South African Music Studies

Insiders on the Margins: A Conversation with Susan Barry

Phuti Sepuru — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article ameliorates the dearth of literature devoted to South African women in jazz placing a lens on the lived experience of influential pianist, composer, and educator, Susan Barry. I first interviewed Barry in March 2018 for my doctoral research and was enamoured by the rich legacy of South African music within her shared narratives. I resonated with her story, despite our differences – her experiences as a white female musician during apartheid and mine as a black woman in jazz in post-apartheid South Africa. This resulted in a second in-depth interview in October 2021, where I probed further to unpack the untold parts of her story. This interview brings to the fore Susan Barry’s biography, philosophies, musical history and encounters with seminal figures in South African music and jazz. The interview also touches on her musical style, contributions and experiences as a female instrumentalist in South African jazz/ music.

Xenochronic Encounters at the Africa Open Improvising Collective

Esther Marie Pauw, Garth Erasmus — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Africa Open Institute’s improvising collective, established in 2020, meets regularly to explore facets of free improvising and publishes online on Soundcloud and the Internet Archive. This article sketches some of the reverberations that ensued from encounters between this collective and a similar collective in London (AMM All-Stars). Xenochronic practices are briefly described, and noted as they unfolded in 2023 (from these collectives’ connections). Xenochrony, from ‘strange overlayering’ of tracks, to overlayering of bizarre memories, is extended to consider South Africa’s ‘strange times’ of local ignorance towards improvisatory practitioners classified by monikers of ‘race’ and which music was ‘of worth’. The article unfolds as layered recounting against horizons of international platforms of questionable fame for local musicians – where author Erasmus reflects on his encounters with Derek Bailey in the 1980s, to find knowledges that surfaced in 2023 – things he had not been informed of until Ben Watson and Erasmus met online and spoke to one another for the first time. The article uses the concept of xenochrony (Zappa/Watson) as entry, then proceeds to enact xenochrony – as a layering of online audio tracks with recent and past memories – thereby considering music outputs as process (Redhead and Hawes 2016). Practice-based research methods of self-reflexivity (Sullivan 2010) and aspects of ‘making’ (Ingold) expose multilayered methodologies, whilst probing an objective of finding suitable terminology such as ‘social experimental audio’ to aptly describe contemporary sound art ‘audiospheres’ (López 2020) of the improvising collective.

Ife and Bilal: Reflections on an Afro-Asian intercultural, practice-based intervention

Cara Stacey, Mark Aranha, Bronwen Clacherty, Kristy Stone — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article reflects on an artistic production created between 2017 and 2018 as part of a Mellonfunded, inter-institutional research project titled: ‘Re-centring AfroAsia: Musical and human migrations in the pre-colonial period 700-1500 AD’ (University of Cape Town, University of the Western Cape, University of the Witwatersrand, Ambedkar University Delhi). The production, titled Ife and Bilal, was an intercultural and interdisciplinary collaboration between artists from South Africa, India, and Turkey. As an exploration in grounding contemporary creative and scholarly inquiries outside of Eurocentric discourse, it explored ancient oceanic connections through a live, improvised performance of sound and visuals. In the interconnected world of the Indian Ocean a thousand years ago, water was the conduit that carried people, ideas, and sounds between Africa and Asia. The story of Ife and Bilal revisited that world, where journeys were unpredictable and at the mercy of the forces of nature. Knowledge, collaboration and improvisation were key to survival. The theatrical production embraced these elements, moving away from the literal and towards themes from the littoral, using historically informed media in experimental ways to convey a narrative. Resisting nostalgic or stereotypical representations of a past, the authors drew inspiration from tenth-century Arabic, African and other contemporaneous enquiries into astronomy, astrology, optics, geometry and alchemy. The performed and projected visual art elements explored the material aspects of water, sound, metal and light. Here, science and art worked together with music to locate unseen currents within these historical moments and narratives of fate and fortune. In this article, we reflect on the experimental process of creating Ife and Bilal as artist-researchers, situating our practise within a broader decolonial epistemological project.

Sex Machines: Performing and Critiquing Masculinity in the Music of Stereo Zen

Marc Röntsch — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Throughout its history, popular music has in ways both challenged and reinforced traditional perceptions of masculinity. With sexual themes as arguably core to its construction, funk music has continued to portray a more traditional notion of masculine sexuality and hypervirility. This trend was set through the traditional masculine imagery of funk musicians James Brown and George Clinton, as well as through the lyrical content of their music. South African funk-rock band Stereo Zen were heavily influenced by Brown and Clinton, as well as later funk-rock bands such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Active from 2004-2014, Stereo Zen’s musical and lyrical imagery aligns itself with the aforementioned artists’, yet their version of funk masculinity is mixed with insecurity and uncertainty over their position within this performative gendered framework. This insecurity is voiced at times through honest portrayals of feelings of inadequacy, as well as blustering postures of masculinity and offensive language. This paper reads the music of Stereo Zen through the lens of hooks’s concept of hypermasculine black male sexuality, in parallel with the history and development of funk, arguing that Stereo Zen’s music allows for nuanced interpretations of formations of masculinities, and their portrayal of these performative gendered structures speaks to a unique historical moment within South African history.

‘The Diary of an Independent Zulu Queer Queen’: An Analysis of Toya Delazy’s Curated Persona on Instagram

Lindsay Friday — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The curation of an online persona has recently become critical for the popular musician. The persona, or public identity, is a tool for self- advertisement and audience growth. The phenomenon of online persona curation by musicians is now commonplace, but there remains potential for more research on how they uniquely combine their social media presence with their music. While some work exists concerning social media utilisation within the classical music sphere, South African manifestations in popular music have gone unstudied. This article outlines how UK-based South African popular musician Toya Delazy articulates an intersectional identity within a curated persona. The research conducted focused on her Instagram profile in combination with her musical output. Furthermore, the article discusses how Delazy’s persona appeals to several micro-publics in a manner conducive to growing her audience. The research expanded Richard Rogers’ list of digital objects to include emojis and captions, thereby claiming the relevance of several digital objects (emojis, hashtags and captions) to the articulation of identity within the persona. The article also demonstrates how the concept of an ‘era’ may be utilised to understand how a musician’s curated persona shifts with time.

Lecturers’ Views on Teaching Composition at South African Universities: A Qualitative Enquiry

Frelét de Villiers, Chesney Palmer — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The pedagogy of composition plays a vital role in developing up-and-coming new composers who are trying to find their own voice. The aim of this study was to explore the views of lecturers at South African universities on teaching composition. Many academic outputs have been published on aspects of composition techniques and skills; however, there is a paucity of sources that deal with teaching composition at higher-level institutions. A qualitative study was conducted in which data were collected by means of conducting semi- structured interviews, using open-ended questions, with six composition lecturers at South African universities. The main findings are that lecturers teach composition based on their backgrounds and experience gained during their careers without imposing their ideas on their students. They strive to provide students with the necessary skillset and compositional techniques. It is considered vital to include theoretical underpinnings, analysis and aural training in the composition module in order to nurture the student towards maturity in their composition styles. This study may help lecturers of composition to understand the nature of composition pedagogy and the essentials of the interaction that should ideally take place between student and lecturer.

Community Music Education for Black Africans during Apartheid and in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Bernett Nkwayi Mulungo — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

There are many community music projects in South African townships and their courses range from music theory, aural, practical individual and ensemble lessons on orchestral instruments and recorders – these instruments being primarily ‘Western’. Despite the relative successes of community music projects – indeed one of the few in the realm of arts in post-apartheid South Africa – what remains troubling is the dominance of Western thought and modes of teaching music that maintain the idea of music study as alien in black communities. This speaks to a significant theme, namely: Arts education for community development, which is my area of interest. These community music projects are primarily timely platforms to firmly entrench appreciation, understanding and most undoubtedly the value(s) of the arts to the black African youth. Drawing on my experience as a lecturer in (and graduate from) a South African tertiary institution, and as a teacher in a community music project, this research will interrogate the content of the programme(s): from the theoretical material taught in music theory classes, to the practical repertoire taught and/or performed. The focal point of this research is on how this content informs or speaks to its intended “beneficiaries” – the black African youth. Through these and other considerations, the paper aims to sketch the potentially radical consequences that a transformed music education at community and earlier levels will have for higher education music studies in South Africa.

Assessing Practice Strategies in First-year South African Music Students: Considering the Value of a Standardised Practice Questionnaire

Clorinda Panebianco, Tessa Rhoodie — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Tertiary music studies place a huge amount of pressure on first-year music students who generally battle with the transition between school and university and, most particularly, the increased technical demands for their practical instruments. This study considers the value of using a standardised practice questionnaire to explore and understand first-year students’ practice strategies, organisation of practice, levels of concentration and attitudes toward practising. The practice questionnaire was administered to a total of 143 first-year music students over a period of six years. Students were enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts and Music (BA Mus) and Bachelor of Music (BMus) degrees at the University of Pretoria. A further goal was to explore differences regarding gender and instrument groups. The results reveal that overall first-year music students do make use of effective systematic practice strategies. Organisation and planning strategies, however, could be further developed. Concentration levels and attitudes towards practising were overall favourable. The article discusses the viability of this practice questionnaire as a diagnostic tool for first-year music students.

Reframing the Hybridity Discourse in TwentyFirst Century African Art Music: A Composer’s Perspective

Chidi Obijiaku — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hybridity is fundamental to African art music because the genre emerged through a synthesis of African traditional music and Western classical music. Such fusion enabled the composers to produce music that reflected the socio-political developments in Africa during Western colonialism. Although Western colonialism has ended, composers of African art music continue to employ hybridity as a reflection of the existential realities in twenty-first century Africa. One of such existential realities is urbanisation. Since the end of Western colonialism in Africa, many new cities have emerged while existing urban centres have continued to expand. These urban spaces facilitate the convergence of people from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds and have catalysed the development of new urban cultures across the continent. In the last two decades, many composers have synthesised African urban cultures with Western classical music and African traditional music in new compositions that reflect the realities in present day Africa and extend the binary hybridity that spawned African art music. However, scholarly writings have continued to describe African art music as a genre that synthesises African traditional music with Western classical music alone, thus excluding compositions that explore urban cultures. This paper analyses two African art music compositions that draw from urban cultures in Nigeria and South Africa. Through the analysis, the author reflects on his experiences as a twenty-first century African composer and argues for an extension of the binary focus on hybridity which currently dominates the discourse on African art music.

Some (after)thoughts on Arnold van Wyk’s Ricordanza (1984)

Nicol Viljoen — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article was written in response to Matildie Thom Wium’s thorough sketch studies of Arnold van Wyk's Ricordanza (1984), which convincingly support her understanding of the work as a remembrance of the young Marthinus Cloete Basson, who later became a celebrated director in the field of drama and theatre arts (Thom Wium 2008). Her reading of the work is further validated by inscriptions in van Wyk’s diary: the first made on 12 November 1973 that ‘MCB’ visited his home that night with friends after a concert (Thom Wium 2008; Muller 2014, 601); the second on 3 December 1973, verifying that Van Wyk made the first sketch for Ricordanza that day, ‘a black meditation on the D major prelude which MCB had played a little bit that night on the piano’ (Muller 2014, 601; Thom Wium 2008). The aim of my contribution to this discourse is, through personal recollection and observational musical analysis as proposed by Michael Puri (2017; 2011), to trace compositional influences in Ricordanza that may shape complementary understandings of its meaning and nature. I base my observations on compositional stimuli of which the composer made me aware during a series of visits to his home during the period 1973- 81, and materials included in his lectures at the time. I then speculatively interpret these as an additional collection of compositional ‘genealogies’ to Ricordanza, opening the potentiality of musically inspired ‘narratives’ that may pertain to a further understanding of the work and its unique stylistic orientation.

Gideon Fagan’s Late Style: the Suite for Strings (1974)

Winfried Lüdemann — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Gideon Fagan’s (1904-80) position in South African music history has not yet been thoroughly established despite his illustrious career as a conductor, music administrator, teacher and composer. This is a remarkable gap in South African music scholarship. The present article is an attempt to highlight Fagan’s importance specifically as a composer by discussing his compositional output from the perspective of its possible division into three creative periods and by examining a representative work from the last of these periods, the Suite for Strings (1974). Besides offering penetrating analyses of the six movements of this work, the article poses the question whether the Suite – together with other works from Fagan’s last creative period – can be approached from the perspective of what has become known in music, art and literature scholarship as ‘late style’. These considerations are contextualised by discussing the tradition of writing biographical studies on important artists, and against the backdrop of investigations into the phenomenon of late style by Theodor W. Adorno, Carl Dahlhaus, Edward Said, Nikolaus Urbanek, Gordon McMullan, Sam Smiles, Michael Spitzer and Robert Spencer.

The Theory of Musical Forces: Filling Some Gaps with Integrations and Expansions

Jaco Meyer — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Since Steve Larson published the first writings on his theory of musical forces in 1992, many of the aspects, terms and definitions that he introduced were developed, expanded upon and improved by himself and other researchers. Larson wanted to expand on his own work and write a sequel to his book Musical Forces: Motion, Metaphor, and Meaning. However, he passed away in 2011, shortly before the publication of his first book on musical forces. His intention to write a sequel shows Larson's awareness of the incomplete state of his theory and of the opportunities the theory offers for expansion. Several theorists expanded Larson's theory, the most important being Robert Hatten. Through my own work on expanding the theory of musical forces, I discovered certain perspectives and terminologies that invite further exploration and clarification, as is the case with developing theories. Clarification of these ambiguities and an integration of Hatten’s work into the theory are indispensable for further work within the theory of musical forces. The aim of this article is to identify potential gaps in the theoretical framework, as well as potential areas for further investigation and clarification. I aim to fill some of these gaps for prospective researchers so that it will not be necessary for them to work on fundamental aspects of Larson's theory. Some of the issues in this article are speculative, similar to Larson’s work on this developing theory, and will need further research and refinement. I hope that the work presented in this article will enable other researchers to apply and further expand the theory. Although some of the parts in this article is an expansion of Larson’s work, the aim here is not to offer full expansions of particular aspects, but rather to contextualise and partly elucidate existing expansions.

The Interplay between Flow States in Music Listening Experiences and Self-Actualisation: An Autoethnography of a Queer Music Educator

Conroy Cupido — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Queer individuals in music education often face challenges hindering their well-being and fulfilment, with the term 'queer' serving as a reclaimed identity within the LGBTQ+ community, symbolising resilience against societal adversity. As a gay music educator, I personally identify with this term, finding support within my community. Through promoting self-actualisation, I have discovered personal meaning, emphasising continuous self-growth and authenticity. Research indicates that profound music listening experiences facilitate self-actualisation by evoking flow states that include positive emotions, peak experiences, and transcendence. While literature explores music's impact on well-being, further investigation is needed to understand their complex intersections. This study delves into the interplay between flow states, positive emotions, and peak experiences in music listening, and sheds light on the novel application of autoethnography as method and its capacity to generate new knowledge. As the primary data source, my unique position as a classically trained musician and researcher enhances the study's authenticity. Three main themes emerged: features of strong music listening experiences, music and emotion, and the pursuit of self-actualisation.

Musical Forces as a Tool for Music Analysis: Understanding Syrinx by Claude Debussy Differently

Jaco Meyer — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Claude Debussy’s solo flute composition, Syrinx, originally titled La Flûte de Pan, by Claude Debussy (1862-1918) is regarded as one of the most important solo compositions in flute literature. Numerous analyses and interpretations of this composition exist, utilising various analytical methods, including unconventional ones like Gestalt perception and spectral analysis of flute tone quality. Many analyses delve into complex explanations, often discussing hierarchies and interactions of musical tones in Syrinx. This article aims to demonstrate how existing analyses of Syrinx can be reinterpreted using Steve Larson's theory of musical forces. The purpose is not to criticise the existing analyses but to offer a different understanding by applying Larson’s theory. This approach simplifies the intricate explanations found in previous analyses. Larson’s theory posits the existence of stable and unstable tones in tonal music, with unstable tones being drawn towards more stable ones due to musical forces: musical gravity (the tendency of an unstable tone to descend to a more stable tone), musical magnetism (the tendency of an unstable tone to ascend or descend to the closest stable tone), and musical inertia (the tendency of a musical pattern to continue in the same fashion it started). My analysis of Debussy's Syrinx reveals that Larson’s theory serves as a valuable analytical tool, simplifying the complexities often present in written music analyses due to its standardised terms. This analytical method can be applied not only to Syrinx but also to various compositions, simplifying existing analyses and opening up new avenues for interpretation and discussion.

The Merging of Stasis and Forward Movement in Marimba for Solo Flute by Hendrik Hofmeyr

Bertha Spies — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hendrik Hofmeyr’s Marimba for solo flute demonstrates various kinds of growth that generate a musical force that drives the work towards its conclusion. This article focuses on a kind of musical force that originates in the initial contrast between stasis and forward movement followed by the systematic merging of the two agents in the course of the work to eventually arrive at its final climax. Although the two sections that represent stasis and forward movement are based on the same pitch material, the contrast manifests as the result of the diverse ways in which pitch is ordered in time and the resulting melodic patterns articulated when performed according to the composer’s directions. In the work as a whole the musical force is created by the way in which pitch, shape of melodic motifs, register, horizontal density, tempo, metre, dynamics, articulation, performance directives provided, ornamentation, and length of sections are dealt with in an artistic manner. In the course of the four alternating stasis and Danzante sections, two- and three-note melodic patterns from motivic material are used in an artistic manner as the music unfolds in time. Through the implementation of various compositional strategies, the original contrasting patterns of the stasis and the Danzante sections eventually merge in the final climax of the last eight bars

Book Review: Music, Art and Emotion: Depictions of the Night Inspired by Romantic Art Song (2022)

Drummond — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

No Abstract

Book review: The Artistry of Bheki Mseleku

Mulungo — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

No Abstract

Book review: Opera in Cape Town: The Critic’s Voice

Gerber — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

No Abstract

Book Review: Sound Fragments: From Field Recording to African Electronic Stories

Struwig — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

No Abstract

Book review: Playing the Changes at an African University and on the Road

Robinson — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

No Abstract

Book Review: Activism through Music during the Apartheid Era and Beyond: When Voices Meet

Olwage — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

No Abstract

Book Review: Lion’s Share: Remaking South African Copyright

Leal — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

No Abstract

Album Review: Malcolm Dedman: Piano Music, Volume One

Schonken — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

No Abstract

Production Review: The Head and the Load

Loveday — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

No Abstract