Although originating in the concept of colonization, the settlement abroad of peoples from a mother country, colonialism is now normally identified with rule by European states (or states settled by Europeans) over peoples of Asia and Africa and, in a different sense, over Amerindians and Aboriginal Australians, as well as peoples of Latin America. Within Europe, however, elements of colonialism may also be found, for example in the history of English rule over Ireland and in the domination of Czechs by surrounding German populations during the period 1620–1914. But typically, colonialism is characterized by domination by an alien minority, which asserts racial and cultural superiority over a majority considered inferior. Beginning with the establishment of colonial empires by nations of Western Europe from the 16th century to the 18th, colonialism received increased impetus in the race for colonies during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After World War II, most colonial areas gained formal independence, but the continuing predominance of culture and values of the former colonial powers as well as informal economic ties with them resulted in a form that has been called ‘neo-colonialism’.
Colonialism has affected musics and musical cultures directly and indirectly in significant ways. Indeed, it may be regarded as one of the most important influences of the history of world musics. Most importantly, it is an aspect of the relations between different societies and their musics, particularly Western and non-Western societies and musics. Colonialism and music may be approached from three perspectives: (a) development and change of musical style and sound, musical behaviour and musical conceptualization as a result of colonialism; (b) issues of interpretation, including appropriation and misinterpretation; and (c) the role of colonialism in the development of ethnomusicology.
Arguably the most significant changes in the world's musics during the 19th and 20th centuries are the result of colonialism. The appropriation of musical sounds and structures from colonized societies by Western art and popular musics throughout the 20th century, ranging from Debussy's use of gamelan-derived sounds to the ‘world beat’ and ‘world music’ styles of the 1990s, is one facet of musical colonialism. Another, doubtless more significant, is the multiplicity of ways in which non-Western musical societies have changed, stimulated or forced by contact with Western music and musical values, and indeed by Western cultural values at large.
The most prevalent and perhaps obvious result of colonialism is the hegemony of Western music in a colonized culture, with the subsequent decline of the traditional music and its relegation from central ritual and social functions to ‘native’ and ‘tribal’ social contexts, such as entertainment of tourists or celebration of the past. For example, the rich musical culture of Bali has in the late 20th century been nurtured substantially by tourists, for whom special performances are provided as a major type of event, and by visits from North American and European gamelans that perform for tourists as well as the Balinese. The complex musical culture of North American Plains Indians has been reduced to domination by the intertribal powwow complex, again performances for both Amerindian and non-Amerindian audiences. The repertories of the colonized cultures characteristically shrank in number of genres, styles and compositions, by standardization of forms and by reduction of the ways in which music could come about, as well as in the number of individuals who remained musically competent and active. Thus Plains Indians abandoned many rituals, which remained extant only in vague memory; the recordings of their music made in the 1980s exhibit less variety of forms and styles than those recorded early in the century; there are an increased proportion of songs without words but with vocables only; and there is virtually exclusive use of the ‘incomplete repetition’ form (e.g. AABCD BCD) in recent recordings. A very small number of older individuals and a few younger enthusiasts retain older songs in their memories. The concept of musical composition in dreams and visions has been abandoned. In other societies, the same trends may be observed: in East Asia, only a few individuals (including the great artists called ‘intangible national treasures’ in Japan and Korea) retain mastery of older traditions. In Iran, classical music has become standardized by the use of the radif of Mirza Abdollah (1845–1918) and the establishment of a standard group of genres (pishdarāmad, chahārmezrāb, āvāz, tasnif, reng) which in contrast to greater flexibility in the 19th century now constitute the officially complete performance.
The introduction of concepts common in 20th-century Western and particularly academic musical culture greatly affected the musical culture of colonized peoples as well as the concepts used by ethnomusicologists. Prominent among these is the establishment of boundaries separating musics in ways analogous to the separation of social groups, classes, racial groups and colonialists from colonized. Thus the commonly held view of the musical world as consisting of Western (dynamic) and other (static) seems to be a result of colonialist attitudes; similarly, the notion of music as culture-specific, though defensible on various grounds, may have similar roots and produce the concept that each society has its own music and may not easily understand others. The division of parts of Africa and Asia into colonies that became nation-states resulted in concepts such as ‘Nigerian music’, ‘Ghanaian music’ and ‘Indonesian music’, each of which combines musical phenomena once restricted to individual peoples within the nation. The concept of a somehow united Amerindian culture and music is clearly the result of the colonization of the Americas; and this is true of Australia as well.
The adoption of specific concepts and artefacts from Western music by colonized peoples may be interpreted variously: as the adoption of the West's superior technology, as an attempt to enter into the international musical system, as a syncretic device, or as denigration of the traditional system. Thus, the Western violin, which has become extraordinarily widespread on account of its flexibility and portability, becomes integrated into the soundscape of Indian music as a major accompanying instrument retaining little of its European character, while in Persian music it brought with it the Western style of playing and tone production, adding these to the Persian concepts of music-making. Among peoples of Amazonian Ecuador, violins with two or three strings and a bow of bark imitated the repertory of the older musical bow, while the so-called Navajo violin or Apache fiddle, with one horsehair string, was introduced in the vocal repertory.
Reinterpretation and appropriation of the musical culture of the colonized by the colonial powers is also typical. For example, the Didjeridu, once used as a drone accompaniment to ceremonial singing by peoples of northern Australia, was gradually adopted by Aboriginals throughout Australia as a musical emblem in imitation of the prominence of instruments in Western music. It became a symbol of Australian Aboriginal culture by its use as the characteristic acoustical marker of Aboriginal popular music, and eventually, by its use in films about white Australians, the sonic emblem of white Australian culture as well.
There is no end to the possible illustrations of the musical effects of colonialism. From a strictly musical viewpoint one may find the results of otiose political, military and cultural pressures aesthetically appealing and intellectually interesting, and indeed the modern musical world is not really imaginable without the musical results of colonialism. Yet when one considers music as a component of society and as a system of ideas and behaviour patterns, the combination of musics brought about by colonialism is usually a one-sided affair. The introduction of Western musical ideas into other societies has relegated their music to a status of a backwater of hegemonic folklorization controlled by outside parties who ‘legitimate condensed, simplified or commodified displays, invoking, promoting and cherishing them as official and authentic custom, while at the same time misunderstanding, ignoring, or suppressing the real creative forces and expressive meanings that animate them in the community’ (Keil and Feld, 1994).
The effects of colonialism are clear also in the ways in which music from colonized cultures is used in Western (i.e. European and North American) contexts. For example, in ways analogous to the typical social relationships between colonials and colonizers, the world of Western musical concerts and music education permits performances of non-Western or minority musics in the context of Western-style concerts but maintains them in separate categories (e.g. one does not hear a string quartet in the first half and a sitār in the second half of a concert).
Colonialism and its cultural outcroppings have been a major and, indeed, indispensable factor in the development of ethnomusicology (at least as practised in North America and Western Europe). Concepts and techniques characteristic of the earlier history of the field (c1900–50), such as the desirability of collecting and analysing the music of foreign cultures, the notion of comparative study, the paradigm of the world of music as distinct musics (a convenience, but clearly the result of the Western view of the rest of the world) and the willingness to separate musical sound from its social context (e.g. through recording by a field worker and analysis in a European archive) are closely associated with colonialist views of the world. The approach of collectors who wished to save what they regarded as disappearing cultures, and who tried to stimulate rural and tribal societies to maintain older musical traditions, also belongs in the category of colonialist thought. In neo-colonialist times, the exploitation of non-Western and rural musicians by recordists, scholars and producers continues colonialist practices, as do the maintenance of performer and consultant anonymity and the assumption of cultural homogeneity and general participation in musical life among so-called folk communities. Indeed, some have considered ethnomusicology as practised in Western Europe and even more in North America (with its emphasis on the study of non-Western societies) to be fundamentally a colonialist enterprise. One result has been concern with the ethics of fieldwork and publication and dissemination of material from other societies, the members of which may have little understanding of the use to which their cultural and intellectual property is being put.
From about 1975, ethnomusicologists also turned more explicitly to the study of colonialism – and to related areas such as racism and nationalism – in 20th-century music and in the history and methodology of ethnomusicology itself. Most of the literature dealing implicitly and explicitly with the subject dates from after 1985. Developments include the substantial influence of social theorists such as Antonio Gramsci, Pierre Bourdieu and Eric Hobsbawm; the establishment of committees and publications dealing with the ethics of ethnomusicological fieldwork and analysis, by organizations such as the Society for Ethnomusicology and International Council for Traditional Music, and, although the term itself rarely appears in book and article titles and indexes, widespread critical examination of earlier and present ethnomusicological methods. Most prominent is the change in research methodology from studying non-Western and rural musics as unchanging artefacts to considering music as constantly interactive and dynamic, as well as recognizing the effects of colonialism in musics throughout the world and as a force, both negative and positive, affecting the study of the world's music.
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