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Discussion

The autoethnography and analysis show that I have used a lot of extraneous influences when composing this work. With the research questions in mind, I now discuss these influences and the possible issues that it could raise in terms of ethical use and cultural appropriation.

Reflecting on both the process of composing and the final product, I see three main possible issues, questions that I asked myself and seemed important to address. The first one is the inclusion of a traditional rhythm from the Afro-Brazilian maracatu tradition, which I am an outsider to. In this specific context, I appear more as a white person appropriating elements of a tradition belonging to Afro-descendants. This is what I will examine under the lens of “North-South cultural appropriation”. Second, there is the influence I have taken from Occitan traditional music and especially the polyphonic singing tradition of Pyrénées gasconnes. It remains to “qualify” (rather than quantify) how much I have borrowed to that style and if this “North-North cultural appropriation” is problematic or not. Last, there is the issue of creating by imitation: I have openly taken influence in the style and form from San Salvador’s La Grande Folie epic piece, and a closer look is welcome to examine how much this qualifies as “being inspired by” or “copying” another artist.

North-South cultural appropriation

One important element in the definition of cultural appropriation, or rather misappropriation, is the power imbalance between a dominant culture (of the persons who borrow) and a minority culture (whose elements are being borrowed) (Born & Hesmondhalgh, 2001; Kendall, 2025; Rogers, 2006). For a good reason: the concept emerged from works on Western colonialism. Hence it is particularly relevant to discuss cultural appropriation from White or Western people of cultural elements from Black, Indigenous, and People Of Color (BIPOC) cultures. Particularly for regions that have been colonised. Maracatu is, in this sense, a “good candidate”, and an important element to examine.

Coming from the region of Pernambuco, in the North-East of Brazil, where the Afro-Brazilian population is a majority, Maracatu is closely linked to the Candomblé religious tradition, and is thus historically linked with the slave trade since it retains element of traditions from Congo and Angola (Ogle, 2024). Moreover, Afro-Brazilians, not unlike Afro-Americans, have been particularly oppressed in Brazil for decades, as slaves first but also after the abolition of slavery, and especially during the military dictatorship. In this context, Maracatu and samba have been used as a cultural element in the social struggle of the Black people in Brazil. The samba, and samba-reggae genres, have in turn been used extensively in activist contexts: blocos-afros in the North-East of Brazil in the 1970’s, and more recently Rhythms of Resistance drumming groups in many countries (Rhythms of Resistance, n.d.) named after the book of Peter Fryer (2000). It seems that it has already been appropriated in a social struggle context, which might justify a bit better its use out of the original religious context, but in a “performance” dedicated to resistance.

What is maybe more problematic is the use of the “original”¹ rhythm (notated “Maracatu” in the score, and its variation “Martello”) entirely disconnected from its context, and performed by a 90% white band. While my intention was to avoid misrepresentation, I have been questioning myself (and the band) about using this rhythm at all. Most of the band members did not express any reservation about it, even when the topic was explicitly discussed. The comments from some audience members after the concert led me to think that people who do know maracatu have identified it and did somehow get a picture of carnivalesque ambiance from it, which does not fit the story in that part of the piece. There is thus an additional question of who the audience is and how they will interpret this part. But it does not answer to the ethical question of quoting a maracatu rhythm, for which I now need to turn to experts of this tradition, and people belonging to its Afro-Brazilian community.

Ethnomusicologist Lizzie Ogle, who presents herself as a “white Scottish woman” (2024, p. 99) has done the fieldwork of her doctoral studies on the maracatu practice of the Nação Leão Coroado, one of the oldest maracatu group in the Pernambuco state in North-East Brazil. She has been spending a substantial amount of time living within their community. During that time, Ogle wrote a blog post about “cultivating gratitude”, mentioning that she talked with Dona Neta, filha de Oxum, mãe de santo and Juremeira (ie. an elder and religious authority of the Jurema community) about her experiences within jurema, candomblé and maracatu. She asked Dona Neta what she thought about a white European like her singing one of their songs, that she learned and sung with them, with her band back in London. Dona Neta replied that since Juremeiros have been discriminated against for their religion, she thinks it’s a good thing if an outsider valorises her people, religion, and culture. Further on, Ogle comments:

If I create music inspired by these rhythms, I must acknowledge the debt owed to those who have fought and actually died in the process of sustaining them, who have struggled to keep those specific notes in that particular order alive. I must cultivate gratitude for their work, and wherever I can, I must take steps not only to name that debt but to repay it. If possible, financially. The work of acknowledgment, of giving thanks, of exposing and engaging with the ongoing struggle of afro-descendent, candomblé and jurema communities to simply exist, is essential, and probably not enough. (Ogle, 2017)

The author also writes about “the careful use of language, ideas and objects, paying particular attention to the harm that misusing sacred concepts and items can cause” (ibid.)

In my case, I do not think that I am using sacred concepts, language, ideas or objects. Although one could argue that rhythm is also a language (or at least, can be), the rhythms of maracatu I use are quite generic and not linked to a particular divinity or religious ritual, as far as I know.

But the question of crediting and acknowledgement is an important one and still open: as much as I am acknowledging the origin of these rhythms in this thesis, the performance itself, because of its context, was not accompanied by a concert leaflet of any kind, and the story telling staging did not leave space for verbally crediting the various sources that have influenced this work. So, how can I credit correctly the source traditions and people? I am left with analysing and crediting by writing this thesis, and with explaining it to anyone who gets interested in my music in the future. The piece is not registered anywhere, so I am not planning to earn money with it, hence the exploitative nature of appropriation is avoided so far. Should this piece generate any income in the future, through performance or royalties for instance, I shall think of how much of it should be repaid to the Afro-Brazilian communities that practice maracatu, and find the best way possible to give them a financial contribution.

While I do not have a direct access to present-day maracatu traditional practitioners, as Ogle did, I decided to open the topic with my percussion teacher, Adriano Adewale, whom I learned this rhythm from, and presents himself as an Afro-Brazilian percussionist, born and raised in Brazil. Since he taught me this rhythm, it is only natural to discuss with him about how I can use, borrow or quote it, within my own composition. I proposed to have an interview with him, explaining the context of the study, and he agreed to the interview and it being recorded.

While I am not sure how close my percussion teacher is to the maracatu and candomblé communities of Pernambuco, he is the closest link I can reach out to, at least for now, and his belonging to the wider Afro-Brazilian community makes him a relevant person with whom to discuss those matters. At least that is the best option that my department offers me right now.

I found our conversation interesting and informative about the origins of maracatu and the history of some music styles in Brazil, especially styles that became popular and mainstream or commercial. It did not, however, shed a clear light on what was acceptable or not to do with this rhythm, within the context I was proposing to examine. To my disappointment, I did not get the “insider” point of view, to get to know whether it is appropriate for me to use that rhythm from that side.

I retain however two interesting elements that came out of this conversation. First element, my composition is only quoting this rhythm, in the sense that it is only a small fraction of the work, as opposed to the example brought forward by Feld (2000), where a whole piece was built upon a “stolen” melody. Second element, another way to proceed could have been for me to compose my own rhythm inspired from maracatu and try to have the same effect in my composition with a creation of my own.

These two elements seem to point in opposite directions: the first one could suggest a use of the maracatu rhythm that is seen as appropriate, as long as I only quote it. The second element could, on the other hand, be pointing towards a use that is deemed inappropriate: listening back to our recorded conversation, this second point could be interpreted as a simple proposal, a way to offer various alternatives, or a discrete hint to suggest that it would be more appropriate to use something I entirely composed, rather than using the “original” rhythm.

My teacher also repeatedly insisted on asking me how do I feel and what do I think about it, when I was asking for his point of view, which could be interpreted in various ways. Would that be because he does not feel entitled, he is not in a position with authority to give me a permission of use? Or is it an attempt to have me “decide by myself” that it is appropriate or not, without the teacher actually taking a personal stance? Or, thirdly, is it pointing at the fundamental role of the composer and how they position themselves, their intention?

In the latter case, I do not think it is sufficient for the composer to examine their own conscience, as they could miss the point that a “native” of the culture they are borrowing from would make, and that would be a valid objection.

In the end we agreed that the discussion is still open, that there are no clear guidelines to follow, but the best we can do is to “consult, reflect, engage in dialogue […] including with the people who belong to the culture whose tradition is being discussed, without whose viewpoint and contribution, this discussion is still not addressing its core issues.” Exchanging again on this topic later on, and looking back at our conversation, he concluded that:

[C]omposers, researchers, musicians and arrangers have to make an effort to read and be informed about issues that happened in the past, so they do not make similar mistakes. As this is still on the early days discussions of this topic, I think we all need to individually be aware and openly discuss related matters on a case-by-case basis. This will hopefully shed a light on the discussion and bring more clarity to the grey areas, eventually culminating of a set of strongly conceived guidelines. (A. Adewale, personal communication, 14 July 2025)

My own conclusion is to be surprised that we are still “on the early days” of the discussion on this topic, in our department. Cultural appropriation has been in discussion in literature for several decades now, yet the Global Music department at Sibelius Academy, despite its strongly decolonial enterprise, does not seem to be at the forefront of that discussion. I observe that the topic is indeed open, but more conversations need to be had, between students, between teachers, and between students and teachers.

Momentarily concluding on this topic, I can only say that a lot of questions remain open. I reached out to Ogle to maybe get her point of view, or get in touch with some current day practitioner of Maracatu de nação, but I did not get any answer yet.

North-North cultural appropriation

While the discussion on cultural appropriation generally refers to North-South examples, there are multiple examples of North-North issues as well. Firstly, with indigenous people like the Sámi in the North of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia. Another example, maybe less known, is that of Occitan culture. Zingesser documents the gallicization, that is the cultural appropriation of songs and lyrics from Occitan culture into the Capetian French (dominant) culture during medieval times, as shown in the short literature review (see Internal Colonialism).

In the 1970’s, the musical current Nova Cançon emerged side by side with the regionalist movement. The musical current was a revival and renewal of Occitan traditions (Drott, 2011), and the regionalist movement also touched language and literature (Rouquette, 1962). Approximately at the same time, the term “internal colonialism” (Alcouffe, 2009; Lagarde, 2012) appeared, comparing the treatment of peripheral regions by the central power of the same country (France in this case) to that of colonies.

In this regard, and given my position as a Paris-born and -raised, native French-speaking person, it is legitimate to question the use of Occitan elements, be it a traditional song, a melody, or a singing style, such as that of the Pyrénées gasconnes tradition. Having learned several songs from this area in the last few years, and being very fond of this style, the question comes up as of whether I am borrowing a lot of elements from this tradition, and thereby may be appropriating from this culture. And if so, whether I am misappropriating, exploiting, or mostly appreciating.

Castéret proposes a detailed analysis of the singing tradition of the Pyrénées gasconnes, in which he analyses both the community aspects of this tradition, with its mostly non-performative character, as well as the implicit harmonisation system that is used for forming a second voice, and sometimes a third one (Castéret, 2012). According to his thorough study, this polyphonic singing tradition favors two-parts harmony, while three-parts is more rare, and usually involves a bourdon on the bass (ibid., p.65). Castéret also notes that sevenths and seconds are very rare, and only used as a passing note or anticipation of a consonance (ibid., p.67). Finally, the same study finds that homophony and parallelism are the most widely used devices (ibid. p.52), meaning that all voices progress with the same rhythm, simultaneously pronouncing the same syllables.

Referring to the analysis carried in the previous section, we can see that in general, my composition departs quite substantially from this Occitan tradition, in terms of harmony and way of constructing the polyphony. While I have used homophony in some parts, like the first one, I have mostly used heterophony in other parts. Besides, the harmony of that first part insists a lot on seconds, tritones, and sevenths, which is not usual in the Pyrénées gasconnes. The use of percussion in most parts also marks a strong difference with that style. Finally, the use of lyrics is limited to one or two sentences only, repeated many times, which is again in stark contrast with the repertoire of the Pyrénées gasconnes. I have mixed French and Occitan lyrics, borrowing one sentence from a traditional song.

Last, I have used one traditional song from the Pyrénées gasconnes area (vallée d’Ossau, more precisely). While I propose my own arrangement of it, mostly consisting of a choir of drones behind the main voice, it ends with a duo featuring the two actual voices that I learned for this song. With this last verse sung in a more traditional style, I hope to give a tribute to the origins of the song and its culture, and to have given a sense of how that song usually sounds. It is a form of quoting the original, a salutation to the tradition.

Hence, although I have admittedly received (rather than taken) influence from this specific tradition of the polyphonic singing in the Pyrénes gasconnes, after careful examination of the actual source it seems that, first, the songs I happen to know from this tradition are far from being the most common and representative in style, and second, I have in the end borrowed very little elements from this tradition, and I believe it would be exaggerated to talk about cultural appropriation here. If anything, I believe I have cultivated appreciation and gratitude for this culture: I always explain where is this tradition from, how fond of it I am, how much respect I have for it, as well as how my own music might draw a bit on it but is far from being the same (and does not claim to be).

Creation, immitation, and hybridity

To some extent, hybridity is already present in San Salvador’s work: according to various reviews, their music is a fusion between the tradition of their own region (Corrèze, where mostly monodic singing is found), other Occitan regions, and a multitude of other traditions such as certain Bulgarian singing styles, as well as Steve Reich, post-rock and punk musics (Gailh, 2021), or even afrobeat (Miklos, 2021). This is perhaps also what speaks to me in their music, the fact that it uses so many elements from such different styles or regions that it is not exactly locatable, in the sense of Bhabha (Rutherford, 1990). It does not belong anywhere in particular, yet it assembles elements from various locations and blends them in a beautiful way, ie. in a way that is in very much aligned with my aesthetics preferences.

San Salvador insist in their interviews that, as much as they can represent a “tradition”, they do not see this term as something static, fixed, but rather as “a moving concept”, which “has always supported society in its changes” (Gabriel Durif, as cited in The 2010s, n.d.). Hence, if critiques sometimes give them the title of traditional bearers of Nóva Cançon Occitana, it is a wide and vague term. What is clear is that they renew and reinvent tradition, by using elements of their (and other) traditions and remixing them in a modern way, or at least, in some way it has not been used before.

During the composition process, I have often asked myself whether I am copying too much their music, writing something too similar to theirs, whether I am original enough, or if I am plagiarising. I think this question is very delicate as the answers are, here again, very subjective, not unlike questions about cultural appropriation. I will thus look at different parts in my composition and how much they do or do not follow San Salvador’s music so closely.

In the opening part, the similarity with La Grande Folie is the most striking: narrow intervals, a slow loop repeated many times with each voice adding up its layer to the ensemble, starting with higher voices then joined by lower ones, etc. However, the opening of La Grande Folie does not bear the overarching rhythm that exists in the opening of Pierrot et la guerre, which uses phrases of identical length. I would also argue that, although I was inspired by their opening and did compose something similar, the use of narrow intervals is not something entirely new to me, that I would have borrowed from San Salvador alone. I practice Bulgarian traditional singing in some of my other projects, so this part is not only influenced by San Salvador but also by that tradition, as well as different narrow interval singing traditions I encountered before like in Istria, Croatia. For me, this part closely resembles San Salvador’s opening, mostly because of the order in which voices enter. If I had to write it again, I would use a different order, as I did in when this part comes back in a different form later on (see part 8 - Le retour (The return)), I not only changed the voicing, but also changed the order in which the voices come in.

For the other parts, I think the main elements I have used are: groove-based loops, progressive arrangements, strong breaks or hits to break the monotony, polyrhythm, rhythmical modulations, and interplay between two voices to create one part. Taking a closer look, none of these elements are specific to San Salvador, as they are used by many other bands. But they do use those a lot. I would thus tend to think that Pierrot et la Guerre rather constitute a sort of stylistic appropriation.

Besides, it is not clear to me whether San Salvador have invented a whole new style that would belong to them only: other bands make use of percussions and together with polyphony, in an Occitan or Occitan-inspired context, and progressive arrangements are very common in modern renderings of traditional music. Maybe they just made a very successful version of this new, hybrid form, that inspired me more than the others.

Looking at the last two parts, I have here taken influence from a different cultural area from South-Eastern Occitania, namely Provence. As already mentioned, one of the main bands that comes to my mind in this style is Massilia Sound System (Massilia Sound System, n.d.), who created modern music in the 1990s inspired from the traditional music from Provence, the region of Marseille, fused with the ragga genre and the “sound system” culture from the UK. Since I have lived in Marseille for several years, and return there for visiting regularly, their music has been very present around me and that necessarily influenced my musicianship. They, too, use music as a form of activism at times, although theirs is a more joyful one, where making it a party is the priority. Maybe a source of inspiration in the form, for the future. Other bands like Lo Còr de la Plana hybridise traditional Occitan music from Provence and Languedoc with percussions from various sides of the Mediterranean area, claiming influences from Andalusia as well as South Italy (‘LO CÒR DE LA PLANA - THE LAMPARO COMPANY’, n.d.; Lo Còr de la Plana, du quartier à New York, 2012), showing again how “tradition” is a fluid concept and hybridity is rather the norm than the exception in the contemporary landscape of modern Occitan music.

As a temporary conclusion to this part, it is still not clear to me whether my composition is still “too similar”, in some respect, to San Salvador’s work. What I do see is a tendency, over the whole duration of the composition process, to create more original and also more hybrid parts, compared to the beginning of the process. As if I had started to internalise the style and could create freely my own material in that style, without imitating too closely a specific part, a specific song, or a specific artist, slowly introducing more varied influences into my work.

In general, looking at it under the lens of appropriation, I also do not see a power imbalance that would lead me to be cautious about imitating the style of this band. They are well-established, commercially successful artists in a place where few bands are this successful with traditional-oriented music. I believe I am not taking anything from them (opportunities, commercial or artistic) or misrepresenting any specific tradition by composing music in a similar style with my own twist. I am merely hybridising something that has already been hybridised, therefore following the same path, and maybe slowly making my own in a slightly new direction.

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