Glossary
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Term |
Definition |
Context |
| acculturation | 1. cultural change: a change in the cultural behavior and thinking of an individual or group through contact with another culture: 2. absorption of culture: the process by which somebody absorbs the culture of a society from birth onward | |
| al adhan | Muslim 'call to prayer'; melismatic rendering of such, occurring five times per day in Islamic countries | Saudi Arabia |
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aesthetic |
Criterion: standard for judging things by |
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artifact |
object made by human: an object made by a human being, for example, a tool, musical instrument, or ornament, especially one that has cultural interest |
archaeology |
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art music |
music composed in a classical tradition rather than in a folk or pop style, e.g. Western art music, jazz |
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| authenticite | programs initiated by Mobutu to reflect and promote "authentic" Congolese musicians and folk traditions, e.g. Franco Luambo Makiadi | Congo |
| Azmari | bard; storyteller that accompanies him/herself on the krar [see griots] | Ethiopia |
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bouzouki |
a long-necked stringed musical instrument of Greek origin. It is similar in appearance and sound to a mandolin. |
Greece, Turkey |
| circularity of migration | returning to the source | |
| classical | 1. relating to ancient Greece or Rome: 2. music that is considered serious or intellectual and is usually written in a traditional or formal style, as opposed to such genres as pop, rock, and folk music: 3. the style of music composed in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries: 4. involving the study of the ancient Greek and Latin languages and literature: 5. orthodox or conservative: considered as the traditional or authoritative form of something | |
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compositional process |
The nexus of economic,
ethnic, erotic, and spiritual (essence) forces that culminate in the
remembrance, preservation, and/or projection of music-culture.
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Imara |
| culture | "the dynamic synthesis of a people's experiential knowledge, beliefs, values, and norms that express and derive from the conflict at each stage of their development in the search for survival and progress". [Amilcar Cabral] | |
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“cultural grey out” |
to describe the affect/result of lost or decline in traditional/oral cultures and communication structures in the face of “onslaught” of western pop; a condition characterized by alienation and non-belonging |
Alan Lomax (1968) |
| dhikr (zikr) | remembrance: the Islamic practice of glorifying God by repeating certain words or phrases, sometimes with special breathings or physicaln movements, usually accompanied by musical instruments, e.g. in Sufism | Arabic |
| Diaspora |
the dispersion of any people from their original homeland; shared historical experiences of: (a) geo-social displacement, (b) social oppression, and (c) resistance, endurance, struggle; the dispersion of the Jews from their ancient homeland |
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| diversity | acknowledgement of mixture, having harmonious ...balance between and within difference | |
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elements of music |
basic: rhythm, harmony, melody, timbre (form as a secondary level) |
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| emic | the description of language or culture from the perspective of internal elements | anthopology, linguistics |
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erotic |
somatic disposition, the space between desire and ability; [Imara] 1. erotic quality: an erotic quality in something, especially an erotic style or subject in literature or art: 2. sexual desire: feelings of sexual desire |
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essence |
disposition or quality of energy state [Imara]: 1. identifying nature: the quality or nature of something that identifies it or makes it what it is: 2. basic feature: the most basic element or feature of something: 3. perfect form: the perfect or idealized form of something, especially when embodied in a person: 4. philosophy ideal nature of something: the ideal nature of something, independent of and prior to its existence: 5. religion spiritual entity: a spiritual entity |
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ethnic |
disposition of otherness that result in tribes, nacions, possess, and other "communities of consciousness" [Imara] 1. sharing cultural characteristics: sharing distinctive cultural traits as a group in society: 2. of a group sharing cultural characteristics: relating to a group or groups in society with distinctive cultural traits: 3. of specified origin or culture: relating to a person or to a large group of people who share a national, racial, linguistic, or religious heritage, whether or not they reside in their countries of origin: 4. culturally traditional: belonging to or typical of the traditional culture of a social group |
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ethnocentricity |
a belief in or assumption of the superiority of your own social or cultural group |
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| ethnomusicology | the study of the music of non-Western cultures | |
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etic |
the description of language or culture from the perspective of external elements |
anthropology |
| exotic | strikingly different: strikingly unusual and often very colorful and exciting or suggesting distant countries and unfamiliar cultures | |
| exoticism | a form of relativism where an other is exalted or denigrated as a means of defining the self; escapist; looks far beyond one's social and material world (and) is constructed as a distant, picturesque other that evokes feelings, emotions, and ideals in the self that have been considered lost in the civilizing process. [Berliner] | |
| fado | fate: genre that embodies the quintessential expression of saudade, a melancholy mood of longing for the Portuguese homeland; originated among the working classes in Lisbon and is typically sung by one performer accompanied by two guitars. i.e. Portuguese “blues”; cathartic functions | Portugal |
| folk music | 1. traditional songs and music, passed from one generation to the next: 2. modern music in traditional style: modern music composed in imitation of traditional music | |
| funk, funky | derived from the Ki-Kongo (language of the Bakongo People) word lu-fuki meaning “to praise persons for the integrity of their art, for having ‘worked out’ to achieve their aims; achieving wisdom through hard work; earthiness; a return to fundamentals” [Thompson 104] | Congo |
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general classification of Instruments |
n 1.membranophones, chordophones, aerophones, idiophones, [Sachs-Hornbostel] electronophones, corpophones |
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globalization |
1. global adoption of social institutions: the process by which social institutions become adopted on a global scale: 2. operation at international level: the process by which a business or company becomes international or starts operating at an international level |
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| griot | oral historian, story teller, chief signifier; keepers of tradition and history; artists of orality; specialists of the spoken/sung word and the power—called nyama— i.e. it releases. They may belong to special castes (nyamakalaw - or handlers of nyama) or inherit their calling through generations of the same family, for example, in Mande West African cultures. | Mali, Pan African |
| Kalevala | folk epics representative of Finnish national identity | Finland |
| Kantele | the Baltic zither, national instrument of Finland; (5-string chordophone) tuned to first 5 notes of diatonic scale; short dynamic range | Finland |
| Krar | lyre, (chordophone) | Ethiopia |
| Kriolu, | creole language of Portuguese (antigua) and W. African languages | Cabo Verde |
| Laulu | Finnish song form; runolaulu (runo-song), mostly for dance | Finland |
| lingua franca | language used for convenience: a language or mixture of languages used for communication by people who speak different first languages | |
| marabout | a Muslim hermit, monk, or holy man; holy men who are the subject of many devotional songs | North/West Africa |
| maqam(at) | musical modes based on heptatonic scales (derived from augmented, major, medium, and minor second intervals) | Iraq, Middle East |
| mbalax | rhythm and performance practice that characterizes much of Sengalese music; derived from applying traditional mbung mbung (drum) rhythms to electric instruments | Senegal |
| melisma | a form of melodic ornamentation whereby a group of notes (is) sung to one syllable | |
| Moor | member of a N. African Muslim people of mixed Arab and Berber descent; conquered Iberian peninsula in 8th C. | |
| Morna | song form; “blues”; that expresses sodade (saudade) an intense melancholy and longing | Cabo Verde |
| mulid(s) | festival(s) to celebrate the saint of a mosque | Egypt, Middle East |
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musicology |
the academic study of music and its history (usually written forms) |
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| music-culture | The term is often used in the field of ethnomusicology to signify an attempt to capture a holistic, if not more comprehensive, view of music within identifiable social groups. | |
| nay (ney) | end-blown flute, 60-70 cm. long, made from cane, with six finger holes and a thumb hole | Egypt, Middle East |
| negritude | affirmation of black identity: identity as a black person, especially awareness of a distinct black history and culture as something to be proud of; “a philosophy of rediscovery” [Leopold Senghor] | Senegal |
| nova cancao | new song movement in Portugal, ca. 1970's ; led by Jose Afonso - evolved into the canto livre (free song movement); | Portugal |
| (the) Orient | signifies a system of representations framed by political forces that brought the Orient (eastern) into Occidental (western) learning, consciousness, and empire. The Orient exists for the West, and is constructed by and in relation to the West. It is a mirror image of what is inferior and alien ("Other") to the West. | |
| Orientalism | "a manner of regularized (or Orientalized) writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient." It is the image of the 'Orient' expressed as an entire system of thought and scholarship. [Edward Said] | |
| pentatonic | five-tone scale | |
| percussion | musical instruments that produce sound by being struck, scraped, shaken, or plucked - includes mebranophones and idiophones; [percussive] a mode or approach to playing an instrument | |
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performance practice |
Stylistic tendencies and variations of musical elements; the conventions and knowledge that enable a performer to create a performance |
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| Postmodern | [Lyotard] a historical/cultural "condition" based on a dissolution of master narratives or metanarratives, a crisis in ideology when ideology no longer seems transparent; [Jameson] a movement in arts and culture corresponding to a new configuration of politics and economics, "late capitalism": transnational consumer economies based on global scope of capitalism | |
| Raï (pronounced "rye") | lit. "a way of seeing," "an opinion," "a point of view," "advice," but also "an aim," "a plan" and even "a thought," "a judgment," "a will."; the advice of a shikh, a poet of malhun; popular songs originating from western Algeria, with its center of gravity lying between Relizane, Saida, Sidi Bel Abbès, Oujda (in Morocco), and Oran. The emergence of raï is generally associated with the migration into the cities of western Algeria, starting with the world depression in the 1930s - influences from Spanish, French, literary Arabic, rural, and city dialects. | Algeria (Oran provence) |
| rheita | gaita, algaita: double reed instrument found in north and west Africa | |
| ritual | a spiritual practice; a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order | |
| rumba | Cuban derived musical genre (19th C. ); couple-dance genre | Cuba, Congo |
| (The) sapeurs | an important movement and visual component of Congo music-culture in the 1970-80’s; the Society of Cool and Elegant People | Congo |
| Saudade, | yearning; an erotic force, i.e. “a measure of the understanding that passes between performer and audience” [RG 229] | Portugal. Cabo Verde, Brazil |
| seben | instrumental section breaks in a song | Congo |
| soukous | a generic, recording industry-imposed term to indicate Congo dance music | Congo |
| soundscape | a comprehensive notion that encompasses the sound, setting, and significance of a given music-culture. [Shelemay] | |
| syncretism | the combining of different religions, rituals, or schools of thought | |
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style |
n the choices (manner) that a work or performance makes from among the possibilities available; a reference to features (or elements) that characterize the works or performances of a period, region, genre, or individual composer or performer. |
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| Sufi(sm) | a Muslim mystic; sacred/esoteric practice of Islam that began ca. 8th C. | Middle East, Africa |
| taraf | a (Romanian) band | Romania |
| taxonomy | 1. the science of classifying plants, animals, and microorganisms into increasingly broader categories based on shared features: 2. the practice or principles of classification | |
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Third World |
the nations outside the capitalist industrial nations of the First World and the industrialized Communist nations of the Second World, generally less economically advanced but with varied economies |
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| oud (ud) | short-necked, fretless chordophone with a pegbox set back at an angle, a bulging pear-shaped body, and strings in double courses (usually tuned g-a-d'-g'-c") ; premier instrument of Arabic music theory and practice; spread throughout Europe via Muslim Spain where it became the lute | Middle East |
| Washint | flute | Ethiopia |
| Wax and gold | Abyssinian traditional double-entendre; metaphor for a process of music making | Ethiopia |
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world music |
popular/folk/classical music from or influenced by countries outside the western world and its traditions |
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