British Forum for Ethnomusicology

Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Kevin Dawe
Reviewed work(s):
Healing, Feasting and Magical Ritual: Songs and Dances from Papua New Guinea by John
Thornley
Source: British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 11, No. 1, Red Ritual: Ritual Music and
Communism (2002), pp. 178-179
Published by: British Forum for Ethnomusicology
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4149894
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178 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.1 1/i 2002
by
a
very young
and
already
brilliant Zakir
Hussain.
Low-fi
bootleg
cassettes of the
concert were
widely
circulated in
Afghani-
stan and it is wonderful to have at last the
original
excellent
recording
made available
by
Smithsonian
Folkways.
The CD covers the full
range
of Kabuli
art music for the
rubab,
starting
with the
naghma-ye
chahartuk
(four-part
instrumen-
tal
piece)
in
Rag
Yeman,
familiar to all the
Ustad's
many
students. This has a
long
shakl
(introductory section)
and
exemplary
use of the
high
drone
string
to create
periods
of excitement in the main
composition.
A
naghma-ye
klasik (classical
instrumental
piece, equivalent
to
alap
and
gat
in
India)
follows in
Rag Bhupali;
here the metric
cycle
is
Japtal (10 matras).
Zakir Hussain
follows with a tabla solo in
Japtal,
there is
another
naghma-ye
chartuk in
Rag
Pilu
with an extended shakl that modulates to
several related melodic
modes,
and the con-
cert ends with a fine
example
of Pashtun
regional
music in the Kesturi mode. These
are
vitally important
documents from the
golden age
of
Afghan
music;
an
inspiration
for a new
generation
of rubab
players.
JOHN BAILY
Music
Department,
Goldsmiths
College,
London
University
j.baily@gold.ac.uk
Healing, feasting
and
magical
ritual:
songs
and dances
from Papua
New
Guinea,
CD.
Recordings, photo-
graphs
and text
by
John
Thornley.
Maps.
International
Collection of
the National Sound
Archive/Topic
Records Ltd.
(2001)
TSCD918
I
hope
the reader will
permit
a short
pream-
ble before I
turn
my
attention to the above
CD.
During
the summer of 2001
I had the
good
fortune to
spend
some time in
Papua
New
Guinea,
travelling
between the
capital
Port
Moresby
and the
Southern
Highlands
Province. I also
spent
a short time at the
Institute of
Papua
New Guinea Studies in
Boroko.
Here,
under the direction of Don
Niles,
is housed one of the most
amazing
collections of field
recordings
that I have
ever seen. The master
recordings
are
kept
in
a sealed metal unit in the
courtyard,
while
the
copies
line the shelves of the Institute's
library.
The amount of effort
required
to
maintain and further the work of the Insti-
tute is
mind-boggling, reflecting
the rich-
ness, variety
and
complexity
of musical
culture in
Papua
New
Guinea,
working
in
difficult and ever
changing
socio-economic
conditions.
While at the Institute I
acquired
a
copy
of the
Papua
New Guinea music collection
(Niles
and
Webb, 1988),
which consists of
a
large
A4 booklet and 11 cassette
tapes.
It
is an
introductory survey
and
sample
of the
musical cultures of various
peoples
in the
provinces
of PNG.
Breathtaking
in
scope,
it is an
extremely
useful
teaching
tool. The
breadth of this collection is
complemented
by
the
depth
of the more recent collection
of field
recordings
released
by
Steven Feld
in 2001. Bosavi is another welcome and
broad-ranging
document of
music,
song
and
dance in the life of the Kaluli.
(Hopefully,
reviews of these two
important
works will
appear
in the BJE in the near
future).
The
Niles and Webb Music Collection and
Feld's
Bosavi,
along
with a selection of
pop,
rock and
reggae-influenced
albums from the
CHM studios in Port
Moresby,
could
pro-
vide a formidable introduction to the music
of PNG for
ethnomusicologists, students,
and other interested
parties
alike.
What then am I to make of a CD that was
recently
sent for review entitled
Healing,
feasting
and
magical ritual:
songs
and
dances
from Papua
New Guinea? Let us not
forget
that the aforementioned two sets of
field
recordings
set
very high
standards
indeed,
drawing
on
years
of research in the
field and
in-depth knowledge
of the local
music scene.
Surprisingly then, John
BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.1 1/i 2002 179
Thornley
comes
up
with a rather
useful,
though ultimately problematic,
set of
recordings representing
a
sample
of music
from several
provinces
of PNG.
Thornley
is
a former senior
producer
for BBC Radio 3
who has recorded music in
Greece, Turkey,
"Central Asia"
(what,
all
over?), India,
Australia and Melanesia
(not
a
country!).
We are
told,
in the
fairly
detailed liner
notes,
that he also
produced
Radio 3's
weekly
"traditional" music series for more than
ten
years
"and is now a writer and media
consultant in London"
(21).
The
trip
to
PNG was funded
by
a
bursary
from the
Commonwealth Relations
Trust,
the record-
ings finding
their
way
into and released
under the
auspices
of the International
Music Collection of the British
Library
Sound Archive.
The 24
recordings
cover a broad
sweep
of the territories known
collectively
as
Papua
New Guinea. The tracks move from
the
Highlands
to the
outlying islands,
from
Mount
Hagen
to New
Ireland,
from "tradi-
tional"
songs
to
instrumentals,
from "war-
rior
songs"
to
"healing songs", songs
of
work, love,
courtship,
and
hunting,
to instru-
mentals
featuring
slit drums and friction
drums. There are also tracks
featuring
the
calls of
birds,
fire
dancing, sing-sings,
and
shark-calling.
The
recordings
are
superbly
done.
They
make a
fascinating
sound col-
lage,
with clever use of
foregrounds
and
backgrounds
that
(with
the
right
head-
phones)
set
up
a
wrap-around
acoustic
experience.
The inclusion of ambient
sounds with the music is
revealing,
but we
are not
talking
Bosavi here. The
sequence
of
events within each track is
explained
in
some detail. One knows what to look out for
and finds it.
However,
I do wonder if we
really
need this
type
of
experience as,
per-
haps,
a first
exposure
to a musical culture in
this
day
and
age (with
more
finely grained
surveys
and case studies
available).
One
ends
up
with a Cook's tour of
PNG,
in
which one hears musicians in action (there
are also some
interesting photographs
of
kundu drums
being
tuned and
played)
but
never
gets
to know
anything
much about the
worlds which these
very
different
types
of
people
inhabit.
As
argued again
and
again
in recent
ethnomusicological writing,
it is
ethically
wrong
not to name the musicians featured
in field
recordings.
To be
fair, Thornley
does mention some of the musicians who
solo and duet for him. And he dedicates the
CD to one of the musicians featured who
has since died.
However,
we need to know
all the musicians who
played
for him
(whether
two or
twenty
on one
recording)
and whether
they
were
paid
for their time
and efforts. Who do
they
send the
royalty
cheque
to? Who did the translations? This is
a
promising piece
of musical detective work
that
ultimately
turns out to be an
incomplete
(how
could it be
anything else?) and,
more
to the
point, frustrating
document. More of
a
"world
music"
foray
into the
undergrowth
than a serious
investigation
of PNG
music,
this collection has its limitations.
However,
any
documentation of musical life in a
country
where
ways
of life are
changing
as
fast as
pipelines
are laid deserves a
hearing.
Look out for it on the shelves of
your
local
music
megastore.
References
Feld,
Steven
(2001)
Bosavi:
rainforest
music
from Papua
New Guinea. Smith-
sonian
Folkways Recordings/Institute
of
Papua
New Guinea Studies.
(Booklet
and set of 3
CDs)
SFW-CD-40487
(?22.99).
Niles, Don,
and Michael Webb
(1988)
Papua
New Guinea music collection.
Boroko: Institute of
Papua
New Guinea
Studies.
(Booklet
and set of 11 cassette
tapes)
ISBN 9980-68-010-5
(ipngs @global.net.pg).
KEVIN DAWE
School
of Music, University of
Leeds
k.n.dawe@ leeds.ac.uk