The Processes and Results of Musical Culture Contact: A Discussion of Terminology and

Concepts
Author(s): Margaret J. Kartomi
Source: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 25, No. 2 (May, 1981), pp. 227-249
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of Society for Ethnomusicology
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 THE PROCESSES AND RESULTS OF MUSICAL CULTURE
CONTACT: A DISCUSSION OF TERMINOLOGY
AND CONCEPTS

Margaret J. Kartomi
some recent exceptions, Western writers on music have
Withtended to disapproveof musics of mixed Westernand non-Wes-
tern descent, ignoringor dismissingthem as objects unworthyof atten-
tion. 1 Some Western scholarsduringthe first half of this centurybeganto
overcome some of the ethnocentricmusicalprejudicesheld in theirsocial
environments, but mostly this was in regardto traditionalnon-Western
musics that were not apparentlyinfluencedby the West, for example,the
courtly musics of Southeast Asia. Although the exact reasons for the
disapproval of musics of mixed Westernand non-Westerndescent were
not normallyexplained, the vocabularyused by writersto describethem
has generally implied that they lacked authenticityor were degenerate
and oversentimental,havingbeen influencedonly by the "lowest" forms
of Western music. Thus, Powne (1968:vii-viii)referredto a "debasedor
Westernized music" in Ethopia,and Price(1930a:16)to "the slovenlyand
immoral" music called jazz, which he regardedas "crude, negroid in
form and vulgar" (1930b:65).Even the sensitive scholarKunstreferredto
the partiallyWestern-derivedgenre of Indonesiankroncongas a "monot-
onous and characterlesswail" (1949:4),listingit as one of the causes why
the native art "is either dying away or degenerating"(ibid.)Some writers
have indulged in a romantic zeal to save traditionalmusic everywhere
from the contaminationthat was often supposed to result from musical
contact between the West and the non-West.

THE PROCESSES

This disapproval was partly a consequence of the fact that, until

comparatively recently, most referencesto musicalcontact between cul-
tures were made with regardto the colonialEuropeanempiresin Asia and
Africa and the internalcolonial system of the Americas;and in this con-
text, Eurocentricprejudiceswere rife. A distinctionwas often made be-
Final version, rec'd: 1/27/81
0014-1836/81/2502-227$1.15 O 1981Society for Ethnomusicology,Inc.

227

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228 ETHNOMUSICOLOGY,MAY 1981

tween "pure, traditional"genres on the one hand, and hybrid, cross-

fertilized, pastiche, transplanted,exotic, fused, blended, integrated,os-
motic, creole, mestizo, mulatto, syncretic, synthesized, acculturated,
double acculturated2genres on the other.3Lackingan appropriatemusi-
cological terminology, writers borrowed these expressions from such
disciplines as biology, botany, chemistry, the culinaryarts, physics, an-
thropology, linguistics, and mythology, and appliedthem by analogy to
musical effects which they resembled in one way or another.
Under certain conditions, culturecontact can indeed set undesirable
musical processes in motion, resulting,for example,in the loss of sections
of a repertoire,a reductionof "musicalenergy," that is, the musicaltime
and energy spent by a society (Nettl 1978:129),or even the total or partial
extinction of a music. But these developments should not be confused
with the negative value judgementsthat have been made unwarrantedly
about whole genres of "hybrid"musics. To ascribe inferiorstatusto any
large genre is to fail to recognizethat, althoughsome worksbelongingto it
may be of lesser quality than others, any genre in itself "consists of too
many various partsto be judgedas good or bad, as a whole" (Kornhauser
1978:106).
Moreover, blanketjudgementsmadeagainstthese musicalgenresare
frequently based on Westernaesthetic standards,which cannotappropri-
ately be applied to a non-Westernmusic. European ideas as to what
constitutes musical sentimentality,crudity,or balanceare not necessarily
cross-cultural. Such associations cannot, therefore,be used as a partial
justification for the blanketdisapprovalof a genre such as kroncongmu-
sic, whose vocal lines are often performedwith a wide vibratoand have
been accused, partlyfor that reason, of being musicallyoversentimental.
Pejorative expressions that seem to punish the offspring for the
"sins" of the parents springfrom or lead to a disrespectfor the qualities
of the musical offspring, as in such phrases as Tracey's "illicit and un-
natural union of two African musics," by which he meant the union
between "the salt of Africancountrymusic and the sugarysentimentality
of cheap ballads and revivalist hymns" (1948:x-xi), where the former,
country music, was seen as raciallypure Africanmusic and the latter a
cheap mixture of Western and African musics.
It is probably true that blatantly discriminatorystatements about
these musical genres are made less frequentlytoday than a few decades
ago. Yet these genres are not by any meansgenerallyacceptedas worthy
art forms in their own right;nor, except in the case of jazz, have many
musicological studies been made of them yet.4 Educationalinstitutionsdo
not normallyteach courses on these musics, with the notableexceptionin
some institutions of jazz. With a few exceptions, musicologists have

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 KARTOMI:
MUSICALCULTURECONTACT 229

hardly given themselves the opportunityto beginto understandthe forces

at work in culturecontact situationsand have been plaguedby a degreeof
terminological confusion.
A close look at some frequently-usedterms suggests they may be
criticized for possessing some pejorative implications.Terms such as
cross-fertilized, hybrid,creole, mestizo and mulattohave sometimesbeen
confused in their meaningswith negative attitudesto illicit breedingand
interracialliaisons.5 The term "hybridmusic" mightbe defendedin the
light of the analogy with animal husbandryand agriculture,in which
parent stocks are often mixed to create "hybridstrength"that may work
to the advantageof the offspring.However, it has not been the practiceto
stress the possible "hybrid strength" of such musics in the literature;
rather the reverse has been the case, and "hybridmusic" thus retainsits
negative connotations. Terms such as hybrid, creole, and the like may
also be criticized as incomplete, for they draw attentionto the music's
parentage or ancestors (to use a benignbiologicalanalogy)ratherthan to
the musical offspring,which is the primaryobject of interestand value to
the people identifyingwith it. The union of the parentmusics is a neces-
sary but not sufficient conditionfor musicalsynthesisand transformation
to take place. Thus, terms which emphasize only the procreationof the
parents are incomplete and can be misleading.Frequently,membersof
the identifying culture are at most only dimly awareof the identityof the
parental cultures whose union provided the initial generation of the
music. Adherents of dondang sayang music, for example, hear it as a
Malaccan music with its own unique stylistic qualities, and would not
wish, even if they could, to subtract from it its Indian, Arabic, Portu-
guese, Malay, and other traits. It may be arguedthatwe no longerneed to
refer to these musics by means of undifferentiatedterms like "hybrid"
musics, but that we should simply call them by their propernames, such
as dondang sayang, or spirituals,or ragtime.
When used without qualification,terms such as borrowed, mixed,
pastiche, blended, fused, integrated,and osmotic are also unsatisfactory,
for they too imply a preoccupationwith the union of the disparateparent
elements, thus distractingattention away from the unique musical pro-
duct. Where "borrowing" ends, creative musical change begins.
The biological metaphor, "transplanted music," is not always
realized as such by writers who use it. Originally(in 1440),"transplant"
meant removinga plantfrom one place or soil to another(OxfordEnglish
Dictionary). The process of moving a music into a new culturalenviron-
ment does resemble the delicate and sometimes risky operationof trans-
plantinga plant, or a tissue or organas in modernmedicine.Like the word
"exotic," which originally (in 1549) meant "not indigenous" and was

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230 MAY1981
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY,

later (from 1645)appliedto plantsor animalsof foreignextraction(Oxford

English Dictionary), transplantationcan imply negative survival pros-
pects for an organismin a new environment.Unless placed in unnatural
hothouse conditions, some transplantedor exotic plants become sickly,
wither and die, as do some musics. Thus Tunley, referringto transplanted
European music in Australia, wrote: "It has been said that the natural
evolution of a transplantedculturetends to come to a standstillin its new
environment" (1978:2), and Harris referredto an instance where "the
transplantedEuropeanmusical culture seemed in dangerof stagnation"
(1978:34).
Many plants survive transplantationand manage to flourish, nor-
mally without experiencingchange of form or quality. Some transplanted
musics survive and flourish too, as in the case of Westernart music in
Japan; but unlike plants, these musics and their contexts are normally
subject to transformationalchange to one degree or another. Thus, the
analogy between transplantsand musicaltransformationand synthesis is
only partiallyapt, referringas it does only to the initialact of stimulating
the partial acceptance, transformationor demise of a music in a new
environment. Transplantationis, at most, a small initial phase of the
process of interculturalmusical synthesis. While "transplanted"in its
limited sense is an acceptable term, "exotic" is perhapsbetter avoided,
because of its associations with the bizarre.
A close look at the more fashionableword "acculturation"also iso-
lates some problems. Four main argumentsmay be levelled against the
term. First, it is highlydoubtfulthatany completelyisolatedculturesexist
in the world today. Thus, there is a stronglikelihoodthat all musics are
syntheses of more thanone cultural(and, in some cases, class)6influence.
If this is so, then it is unhelpful,even meaningless,to speak of an accul-
turated music (as a result of contact) on the one hand and a nonaccul-
turated one on the other. Interculturalmusicalsynthesis is not the excep-
tion but the rule. Conflict and change are part of the natureof reality,
even in seemingly timeless, static societies. As long as we laborunderthe
false assumptionthat there is such a thing as a "pure," "untainted"line
of musical tradition on the one hand, and an "acculturated"ar "adul-
terated" one on the other (and in so doing imply that the formeris more
valuable than the latter), then we must logically expect to disapproveof
all the musics that exist, have existed and will exist in the universe at
large. The exceptions would be those that can be shown to be pristinely
pure, if that were ever possible, given that the musicalprehistoryof all
cultures is largely unknown.
Second, "acculturation" has a history of contradictorymeanings
attached to it. "To the averagesocial worker,acculturationconveys little

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 KARTOMI:MUSICALCULTURE CONTACT 231

more than a sense of a heterogeneous, unanalyzedcollection of proces-

ses, any or all of which may be set in trainby contacts between represen-
tatives of different societies and cultures" (Linton 1963:463).Herskovits
gave examples of "the variousand often conflictingmeaningsof the term
acculturation" (1958:33),ever since it was first used in printin the year
1880. He pointed out that few studentsof culturechangeever "soughtto
define the term or assess its implications before using it" (1958:35).
Wachsmann, on the other hand, suggested that "it may be actually de-
sirable that the definition [of acculturation]is ambiguousin what it says
about culture" (1961:140).While this may have been so at one stage of
our thinking about culture contact, it might now be counter-arguedthat
we have suffered long enough from the disadvantagesof ambiguousdefi-
nitions, for terminologicalconfusion implies that we are laboringunder
theoretical confusion as well.
Two extremely contradictorydefinitionsof "acculturate"are "adapt
to, adopt a different culture" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1976) and
"loss of culture with subsequentproletarianization"(Konig 1967:296).To
continue to use a word with so many differentmeaningsmay seem to be
asking for trouble, which is presumablythe reasonwhy Nettl avoidedthe
term altogether in his 1978article. Hesse, in his dissertation(1971a)on
Cuban spiritist music, also chose to avoid the term, being convinced that
it was inappropriateand that the term "transculturation"was superior.
One way of solving the problem of the term's medley of confused
meanings would be to select an impeccableoperationaldefinition,use it
consistently, and hope that others will too. But who can offer an impec-
cable definition? Even good dictionariesfind the word ambiguous.For
example, Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1976) offers two related
definitions, and one quite differentone, of acculturation:
la: a process of interculturalborrowingmarkedby the continuoustransmission
of traitsand elements betweendiversepeoples and resultingin new and blended
patterns
b: modificationof a parentcultureresultingfromprolongedcontactwith a more
advanced culture
2: the process of socialization-compare enculturation.

The first of these definitions (la) gives acculturation not only as a

process but also as a result. As has been shown, the use of the term as a
result is misleading, based as it is on an improperdistinctionbetween
"pure" and "adulterated" music. The second definition(lb) implies a
process only, but it is incomplete as it covers only the cases of contact
between a more advancedas opposed to a less advancedculture.And the
last definition (2) may be ignored for present purposes as it refers to a
quite different process from the one under discussion.

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232 ETHNOMUSICOLOGY,MAY 1981

A third objection to the term acculturation is that it has sometimes

been used with ethnocentric or racist-supremacist overtones, or at least
that its use has been based on negative value judgements. "Acculturation
is often regarded as being a largely one-way process from a higher to a
lower culture" (Gowing 1971:23). Malinowski claims (in Ortiz 1947:x)
that the word introduces "moral, normative and evaluative concepts
which radically vitiate the real understanding of the phenomenon."
As has been indicated, the term emerged during late colonial times in
the context of the study of "primitive" cultures. "It came to be used when
intercultural contacts mostly involved colonial people being subordinated
and required to adjust to the cultures of the Western colonial powers"
(Spicer 1976:922), that is, at a time when empires were still being built and
missionaries were very actively promoting Christianity, sometimes at the
expense of indigenous musics and other cultural expressions. Musical and
other cultural coercion of "primitive races" by "racially superior" people
was an essential component of the ideological framework within which
the word "acculturation" was spawned.
Ortiz's objection to the term is based on its alleged Eurocentric im-
plications, whereby "the natives" are seen as having to acculturate them-
selves in order to receive the benefits of superior Western culture, as if
they have nothing to offer of their own. It may be argued that Ortiz is
objecting to a mere word and that it is possible to make general use of the
term without any racist implications at all. But as Malinowski points out
(in Ortiz 1947:iii), the etymology of words can play tricks with one's
thoughts, and the term is therefore better avoided.
A fourth objection to "acculturation" is based on its literal meaning
and the faulty research methods that may ensue if this is taken seriously.
Deriving from the Latin colere meaning "to cultivate," it contains the
prefix ac which is the assimilative form of the Latin ad, meaning "adding
together." Roughly the word means "adding cultures together."
The literal meaning of "acculturation," then, emphasizes the "add-
ing together" of the parents, not the identity of the offspring. To look at a
child and see only the resemblances to its parents is "adultcentric" and
deprecatory of the child. The opinion that a child "has its mother's eyes,"
for example, tells us little about the identity of that child. Nor will a
recognition of, say, the Portuguese elements in Malay ronggeng music,
for example, necessarily enhance our appreciation of that music, which
has its own autonomous unity and idiomatic peculiarities.
The process of intercultural musical synthesis, as opposed to the
borrowing of single discrete elements (such as a musical instrument), is
not a matter of the addition of single elements of one culture to another. It
is a matter of setting into motion an essentially creative process, that is,

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 MUSICALCULTURECONTACT
KARTOMI: 233

the transformationof complexes of interactingmusicaland extramusical

ideas. It is not that the whole equals the sum of its parts, or even the sum
of a few of its parts. If it were simply a matter of addition, then the
elements that were added togethercould logically be subtractedfromthe
new whole and be identifiableagainin theiroriginalform. But "accultura-
tion, like any other phenomenonof culturaldynamics, is not reversible"
(Herskovits 1972:171).It serves no useful purposeto try and disentangle
the musical elements from their new culturalmatrixand tracethem back-
wards, because they are intermeshedand reorganizedon entirelynew and
specific lines. To extend the biological metaphor,the "hybrid"has be-
come a new species.
The argumentagainst "acculturationas addition"has importantim-
plications for research method. It throws doubt on Wachsmann'sstate-
ment that "demarcationof these [parent]culturesin musicalterms is the
central problemfor the musicologist"(1961:148).It is, of course, histori-
cally interesting to try and establish a music's parentageand, in cases
where sufficient historical evidence is available, to establish credible
hypotheses as to the precise contributionsof the parentmusics. In such
cases the historical data can sometimes be confirmed,partlyby musical
analysis. But musicalanalysis cannotby itself yield this informationabout
parental traits. This is not only because the object of investigationis
always a new, independentmusicalsynthesis that, despite its mixed heri-
tage, must be regardedas a primarymusic worthy of study in its own
right. It is also because the new music is now housed in a new social
context with its own set of extramusicalmeanings.
For example, African drum rhythms may be at the base of many
syncopated rhythmsidiomaticof jazz. But theirmusicaland extramusical
meanings have all been changedin their very essence in the new context.
An investigation into jazz that simply involved the mechanicalinvoicing
of its African, European, and other musical traits would be missing the
point of the whole process that brought this music into being. And it
would also be a highly unreliablemeans, by itself, of establishingthe
musical history of jazz.
Perhapsthe most acceptabletermwith whichto referto the complete
cycle of positive musical processes set in motion by culturecontact--as
opposed to the results of contact-is "musical transculturation."This
term is not typifiedby a confusedor ethnocentricetymologicalhistory,nor
is it oriented toward the union of the parentcultures as opposed to the
musical product. "Musical synthesis" and "musical syncretism" are
very similarterms which are reasonablyacceptable.All three containthe
meaning of a complex process of fusion and transformationof impinging
musical cultures, which according to Linton (1963:492) is "the logical end

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234 MAY1981
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY,

product of reciprocalculturalborrowing."These termsdo not, however,

work in the negative. To speak of a "nonsynthesized"or "nontranscul-
turated" music would be to imply unwarrantedlythat some musics are
pure and others impure.
The term "synthesis," meaning the "putting together of parts or
elements that make up a complex whole" (OxfordEnglishDictionary)is
defined in the Hegeliansense (Webster's)as meaning"the combinationof
the partialtruthsof a thesis and its antithesisinto a higherstage of truth."
In the musical sense, it may be given to mean the workingout of contra-
dictory elements between two or moreimpingingmusicsthrougha dialec-
tical process into a new musical whole.7
Syncretism, which from 1840 was given to mean the "attempted
union or reconciliationof diverse or oppositetenets or practices"(Oxford
English Dictionary), has been defined by Merriam(1964:313)as "the
blending together of elements of two cultures, changing the original
values and forms." It may be argued,however, that its historyof usage in
a religious context gives it connotations that make it less suitable for
present purposes than the'term "synthesis."8
Transculturationhas been defined (Webster's)as "a process of cul-
tural transformationmarkedby the influxof new cultureelementsand the
loss or alterationof existing ones." Malinowskisupportedthe use of this
term (for example, in Ortiz 1947:xvi)on the groundsthat it contains no
implications of one standard,the European,dominatingall the phases of
change. Coined in 1940 by the Cuban anthropologistOrtiz, the term is
relatively free of ambiguousmeanings.And as definedabove, its meaning
is limited to the transformationalprocesses engenderedby contact. Un-
like the word acculturation, it does not attempt to cover, nor does it
confuse, the processes and responses to contact.

THE RESULTS

The terms transculturation,synthesis and syncretismshould be ap-

plied, then, only to the processes of interculturalcontact, not to the
varyingtypes of results. But clearly, termsare also neededto describethe
varied results of, or responses to, these processes. The responses should
not be seen as static entities but as changeablemoments in time.
In recent years, terms have been coined or borrowedto cover some
of the many types of musicaladjustmentor responsethat occur. It is not
feasible here to present a complete list of all the possible responses to
interculturalcontact, because it is impossibleto know or predictall these
variable responses. The present aim is to comment on some of them,

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 KARTOMI:
MUSICALCULTURECONTACT 235

allowing for the possibility of multipleresponses in a single case. A num-

ber of types of response have been listed by Nettl (1978:130-4),9but some
of them are applicableonly to cases of non-Westerncontactwith Western
music.10 Some additional types of responses are discussed below,
namely: rejection, transferof discrete traits, pluralisticcoexistence, com-
partmentalization,and nativistic revival. Furtherthoughtis also given to
two of the responses on Nettl's list, namely:abandonmentand impover-
ishment.

Virtual Rejection of an ImpingingMusic

Under certaincircumstances,a culturemay largelyrejectthe musical

influences of an impingingculture. Reasons for this may includeecologi-
cal impediments, political separation,and conceptualbarriers.In the lat-
ter case, for example, a culture may resist foreign ideas of large orches-
tras or musical hierarchies for reasons of class and economy, or for
technological reasons, when the impingingmusic requiresa technology
that is not available to that culture. Rejectionmay be caused by an emo-
tional resistance to the "borrowing"of musicalideas froma "barbarian"
people. It may also be caused by a culture's concern for its own cultural
"purity," or by its ethnocentricpride. Ethnocentricviews, which may in
some cases be censuredon the groundsthatthey implylimiting,negative,
even narrow-mindedattitudes towards other musics, may also serve a
positive function, as a means of defense againstforeignmusicaldomina-
tion.
For example, the belief of traditionally-minded Javanesein theirown
cultural superiority has protected their musical traditionfrom stylistic
European influence, both in court and village. After centuries of Euro-
pean contact, gamelan music still sounds totally Javanese, with no con-
cessions made to European harmonyor other musical stylistic aspects.
Yet subtle Western influencesof far-reachingconsequencehave crept in,
including:(1) the gamelan's secularizationin some urbancontexts (partly
as a result of the Western-led commercializationof music and contact
with the Westen concert hall tradition);(2) the partialconsolidationof the
gamelan's many regional styles (largely through the influence of the
media); and (3) the introductionof musical notationalong western lines
(partly in order to preserve the music for posterity, thus limitingimpro-
visation) (Becker 1980:11ff).Nor is it purelycoincidentalthatthe gamelan
ensemble doubled and even tripledin size at approximatelythe same time
as Wagner's and Mahler'sorchestraswere expandingin size in Europe.11
Despite the resistance by Javanesemusicalcultureto Westernsyntactical

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236 MAY 1981
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY,

musical ideas, general ideas of individualism,preservationismand com-

mercialism have made their impacton Javanese music. As this example
implies, the total rejection by a culture of the music of another culture
with which it is in long-termcontact probablynever occurs, even when it
seems to succeed in doing so. Some degree of symbiotic interchangeis
bound to take place.

Transfer of Discrete Musical Traits

Throughouthistory, single discrete musicaltraitshave been adopted

by cultures from foreign sources. "Enoughcases of culturetransferhave
been observed to make it clear that the borrowingof single elements is
much more frequent than that of trait complexes" (Linton 1963:485).
Transfer and incorporationfrequentlyhappens in a peaceful context.12
For example, the incorporationof a few Indianmusicaltraitsinto pop and
rock music in the 1970s reflected the burgeoninginterestof the West in
Eastern religions.
But the transfer of single elements does not by itself cause major
evolutionary or revolutionarychange. Transfersare not necessarily ac-
companied by significant or large-scale changes of musical taste, atti-
tudes, or concepts, such as the adoptionof the Europeanharmonicsys-
tem. Thus, the transferof discrete traits can, at most, be regardedas a
preliminaryprerequisitefor eventual musical transculturation.
The interculturalexchange of musicalinstruments,for example, has
frequently occurred throughouthistory. The diffusion of bowed strings
throughoutthe world is an example of a chain of such exchanges. How-
ever, when these instrumentscross culturalbarriers,they do not neces-
sarily bring the old musical concepts with them. Thus, the rebab (bowed
fiddle) in the Middle East inhabitsa very differentconceptualworldfrom
that of the rebab in Java, or Kelantan.
Single musical traitssuch as melodicidiomsor rhythmicmotivesmay
also be adopted from foreign musical sources by innovativecomposers
and other individuals. This may be a significantprocess as regardsthe
particularpiece of music in question, as in Peter Sculthorpe'sincorpora-
tion of Balinese rhythmicand melodic ideas into his composition, "Sun
Music III." The use of a single traitcan also be importantin the overall
development of a composerand may even influencequitea few musicians
and audiences in the long run. But the use of foreign musicaltraits in a
new context automatically implies that new musical and extramusical
meanings are attached to them, and innovativecomposers or other indi-
viduals in question do not necessarilyunderstandthese meaningsin their
native context, nor do they, of course, need to. Thus, these small trait

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 KARTOMI:MUSICALCULTURECONTACT 237

innovations, minus concepts, are not comparableto the transformational

processes of creative contact between cultures. At most, they are to be
regarded as a small part of potential transculturation.

Pluralistic Coexistence of Musics

A culture may continue the full-scalepracticeof its own music while

tolerating the parallel musical practices of other ethnic groups, keeping
the various musics largely or completely separatefromeach other. Thus,
traditional Eskimo music coexists on the east coast of Greenlandwith
Western music, but each is kept intact and autonomous(Olsen 1972:32-
7).
Musical pluralismis especially likely to occur in bi- or multi-ethnic
urban situations, but it normallylasts only as long as the interplaybe-
tween the adherentsof each musicalcultureis strictlylimited.Sometimes
this can last a long time. Eventually, some musiciansmay combine and
transform the elements of two or more musical sources, thus creatinga
new synthesis. For example, a young Melbournerock band leader has
produced a unique Greek rock sound that contains both rock and Greek
folk ideas, the latter absorbedduringhis childhood. The music has been
accepted by a group of young followers in Melbourne.Since it is in the
early stages of acceptance and transformation,it can only be regardedat
this stage as an example of potentialtransculturation.Its mainmotivating
force is the desire to be "with it" while preservingsome continuitywith
the Greek heritage.
Musical compartmentalization13 may be seen as a subcategory of
pluralistic coexistence. Members of a bi- or multi-ethnicsociety may
absorb during childhood the musical styles of their own as well as of
another ethnic group with which they have lived in close contact, keeping
each music separately compartmentalizedin their minds. For example,
some people living near the borderof Centraland West Java can sing in
both Centraland West Javanesemusicalstyles, muchas a child livingin a
bilingual situation can learn to speak two languageswell.

Nativistic Musical Revival

This is a special subcategoryof musical preservation(Nettl's term,

1978:131). A culture that has been dominatedby anotherand has neg-
lected its own music eventually may become aware of the dangerof that
music's possible extinction and make efforts to revitalize it. A so-called
nativistic14 revival of this kind may be made for nationalistic, racial pres-

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238 ETHNOMUSICOLOGY,MAY 1981

tige, historical, nostalgic, touristic, and artisticreasons. For example, at

the instigation of interested individuals, the Malaysian Departmentof
Culture, Youth and Sport made efforts in the 1970sto revive the defunct
music and dance of the gamelan joget gamelan (dance music) of the
Trengganuand other courts. This was partof a culturalpolicy to promote
Malay artistic forms in the multiracialMalaysiansituation,perhapsfor all
the above-mentioned reasons.
With a similardegree of patrioticfervor, Israel has been attempting
to revive its ancient folk dance, which is frequently mentioned in the
Talmud and the Bible, in a form that is suitable for modern audiences. The
revivalist Israeli folk dances combine Chassidic and Yemenite Jewish
elements with those of various of their host nations while in exile, and
with modern, work-inspiredmusical ideas (Kaufman1951:55-7).As this
example shows, it is often in fact not possible to revive a dance or piece in
its ancient, so-called authenticform, not only because ancient styles are
no longer known, but also, as has been arguedabove, because the con-
cept of pure, primeval authenticityis an unrealisticone.

Musical Abandonment

Musical loss may occur as a result of coercion, or it may happen

naturally, as when social institutionsand their associated musics die out
and are replaced. In cases where intense coercion is appliedby one group
of people to another, whether this be military,religious, socio-political,
cultural, or a combinationof these, the interactingcontradictionsin the
situation will intensify the impulse toward radicalchange of a negative
kind. This may take the form of the wholesale or partialextinctionof one
culture's music by another, a process that may be called musical aban-
donment (Nettl 1978:130).
If the subordinate culture is unable to make any compromises with
the superordinate group, the survival of the music is jeopardized. The
total loss or extinction of a musicalcultureapparentlyoccurs only when a
whole populace dies out, as in the case of the TasmanianAborigines,
whose full-blood population died out as a result of the deprivationof
traditional sources of livelihood and systematic killings by White Aus-
tralians during the 19th century.
But the complete loss of a music rarelyoccurs. Even in the case of
the extinction of a music in its proper context, traces of the music often
remain, or it may live on throughits influence on other music. For ex-
ample, the European sea shanty was virtually eclipsed when the tall ships
and the social institutions with which the sailors were associated disap-

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 KARTOMI:
MUSICALCULTURECONTACT 239

peared. But quite a large part of the repertoirehas been artificallypre-

served, as in an anthologypublishedby Hughill(1977),and its styles have
lived on to affect other musical idioms.

Musical Impoverishment

Especially in cases of successful coercion, the "abandonmentof

components, or substantial impoverishment, resulting from shifts in
musical energy" (Nettl 1978:131)may occur. This may accompanythe
process of assimilation,whereby immigrantscontributeto, but are finally
absorbed into, the cultureof the dominantsociety. This occurs especially
in cases where a high rewardis placed on the achievementof the domi-
nant society's culture, life styles and tastes, even when these traitsdo not
coincide with indigenoustraits.In some cases, a culturemay experiencea
degree of repertoireloss, or traditionaltechnology and instrumentsmay
be lost and replaced. "Standardizationand simplificationmay release
energy .. ." (ibid.), which may be expended on the absorption of other
music.
For example, some groups of ex-tribalAustralianAboriginesliving
on the outskirts of cities have, in conformingto an urbanlife style, suf-
fered an almost total loss of their tribal musical identity, performinga
limited repertoire of country-and-westernmusic instead. The total
amount of musicalenergy spent today, as comparedwith tribaltimes, has
apparently greatly diminished.
The term "impoverishment"shouldnot, however, be used to implya
negative value judgementof the qualityof such music practices;country-
and-western is not inferiorper se to tribal aboriginalmusic. A state of
impoverishmentresults from a substantialloss of or reductionin musical
possession.

TRANSCULTURATION, SYNTHESIS, SYNCRETISM

Waterman, writing about the synthesis of European and African

characteristics in AmericanBlack music, proposedthat a certaindegree
of musical similaritymust exist between the impingingculturesbeforethe
processes of musical syncretism can be set in motion: "there is enough
similarity between African and Europeanmusic to permit musical syn-
cretism" (1952:207).The problemwith this theory is that, thoughit seems
to possess some intuitive truth, it is difficult to show convincingly in
actual practice that a certain degree of musical similarity is a factor or the

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240 ETHNOMUSICOLOGY,MAY 1981

factor that allows the ensuing changes to occur. For as Wachsmann sug-
gests, syncretism may well result from a different factor altogether: the
high reward that "the contact milieu places . . . on the achievement of
Western traits regardless of whether they coincide with indigenous char-
acteristics" (1961:147). Although Merriam's application of the theory
(1955), in a case of mainly North American and African musical contact,
may seem to support it, many other cases, including two given by
Wachsmann (ibid.), appear to dispute it. In some cases, musical similari-
ties may facilitate and hasten the process of syncretism, once it is set in
motion. But such musical similarities do not in general serve as the initi-
ating agents of syncretic processes, given the fact that the adherents of
most cultures are musically conservative and inward-looking. It is true
that some individual composers occasionally borrow foreign musical
ideas for purely musical reasons, though they probably do so more fre-
quently for extramusical reasons such as fashion, or establishing identity.
But when whole cultures are involved in the interaction, the purely mu-
sical factors may serve only as a small, additional motivating force for
change. There can be no valid musical reason why any music cannot in
principle be part of a transculturation process involving any other music.
All musics can be said to be similar and compatible in some respect or
other.
Nettl's most recently stated theory on this question holds that "hy-
brid styles seem to have developed most readily where musical similari-
ties between non-Western and Western cultures can be identified, when
the musics are compatible, and most important, when they share central
traits" as, for example, "functional harmony, the ideal of the large en-
semble . . . and simple but stable metric rhythms," as opposed to non-
central traits such as "slight adjustments to scales, concert situations, and
musical notation" (1978:134). 15
The theory of central traits has the quality of an insight, based as it is
on the credible hypothesis that in any one culture, some of the parameters
of its music are in general regarded by its members as more important or
central than others. But like Waterman's theory, it is difficult to test
Nettl's theory in practice, to translate it into a watertight method of
analysis. The main problem is that it is not normally possible to state with
any certainty which are the central traits in a given music. This is largely
because it is difficult to know whom to accept as credible spokesmen on
the issue. "The explicit or implicit word of the informant population"
(Nettl 1978:126) is frequently difficult to assess, for it may be divided,
say, on class or on intellectual grounds, or be ambiguous, or-in the case
of an impinging music-be incorrect from the viewpoint of adherents of
the impinging culture. 16

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 MUSICALCULTURECONTACT
KARTOMI: 241

Both Waterman'sand Nettl's theories were conceived of as applying

to musical syntheses involving two cultures, Westernand non-Western.
But if they are applied to syntheses involvingseveral interactingmusics,
they raise insurmountablepracticaldifficulties. For example, to try and
disentangle the origin of all the contributingtraits in the developmentof
Cuban spiritist music, which combines the traditionsof various Euro-
pean, African and Asian nationalitiesliving in Cuba since 1510(Hesse
1971b:1), would be a hopelessly complicatedtask. Even if it were possible
somehow to divide all these cultural influences into their similar and
central traits as opposed to their dissimilarand noncentraltraits, the
exercise could only lead to dubiousresults.This is partlybecause it would
be based on too many hypotheticaldecisions and uncertainchoices to
lead to acceptable conclusions, to say nothingof the analysis that would
then be required to trace and explain the interactionbetween the traits
belonging to each of the impingingcultures in the long historicalprocess
of transculturation.And more importantly,even if a precise knowledgeof
all the sources of the traits were obtainable, this would not in itself in-
crease our understandingof the resultingmusic, which has been the ob-
ject of profoundcreative transformation.The reasonwhy we can neither
predict the results of syncretic processes nor unravelthe details of the
exchanges post mortem lies in the adventurous,expansive, open-ended
nature of human creativity itself. This is as true in the case of two inter-
acting cultures as it is in the case of several.
In the opinion of Lintonand Malinowski,traitinterchangeshouldnot
be given importancein studies of syncretism,for particulartraitsand trait
complexes cannot normally be linked to the satisfaction of particular
needs or historical processes (Linton 1963:485ff).Thus, the delineation
of specific traits in musics and other culturalexpressions developed in
contact situations does not necessarily lead to any clearcutconclusions,
for it is often "not a matterof indiscriminategive and take but is directed
by definite forces and pressures on the side of the donor cultures and
well-determined resistance on the part of the recipients" (Malinowski
1945:19).'7

DETERMINANTS OF SYNCRETISM

If it is not degrees of musicalsimilarityor compatibilitythatnormally

control whether certain impingingmusics are initiallymore or less prone
to the forces of syncretism, then what are the determinantslikely to be?
The parallel between language and music may offer a clue. It is
commonplace that music, like language, is conceived of not only as sound

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242 ETHNOMUSICOLOGY,MAY 1981

pure and simple but also as a symbolicexpressionof culture,as the result

of which wider connotations are attached to its sound components.Be-
cause of these and other similaritiesbetween music and language,it is
conceivable that the early stages of musicaltransculturationmay resem-
ble the initial stages of linguisticsyncretism.In the early days of contact
adjustment, the music and languageof one, usually the more dynamic
power, generally predominatesover the other and contributesby far the
larger amount of ideas to the newly emergingmusicaland linguisticsyn-
theses. The conflicts begin to be resolved by unequal compromisebe-
tween the interactinggroups.
It stands to reason that where a subordinategroup is induced or
encouraged to practice the music of the superordinategroup, this music
will at first be graspedand performedin a reducedform,as dictatedpartly
by the culturalvision of the subordinategroupand its emotionalattitude
(which is likely to be unfavorable)to the superordinategroup. No group
of people in the first or even second generation of contact would be
sufficiently motivated or able to comprehendanothermusicalcultureso
completely that it would completelyforget its own musicalconcepts and
tendencies and replace them entirely with the newly-imposedones. This
reduced conception of an impingingmusic is roughlyanalogous to the
development of a pidgin language.
Linguistic theory holds that pidginsorginatelargelybecause people
with no language in common need to communicate with each other
(Whinnom in Hymes 1971:105ff).A Mexican and a Chinese in England,
for example, may try to communicatewith each other in English, inade-
quately at first. Thus they begin to create a pidgin, bringingtheir own
linguistic backgroundsto bear on the newly-developinglanguage.Simi-
larly, diverse peoples in early contact situationsmay feel a need to make
music together, partly in order to communicatewith each other socially.
People throwntogetherfrom multiplemusicalbackgroundswouldtend to
learn to practice music of theircommonexperience, which would usually
be the music of the dominantculture, for relaxation,social prestige, life
crisis ceremonies, social dancing, and the like. For example, South and
Southeast Asian slaves in South Africa long ago practiced Dutch folk
song, which their descendants still sing, in male choirs.
In cases where one culture is dominantover another, pidgins and
their later developments--creoles-have frequentlysprungfromthe "ini-
tial, non-intimatecontacts between speakersof differentlanguages,"for
example, in a trading, plantation, or slave situation, and "have in the past
been considered mongrel or bastard languages, not appropriate to be
taught at school or made official languagesof a region" (Plattand Platt
1975:101). A pidgin is a "lingua franca native to none of those using it and

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 KARTOMI:
MUSICALCULTURECONTACT 243

with a sharply reduced grammarand vocabulary,"survivingthe "stages

of initial contact only in special circumstances,"that is, "where a domi-
nant group regardsanotheras childlike" (Hall 1976:452).A pidgin"is so
limited, both lexically and structurally,that it is thereforeshortlived"(De
Camp in Hymes 1971:16).As contacts become closer, one groupnormally
learns the other's languagemore fully, and "when a whole speech com-
munity gives up its formerlanguageor languagesand takes a pidginas its
mother tongue, the pidginbecomes a creole. .. ." (Hall 1976:452).Thus,
creoles differ from pidgins partly by their possessing the vitality of the
native speaker.
It is not difficult to find examples of musics parallelingcreole lan-
guages, that is, of autonomousstyles thatoriginallysprangfrom the non-
intimate contact between different cultures and that are accepted by a
group of people as being representativeof theirculturalidentity.18But it is
difficult to find precise examples of musics parallelingthe early develop-
ment of pidgin languages. This is partly because new plantation/slave
situations involving musical coercion do not tend to arise any more, and
we know very little about such situations in the past.
Commercial pressures, however, somewhat resemble the coercive
forces that produced pidgin languagesand comparablemusicaldevelop-
ments in the past, for example, when Black Americansor Africans are
encouraged to conformto Whitetaste or vice versa for the sake of record
sales or other commercialpurposes. The mass media may also serve as
catalysts for such developments(see Gray 1961:12-15)as may such tech-
nological innovationsas electronicinstruments.But untilevidence comes
to light showing what actually happens in the early stages of coercive or
commercially induced musical contact, we can only resort to making
hypothetical reconstructionsof relevant situations.
For example, a Portuguese-Malaylanguage evolved over the cen-
turies in the village of Tugu near Jakarta,alongsidea Portuguese-Malay
music called kroncong asli ("authentickroncong"). Some linguisticand
musical data are availablewith which to makebroadcomparisonsof these
developments, for example, Schuchardt(1891) and Kornhauser(1978).
Kroncong, like the Tugu patois, developed there among freed African,
Indian and Malay slaves who had been owned by the Portuguesein vari-
ous parts of Southeast Asia. They were set free largelyon the condition
that they embracedChristianity,whereuponthey were entitledto be clas-
sified as Portugis, which gave them some social status. Partly because
they originally had no common languagein which to communicatewith
one another and with the Portuguese,and partlybecause of their strong
desire to adopt symbols of Portugaland Christianityin the interests of
their own freedom, they attempted to speak Portuguese and to perform

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244 MAY1981
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY,

Portuguese music and dance. Thereis no evidence thatthey practicedone

another's traditionalIndian,Africanand Malaymusicsanddances, which
is not surprisingfor they would have had little practicalreasonfor doing
SO.
The idiomatic Portuguese-Malaypatois which people in Tugu speak
today, like the originally Portuguese-basedkroncong music that they
play, is, of course, far removedfrom the 16th-centuryPortuguesemodel.
There is no way of knowing today exactly how the freed slaves' various
indigenous musical ideas would have influencedtheir originalperception
of this Portuguesemusic, nor the performancestyles whichevolved in the
early stages of contact. Their informalbeginner-learnerexperience of
Portuguese music would presumablyhave proceeded by an incomplete
process of trial and error, shaped by their ingrainedmusical ideas and
preferences. It is possible that they performedadaptedPortuguesefolk
songs in an even more relaxed tempo than was usual among the Portu-
guese, in keeping with their relativelyrelaxed, tropicallife style.19They
may have found Portugueseperformancestyles to be too strait-laced,and
therefore have changed them by adoptinga highly rubatostyle, or have
adorned the simple melodies with turnsandglides, or have anticipatedthe
metric beat on occasions with early entries (as in present-daykroncong).
Singers in Tugu today frequentlyuse a wide vibrato, which may have a
long history reaching back into early contact days, but it is notable that
they have not accepted the Europeanassociation of a wide-amplitude
vibrato with pronouncedoversentimentality.It is impossibleto knownow
how these developmentsoccurredin the case of kroncong.But it is likely
that in this and other cases of contact, aesthetic tastes and standards,
together with many of the extramusicalmeaningsattachedto music, have
tended to cross culturalboundarieswith far greaterdifficultythan have
tangible objects such as musical instruments.More studies of contem-
porary cases of musical transculturationneed to be made before we can
know how the early stages of adjustmentare made and what, if any, the
general tendencies are.

CONCLUSIONS

Transculturationoccurs only when a groupof people select for adop-

tion whole new organizing and conceptual or ideological principles-
musical and extramusical-as opposed to small, discretealien traits.The
motivation to adopt new, broadmusic principles,such as equal tempera-
ment or harmony, may be (1) the halo of dominantculture prestige in
colonial situations; (2) the need for artistic communication among groups

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 KARTOMI:
MUSICALCULTURECONTACT 245

lacking a common culture; or (3) materialor political advantage,or the

forces of commercialism.The initialand sustainingimpulseand impetus
for musical transculturationis normallyextramusical.
The final stages of a completeprocess of transculturation
are reached
after the tensions between two or more musicalcultureshave interacted
and been resolved into a new unity, throughsuccessive generations.Such
musical interactionscreatively unite and transcendthe partlyantithetical
parent musics to create a new, independentstyle or genrethat is accepted
in its own rightby the relevantgroupof people as being representativeof
their own musical identity, whereuponthe processes of musicaltranscul-
turation may begin all over again.

NOTES
1. The use of the terms "Western"and "non-Western"here is not meantto imply
that any real dichotomy exists between them.
2. "Double acculturation"means a second stage of culturalsynthesis, acculturation
occuring twice over. A synthesis, once reached,breaksagaininto a thesis and antithesis,
which may eventually resolve into a new synthesis, and so on. Multiplesynthesesmay be
referred to, for example, as "double" or "triple" acculturation,or "acculturation1, 2,
3 . . ." These terms are referredto in Hesse (1971b:1)and are particularlyapparentin
societies such as Cuba. Ortiz wrote, for example, that "the real history of Cuba is the
history of its intermeshedtransculturations"(1947:98).
3. These expressions may be foundin manyarticlesin the press, in missionarypubli-
cations, and in scholarlyworks, especiallyin prewartimesbut also in the postwarperiod.
4. Recent detailed studies have includedNettl (1972), Kauffman(1972), and Korn-
hauser (1978).
5. Admittedly, some of these terms have been given specific meaningswhich have
made them acceptablein some disciplines,for example,"creole" in linguistics.But this has
not happened in the case of musicology.
6. CharlesSeeger regarded"acculturationas operatingnot only in contactsbetween
more or less distinctiveculturegroups, but also betweenmoreor less distinctsocial strata
within each culturegroup" (1952:2).True, the intermeshingof courtand folk musicsor of
music of differentethnic groups in some urbansituationsdoes resembleinterculturalmu-
sical contact, in the selection, adaptationand transformation
in whichthey engage.But the
literal meaningof acculturationprecludesits usagefor interclasscontactsin the one culture.
It is inappropriateto use a wordmeaningthe additionof culturesfor the interactionbetween
social strata. Some other phrase or term needs to be coined to cover it, for example,
interclass musical synthesis.
7. A slight problem is involved with the term "synthesis," however. Adjectives
formed from it such as "synthetic" (artificial)and "synthesized"(artificallyproduced)are
not acceptable; the term may only be used as a noun, applyingto the process of contact.
8. Syncretismmay refer to "the reconciliationof differingbeliefs in religion"(Web-
ster's New World),and has been appliedin Protestant-Catholic, AfricanChristianandother
contexts.
9. Categories given by Nettl (1978:130-4)include abandonment("total loss"), im-
poverishment ("abandonmentof components" of a musical tradition),preservation(the
relegation of musics "as it were, to a museum"), diversification("the combinationof
diverse elements into a single musicalor social context"), consolidation(the creationof a
"nationally recognized music from a numberof once distinct traditions"),reintroduction
("the returnof musicalstyles to theirplace of originaftera sojournelsewhere"),exaggera-

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246 ETHNOMUSICOLOGY, MAY 1981

tion (musical change "in order to conformto the Europeanand the Westernizednative's
conception of what the traditions should be"), satire ("the humorousjuxtapositionof
Western and non-Westernelements"), modernization("the adaptationof... productsof
Western Culture"-see note 10), and Westernization(change "by taking from Western
music those elements which [societies] considerto be centralto it"). Some of these cate-
gories are so closely relatedto each otherthat they may be consideredas subsets of larger
categories (for example, diversificationand consolidationare part of the same process).
10. It may be argued that we do not need special terms to cover specific cases of
Westemrn/non-Western musical contact, as if this were to constitute a special theoretical
case. For example, Nettl's definitionof modernizationas "the adoptionand adaptationof
Western technologyand otherproductsof Westernculture,as needed,simultaneouslywith
an insistence that the core of culturalvaluesdoes not changegreatlyandin the end does not
match those of the West" (1978:127)may be criticizedfor beingtoo limiting.Modernization,
that is, the act or state of being modernized,simplymeansadaptationto the contemporary
situation, whether the West is involved or not. As has been argued(Kartomi1979:19),
modernizationmay either be an unintentional,unwittingadaptationto present circum-
stances (which, as such, is always happeningautomatically),or a conscious, intentional,
planned "updating."
11. The combiningof slendro and pelog gamelan accompaniedthe developmentof
several forms of Javanese musical theaterfrom the late 19thcentury, and the numberof
bonang, kempul,and kenongalso increased.As Kunstnotes (1949:161),a recordnumberof
13 kenong were included in a court gamelan made in 1907.
12. As the EncyclopaediaBrittanica(Micropaedia,underAcculturation)pointsout, "a
free 'borrowing'and modificationof culturalelementsmay occur . .. withoutthe exercise
of militaryor political dominationof one groupby the other. These new elementsmay be
incorporatedinto the existingculturein a processcalledincorporation.The NavajoIndians,
in frequent and varied contact with the Spanish colonists in the 18th century, selected
elements of Spanishculture . . . thatwere integratedinto theirculturein theirown way."
13. See Merriam(1964:303,313-7) and Spicer (1954:663-84)for discussionsof com-
partmentalization.
14. Ralph Linton (1943:230)defines a nativistic movementas "any one conscious,
organized attempt on the part of a society's membersto revive or perpetuateselected
aspects of its culture." He points out that nativistic movementsmostly arise from the
inequalityof societies in contact, andthatin class society, nativistictendenciesare strongest
in those classes that occupy a favored position and feel threatenedby social change.
15. Compatibility,accordingto Nettl, "mayjust meandegreesof significantsimilarity"
(1978:125)."But we must also be concernedaboutthe compatibilityof culturesin so far as
their musical cohesion and their attitudesare concerned"(1978:126).
16. The "idealof the largeensemble"(Nettl 1978:134),for example,may seem to some
to be centralin early 19th-centuryEuropeanmusic, butto othersthe centralparametermay
be the ideal of solo, virtuosoperformance.Moreover,in the case of jazz, say, it is unlikely
that either of the contributingAfricanand Europeancultureswould have consideredthe
ideal of the large ensemble to be more centralto Westernclassical music than other per-
formance ideals, as jazz is not normallyplayed by largeensembles.
17. The terms "donor" and "recipient"cultures are not impeccable,because they
imply one-way ratherthan two-way interculturalinterchange.
18. One exampleof this is Dixielandjazz, whichwas originallythe musicof the Blacks
in New Orleans.Anotherexampleis ghazal, whichis a musicalsynthesisof Malay,Indian,
Arabic, Portuguese,andothercharacteristics,andis regardedby the Malaysin JohoreState
as a unique expression of their culturalidentity.
19. Compare Wachsmann'scomment (1961:147)that the slow tempo and dragging
manner in which church hymns in the vernacularwere executed by the Ganda, "who
previously did not know what a slow tempowas," mayhavedevelopedin orderto compen-
sate for an "inability" on the part of the Ganda.

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 KARTOMI: MUSICAL CULTURE CONTACT 247

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