Jon’s “Composing Heterophony: Arranging and Adapting Global Musics for Intercultural Ensembles” is live in Intersections: Canadian Journal of Music/Revue canadienne de musique, Vol 41, No. 1. Part of “Other Soundings,” guest-edited by Jonathan Goldman. To view the full special issue and other music theorist/musicologiests’ works please visit this link: https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/is/2021-v41-n1-is09705/.
https://doi.org/10.7202/1114854ar
Article abstract:
The usage of heterophony has changed significantly since it was coined by Guido Adler in 1908 to signify an other in opposition to Western polyphony. It was first used to demonstrate an evolutionary progression from a more primitive form of music making to a purportedly more developed polyphony that had supposedly only been achieved in the West. Starting from the idea of a continuum between monophony and polyphony, with heterophony falling somewhere in the middle, this article contends that it is more useful to conceive of all three as coexisting and reflecting expressions of different functions of music. A more fluid concept of all three descriptive terms is far more useful as an analytic tool and can help to reveal a wide variety of hybridization and collaborative interaction between musicians with diverse musical backgrounds.
Keywords: heterophony, polyphony, intercultural music, performance practice, history of music theory
RÉSUMÉ:
L’utilisation du terme « hétérophonie » a considérablement évolué depuis qu’il a été inventé par Guido Adler en 1908 pour désigner un autre en opposition à la polyphonie occidentale. Il a d’abord été utilisé pour démontrer une progression évolutive d’une forme primitive de création musicale vers une polyphonie prétendument plus développée, qui n’aurait été atteinte qu’en Occident. Partant de l’idée d’un continuum entre la monophonie et la polyphonie, l’hétérophonie se situant quelque part au milieu, cet article soutient qu’il est plus utile de concevoir les trois comme coexistant et reflétant des expressions de différentes fonctions de la musique. Un concept plus fluide des trois termes descriptifs est beaucoup plus utile en tant qu’outil analytique et peut aider à révéler une grande variété d’hybridation et d’interaction collaborative entre des musiciens d’origines musicales diverses.
Mots-clés: hétérophonie, polyphonie, musique interculturelle, pratique du spectacle, histoire de la théorie musicale
BIOGRAPHY:
Jon Silpayamanant is an independent scholar, composer, and educator based in the Louisville metro area. As a biracial Thai American with musical families on both sides of the world, he has been navigating musical code switching and bi/polymusicality while doing research that focuses on the history of forced musical labor and slave orchestras and on how music ecosystems interact, hybridize, and create systems of exclusion. He is also founder and artistic director of Saw Peep, a pan-Asian ensemble which performs traditional and blended intercultural music from South, Southeast, and Central Asia.
