinct
approach to the use of recognisable recorded material.
Cultural allusions are more subtle since sounds from
nature can offer a certain universality. Cecile le Prado’s
Le Triangle d’Incertitude (1996) interweaves sounds of
sea, boats, sailors and life from the French coastline.
Canadian soundscape compositions, such as Barry
Truax’s Pacific Fanfare (1996) and Hildegard
Westerkamp’s Beneath the Forest Floor (1992) are set
in specific locales in British Columbia and use subtle
digital signal processing to suggest a sense of place in the
imagination of the listener. Similarly, Thomas Gerwin’s
Fluss durchs Ohr: Klangbilder vom Neckar (1998)
features sounds of people and nature along the
Neckar River in Germany, and Annea Lockwood’s A
Soundmap of the Hudson River (1989) follows the
unfolding of the river from its source to the point where
it flows into the Atlantic Ocean. While many of these
works reference nature more than human culture, they
are all specific to the environment of a locale.
3.4. Soundscape compositions by composers outside the
culture from which the materials originate.
The goal of Hildegard Westerkamp’s Into India (2002) is
an empathetic exploration of a country in which the
composer spent substantial time over a ten-year period
working closely with people and recording sound
environments. The sounds ‘form the language with
which I speak, of a relationship, of a love, that I
developed for this initially very foreign place’
(Westerkamp 2002). Like her previous work set in her
Canadian home environment, Westerkamp’s compositional techniques feature juxtaposition and attention to
spectromorphological detail, including the use of subtle
filtering. A related cluster of works are more documentary in approach, among them David Dunn’s The Lion
In Which The Spirits Of The Royal Ancestors Make
Their Home (1995) set in Zimbabwe, East Africa, and
Steven Feld’s Rainforest Soundwalks (2001), set in the
Bosavi rainforest in Papua New Guinea.
3.5. Creation of a culturally neutral space in which
performers from different cultures can meet on equal
footing.
Richard Teitelbaum pioneered this unusual and challenging approach when he organised World Band at
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Robert Gluck
Wesleyan University in 1970. Western and non-western
musicians gathered for combined social and musical
occasions, in which:
Open field situations were created which allowed several
world musics to co-exist, interact, and inter-penetrate
simultaneously in the same space, and on an equal basis.
No musical structure was preconceived, but rather
allowed to evolve out of the collection actions of all
participants … . At rehearsals no verbal instructions were
given, no rules enunciated, no written scores employed.
The music was shaped through attention to sound. In this
way, a variety of forms and textures emerged, as well as
unspoken but very real common understandings. One of
these was that no one personality was to dominate.
(Teitelbaum 1972)
Teitelbaum and, in one case, Nam June Paik,
composed several scores for the World Band that
exemplifies this approach. These three examples offer a
flavour: Play your own music (World Band Piece No. 1),
Choose two partners from different areas and play a trio
(World Band Piece No. 5), and Compose music for a
performer from the nation that is the number 1 enemy of
your own. Ask him to compose something for you.
Perform the pieces (World Band Piece No. 16, composed
by Nam June Paik). Music-making and friendships
emerged as a result of the neutrality of the setting and
Teitelbaum’s emphasis on the integrity of individual
cultural expression.
3.6. Exploring the possibilities for adapting and
extending musical traditions within one’s own culture.
Korean-American composer and performer Jin Hi Kim
learned to play the komungo in Korea as an adolescent.
In college in Korea, Kim began to compose works
combining Korean and western instruments, but it was
in the United States that she started to improvise in
avant-garde and crosscultural settings. Subsequently,
Kim began to integrate electronic processing into her
performances (Kim 2001a, 2005). In works such as
Saturn’s Moons (2001) (Kim 2001b), Kim uses electronics to expand upon the qualities of timbre and
intonation inherent in the instrument. She does so, as
we will discuss below, with deep concerns about how
easily the integrity of an inherited tradition can be
damaged.
Having trained exclusively in western music, Japanese
composer Toru Takemitsu entered new territory when
he began to study and eventually incorporate traditional
Japanese instruments within his work. His initial
interest was not rooted in cultural exploration, but
rather in the sonic qualities of the instruments. In
November Steps (1967) (Takemitsu 1994), his compositional choice was to not blend Japanese and western
instruments. Rather, ‘through juxtaposition it is the
difference between the two that should be emphasized’
(Takemitsu 1995: 87). The work opens with passages of
lush strings and dense brass chordal sections which give
way to something radically other: duet passages for biwa
and shakuhachi. The contrast between the massed
violins and the short, percussive sounds of the biwa
could not be more stark. The listener is asked to
consider whether one can find a common language
between traditions or whether, as the composer
suggests, the chasm cannot be crossed, except through
a juxtaposition of differences.
Iranian composer Alireza Mashayekhi trained
equally in western and traditional Persian music,
studying electronic music with Gottfried Michael
Koenig in Utrecht, The Netherlands. In his piano
music, especially A la recherche du temps perdu, op. 111
(1994) (Sound example 2) and the series entitled Short
Stories, op. 106 (1993) (Mashayekhi 2004), Mashayekhi
reinvents the piano not as a polyphonic instrument but
as one capable of playing vertically juxtaposed modal
elements. What may sound to westerners like chordal
structures are in fact fragmentary horizontal modal
elements derived from the Persian dastgah. Rather than
harmony, one discovers what might better be termed the
‘flavour’, ‘colour’ or ‘essence’ of the mode. In his earliest
electronic works, Shur (1968) (Sound example 3) and
East-West (1973) (Mashayekhi 2005), both composed in
Utrecht, one finds a predominance of distinctly melodic
elements – modal and microtonal – organised within
shifting patterns, not unlike traditional Iranian music or
Islamic art.
Chahargah II for tar, violin, orchestra and tape, op.
140 (1999) (Mashayekhi 2002) (Sound example 4) is one
of several works in which the composer utilises
algorithmic techniques to determine fine details within
larger structures. One cannot distinguish clearly
between foreground and background; music played by
a live solo performer is juxtaposed with recorded sounds
of Persian instruments. Both elements draw upon
Persian modal improvisational forms. The recorded
sections appear to be at the core of the work, but both
elements are equally dynamic and in the foreground.
3.7. Composers trained in two musical cultures
reconciling elements from each tradition within the
context of their work.
In 1934 theologian Mordecai M. Kaplan coined the
phrase ‘living in two civilizations’ to refer to the
potential for people with hyphenated identities to live
in a manner that does not compromise either side
(Kaplan 1994). Alireza Mashayekhi refers to this
reconciliation as Meta-X. In this model, the composer
seeks to discover relationships between elements that
may be generally viewed as unrelated if not in conflict,
where ‘different sources and different composition
techniques meet one another … What I’m looking for
is quite different from a collage’ (Gluck 2007b); rather,
he was seeking a greater unity. Mashayekhi’s intent is
Between, Within and Across Cultures
also to challenge the insularity with which western and
eastern aesthetics developed, suggesting that the composer can play a unique role in allowing each to learn
from the other. Mashayekhi’s ability to function fully
within Iranian and western musical is an instructive
example of Hood’s concept of bi-musicality, discussed
above.
An example is Meta-X No. 1 (c) (2001) for cello, tape
and orchestra with Persian instruments (Mashayekhi
2007) (Sound example 5). In this work, Persian and
western instruments remain true to their respective
traditional intonation and performance techniques
(with the addition of extended cello technique). The
two elements loosely overlap with related, but not
unison, melodic gestures, generally in Persian dastgah
(modes) without the use of western harmony. The glue
that connects the two is a series of periodic, ambiguous
electronic sounds that may be heard in one of two ways:
as sound masses of abstracted high pitched cello
glissandi or as electronically generated noise. This role
of ambiguous agent is sometimes played in Meta-X
works without electronics by strummed Persian string
instruments and rapidly repeated violin notes, or by
percussion. The listener perceives these juxtaposed
elements as belonging together to form a distinct, but
unfamiliar whole.
Crosscultural models such as Mashayekhi’s may
prove increasingly significant as countries become
increasingly multicultural. To some degree, the shift
towards multiculturality is a legacy of colonial histories,
but it is also a function of human migration, as people
seek economic opportunity, escape from persecution, or
reunion with relatives. As a consequence, more people
have hyphenated identities, opening broader modalities
for ethnic and national identity. Cultural hyphenation
expands the range of options available to any individual
or subgroup within a subculture, sometimes in unexpected ways. Consider how western music has, for some
people, become a lens through which Asian-American
identity is parsed and defined (Griffiths 2006; Wang
2006; Yoshihara 2006). Certainly, the impact of multicultural identity on the arts will be an issue to be
considered and reconsidered for many years to come.
4. TOWARDS A REFLECTIVE
COMPOSITIONAL PRACTICE
Two stages of reflection remain. In each of these final
stages, the composer is asked to step back from the work
completed and reconsider the results of the reflective
compositional process. In stage four, the composer
seeks to look at the work through the eyes of two
theoretical observers. The first assumes the perspective
of members of the culture with which one has engaged.
The composer calls to mind how select members of the
culture in question have responded to the work and
(s)he empathetically reviews, once again, how the work
149
might be received within that society. The composer
might consider the question ‘what if this was another
composer addressing aspects of my own culture?’. Next,
the composer assumes the perspective of a dispassionate
observer external to the composer’s own culture and
again considers what conclusions might be drawn about
the nature of the work. In short, what might one’s peers
say? Are there aspects of the work that make me, and
maybe others, uncomfortable and, if so, are they of
sufficient substance as to suggest a return to an earlier
stage in this reflective process? I am not suggesting that
music should be comfortable!
Finally, the composer is asked to review the entire
experience of the reflective compositional process. Call
to mind the various issues addressed in each stage. What
initially motivated the decision to engage with aspects of
another culture? Why was this particular expression of
crosscultural engagement undertaken? What motivated
the particular chosen strategy of engagement? Having
revised the work during previous stages of the
compositional process, how well have areas of concern
been addressed? What has been the impact of this
process upon the act of composition? What have I
learned about myself as a composer and a human being?
And, of course, how successful is the work from a
musical perspective?
5. CONCLUSIONS
This essay has considered music by composers who
work within their own cultural traditions or cross into
the traditions of other cultures. Some combine multiple
traditions within a single work. To enter into another
culture raises complex issues and it is not a simple matter
to do so while retaining one’s own compositional voice.
It is my contention that the practitioner should not do
so lightly. It is important to identify one’s perspective,
question one’s motives and articulate compelling
reasons for entering into domains that others cherish
as their inheritance. One can learn by considering the
musical implications of historical and cultural context
and the sensitivities of members of cultures that have
experienced colonialism. New friendships can emerge by
asking members of another culture to listen to new
works in progress and to learn from their reactions,
insights, criticisms, and maybe even appreciations.
Developing sensitivity to the values held within other
cultures is not easy because we all tend to see the world
through our own lens, experience and values. Those in
the West have been raised in societies that share the
assumption that western culture reflects universal
human norms. Crossing cultural boundaries thus
demands a constant internal dialogue, for which I have
outlined a five-stage process involving listening, questioning, testing, reconsideration and, through all stages,
reflection. One’s creative imagination can be voiced
without dogmatically asserting it in a non-reflective way
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Robert Gluck
that treats culturally sensitive resources as materials for
harvesting and non-reflective re-interpretation.
Challenges exist even for those who seek to join music
from their own distinct cultural backgrounds with
contemporary trends. Here, too, reflection is merited.
Jin Hi Kim (Kim 2005) speaks about the delicate
balance between the integrity of an ancestral musical
tradition, the ancient Korean komungo, and its expansion with contemporary technology. The old may be
renewed by contact with the new, but as a consequence
it will not remain unchanged. In the wrong hands, it can
be damaged:
[With proper knowledge] the atmosphere of a traditional
instrument and ideas can be extended. The sonic quality
is often dramatically changed with electronic technology.
This change shouldn’t be considered negatively. It is the
sound of a new instrument. Therefore, the old musical
ideas also need to be changed accordingly. For instance,
there is more silence than notes in traditional komungo
music, but the electric komungo extends the length of note
in space [resulting in less silence]. It is up to a composer/
performer’s mindset to [either] create a meeting place
between the two or destroying the tradition. If the
composer/performer doesn’t know much of her own
tradition, she cannot do this job.
A reflective compositional process above all implies
openness and honesty with ourselves and others, and a
willingness to accept criticism and consider changing
direction. It means a willingness to seriously converse
about issues such as cultural appropriation, but also to
acknowledge that these are places where conversation
can begin but not necessarily end. Finally, we owe our
ancestors, those who cultivated all the forms of cultural
expression that we have been so fortunate to inherit, our
acknowledgement and gratitude.
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