Music
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Item GOSPEL SINGING IN THE VALLEY: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE HYMNODY AND CHORAL SINGING OF THE LISU ON THE CHINA-BURMA/MYANMAR BORDER(2015) Diao, Ying; Witzleben, John L; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation is an ethnomusicological study of contemporary musical practices of the Christian Lisu in Nujiang Prefecture in northwest Yunnan on the China-Myanmar border. Among all the changes that the Nujiang Lisu have experienced since the twentieth century, the spread of Protestant Christianity throughout Nujiang’s mountainous villages has existed for the longest time and had one of the greatest effects. Combining historical investigation and ethnographic description, this study uses the lens of music to examine the impact of this social change on the Lisu living in this impoverished frontier region. The Lisu characteristics have never been vital in the music written by the Christian Lisu in Nujiang. Compared with the practices described in other ethnomusicological writings on Christian music around the world that I have read, this absence of incorporation of indigenous musical elements is unusual. There are probably many other cases similar to that of the Lisu, but few ethnomusicologists have paid attention to them. I aim to elucidate this particular scenario of Lisu Christian music in relation to three social and cultural forces: the missionary legacy of conventions; the government’s identification of the Lisu as a minority nationality and its national policies toward them since the 1950s; and the transnational religious exchange between the Christian Lisu in China and Myanmar since the late 1980s. My examination focuses on two genres which the Lisu use to express their Christian beliefs today: ddoqmuq mutgguat, derived from American northern urban gospel songs, the basis of the Lisu choral singing; and mutgguat ssat, influenced by the Christian pop of the Burmese Lisu, with instrumental accompaniment and daibbit dance and preferred by the young people. Besides studying these two genres in the religious context, I also juxtapose them with other musical traditions in the overall Nujiang music soundscape and look at their role in local social interactions such as those between sacred and secular, and majority and minority. This dissertation demonstrates that the collective performances of shared repertoires have not only created a sense of affinity for the Nujiang Christian Lisu but also have reinforced the formation of Lisu transnational religious networks.Item Singing of the Old Order Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania(2014) Voelkl, Yuanyuan Sun; Provine, Robert C.; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores the continuity and conformity, as well as changes and diversity of Amish musical life by investigating major rituals, activities, musical genres and repertories of the Lancaster Old Order Amish. The three major areas this dissertation studies are church singing, youth singing, and wedding singing. The two main musical genres are 1) unison singing of slow-tunes in German and 2) fast-tunes in unison and four-part harmony in both German and English. This study emphasizes recent developments and changes in Amish musical life, focused on Lancaster County. It documents the Amish efforts to preserve their slow-tune tradition by introducing written notation and compiling tunebooks since the 1980s, and by the introduction of musical education and harmony singing to the Lancaster Amish since the 1990s. The study identifies a spectrum of six types of youth singing, whose musical diversity correlates with other diversities of life within the Amish community. Through musical analysis and historical investigation of slow-tune origins and formation, this study details the relationships of Amish musical styles and practices with their religious beliefs and cultural values. This dissertation concludes that music reveals two contrasting sides coexisting in Amish society. Slow-tune singing of texts from the sixteenth-century Ausbund hymn collection at church is mainly homogeneous throughout Lancaster County and at present remains relatively stable. Slow-tunes not only represent the continuity and conformity of Amish religious beliefs and cultural values, but also are a crucial guardian of the Amish faith, which is the core of the sustainability of Amish society. By contrast, fast-tunes reflect changes and diversity of Amish life and reveal the adaptation and assimilation of outside influence. The musical characteristics and singing styles of the Amish are guided by their religious beliefs and cultural values to facilitate congregational singing. The exploration of origins of slow-tunes and fast-tune melodies shows that in the realm of music, Amish singing has never been immune from outside influences. Both in the sixteenth century and today, the Amish [early Anabaptists] have always borrowed, adapted, and assimilated musical sources and influences from their environment to serve their own spiritual purposes.Item The Performance Practice of Buddhist Baiqi in Contemporary Taiwan(2012) Lu, Wei-Yu; Provine, Robert C.; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The baiqi (Buddhist percussive instruments), also known as faqi (dharma instruments), are mentioned in the Chinese Buddhist scriptures under many different terms: jianzhi, jiandi, jianzhui, or jianchi. The original function of baiqi in earlier monastic life was to gather people or to call an assembly. With the completion of monasticism and monastic institutions, baiqi have become multifunctional in monasteries, and many baiqi instruments have been developed for different monastic applications. In contemporary Buddhist monasteries in Taiwan, baiqi are used, on the one hand, to mark the time throughout the day, signal the beginning and end of monastic daily activities, and regulate the monastic order; and on the other hand, baiqi are indispensable to the musical practices of all Buddhist rituals, where they are used to accompany fanbai (Buddhist liturgical chants) and to articulate the whole ritual process. This study investigates multiple facets of Buddhist baiqi in their performance practice, function, application, notation, and transmission, exploring the interaction between baiqi and fanbai, baiqi and the practitioner, baiqi and the monastic space, and baiqi and various Buddhist contexts. I draw upon ideas from performance theory as it concerns different disciplines, but I maintain a sharper focus on the musicological dimension of performance practice when analyzing, interpreting, and explaining the performance and music of baiqi in terms of the monastic lifestyle and its rituals. The study not only uncovers the musical system of baiqi, but also encapsulates various issues of performed identity, social interaction, performer/audience, associated behaviors, the musical construction of space, and transmission.