IASPM Canada 2021 Conference Blog: Fiona Evison (Part 2)
IASPM CA
Collections and Connections: Local Musics as Cultural Heritage
By Fiona Evison
The ubiquitous impact of COVID-19 on music-making has been felt deeply on many levels, as musicians of diverse genres have endured “multiple seasons of muted music-making.” [1] Following Small, whose term musicking [2] widens the definition of who is included in music-making, the pandemic’s disruptions reach beyond musicians to all who help facilitate that music to happen. This includes the International Association for the Study of Popular Music Canada [IASPM-CA] conference organizers themselves, who, as outlined in my reflection on the conference’s sense of place, included four virtual music concerts in the conference programme in order to reflect Cape Breton’s diverse musical culture. After attending the second day of the conference, I extended my contemplation of pandemic implications further: Given the strange and disruptive situation in which we find ourselves, what effect will these pandemic, virtual music times have on the phenomenon of local music collections? What can be collected from over this last year and a half? Screen shots? PDF posters? Music links?
As a way of context for these wonderings, I recently told the Association of Canadian Women Composers’ [ACWC] members that I had been reflecting on mementos, memories, and my own musical heritage:
“I grew up in a musical family who encouraged my community involvement with music. Those early experiences set me on the path which I continue to follow. A few remembrances from those days still exist—a couple of grainy photos of me in music competitions, and some warbly cassettes of songs still remembered. ”
In my own haphazard way, I have started preserving a record of my musical life as a community musician and community composer, and I wanted to encourage ACWC members to consider and share how they archive their work. Corralling this evidence of our own musical histories may be prompted by personal goals, but the evidence may then become a collective part of Canadian cultural history.
This phenomenon was echoed in Carolyn Doi and Sean Luyk’s IASPM-CA conference session, “Community and connection: A study of meaning-making in local music collections in Canadian cultural heritage institutions.” The researchers presented their ongoing multi-year study, “Sounds of Home,” which investigates local music collections. The collections are cultural artefacts “that emerge as byproducts of local music scenes and their ability to signify diverse musical cultures, identities, and community ties.” [4] Examining local collections can lead to deeper understanding of the impact by popular music culture on local, national, even global narratives. Within Canada, it certainly points to the diversity of musics that are celebrated in communities, away from the glare of media-driven spotlights. Examining such collections also raises important and complex sociological questions of what does and does not get collected, and why that might be.
Screenshot from Doi & Luyk’s IASPM-CA conference presentation
Where do these collections exist? Museums, certainly, but also in libraries and archives, higher education institutions, governments, community and arts organizations, and community radio stations. An interesting related phenomenon, which the Sounds of Home discussion did not address, but which the conference’s “Destination Cape Breton” presentation exemplified, is that of musical tourism. Music collections can “anchor…cultural and economic regeneration,” [5] which reflects another topic resonating with the conference’s theme of “Big Sounds from Small Places” and resulting discussions of music’s importance in local cultural economies, such as the roundtable, “Music Scenes and Economies in Atlantic Canada: Opportunities and Challenges Before & After COVID Crisis.”
Screenshot of tourism presentation
Collections start, however, not with an institution, but with a person—a collector. The question of why people collect has been investigated and debated by psychologists and behaviour theorists, revealing a myriad of individual reasons and motivations, including challenge, curiosity, investment, patronage, personal enjoyment, historical preservation, prestige, connection to a collecting community, and even obsession. [6] Doi and Luyk are focussing on professional local music collection managers, seeking to understand their perceptions, values, and experiences within cultural heritage organizations. What the researchers are discovering are the existence or development of deep levels of commitment and personal meaning, rather than mere professional obligation. It is surely no surprise to popular music devotees and scholars to hear that these collectors find their work to be enjoyable, and that it provides opportunities to support, centre, engage, and impact their community through their collections of local music artefacts. An example of the meaningful impact of such activities is the recovering of lost musics in communities—a vital action which echoes the ethos of community music practices seeking to recover lost or compromised music practices within communities. [7]
I return to my opening question about the effect of the pandemic on the phenomenon of local music collections. I had not considered this impact prior to the IASPM-CA conference, but perhaps as we emerge from our muted musicking, we will appreciate not just enjoying and/or producing live performances again, but also the opportunity to create and collect music-related artefacts that foster community ties and reflect the diversity and activity of our local musical cultures.
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[1] Evison, F. (forthcoming). Sometimes I just crawl under the cover and hide: Caring by, for, and with community music leaders during crises. In K. Hendricks (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of care in music education. Oxford University Press.
[2] Small, C. (1998). Musicking : The meanings of performing and listening. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
[3] Evison, F. (2021). A heritage to treasure. Association of Canadian Women Composers Journal, Spring-Summer 2021, p. 8.
[4] Doi, C. & Luyk, S. (2021). Community and connection: A study of meaning-making in local music collections in Canadian cultural heritage institutions. IASPMC Conference Abstract.
[5] Lashua, B.R. (2018). Popular music heritage and tourism. In S. Baker et al.(Eds.) The Routledge companion to popular music history and heritage. Routledge. p. 153. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315299310-15.
[6] Formanek, R. (1991). Why they collect: Collectors reveal their motivations. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 6(6), 275-286.
[7] Bartleet, B. & Higgins, L. (2018). Introduction: An overview of community music in the twenty-first century. In B. Bartleet & L. Higgins (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of community music, pp. 1-2. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Fiona Evison is a Music Education PhD student at Western University in London, Ontario. As a composer, she believes her creativity should be used to enable community music making. Her research interests include community music education, adult education, intergenerational musicking, and non-auditioned ensembles and soloists. Her 2019 international research on the role of the composer in community music will appear in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Community Singing. Current inquiries on the impact of COVID-19 on community music will be published by Oxford University Press. Fiona is a community music director and accompanist in Owen Sound, Ontario. She is also on the board of the Association of Canadian Women Composers, and is Editor for the ACWC Journal.