Keith Howard – författare

Famously reclusive and secretive, North Korea can be seen as a theatre that projects itself through music and performance. The first book-length account of North Korean music and dance in any language other than Korean, Songs for "Great Leaders" pulls back the curtain on this theatre for the first time.Renowned ethnomusicologist Keith Howard moves from the first songs written in the northern part of the divided Korean peninsula in 1946 to the performances in February 2018 by a North Korean troupe visiting South Korea for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games. Through an exceptionally wide range of sources and a perspective of deep cultural competence, Howard explores old revolutionary songs and new pop songs, developments of Korean instruments, the creation of revolutionary operas, and mass spectacles, as well as dance and dance notation, and composers and compositions. The result is a nuanced and detailed account of how song, together with other music and dance production, forms the soundtrack to the theater of daily life, embedding messages that tell the official history, the exploits of leaders, and the socialist utopia yet-to-come. Based on fieldwork, interviews, and resources in private and public archives and libraries in North Korea, South Korea, China, North America and Europe, Songs for "Great Leaders" opens up the North Korean regime in a way never before attempted or possible.

Presence Through Sound narrates and analyses, through a range of case studies on selected musics of China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Tibet, some of the many ways in which music and ‘place’ intersect and are interwoven with meaning in East Asia. It explores how place is significant to the many contexts in which music is made and experienced, especially in contemporary forms of longstanding traditions but also in other landscapes such as popular music and in the design of performance spaces. It shows how music creates and challenges borders, giving significance to geographical and cartographic spaces at local, national, and international levels, and illustrates how music is used to interpret relationships with ecology and environment, spirituality and community, and state and nation.The volume brings together scholars from Australia, China, Denmark, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the UK, each of whom explores a specific genre or topic in depth. Each nuanced account finds distinct and at times different aspects to be significant but, in demonstrating the ability of music to mediate the construction of place and by showing how those who create and consume music use it to inhabit the intimate, and to project themselves out into their surroundings, each points to interconnections across the region and beyond with respect to perception, conception, expression, and interpretation.In Presence Through Sound, ethnomusicology meets anthropology, literature, linguistics, area studies, and – particularly pertinent to East Asia in the twenty-first century – local musicologies. The volume serves a broad academic readership and provides an essential resource for all those interested in East Asia.

Presence Through Sound narrates and analyses, through a range of case studies on selected musics of China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Tibet, some of the many ways in which music and ‘place’ intersect and are interwoven with meaning in East Asia. It explores how place is significant to the many contexts in which music is made and experienced, especially in contemporary forms of longstanding traditions but also in other landscapes such as popular music and in the design of performance spaces. It shows how music creates and challenges borders, giving significance to geographical and cartographic spaces at local, national, and international levels, and illustrates how music is used to interpret relationships with ecology and environment, spirituality and community, and state and nation.The volume brings together scholars from Australia, China, Denmark, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the UK, each of whom explores a specific genre or topic in depth. Each nuanced account finds distinct and at times different aspects to be significant but, in demonstrating the ability of music to mediate the construction of place and by showing how those who create and consume music use it to inhabit the intimate, and to project themselves out into their surroundings, each points to interconnections across the region and beyond with respect to perception, conception, expression, and interpretation.In Presence Through Sound, ethnomusicology meets anthropology, literature, linguistics, area studies, and – particularly pertinent to East Asia in the twenty-first century – local musicologies. The volume serves a broad academic readership and provides an essential resource for all those interested in East Asia.

SamulNori is a percussion quartet which has given rise to a genre, of the same name, that is arguably Korea’s most successful ’traditional’ music of recent times. Today, there are dozens of amateur and professional samulnori groups. There is a canon of samulnori pieces, closely associated with the first founding quartet but played by all, and many creative evolutions on the basic themes, made by the rapidly growing number of virtuosic percussionists. And the genre is the focus of an abundance of workshops, festivals and contests. Samulnori is taught in primary and middle schools; it is part of Korea’s national education curriculum. It has dedicated institutes, and there are a number of workbooks devoted to helping wannabe ’samulnorians’. It is a familiar part of Korean performance culture, at home and abroad, in concerts but also in films and theatre productions. SamulNori uses four instruments: kkwaenggwari and ching small and large gongs, and changgo and puk drums. These are the instruments of local percussion bands and itinerant troupes that trace back many centuries, but samulnori is a recent development of these older traditions: it was first performed in February 1978. This volume explores this vibrant percussion genre, charting its origins and development, the formation of the canon of pieces, teaching and learning strategies, new evolutions and current questions relating to maintaining, developing, and sustaining samulnori in the future.

The third edition of this popular book has been extensively revised to reflect the changes that have affected student research in higher education in recent years. The ability to carry out research successfully has come to be seen as a 'key transferable skill' required of all higher education students - and The Management of a Student Research Project addresses directly the skill element of this. Furthermore the research process, at all levels, is far more systematized than in the past. The single largest change since the second edition came out in 1996 has been the impact of the World Wide Web on student research. The third edition has been thoroughly rewritten and developed in response to this. In particular, Chapter 4, 'Literature Searching', has been structured around a sample online search. Throughout, the comments and thoughts of readers of previous editions have been taken into account in framing this third edition. Its aims remain the same - to provide a clear, comprehensive and useful guide to students undertaking research projects in order to improve their chances of a successful outcome.

As Korea has developed and modernized, music has come to play a central role as a symbol of national identity. Nationalism has been stage managed by scholars, journalists and, from the beginning of the 1960s, by the state, as music genres have been documented, preserved and promoted as 'Intangible Cultural Properties'. Practitioners have been appointed 'holders' or, in everyday speech, 'Human Cultural Properties', to maintain, perform and teach exemplary versions of tradition. Over the last few years, the Korean preservation system has become a model for UNESCO's 'Living Human Treasures' and 'Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Mankind'. In this volume, Keith Howard provides the first comprehensive analysis in English of the system. He documents court music and dance, Confucian and shaman ritual music, folksongs, the professional folk-art genres of p'ansori ('epic storytelling through song') and sanjo ('scattered melodies'), and more, as well as instrument making, food preparation and liquor distilling - a good performance, after all, requires wine to flow. The extensive documentation reflects considerable fieldwork, discussion and questioning carried out over a 25-year period, and blends the voices of scholars, government officials, performers, craftsmen and the general public. By interrogating both contemporary and historical data, Howard negotiates the debates and critiques that surround this remarkable attempt to protect local and national music and other performance arts and crafts. An accompanying downloadable resource illustrates many of the music genres considered, featuring many master musicians including some who have now died. The preservation of music and other performance arts and crafts is part of the contemporary zeitgeist, yet occupies contested territory. This is particularly true when the concept of 'tradition' is invoked. Within Korea, the recognition of the fragility of indigenous music inherited from earlier times is balanced by an awareness of the need to maintain identity as lifestyles change in response to modernization and globalization. Howard argues that Korea, and the world, is a better place when the richness of indigenous music is preserved and promoted.

With the rise of nationalism in the Republic of Korea, music has come to play a central role in the discourse of identity. This volume asks what Koreans consider makes music Korean, and how meaning is ascribed to musical creation. Keith Howard explores specific aspects of creativity that are designed to appeal to a new audience that is increasingly westernized yet proud of its indigenous heritage - updates of tradition, compositions, and collaborative fusions. He charts the development of the Korean music scene over the last 25 years and interprets the debates, claims and statistics by incorporating the voices of musicians, composers, scholars and critics. Koreanness is a brand identity with a discourse founded on heritage, hence Howard focuses on music that is claimed to link to tradition, and on music compositions where indigenous identity is consciously incorporated. The volume opens with SamulNori, a percussion quartet known throughout the world that was formed in 1978 but is rooted in local and itinerant bands stretching back many centuries. Parallel developments in vocal genres, folksongs and p'ansori ('epic storytelling through song') are considered, then three chapters explore compositions written both for western instruments and for Korean instruments, and designed both for Korean and international audiences. Over time, Howard shows how the two musical worlds - kugak, traditional music, and yangak, western music - have collided, and how fusions have emerged. This volume documents how identity has been negotiated by musicians, composers and audiences. Until recently, references to tradition were common and, by critics and musicologists, required. Western music increasingly encroached on the market for Korean music and doubts were raised about the future of any music identifiably Korean. Today, Korean musical production exudes a resurgent confidence as it amalgamates Korean and western elements, as it arranges and incorporates the old in the new, and as it creates a music suitable for the contemporary world.

Chartwell Dutiro, an mbira player since childhood and a former member of the band, Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited, arrived in Britain in 1994 and has lived there ever since. He works primarily with Zimbabwean and British musicians, and, while allying himself and his music to his Shona ancestors, his music represents both tradition and its transformation. Many mbira players in Europe and America now regard him as their teacher and mentor. He has built an international following during a decade spent performing at WOMAD and the United Nations, working for refugee projects and in a vast array of education and community projects. He also performed at Live8 in 2005. This volume is a collaborative venture between musicians and academics, which builds an account of the mbira, the most important of Zimbabwe's traditional instruments. It celebrates Dutiro's musicianship, exploring his musical development and the collaborations he has been involved with, while at the same time discovering his personal, political and religious perspectives.

Almost forty years after the publication of Hobsbawm and Ranger’s The Invention of Tradition, the subject of invented traditions—cultural and historical practices that claim a continuity with a distant past but which are in fact of relatively recent origin—is still relevant, important, and highly contentious. Invented Traditions in North and South Korea examines the ways in which compressed modernity, Cold War conflict, and ideological opposition has impacted the revival of traditional forms in both Koreas. The volume is divided thematically into sections covering: (1) history, religions, (2) language, (3) music, food, crafts, and finally, (4) space. It includes chapters on pseudo-histories, new religions, linguistic politeness, literary Chinese, p’ansori, heritage, North Korean food, architecture, and the invention of children’s pilgrimages in the DPRK. As the first comparative study of invented traditions in North and South Korea, the book takes the reader on a journey through Korea’s epic twentieth century, examining the revival of culture in the context of colonialism, decolonization, national division, dictatorship, and modernization. The book investigates what it describes as "monumental" invented traditions formulated to maintain order, loyalty, and national identity during periods of political upheaval as well as cultural revivals less explicitly connected to political power. Invented Traditions in North and South Korea demonstrates that invented traditions can teach us a great deal about the twentieth-century political and cultural trajectories of the two Koreas. With contributions from historians, sociologists, folklorists, scholars of performance, and anthropologists, this volume will prove invaluable to Koreanists, as well as teachers and students of Korean and Asian studies undergraduate courses.

Focussing on music traditions, these essays explore the policy, ideology and practice of preservation and promotion of East Asian intangible cultural heritage. For the first time, Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan - states that were amongst the first to establish legislation and systems for indigenous traditions - are considered together. Calls to preserve the intangible heritage have recently become louder, not least with increasing UNESCO attention. The imperative to preserve is, throughout the region, cast as a way to counter the perceived loss of cultural diversity caused by globalization, modernization, urbanization and the spread of the mass media. Four chapters - one each on China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan - incorporate a foundational overview of preservation policy and practice of musical intangible cultural heritage at the state level. These chapters are complemented by a set of chapters that explore how the practice of policy has impacted on specific musics, from Confucian ritual through Kam big song to the Okinawan sanshin. Each chapter is based on rich ethnographic data collected through extended fieldwork. The team of international contributors give both insider and outsider perspectives as they both account for, and critique, policy, ideology and practice in East Asian music as intangible cultural heritage.

The third edition of this popular book has been extensively revised to reflect the changes that have affected student research in higher education in recent years. The ability to carry out research successfully has come to be seen as a 'key transferable skill' required of all higher education students - and The Management of a Student Research Project addresses directly the skill element of this. Furthermore, the research process, at all levels, is far more systematized than in the past. The single largest change since the second edition came out in 1996 has been the impact of the World Wide Web on student research. The third edition has been thoroughly rewritten and developed in response to this. In particular, Chapter 4, 'Literature Searching', has been structured around a sample online search. Throughout, the comments and thoughts of readers of previous editions have been taken into account in framing this third edition. Its aims remain the same - to provide a clear, comprehensive and useful guide to students undertaking research projects in order to improve their chances of a successful outcome.

Focussing on music traditions, these essays explore the policy, ideology and practice of preservation and promotion of East Asian intangible cultural heritage. For the first time, Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan - states that were amongst the first to establish legislation and systems for indigenous traditions - are considered together. Calls to preserve the intangible heritage have recently become louder, not least with increasing UNESCO attention. The imperative to preserve is, throughout the region, cast as a way to counter the perceived loss of cultural diversity caused by globalization, modernization, urbanization and the spread of the mass media. Four chapters - one each on China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan - incorporate a foundational overview of preservation policy and practice of musical intangible cultural heritage at the state level. These chapters are complemented by a set of chapters that explore how the practice of policy has impacted on specific musics, from Confucian ritual through Kam big song to the Okinawan sanshin. Each chapter is based on rich ethnographic data collected through extended fieldwork. The team of international contributors give both insider and outsider perspectives as they both account for, and critique, policy, ideology and practice in East Asian music as intangible cultural heritage.

SamulNori is a percussion quartet which has given rise to a genre, of the same name, that is arguably Korea’s most successful ’traditional’ music of recent times. Today, there are dozens of amateur and professional samulnori groups. There is a canon of samulnori pieces, closely associated with the first founding quartet but played by all, and many creative evolutions on the basic themes, made by the rapidly growing number of virtuosic percussionists. And the genre is the focus of an abundance of workshops, festivals and contests. Samulnori is taught in primary and middle schools; it is part of Korea’s national education curriculum. It has dedicated institutes, and there are a number of workbooks devoted to helping wannabe ’samulnorians’. It is a familiar part of Korean performance culture, at home and abroad, in concerts but also in films and theatre productions. SamulNori uses four instruments: kkwaenggwari and ching small and large gongs, and changgo and puk drums. These are the instruments of local percussion bands and itinerant troupes that trace back many centuries, but samulnori is a recent development of these older traditions: it was first performed in February 1978. This volume explores this vibrant percussion genre, charting its origins and development, the formation of the canon of pieces, teaching and learning strategies, new evolutions and current questions relating to maintaining, developing, and sustaining samulnori in the future.

Today, the Kyrgyz Manas is one of the most celebrated epic heroic poems in the world. At the turn of the new millennium it was appointed a UNESCO ‘Masterpiece in the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Mankind’, signalling its global significance. It sits alongside Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, or the South Asian Mahābhārata and Rāmāyana, although politics and language have during the twentieth century conspired against allowing it to become as well known.In contrast to previously published material, this book focuses on one septegenarian contemporary performer, Saparbek Kasmambetov who inherited the oral tradition of his culture, adding details and other elements to his storytelling, as he saw fit. Consequently, the volume does not offer a literal translation in poetic form, but is presented as a story – as originally intended; the contextual/historical account situates Soviet/Kyrgyz with Western accounts of Manas and other epic heroic poetry.Part I offers a translation of seven episodes from the Manas, as sung by Saparbek, with accompanying CDs – the translations of all the episodes being based on the recordings.Part II comprises three chapters examining oral epic poetry and the Manas; the Kyrgyz Manas recorded, performed and studies; finally, a study of Saparbek Kasmambetov – the performer. The accompanying plates are the work of Gouljan Arslan, Saparbek Kasmambetov’s granddaughter.