Oral tradition is the theme for the event that we are initiating now. We will attempt to present a synthesis of the emergence and development of popular music and its importance in Brazilian culture. It is our intention to present a brief summary of all this trajectory throughout the national territory, particularly focusing, though, on popular music in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Applied or advocacy ethnomusicology has yet to be developed as a formal sub-field in South Africa, yet researchers of music have the advantage of being at the forefront of a social reconstruction impetus that provides opportunities for relevant social engagement, the remodelling of research foci, the expansion of multidisciplinary applications, and the utilisation of participatory methodologies that have yet to be explored in research on performance. This paper is presented in the form of a report of my recent explorations into the operational interface between ethnomusicology, environmental conservation and sustainable development in the Dukuduku Forests of northern KwaZulu Natal. In so far as the study is situated in a community that resides within an environmentally protected area, it extends the notion that culture is as much a part of the treasure of the landscape as are its faunal, floral and marine resources. The premise herein, is that songs, dances and ritual processes present rich repositories of local knowledge about the environment, and are particularly relevant signifiers of local meaning systems in a context where these systems may no longer be learned through apprenticeships or oral tradition, due to geographic displacement and rapid socio-economic transformation. Broadly therefore, the project strives to examine the interdependencies between symbolic practices and natural resource use, and to explore ways in which deep-rooted cultural wisdoms can be recast to generate an organising paradigm for the sustainable custodianship of the environment, and herein empower the communities to participate more equitably in the development of the region.

If there were something like ethnomusicological laws for the thermodynamics of musical change, one would surely state that when cultural, social, political or economic systems change, then some aspects of musical practice and style will change as a consequence. Our ethnomusicological theories of change do not predict, however, whether in a particular instance old musical forms will diminish in importance, continue but with new cultural meanings assigned to them, change to meet new demands, or be abandoned altogether. Similarly they do not predict when none of the old forms will be adequate and new forms of music will be required to meet new needs. The postcommunist transition in Eastern Europe (after 1989) and the former Soviet Union (after 1991) provides an ideal natural laboratory for studying particular instances of the application of this law (see, for examples, Slobin 1996). This article, a case study of that hypothesis and its ramifications in Bulgaria, a country effectively under Communist-Party control from 1944 to 1989, also is concerned with the role of music in constructing notions of national identity.

This work is an attempt to find relations between ecological conditions, adaptive systems and musical practices. I examine the hypothesis that the Wichi aborigines of the centre of the Province of Formosa, Argentina, have adopted a common policy to handle their survival resources, their symbolic resources and their musical resources. The aim is to gather evidence to support the notion that policies applying to several aspects of Wichi life, such as everyday subsistence chores, mobility, religious activities, and so on, also apply to their musical practices. They use an active strategy to approach and solve situations on the spot, a predisposition to base their behaviour on an open agenda. At the level of their musical practices, such strategy becomes evident both in the succession of actions conforming the events, and in the structuring of their songs. This open agenda strategy became, while I stayed in the Wichi settlements, one of the clearest conditionings of the ethnographic experience. On one hand, my anxiety to minimise uncertainty and “maximise” the field work yield led me to seek, with little success, a predictable working context in terms of planned actions and temporal organisation. This clashed head on with the attitude of my Wichi collaborators. On the other hand, though the levels of anxiety decreased after a year's experience, the problem persisted now in the form of a number of questions that became more and more important as my research progressed. Gradually, the upset caused by the impossibility to control the time of the appointed interviews, and of knowing whether next morning the person I was to see to, for instance, tape the songs he/she remembered from youth, was still in the settlement or had ‘up and gone’ several miles away to visit some relative, gave way to a series of questions. How pervasive was this open agenda strategy in the Wichi world? Were musical practices also imprinted by this strategy? Could this explain the cultural coherence of the Wichi society? Finally, was it possible to imagine and/or understand human groups in terms of cultural coherence? In an attempt to answer these questions, I examine the concept of cultural coherence, provide a brief description of the Wichi ecological conditions and adaptive system, and then explain their open agenda strategy and how it also applies to some musical practices.

In this article we analyse some developments in the popular music of Indonesia, especially those that have occurred during the last five years. The concept of “popular music” in present-day Indonesia is discussed briefly along with an analysis of how it is used in the negotiation of the identity of particular communities, playing a vital role in a dialogue of power at local, national and global levels. We ask how the different pop scenes comment on and act to change society in an age of shifting identities and sensibilities. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, issues of copyright and intellectual property rights seem to have become even more important than they were in the 1990s.

Examples are taken from both the national and regional pop musics with attention being paid particularly to the emergence of “world music” or “fusion”, Islamic music and the Indie music scene. The question of how these different types of pop music are represented in and shaped by the new forms of mass mediation, in particular the video compact discs and the Internet, is raised and discussed. With the demand for political change (Reformasi) and fall of President Suharto, the figurehead of the “New Order” regime, in 1998, these developments seem to have accelerated more than ever before.

Congo, Moçambique and Candombe are Afro-Brazilian religious groups that take part in brotherhoods of Our Lady of the Rosary and in their festivals—Congado—in Minas Gerais, Brazil. These rituals are accomplished through music. Thus singing, playing and dancing are a unique mode of praying. Focusing on the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of Contagem and that of Jatobá—both situated in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais—the rhythmic behaviour of these groups is discussed, for the instruments and their rhythmic language are sacred. The variation procedures in the rhythmic patterns are related to the function of each group, to the time/space of performances and to the hierarchy holding of them by force of the legend behind the rituals.

Congo, Moçambique e Candombe são grupos religiosos afro-brasileiros que participam de irmandades de Nossa Senhora do Rosário e de suas festas—o Congado—em Minas Gerais, Brasil. Esses rituais são cumpridos através da música, do canto e da dança. Considerando o caráter sagrado dos instrumentos e de seus ritmos, é abordado o comportamento rítmico dos grupos que integram as Irmandades de Contagem e do Jatobá, ambas situadas na região metropolitana de Belo Horizonte, capital de Minas Gerais. Os procedimentos de variação nos padrões rítmicos estão relacionados ao espaço/tempo das performances e às funções dos grupos, conforme a hierarquia entre eles, estabelecida na lenda que fundamenta os rituais.

This paper is based on field research (1993, 1994-95, 1998, 1999) with a ngoma drum-dance group called Mhembere Dandanda, who live in Mhembere Village, Murewa, a rural community an hour northeast of Harare in Zimbabwe. Dandanda is an indigenous form of ritual dance with its own song repertoire and distinctive ngoma (drum) and hosho (gourd rattle) style. It is practised among the Zezuru, the largest sub-group of the Shona, in sacred contexts of ceremonies for the ancestral spirits and secular contexts of dance competitions and government sponsored events. The word dandanda itself is an ideophone that evokes the sound of deer rushing into nets during the hunt. Song lyrics make reference to strength for battle and the hunt, to nature, family and the ancestral spirits. The designations of sacred and secular for the contrasting contexts in which dandanda is performed are used because this is the way participants in the events differentiate them. Communication with ancestral spirits is considered sacred because the ancestral spirits are the people's conduit to communicate with the creator, Mwari.

On 19-21 February 1998, the Chinese Opera Society (Singapore), an amateur opera society that promotes Chinese opera in Singapore, organised an event called “Street Wayang Revisited” as part of the annual Chinese Cultural Festival, which featured a three-night performance of the popular Chaozhou opera, Liu Ming Zhu, by the Sing Yong Hoe Heng Teochew Wayang, a professional Chaozhou opera group in Singapore. The ticketed performance, presented in what was called “street wayang-style” (Straits Times, 4 February 1998), took place in the Bras Basah Park within the shopping and business district of Singapore. Accompanying the performance was a month-long exhibition (13 February - 15 March 1998) at the Singapore History Museum, displaying old costumes, props, scripts and other Chinese opera paraphernalia, many of which belonged to Sing Yong Hoe Heng. Organised at a cost of approximately S$15 000 (US$ 8800), the event was widely publicised and well attended, and was partially sponsored by the Singapore Press Holdings and National Arts Council, amongst other national institutions. Aimed specifically at younger-generation Singaporeans, the English-speaking communities, expatriates and tourists, “Street Wayang Revisited” used slide projections of the Chinese script and corresponding English translations during the performance. The stage was double the size of the usual makeshift stages used daily by professional opera groups, the performance area was sheltered and well-ventilated with mobile fan units, and hawkers were specially engaged to serve food at this three-day event. Approximately 500 people watched the final performance on 21 February (Straits Times, 21 February 1998). On 23 February 1998, Sing Yong Hoe Heng resumed its normal practice and staged performances for a ritual celebration in an open space next to Newton Circus, another area that is popular with tourists, expatriates and younger Singaporeans. This time, however, a photograph published in the Chinese newspaper shows only a scatter of twelve people or so in the audience. The same newspaper article aptly questions this phenomenon with a metaphorical title: “Shuguang Zhaxian Haishi Xiyang Yuhui? [Emerging Sunshine or Lingering Sunset?]” (Lianhe Zaobao, 7 March 1998a).

This article deals with field methodology. It describes conceptual, analytical and practical tools used to study musical scales and proposes an interactive method that was recently developed and tested with the vocal polyphonies of the Bedzan Pygmies of Cameroon. The issues involved are largely cognitive, and they are addressed with experimental procedures using new technologies and work in real time, in the field. Such methods also significantly alter the relationship between the “observer” and the “observed”, with the musicians playing a decisive role in the research process and in all of the steps that characterise this type of study method, guiding the investigator in his work. The subject becomes a partner and plays an active role in the research process.

Asked to comment on several excellent papers in a session at the 2001 ICTM World Conference, I was inspired by a Brazilian metaphor and a breakfast banana to develop a description of the challenges of analysis and comparison in ethnomusicology. While what follows is a short meditation on an overextended metaphor, I hope it makes some more profound points in a way that can be reproduced at breakfast tables or classrooms anywhere in the world. Since the conference, I have found it useful in courses at the University of California at Los Angeles.