accompanying annotated playlist available here

The concept that people, lands, and cultures are divided into nations that provide a central component of citizens’ identities.

Modern nationalism developed in Western Europe in the revolutionary atmosphere of the late eighteenth century. 

During this time, the nation-state became increasingly central to defining territories and the peoples who inhabited them.

 Nationalism seeks to homogenize and unite those within a territory, often antagonizing individuals within its borders who do not conform and are therefore considered a threat to a perceived national unity.

Nationalist movements in the 1800s sought to create musics to reflect the desired ideals of nations. This imperative emerged as European nations increasingly defined themselves in opposition to each other and the growing number of colonies. European nationalist composers often drew on melodic or rhythmic traits considered particularly indicative of national styles. Because music is a symbolic medium, the meaning of these rhythms and melodies was culturally established: Listeners and composers were themselves cultivated to hear certain traits as nationalist, developing these musical symbols of nationalism (Beckerman 1986:73). Many nationalist composers have drawn on collected folk culture and music from across territories and peoples subsumed into nations. These folk collections are presented as a shared national heritage or folk culture. In many cases, these projects claimed to “save” or “preserve” culture, often by notating versions of oral traditions in written forms, effectively freezing them into one single “official” version. Music books and media, such as radio, recordings and film, aided the dissemination of a shared national culture that sought to cultivate national identity as a dominant force in citizens’ lives (See Anderson 1983; Boyes 2010).

In formerly-colonized lands, nationalism reflects a complicated mixture of both liberation and the continuation of colonial power structures. With the advent of independence movements, lands that were previously colonized by European nations have sought to create their own national identities, including musical identities. In doing so, they have frequently drawn on the same model as European nations that push a homogenized cultural form as a shared national heritage. Following the European model of turning to “the folk,” or communities seen as preserving older strata of culture, many countries have appropriated these musics as sources of national music heritage. 

In countries like Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador, the music of Indigenous communities—many of whom remain wary of state governments because of histories of genocide—has been co-opted into indigenismo nation-building projects in the twentieth century.

 One famous example is “El Cóndor Pasa,” a piece from the eponymous zarzuela (operetta) composed in 1913 by Peruvian composer and ethnomusicologist Daniel Alomía Robles. Similar efforts have taken place in African countries where governmental organizations have played significant roles in shaping a shared national culture in the second half of the twentieth century when many African nations gained independence. In countries like Ghana, government organizations have supported performances with different ethnic groups representing cultures across its territories (Agawu 2003:19). These efforts face the challenges of representation: What music represents diverse nations of people, often speaking many different languages? Who gets to decide?

Settler colonial states—meaning the dominant population is descended from colonizers who have oppressed Indigenous communities through acts of genocide, systematic dispossession of lands, and cultural repression—have also used music to define themselves. These nation-states, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa, may recognize some differences among groups of people when those differences do not challenge the nationalist rhetoric. Yet overall, they demand assimilation and depend on native societies losing their land, language, and cultural practices (Simpson 2014; Wolfe 2006).

Political and social figures have showcased—and in many cases, misrepresented—musical styles and dances that they feel should be celebrated as “roots” music representing their idea of a nation. For example, Appalachian old-time and country music in the United States has been overwhelmingly portrayed as Anglo- and Euro-American music; the African and Black roots of these musical styles were intentionally down-played and erased in part through the efforts of wealthy, Anglo-Americans such as Henry Ford (See Brucher 2016).

So how do communities and musicians respond to nations and ideas of national musics when these same musicians often find themselves systematically excluded? In some cases, people push for inclusion and recognition, finding spaces for marginalized identities to be viewed and heard as part of a national heritage. This approach might be observed when the lyrics of a national anthem includes several languages; for instance, South Africa changed their national anthem following apartheid to better reflect the inclusive ideals of a new era (see example below). Research and scholarship have also played an important role in amending histories that have marginalized communities (See Hay 2003; Flemons 2018; Our Native Daughters 2019). Another example is mariachi music, which has been embraced as a representative of Mexican and Latin American cultures in the United States and public-school music curricula. At the same time, it can also be understood as a vital U.S. American music given its significance within the United States today (See Salazar 2011; Sheehy 2006).

In other cases, various racial, ethnic, and economic social groups within a nation may disagree, redefine, or create their own definitions of what their national music is (Wong 2012). And whereas it may be assumed that membership within a nation is or should be an end goal for those who are marginalized and seeking the benefits of citizenship, there are contexts in which rejecting membership of one nation may be preferred in order to advocate for the sovereignty of another identity group. Music, along with other culturally-identifying practices such as language and dance, have often been central for people resisting or rejecting a nationalist identity during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, such as the second Hawai'ian Renaissance Movement's protest songs and renewed interests in Hawai'ian language, chant and dance (Lewis 1987; Stillman 1995:4-5).

In summary, although nationalism in its current form is a relatively recent phenomenon that began among colonial European nations, today it structures assumptions of how humans organize themselves, cultures, and musics. While music may create affinity within nations, musical nationalism does so by excluding others—often by erasing communities and practices all together.

In the passage above, it is mentioned that folklore projects “claimed to ‘save’ or ‘preserve’ culture, often by documenting or freezing versions of oral traditions in written forms.” In many cases, however, there are multiple versions of songs, meaning that decisions must be made about which versions to preserve or make “official” by publishing. What problems might arise in this process? Who should get to make these decisions about which songs join folk music canons and which ones are left out? What might be some consequences of these choices?

Are people able to claim an identity or membership within a nation or political grouping even if they are not recognized as a member from the nation or political grouping? Why or why not? What are some of the identity issues that arise when one's claims to membership may or may not be recognized by a larger group? How might these discrepancies impact musical performance?

Make a list of rights or benefits that are awarded to someone who is able to claim citizenship to a nation state. Then consider what is at stake for someone who is denied citizenship to a nation state.

Conduct an internet search using Google or a database like JSTOR to read about plurinationalism. Find an example of how this is practiced in a given nation state or country. What are some of the social challenges of this political structure? How does music relate to the ways this plurinational state is represented?

 2003. Special issue on Affrilachian music 23(1). 

Focus: Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe: Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe

Einarsdóttir, Áslaug, and Valdimar Hafstein. 2018. 

The Flight of the Condor: A Letter, a Song and the Story of Intangible Cultural Heritage

Governing Sound: The Cultural Politics of Trinidad’s Carnival Musics

. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Tang, Kai. 2021. “Singing a Chinese Nation: Heritage Preservation, the Yushengtai Movement, and New Trends in Chinese Folk Music in the Twenty-First Century. 

Taruskin, Richard. 2001. “Nationalism.” 

Alomía Robles, Daniel. 1913. Orchestral recording based on the original scores: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvp-RFpgXA0

 Washington, DC: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings SFW40224. 

https://folkways.si.edu/dom-flemons/black-cowboys

https://folkways.si.edu/kaulaheaonamiku-kiona/hawaiian-chant-hula-and-music/hawaii/music/album/smithsonian

Mariachi Los Gavilanes de Monaco Middle School – Heart of Las Vegas Television Documentary video: 

Pop-Up Magazine. 2020. "Going Varsity in Mariachi." Documentary video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXywZ2CXcnk

 Washington, DC: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings SFW40232. 

https://folkways.si.edu/songs-of-our-native-daughters

Musics of Hawai'i: Anthology of Hawaiian Music - Special Festival Edition

. Washington DC: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings SFW40016. 

https://folkways.si.edu/musics-of-hawaii-anthology-of-hawaiian-music-special-festival-edition/album/smithsonian

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism

Representing African Music: Postcolonial Notes, Queries, Positions

Beckerman, Michael. 1986. “In Search of Czechness.” 

The Imagined Village: Culture, Ideology and the English Folk Revival.

Brucher, Katherine. 2016. "Assembly Lines and Contra Dance Lines: The Ford Motor Company Music Department and Leisure Reform." 

Journal of the Society for American Music

Hay, Fred J. 2003. "Black Musicians in Appalachia: An Introduction to Affrilachian Music." 

Lewis, George H. 1987. "Style in Revolt Music, Social Protest, and the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance." 

Salazar, Lauryn C. 2011. "From Fiesta to Festival: Mariachi Music in California and the Southwestern United States." Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.

Mariachi Music in America: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture

Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States.

Stillman, Amy Ku'uleialoha. 1995. "Not All Hula Songs Are Created Equal: Reading the Historical Nature of Repertoire in Polynesia." 

Wolfe, Patrick. 2006. "Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native." 

Whose National Music?: Identity, Mestizaje, and Migration in Ecuador

This article offers an overview of musical nationalism. It considers how states have used music as a political tool as well as the ways in which communities have employed music to reject national identities and challenge nation-states.

Music and Nationalism

This is an annotated playlist on the topic of music and nationalism. It can be used to 

accompany the World Music Textbook article “Music and Nationalism.”

 These pieces are available through most standard music services, but they are compiled in a Spotify playlist for convenience 

Eight Slavonic Dances Op. 46: No. 1 in C (Presto) by Antonín Dvořák

This dance by Dvořák is in the style of folk music. Despite the folkness it invokes, however, Dvořák composed the melodies himself. This example is in the form of a dance known as a furiant, which is a fast triple-meter dance commonly found in Eastern Europe (Anderson 1988; Tyrrell 2001).

 draws on musical themes from Indigenous communities in Mexico and employs Indigenous Mesoamerican percussion instruments. Written in the mid-1930s, the piece uses European nationalist strategies of integrating folk music, though Chávez was culturally distant from the Indigenous communities whose melodies he borrowed. This compositional strategy reflects Mexican models of 

 that co-opted Indigenous culture for nation-building projects.

“Pasacalle” by Daniel Alomías Robles

In 1913, Peruvian composer Daniel Alomías Robles composed music for the zarzuela (a form of Spanish musical theater) 

. In the vein of other Peruvian works of music and theater at the time, the piece seized on a nationalist style that employed indigenismo and ideals of mestizaje, or cultural mixing. The “Pasacalle” from this zarzuela became popularized as the song “El Cóndor Pasa.” While Robles was not Indigenous, his piece quickly became a prominent symbol of Peruvian Indigeneity and nationalism. Yet the song has also been contested as some have claimed the melody originated from Indigenous songs that were also popular in neighboring Bolivia (Mejía 2014; ​​Einarsdóttir and Hafsdein 2018). The song reflects the complexities of cultures not fitting neatly with national boundaries and legacies of states appropriating musical forms for nationalist projects.

“Explorations: Hi-Life Structures” by The Pan African Orchestra

Although based in Ghana, the Pan African Orchestra performs on instruments from across Africa. Kofi Agawu points out that the music performed by the Pan African Orchestra often strikes listeners as traditional even though the pieces they perform are recently composed (2003:19). This misperception speaks to some of the challenges that emerge in thinking about what constitutes “tradition.”

“Oh! Susanna” performed by the 2nd South Carolina String Band

Among the many U.S. songs composed by Stephen Foster, “Oh! Susanna” was popularized in minstrel shows across the United States in the mid-nineteenth century (Root 2013). This version is performed by the 2nd South Carolina String Band, a group of Civil War reenactors who perform popular songs from the Civil War era. In the 1920s, automobile tycoon Henry Ford invested in preserving the composer's home and promoting Foster’s songs alongside those of other composers that he deemed representative of the country’s Anglo musical heritage. A nazi sympathizer, he sought to distribute and promote music from the countryside that he saw as culturally and morally superior to other popular musics (Warnock 2009). The history of this song and others rooted in minstrel shows have come under renewed scrutiny in places like music classrooms, where national ideals of inclusivity increasingly confront racist music histories.

“Home on the Range” performed by Dom Flemons

Sitting around the campfire, the American Western movie 

 (1946), features actor Ken Curtis crooning the song “Home on the Range.” Among the songs most associated with cowboy culture, the song invokes the emblem of today’s quintessential American cowboy—a figure who is nearly always depicted as white. Despite this popular portrayal cemented through U.S. popular media there were many Black, Mexican, and Native American cowboys. The song “Home on the Range” was recorded by American song collector Alan Lomax from an unnamed Black musician in Texas (Lomax 1945). This song is among the Black cowboy and folk songs that have been subsumed into U.S. national music while erasing its Black roots (Flemons 2018).

“Polly Ann’s Hammer” by Our Native Daughters

“Polly Ann's Hammer” was written by Amythyst Kiah and Allison Russell for Our Native Daughters’ 2019 release on Smithsonian Folkways. Whereas some tracks on this album are covers or reinterpretations and revivals of Black songs transcribed as early as the 1700s, members of Our Native Daughters have composed original songs like “Polly Ann’s Hammer” to honor and commemorate historical Black figures in the United States who have often been overlooked. In the case of this track, Kiah and Russell wrote about the strength of Polly Ann Henry who, prior to 2019, had only been referenced in some verses of songs about her husband, John Henry (Nelson 2006).

“El Relámpago” by Mariachi Herencia de México

Mariachi Herencia de México is a Latin GRAMMY-nominated community ensemble composed of students from the Chicago area. They are an outstanding example of how schools and community youth ensembles across the United States have invested in creating high-profile student programs that focus on Mexican music. “El Relámpago” was released on their debut album. This track is an arrangement of a standard mariachi song representative of the genre of traditional sones (polymetric and polyrhythmic songs) common in Central and Western Mexico.

“He Aloha Nō 'O Honolulu” composed by Lot Kauwe and performed by The Kahauana Lake Trio

Lot Kauwe was a well-known singer, songwriter, and teacher who wrote songs in the Hawai’ian language during the early 1900s. His song “He Aloha Nō 'O Honolulu” uses metaphors, double-meanings, and Hawai'ian poetic conventions to sing about love and the Hawai’ian islands (Huapala 1997; Honolulu Advertiser 1922:7). Kahauanu Lake or “Uncle K” was a Hawai’ian scholar, historian, composer, and musician celebrated for his left-handed ukulele playing. He formed the Kahauana Lake Trio with bassist Tommy Lake (his brother) and guitarist Al Machida. Kahauana Lake’s music was influential in creating a contemporary Hawai’ian style. During the second Hawai’ian Renaissance Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, Lake, his bandmates, and Ma’iki Aiu Lake—an eminent hula dancer, teacher and his wife—inspired a new generation of Hawai'ian hula dancers and musicians who resisted colonialism and American imperialism by promoting traditional Hawai’ian music and dance as well as singing contemporary music in the Hawai’ian language (Hula Records 2013; Stillman 1982:49-50).

Sanjuanitos: Carabuela/por el Valle Voy/Pobre Corazón/Carnaval de Guaranda performed by Roberto Zumba

Roberto Zumba is regarded as one of Ecuador’s founding singers of a popular music style known as 

 (Wong 2012). Over the course of his career, Zumba and his contemporaries shifted their singing styles to reflect discourses about Ecuador’s national music. Through music, they participated in national conversations about racial identity, ethnicity, social class, and differing generational perspectives on what it meant to be Ecuadorian. Zumba’s medley of sanjuanito songs draws on Andean Indigenous musical styles and are performed in the música chicha style featuring synthesizers and electronic drum tracks. Working-class Ecuadorians began to embrace this music as a national music style after the 1980s, but middle- and upper-classes also celebrate some sanjuanito songs, such as “Pobre Corazón,” as a national symbol (heard between 5:05 until 6:32 in this recording).

Borodin was among a cohort of Russian composers, known as The Mighty Five, who sought to create what they perceived as a truly “Russian” sound in the late nineteenth century. Borodin sought to paint a sonic landscape, connecting music to geography—in this case Central Asian territories that Russia had recently seized in a climate of European imperialism. The piece draws on musical exoticism, or the portraying other peoples and places distant from the composer (Locke 2001).

The Tuareg residing in northwestern Africa are an ethnic group with a shared language and culture, but who do not currently have their own nation-state. Music provides a means for creating a sense of nationhood for Tuareg communities residing across different nation-states in northwestern Africa. The electric guitar has become a particularly symbolic instrument among the Tuareg since the 1990s (Backer 2015; Schmidt 2018).

This Chinese orchestra piece from 1958 draws on folk music themes and presents them in an orchestrated format. The modern Chinese orchestra (MCO) style integrates a range of traditional Chinese instruments that have historically been played in ensembles like the Silk and Bamboo ensembles (sizhu) of tea houses. The MCO took its current form in the 1950s as an extension of government efforts to promote a shared Chinese national heritage and the prevailing ideas of modernization (Kuo-Huang and Gray 1979:17).

“The First House in Connaught/The Copper Plate Reel” by Séamus Ennis

This reel—a traditional Irish dance form in a quick duple meter—is among those collected and performed by Séamus Ennis. Ennis collected thousands of Irish tunes and he performed on the uilleann pipe that is featured in this example. Ennis gathered music from across Ireland for the Irish Folklore Commission that, as was the case in many national projects, saw its role as collecting and preserving Irish traditional music (Carolan 2001; National Folklore Collection 2022).

Our thanks to Yuxin Mei and Eric Schmidt for their contributions to this annotated listening guide.

 [CD] Unterhaching-München: Naxos 8.550143.

https://africasacountry.com/2015/03/the-unexpected-popularity-of-dire-straits-in-north-african-tuareg-communities

Carolan, Nicholas. 2001. “Ennis, Seamus.” In 

​​Einarsdóttir, Áslaug, and Valdimar Hafstein. 2018. The Flight of the Condor: A Letter, a Song and the Story of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Film. 

 [CD]. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Folkways Recording SFW CD 40224. 

Honolulu Advertiser, The. 1922. “Lot Kauwe Dies; Was Noted Singer.” In 

, 7, July 16. Accessed February 14, 2022. 

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/27904443/1922-lot-kauwe-obituary

 1997. “He Aloha Nō ʻO Honolulu (Goodbye to Honolulu).” Accessed February 14, 2022. 

http://www.huapala.org/Hea/Healoha\_No\_Honolulu.html.

Hula Records. 2013. “Hawaiian Icon, Musician Kahauanu Lake Dies.” Accessed February 14, 2022 

http://hularecords.com/\_clientData/\_ao\_Ecom/obit2.html

Kuo-Huang, Han, and Judith Gray. 1979. “The Modern Chinese Orchestra.” 

Lomax, John A. 1945. “Half-Million Dollar Song: Origin of ‘Home on the Range.’” 

Mejía, Luis Salazar. 2014. “El Cóndor Pasa... y Sus Misterios.” 

Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana

National Folklore Collection. 2022. “About.” Accessed February 2, 2022. 

Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend

Root, Deane L. 2013. “Foster, Stephen C(ollins).” In 

Schmidt, Eric. 2018. “Rhythms of Value: Tuareg Music and Capitalist Reckonings in Niger.” PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.

Stillman, Amy Ku’uleialoha. 1982. “The Hula Ku’i: A Tradition in Hawaiian Music and Dance.” M.A. thesis, University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

This is an annotated playlist on the topic of music and nationalism. It can be used to accompany the World Music Textbook article "Music and Nationalism."

Music and Nationalism: Annotated Playlist

This article presents a cultural history of Brazilian popular song (canção popular) and the many musical genres that fall under its umbrella. From the early days of samba to contemporary popular styles, popular song in Brazil has long represented a site for negotiating complex questions of race, nation, and politics.

Part 1

Part 2 References and Discussion Questions

Articulating Race and Nation in Brazilian Popular Song

The musical instrument popularly known as the “Jew’s Harp” (also jaw’s harp, mouth harp, trump or 

) is found in many countries around the world. The origin of the name, and of the instrument itself, remains unclear to scholars, though it is believed it is an ‘extremely ancient instrument’ that may have originated in Asia, perhaps China (Fox 1988, 22, 49).

The Cambodian version of the instrument is unique. Called 

 in Khmer, it is a precious part of Cambodia’s living cultural heritage (Libin 2014; Narom 2005).

Nowadays, angkuoch and its associated practices are in need of urgent safeguarding. Social and cultural shifts in Cambodia over the last half-century, including the devastation of the Khmer Rouge era in the 1970s, mean that only a few people still know how to make and play angkuoch (Miller & Williams 1998, 204).

 of the British Museum (UK) and by UNESCO (Cambodia), in early 2020 we (the authors) led a team documenting angkuoch and angkuoch-making as it is practised in Siem Reap Province in northern Cambodia. Our aim was to help preserve knowledge about angkuoch for present and future generations.

By briefly introducing the angkuoch makers and players who participated in this project, and by presenting some of the information they shared with us during our fieldwork, this article serves as an introduction to angkuoch. It offers a sense of the changes to angkuoch-making over time, and the current state of the instrument in its social and cultural context. It also reflects on one of the key outcomes of the fieldwork: identifying the likely maker of the angkuoch in the British Museum.

BIN Song (b. 1942) may be the only living person who still knows how to make the iron Cambodian angkuoch: angkuoch daek.

 He was first introduced to angkuoch daek as a child, by a man from the neighbouring Kuy ethnic community. Intrigued, he taught himself how to play angkuoch, and eventually to make it too. As a young man, he became known for his skills with the angkuoch.

Like artists all over Cambodia, BIN Song stopped making and playing the angkuoch when the despotic Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975. When the project team encouraged him in late 2019 to make an angkuoch daek, he had not made an instrument for nearly fifty years.

At first, BIN Song hesitated to accept our invitation. He was concerned that his eyesight was no longer up to the task. Moreover, since he had lost his teeth, he could not test the instrument out as he made it. Yet he agreed and later he told us: “I’m getting old now, and when I reflected on it, I realised it was important to pass this knowledge on to the next generation. If I don’t, who will? If not now, when?”

The British Museum will keep in its collection the angkuoch daek that BIN Song made for this project, along with video documentation that shows every step of the process. While BIN Song is happy that people from all around the world will have a chance to learn about the angkuoch daek, his foremost message is to young Cambodians: “do not give up on angkuoch! This is our culture and heritage!” He urges:

I want to tell people in the next generation that no matter what, you should certainly play this angkuoch. Learn to play! … Keep it alive! Don’t let it be lost!

SON Soeun and BIN Song (both born 1942) are lifelong friends. In the 1950s and ‘60s, they grew up together in Preah Ko village in Siem Reap Province, even entering the monkhood together for a time.

When the young BIN Song began to make and play the angkuoch daek, SON Soeun became intrigued by the instrument too. Over time, SON Soeun learnt to play proficiently. In the local lingo, the instrument was called “angkuoch bird” on account of its shape. The two boys would often slip an angkuoch bird in their pockets to play for pleasure whenever they chose.

When the two boys were growing up, boys and young men often used the angkuoch to flirt with girls and young women. Words can be “spoken” through the instrument, although it takes some practice to interpret them (Miller & Williams 1998, 204). In this way, young people developed a secret language – the language of angkuoch. As youths, Song and Souen would often use the angkuoch for this purpose. SON Soeun recalled:

When I was a bachelor, I went to visit the houses of girls at night. When I reached my lover’s house, if she was already asleep, I played to call her. If I kept calling, she would wake up and come to meet me. And then we sat together. I could call her to meet me wherever I wanted as long as she heard the sound of my angkuoch.

In addition to its role in wooing potential lovers, angkuoch traditionally accompanied “Prern”, a genre of folksong that was popular in Siem Reap Province at the time BIN Song and SON Soeun were growing up (Khean et al. 2003). An especially popular Prern song was “Santouch.” BIN Song recalled its lyrics for us (in part):

Standing near the water pond, if your share with me your rice wine, I will dance for you to see, my dear.

Several angkuoch players – both male and female – could join in, first singing and dancing together, then playing angkuoch with one hand and dancing with the other. People also enjoyed playing and listening to angkuoch during festivals or special celebrations.

KRAK Chi (b. 1950) is a rice farmer and bamboo angkuoch-maker from Srah Srong village, a stone’s throw from the world-famous temple complex of Angkor Wat. KRAK Chi has childhood memories of his father playing the angkuoch in the evenings for pleasure. Chi also remembers local children buying the angkuoch russey (a bamboo angkuoch) from instrument-makers in the village, then selling the instruments on in the dozens to tourists at the nearby Angkor temples.

People played angkuoch in their houses. When they were free, sometimes they brought it to the rice field and played it right there. If they lived close to Sras Srong lake, they brought it to play around there. (KRAK Chi)

As with the iron angkuoch daek, boys and young men liked to use angkuoch russey to woo lovers. KRAK Chi told us:

Boys and girls flirted with each other through the angkuoch. In this present generation, people use the phone to talk to each other - but at that time they used the angkuoch.

KRAK Chi remembers an old custom of putting “charming wax” on the instruments to make sure that any advances that were made via the angkuoch were irresistible.

KRAK Chi’s young son CHI Chen (b. 1988) used to buy angkuoch russey from the famous angkuoch maker MONG Koeuy in the neighbouring Preah Dak village, and then sell them on to tourists by the dozen at the famous Ta Prohm temple near his village Srah Srong. By his teenage years, CHI Chen had become a proficient player and successful seller of the instruments.

Watching MONG Koeuy make the instruments, KRAK Chi decided to learn how to make them too. He was motivated partly by the prospect of a modest income from selling the instruments and partly by the desire to keep alive the tradition of his ancestors. At one stage, KRAK Chi could make around 15 angkuoch in a day.

KRAK Chi then taught his other son, CHI Monivong (b. 1990), how to make the instrument. The two brothers, Chen and Monivong, soon became known as new-generation makers and players of angkuoch russey. However, in their twenties they found that fewer tourists knew about angkuoch. Consequently, fewer people were buying the instrument and it became harder to earn an income by making and selling it. CHI Chen explained:

Not many people know about angkuoch anymore. Most who do are old. When​ old people saw me playing at the temple, they said: ‘Chao (grandchild)! This is angkuoch. This instrument has existed since the era of our ancestors.’ But younger people said, ‘Brother! What are you holding? Is it a wooden pin to fix nets?’ I told them: ‘No, it is an angkuoch. People use it to make music.’ I played for them and they were happy.

Now Chen and Monivong are in their early thirties with full-time jobs, and they no longer have much free time for angkuoch-making. However, they are happy that their father is teaching his two young grandsons how to make angkuoch. They hope that the family tradition will continue and develop, and that people of all ages will know and enjoy the angkuoch in the future.

At one time, MONG Koeuy (c.1937-2012) was a renowned angkuoch russey maker in Siem Reap province. He lived in Preah Dak village, not far from where KRAK Chi and his sons CHI Monivong and CHI Chen live. It was MONG Koeuy who introduced the angkuoch to the young CHI Chen, and who later taught Chen’s father KRAK Chi how to make the instrument.

MONG Koeuy learnt to make angkuoch from his father when he was a child. He sold the instruments he made to tourists at the nearby temples, along with coconuts and other things. Later, as a young man, MONG also worked as a farmer and a carpenter.

MONG married his second wife LAV Mech (b. 1945) during the Khmer Rouge era. He began selling angkuoch again soon after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, and the income supported their children through school.

MONG Koeuy passed away in his late 70s in 2012. Four of his sons are proud to continue their father’s tradition.

Until the recent acquisition of two new angkuoch through this project,

, an instrument of unknown maker, donated in 1966 by a certain W Hanson Rawles, about whom nothing further is known. Today, museum practices carefully document, wherever possible, the provenance and donation circumstances of items to their collections.

When the research team showed a photo of the Museum instrument donated by Rawles to the brothers CHI Monivong and CHI Chen and their father KRAK Chi, they all thought that the instrument bore strong resemblance to the unique style of MONG Koeuy, especially in its shape, thickness and length, as well as a characteristic node near the tongue of the instrument.

When we showed MONG Koeuy’s wife LAV Mech and her children Leakhena and Reatha the photo of the British Museum instrument, they became emotional. They too recognised features of their father’s instruments, which he had once sold widely to local and foreign tourists. In Leakhena’s words:

When I first saw this photo [of the British Museum angkuoch], I was very excited. I never knew my father’s craft had been promoted internationally. Even locally, some people do not even know about it, so I had not thought it was very prized. Seeing this angkuoch, I miss him. To my family, the angkuoch symbolises my father.

On request of the family of MONG Koeuy, the project team is working with the British Museum to include in its catalogue this new information about the likely provenance of the instrument. We feel that this is important for two reasons. First, making this knowledge publicly available enriches the very limited contextual information known about this object. Since this object represents angkuoch in the museum’s collection, making accessible the new findings about this specific instrument will expand the internationally available (English-language) information about angkuoch in general, and contribute to the preservation and documentation of knowledge about it for future generations.

Second, as museums around the world strive to redress past questionable––or simply plain unethical––practices, adding this new information to the catalogue will finally duly acknowledge the likely maker of the object, MONG Koeuy, over 50 years after the British Museum acquired the instrument. Such an acknowledgement is evidently and understandably important to the family of MONG Koeuy. While we as authors hope that this project makes an important contribution to documenting and safeguarding angkuoch, we also believe that acknowledging the knowledge and skills of this historical angkuoch-maker is no less important.

This project was funded by the British Museum’s 

, supported by Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. UNESCO (Cambodia) provided additional funding for dissemination of outcomes in Cambodia. We are grateful to the angkuoch makers and players who shared with us their knowledge and skills: BIN Song, SON Soeun, KRAK Chi, CHI Monivong, and CHI Chen. We also acknowledge LAV Mech, KOEUY Leakhena, KOEUY Reatha and the family of MONG Koeuy, whose story we share here with their permission. Finally, thanks to research assistant SAY Tola and videographer THON Dika for their input to the project.

Why do you think it might be important to document knowledge about instrument-making and instrument-makers? Consider the various types of people who might wish to access such documentation, now or in the future.

Do you know of any other examples of projects that document musical instruments, instrument-making, or instrument-makers?

What ethical considerations arise from housing musical instruments in museums?

How did this project relate and respond to one of those considerations?

Can you think of any other ethical considerations arising from this project? How might the project team have addressed these?

SAM Sam-Ang. 2008. “The Khmer People of Cambodia.” 

Garland Handbook of Southeast Asian Music

The current catalogue entry for the angkuoch in the British Museum collection. During the course of this project, the British Museum updated its online catalogue; the earlier entry we used during fieldwork in January 2020 (shown in Figure 8) includes a photograph of the asset.

Documenting the Instrument and Instrument-making of Angkuoch, Cambodian Mouth Harp.

 Endangered Material Knowledge Program, British Museum.

The webpage for this project, which (from 2021) will link to the EMKP Digital Repository, where all project outputs will be freely publicly available. Outputs include an 18-minute video-documentary, a 24-page booklet, and nearly 400 files documenting angkuoch-making (photographs, audio files, video recordings, and interview transcriptions).

The website of the International Jew’s Harp Society, including a blog post (30 January 2020) introducing the angkuoch documentation project.

Fox, Leonard. 1988. “Introduction.” In Fox, Leonard, ed. 

The Jew’s Harp: A Comprehensive Anthology

, 15-44. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press; London: Associated University Presses.

. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Accessed 1 October 2020.

KHEAN Yun, KEO Dorivan, LINA Y., and LENNA Mao, eds. 2003. 

Traditional Musical Instruments of Cambodia, second edition

. Phnom Penh: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Miller, Terry E. and Sean Williams, eds. 1998. “Southeast Asia: The Khmer People.” In 

This piece introduces the endangered Cambodian musical instrument Angkuoch, its makers and players, and a project documenting the making process. It also reflects on ethics of instruments in museum collections.

Stories of Cambodian Angkuoch: Documenting a Rare Musical Instrument, its Makers and Players

 is a new collaborative effort to create a free and broadly accessible resource for the general public, educators, students, and researchers alike. Its open collections of scholarly, peer-reviewed writing and multimedia materials focus on increasing access to underrepresented voices, writing styles, and audiences, all with undergraduate students and a broad readership in mind.

An online and open resource for teaching and learning ethnomusicology and musicology 

World Music

Textbook

We are pleased to share that we have been able to increase the honorarium funding available to authors who submit and publish on the World Music Textbook to $500 per piece. Our hope is that this will boost our submissions and fuel our growth as the project enters a new era. See the 

 and contact us at editors@worldmusictextbook.org with any ideas for contributions!

Increased Honorarium Funding Available

We are pleased to share the launch of our updated and streamlined website. Improvements include better functionality for phones and other devices, as well as a new look as we bring our project out of its fledgling state. 

 project, we have been focused on exploring best practices while carving a pathway toward sustainability. We knew that we wanted more flexibility than what most platforms offer, so we started building the site from scratch using familiar technologies that let us get running quickly. The site we are launching today is brand new, another build from scratch, but one that uses modern tooling and provides us with extraordinary flexibility to grow.

A blog-like news section that makes online sharing and social media updates more consistent and cohesive;

And a hosted server—which we can use for improved control of our content, mailing lists, and other things that you don't necessarily see—that we can expand in the future for potential features like custom 

The site is built on open technologies and run using free services. All are standards in modern web development and well documented. The rest of this post includes technical details about our change for anyone who might be interested or considering a similar open project.

In building a fully custom site that does what we need, we made use of a host of technologies. With so many options, it can be difficult to know where to start. As we move to version 2, here is an outline of what we are using. If you have questions or want to talk about how these (or other) approaches can help make your project idea happen, reach out to us at 

Knowing that websites can come and go, we wanted to ensure that contributions to this one are properly archived and accessible forever. The standard way to handle this is using DOI records, but these can require expensive memberships. To keep everything free (an important part of project sustainability), we host our PDF files through 

Bowling Green State University's library system

. With the push toward open educational resources, many libraries can offer use of their DOI access, it is worth asking library staff about potential options.

We wanted full control over what our site could be and do, which meant that standard no- or low-code site generators like WordPress were not flexible enough for our needs. Many also charge fees for hosting and ad-free sites. We opted to build the site using standard web development tools. Our first version used 

, which serves the purpose well. It builds 

 from easy-to-edit markdown files and allows developers to customize themes more easily than systems like WordPress.

, a library that offers a number of benefits, in part because it is based on React, an industry standard for web development. Among other things like faster load times, Next.js combines the benefits of static site generation with an API system for server-sided work. Right now, we use this to improve our mailing list signup and other simple tasks, but it opens possibilities related to site users being able to log in and save their work. Think building custom 

 course schedules and reading lists or saving online course content and integrating it with resources from within and outside of this project.

Some notes about our new and improved look

World Music
Textbook

Recently published chapters

Music and Nationalism

Music and Nationalism: Annotated Playlist

Articulating Race and Nation in Brazilian Popular Song

Stories of Cambodian Angkuoch: Documenting a Rare Musical Instrument, its Makers and Players

News and Updates

Increased Honorarium Funding Available

Website redesign

Summer 2022 Update

Music notes: Overviews for the classroom

World MusicTextbook

Recently published chapters

Music and Nationalism

Music and Nationalism: Annotated Playlist

Articulating Race and Nation in Brazilian Popular Song

Stories of Cambodian Angkuoch: Documenting a Rare Musical Instrument, its Makers and Players

News and Updates

Increased Honorarium Funding Available

Website redesign

Summer 2022 Update

Music notes: Overviews for the classroom

World Music
Textbook