In this first ethnomusicological analysis of ancient Andean musical instruments, Dale Olsen breathes life and humanity into the music making of pre-Hispanic cultures in the northern and central Andes. Assessing three decades' worth of anthropological findings from diverse collections, museums, tombs, and temples, Olsen asks, "What did music mean in the lives of these pre-Columbians?" Part musical quest, part adventure of the mind, the book explores why, when, and how the instruments were played and provides a tangible link not only to a wealth of material culture but to the spirit of these ancient people as well."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
In many places around the world, flutes and the sounds of flutes are powerful magical forces for seduction and love, protection, vegetal and human fertility, birth and death, and other aspects of human and nonhuman behavior. This book explores the cultural significance of flutes, flute playing, and flute players from around the world as interpreted from folktales, myths, and other stories--in a word, ""flutelore."" A scholarly yet readable study, World Flutelore: Folktales, Myths, and Other Stories of Magical Flute Power draws upon a range of sources in folklore, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and literary analysis. Describing and interpreting many examples of flutes as they are found in mythology, poetry, lyrics, and other narrative and literary sources from around the world, veteran ethnomusicologist Dale Olsen seeks to determine what is singularly distinct or unique about flutes, flute playing, and flute players in a global context. He shows how and why flutes are important for personal, communal, religious, spiritual, and secular expression and even, perhaps, existence. This is a book for students, scholars, and any reader interested in the cultural power of flutes.
Music helps form and nurture ethnic identity for large populations of people of Japanese descent in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, and Paraguay. In a story never before told, Dale Olsen offers a musical history and ethnography of this vibrant Asian diaspora, the largest population of overseas Japanese in the world and one of the most successful subcultures in South America. An early immigration of Nikkei--people of Japanese heritage--landed on the coast of Peru in 1899. Hundreds of thousands more arrived in the first half of the 20th century, most seeking work as agricultural laborers. Olsen argues that music became essential for nourishing their "Japaneseness," perhaps second only to speaking the Japanese language. Music making, music listening, and dancing all express the soul of the people and tell others who they are, he says. Communicated and transmuted through the intricate workings of collective memory, music has the power to reconstruct and manipulate cultural identity; it helps immigrants maintain strong connections to their ancestral home and to forge new ones in their adopted culture. Olsen provides a history of Nikkei emigration and music from the Japanese homelands, comments on the contributions and the roles of song contests and karaoke in shaping their new social life and identity, and discusses Nikkei aesthetic values. His research sources include interviews, memoirs of immigrants and their children, newspaper accounts of Nikkei musical experiences and thoughts, and observations of musical events. Olsen also documents and interprets his own performances with and for the Nikkei on the Japanese shakuhachi flute. Covering five generations of Nikkei over more than a century, this ethnomusicological investigation makes an original contribution to Japanese diaspora studies. It will be of special interest to scholars of the sociology of immigrant cultures and identity formation, Asian and Latin American studies, and ethnomusicology. It offers a model of innovative theoretical and experimental ways to learn about subcultures in diaspora.
Based on the author’s research in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and other urban areas in Vietnam, this study of contemporary Vietnamese popular music explores the ways globalization and free market economics have influenced the music and subcultures of Vietnamese youth, focusing on the conflict between the politics of remembering, nurtured by the Vietnamese Communist government, and the politics of forgetting driven by the capitalist interests of the music industry. Vietnamese youth at the end of the second and beginning of the third millennium are influenced by the challenges generated by a number of seemingly opposite ideologies and realities, such as "the past" versus "the present," socialism versus capitalism, and cultural traditionalism versus globalization. Vietnam has undergone a radical demographic shift with a very pronounced youth movement, and consequently, Vietnamese popular culture has been radically reshaped by a young population coming of age in the twenty-first century. As Olsen reveals, the way Vietnamese young people cope with these opposing and contrasting forces is often expressed in their active and passive music making.
Based on the author’s research in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and other urban areas in Vietnam, this study of contemporary Vietnamese popular music explores the ways globalization and free market economics have influenced the music and subcultures of Vietnamese youth, focusing on the conflict between the politics of remembering, nurtured by the Vietnamese Communist government, and the politics of forgetting driven by the capitalist interests of the music industry. Vietnamese youth at the end of the second and beginning of the third millennium are influenced by the challenges generated by a number of seemingly opposite ideologies and realities, such as "the past" versus "the present," socialism versus capitalism, and cultural traditionalism versus globalization. Vietnam has undergone a radical demographic shift with a very pronounced youth movement, and consequently, Vietnamese popular culture has been radically reshaped by a young population coming of age in the twenty-first century. As Olsen reveals, the way Vietnamese young people cope with these opposing and contrasting forces is often expressed in their active and passive music making.
In many places around the world, flutes and the sounds of flutes are powerful magical forces for seduction and love, protection, vegetal and human fertility, birth and death, and other aspects of human and nonhuman behavior. This book explores the cultural significance of flutes, flute playing, and flute players from around the world as interpreted from folktales, myths, and other stories--in a word, ""flutelore."" A scholarly yet readable study, World Flutelore: Folktales, Myths, and Other Stories of Magical Flute Power draws upon a range of sources in folklore, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and literary analysis. Describing and interpreting many examples of flutes as they are found in mythology, poetry, lyrics, and other narrative and literary sources from around the world, veteran ethnomusicologist Dale Olsen seeks to determine what is singularly distinct or unique about flutes, flute playing, and flute players in a global context. He shows how and why flutes are important for personal, communal, religious, spiritual, and secular expression and even, perhaps, existence. This is a book for students, scholars, and any reader interested in the cultural power of flutes.
Musics of Many Cultures is designed to guide students through the diverse chapters of Elizabeth May's textbook for college and university world music classes. The workbook will help both music and non-music majors to more clearly understand the materials in the book; it will also aid in preparations for exams.
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