Musical Borrowing and Cultural Appropriation (Essay)
Musical Borrowing and Cultural Appropriation
In Chamber Music
What sparked the most recent discussion on cultural appropriation that I remember was halloween costumes. This debate was rightfully about taking cultures, wearing them for a night, and big corporations profiting off cultural stereotypes such as “Indian Chief Costumes”, Afros, Geishas or other East Asian garb or sombreros, among many more. Music has also recently had lots of controversies surrounding this topic of appropriation. These don’t always include outright taunting or making fun of certain cultures, but mostly composers and musicians utilizing a style or technique that came from a certain group of people without their consent or rightful compensation and credit. It also includes the problems of profiting off cultural techniques, and obeying the laws and rules set forth by the people who’s technique the composer is using.
Recently, composer Annea Lockwood came under fire for her piece composed in the 90’s that has a part for the didgeridoo. As part of a 9 piece ensemble, this piece had 3 didgeridoo players, two of which had experience with the Australian Aboriginal instrument and one experienced wind player that learned the didgeridoo just for the piece. This piece, Thousand Year Dreaming, included rhythms from both Japanese and Buddhist traditions, but the use of the didgeridoo was the most controversial issue of the piece when it was played this year at the Bang On A Can music festival. The didgeridoo was invented and originally played by Australian Aboriginial people -only men- and its broader and broader use recently has sparked controversies with its original players in Northern Australia, and several calls for more fair use of the instrument have been made.
The Australian Government made a list of rules and regulations for when using Indigenous cultural music, and most of them revolve around “Communication, Consultation and Consent.” As well as other types of representation for indigenous people, and compensation.
Annea Lockwood remarked recently that when writing in the 60’s, everyone was looking to other cultures for musical trends and things to try, not out of disrespect, but just because of American musical trends of the time “seemed stuck” and she also remarked that they (her and other composers in the 60’s) “Didn’t think of ourselves as colonialists by being influenced by music from other cultures.” These remarks, at the time held water, and partially still do today, but on the other hand, most Americans aren’t used to not being able to enjoy certain things, considering America is such a melting pot, and our history of colonizing other cultures.
On the more extreme side of this topic, composer Caroline Shaw came under similar controversies recently for her use of the Inuit technique of throat singing in her piece “Partita For 8 Voices” with which she won a Grammy award and the Pulitzer Prize. I bring up these awards because with the case of Annea Lockwood and the didgeridoo, the notoriety and monetary elements of the piece were not nearly as intense, and the piece wasn’t as “mainstream” as Shaw’s Partita. This brings a whole new element of profiting off of Indigenous techniques not seen in other recent cases of music appropriation. Shaw’s use of the Inuit technique was also directly and publicly called out on the internet by an award-winning Inuit performer Tanya Tagaq on her Twitter, whereas Lockwood was informed by someone over email to her guitar player that she might want to consider compensating indigenous performers. Another important difference between these two composer’s situations is that Lockwood “Aimed to create something elemental” using the didgeridoo, rather than imitate a certain musical practice or tradition. However, Shaw not only used throat singing techniques, but also part of an Inuit standard song.
What is admirable is that in both of these cases of appropriation the composers set some concrete solutions that they aim to achieve in the near future, even if they denied the other culture’s intellectual property in the beginning. This does indeed show personal growth from people who have a lot of pressure from being in a fairly public eye, and possibly having different views beforehand. As the lense of accountability evolves over time, we also have to change with it, and give credit where credit is due. This is especially important with the all-knowing-ness that comes with the internet age, and how it is so easy to either hire someone with the required knowledge from that culture, or credit and compensate people when creating art; there is really no excuse nowadays.