Music Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2796
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Item Jazz Education in India: A Case Study(2020) Daniel, Marcus; Hewitt, Michael P; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)There are people in India who enjoy jazz. It is a complex art form that requires proper instruction. The early part of my own jazz education was done in India and I did find learning opportunities rare. I wanted to study the experience of another Indian who learns and performs jazz in India to be able to get an understanding of the status of jazz education in India. An exploratory, narrative single-case study was done of Kirtana Krishna, a jazz singer and guitarist in India. The international faculty at her institution gave her world class instruction. One of them, Steve Zerlin, was able to corroborate the facts and provide his own input. Two other jazz intuitions have opened and all three serve as primers. They have increased the quality and quantity of jazz being performed and some of their alumni are continuing their jazz studies in the US.Item "Says Kabir": Unbounded Sounds(2014) McCall, Maressa B.; Witzleben, J. Lawrence; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Kabir, the weaver-poet, has continued to permeate many facets of Indian society since his life in the fifteenth century. The poetry attributed to him is a large body of work existing in oral, print, recording, and other forms that encompasses much more today than what Kabir said in his lifetime. Between the biting social criticisms and intimate devotional messages, the poetry bridges many ideological gaps, ensuring its longevity. Through fieldwork across India, I came to understand Kabir as a musical tradition, rooted in poetry, that continually renews its sonic character to speak to new generations while maintaining a heterogeneous variety of styles (folk, classical, semi-classical, and more). Predominantly studied previously as a text-based tradition, a focus on the range of musical styles and content that Kabir encompasses enables us to understand its popularity across religious, socioeconomic, and generational divisions and provides insights into Kabir's place in today's North Indian society.Item PERSPECTIVES ON THE USES AND FUNCTIONS OF CHENTA ENSEMBLES IN THE RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL PROCESSIONS OF KERALA, INDIA(2011) Morehouse, Katherine Holloway; Witzleben, J. Lawrence; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study seeks to better understand the uses and functions of chenta drum ensembles in the religious festivals of Kerala, India, along with the social structures that must be in place in order for these drummers to move seamlessly between different religious and social contexts. The chenta, a double-headed cylindrical drum that is popular throughout Kerala, is an aural symbol for Keralites that signifies celebration, announcement and royalty. I will analyze two types of chenta ensembles (melams) in terms of instrumentation, repertoire, history/development, and context: traditional chenta melams, which can be further divided into large and small melams, and a new chenta performance style called shinkari melam. I also will look at the ways that status and accessibility of these melams are often determined by larger social structures and concepts that are tied to colonial, post-colonial, and caste realities in India, and how these issues are often most evidenced in discourses that seek to attach genre labels to these performance styles. Although many would say that chenta ensembles are rooted in Hindu temple tradition, and most drummers are Hindus, the churches and mosques have also been using these ensembles in their own processions. I will explore the different ways that religious communities use the chenta to negotiate group identity: specifically, how Hindu, Christian, and Muslim religion-based ethnic groups use the sound and associations of the chenta as a means to create a sense of communitas, building bridges between otherwise divided segments of the population and bringing the people of Kerala together through shared sonic experiences. By intentionally seeking out multiple perspectives regarding caste, appropriateness, preference, and motivation this dissertation sheds light on the uses and functions of chenta ensembles within the festivals of these religious communities. This study also offers insight into the lives of the performers from their own perspectives, and is concerned with how religious festival participants feel and think about the issues currently facing both hereditary and non-hereditary chenta ensemble performance traditions.