Question: If we look at this field, where non-Western cultural music is involved with different cultures’ music, including Western music, many people think of “world music” as a suitable designation. How do you relate to this?
Answer: The label “world music” arose in the UK in the 1980s. The term was used on recordings of non-Western music released in the UK and USA, mostly by Western recording labels. In the article “So flawed and Problematic: Why the Term World Music Is Dead”, Ammar Kalia (2019) discusses the history of “world music” and points at a need for a label to market African bands in the wake of Paul Simons recording “Graceland” in 1986. Like jazz, "world music" has developed through several under-categories, and “Store Norske leksikon” now defines “world music” as a term used for music that mixes elements from different parts of the world (Knudsen, 2020.) It is important to emphasize that I do not see my music in this Ph.D. project as “world music,” even though I am working within a non-Western culture. As a classical-contemporary musician/composer, I relate to the contemporary music field with clear inspiration from gamelan. As a jazz musician/composer, I relate to jazz’s historical ways of approaching inspiration from a foreign culture. Much of the jazz music I have listened to and still listen to holds inspiration from Eastern and African traditional music, with artists like John Coltrane, Don Cherry, Jan Garbarek, Charles Lloyd, and Keith Jarrett as leading contributors. These artists made Eastern/African-inspired jazz long before "world music" became a term. In the last 30 years, I acknowledge we in the West have become more concerned with the origin of music inspired by other cultures. Some of the reasons for this is more available access to source music, immigration, and generally, a smaller world (Internet, people travel more, etc.). More important is the development of public morality related to the treatment of other cultures, with concerns regarding to orientalism, cultural appropriation, and exoticism, which I will discuss in this chapter.
As a Western artist/artistic researcher working within the environment of a foreign culture's music, I have a responsibility to reflect on the historical aspect of how we in the West have threatened other cultures. Western history is full of misuses of imperialistic power. Through the colonization of African and Asian countries, Western society has harmed these countries and their cultural development. If we look at how the Norwegians have behaved toward the Sami people, the Norwegians (and other Nordic countries) have our own misuse of economic and political power. Among other things, Sami history and traditional music, Joik, was threatened during the Christian missionary in the 16th and 17th century, due to its important ritual functions in the Sami nature religion (Good/Sims/Clarke/Russo, 2021). From this concern, I believe different controversial terms arise, designations like orientalism, cultural appropriation, and exoticism. In the following, I will deepen these aspects, informed by Edward Said’s influential thinking about orientalism (Said, 1978), Arnd Schneider’s thoughts on cultural appropriation (Schneider, 2017), and Ralph P. Locke’s work about exoticism (Locke, 2007).
Orientalism
Theoretical and philosophical discussions about "orientalism" draw heavily on Edward Said’s book, titled Orientalism, from 1978. In this book, Said discusses how the Western world in general portrays the Middle East and other cultures as "the other," which contradicts us in the Western world. This understanding has affected the general perception of how the West has perceived the East. These “othering” processes are active, subordinating someone and someone’s culture and artifacts as naive, deviant, and strange, and meanwhile, “our” culture, artefacts, and behavior are normal. In distinguishing between “us” and “them,” processes of othering contribute to exclusion and disrespectfulness, according to Said (1978). He exemplifies this with European ideas about the Orient, and writes:
| Also, we have European ideas about the Orient, which again repeats European superiority over the retarded Orient, and completely disregards the possibility that a more independent, or more skeptical, thinker might think otherwise. (Said, 1978, p.17) |
One of the most famous works of art related to Orientalism is Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingre’s painting Grande Odalisque (1814). Although this piece of art contains many details, it is anatomically quite wrong. Among other things, the spine and the right arm are too long, something that reduces this person and dehumanizes her into a figure or an object, passively existing for others to analyze, discuss, buy, or break without the ethical responsibilities or dignity that normally apply when discussing persons.
In my PhD projects The Eastern Rebellion, aspects of Orientalism have challenged my work on many levels and fueled the critical reflections in all/several parts of the work. First, I did not wish to portray gamelan music in the wrong way, even though I worked outside traditional gamelan music. This concern led to several reflections on how to avoid altering the listener’s view of gamelan through my music, which led to further considerations related to cultural appropriation.
Cultural Appropriation
The second term, cultural appropriation, denotes an act where elements from a foreign culture are employed in artistic work. Cambridge University defines cultural appropriation as follows:
The act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture. (“Cultural Appropriation,” 2021)
By appropriating elements from other cultures with little or no understanding and knowledge about this culture and the meaning of the specific elements in their original tradition, the artist greatly risks making fun of and showing disrespect and arrogance to the origin and traditions of these elements. Cultural appropriation can be seen in the light of orientalism and related to the thought of Western superiority of the non-Western world through imperialism and colonialism. Discussions about cultural appropriation have many nuances and can be related to a bigger political debate. In the political picture, there are several issues where disrespectful acts can lead to prejudice, discrimination, and racism (Le Roux, 2001).
The Cambridge University definition of “cultural appropriation” is in line with how Arnd Schneider, professor at the Department of Social Anthropology, described the phenomena (Aftenposten, 2017) after the Norwegian politician Siv Jensen wore a Native American suit during a theme party at a governmental event. According to Schneider, cultural appropriation is harmful if:
1. The privileged copy the less privileged.
2. It is without respect for the other culture.
3. Other cultures are re-defined.
In the project Eastern Rebellion, an important concern is to reflect on these issues and to articulate an awareness of aspects of privilege, respect, and the power to define. This is because I, as a Western artist creating art products with inspiration from a non-Western culture, have to consider how my work deals with these issues. In the next section, I will discuss how Arnd Schneider explains cultural appropriation, as mentioned above, and reflect on his three points about my research and work in the project Eastern Rebellion.
1. The privileged copy the less privileged.
Several issues related to appropriation are copyrights. An example is a Western clothing designer who borrows a design from a native suite and through some modifications make a “new” design, eventually portraying himself/herself as the designer. Issues of copyrights are compounded and thoroughly discussed by Mathias Siems in his article “The Law and Ethics of Cultural Appropriation” (Siems, 2019). He points to problematic sides that arise when only some and not all aspects of a culture are protected by copyrights.
The dilemma of avoiding copying gamelan music has had double implications for my project. I embody and incorporate into my musical practice something from a culture that is not mine. I was neither born nor raised in Bali. Through learning Balinese gamelan from Tjokorda Raka, I have copied his way of playing and learned to understand different compositions and musical key elements as he has explained and demonstrated. My benefits from learning non-Western culture Balinese gamelan are both the inspiration it gave and that it provided me with the ability to use gamelan instruments as part of my artistic Ph.D. research. Conversely, I have examined the field of contemporary gamelan and looked for similar ways in which native people and Western composers use gamelan. In my music and in this text, I always refer to my knowledge about gamelan, not to what gamelan really is or what should be considered authentic. Instead, the aim of the Eastern Rebellion project is to employ my learned knowledge about gamelan to create new music and to contribute to understanding how a Western musician might work with non-Western culture.
2. It is done without respect for the other culture.
A clear example of how to not respect a native culture is by wearing a Native American suit at a costume party, as Siv Jensen did. Obviously, wearing a native suit at a costume party is disrespectful and out of context, but through, for example, Disney’s Pocahontas and the general television use of native clothing as entertainment out of context, it has become legitimized. Today, if someone wore a native Sami suit at a costume party, the negative reactions would be strong.
When I look at Schneider’s concerns on respect related to my research, I have tried to understand gamelan music through fieldwork. This means that I have learned gamelan through being a part of an authentic context in Indonesia for several months. I have studied gamelan directly with and through Gamelan expert Tjokorda Raka and by living in Bali for six months. This period provided me with insights into several aspects of and with gamelan. I have experienced several social contexts with gamelan in Bali and realized how this musical tradition is part of everyday life, religion, and ways to consider humans, societies, economy, and the divine. I have learned how gamelan instruments are made and used and how Balinese musicians respect these instruments. For example, a person cannot step over these instruments but must move around them. Gamelan music has a place in Balinese religion, the Balinese people’s many ceremonies, and how they structure life, death, and beliefs in all concerns. I have also learned how gamelan music is continually changing, embedded in, and taken care of by all members of their society and by the culture. My research then stems from my background as a foreigner trying to blend in and become part of everyday life in Bali, my fieldwork in this context, and the reflections both in and on this work. This text aims to articulate and invite the reader into what I have learned as openly and transparently as I can. The knowledge in and of gamelan gained from the fieldwork, the stays in Bali, and the experiences from gradually becoming/efforts to becoming part of Balinese gamelan tradition provide me with a new palette as a musician, composer, and human. It is with this palette that I approach the performing work in Eastern Rebellion to create new art products—with respect, dignity, humility, and the best possible understanding of the aspects and artifacts from Balinese gamelan, as well as the same from other music that I use in this work.
3. Other cultures are redefined.
Gamelan music can be seen as a musical umbrella where innovation and tradition live side by side. Through my studies with Tjokorda Raka and the way he introduced me to gamelan and other gamelan composers and musicians, I always felt permission to explore and use my knowledge about gamelan in creating my own music. For me, the issue regarding redefining gamelan has two sides, related to two distinctly different traditions of Balinese gamelan.
One side concerns the traditional gamelan related to religion. This music is something I have not included in my PhD project because I feel/think it should not be dealt with out of context. The other side is contemporary and innovative gamelan. From my understanding, this music is continuously redefined in a similar way as contemporary classical music or jazz music is constantly changed, transformed, and redefined by new composers and musicians. From this, collaboration between diverse music cultures not only influences the nonprivileged or the “exotic” but also the cultures of the normalized “we,” who travel to foreign places to discover and explore new expressions. In this project, this means that not only is Western music influenced by gamelan, but also that Western composers influence gamelan composers. The question of influence, definition, and redefinition works both ways. An example is my field recording of a ceremony in Ubud Village in 2012.
The example above is a composition by Dewa Alit (also used in Section 1.2., Musical Background). This piece is created in different time signatures and contains polyrhythmic and rhythmic modulations, which are not elements in traditional Balinese gamelan music. The fact that this piece is performed in a ceremony at all is, as far as I can understand, a significant statement about gamelan music’s part within Balinese culture. It shows the prominence and importance that gamelan has in this context and displays how innovations and developing this music are welcomed and accepted even in religious contexts. This provides me with the belief that my creative work with gamelan music in this Ph.D. project is welcomed by the culture and musicians that my gamelan knowledge has departed from.
Exoticism
The third term I mentioned above, exoticism, is more an attraction related to something foreign and exotic. Ralph P. Locke discusses this in his article "A Broader View of Musical Exoticism” (2007). Here, Locke points at exoticism as something far from the actors’ familiar surroundings. In Western art, exoticism is an inspiration from a non-Western source, which Sara J. Oshinsky writes about in her essay "Exoticism in the Decorative Arts." In this essay, she discusses how many in the West considered non-Western art and design as quaint and uncorrupted by industrial capitalism during the 19th century. She writes:
| While English critics complained about the lack of integrity and poor design in the utilitarian goods that were being produced in their factories, they exalted the arts of pre-industrialized nations and held them in great esteem as supreme examples of good design. Because of their purity of design, Islamic ceramics, Indian textiles, and Japanese prints were considered aesthetically superior to European goods, which aimed for commercial novelty. (Oshinsky, 2007) |
In the context of exoticism as a musical phenomenon, Claire Mabilat’s (2008) distinction between exotism and orientalism might be helpful. In her book Orientalism and Representations of Music in the Nineteenth-century British Popular Arts, Mabilat describes exoticism as an artistic tool, unlike orientalism, which has a cultural or political agenda (Mabilat, 2016, p. 7). From this explanation, exoticism works as an artistic palette that contributes to positive inspiration, something that undermines the worried awareness presented in Said’s thoughts about Orientalism (1978) as well as in Schneider’s thoughts on appropriation (2017). When considering Mabilat’s articulation of exoticism about the musical work of Claude Debussy (2008), there is little doubt that the exoticism and unfamiliarity in gamelan influenced Debussy’s work in ways that produced innovative and wonderful music. Debussy incorporated gamelan inspiration into Western classical aesthetics through the use of pentatonic scales, more open harmonic progressions (with the use of pentatonic and whole-tone scales), musical patterns, and drones in the bass register. From the theoretical framework developed in this chapter, one might still ask if aspects of othering, orientalism, and appropriation also worked to draw distinctions between what was “normal” and not—whose culture and artistic elements could be used freely as garnish in someone else’s musical pot.
As mentioned earlier, much of the music I listen to holds an exotic expression. I have been an admirer of John Coltrane’s music, especially his quartet from the sixties to his death in 1967. During this period, he discovered Indian music, and through reading Indian philosophy and studies with Ravi Shankar, Coltrane incorporated these elements in his style. His most well-known compositions are "India" and "Om," but several other compositional titles suggested an affection for Indian or other religions, like "A Love Supreme," "Ascension," "Selflessness,” and "Meditations.” He also incorporated instruments from India, such as the shehnai and sitar (featured on John Coltrane Quartet—Complete Live at Village Vanguard). The heritage of Coltrane was, in many ways, a new path followed by several other jazz musicians, such as John McLaughlin, Dave Liebman, and Jan Garbarek, to name a few.
As Nat Hentoff comments on Coltrane's position in the jazz society,:
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Coltrane became a theosophist of jazz. ... In this respect, as well as musically, he has been a powerful influence on many musicians since (Hentoff, 1976, p. 205). |
Norwegian singer Kristin Asbjørnsen uses African instruments on several recordings, including "Traces of You” (Global Sonics/2018), as represented by Suntou Susso on Kora. In my opinion, her artistic goal is to show her admiration for and interest in an African music and soundscape. The kora colors the recording, and if a different instrument had replaced it, the music would not have been the same.
These are just two examples of music where Western music artists are using non-Western music as inspiration. The musical sources and their culture are in these cases, from my perspective, treated with respect, through these artists’ detailed study of the music. In this way, they use non-Western music as a source for creating their music, which is not the same as creating their version of this music.
In the discussion of how Western composers use non-Western music, the relationship between cultural appropriation and cultural recognition can be useful. This distinction is drawn by Karen Howard, who points at a thorough learning and understanding of the non-Western culture involved, and through a checklist in the article, the educators can have different strategies for avoiding unwanted appropriation (Howard, 2020).
Howard’s article emphasizes several aspects, both in the artistic work and in the verbal reflections throughout the project Eastern Rebellion. This points back to my thorough study of gamelan music, where experimentation with gamelan instruments in interaction with Western instruments in an established contemporary context is a fundamental and vital constituent.
To summarize and distinguish between cultural appropriation and cultural recognition in music/art:
- Cultural appropriation makes improper use of and lacks respect for non-Western cultures (as politician Siv Jensen wore a Native American suit to a carnival). Through this caricatured expression, the non-Western culture is disrespected, and the outcome might be altering the perception of this culture.
- Conversely, cultural recognition in music/art holds respect for non-Western culture, and the artist recognizes this inspiration as a driving force in the artwork. It does not use cliches as an element of recognition.
An art project dealing with another culture's traditions and instruments may be controversial and is vulnerable to criticism from the theoretical perspectives of orientalism, cultural appropriation, and exoticism. This also concerns my research project Eastern Rebellion, based on my understanding and interpretation of Balinese gamelan music, as well as my background as a performer and composer within classical music and jazz. From that, yes, this project might be claimed as exotifying and using part of non-Western music and culture in ways that are enriching to discuss from the perspectives of orientalism and cultural appropriation. Still, the bottom line in such criticism is that the use of foreign art expressions is harmful to the original context and the people and culture from where it arises. This means elements from the non-Western culture are employed disrespectfully and objectifyingly as a method for a privileged Western to earn something—power, money, land, power to define, or something else. In my artistic research, Balinese gamelan has not been a means toward any of this. Instead, Balinese gamelan (or my knowledge and skills in gamelan practices I experienced in 2012) plays a role with my background from classical music and jazz to create something new, without disrespecting or exotifying these traditions. The starting point is me (not gamelan or jazz or classical Western music). I ask: What can I make from the diverse music background that I have experienced—how should my knowledge from one culture be any more disrespectful and exotic than my knowledge from the other or the third culture?
My intention in the research project Eastern Rebellion has been to question (or rebel) both artistically and verbally from the informal prohibitions and limitations that are feared to extend one’s expression thoroughly and in learning something new and foreign. If we were to only use expressions, things, words, and manners from the contexts and traditions that we by chance were born into—how would we continue to develop? An important question for me throughout this whole project has been: What can I transfer through my research, which shows gamelan music and tradition, positively and fairly? In my opinion, through reflection and the thorough learning of gamelan music, Balinese culture, and life, I am presenting this culture in a positive, fair manner and hopefully contributing to a new way of how to interact with a non-Western culture in contemporary music.
Evan Ziporyn, a composer and musician who has a long history of working with gamelan and Indonesian, says the following:
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I think for the Balinese—and I do not want to generalize because they are all individuals and they all have their own opinions about it—their tradition is intact. Some guy, or some woman, coming in and doing some weird thing with gamelan, that is interesting to them if they're the kind of person that's interested in these curiosities. They either think of it as a compliment if you're respectful personally, or they think of it as a curiosity or a distraction. It doesn't threaten their music. It's a renewable resource, right? If you learn something about a melody or a structure, and you use it, that doesn't hurt. (Wbur, 2014) |
Even though my intuition agrees, I am not in the position to fully validate all the aspects of this quote. Ziporyn has considerable experience cooperating with Balinese people. He has written several pieces for the Balinese gamelan, performed by Balinese gamelan orchestras. What I hpe for is that the Balinese gamelan tradition will be intact. Gamelan is an enormous culture in Indonesia. Indonesia is the fourth-largest country in the world, with 260 million inhabitants. Hopefully the culture and music and the strong relationship between this can live and develop during the coming generations.