Cambridge University AHRC DTP Conference: Time and Temporality 14th – 16th September 2016, Peterhouse, Cambridge, 2016
Colloquies of time and temporality are constitutive elements of music analysis and performance st... more Colloquies of time and temporality are constitutive elements of music analysis and performance studies in music research. However, the consideration of temporal concepts in the study of indigenous music, particularly when performed in public, and the subsequent retelling of its history is still under-explored. This paper aims to present the musical narrative of the Ati- Atihan festival in the Philippines and to investigate how differing constructions of time and temporality are shaped as a means of making sense of the past and in contextualizing indigeneity in music. Ati-Atihan literally means “being like the Aetas, the Atis, or the Itas,” who are ethnolinguistic groups inhabiting various areas in Luzon and the Visayas islands. To highlight the ‘primitive Ati look’, musicians playing percussion instruments cover their faces and bodies with black soot and wear wigs of kinky hair as they accompany street dancers, locals, tourists, and devotees alike, parading and dancing in the street with their patron saint, the Santo Niño, the religious icon of the infant Jesus. These performers create a unique musical space that dominate the week-long Ati-Atihan festival held annually in Kalibo, Aklan in western Visayas.
The study will draw upon fieldwork data and discuss preliminary analysis, thereby providing insights into how music, and to a great extent, musical instruments, contribute to reconstructing and redefining of time, and to an understanding of events that imagines an indigenous past. This study is grounded in ethnomusicology and organology, and through a critical look at intersections of musical performances and musical artifacts, it will elaborate on the concept of temporal frames of shared meanings and structures, and contribute to a wider understanding on the contentious issue of temporal ontology, and musical identity and history.
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The study will draw upon fieldwork data and discuss preliminary analysis, thereby providing insights into how music, and to a great extent, musical instruments, contribute to reconstructing and redefining of time, and to an understanding of events that imagines an indigenous past. This study is grounded in ethnomusicology and organology, and through a critical look at intersections of musical performances and musical artifacts, it will elaborate on the concept of temporal frames of shared meanings and structures, and contribute to a wider understanding on the contentious issue of temporal ontology, and musical identity and history.
Intended to be and originally associated with panel entitled "Interdisciplinary approaches to the early history of plants and animals in Southeast Asia"
The musical instruments were examined in various institutions in the Philippines and United States, and a typological analysis was conducted. Fieldwork was also conducted in the summer of 2010 to further investigate the presence or absence of these traditional musical instruments in current Ifugao culture. The materials were systematically measured and assessed based on the von Hornbostel and Sachs classification scheme with full recognition of its later revisions.
Most of the musical instruments are no longer in use. The loss of skill in playing and making instruments has gone along with the marked decline of agriculture in the area and the rapid shift towards tourism and urbanization during the middle of the 20th century. Diversity, variations, and ingenuity in their creation declined considerably during this period and the remaining few musical instruments have been transformed into objects primarily designed for public performance or sale to tourists. Attempts to revive cultural heritage have had the paradoxical consequence of introducing non-traditional instruments, in coexistence with an altered image of the past.