Conference Agenda

This study examines the dominance of the free bass accordion in China’s tango performances and its marginalization of the bandoneón, the traditional instrument for Astor Piazzolla’s works. Although Piazzolla’s compositions were crafted for the bandoneón, the free bass accordion has become the preferred medium in China, reshaping the interpretation and cultural transmission of tango. Through historical analysis, interviews with Chinese accordionists, and field observations, this paper investigates the socio-cultural, educational, and practical factors underlying this phenomenon.

The free bass accordion’s polyphonic capabilities, adaptability to diverse repertoires, and accessibility within China’s music education system have established it as the dominant instrument. In contrast, the bandoneón faces challenges, including its complex design, scarcity of teachers, and high import costs, which hinder its integration into China’s musical landscape. Furthermore, the absence of embodied cultural capital tied to the bandoneón has diminished its perceived necessity among Chinese audiences, who prioritize the emotional and melodic appeal of tango over its traditional instrumentation.

This research contextualizes the rise of the free bass accordion within broader patterns of globalization and cross-cultural adaptation, exploring how tango has been reimagined to align with China’s musical practices. It also highlights growing efforts to promote the bandoneón, such as international collaborations and workshops, signaling a potential shift in China’s tango and accordion communities. By analyzing these dynamics, this paper contributes to understanding how musical traditions evolve and adapt across cultural boundaries.

The codiapi, or the boat-lute, is a two-stringed zither from the Philippines. Although the instrument is still in use in the southern islands of Mindanao, it has entirely disappeared in the central island region of the Visayas. The only proof of its once wide-spread use comes from accounts of Spanish missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The most notable and thorough of such accounts is found in Fransisco Alzina’s History of the Island and Indians of the Visayas (1688). While Alzina’s text has been used to reconstruct the organology of the codiapi (Brandeis 2012, 2022), I will show that the text can also be used to infer how the instrument was played and sounded. By having retranslated the text and putting this new translation into conversation with more contemporary ethnographies on living boat-lute practices from Mindanao, I conclude that the music of Alzina’s codiapi uses a pentatonic mode.

Additionally, based on Alzina’s text, I reconstruct how the codiapi sounded and speculate why its music could have been appropriate for courtship rituals. Used exclusively by men, when played along with its female counterpart, the corlong (raft-zither), the codiapi is described as enabling an extra-musical communication which induces both players to fall in love. Described as being “[deeper] in sentiment or sensuality…than if they were using words,” this extra-musical power must nonetheless be deeply rooted in how this music sounded (Alcina translated by Ortega, 1688). This paper will discuss how mode and rhythm could have been used for this communication.

Works Cited

Alcina, Francisco Ignacio, and Victoria Yepes. Historia Natural de Las Islas Bisayas Del Padre Alzina. Biblioteca de Historia de América 14. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1996.

Brandeis, Hans. “Hans Brandeis - Boat Lutes in the Visayan Islands and Luzon. Traces of Lost Traditions (2012, 2022).” In: Musica Jornal 8, Pp. 2-103. (Note: This Is the Manuscript Version with Different Page Numbering), Jan. 2022. www.academia.edu, https://www.academia.edu/3038693/Hans_Brandeis_Boat_Lutes_in_the_Visayan_Islands_and_Luzon_Traces_of_Lost_Traditions_2012_2022_.

Lizzo picking up James Madison’s crystal flute first at the Library of Congress and later on the concert stage, set off a firestorm of controversy. The reasons for the controversy lie at the intersection of organology and the Black/Hip-Hop feminism. The flute by itself comes with centuries of baggage representing cultural norms and ideas about gender. However, when a Black female descendant of enslaved Africans plays on an instrument that once belonged to a deceased Caucasian slave owner – a former President of the United States, at that – it was more than some people could take. Ideas regarding race, high versus low culture, gender, and respectability politics were challenged and shattered all at once. Khalilah Ali describes the Black female body as “a discursive and material space.” [1] Performing Black female bodies force their audiences to rethink their conceptions of Black femininity and Black female centered expression. Nikki A. Greene’s article on Betty Davis demonstrates that although a Black female’s “body, voice, lyrics, and concert performances” are commodities in the music industry, they are consumed within boundaries on the performer’s own terms. [2]

The playing of James Madison’s crystal flute is not a “one off” verve from a provocative news cycle. There is an expansive digital archive to be examined and interpreted. There are numerous interviews with Lizzo and different iterations of her Sasha flute – so named after Beyonce’s alter ego. There are SNL parodies including Lizzo as a twerking pied piper crashing an orchestral rehearsal, as well as a Lizzo-style parody of Will Ferrell’s Jazz Flute Solo from the movie “Anchorman.” The digital archive does not stop there, however. In fact, Sasha flute has her own Instagram account in which Lizzo serves as her ventriloquist.

This paper explores the politics of this world that lies at the intersection of flute organology and Black/Hip-hop feminism. In addition, select footage of Lizzo’s flute performances, including the impromptu concert at the Library of Congress, are analyzed for their encoded cultural messages.

[1] Khalilah Ali, “Towards a Bad Bitches’ Pedagogy,” The Journal of Intersectionality, vol. 5, no. 1 (2021): 45.

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