Hand Drum Research Articles

Enabling participation in joint drumming within organizational workshops

Abstract Art-based interventions are increasingly employed in workplace settings for the purposes of organizational training and development. In this article, we examine the implementation of a workshop where hand drumming is used in two client organizations. Through the detailed analysis of the trainers’ actions, the article shows how the trainers use the combination of verbal and embodied means in order to instruct and encourage participation in joint drumming. In particular, the article demonstrates how the trainers’ instructive practice change across the instructional phases of the workshop and form a trajectory from pre-planned rhythm patterns to free collective improvisation in the pre-designed service product.

The Historical Context and Present Scenario of Madal

Madal is a two-faced hand drum used in Nepali music. It is also well-known throughout the world as a percussion instrument commonly employed in Nepali traditional music. In terms of its structure and playing style, limited works of literature and treatise have mentioned some rhythmic instruments akin to the madal. The origins of the madal have been linked to ancient instruments such as the mridanga, mardal, and muraj. The evolving trend of this musical instrument has been thoroughly examined in this study. The sources of information for this study were textual reviews and field trip notes. Furthermore, the researcher has also reviewed some research studies focusing on the caste and communities associated with madal. As a result, the current study is intended to be a valuable resource for people interested in learning more about madal. Similarly, this study has underlined the importance of madal in the current global context.

Interpretation of Gogol’s works on the puppet theater stage (based on the spectacle by Oksana Dmitrieva «May night, or Moonlight Witchcraft»)

Interpretation of Gogol’s works on the puppet theater stage (based on the spectacle by Oksana Dmitrieva «May night, or Moonlight Witchcraft»)

Thunder Finder

This video is about a Métis youth’s (Kaitrina Harrisson) journey of self-discovery, specifically their sexuality. Speaking of the past, finding inspiration; into the present, acknowledging their identity; and to the future, carrying hope. They also speak about the help lent to them by the hand drum and grandfather drum. Throughout the video, Kaitrina is heard drumming with the women’s and men’s drum circles they are a part of. Kaitrina created this video through a research project entitled: Promoting healthy urban environments for young Indigenous peoples: The case of M'Wikwedong Native Cultural Resource Centre. The research team was formed by the M’Wikwedong Youth Group (Ryerson King, Kaitrina Harrisson, Steven Schlonies, Nikita Jones, and James Schlonies) and the Centre for Environmental Health Equity at Queen’s University (Carlos Sanchez-Pimienta and Jeffrey Masuda). This video displays a previous iteration of the name of this project. M'Wikwedong recently changed its name to "M'Wikwedong Indigenous Friendship Centre."

Raciocínio visuoespacial: uma comparação entre a construção de um tambor de mão nativo americano e a geometria cirúrgica

Este artigo centra-se na construção de um tambor de mão por um fabricante de tambor nativo americano e na construção de uma anastomose por um cirurgião cardiovascular torácico. Nenhuma das atividades ocorrerram com instruções ou ilustrações escritas. Cada construção ocorreu através da sua capacidade de mover imagens e procedimentos mentais na ponta dos dedos com a utilização do raciocínio visuoespacial (Owens, 2015). Para o fabricante do tambor, o aprendizado ocorreu por meio da orientação, da observação e da prática. Cada um deles, o fabricante do tambor e o cirurgião, desenvolveu ricas habilidades de raciocínio espacial baseadas em relacionamentos. Para o fabricante de tambor, os relacionamentos têm a ver com a geometria do tambor e os seus componentes, assim como as relações de geometria cirúrgica existem na sala de operação. Para a resistência do tambor, as tensões são sentidas com a ponta dos dedos, a mesma experiência do cirurgião. Paralelos são destacados entre essas atividades aparentemente não relacionadas com a discussão de possíveis implicações para a Educação Matemática.

Front Cover: Phosphine Oxidation with Water and Ferrocenium(III) Cation Induced by Visible‐Light Irradiation (Chem. Eur. J. 70/2018)

The ferrocenium(III) cation can be excited by visible light to give a photoexcited species, which is further quenched by an electron transfer from phosphine, with the formation of ferrocene and phosphine radical cation. Here, excitation and quenching of the fluorescence behavior of the ferrocenium(III) cation can be expressed as the beating of a tsuzumi and the propagation of its sound, respectively. The tsuzumi is a Japanese traditional hand drum that resembles the molecular shape of metallocenes. More information can be found in the Communication by Y. Nishibayashi, et al. on page 18618.

Youth-Engaged Art-Based Research in Cape Breton: Transcending Nations, Boundaries and Identities

2017, in conjunction with celebrations of 150 years of Canadian Confederation and with funding from government programs, young people from across Cape Breton Island were invited to participate in a performance creation project to explore narratives and experiences of migration and encounter. Youth (ranging in age from seven to nineteen) from disparate places, including Membertou First Nation (a reserve), Chéticamp (an Acadian, francophone town), Étoile de l’Acadie (a francophone school and community centre in Sydney), and Whitney Pier (a district of Sydney that is home to diverse immigrant cultures, primarily from Barbados, Italy, Newfoundland, Poland, Croatia and Ukraine) all met in their own communities. They listened to elders discuss their own experiences of migration and encounter, and responded by creating new performance pieces grounded in song, dance, film (including new technologies such as virtual reality and 360-degree cameras), spoken word and story. They came together on 22 October 2017 to share their creative work with one another and with public audiences. We examine issues that arose during the creative process and of young participants’ post-process reflections, according to each of the ways in which Vertovec (“Conceiving”) has identified transnationalism. Interpretations of the Cape Breton youths’ own senses of rooted place are positioned in relation to transnational experiences present within their communities. These young people’s expressions of the local (for example, Acadian step dance and Mi’kmaq traditional drumming) morph into expressions of the transnational (for example, hip hop and pop music production); musical expressions use so-called traditional instruments (bagpipes or hand drums), DJ mixing techniques, djembe, Acadian folk music, and Elvis. Problematizing assumptions about what it is to be a Cape Bretoner, and interrogating how migration and resulting encounters have shaped how these young people choose to express themselves, this paper examines how they simultaneously express and contest transnationalism.

Therapeutic Applications for Integrating Rhythm and Reflection in Support of People with Co-occurring Drug and Alcohol and Mental Health Issues

This article examines the use of rhythmic music in support of people managing co-occuring drug abuse and mental health conditions, and is based on the authors 15 years’ experience as a group counsellor working in this field. Expressive therapies are gaining increasing traction as respected intervention techniques for this client group, as the limits of ‘talk-based’ approaches are exposed. This is particularly true for engaging people in treatment who find discussions confronting or who are uncomfortable with language, including many individuals from minority cultures. Rhythmic music, using hand drums and percussion, is one of the simplest forms of music to introduce into a therapeutic setting and is particularly suited to group therapy. Recent neurological research has showcased the positive impact of rhythmic music for people who have experienced trauma, improving emotional regulation and reducing stress and anxiety associated with relapse. Additionally, experiential therapies such as drumming offer an important balance in residential treatment settings where people may be attending several therapy sessions per day; the result of which can be mental exhaustion. Physical therapies such as drumming can help re-energise clients in these situations, as well as those on sedative medications. Many services resist the introduction of music into their treatment programs due to a perceived lack of expertise or lack of confidence. This article argues that music is too important as a therapeutic healing tool to be left solely to the musical expert, and that many musical exercises, particularly those with a psycho-educational focus that utilise simple rhythmic hand drumming, can be utilised by therapists, with very little musical training, in a fun, empowering and effective way.

波と鼓・聞きなしの系譜 : 『梁塵秘抄』今様と西行歌に着目して

波と鼓・聞きなしの系譜 : 『梁塵秘抄』今様と西行歌に着目して

“We All Stand Side by Side”: An Interview with Elizabeth LaPensée

“We All Stand Side by Side”An Interview with Elizabeth LaPensée Joanna Hearne (bio) and Elizabeth LaPensée (bio) Excerpts from a Skype interview, September 6, 2016. joanna hearne (jh): Thank you for providing the cover art for the special issue that we’re doing on digital Indigenous studies. Everyone loved this piece, The Women, They Hold the Ground. How did you come to make that piece, and how, physically, did you make it? How does it have meaning for you as an artwork? elizabeth lapensée (el): So there are two aspects to this. One is the origin piece, and then one is the newer inspiration. I think this is the only piece that I’ve actually done this with, where there’s a recreation of an older piece. So the original concept was from some years ago, a painting titled The Women, They Hold the Ground, and the Windigo Lies Within, with women dancing on the curve of the earth in jingle dresses. Then within the earth there were rocks that were cracking, and then below that were dinosaur spirits, but one was really voracious. The piece was about the tapping of the land—the splitting of the land happening for oil. It was intended to show people coming together, them holding hands and dancing these healing dances. Then, of course, there was the moon as well, looking over them all. I ended up trading that painting for gardening and plants—that’s how these things go—with Shawna Zierdt, who’s a friend of mine. She’s actually the only person who has one of my paintings other than my own family. Because to paint to me is much different from the digital media work that I do, and no one really actually sees that work unless they’re in my house or in a family member’s house. But I thought that the story was vital to share, and as I moved to Minnesota and met with [End Page 27] the Oshkii Giizhik Singers, I saw that these women lived in this way. They all gathered together and they sang together. In The Women, They Hold the Ground, there are six that are visible to us, but there are actually seven. There’s one with Grandmother Moon, and so these go to the teachings that there are seven grandmothers. One of them is in the moon, the others are on the land. They are actually not holding hands, because what they are doing with their backs turned to us is that they are holding drums. When I made this, I had just moved from the West Coast, where men actively removed hand drums, like physically took them from women at a gathering, and so it was still not safe there for women to even hold hand drums. Then I come around Fond du Lac in Duluth, Minnesota, and there was a gathering of women who had worked through issues like that, and there were also so many elders who were women who were just saying, this is ridiculous, this has never been an issue, and nowhere was it ever said that women cannot drum. That was really inspiring to me, but I was not at a point where I could really just be like “here are the women standing in front of you drumming.” So that’s what they’re doing there. Otherwise they would be holding hands and more in a round dance kind of position. Then the materials are silver, and there’s copper, and there’s water. There’s water in there that has actually been sung water songs to so the texture of the water is, in effect, a reflection of what the appearance of water becomes when it has been sung these water songs. That was the first art there that was created, and it led to the game Honour Water in a lot of ways. The art predated the fruition of the game, but it was one and the same motion. What I typically write as an artist statement for this one is that it’s intended to pass on the teaching that we all stand side by side...

Madness, mystery and abnormality in the writing of Yumeno Kyūsaku

Yumeno Kyūsaku (1889–1936) has been labeled a writer of henkaku detective fiction since submitting his debut story, ‘Ayakashi no tsuzumi’ (‘The demonic hand drum’), to Shinseinen magazine for a competition in 1926. The term henkaku is rooted in the historical context of the 1920s and 1930s as a modifier of a subgenre of mystery fiction that eschewed puzzle-solving in favor of gothic atmospheres and strange happenings. This article considers the relationship between henkaku and gendered, early twentieth-century discourses of hentai (abnormality). Transitioning from an early emphasis on ‘abnormal sexology’ to ‘abnormal psychology’, Kyūsaku used the affective potential of visceral henkaku narratives to not only entertain readers, but to shock them into an examination of their own psyches and the limits of modern, rational thought. Kyūsaku's skepticism toward the ‘isms’ of his day resonated with a new audience, bringing the spirit of henkaku into the post-Second World War period when his works were rediscovered in the context of 1960s sub- and counter-culture.

“The Drum is Your Document”

Drawing upon Indigenous ways of knowing and the revitalization of Indigenous education, the author, as Anishinabekwe,1 “storysharer,” and drummer, explores the relationship between song and story in Anishinabe hand drumming and how this relationship both guides and reveals Anishinabe knowledge. To decolonize the research journey, the author turns to her relationship with her drum and its teachings of holism, relationality, and interconnectedness. The author explores how the teachings and interpersonal relationships centred around the drum help direct the production of a short documentary film.2 What ensues is a project that honours the ways Anishinabeg3 create and share knowledge and draws on performance (auto)ethnographic techniques to show rather than tell, thereby engaging both the hearts and minds of the audience. The author highlights conceptions of care, faith, and thanks in articulating a creative Indigenous methodology that is about “doing good work.”

Auditory and verbal memory in North Indian tabla drumming.

A pertinent theme in the study of auditory cognition is the extent to which there is overlap in the cognitive mechanisms involved in the parsing of musical structures and language (see, Bigand, Delbe, Poulin-Charronnat, Leman, & Tillmann, 2014; Koelsch, 2009; Patel, 2008; Williamson, Baddeley, & Hitch, 2010). Short-term memory (STM) is a crucial mechanism for the processing of both music and speech. It is responsible for the storage of sensory and categorical information over time spans of roughly 1-30 s (Baddeley, 2012; Jonides et al., 2008), and thus allows for the integration of strings of words into phrases and sentences, as well as the detection of repetition and variation in musical phrases. Whether STM is a blank-slate-type of buffer or affected by the long-term familiarity of stimuli has been intensively discussed in the verbal domain (see, Baddeley, 2012; Cowan, 2008; Thorn & Page, 2008), but research that has directly compared memory for verbal and musical materials has remained scarce.In the current study, we investigated whether familiarity facilitates auditory short-term serial recognition of sequences composed of vocal or drum sounds. We explored the example of the tabla, a pair of hand drums that is an integral part of North Indian classical music. Its tradition incorporates vocalizations that closely correspond to drum strokes, and thus allows for an ecologically relevant comparison between memory for verbal and instrumental acoustic stimuli. At the same time, tabla music is unknown to many western musicians such that we were able to recruit a truly naive control group of participants, which we compared with a group of tabla students. example of tabla therefore seems to be well suited to explore the role of long-term experience in the short-term matching of sound sequences, as well as potential differences between memory for speech and musical sequences.The North Indian TablaTabla is among the most versatile instruments in North Indian music. With its great timbral variety, it can be performed solo, in dance accompaniment (kathak), or to accompany melodic instruments such as the sitar, violin, or voice. There are six primary gharanas, that is, stylistic schools that may differ in technique, terminology, and pronunciation (Gottlieb, 1993; Shepherd, 1976). Here we draw from the Benares gharana, the tabla lineage that originated in Varanasi. For the sake of consistency, we denote the drums according to the terminology most commonly used by exponents of the Benares gharana, that is, dahina and bayan for the smaller and larger drum, respectively, romanized according to the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST). Other common names for the drums include dayan or tabla for the small drum and baya or bayan for the larger drum.Comprising repertoire made up of a multitude of cyclic and cadential compositional forms, tabla has traditionally been taught through a primarily oral tradition (Saxena, 2008). Compositions are usually memorized via a system of bols that constitute a solfege system for tabla.1 Using bols, the sounds of both drums can be expressed either individually or when two sounds are produced at once, simultaneously. As summarized by Shepherd (1976), The bol is an aid to memory and not a means of notating tabla strokes exactly. Each stroke on the tabla has one or more corresponding bols. tabla bol does not require the lips to touch and therefore can be spoken at great speed. In fact the recitation of composition is an art practiced in itself. (p. 279).Tabla vocables have been described as a case of onomatopoeia or verbal sound symbolism (Patel & Iversen, 2003).2 It is important to emphasize, however, that the mapping between bols and tabla sounds may vary across schools, and even more importantly, is not always one-to-one. In the Benares gharana, the relation is dependent on the musical context: Multiple bols may denote the same stroke, but one and the same bol may also refer to different strokes (see Table 1 for examples). …

世阿弥以降の能舞台様式の変化と『序破急五段』の関係性の研究

This study was conducted to consider the factors related to change in Noh stage style using <<johakyu go dan>> (johakyu five parts), which was established by Zeami (1363-1443) as “The grammar of Noh.” To this end, we examined the relations between Noh stage (jo zone, ha zone, and kyu zone) and musical accompaniment and dancing by employing three-dimensional computer graphics (3DCG) and statistical methods. Research was conducted with emphasis on the relation between the following two points as a method to clarify the factors of change in Noh stage after Zeami’s time. 1) Zeami changed ancient Chinese three-part <johakyu> to the five-part style of <<johakyu go dan>>, incorporated it into Noh scripts with dancing, chanting, and musical accompaniment, and formulated the basic principle: “The grammar of Noh.” 2) Areas for <johakyu> exist on a Noh stage, each of which has a conventional direction method. It is designed to enhance stage effects to a great degree. The following findings were obtained: 1. We tried to extract <johakyu> from data of small hand drums, shouts, and dancing. The results led us to observe the following characteristics of <johakyu>: “The part of jo is light, and the expression is slightly rough, ” “Ha delicately folds ups and down, adds a little relaxation, and keeps a moderate speed, ” and “Kyu is very fast and tense, and the tempo becomes faster.” Furthermore, in the part called “kuse” in which the most characteristic acting is performed in a Noh drama, the characteristics of <<johakyu go dan>> were noticed clearly. 2. Results of statistical analysis revealed correlation existed between each zone and each area of <johakyu> of Noh stage and dancing and musical accompaniment (small hand drums and shouts) of <<johakyu go dan>>. Therefore, we found that <<johakyu go dan>> might be involved in change in Noh stage style. Noh was mainly a Shinto ritual until the Heian period (794-1185). It had been developed and initiated by shrines and temples. After the Kamakura period (1185-1333), public entertainment such as Kanjin (temple solicitation)-Noh performance rose suddenly and reached its prime during the Muromachi period (1336-1573). Coupled with that, shoguns and court nobles came to play the role of Noh supporters instead of shrines and temples. <<Johakyu go dan>> was effective to attract shoguns and nobles with performance as seen in Fushikaden written by Zeami. It is considered that the construction of stage space was necessary to practice <<johakyu go dan>> effectively.

Percussion Pedagogy: A Survey of Music Therapy Faculty

Music therapists have used throughout the his- tory of the profession. While has been largely asso- ciated with its ability to express rhythm (Gaston, 1968; Reuer, Crowe, & Bernstein, 1995), more expansive views of percus- sion-as-music may be of benefit to the field. Philosophical (Mowitt, 2002) and ethnographic (Charry, 2000) writings imply a greater musical potential. Furthermore, the important use of explicit nontempered pitch and timbre relationships (Patel, 2008; Radocy & Boyle, 1997) may facilitate a greater understanding of instrumental capacity. Most recently, Knight and Matney (2012) discussed a broader impetus to base the use of in music therapy.According to a content analysis by Matney (2004), pub- lished articles and studies regarding the use of in therapy have focused primarily on, but are not limited to, improvisational and re-creative methods. Some examples include Liederman (1967), and Clair and Bernstein (1990), who engaged clients with dementia through various percus- sion utilizing rhythm and vibrotactile response. Likewise, Cevasco and Grant (2006) employed instruments to elicit rhythmic responses from clients diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. Lehrer-Carle (1971) explored the use of body and vocal with adolescents diagnosed with schizophrenia. Sausser and Waller (2005) utilized drums and auxiliary instruments to facilitate behav- ioral support, expression, and social cohesion with children diagnosed with emotional and behavioral disorders. Cohen and Ford (1995) note the use of body to facilitate speech production in persons with aphasia. Silverman and Marcionetti (2004) conducted a pilot study where clients who experience auditory hallucinations played hand drums while a therapist accompanied them on guitar. Nordoff and Robbins (1971) offered their Categories of Rhythmic Response within improvisations, including references to instru- ments such as cymbals and drums. Moreno (1980) noted the use of improvisation in conjunction with dramatic reenactments of events in a nonclinical setting. Bruscia (1991) provided several examples of use within a case study structure. Hilliard (2007) utilized xylophones and auxil- iary in Orff Schulwerk-based music improvisation to address childhood grief symptoms and behaviors. More recently, Hiller (2009) noted that is the most com- monly used instrumentation within clinical improvisation. Percussion appears to have a substantial instrumental pres- ence in music therapy literature, as well as in clinical practice.Even more, usage seems to be maintaining, and perhaps even expanding, its presence in the profession. Cassity (2007) conducted a Delphi poll of psychiatric music therapists that suggested interventions related to drumming were to see the biggest increase in usage by future clinicians in this area com- pared to several other intervention types. The American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) Assembly of Delegates voted in 2008 to add a separate section devoted to percussion to the Professional Competencies document (AMTA, 2010).Under this subheading, the competencies are listed as:7. Percussion Skills7.1 Accompany self and ensembles proficiently7.2 Utilize basic techniques on several standard and ethnic instruments7.3 Lead rhythm-based ensembles proficiently.Item 9.1 Improvise on instruments, although separate, is also important to the overall scope of functional skills. The Certification Board for Music Therapists (CBMT, 2010, II.A.5.w.4.) also states, To achieve therapeutic goals...employ functional skills with...percussion.An examination of the literature regarding music therapy pedagogy revealed limited information on teaching percus- sion. There exists a critical need to better understand how uni- versity faculty teaches skills to students, as well as what perceptions music therapy faculty have about teaching to their students. …

Hand Drumming: Health-Promoting Experiences of Aboriginal Women from a Northern Ontario Urban Community

Over the past 10 years, Aboriginal women from a northern Ontario urban community have been gathering to hand drum as a way to revive their culture and support one another. As a member of an Aboriginal women’s hand-drumming circle called the Waabishki Mkwaa (White Bear) Singers, I had a vision of exploring the connection between hand-drumming practices and health promotion, and was the primary researcher for the study described in this article. Adhering to Aboriginal protocols as part of an Indigenous research methodology, I offered traditional tobacco to members of the Waabishki Mkwaa Singers, as an invitation for them to be both co-researchers and participants in the study. In accepting the tobacco, the members agreed to help facilitate the research process, as well as to journal their experiences of the process and of their own hand-drumming practices. Using an Aboriginal Women’s Hand Drumming (AWHD) Circle of Life framework—a framework developed by the co-researchers of the study—we explored the physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional benefits of Aboriginal women’s hand-drumming practices, and examined how culture and social support networks are key determinants of Aboriginal women’s health. Results of the qualitative analysis show that the Aboriginal women’s involvement in hand-drumming circles has many health promoting benefits and builds on strengths already existent within their community. Through their experiences with hand drumming, the women reported gaining a voice and a sense of holistic healing, empowerment, renewal, strength and Mino-Bimaadiziwin (“good life”). These findings are consistent with evolving Aboriginal perspectives on health promotion.

Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality: The Body Shapes the Way We Play

It has been shown that it is possible to generate perceptual illusions of ownership in immersive virtual reality (IVR) over a virtual body seen from first person perspective, in other words over a body that visually substitutes the person's real body. This can occur even when the virtual body is quite different in appearance from the person's real body. However, investigation of the psychological, behavioral and attitudinal consequences of such body transformations remains an interesting problem with much to be discovered. Thirty six Caucasian people participated in a between-groups experiment where they played a West-African Djembe hand drum while immersed in IVR and with a virtual body that substituted their own. The virtual hand drum was registered with a physical drum. They were alongside a virtual character that played a drum in a supporting, accompanying role. In a baseline condition participants were represented only by plainly shaded white hands, so that they were able merely to play. In the experimental condition they were represented either by a casually dressed dark-skinned virtual body (Casual Dark-Skinned - CD) or by a formal suited light-skinned body (Formal Light-Skinned - FL). Although participants of both groups experienced a strong body ownership illusion towards the virtual body, only those with the CD representation showed significant increases in their movement patterns for drumming compared to the baseline condition and compared with those embodied in the FL body. Moreover, the stronger the illusion of body ownership in the CD condition, the greater this behavioral change. A path analysis showed that the observed behavioral changes were a function of the strength of the illusion of body ownership towards the virtual body and its perceived appropriateness for the drumming task. These results demonstrate that full body ownership illusions can lead to substantial behavioral and possibly cognitive changes depending on the appearance of the virtual body. This could be important for many applications such as learning, education, training, psychotherapy and rehabilitation using IVR.

At the Heart of It: Dene dzó t’áré by R. Taniton &amp; M. Willett

Taniton, Raymond and Mindy Willett. At the Heart of It: Dene dzó t’áré. Markham, On: Fifth House, 2011. Print. Indigenous author Raymond Taniton is a member of The Sahtugot’ine, or the “people of Great Bear Lake”. In At the Heart of It, Taniton invites readers into his world. We meet his family, see the Sahtu Region where he lives, meet the elders in the community, learn how to make a traditional hand drum, learn some games and read some of the stories. The stories are particularly important. This book is the most recent in Fifth House’s “The Land is Our Story Book” series, all co-authored by writer Mindy Willett. Taniton concludes this volume by saying, “The land is our storybook. It is our school, our library, our church. It is where we learn our stories and where we discover who we are as true Dene people. The land is at the heart of it all”. And in this book Taniton and Willett do succeed in helping us to understand “the land”. This is a picture book, an educational book and a celebration of what it means to be Satugot’ine. Tessa Macintosh’s photographs are used throughout. The top of each page has a border image of the beaded toes of twenty-one moccasins. Often a large image will form the background of a page with text and other images superimposed. For example, for the story “The Lake is the Boss”, the background is an image which looks out through the mouth of a cave. The story is about a giant wolf that lived in the cave. The text, along with smaller images of the island that the wolf became when he turned to stone, is superimposed on the cave photograph. The images and text, taken together, form many lessons for young people. The stories provide metaphorical and philosophical lessons, but the book also provides practical lessons, such as the illustrated steps to making a drum. As a whole, the book celebrates Raymond Taniton’s family, the Sahtugot’ine people and their way of life. Highly recommended for elementary school and public libraries. Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines. Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.

Erotic Triangles: Sundanese Dance and Masculinity in West Java (review)

Reviewed by: Erotic Triangles: Sundanese Dance and Masculinity in West Java Matthew Isaac Cohen Erotic Triangles: Sundanese Dance and Masculinity in West Java. By Henry Spiller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. xvii + 251 pp. Paper, $27.50. Picture what was once a common sight not only in the West Javanese highlands (also known as Sunda) but also in other parts of Indonesia and Southeast Asia. A social function in a remote village, perhaps a lively family celebration or maybe a festive communal rite, lit by smoky torches. An attractive female singer-dancer in traditional costume, accompanied by a small gong-chime musical ensemble infused with the energizing rhythms of a hand drum. Through movement and song, she entices male punters to put aside their social inhibitions to dance with her. Men intoxicated by alcohol, female beauty, music and the whole atmosphere of the event take to the dance floor to show off their moves. Some strike masculine poses with bravado, others clown around. The singer-dancer adroitly avoids drunken groping while providing sufficient encouragement in her voice and looks to fuel sexual desire. The drummer follows the lead of musically astute male dancers, dramatically emphasizing their moves and subtly molding the movements of dancers lacking musical sensitivity through sonic cues. Onlookers and musicians shout out encouragement to the intrepid male dancers. At the end of a musical piece, the male dancers place their palms together in a sembah of respect, hand money to the singer-dancers [End Page 313] and perhaps also the musicians, and retire from the stage. They are soon replaced by other men. Ronggeng, as the singer-dancers were once generally known in Java, are now rare. Even at traditionalist tayuban dance parties, the ronggeng role is bifurcated between typically young and attractive dancers on the dance floor and typically elderly pesinden (singers) who are seated with the gamelan musical ensemble. Yet in Sunda, the "erotic triangle" of the singer-dancer/drummer/male dancer triad remains an ideal informing popular dangdut shows and theatrical renditions of social dance such as tari tayub. Spiller's monograph is a structuralist analysis of this performance triangle based on fieldwork carried out in West Java in the late 1990s and incorporating a large range of historical and mythic materials from Sunda and other parts of the island of Java. Dancing with ronggeng (referred to in Sunda sometimes as ketuk tilu for village affairs or tayuban for aristocratic functions) appears on the surface to be simply a ludic diversion, a social occasion authorized by adat (custom) for men to burn money. But, as Spiller's erudite musical and choreographic analyses reveal, complex power dynamics are articulated in this performance arena. Drawing on Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's theory of homosocial desire, Spiller understands male dancers as "jockeying for power within a patriarchal system" (p. 165). Dancing allows them to express their masculine bravado without feeling shame; drumming in particular "empowers them to be bold" (p. 61). The drummer reputedly makes music to follow a dancing man of higher social status, but in subtly leading a dancer's movements he can overturn this hierarchical relation and even mock the artistic pretensions of his patron. To save face, among other reasons, wealthy devotees of social dance in the past generally brought along their own drummers to dance parties (p. 73). Ronggeng dancers are castigated for low morals and often assumed to be prostitutes. They also are idealized for their magical powers to attract men—which, Spiller argues, emerges from the divine origin of the profession in mythology. Social dancing balances freedom with structure. The dancing of the ronggeng is rhythmically regular, but her singing is free-metered. Dance movement is encoded into drumming and dancers generally move to this groove. But in the beat just before the gong stroke that concludes a musical phrase, male dancers stop in their tracks in a moment of cherished freedom known as ngala genah. As one Sundanese choreographer explained to Spiller, this pause allows the dancer to take stock of his surroundings and come back together with the people around him. Spiller ably surveys how various dance forms practiced in Sunda today are derived from the classic tayuban...

Commentary on "Rhythm

[1] As the first issue of Music Online (MTO) to be dedicated in its entirety to structural analysis of African and African-influenced music, this publications stands as a milestone in the field. It is not the first time that Music Online has included articles addressing world music (c.f. Anku 2000, Martinez 2000), but the issue confirms a renewed surge of academic interest in structural analyses of non-Western music. Most importantly that surge of interest is reaching beyond the field of ethnomusicology to include theorists and music scholars in general.[2] In February 2009 the University of Amherst hosted a much-celebrated conference dedicated to Approaches to World an effort that has led to the formation of a new journal dedicated to the topic. Readers working outside the field of ethnomusicology may not realize that after 1960 the discipline's growing emphasis on practice and cultural studies pushed structural analysis, in tandem with comparative study, to the periphery of the field (see Nettl 2010 for details on this history). Music theory and ethnomusicology seemed destined to travel separate paths until recently, when the trial-separation now appears to be headed towards reconciliation rather than divorce (c.f. Blum 2009). The new enthusiasm for the examination of musical structure confirmed by the Amherst conference, now recurring biennally, may have resulted simply from a growing awareness that scholars now have at their disposal a rich array of in-depth studies of music in their specific cultural contexts. That conference was preceded by a series of summer seminars and pioneering courses in comparative music theory, taught from a global perspective, led by Brenda Romero and Victoria Lindsey Levine at the University of Colorado and Colorado College dating back to the 1990s. Some of that work received sponsorship from the College Music Society(1) and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The appearance of Analytical Studies in World Music in 2006, a collection of case-studies edited by Michael Tenzer, brought an even larger public to structural analysis. Even then MTO led the way; Tenzer's article Theory and Analysis of Melody in Balinese Gamelan, appeared well before that in the August 2000 issue of this very journal. Tenzer's second book in this area, Analytical and Cross-Cultural Studies in World Music, co-edited with John Roeder, is coming to press on the heels of this issue of MTO in 2011.[3] As co-authors of this review, we find that our own work and experiences offer further evidence of the timeliness of this MTO focus. As a percussionist and ethnomusicologist with expertise in the traditions of drumming and gyil music in Ghana, Michael Vercelli brings a performer's perspective to this review and notes the utility of this collection for his teaching as Director of the World Music Performance Center at West Virginia University. Janet Sturman, whose work as an ethnomusicologist includes studies of Afro-diasporic traditions and whose service as a board member of the College Music Society includes efforts to build bridges between disciplines, is pleased to note the coincidence of this publication with the recent establishment of the doctoral program in music theory with an emphasis in ethnomusicology at the University of Arizona.[4] Like the composite parts of a well-rehearsed African percussion ensemble, the five articles that comprise this issue interlock in many ways. All the authors are respected scholars with a history of previous publication and performance credits. Three of them directly address African musical practice, while the other two move our attention to musics influenced by African aesthetics and practices. In Yewevu in the Metric Matrix, David Locke examines five selections from the religious drumming repertory of West Africa's Ewe people, who are situated in the modern nations of Ghana and Togo. In Rhythmic Feel as Meter: Non-Isochronous Beat Subdivision in Jembe Music from Mali, Rainer Polak examines a different West African tradition, focusing on aspects of performance repertories associated with the goblet-shaped hand drum known as jembe; while in Temporal Geometries of an African Martin Scherzinger takes the reader to Southern Africa with his examination of temporal organization in the repertories associated with the mbira and other lamellophone instruments in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. …