Henry Johnson

‘Happy Diwali!’ Performance, Multicultural Soundscapes and Intervention in Aotearoa/New Zealand

One of the more recent annual cultural highlights in Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand, is the public celebration of Diwali, the Hindu ‘Festival of Lights’. Since 2002, Diwali has been presented to a wider New Zealand public as a particularly visible performance event. The festival is showcased as a way of celebrating New Zealands various South Asian communities, and has been placed into a spatial terrain that has performance at its core. Drawing on ethnographic field research at Diwali celebrations in New Zealand over the past few years, as well from interviews with key informants, this article addresses insiders’ perceptions of the public Diwali festival in Wellington in terms of its significance in New Zealands contemporary multicultural setting. The study draws on theoretical ideas from ethnomusicology and cultural studies, and shows how contemporary global processes and modes of cultural representation are played out in a public festival as a result of organizational intervention from outside the local South Asian community. It is argued that a study of this particular performance event, which provides an ethnomusicological case study in the dialectics of tradition and its transformation, creates a new spatiality that contributes to the analysis and understanding of diaspora in the New Zealand context, especially with regard to how identity is shaped and constructed through and as a result of performance.

A survey of present-day Japanese concepts and classifications of musical instruments

Abstract Japanese musical instruments are classified in Japan today in numerous and unique ways. As well as using well-known international classifications, together with other modern-day Japanese and non-Japanese counterparts, Japanese classifications of musical instruments are found on several levels of discourse. An examination of such hierarchies and divisions reveals not only an abundance of information about the structures of the instruments themselves, but also about aspects of Japanese culture in general. This initial survey examines Japanese concepts of, names for, and classifications of musical instruments.

I'm Not Dead Yet: A Comparative Study of Indigenous Language Revitalization in the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey.

At the outset of the twenty-first century, the survival of many minority and indigenous languages is threatened by globalization and the ubiquity of dominant languages such as English in the worlds of communication and commerce. In a number of cases, these negative trends are being resisted by grassroots activists and governments. Indeed, there are many examples of activists and governments working together in this manner to preserve and revitalize indigenous languages and cultures. Such coordinated efforts are vital to the success of language revitalization. This article compares the work of language activists and governments in three small island jurisdictions in the British Isles: the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. Comparison between these cases is greatly facilitated by similarities in their political, economic and demographic circumstances. The cases, however, reveal important differences in the way that activists and governments have responded to the challenges of language revitalization, as well as some interesting insights on the future prospects of the indigenous languages of these small island jurisdictions.

The sounds of Myūjikku. An exploration of concepts and classifications in Japanese Sound Aesthetics

Abstract The parameters of Japanese concepts and classifications of music are examined to show how a variety of sounds are classified and understood through aesthetic experience in the Japanese soundscape. In particular, the discussion is concerned with concepts of sound aesthetics inside and outside conventional music contexts. It is here that the need for further parameters in the ethnomusicological study of the anthropology of sound is reinforced. The first section surveys some key terms used in the classification of Japanese music. Included is a discussion of general and specific terms that reveal different parameters of music structures on social, cultural and historical levels. Moreover, some indigenous concepts of music have actually been devised in response to non‐Japanese concepts, especially since the latter half of the nineteenth century. The second part looks inward at concepts of sound and noise within music, particularly at some types of sound effects, or sounds that are added to music and h...

‘Click, Play and Save’: The iGamelan as a Tool for Music-culture Sustainability

This article explores the potential for web-based interactive music resources to represent and sustain music-culture heritage via digital means. Our focus is the University of Otago’s virtual Indonesian gamelan (iGamelan): an immersive online resource featuring interactive musical instruments, an audio-video gallery, and information archive. Designed in 2010–2011 for use within the tertiary education context, the iGamelan stands alone as an innovative learning/teaching tool, and also enhances real-life instructional sessions with the University’s pelog/slendro Central Javanese gamelan. This article illuminates the pitfalls and achievements of the iGamelan project and, at a broader level, demonstrates how contemporary technology can help sustain active music-making cultures.

Amami park and island tourism: Sea, land and islandness at a site of simulation

Amami Park is a nature and culture centre located in the Amami islands in the southwest of Japan. Objects are displayed on one site and marketed for tourists, whether on-island, in the Amami islands or more distant. This article discusses Amami Park in terms of the themes of sea, land and islandness, which emerged as topics for discussion during the research process with regard to how Amami Park represents itself, and the cultural meaning of such presentation and its relevance in the tourist industry. Amami Park offers a range of media through which to showcase the history, nature and culture of the Amami islands, and it offers numerous objects, audiovisual displays and other types of media with much description, representation and celebration of local and archipelagic identity. In this island setting, the article discusses the objects and their presentation, focussing on theme park analysis, cultural tourism and self-representation. Drawing on theoretical ideas pertaining to the notion of “simulation”, as applied to the recontextualization of disparate items in one location, the article shows how this particular nature and culture centre can be viewed as a microcosm of broader social and touristic themes in Japan, particularly with regard to the process of traveling to “other” locations within the domestic tourism industry. The article divides into three main parts that describe, analyze and discuss Amami Park, respectively through an ethnographic and critical lens.

‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’: Responses to 3/11 – Constructing Community Through Music and the Music Industry

This chapter offers an insight into the construction of community through music and the music industry in response to Japans 3/11 triple disasters: earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident. Disasters have the power to capture the emotions of people in far-reaching ways. Such events as acts of war, terrorism, earthquakes, tsunamis or major accidents will unfailingly conjure up images of tragedy and devastation, and will have a lasting impact on those directly and indirectly affected by the event. The chapter provides three contrasting case studies that explore the use of music in the music industry in the aftermath of 3/11. It looks at the Japanese response to the nuclear disaster in connection with how the anti-nuclear movement reacted through the intervention of established and influential musicians, as well as rising stars. The chapter explores an international response through the music industry and collaboration between several major record labels. Keywords: earthquake; Japanese response; music industry; nuclear disaster; tsunami

Contemporary Approaches to Transcultural Music Research in Australia and New Zealand

Music research in the twenty-first century approaches the study of music and people making music in increasingly interdisciplinary and diverse ways. From historical method to music ethnography, and encompassing any music style of any period or any place, the many fields of music scholarship have inherently broadened and diversified not only as ways of thinking about music have changed and expanded, but also as a reaction to the development of new music styles and, perhaps most strikingly, as a result of social, cultural and technological flows across regional and global spheres. Australia and New Zealand are unique geopolitical contexts of transcultural connection with their colonial histories and postcolonial identity. From indigenous peoples to recent migrant flows, and from cultural heritage to cultural drift, the notion of crossing cultures in expressions of musical and cultural identity is a phenomenon inherent in many styles of music, old and new. As a construct that provides a reference point for locating cultural or national affiliation or association, the notion of cultural identity is a contested term. On the one hand, it gives a sense of social harmony, a unified social group who share many cultural and social traits. On the other hand, however, identity formation is far more complex, often exhibiting multiple sites of affiliation and crossing social and cultural margins. Through music, as one cultural form, people express individual and cultural identity in complex ways. The inherent eclecticism of many creative arts can often provide distinct examples of composers or performers working within and across cultural boundaries. While transculturalism may at times not be a surface-level experience, there are often examples of music and musicians working distinctly across real and perceived cultural frontiers. There is also social hybridity where the movement of people and their diasporic flows create social contexts of transcultural relevance. Traditional and new music forms are often constructed across cultures, moving between and across real and imagined boundaries. This special issue is about transcultural border crossings: musics, cultures and disciplines. The issue contributes to contemporary ways of thinking about the diverse musics of Australia and New Zealand; it opens up avenues for re-thinking disciplinary approaches to music research; and it celebrates the cultural diversity and identity of established and more recent music styles, as well as the people who make the music in the first place. The papers in this issue of Musicology Australia offer seven case studies on the contemporary transcultural phenomenon in Australia and New Zealand. The papers have

Old, New, Borrowed … : Hybridity in the Okinawan Guitarscape

Japan has a variety of ‘guitars’ (using a wide definition of the term) and other types of lute. There are instruments that are considered traditional, or old in the Japanese historio-cultural context, many of which actually have acknowledged roots from outside Japan; there are instruments with a form that was clearly transplanted as a result of the impact of western culture on Japan and the Japanisation of western music after around the middle of the nineteenth century; and there are new instruments that are the product of contemporary global flows and found in various spheres of Japanese society, culture, technology and media. Each of these helps to show the importance of guitars and other lutes in historical and present-day Japan, as well as offering the fields of ethnomusicology and organology topics for study that contribute to understanding local guitarscapes in a global context, as well as the impact these instruments have had on the lives of people connected to and associated with them. This article offers an analysis of two relatively new Japanese guitars, both of which emanate from Okinawa: the ichigo ichie (four strings) and the sanrere (three strings). This discussion is built around historical, ethnographic and critical approaches with the objective of showing both the breadth of the Japanese guitarscape, as well as providing two case studies through which to comprehend one sphere of the guitar phenomenon in Japan, and more specifically Okinawa as a peripheral region, as a global consumer and producer of the instrument.

A Modernist Traditionalist: Miyagi Michio, Transculturalism, and the Making of a Music Tradition

This chapter examines Miyagi Michios achievements in the 1920s and 1930s, a distinct period of Japanese modernism. Within a paradigm that stresses transcultural flows, the discussion focuses on three facets of Miyagis modernism, particularly in connection with his accomplishments on the koto: the invention of instruments; external and internal cultural flows; and the foundation of a new music tradition. The three main parts of the chapter contribute to a re-thinking of Miyagi as a modernist traditionalist, a maker of music tradition. Miyagi is best known for his performance accomplishments and compositional creativity on the koto . Miyagis influences extended into various spheres of Japanese and Western music. These excursions included crossing various cultural boundaries as a way of extending his musical influences. Keywords: Miyagi Michio; modernist traditionalist; music tradition; transculturalism