Sounding Board
What's Goin' On: News, Editorials, and Reviews
"What's Goin' On" offers informal essays, editorials and reviews pertaining to music-related projects, events, and publications/media. Contact moderator Max Nikol (maxnikol@ucla.edu) if you’d like to contribute to this section of Sounding Board.
Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer who Reinvented Rhythm. By Dan Charnas. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. 2022. Reviewed by Aisha Gallion ...
UCLA is a major center for Hip Hop Studies both nationally and internationally with nearly a dozen scholars writing and researching the culture. Hip Hop Studies has a long...
Notes from the Field
“Notes From the Field” provides music scholars a space to share their fieldwork experiences and network with colleagues with similar research interests. Contact Blair Black (blairmaya.black@gmail.com) if you’d like to contribute to this section of Sounding Board.
Over the week since Nov 24, 2022 when 10 people locked in an apartment building died in Urumqi, Xinjiang, thousands of protesters took to the streets in multiple cities to protest the zero-COVID...
Cellphone video footage captured one of my trips across Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital city, in the back of a khekhe (a covered motorized tricycle)....
From the Archives
Posts in “From the Archives” highlight noteworthy items in the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive’s collection. The forum is open to archivists from other institutions as well. Contact Maureen Russell (mrussell@arts.ucla.edu) if you’d like to contribute to this section of Sounding Board.
Bette Yarbrough Cox (1921-2017) was a music educator in Los Angeles for more than 30 years, the founder of the BEEM (Black Experience as Expressed through Music) Foundation for the Advancement of...
On 3 June 2024, thirty-five students and three guardians from the Gugak National High School and the Gugak National Middle School in Korea visited the World Music...
Space Is The Place: Ethnomusicology of Jazz
Honoring the jazz roots of foundational ethnomusicologists such as Mantle Hood, Alan Merriam, Charles Keil and Steven Feld, “Space is the Place” makes room for discussion regarding the intersections between ethnomusicology and jazz studies. Contact moderator Amy Brandon (amygbrandon@gmail.com) or Alfredo Rivera (outclass90291@ucla.edu) if you’d like to contribute to this section of Sounding Board.
Harmony is the Mother, Rhythm is the Father and Melody is the Offspring-Hermeto Pascoal My first 15 years as a full-time musician were spent in Hermeto Pascoal’s Grupo in Rio de...
The Gabriel family, with their roots in New Orleans and a strong foothold in Detroit, has seen six generations of musicians anchor and pioneer the musical styles of New Orleans. Like their ancestors...
Flip it and Reverse it: Hip Hop Worldwide
Flip it and Reverse it: Hip Hop Worldwide" features essays, think pieces, interviews relating to hip hop and its multiple dimensions across geographical areas and historical periods. It is the editorial space of the UCLA Hip Hop Studies Working Group. To contribute contact: H. Samy Alim (halim@ucla.edu), Samuel Lamontagne (slamonta@ucla.edu), Tabia Shawel (tshawel@bunche.ucla.edu).
Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer who Reinvented Rhythm. By Dan Charnas. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. 2022. Reviewed by Aisha Gallion ...
Hip hop culture took root on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe in the 1980s, a former French colony where a sugar plantation economy based on slave labor was established during the 18th century...
Historical Perspectives
"Historical Perspectives" is a space for sharing nascent thoughts and scholarship pertaining to music of both the distant and recent past. Contact Edwin E. Porras (edwinopo@ucla.edu) if you’d like to contribute to this section of Sounding Board.
Figure 1. “Drawing of an Argentine gaucho playing his guitar”. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons under CC.IntroductionThere are few times that an entire genre can be identified as...
In 1990 Congress passed Public Law 101-343 which authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation designating the month of November 1990 as "National American Indian Heritage Month...
Bring the Noise: Popular Music Studies
"Bring the Noise" gathers contributions from the interdisciplinary field of popular music studies. Contact Alec Norkey (anorkey28@g.ucla.edu) if you'd like to contribute to this section of Sounding Board.
With the rise of digital technology, images of Black people murdered at the hands of law enforcement have inundated various media outlets and influenced a surge in social activism. Recent protests,...
The only discernible stabilities in Relation have to do with the interdependence of the cycles operative there, how their corresponding patterns of movement are in...
Ecomusicology
"Ecomusicology" explores topics at the intersection of music, nature, and culture, and draws frequently from material published in the Ecomusicology Newsletter. Contact Ben Cosgrove (bcosgrov@post.harvard.edu) if you’d like to contribute to this section of Sounding Board.
The 1952-born Canadian artist, photographer and poet Marlene Creates has been exploring “the relationship between human experience, memory, language and the land, and the impact they have on...
The term articulation used to describe how human societies manifest discourses, solidify political moments, intervene in the fabric of reality, and create culture has been strained in the...
Crossing Borders
"Crossing Borders" features commentaries, methodologies, and findings from those working with music in a trans-disciplinary way. Contact Andrea Decker (andecker08@gmail.com) if you’d like to contribute to this section of the Sounding Board.
A Look Inside the House of Records: An Interview with Dr. David GraconInterviewed by Samuel Lamontagne Trailer for "Walls of Sound"Full movie here. 1. Walls of Sound: A...
Many Americans have potent memories of their early years in music classrooms, squeaking out the melodies to patriotic tunes or outdated popular music hits on a plastic recorder. Even as a musician...
Past Issues
In light of their newly designed website, the editors of Ethnomusicology Review have asked me to reflect on the role of the Internet in today’s academic world. Their request was an honor and a...
"General Generations" by A Tribe Called RedThe audio above is the result of a collaborative effort between A Tribe Called Red (ATCR) and Ethnomusicology Review (EMR) editor Nolan Warden....
On December 9, 2010, PRE editors Jessie Vallejo and Nolan Warden sat down to talk with Steven Loza, Professor of Ethnomusicology at UCLA. We were interested to know his current thoughts on...
In scholarly disciplines, specialized journals play a multi-faceted role. They demonstrate the intellectual concerns of the field they belong to, express the views and interests of individual...
Augusta Read Thomas, a New Music composer, was commissioned by the legendary Berlin Philharmonic to write an orchestral piece. Upon her arrival for the premiere in Germany, she held a press...
Some years ago, when I was still in graduate school at the University of Michigan, George Lipsitz came to give a talk. I can’t remember what it was about anymore. But he said something...
When I wrote a term paper on fiddle music of the Luo of Kenya as a final project for J. H. Kwabena Nketia’s Music of Africa course at UCLA in Spring 1971, I never imagined that I would...
"Sounding Board" is intended as a space for scholars to publish thoughts and observations about their current work. These postings are not peer reviewed and do not reflect the opinion of Ethnomusicology Review. We support the expression of controversial opinions, and welcome civil discussion about them. We do not, however, tolerate overt discrimination based on race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or religion, and reserve the right to remove posts that we feel might offend our readers.
What's New
Bette Yarbrough Cox (1921-2017) was a music educator in Los Angeles for more than 30 years, the founder of the BEEM (Black Experience as Expressed through Music) Foundation for the Advancement of Music, a Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for the City of Los Angeles, and a...
On 3 June 2024, thirty-five students and three guardians from the Gugak National High School and the Gugak National Middle School in Korea visited the World Music Center at UCLA, including the Ethnomusicology Archive and the...
