The Mushroom Argument; or: Music is So Much More than Creativity

The football match of my oldest daughter (6) is canceled, so early in the morning I am sitting at the table, writing this blog, while my oldest daughter, her football friend, and my youngest daughter are busy making drawings, and my son is at the computer working at his Minecraft world. In the background Bach's Motets play, in the performance of Herreweghe's Collegium Vocale. My youngest daughter is enthusiastic because actually this is the music used in the Peter Pan Disney-movie she just saw, she tells me.

Embodied Cognition

I was sitting in the car with my kids. Johnny Cash' "Southern Accents" was playing.

Daughter: "This is a sad song."
I (hoping, as a proud father, for intricately verbalized brilliance): "How do you know?"
Daughter: "I feel it in my body".

What Music Does for People

I finished writing my dissertation, had the exam, and then of course: party.

With our research group we found ourselves on the island of Schiermonnikoog, in the renowned Hotel Van der Werff, enabling me to spend some days of work and reflection amongst colleagues who are all, in some way, connected to studying the power of music.

One evening, my colleagues had decided to organize a little party for me. Speeches, presents, and music. Two of my colleagues played Fauré's "Les Berceaux". I will try to explain what went through my head - or rather: through my body, including my head - while listening. An incomplete story, because moments like those (or any moment, if you observe yourself carefully) are so incredibly filled with links to yourself and the rest of the world that it takes at least a work similar in size to one of the books of Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu" to explore the full meaningfulness of the moment.

(Dirty) Maggie May

I was a bit secretive some time ago about my new research project. I'll be more open now: it's the phenomenon of the shanty choir. A phenomenon hugely popular in the Netherlands and Germany, as this little map of the membership of the International  Shanty and Seasong Association shows:

Basically the phenomenon consists of male singers gathering once a week, singing shanties and seasongs, and occasionally performing, mostly in some kind of uniform. The main question in my research is, as usual, Clifford Geertz' question: "What the hell is going on here?" I want to figure out why shanty choirs are so abundant, what it brings their members, their audiences, and eventually what this might learn me, the conservatoire where I work, and the professional musicians trained there, about what music does with people.

I was listening to a shanty CD, and heard a German shanty choir perform the famous song 'Maggie May'. No no, not Rod Stewart's song, but this one. For some explanation I of course first consulted Wikipedia; then realizing that the story of the song reminds me of many other songs, including New York Girls.

But on hearing the song I was of course also reminded of the Beatles' version of the song, beginning with Lennon singing in his most Liverpudlian voice "Oh, Dirty Maggie Mae, they have taken her away...".

Which reminded me of the tendency of songs to become less and less explicit as they become more known - the 'dirty' is dropped when a German shantychoir sings "Maggie May". Or was it an addition by the Beatles? Something to find out. Let's call sir Paul one of these days.

Which reminded me of the Dutch song "Daar was laatst een meisje loos..." (loads of versions on YouTube, but also check out lots of recordings of people singing this song at the Dutch folksong database "De Nederlandse Liederenbank"), a song which - as so many Dutch folk songs - ended up as a children's song; an innocent school song about a girl who dresses up as a boy to go to sea.  Most school teachers teaching the song to our kids probably don't realise that this actually was rather an explicit song - the girl had to 'climb into the mast' (nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more, know what I mean?) and ends up coming home pregnant and marrying the captain of the boat.

Just that you know how much fun I am having with this new research topic of mine...

The Secret of André Rieu

I hope you know who André Rieu is - if not, just check YouTube. I wrote about him before, because I like to try to understand why other people like other music than I do, and Rieu for me is a good field to examine this. And also I like occasionally to mention his name in the conservatoire where I work, just to check the reactions of my colleagues (horror, concern - "Do you feel alright?", the assumption that I am sarcastic; but also sometimes sheer admiration).

But I am not the only one who is curious. In Maastricht (Rieu comes from that area, I remember being taught by one of his brothers when I studied at the Maastricht Conservatoire, and his father was conductor of the local symphony orchestra and one of the music tycoons there), in Maastricht - as I was starting to say - there is a group of researchers who will study Rieu the coming few years. The project is called"The secret of André Rieu", and they present themselves to the general public as the "Rieu Academy".

They have at least learnt something from Rieu's PR-machine. "This research project will bring together art, science, cultural history and the Rieu-audience", the Rieu Academy writes in an announcement for an afternoon where they will discuss Rieu's work, stating that this, "our first performance" (!), will deepen the experience of Rieu's concert visitors.

So what are they going to research? I quote: how do Rieu, his orchestra, his musical guests and his choice of repertoire contribute to bridging the gap between 'low' and 'high' culture? How does Rieu popularize classical music? What is he doing with it? How does he revive old songs, nearly vanished from our collective memory? What is the contribution of the attire of the orchestra members , how do the special effects work, when does he move the listeners?

Mildly interesting, I would say. I would never start any research based on ideas about a gap between 'low' and 'high' culture. I mean: project those terms in your questions and rest assured that they will boomerang back on you in the conclusions. "Mind the gap", the English say - "Avoid the gap" would, in this case, be more fitting.

Elsewhere I read that one of the questions is whether Rieu's success can be replicated by someone else in the future. Hardly a question, I guess. The answer is "Yes, if that someone else is André Rieu and the future cirumstances are the same as the current circumstances". Annoying, those social scientists who still want to figure out whether history is repeatable or not, and whether or not mankind is a machine.

And in yet another place, about Rieu's waltzes: "The dance is one of the most ancient sources of music. Folk music actually is nothing else then dance music."

I don't think there is much hope for this research project.

Acting Like a Moron Before the Natives

Summer holiday's over, work has started. The PhD is written, so time for a new project. I am not going to tell you what it is, only that it is ethnomusicology - anthropology of music, if you want - and that it is just around the corner. And that I will be doing participant observation, this time, rather than an interview study.

I can't wait to start!

I was reading We, the Tikopia by Raymond Firth, an anthropological classic. And right in the beginning of the book I found a quote which reflects my feeling of embarking on this new voyage - because a voyage it is, even if the fieldwork is nearly in my back yard and the new language I need to speak is only metaphorical new.

So there we go:

"The reality of the native life is going on all around him [the anthropologist], but he himself is not yet in focus to see it. He knows that most of what he records at first will be useless: it will be either definitely incorrect, or so inadequate that it must later be discarded. Yet he must make a beginning somewhere. He realizes that at this stage he is incapable of separating the pattern of custom from the accidentals of individual behaviour, he wonders if each slight gesture does not hold some meaning which is hidden from him, he aches to be able to catch and retain some of the flood of talk he hears on all sides , and he is consumed with envy of the children who are able to toss about so lightly that speech which he must so painfully acquire. He is conscious of good material running to waste before him moment by moment; he is impressed by the vastness of the task that lies before him and of his own feeble equipment for it; in the face of a language and custom to which he has not the key, he feels that he is acting like a moron before the natives. At the same time he is experiencing the delights of discovery, he is gaining an inkling of what is in store; like a gourmet walking roound a feast that is spread, he savours in anticipation  the quality of what he will later appreciate in full."

Raymond Firth. We, the Tikopia. Kinship in Primitive Polynesia. Boston: Beacon Press, 1963 (1936), p.3.

Real People

I was in Shanghai for an ethnomusicological conference. On the day-off, we had the option to go on excursion. I chose to go to Wu Zhen, a ‘water town’ – a village with a lot of little canals and many boats and bridges. Like Venice, maybe (never been there); or Giethoorn, if you look for a Dutch equivalent.

It was hot. There were many tourists (most of them, of course, Chinese), who all had paid in order to be able to visit the village. The village brimmed with tourist shops. Obviously it lives from tourism these days, like for example Schiermonnikoog.

When we were back in Shanghai, I bumped into a fellow ethnomusicologist acquaintance, someone researching Chinese music. I asked him where he had been. He had also been to Wu Zheng, and was furious. “Why did they take us to such a stupid tourist village! Couldn’t they have brought us to a real Chinese village? There are many of them around. Much more interesting. And at least there are real people there!”

I understand the feeling and appreciate it, although I myself don’t worry too much about being a tourist at periods – every role has its pros and contras. But many ethnomusicologists are busy with research into the real life of ordinary people – and then tourist representations of real life are generally not too interesting indeed.

That is: if one takes tourist attractions such as Wu Zheng to stand for ‘the real thing’. The other option, of course, is to take Whu Zheng for what it is: a tourist attraction. I found it rather interesting to see how the Chinese handled their version of heritage tourism.

And, contrary to my fellow ethnomusicologist, I wasn’t missing ‘real people’. Because why should a tourist shop owner, a tourist temple guard, or a tourist from a Chinese suburb, be less ‘real’ than a Chinese traditional villager? Beats me.