Cultural appropriation in music

[svart-hvitt]

Btw @svart-hvitt, I'm now listening to some Sami music and quite liking it. Is this something you're actually into / can recommend some of?

Try Mari Boine

 

[svart-hvitt]

Try Mari Boine

And this kitschy one:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sámiid_ædnan

 

[andreasmaaan]

And this kitschy one:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sámiid_ædnan

Lol!

Funny also to see how relatively low-key Eurovision was back then.

 

[SIY]

Here's one for you. A white guy from Boston does southern blues slide guitar and breaks into Tuvan throat singing.

And a bonus bit of appropriation.

I failed to be offended. Matt is great.

 

[dallasjustice]

I'm sorry, but you're misinformed about the law in Canada. Please refer to this link.

The law criminalises the following, and has nothing to do with forcing people to use any particular terminology to describe anyone:

• Advocating or promoting genocide against an “identifiable group” (including a group defined by gender identity or gender expression);
• Inciting hatred against an “identifiable group”; and
• Communicating statements, other than in private conversation, to wilfully promote hatred against an “identifiable group”.

Unfortunately, Jordan Peterson has spread a huge amount of disinformation about this law globally. It's rubbish; don't buy it. Go to Canada if you like and deliberately misgender someone. You will, unsurprisingly, walk free

Please note, I'm not saying here that all of Peterson's critics are right, either. That's a separate issue. My point is simply that he (and your post) mischaracterise the law in Canada.

Ontario does interpret this law in such a way that it requires certain new "non binary" pronouns to be used.

Refusing to refer to a trans person by their chosen name and a personal pronoun that matches their gender identity, or purposely misgendering, will likely be discrimination when it takes place in a social area covered by the Code, including employment, housing and services like education.

http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/questions-and-answers-about-gender-identity-and-pronouns

 

[andreasmaaan]

Here's one for you. A white guy from Boston does southern blues slide guitar and breaks into Tuvan throat singing.

And a bonus bit of appropriation.

I failed to be offended. Matt is great.

He's good. But why would you call this "cultural appropriation"? Has someone accused him of it?

I also think this guy is incredible in a somewhat different vein (give it a few mins to get there).

 

[andreasmaaan]

Ontario does interpret this law in such a way that it requires certain new "non binary" pronouns to be used.

http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/questions-and-answers-about-gender-identity-and-pronouns

Yes, this seems true when it comes to officers of public institutions dealing with members of the public.

But this does not limit the rights of private people in private contexts, and states that "freedom of expression is much less likely to be limited in the context of a public debate on social, political or religious issues in a university or a newspaper." Well, this is how I interpreted it.

Do you think this goes too far @dallasjustice?

 

[SIY]

But why would you call this "cultural appropriation"?

I wouldn't because I think the entire concept is stupid. But Tuvan throat singing and slide guitar come out of very specific and disparate cultures.

Has someone accused him of it?

No idea, but someone outraged on behalf of Tuvans or black southern blues musicians might. I haven't bothered to look or ask him.

 

[dallasjustice]

Yes, this seems true when it comes to officers of public institutions dealing with members of the public.

But this does not limit the rights of private people in private contexts, and states that "freedom of expression is much less likely to be limited in the context of a public debate on social, political or religious issues in a university or a newspaper." Well, this is how I interpreted it.

Do you think this goes too far @dallasjustice?

The only qualifier I read from the OHRC dealt with place. I didn't read anything saying that the law only applies to certain groups. The OHRC further defines this boundary under the obtuse phrase "social area."

If Jordan Peterson's University required that he use non-binary pronouns, I think that's wrong because he's tenured faculty and also has a clinical practice. It also defies logic because there's only two biological sexes according to basic human anatomy.(excluding one very rare congenital condition) But I don't know what sort of employment agreement he may have with the University. Maybe that's something they can do according to his terms of employment.

 

[andreasmaaan]

The only qualifier I read from the OHRC dealt with place. I didn't read anything saying that the law only applies to certain groups. The OHRC further defines this boundary under the obtuse phrase "social area."

If Jordan Peterson's University required that he use Cis pronouns, I think that's wrong because he's tenured faculty and also has a clinical practice. It also defies logic because there's only two biological sexes according to basic human anatomy.(excluding one very rare congenital condition) But I don't know what sort of employment agreement he may have with the University. Maybe that's something they can do according to his terms of employment.

Yeh, I'm not totally sure. The link from the Human Rights Commission says purposely mis-gendering "will likely be discrimination when it takes place in a social area covered by the Code, including employment, housing and services like education." So seemingly that could apply to Peterson if he teaches in Ontario. My interpretation is that it wouldn't apply to non-government employees though. But it does seem complicated.

I also missed this during our earlier discussion because I was looking only at the Canadian national law - not the laws of specific states.

 

[dallasjustice]

Yeh, I'm not totally sure. The link from the Human Rights Commission says purposely mis-gendering "will likely be discrimination when it takes place in a social area covered by the Code, including employment, housing and services like education." So seemingly that could apply to Peterson if he teaches in Ontario. My interpretation is that it wouldn't apply to non-government employees though. But it does seem complicated.

I also missed this during our earlier discussion because I was looking only at the Canadian national law - not the laws of specific states.

I also missed it. But then YouTube suggested I view a Jordan Peterson debate. In that debate, his opponent made the same argument; that the original legislation doesn't specifically require non-binary pronouns. Peterson invited the audience to view the OHRC website to see how Ontario interprets that law. So I did.

 

[andreasmaaan]

The position seems to be in Ontario that in the context of education, employment, policing, or the provision of public housing, deliberate (not accidental) mis-gendering is likely to amount to discrimination.

I guess both our initial beliefs were wide of the mark - the reality is that misgendering is not against the law in Canada per se, but that it amounts to discrimination in certain contexts.

Is it clear what the legal consequences of this are? For example, if JP deliberately misgenders a student in his capacity as a professor, what legal consequences flow from that?

 

[dallasjustice]

Is it clear what the legal consequences of this are? For example, if JP deliberately misgenders a student in his capacity as a professor, what legal consequences flow from that?

I think Peterson feels very strongly about this issue but I don't think he's trying to be the Canadian Rosa Parks. So I'm afraid I'll never see a YouTube video of him intentionally mislabeling someone.

 

[andreasmaaan]

I guess from my point of view, whether I agree with the law or not partly depends on what the consequences are. For example, I think the law would go too far if deliberate misgendering in these contexts were a criminal offence

But OTOH I can see how misgendering could be used as a weapon in the context, for example, of a workplace or by police against a member of the public, as in the example cited in the link.

So I could be convinced that the laws were appropriate if the consequences were, for example, a direction forcing an institution to change its practices or some kind of remedy for a person who has been discriminated against (I know you'll likely disagree with me here btw).

 

[Guermantes]

Treat people with respect. That’s all there is. And feel free to mix some Sami chants into your next EDM hit.

This made me think of two things:

The first is the song "Sweet Lullaby" by Deep Forest which uses portions of “Rorogwela”, a lullaby from the Solomon Islands as performed by Afunakwa and recorded by a Swiss ethnomusicologist, Dr. Hugo Zemp. I wondered about the ethics and legality about their use of this which lead me to this article by Ethan Zuckerman: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2004/11/23/turmeric-pygmies-and-piracy/

Though the article is primarily dealing with issues of intellectual property, it highlights still lingering colonialist attitudes toward the artists working in traditional/indigenous cultures. From Zemp to Deep Forest to Jan Garbarek, it seems there was a chain of cultural Chinese whispers where little respect was given to the original artist. Is this artistic freedom or exploitation? From Zuckerman's article:

In all my reading about “Sweet Lullaby”, I can’t find any evidence that anyone ever tried contacting Afunakwa in the Solomon Islands to find out what she thought about the success of “Rorogwela”. Nor can I find any evidence that anyone – including Deep Forest – wrote her a royalty check for her contribution to Deep Forest’s success. ​

Similarly, the attempt of the University of Mississippi Medical Center to patent the use of turmeric for medicinal purposes shows that scientists are not immune:

This was hardly a novel use for the Indians who’d been using turmeric for exactly this purpose for thousands of years. But US patent law does not recognize undocumented foreign “traditional knowledge” as prior art – to challenge the validity of the patent, the New Delhi-based Council for Agriculture Research had to present an ancient Sanskrit manuscript documenting the use of turmeric for wound healing. Council for Agricultural Research prevailed, and the patent was withdrawn in August, 1997. ​

​

The second thing it made me think of was this:

Recently I licensed some of my music to be used in a documentary about the Sami poet, Inghilda Tapio. The music in question was recorded some time ago and totally independently of the documentary project. I still haven't seen the film, so I don't know how it was used but I wonder how I would approach the project if I had been asked to do the entire score. Would I "borrow" anything from Sami music? Well, that depends . . .

If the director specifically asked me to incorporate Sami musical elements I would ask her if the budget would allow me to collaborate with Sami musicians. I would explain that I wasn't comfortable with pastiche and the results without collaboration may result in something inappropriate. The last thing the project needs would be a loss of integrity.

If the director didn't ask for Sami elements and the budget was small (highly likely) with no real chance for collaboration, then I would want to read Tapio's poetry and listen to some CDs of Sami music to understand something of the spirit of the works. I would not consider sampling music from the recordings but I would consider asking permission to use aspects of the poet's voice, such as rhythm and timbre, if recordings of her reciting her poetry were available. Obviously the music would have to evoke the emotional aspects of the visual cues but I would hope that some of that intangible spirit would also make its way in there.

Film composers now have huge libraries of sampled "ethnic" instruments to call on (e.g. https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/world/middle-east/). I love the palette of timbres these make available but I also understand the downside which is the temptation to add some quick and easy local colour to scores. There are deadlines to make and composers often take shortcuts. This can mean cultural sensitivity and respect get overlooked.

 

[Cosmik]

If the director specifically asked me to incorporate Sami musical elements I would ask her if the budget would allow me to collaborate with Sami musicians.

'Collaboration' is an interesting word. If instead of composing music you were an author, and your publisher asked you to write a story with a Sami sub-plot, would you hire in a Sami storyteller to write part of it? It's just that authors are accused of 'cultural appropriation' too, but cannot, presumably, 'hire in some Sami'..?

 

[Cosmik]

Any views, particularly the first few seconds?

 

[svart-hvitt]

Any views, particularly the first few seconds?

_____________________

This one’s better?

 

[Cosmik]

Turning the commissioned music thing on its head, how conceivable would it be for a Native American/Aboriginal/Chinese/Sami etc. composer to be commissioned to write a piece for a documentary on English poet John Betjeman, and to decide to collaborate with some English musicians to make sure that that the English elements were genuine and that nothing inappropriate was produced?

Or... would it look a bit strange to think that a composer needs to hire in representatives of 'a culture' in the first place; does it imply that it could never happen the other way round? That 'a culture' is so simple/basic/elementary that it can be represented in a few elements and these can be legitimised by some hired-in musicians (not even composers)?

How would 'English culture' be represented and performed by the hired-in musicians? Some Morris music? A bit of staged football chanting? Some Andrew Lloyd Webber-esque singing? Some Beatles phrases? Stock Aitken and Waterman 80s synth sounds? A couple of Elgar-ish progressions? Sea shanty-esque harmonising?

Or the sounds of England? The musicians could blow a football whistle. Play the spoons and washboard. Ring a GPO telephone bell. Hit wood on leather (cricket). Blow the horn of a London bus.

And who would be the collaborative musicians (not even composers) who could genuinely supply these genuine elements in a genuine way? Answer: it would be a 'pastiche' however it was done. Why hire a composer (especially one from a different 'culture') to collaborate with some English musicians, and not just use some archive extracts of the real thing?

Or why not be bold enough to write a unique score that represents what's being talked about without even trying to make it 'local colour'.

 

[Cosmik]

This one’s better?

Don't know about better. The Vapors one was a favourite when I was at school, and I think it has a certain charm and energy compared to the supposedly more sophisticated Bowie song..?