Research blog of Jon Silpayamanant (โจนาทาน ศิลปยามานันท์)
Last year I started compiling a bibliography and timeline for music treatises in South Asia1 and the SWANA2 (Southwest Asia & North Africa) regions. Each currently has 300+ entries apiece and span at least three millennia. This year I started working on a resource page for East Asian3 treatises. It's currently private but will go … Continue reading Resources: South Asian, SWANA, and East Asian Music Theory Treatise Bibliographies & Timelines
As I'm compiling a bibliography of primary sources about orchestras and ensembles of enslaved musicians I've decided to map their locations.
"There is a landmark moment in which the evolution of the orchestra was brought to a standstill." William Bolcom wrote in his 2013 "The Future of the Orchestra."1 Later in the piece, discussing the historical exclusion of the saxophone in orchestras: "This exclusivity goes against the vernacular part of the orchestra’s history, made up as … Continue reading “[T]he evolution of the orchestra was brought to a standstill”
Black History Month may be a creation of the USA, but why not go further out and further back – much further back? Jon Silpayamanant takes us back to Saint Yared in Ethiopia in the 6th century for a ride through the centuries that could transform some of your ideas about music history. I’ve chattered about my … Continue reading ARTICLE: Celebrate Black History Month in music by traveling back to the 6th century
My paper, "Composing Heterophony: Arranging and Adapting Global Musics for Intercultural Ensembles," went live last week in Intersections: Canadian Journal of Music/Revue canadienne de musique (Vol 41, No. 1. Part of "Other Soundings," guest-edited by Jonathan Goldman). This "Other Soundings" issue functioned as a sort of "proceedings" for the "Towards a history and a transcultural … Continue reading “Composing Heterophony: Arranging and Adapting Global Musics for Intercultural Ensembles”
Mae Mai 