Sounding Decolonial Futures: Decentering Ethnomusicology's Colonialist Legacies

Zeisberg 15 “Navaho Ritual Song”

This is another arrangement inspired not by a story and song package, bur rather just a two measure, rhythmic motif included in the chapter on the Relation of Story and Song. Fletcher is making a point that those who sing and listen to these sounds identify meaning, "not random shoutings" (1900:122). While Fletcher identifies the motif as from a "Navaho ritual Song" she does not introduce it in the same manner as the other transcriptions, which include titles and often credit to the arranger. Here it is merely presented as a two-measure repeating motif.

Zeisberg includes the motif at the top of his arrangement and then harmonizes it, attributing the harmonization to himself. This is significant: it is the first time he has done so in this collection of arrangements, clearly marking--and, importantly, acknowledging--that someone else first harmonized the other arrangements. There are four more in the series for which he marks himself as the arranger: #17-20. In this arrangement, then, we get a clear sense of his style, including his approach to harmony and arranging with shifting the registral placement of the motif, a stylistic marker we have seen in previous re-arrangements. 

 

This page has paths:

Contents of this path:

This page has tags:

Contents of this tag: