I am excited to have accepted a new job as Professor of Music at the Sibelius Academy in Finland. The new post begins in August of 2008, so I will be teaching for one more semester at Boston University and then moving to Europe. I will continue to supervise some doctoral dissertations for Boston University as an online Master Lecturer. The new job at Sibelius Academy will emphasize research and thesis supervision, and has come about partly as a result of restructuring within the institution to bring the music education, jazz studies, folk music (ethnomusicology), and arts management/music technology programs into closer collaboration within a single faculty unit. I am eager to work with the faculty in jazz studies, music technology, and ethnomusicology as well as music education, and see enormous potential for many interesting new projects within this unique and forward-thinking institution.
“The internationally renowned SibeliusAcademy, located in Finland’s capital city Helsinki, was founded in 1882 and bears the distinguished name of the great Finnish master composer Jean Sibelius. The SibeliusAcademy ranks today as one of the largest and most prestigious music universities in Europe. In addition to providing the highest education in the field of music, the Academy engages prominently in performance and in creative artistic activity and research” (from: http://fsa.siba.fi/en/sibelius_academy/).
Here are links to some open-access online articles that discuss music education in Finland:
For those interested in music in higher education and folk music in Finland, Juniper Hill's recent dissertation provides some useful insights: http://juniperlynnhill.net/
For those interested in Finnish bands, I recommend examining publications by Kari Laitinen available online through WASBE (linked under National Wind Band History / Finland) and the Finnish Music Information Centre (linked under Contemporary Music / Publications / Other publications in English), and certainly the work of Paul Niemisto at St. Olaf's College.
The music education, ethnomusicology/folk music, and jazz studies departments of the SibeliusAcademy recently hosted a unique symposium entitled De-Canonizing Music History (Nov. 29-Dec. 1, 2007). The conference was organized by Lauri Väkevä, a music educationist who specializes in popular music pedagogy and Deweyan approaches to music education philosophy. Keynote speakers represented the fields of music education, musicology, and jazz studies, respectively:
Professor Roberta Lamb (Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada)
Professor Lewis Porter (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA)
I presented a paper on hybrid genres in music education histories, and participated on the fascinating Panel Discussion with some outstanding scholars:
Dr. Pekka Gronow (chair), YLE (Finnish Broadcasting Company)
Prof. David Hebert, Boston University, USA
Prof. Matti Huttunen, SibeliusAcademy
Prof. Vesa Kurkela, SibeliusAcademy
Prof. Lewis Porter, Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA
Prof. Derek Scott, University of Leeds, UK
The symposium was a very impressive experience. Not only does the Sibelius Academy enjoy a strong reputation as one of the world’s leading music schools for classical performance studies, but it is also making unique contributions in such areas as folk music preservation and revitalization, European jazz studies, popular music pedagogy, music technology, and music education philosophy. It is the only music university in Finland, a nation that is internationally renowned for its outstanding educational system. Some of the SibeliusAcademy’s innovative programs are described in Juniper Hill’s recent PhD dissertation (supervised by Anthony Seeger and Timothy Rice at UCLA and available online). The SibeliusAcademy is directed by visionary leaders, and is positioning itself to play a key role in establishing the future direction of music education in Europe and beyond.
These are photographs taken in Nara at Tōdai-ji (東大寺) (meaning “Eastern Great Temple”).
The images show panels of the enormous bronze octagonal lantern (from the 8th century) that is prominently located outside the grand entrance to the world’s largest wooden temple, the hall of the Todai-jiDaibutsu. Each panel depicts a musician playing a different wind instrument, including the sho, shakuhachi, and what appears to be a shinobue.
Here the lantern can be seen from a distance in front of the Daibutsu hall, and I am looking out of place in the foreground.
Tomorrow I am very pleased to have the opportunity to interview Japanese wind music composer Tetsunosuke Kushida, who has produced many outstanding works (mostly for European wind ensemble) that are based in the aesthetics of Japanese traditional wind music.
Kushida is from Kyoto - near Nara - and many of his works are programmatic, featuring themes such as Japanese traditional festivals and ancient bugaku dance, and even combining Japanese and European wind instruments in new and interesting ways. Like Alfred Reed, he is especially skilled at writing music for beginners that makes a strong musical statement without requiring very high levels of instrumental technique. I find that this art of producing hybrid music for school ensembles seems to be underappreciated among elite artistic communities, but it may in time attain greater recognition. Kushida has also produced works for professional ensembles, including Figuration for Shakuhachi and Band.
Kushida is one of the only influential Japanese band composers I had not yet had a chance to interview. Japanese composers are discussed in my forthcoming book, Wind Bands and Cultural Identity in Japanese Schools (Dordrecht and New York: Springer). Other notable Japanese wind music composers include Hiroshi Hoshina, Yasuhide Itoh, Isao Matsushita, Masamichi Amano, and Toshio Mashima. As part of this research, I also interviewed the Japan Bandmasters Association founder Toshio Akiyama, and discussed Japanese bands with leading Japanese musicologists as well as the managers of the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra and Osaka Municipal Symphonic Band, All-Japan Band Association competition, Japan Salvation Army Bands, and the Central Band of the Japan Self-Defense Forces.
The case of wind bands in Japan is especially interesting in terms of the themes of music transculturation and hybridity, as well as the institutionalization of new musical traditions. The unusually effective pedagogical approaches of Japanese bands are also of great interest to music educators outside of Japan.
Research in New Zealand Performing Arts is now issuing a call for papers.
RNZPA is one of the only peer-reviewed scholarly journals in New Zealand that publishes music research. Although the journal examines performing arts generally, nearly half of its articles have been music-related. I serve on its editorial board.
For more information regarding the RNZPA call for papers please examine this website:
“Tanglewood II – Charting the Future: A Symposium on Music Learning for the Twenty-First Century” is an ambitious project that was launched in June of 2006, with the first of eight pre-symposium events offered at various American universities nationwide. It concluded on June 25th-29th of 2007, with the wrapping up of an online forum involving more than 5,000 participants followed by a week-long “think tank” residency hosted by BostonUniversity in the Berkshires. Considering the magnitude of this project – in terms of the numbers of related events and participants (both physically present and in the virtual sphere of internet forums) – Tanglewood II appears to be the largest project to have systematically examined current challenges and future prospects for music learning in the United States and abroad.
The wider historical and institutional context of this event is that it is a forty-year anniversary of the original Tanglewood Symposium that was hosted by BostonUniversity in 1967. Tanglewood I was a rather unique and unprecedented event in that it consisted of an intimate “think tank” discussion format that included music education specialists along with professional musicians and influential scholars from otherdisciplines. Notable participants included psychologist Abraham Maslow, ethnomusicologist David McAllester, and even the iconic American big bandleader and jazz arranger Stan Kenton. There were only 34 members of the 1967 symposium, along with a handful of observers, and it only lasted for 5 1/2 days. Within 3 days of its conclusion, a declaration was produced as a position statement that outlined key issues and new directions in the field of music. In retrospect, the Tanglewood I declaration could certainly be described as having an ethnomusicological agenda. Essentially, its primary emphasis was on opening up the field of music teaching at all levels to include music of non-Western cultures, popular music, and jazz, as well as the development of a broad range of musical activities in educational contexts beyond the traditional performance offerings of school bands, orchestras and choirs.
The world has changed dramatically over the forty years since that declaration was issued, yet it continues to be regarded as an especially important document in the history of music education (both in the USA and abroad), resulting from what is seen as perhaps the most significant event in the field during the latter half of the 20th century, the Tanglewood Symposium. Forty years later, Tanglewood II was modeled on the original Tanglewood Symposium. Its objectives, according to the symposium website were “to project a future that will act as a guide for music learning, both within and outside of formal programs . . . Since the original Tanglewood, much has been learned about how the human community processes music, what values it attaches to music experience, and, most importantly, how people learn music. This is the subject of Tanglewood II, a duplication of Tanglewood I in spirit, but decidedly and substantially of the 21st century.”
The Tanglewood II Declaration is scheduled to be published on the project website in the next few weeks (by the end of November 2007), and a DVD and other materials are currently in preparation. Hopefully these Tanglewood II outcomes will inspire further dialogue regarding the current state and future direction of music education.
For more information, please see the Tanglewood II website:
Three outstanding music education Doctoral students have passed their examinations at Boston University, reaching the "ABD stage" of Doctoral Candidacy with approval of their dissertation proposals: (1) Carol Reed-Jones, (2) Nancy Rosenberg and (3) Michael Simmons.
Each of these students has proposed a uniquely important and interesting study and I am excited to be supervising their dissertations.
About the Three New Doctoral Candidates:
Carol Reed-Jones is a music teacher and author who is writing an innovative dissertation that combines philosophical inquiry with recent findings from ethnomusicology to develop an organic model for the integration of music participation into educational settings. Her study will be of great interest to innovative private school systems, charter schools, summer camps, youth groups, indigenous schools, and other educational programs. She obtained a great new job this year, teaching several music courses for Whatcom Community College in the beautiful town of Bellingham, Washington.
Popular music specialist Nancy Rosenberg, an active composer and voice instructor at Emerson College and Brown University, is developing an effective new approach for the learning of music theory concepts and musicianship skills through popular music. Nancy recently attended Bjork's concert in NYC and is writing about her unique music as well. Nancy Rosenberg's dissertation promises to help improve the teaching of musicianship and music theory at the secondary and collegiate levels, and is likely to develop into a popular textbook. This year Nancy has been quite active in her theatre composition, and has a new position as musical director for the theatre education program at Trinity Repertory Theatre in Providence.
Finally, Philadelphia-based professional guitarist and accomplished music teacher Michael Simmons is doing a ground-breaking experimental study that I will keep "under wraps" for now so he can complete his analysis before any other empirical researchers catch on to his great idea. For now, let me simply state that his findings promise to greatly improve our understanding of an important aspect of musical learning that is often perplexing for teachers.
It is a thrill to be mentoring such outstanding students, and I am quite confident of their future success and excited to see their continuing development.
Over the next year we will see some great achievements from these three Doctoral Candidates.
Here is a link to another student project I have been developing on campus:
This weekend (October 12-13, 2007) is a fascinating international conference of the Boston University Messiaen Project entitled “Messiaen the Theologian.” Musicologist and organ virtuoso, Professor Andrew Shenton is the conference organizer.
French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was inspired by Asian musical traditions, and his work has been quite influential among leading Asian and European composers.
Today I attended an insightful presentation by Wai-Ling Cheong (from Chinese University of Hong Kong) on Messiaen’s use of Japanese gagaku music and the inspiration that the Torii of Miyajima (pictured below) offered to his work:
Olivier Messiaen was among the most innovative composers of the twentieth century, and his creative output represents an important example of how European art music has increasingly incorporated elements from musical traditions of other parts of the world. This is a topic of great interest to those grappling with the issues of hybridity and transculturation in musical creativity and education.
I encourage any musicians and scholars interested in such topics to attend the remainder of this conference.
A multicultural brass band workshop with sociomusicologists Charles Keil and David Hebert.
Honk Workshop: Saturday, Oct 6, 12:30 - 2:30 PM
TuftsUniversity GranoffMusicCenter 20 Talbot Ave
The purpose of the Honk Workshop is to enable high school, college, and community participants to form a performing Honk ensemble that can march in the Honk parade from Davis Square to Harvard Square on Sunday the 7th. This will entail learning some basic rhythms and horn riffs in the New Orleans second line tradition, a bit of funk, and perhaps some samba and salsa as well.
All levels of musical proficiency are welcome.
The "Honkfest Workshop" is organized by popular music expert Reebee Garofalo at TuftsUniversity as part of Honkfest, October 5-7, 2007 [www.honkfest.org]. Street bands from throughout the United States, and as far away as Italy, Montreal, and New Orleans are joining Honkfest, and the associated workshop provides applied instruction in this important form of community music. The event is sponsored and hosted by the Tufts University Music Department community outreach initiative [http://www.tufts.edu/musiccenter/resources/].
After jamming a bit with them, Edward Buckner asked me to play solo trumpet with the Original Big Seven Social Aid and Pleasure Club for their performances at Honkfest. They are an excellent band with great grooves from the heart of New Orleans tradition, and I am thrilled to have the chance to perform with them.
Video of New Orleans Social Aid and Pleasure Club
HONKFEST HIGHLIGHTS:
Notable participants include the Somerville Mayor and renowned radio personalities Click and Clack.
Performers include the legendary band Original Big Seven from New Orleans in their first New England performance since Katrina.
Speakers at the event include Reebee Garofalo (author of notable books such as Rockin Out, Policing Pop, and Rockin the Boat) and Charles Keil (author of numerous music books, including Urban Blues, Tiv Song, Polka Happiness, Music Grooves, My Music, Bright Balkan Morning, and Born to Groove).
Schools throughout much of the world offer music instruction, and wind bands have tended to be among the most popular instrumental ensembles in educational settings. Wind bands have also long played an important role in military, governmental, industrial, and religious institutions. Nevertheless, the relevance of wind bands in the contemporary world is an important question that seems inadequately explored.
Wind bands have certain educational advantages, yet probably cannot alone suffice as a comprehensive form of music education. Still, wind bands (broadly defined) may have greater relevance than most would realize, since the global phenomenon of wind band fusions has received inadequate scholarly attention and many schools tend to subscribe to a very narrow definition of the genre.
Research on bands in various cultures also provides important insights into the processes of hybridity and transculturation in music. It seems possible thatas much can be learned about a culture from the way it modifies and adapts to newly introduced styles as from studies of its own long-standing traditions. Certainly the role of competition in Japanese bands, and the role of religion in Maori and Tongan bands, are demonstrative of fundamental values within these cultures, as is the role of rhythm, dance and improvisation in the other ensembles shown further below.
(1) The All-Japan Band Association national competition is the largest music contest of any kind in the world, with nearly 500,000 contestants.
(2) The world's leading professional civilian wind ensembles are based in Japan, most notably the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra and the Osaka Municipal Symphonic Band. These ensembles have ticket sales and recording outputs that resemble major symphony orchestras.
(3) In just a few years, young Japanese band students learn to perform at virtually a professional level. This is remarkable considering the relatively short history of bands in Japan.
(4) Japanese composers have produced a unique body of original band works that fuse Japanese and European influences. Many of these works are of an outstanding quality and have received little attention outside Japan.
(5) Bands are the oldest form of western instrumental music ensemble in Japan.
I first began researching Japanese wind bands about ten years ago and my book will finally be published in the coming year.
Here is a video clip of a Singaporean band performing an original piece by Japanese composer Bin Kaneda. Kaneda was a close friend of Hiroshi Hoshina and a teacher of Toshio Mashima, both of whom are also regarded as important Japanese wind band composers:
Here is a video clip of some interesting images of Africa accompanied by the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra’s performance of Van McCoy's "African Symphony." The Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra is considered an important professional model for wind bands throughout Japan, and is very highly regarded internationally as well:
Here is another clip of the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra performing in a nationally televised awards event:
Most Japanese wind bands play thorough-composed music under the guidance of a conductor, but here is a video clip of an especially interesting professional band called Tokyo Brass Style (which has developed from embellishing the Japanese school band tradition in fusion with global popular music styles, such as salsa). They are playing a song that was recently popularized in the Dragon Ball anime series, Maka Fushigi Adventure:
Here is a video of the Do-Re-MiNursery School Marching Band:
Here are more links to amazing videos of Japanese youth bands:
Japanese middle school band (12&13-year olds), 2011 contest: start at 4:00
Here is a video of another intriguing (but less musically compelling) wind band and Japanese culture fusion that occured outside Japan: It is a live performance of the recent pop hit “Hollaback Girl”, which combines hip-hop with a marching band (playing on Yamaha gear), accompanied by Tokyo’s Harajuku Girls, all led by American pop icon Gwen Stefani. Stefani's recent hit album includes many surprising references to Tokyo youth culture and Harajuku style:
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Maori Ratana Bands
New Zealand's Maori Ratana bands are a unique tradition that developed within the largest political and religious movement among Maori. Using an ethnographic approach, I studied the social history of these bands during 2006. The research took me to the religion's headquarters and even to Japan, where an important meeting had occurred between Japanese and Maori Ratana musicians in 1924.
Here are video clips of some Maori Ratana bands:
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Tongan Brass Bands
Tongan brass bands are another unique tradition that fuses European and Polynesian influences. I studied a Tongan band in Auckland, New Zealand to see how this tradition was adapted into the migrant urban context.
Here is a video clip of the Royal Hifofuoa Tongan Brass Band:
Here is a video clip of the Tongan Police Brass Band:
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As sociomusicologist Charles Keil has demonstrated, bands that are organized on democratic principles, that emphasize rhythmic "groove", and provide opportunities for improvisation, composition, and arranging offer great potential for creative and meaningful lifelong participation in music. Brass bands have also played an important role in the development of many popular music styles (reggae, ska, jazz, salsa), and brass samples are even used in hip hop.
The following video clips of a New Orleans Mardi Gras band followed by Balkan, Romani, Pakistani, Thai and West African bands illustrate this point:
Why name a blog "sociomusicology"? Well, I am a musician and music teacher, but am also active in the academic fields of music teacher education and ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicology is often defined as the anthropological study of music, but the term sociomusicology encompasses the broader field of social science research in music (including psychological, sociological, and anthropological studies), of which ethnomusicology is one component. Within this broad field of sociomusicology, I am particularly interested in topics related to music teaching and learning, and the emergence and institutionalization of new music traditions.
Musicians are often asked to identify who have been the artistic "influences" on their music. The same question can be asked of music researchers regarding their scholarly influences, and sociomusicology seems the best term to sum up a lot of different interests and influences:
Also, I have recently been enjoying the work of Carlos Abril, who is a prolific and insightful music education scholar of the same generation as me: [http://www.music.northwestern.edu/facultyprofiles/]
Much of my recent research is in the field of wind music transculturation, so I am attracted to the writings of Trevor Herbert, who has forged a unique approach to the social history of brass brands in the UK and abroad [http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/music/therbert.htm].
So much can be learned from reading the work of each of these music scholars. I have had the pleasure of meeting and even getting to know some of them, and enjoy contributing in my own way to the kinds of scholarship described here.
All the above is why this blog is called SOCIOMUSICOLOGY.
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Here is a link to an announcement for what I consider to be one of the most interesting books to appear recently in the field of sociomusicology:
Here is a link to an open-access online article in which Steven Brown discusses issues in the field of sociomusicology: http://www.mca.org.au/index.php?id=153
- A multicultural brass band workshop with sociomusicologists Charles Keil and David Hebert. The "Honkfest Workshop" is organized by popular music expert Reebee Garofalo at TuftsUniversity [www.tufts.edu] as part of Honkfest, October 5-7, 2007 [www.honkfest.org]. Street bands from throughout the United States, and as far away as Italy, Montreal, and New Orleans are joining Honkfest, and the associated workshop provides applied instruction in this important form of community music. The event is sponsored and hosted by the Tufts University Music Department community outreach initiative [http://www.tufts.edu/musiccenter/resources/].
HONKFEST HIGHLIGHTS:
Notable participants include the Somerville Mayor and renowned radio personalities Click and Clack.
Performers include the legendary band Original Big Seven from New Orleans in their first New England performance since Katrina.
Speakers at the event include Reebee Garofalo (author of notable books such as Rockin Out, Policing Pop, and Rockin the Boat) and Charles Keil (author of numerous music books, including Urban Blues, Tiv Song, Polka Happiness, Music Grooves, My Music, Bright Balkan Morning, and Born to Groove).
I will probably not be blogging often (much too busy), but this seems to be a useful place to post upcoming events of interest and a link to a recent version of my Curriculum Vitae.
Why do professors post their CVs online anyway? It can appear immodest, yet academia is a rather complicated world in which one's background and creative activities are often of great interest to both students and peers. Particularly for younger professors who teach at the Doctoral level it can be very useful to put this information"out there" where anyone who is curious can access it. Having such information in the public domain enables scholars to identify areas of common interest and to understand each other's "research agenda", theoretical approach, and methodological orientation. For artists, such information is useful in that it helps one identify potentially compatible collaborators for new and inspiring projects.
For over 15 years (since 2007), this website has offered musings on contemporary society and its music by David G. Hebert, PhD. He is a sociomusicologist specializing in global music education who has held academic positions with universities on five continents. Dr. Hebert is now a tenured full Professor with Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen. There he leads the Grieg Academy Music Education (GAME) research group and manages the multinational government-funded Nordic Network for Music Education, which organizes annual intensive Master courses and exchange of teachers and students across eight countries. He is also an Affiliated Professor with University of the Faroe Islands and an Honorary Professor in China with the Education University of Hong Kong.
Professor Hebert's research applies an international-comparative perspective to issues of pluralism, identity, and cultural relevance in music education, as well as processes by which new music traditions emerge and change - both sonically and socially - as they are adopted into institutions. Born in the 1970s, he is among the most widely-published and globally-active music scholars of his generation (h-index:20; i10-index:30), with professional activities in an average of 8 countries per year across the past decade (2008-2020).
Keynote Speaker - Across recent years, Professor Hebert has had keynote speeches in Poland, Germany, Uzbekistan, China, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Lithuania, Tanzania, and Thailand, and chaired two sessions at ISA-Japan.
