In the classical Western musical sphere, percussion became a symbol of modernity, experimentalism, and creativity entirely within the 20th century in an effort to express new and unique soundscapes; pieces like George Antheil's Ballet Mechanique and Edgard Varese's Ionisation are foundational works for percussion, brandishing new possibilities of sound and orchestration by taking percussion and placing it as the focus for stage performances (Wen-Chung, 1966)1. John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen took this further by placing percussion -- before reserved for the orchestral pit and back of the concert hall -- in center stage (Revill, n.d.)2 and suggesting even that anything could be an instrument if it makes a sound or can be struck, famously represented in John Cage's Water Walk from 1960, the audience at the time laughing at the sight of someone creating soundscapes and music with household items and a piano.3
These composers' experimentalism meant percussion and found objects were being recontextualized. Rather than having percussion perform accompanimental work in a symphonic setting, having percussionists perform as a complete ensemble during the early- to mid-20th Century was unheard of (ibid).
As shown before, social activism within music is not a new concept. Traditionally, the most popular forms of social musical activism come from lyrical popular genres in Western music. In her literature review titled, "Music and Social Activism", Karen Lopez explains the most common genres of music to utilize social activism are hip-hop, reggae, punk, and folk (Lopez 2008, pg. 1). Famous artists such as Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Woody Guthrie, among many others utilized subject matter and the historical significance of these genres - coming from historically marginalized cultures or music coming out of struggle - to emphasize a message more clearly (Tan, 2019, pg.2). In his novel "A Song to Save The Salish Sea", Mark Pedelty marks seven artists within recent history that have performed musical activism throughout the Salish Sea area in the Pacific Northwest of North America. In his exploration of these groups, one significant takeaway reappeared: community-focused activism and lyric-based engagement appear to be most effective in terms of response by governments and local communities.4 Pedelty from the start admits to looking for an objective qualification for how effective "environmental music" can be, which some argue is an unresolvable task for his research (ibid). Nonetheless, the significance of utilizing music as activism with an emphasis on context and place inspired my own research. How an instrumental musician may be able to utilize the idea of "environmental music" without having an outlet for audience-performer connection like lyrics offer may allow instrumentalists more opportunities that historically were reserved for lyrical performances. One genre in particular in the contemporary music scene appears deeply rooted in environmentalism, bridging the gap between science and music.
The mixture of activism and recontextualization continues to occur during the 21st Century with composers exploring alternative compositional methods and utilizing 'non-traditional' instrumentation. Matthew Burtner, David Monacchi, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Barry Truax are all composers of the last 60 years who work to synthesize environmentalism and music into a single form, Burtner and Monacchi both dubbing it "ecoacoustics" (Gilmurray, pg. 2). Westerkamp, Murray R. Schafer, and Truax worked together in the 1960s in the World Sounscape Project, which intended " to increase public awareness of issues associated with acoustic ecology" (ibid, pg.3), of which a significant part of their efforts was to preserve and record individual sounds and spaces to preserve "endangered" sounds.
Instrumental traditions appear undervalued in the classical world, especially with percussion instruments. In a violin concerto performance last year, I was asked to play a kind of water drum just like the baa wehai of the Yaqui people mentioned before - two gourds, one floating on water inside the other- though at the time I had no idea both the religious and cultural significance this held for certain groups of people, much less where these items came from traditionally. Even instruments like the triangle and cymbals hail from Turkey in Janissary music, though, unlike the water drum, these instruments did not come from a connection to the environment but from a more 'traditional' western view of music, originating in the 14th century Janissary military and then being displaced into the classical orchestra where musicians and audiences became familiar to their sounds5. They even became resignified from an exotic military sound that it was seen as at the time, to now being just members of the percussion family typically seen in orchestral writing.
Figure 8. Stomp performing in 2018. Keen
In the following section, a deeper explanation of ecoacoustics and the relationship it shares with percussion and science will follow.
