From the Editor

Aloha kākou! As the world and its musics become increasingly accessible through electronic media, our orientation to national spaces and geographic locales becomes at the same time more complex and more nuanced. Some of the contemporary claims for space and locale are related to identity, particularly an identity defined by ethnicity and/or geographic location. The four research articles and the book review essay in this issue reflect different ways in which identity and place are variously delineated, invoked, and juxtaposed. The interaction of place and identity, be it for Laotian song as practiced in Norway or for Indian performance instruction delivered online, should encourage us to reflect on the richness and diversity of interactions as well as to rethink what the concept of place—in material, virtual, and metaphoric contexts—might mean for a global and mediated present.

Orality constitutes another theme engaged in this issue. Most apparent are discussions of oral performance, such as the laments delivered by Kurdish women and Jewish sacred texts practiced in Persianate environments, presented by Estelle Amy de la Bretèque and Evan Rapport, respectively. Although studies of the transmission of knowledge and skills have largely dealt with in-person learning, Jeff Roy provides a fascinating discussion of distance learning and mediated teaching. Helen Rees’s book on Chinese musical personalities in the review section uses orality and reportage as part of its ethnographic approach. The publication on Javanese wayang in the multimedia review section “captures” oral performances in real-time mediatization as well as provides extensive documentation and reflexivity of them in print.

In addition to these foregoing themes, each item presents other issues important to the field. Jeffrey M. Dyer provides a wealth of evidence to argue for the pivotal position of Cambodia in the history of the monochord zither. A comparison of this stick zither with those of eastern India and northern Thailand in terms of organological features, playing techniques, regional identity, and social uses point up the variables of place and identity and the need to revisit an understanding of the distribution and a realigning of the history for this zither.

By using the term “melodized speech” for the performances of three displaced Kurdish women, Amy de la Bretèque draws our attention to the emic conceptualization by practitioners of a performance genre that might be etically described as chant (in the English usage). The laments give insight into gender positionality and into cultural ways for expressing and embodying anguish. Each of the three women has a history of traumatic separation from homeplace and entry into another locale, whether provisional or of long duration.

Evan Rapport’s article on the performance of Hebrew texts in Persian-speaking areas provides insight into bilingual orality. A detailed and technical consideration of rhythmic aspects reflects ways in which the conjunction of two languages, Hebrew and Persian, have informed cantillation practices of Jewish communities in Iran and Bukharian Central Asia. Rapport’s contribution demonstrates that the richness of Jewish cantillation is to be found not only in aspects of melody and tonal modes but also in its organization of time and duration as determinants for local, place-based diversity.

In an analysis of Hindustani music instruction via distance learning, Jeff Roy presents another kind of displacement of place and locale—the physical separation of the teacher from the learner with the pedagogical connection mediated through the Internet. Although the subject and its skill sets are performance- and music-specific, the conclusions Roy presents and the issues he raises have major implications for pedagogy and distance learning in general. Of particular note is attention to extramusical materials (EMMs) and a provocative discussion of devotion as a pedagogical practice.

It is our hope that the different approaches and positionalities presented in the research articles and discussed in the reviews provide opportunities for reflection and critique about the work we do. For each issue Asian Music endeavors to speak to the diverse geo-cultural interests of our readership. In 47(1) the articles and the reviews provide a range of materials about Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia.