Category Archives: Musical

Family Musical Performance at Get-Togethers

Text: 

“Whenever we have a family gathering, everyone brings their instruments and we put together a big family music performance – usually bluegrass or some symphonic ensemble piece. This ritual serves as a bonding experience for us. It’s something we’ve done for generations. Whenever we have a family gathering, everyone brings their instruments and we put together a big family music performance – usually bluegrass or some symphonic ensemble piece.”

Context: 

The informant is a 21-year-old university student from the United States, of Irish descent. The aforementioned family event happens annually, usually in summer. The informant came from a family of musicians: her grandparents taught music education at the university level, her mother is a composer and a professional trumpet player, her father directs marching bands, her aunt and uncle are percussionists, her cousins sing, play fiddle, and study guitar at university, and the informant herself play horn and piano. The informant considers this musical performance a significant bonding experience among family members.

Interpretation: 

As a family-specific identity marker, music distinguishes the informant’s family and is a characterizing trait shared across generations. To celebrate the family’s reunion and each family member’s musical heritage and accomplishments, it’s natural to arrange and perform a symphonic ensemble piece that may be only applicable to the informant’s family, for each family specializes in a variety of musical instruments and different related skills. On a personal level, being a musician is a part of the informant’s identity that gives her a sense of belonging to her loved family.

It’s worth noting that the family musical event happens annually in summer, which is likely due to the beginning of summer break when the youngest generation of the family returns home from their universities. This highlights how the musical trait is a heritage passed down and will likely be continued as the torch is handed over to the youngest generation, with most of them pursuing music-related education. Correspondingly, hosting the event in summer is not only due to factually it’s when all families reunite, but also because of the focus on the youngest generation and the expectation that they will continue the family’s musical professionalism like their parents and grandparents.

Memorate: A Coworker’s Ghostly Encounter

Context:

Informant N is the collector’s supervisor in the technology department of USC SCA. He is 27 years old and grew up in Denver, Colorado until age 7, when he moved to Sandpoint, Idaho. His father’s family is from the “deep south,” and his mother was “an army brat” who lived mostly near the east coast. N’s family has been in the US “since the mayflower,” and his ancestry is mostly German, Northern English, and Welsh. He now lives in Los Angeles, CA and is a singer/songwriter, as well as an employee of the film school’s technology services.

Text:

Informant: “Okay so when I was a kid, my mom – in the first floor, this was like a three story house, the house was like a hundred years old if not more. Um, classic brick style home, it was in Denver. And there was a doctor who lived in the house with his um… I think she was a distraught person, probably back then. Like she probably had some mental illness that was untreated and you know, back then they kind of skewed those people into obscure…”

Collector: “What year was this?”

Informant: “Oh this was like 30s (…). So she was a well-known pianist at the time and she eventually committed suicide in the house and the house was also a historical site. So the house is old, there have been people who lived there who had some musical connection and there was the suicide and you know… There was a couple times growing up where I would hear the piano play and my sister would hear the piano play while we were upstairs and my mom wasn’t home playing the piano nor was my dad or whatever, or we had a babysitter at the time. So there was just a couple weird moments in that house where the piano would be playing and we’d go downstairs and it would stop playing so whether that’s true or not I don’t know but I remember it and my sister clearly remembers it and to this day it’s very bizarre to me and it makes me feel a little… (*informant trails off*)”

Collector: “How did you find out about the woman who died?”

Informant: “My parents – my mom found out about it after they bought the house. The history of the house.”

Collector: “From who?”

Informant: “I think from a neighbor’s family or something. (…) It was like a local thing so it was kind of weird. (…) The piano that was in the house was over a hundred years old at the time.”

The informant also mentioned that his sister, who was 8 or 9 at the time of the piano incidents, is “still perturbed” by them to this day. He also mentioned that he experienced what he called “typical ghost stuff” – that he would hear dogs barking at nothing, and that one of the room’s in the house (his sister’s room) was specifically colder than others. His family checked and made sure that “the piano wasn’t a player” piano (a self-playing piano), and noted that the music he heard was notably classical, and that the woman who had died was a classical pianist.

Interpretation:

N’s ghost story seems pretty typical upon first glance, but I find it interesting because of both his personal context and folkloric trends in memorates. For one thing, the informant seems to truly believe that all of this happened and that something supernatural was going on because his sister also experienced it. He mentioned her multiple times throughout the story and when he was providing more context, and we’ve talked a number of times about how people tend to believe what their peers, family, friends, etc do. What’s more, his family heard about the woman who supposedly died in the house from a neighbor, making this particular figure almost a local legend. While I wouldn’t label her a full-on urban legend for lack of popularity or name, the story about her being mentally unstable and her death in the house is legend-like. She has the traits of one as a woman believed to be mentally unwell and responsible for a haunted area. The apparent ghost is not necessarily true, but there is a negotiation of sorts about whether to believe it for the informant, his family, and his neighbors. This woman’s story lines up with a lot of what we know about ghosts – having unfinished business of some sort (to play music for others), hauntings that happen when things don’t go as they should (her suicide), and the idea that ghosts’ have property even after death (the piano). This story is definitely a memorate for the informant, who seems unsure whether he believes in ghosts entirely, but is fairly convinced that something happened in this house, and still finds it inexplicable and bizarre 20 years later.

Christmas Music Car Ritual

Text
C: “My Grandma started this ritual because she was a very big fan of the Thanksgiving holiday and a very firm believer that like, Christmas season doesn’t start until Thanksgiving passes. Um, and so she started this thing in the car that you are not allowed to listen to Christmas music until the day after Thanksgiving. Um, and then it’s like- it was believed it was bad luck, like it’s not proper, like, um, I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like we’re not celebrating the holidays in the proper way. And if someone requests it it’s like- like I have personally before been like ‘should we listen to Christmas music’ and been like shunned by my brothers being like ‘No! Grandma says we do not listen to Christmas music in the car until after Thanksgiving, like Grandma does not allow that.’ So it is like a holiday ritual now that we follow.”

Interviewer: “And was it like a big deal when you could listen to Christmas music again?”

C: “Mhm! Especially when it would be with my Grandma, because she would have in her car this, like, plastic container that was at least a foot long that had all of the CDs of Christmas albums, like, stacked. So like, it was when that got transferred from her garage into the car after Thanksgiving, that was the signal of ‘okay, now it’s time’ and then it like- it was like finally, we can ask and we don’t have to be afraid of her being like, ‘no, it’s not Thanksgiving yet.’”

Interviewer: “Would that be something, like, an act that you witnessed, or would it be like a fun surprise?”

C: “No, we would see her do it, because we practically lived with her for most of my childhood, so we would see her from the garage get- like, we knew where it was in the garage- get it and put it in. And then it was a thing of like, we can each grab one of the CDs and pick the ones we wanted, and then she would put them in and then take the next one out and be like ‘what’s the next song to have on?’ So it was like an actual little ritual thing.”

Context
C is a current student at the University of Southern California and grew up in Palm Desert, California. She explained that the ritual always occurred the day after Thanksgiving. When asked if anyone had ever broken the rule about no Christmas music in the car before Thanksgiving, C laughed nervously and admitted that she is a massive fan of Christmas music and sometimes listens to it in her AirPods during the summer, but that she “will NOT tell anyone” in her family, as they would still react poorly. Her pre-Thanksgiving Christmas music listening is restricted to her AirPods, however; she described one instance in which she began to listen to Christmas music in the car with her boyfriend before Thanksgiving, but felt “too guilty” and had to turn it off. Despite her love of Christmas music, C believes she will continue the tradition and ritual with her future family.

Analysis
This ritual seems to be a very calendric/seasonally-based ritual enforced, as C mentioned, to ensure the ‘proper’ and time-appropriate celebration of the seasons. I have noticed that the United States, especially in commercial settings, tends to begin preparing for Christmas well in advance of the holiday, often de-emphasizing Thanksgiving celebrations by barely squeezing it in between Christmas and Halloween. By establishing listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving as a forbidden practice, C’s grandmother is able to keep the lines between different seasons and celebrations distinct and honor each in their own time. In doing so, she also created a ritual that, from C’s description, served as a fun and fondly-remembered marker of the beginning of the Christmas season for her and her grandchildren.

Family Reunion (life cycle celebration)

“Growing up [my family and I] always went to [our family reunion]. We usually met in a church. Mom’s dad and all his brother’s and sisters, and all of us, we’d gather to eat and see each other – fried chicken, cream corn, corn bread, green beans, etc. We’d all just catch up and [my mom] and her sisters would sing for everyone – something folky – and then we’d take pictures. So me and granddad and grandma and mom and dad and me and my brothers, and all my first and second cousins were all in one picture, and then other sides or groups of thee family would take their own.”

My informant told me all about the family reunions he attended annually as he was growing up. He doesn’t attend them anymore, as many of those family members have passed away or become busy with their own families.

When I asked him what the reunion meant to him-

“We did it every year, in the summer – usually August. It was nice out, it was nice to see each other. We’re usually all scattered about. I love my family, I like talking to them, catching up with them.”

He is from North Carolina, part of the southern United States, he recounts, but couldn’t specify folk music shared among his family, and the food he described distinctly stuck out as traditional southern comfort food. As his family is not normally all together is this larger collective, it must feel quite nostalgic to come together and share these songs and classic food together.

He also speaks about the photos they always took, and though he didn’t speak on this himself, I wonder about how each picture changes through every passing year and how the image of their family dynamics change. It sounds like his family, whether it is intentional or not, were preserving this knowledge and part of their families history through photography.

May Day Dance Performance

Ritual Dance Performance:

At the informant’s elementary school in Hawaii, every May Day there is a celebration where the students perform traditional Hawaiian song and dance.

Context:

The informant went to elementary school in Hawaii and moved to California in the fourth grade. Within her four years of elementary school in Hawaii, this annual celebration was a very big deal, and she spent one day each week practicing Hula throughout the year in preparation for the May Day dance performances. 

Analysis: 

The performance of traditional Hawaiian song and dance on May Day in the informant’s elementary school, as well as the largeness of the May Day celebration, is a clear example of a folk group actively keeping their culture alive. Especially in places like Hawaii that have become part of larger countries like the United States, it is evidently very important to find ways to keep cultural practices thriving. It is clear that celebrations like these are done with the intention to pass culture along to the youth, as well as to celebrate said culture together. Performances of traditional song and dance provide community members with a sense of shared identity as well, likely aiding in making the informant’s school’s May Day celebration so excitedly anticipated throughout each year. Celebrations involving song and dance are very good ways of keeping culture alive and celebrated, because in music and dance performances, everyone involved can participate to some extent, whether they are the performers or audience members.