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Popular Music in the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The Society for theHumanities Cornell University 25-26 April 1986Author(s): Katherine BergeronSource: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Winter, 1987), pp. 137-143Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/763829 .

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Conference Reportonference Report

Popular Music in the Middle East,South Asia, and Southeast AsiaThe Society for the HumanitiesCornell University * 25-26 April 1986

KATHERINE BERGERONIn musicology, as in life, "popular" can mean manythings to many people. Such was the experience, at least, of themusicologists, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, and folkloristswho gathered recently at Cornell for a conference on popular music inAsia and the Middle East. Organized by Philip Bohlman, a Fellow atCornell's Society for the Humanities, and Martin Hatch of theDepartment of Music, the conference covered a wide spectrum of

popular music genres and took in an equally colorful show of scholarlymethods. The variety of musical and scholarly styles was made all themore impressive by the tight organization of the two-day affair; withsixteen speakers in eight separate events, the density of the sessionscould only underscore the diversity of the subject matter.Indeed, it would appear that diversity prevailed over the wholeconference as a persistent theme. The title of the opening session,"Popular Music in Diverse Contexts," was the first clear suggestion.Three formal papers gave that suggestion a proper exposition, intro-ducing music from the three featured cultural areas, as well as outlin-ing three distinct appro hes to its study. The recurrence of musicalexamples from the Mid - East, South Asia and Southeast Asia overthe course of two days as tred the conference of some continuity; but areal formal coherence w'is to be found in the way these three basic ap-proaches to popular music came up again in nearly all of the remainingpapers.Virginia Danielson's discussion of Umm Kulthum in the first for-mal paper gave rise to a very particular image of the popular: that of"popularity"associated with a singer or some other prominent artisticpersonality. The enormous commercial success of Umm Kulthum,considered one of the most popular singers in the modern Arab world,caused Danielson to puzzle over possible musical or textual explana-tions, and eventually to examine the role of the Qur'anin her popularsong style. She argued that a heightened sense of grammar, of metrical

Popular Music in the Middle East,South Asia, and Southeast AsiaThe Society for the HumanitiesCornell University * 25-26 April 1986

KATHERINE BERGERONIn musicology, as in life, "popular" can mean manythings to many people. Such was the experience, at least, of themusicologists, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, and folkloristswho gathered recently at Cornell for a conference on popular music inAsia and the Middle East. Organized by Philip Bohlman, a Fellow atCornell's Society for the Humanities, and Martin Hatch of theDepartment of Music, the conference covered a wide spectrum of

popular music genres and took in an equally colorful show of scholarlymethods. The variety of musical and scholarly styles was made all themore impressive by the tight organization of the two-day affair; withsixteen speakers in eight separate events, the density of the sessionscould only underscore the diversity of the subject matter.Indeed, it would appear that diversity prevailed over the wholeconference as a persistent theme. The title of the opening session,"Popular Music in Diverse Contexts," was the first clear suggestion.Three formal papers gave that suggestion a proper exposition, intro-ducing music from the three featured cultural areas, as well as outlin-ing three distinct appro hes to its study. The recurrence of musicalexamples from the Mid - East, South Asia and Southeast Asia overthe course of two days as tred the conference of some continuity; but areal formal coherence w'is to be found in the way these three basic ap-proaches to popular music came up again in nearly all of the remainingpapers.Virginia Danielson's discussion of Umm Kulthum in the first for-mal paper gave rise to a very particular image of the popular: that of"popularity"associated with a singer or some other prominent artisticpersonality. The enormous commercial success of Umm Kulthum,considered one of the most popular singers in the modern Arab world,caused Danielson to puzzle over possible musical or textual explana-tions, and eventually to examine the role of the Qur'anin her popularsong style. She argued that a heightened sense of grammar, of metrical

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THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGYHE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

types and phraseology, and of pronunciation was acquired throughUmm Kulthum's knowledge of Qur'anchanting. And she maintainedthat proper pronunciation, particularly the emphatic delivery of con-sonants so characteristic of Qur'an recitation, functioned as a strongemotive force when carried into popular song. Danielson's point hadthe kind of unmistakable clarity that tends to make academic paperspopular: simply stated, Umm Kulthum's enormous popularity rests inthe fact that she could be understood. The somewhat unexpected em-phasis on enunciation in this paper had the additional effect of castingnew light on a common definition; the idea that popular music is "easyto understand" could be taken as a more neutral affirmation of cleardiction rather than a pejorative view of musical design.With an apparent emphasis on music packaging and sales, the sec-ond paper of the session shifted attention from the music of an individ-ual singer to the music of a regional market. Philip Yampolsky's reporton the cassette industry in Indonesia accounted for the style of popularmusic as a function of profitability. He surveyed the music available oncassette with a businessman's sense of detail, sketching a profile of thecassette industry that included an outline of basic stylisticcategories for138 Indonesian pop and criteria toward a general definition of popularmusic (a definition that was again used the following day by DanielNeuman). Although Yampolsky's definition stressed the importance ofthe individual singer, his view naturally differed from Danielson's; forhim, the popular "star"was valued for what she delivered to the musi-cal package as much as to a musical style, or even to a sense of nationalidentity.The musical formation of a popular religious identity was the sub-ject treated by Alison Arnold in Friday's final presentation, "Overt andCovert Expression of Hindu and Islamic Unity in the Indian PopularFilm Song." Relegated to the end of this lengthy title, the question ofpopular music appeared destined to receive a spare treatment. And in-deed, once the classification "film music" had been established (with itsattendant variants "film style," or even the Hindi-modified "filmi"),Arnold moved on to the more specific program of her paper; the over-whelming popularity of film music in India rendered the genre's isola-tion unproblematic. Her presentation included a videotape of severalsong sequences from the 961 film HumDono ["The Two of Us"], alongwith a discussion of the texts. Arnold was particularly attentive to fea-tures that appeared to express the "communal integration" of Hindusand Muslims; she scanned the texts for overt references to Islam-allusions to "allah,"for example-or other assertions of religious iden-tity. Covert (or more "subtle")techniques exploited for the same pur-poses included the musical use of Indian ragasto evoke, as she put it, "aMuslim-oriented musical form." This kind of search for specific detail

types and phraseology, and of pronunciation was acquired throughUmm Kulthum's knowledge of Qur'anchanting. And she maintainedthat proper pronunciation, particularly the emphatic delivery of con-sonants so characteristic of Qur'an recitation, functioned as a strongemotive force when carried into popular song. Danielson's point hadthe kind of unmistakable clarity that tends to make academic paperspopular: simply stated, Umm Kulthum's enormous popularity rests inthe fact that she could be understood. The somewhat unexpected em-phasis on enunciation in this paper had the additional effect of castingnew light on a common definition; the idea that popular music is "easyto understand" could be taken as a more neutral affirmation of cleardiction rather than a pejorative view of musical design.With an apparent emphasis on music packaging and sales, the sec-ond paper of the session shifted attention from the music of an individ-ual singer to the music of a regional market. Philip Yampolsky's reporton the cassette industry in Indonesia accounted for the style of popularmusic as a function of profitability. He surveyed the music available oncassette with a businessman's sense of detail, sketching a profile of thecassette industry that included an outline of basic stylisticcategories for138 Indonesian pop and criteria toward a general definition of popularmusic (a definition that was again used the following day by DanielNeuman). Although Yampolsky's definition stressed the importance ofthe individual singer, his view naturally differed from Danielson's; forhim, the popular "star"was valued for what she delivered to the musi-cal package as much as to a musical style, or even to a sense of nationalidentity.The musical formation of a popular religious identity was the sub-ject treated by Alison Arnold in Friday's final presentation, "Overt andCovert Expression of Hindu and Islamic Unity in the Indian PopularFilm Song." Relegated to the end of this lengthy title, the question ofpopular music appeared destined to receive a spare treatment. And in-deed, once the classification "film music" had been established (with itsattendant variants "film style," or even the Hindi-modified "filmi"),Arnold moved on to the more specific program of her paper; the over-whelming popularity of film music in India rendered the genre's isola-tion unproblematic. Her presentation included a videotape of severalsong sequences from the 961 film HumDono ["The Two of Us"], alongwith a discussion of the texts. Arnold was particularly attentive to fea-tures that appeared to express the "communal integration" of Hindusand Muslims; she scanned the texts for overt references to Islam-allusions to "allah,"for example-or other assertions of religious iden-tity. Covert (or more "subtle")techniques exploited for the same pur-poses included the musical use of Indian ragasto evoke, as she put it, "aMuslim-oriented musical form." This kind of search for specific detail

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CONFERENCE REPORTONFERENCE REPORT

obviously made for a spotty reading of the texts: much that could legiti-mately be considered "popular" was passed over lightly as conventionalmaterial designed to appeal to a mass audience. Genre thus appearedto function as a repository for any number of indefinite musical charac-teristics, rather than as a means of defining them.

By design or chance, these different aspects of pop-ular music-singers, cassettes, popular genres-constituted a family ofapproaches which drew together the majority of presentations on theconcluding day of the conference. This is not to say, of course, that akind of homogenized style prevailed; no two papers were really alike.But amid the variety of musical texts and contexts considered over thecourse of the two days, only a limited number of approaches (or as-sumptions about) the popular could be discerned.Two other presentations, for instance, focused on the biography ofa singer or group of singers. In a paper entitled "The Popular Expres-sion of Religious Syncretism," Charles Capwell discussed the history ofthe Bauls of Bengal, a mendicant sect known to practice a tantra-influenced amalgam of Hinduism and Islam. Historically the Baulshad been known to effect the unification of Hindus and Buddhists in 139Bengal; today they are seen to encourage a similar solidarity betweenHindus and Muslims. In Capwell's words, the Bauls have represented"asymbol of unified Bengali culture," whose musical manifestation inthe form of songs openly expressed such popular political sentiments.Though from a rather different perspective, Susan Slyomovicz's de-scription of oral epic performance in upper Egypt also stressed the po-litical situation of an individual singer as "outsider." In contrast to Da-nielson's story of Umm Kulthum, Slyomovicz's biography of the illiter-ate epic poet Awadallah made a strong case for his unpopularity in thecontext of modern Egyptian culture. While his craft was respected,Awadallah himself was regarded as nothing more than a gypsy. Thepopular aspect of his art could be connected to his status as a "mer-chant," but not to any presumed popularity on his part. Thus, folk tra-dition and popular genre become difficult to separate. Had Slyomoviczmade this uneasy relationship more explicit in her paper, her contribu-tion might have been an even stronger challenge to the view of popularmusic that emerged in many of the conference papers. For in the eth-nic setting of upper Egypt that she described, the popular appeared tofunction as a kind of subcategory of traditional music; comfortableboundaries no longer obtained. And for those of us who strained to seecontinuities among the papers, a clarification of this viewpoint wouldhave made a more convincing argument for the placement of this pa-per within the conference.In an adjoining paper, Dwight Reynolds made another type of case

obviously made for a spotty reading of the texts: much that could legiti-mately be considered "popular" was passed over lightly as conventionalmaterial designed to appeal to a mass audience. Genre thus appearedto function as a repository for any number of indefinite musical charac-teristics, rather than as a means of defining them.

By design or chance, these different aspects of pop-ular music-singers, cassettes, popular genres-constituted a family ofapproaches which drew together the majority of presentations on theconcluding day of the conference. This is not to say, of course, that akind of homogenized style prevailed; no two papers were really alike.But amid the variety of musical texts and contexts considered over thecourse of the two days, only a limited number of approaches (or as-sumptions about) the popular could be discerned.Two other presentations, for instance, focused on the biography ofa singer or group of singers. In a paper entitled "The Popular Expres-sion of Religious Syncretism," Charles Capwell discussed the history ofthe Bauls of Bengal, a mendicant sect known to practice a tantra-influenced amalgam of Hinduism and Islam. Historically the Baulshad been known to effect the unification of Hindus and Buddhists in 139Bengal; today they are seen to encourage a similar solidarity betweenHindus and Muslims. In Capwell's words, the Bauls have represented"asymbol of unified Bengali culture," whose musical manifestation inthe form of songs openly expressed such popular political sentiments.Though from a rather different perspective, Susan Slyomovicz's de-scription of oral epic performance in upper Egypt also stressed the po-litical situation of an individual singer as "outsider." In contrast to Da-nielson's story of Umm Kulthum, Slyomovicz's biography of the illiter-ate epic poet Awadallah made a strong case for his unpopularity in thecontext of modern Egyptian culture. While his craft was respected,Awadallah himself was regarded as nothing more than a gypsy. Thepopular aspect of his art could be connected to his status as a "mer-chant," but not to any presumed popularity on his part. Thus, folk tra-dition and popular genre become difficult to separate. Had Slyomoviczmade this uneasy relationship more explicit in her paper, her contribu-tion might have been an even stronger challenge to the view of popularmusic that emerged in many of the conference papers. For in the eth-nic setting of upper Egypt that she described, the popular appeared tofunction as a kind of subcategory of traditional music; comfortableboundaries no longer obtained. And for those of us who strained to seecontinuities among the papers, a clarification of this viewpoint wouldhave made a more convincing argument for the placement of this pa-per within the conference.In an adjoining paper, Dwight Reynolds made another type of case

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THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGYHE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

for the popular within the traditional epic. Though he corroboratedSlyomovicz's assessment of the unpopular epic singer, his acknowl-edgement of the general contempt for this "hopelessly folk" traditionserved eventually to underscore the role played by the music industryin reversing this attitude. Reynold's paper, "FromVillage to Studio andBack Again," relied once again on the assumption of popularity born inthe recording studio. He considered the effects of both radio broad-casting and the cassette industry on the epic singer and on particularsinging styles; and he emphasized the material role played by the cas-sette itself in imposing direct limits on the length of the recorded epicperformance. In perhaps the most richly illustrated paper of the con-ference, Lorraine Sakata also highlighted the cassette as a means ofmusical transmission and development. Her report on contemporaryAfghan music in the United States traced the growth of this popularmusic through the early transmissions of Radio Afghanistan, and morecontemporary recordings of amateur radio singers now living in Eu-rope and the United States. This historical synopsis gave way to an ex-tensive sequence of examples-a number of recent recordings of Af-ghan pop produced in this country (one, for example, from the studio140 "Hit City West" in California) provided at least the aural foundationfor a definition of the musical style.An argument for popular music on a national scale emerged inMartin Hatch's portrayal of the Malaysian recording industry. Fram-ing his subject with a broad overview of linguistic areas in Malaysia, heraised the question of national identity; and in an unusual about-face,he linked this question to the quest for a national music, as seen fromthe perspective of the Malaysian music critic M. Sahibullah. Hatch de-livered a dramatic reading of an English-language review in which Sa-hibullah unconditionally praised those Malaysian artists who had at-tempted to fuse their traditional musical forms with Western popularstyles. The development of a unique national musical style was thuspresented as a function of the continued growth of a national record-ing industry.If "national music" could be understood as a genre of popular mu-sic, Hatch's paper appears to have combined a consideration of genrewith a study of the marketplace. Other studies focused more directlyon genre questions. The very title of Daniel Neuman's paper, "The Im-pact of Popular Music on Other Genres," made such a perspective obvi-ous. As in Arnold's presentation, Neuman's discussion of Indian musicconcentrated on film song, and particularly its relation to other dra-matic traditions. From field recordings he provided examples of theinfiltration of film songs (by audience demand) into dramas of the tra-ditional open-air theater, and reflected on the common opinion that"film music will be the end of cultural forms," a sentiment, needless to

for the popular within the traditional epic. Though he corroboratedSlyomovicz's assessment of the unpopular epic singer, his acknowl-edgement of the general contempt for this "hopelessly folk" traditionserved eventually to underscore the role played by the music industryin reversing this attitude. Reynold's paper, "FromVillage to Studio andBack Again," relied once again on the assumption of popularity born inthe recording studio. He considered the effects of both radio broad-casting and the cassette industry on the epic singer and on particularsinging styles; and he emphasized the material role played by the cas-sette itself in imposing direct limits on the length of the recorded epicperformance. In perhaps the most richly illustrated paper of the con-ference, Lorraine Sakata also highlighted the cassette as a means ofmusical transmission and development. Her report on contemporaryAfghan music in the United States traced the growth of this popularmusic through the early transmissions of Radio Afghanistan, and morecontemporary recordings of amateur radio singers now living in Eu-rope and the United States. This historical synopsis gave way to an ex-tensive sequence of examples-a number of recent recordings of Af-ghan pop produced in this country (one, for example, from the studio140 "Hit City West" in California) provided at least the aural foundationfor a definition of the musical style.An argument for popular music on a national scale emerged inMartin Hatch's portrayal of the Malaysian recording industry. Fram-ing his subject with a broad overview of linguistic areas in Malaysia, heraised the question of national identity; and in an unusual about-face,he linked this question to the quest for a national music, as seen fromthe perspective of the Malaysian music critic M. Sahibullah. Hatch de-livered a dramatic reading of an English-language review in which Sa-hibullah unconditionally praised those Malaysian artists who had at-tempted to fuse their traditional musical forms with Western popularstyles. The development of a unique national musical style was thuspresented as a function of the continued growth of a national record-ing industry.If "national music" could be understood as a genre of popular mu-sic, Hatch's paper appears to have combined a consideration of genrewith a study of the marketplace. Other studies focused more directlyon genre questions. The very title of Daniel Neuman's paper, "The Im-pact of Popular Music on Other Genres," made such a perspective obvi-ous. As in Arnold's presentation, Neuman's discussion of Indian musicconcentrated on film song, and particularly its relation to other dra-matic traditions. From field recordings he provided examples of theinfiltration of film songs (by audience demand) into dramas of the tra-ditional open-air theater, and reflected on the common opinion that"film music will be the end of cultural forms," a sentiment, needless to

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CONFERENCE REPORTONFERENCE REPORT

say, that Neuman did not share. He concluded with some general spec-ulations about the influence of film song on classical forms of Indianmusic.Influence and infiltration were also the themes underlying KayShelemay's study of the pismontradition and its fictive journey "FromAleppo to Brooklyn." As traditional Hebrew paraliturgical hymns, thepismonimstill represent a curious consolidation of influences, for themusical settings of these poetic texts are considered "basicallyArabic,"belonging to a repertory of popular tune types once familiar to coffeehouse musicians. Shelemay's research, conducted among a large com-munity of Syrian Jews in Flatbush, not only confirmed the traditionalassimilation of Arabic popular melody into these religious hymns, butalso noted a modern variation of the traditional practice: namely, thewidespread use of popular Western tunes as musical settings for thepismonim.Like other papers in the conference, this one also made a casefor popular music within the guise of a traditional genre. But particu-larly interesting in Shelemay's approach was her argument for the pop-ular as a purely musical phenomenon. Traditionalpismonimwere trans-formed under the influence of well-known tunes, not the influence of amass market or industry. "Popular music"in Shelemay's view was, after 141all, music; her paper treated it more as an aesthetic element in pismoncompositions than as a manifestation of popular sentiment.Two papers approached the question of popular genres in relationto gamelan music and its reception in modern Java. Sumarsam, Java-nese artist-in-residence at Wesleyan University, lectured in an eveningpresentation on the Javanese equivalent of "lightclassics,"those stand-ard pieces of the classical gamelan repertory which through repeatedperformances have become popular. Sumarsam's intention was toshow how such pieces have also developed stylistically;among the more"popular"features of the style, the spirited ciblondrumming and hand-clapping, the stylized cries of male singers and the prominence of thefemale soloist create a more highly charged, less restrained, musical at-mosphere. To illustrate his points members of the Cornell JavaneseGamelan Ensemble (under the direction of Martin Hatch) performedseveral pieces of this so-called popular type, along with one example ofa more refined classical style.The reception of gamelan music had also been explored in an ear-lier paper byJohn Pemberton, "MusicalChairs and Ritual Airs in Mod-ern Java," but, so to speak, from the inside out: his discussion placedgamelan not in a popular style, but in a public space-quite literally, inthe reception hall. The modern Javanese wedding ceremony provideda general background for his impressionistic portrait of this reception-hall gamelan, a portrait in which the gamelan and its players are bothnot seen and "not listened to." Pemberton arrived at this reverse image

say, that Neuman did not share. He concluded with some general spec-ulations about the influence of film song on classical forms of Indianmusic.Influence and infiltration were also the themes underlying KayShelemay's study of the pismontradition and its fictive journey "FromAleppo to Brooklyn." As traditional Hebrew paraliturgical hymns, thepismonimstill represent a curious consolidation of influences, for themusical settings of these poetic texts are considered "basicallyArabic,"belonging to a repertory of popular tune types once familiar to coffeehouse musicians. Shelemay's research, conducted among a large com-munity of Syrian Jews in Flatbush, not only confirmed the traditionalassimilation of Arabic popular melody into these religious hymns, butalso noted a modern variation of the traditional practice: namely, thewidespread use of popular Western tunes as musical settings for thepismonim.Like other papers in the conference, this one also made a casefor popular music within the guise of a traditional genre. But particu-larly interesting in Shelemay's approach was her argument for the pop-ular as a purely musical phenomenon. Traditionalpismonimwere trans-formed under the influence of well-known tunes, not the influence of amass market or industry. "Popular music"in Shelemay's view was, after 141all, music; her paper treated it more as an aesthetic element in pismoncompositions than as a manifestation of popular sentiment.Two papers approached the question of popular genres in relationto gamelan music and its reception in modern Java. Sumarsam, Java-nese artist-in-residence at Wesleyan University, lectured in an eveningpresentation on the Javanese equivalent of "lightclassics,"those stand-ard pieces of the classical gamelan repertory which through repeatedperformances have become popular. Sumarsam's intention was toshow how such pieces have also developed stylistically;among the more"popular"features of the style, the spirited ciblondrumming and hand-clapping, the stylized cries of male singers and the prominence of thefemale soloist create a more highly charged, less restrained, musical at-mosphere. To illustrate his points members of the Cornell JavaneseGamelan Ensemble (under the direction of Martin Hatch) performedseveral pieces of this so-called popular type, along with one example ofa more refined classical style.The reception of gamelan music had also been explored in an ear-lier paper byJohn Pemberton, "MusicalChairs and Ritual Airs in Mod-ern Java," but, so to speak, from the inside out: his discussion placedgamelan not in a popular style, but in a public space-quite literally, inthe reception hall. The modern Javanese wedding ceremony provideda general background for his impressionistic portrait of this reception-hall gamelan, a portrait in which the gamelan and its players are bothnot seen and "not listened to." Pemberton arrived at this reverse image

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THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGYHE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

by way of contrast. His opening remarks played on a common enoughview, representing popular music as engaging, up-beat, "danceable."He recalled a standard Javanese comedy routine in which a servant,unable to resist the charms of some hit tune, abandons his work anddances as if controlled by the sound of music piped in from offstage.Later, a description of the music for a Javanese wedding ceremony,"popular" music in another sense through its frequent public perform-ance, presented quite another picture. The invisible gamelan of the re-ception hall, also positioned offstage, inspired no such impassioned re-sponse on the part of its audience. Guests remained unmoved. Alwayswith a sense of comic effect, Pemberton specified the difference as afunction of chairs (the "musical chairs"of his title). The "reception" ofgamelan in the reception hall was clearly differentiated from the recep-tion of other popular genres by the presence of straight-backed chairs,arranged neatly in rows away from the musicians. Chairs thus modifiedand contained musical experience, as well as the general public-anuncomfortably supported audience, "not listening."

To listen or not to listen: Pemberton's paper, com-142 ing at the end of a long Saturday, seemed to say as much about the re-ception of papers at an academic conference as it did about the recep-tion of musical genres. But this deliberate twisting of the issue ofpopular music also highlighted particular problems of definition. Re-maining on more neutral ground, Pemberton saw "popular" in rela-tion to a general public (or public function), rather than as a value-laden descriptor of common tastes, generalized understandings, ormass distribution. And the public institution he invoked gave rise to anunexpected image of popular music which served to point out the inad-equacies of other attempted definitions.

For the conference as a whole, however, definitions were more of-ten assumed than attempted. While the subject popular music was ap-proached similarly by many, the approaches tended to shy away from atheoretical perspective in favor of a more general discussion of popularmusic practice. This preference could be described as a case of the aca-demic lesser-of-two-evils: to treat the vast subject of non-Western pop-ular music in a conference setting was certainly to envision opposingproblems; on the one hand, such a wide-ranging topic might not havebeen served well by a rigorously theoretical treatment; on the other,the relative newness of the subject (this conference was possibly the firstof its kind) cried out for some kind of criticaloverview, in order to drawtogether the variety of viewpoints.In the end, diversity took precedence. Of the numerous presenta-tions only two attempted to deal at all systematically with definitions ofpopular music. A broad, less theoretical definition was offered by

by way of contrast. His opening remarks played on a common enoughview, representing popular music as engaging, up-beat, "danceable."He recalled a standard Javanese comedy routine in which a servant,unable to resist the charms of some hit tune, abandons his work anddances as if controlled by the sound of music piped in from offstage.Later, a description of the music for a Javanese wedding ceremony,"popular" music in another sense through its frequent public perform-ance, presented quite another picture. The invisible gamelan of the re-ception hall, also positioned offstage, inspired no such impassioned re-sponse on the part of its audience. Guests remained unmoved. Alwayswith a sense of comic effect, Pemberton specified the difference as afunction of chairs (the "musical chairs"of his title). The "reception" ofgamelan in the reception hall was clearly differentiated from the recep-tion of other popular genres by the presence of straight-backed chairs,arranged neatly in rows away from the musicians. Chairs thus modifiedand contained musical experience, as well as the general public-anuncomfortably supported audience, "not listening."

To listen or not to listen: Pemberton's paper, com-142 ing at the end of a long Saturday, seemed to say as much about the re-ception of papers at an academic conference as it did about the recep-tion of musical genres. But this deliberate twisting of the issue ofpopular music also highlighted particular problems of definition. Re-maining on more neutral ground, Pemberton saw "popular" in rela-tion to a general public (or public function), rather than as a value-laden descriptor of common tastes, generalized understandings, ormass distribution. And the public institution he invoked gave rise to anunexpected image of popular music which served to point out the inad-equacies of other attempted definitions.

For the conference as a whole, however, definitions were more of-ten assumed than attempted. While the subject popular music was ap-proached similarly by many, the approaches tended to shy away from atheoretical perspective in favor of a more general discussion of popularmusic practice. This preference could be described as a case of the aca-demic lesser-of-two-evils: to treat the vast subject of non-Western pop-ular music in a conference setting was certainly to envision opposingproblems; on the one hand, such a wide-ranging topic might not havebeen served well by a rigorously theoretical treatment; on the other,the relative newness of the subject (this conference was possibly the firstof its kind) cried out for some kind of criticaloverview, in order to drawtogether the variety of viewpoints.In the end, diversity took precedence. Of the numerous presenta-tions only two attempted to deal at all systematically with definitions ofpopular music. A broad, less theoretical definition was offered by

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CONFERENCE REPORTONFERENCE REPORT

Stephen Blum in a paper on the popular musics of Iran. More a defini-tion of style, his presentation examined the "types of behavior" thatcharacterized Iranian music, illustrating the points clearly with musicalexamples. Another paper, not surprisingly by one of the conferenceorganizers, envisioned a complete definition as the result of carefulmediation between theory and practice. Philip Bohlman's "Constructsof Popular Music in the Middle East and Asia"began by describing thesituation of popular music in modern scholarship as a "discursivelimbo," recalling the tendency to confine such music to an unhappymiddleground between more legitimate categories of folk and art mu-sic. Bohlman later attempted to argue popular music out of this inter-mediate state through a reading of the Muqaddimah, a "proto-ethnomusicological" Arabic treatise by the fourteenth-century theoristIbn Khaldun, which considered music, particularly song, in the contextof wealth and the leisure classes. With this example from medieval Is-lam he drew a parallel to the musical culture of the twentieth century;and rather than viewing popular music as the sinful excess of modernculture, his argument documented its long capacity to mediate changein diverse segments of society.To introduce and close the proceedings were presentations by two 143distinguished guests, who provided a kind of critical focus for the con-ference even if definitions were altogether understated. More as a per-sistent question than a unified vision, this focus appeared first with oneof William Austin's many introductory queries. Wondering over themeaning and function of all types of popular music, and challengingtheory and criticism, he linked this music to the subversive element ofall culture and asked, "Why should we bring the 'popular' into theAcademy?" Bruno Nettl playfully turned this question around with ahumorous anecdote about the first panel on popular music ever to as-semble at an AMS National Meeting. The results of that event, he re-called drily, was a general consensus that "bad music" produced only"bad scholarship." Thus, in one form or another, the question, Whystudy this music? seemed to define a central problem for the confer-ence. Bohlman's paper, which made diversity its central theme, maywell have provided the most inclusive response. In his view, there werenot only diverse styles, but also diverse social structures underlyingpopular music-a music occupying and affecting "allstrata of society."Unavoidably, popular music is a part of the Academy. And far from"bad scholarship," the conference at the Society for the Humanities atCornell inspired an impressive display of musical and scholarly styles, adisplay whose diversity bodes well for the future of popular music inmusicology.

Stephen Blum in a paper on the popular musics of Iran. More a defini-tion of style, his presentation examined the "types of behavior" thatcharacterized Iranian music, illustrating the points clearly with musicalexamples. Another paper, not surprisingly by one of the conferenceorganizers, envisioned a complete definition as the result of carefulmediation between theory and practice. Philip Bohlman's "Constructsof Popular Music in the Middle East and Asia"began by describing thesituation of popular music in modern scholarship as a "discursivelimbo," recalling the tendency to confine such music to an unhappymiddleground between more legitimate categories of folk and art mu-sic. Bohlman later attempted to argue popular music out of this inter-mediate state through a reading of the Muqaddimah, a "proto-ethnomusicological" Arabic treatise by the fourteenth-century theoristIbn Khaldun, which considered music, particularly song, in the contextof wealth and the leisure classes. With this example from medieval Is-lam he drew a parallel to the musical culture of the twentieth century;and rather than viewing popular music as the sinful excess of modernculture, his argument documented its long capacity to mediate changein diverse segments of society.To introduce and close the proceedings were presentations by two 143distinguished guests, who provided a kind of critical focus for the con-ference even if definitions were altogether understated. More as a per-sistent question than a unified vision, this focus appeared first with oneof William Austin's many introductory queries. Wondering over themeaning and function of all types of popular music, and challengingtheory and criticism, he linked this music to the subversive element ofall culture and asked, "Why should we bring the 'popular' into theAcademy?" Bruno Nettl playfully turned this question around with ahumorous anecdote about the first panel on popular music ever to as-semble at an AMS National Meeting. The results of that event, he re-called drily, was a general consensus that "bad music" produced only"bad scholarship." Thus, in one form or another, the question, Whystudy this music? seemed to define a central problem for the confer-ence. Bohlman's paper, which made diversity its central theme, maywell have provided the most inclusive response. In his view, there werenot only diverse styles, but also diverse social structures underlyingpopular music-a music occupying and affecting "allstrata of society."Unavoidably, popular music is a part of the Academy. And far from"bad scholarship," the conference at the Society for the Humanities atCornell inspired an impressive display of musical and scholarly styles, adisplay whose diversity bodes well for the future of popular music inmusicology.

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