Ways of working for uncovering underlying principles

To be able to uncover underlying principles of musical phenomena in Chibale, intensive research into the ideas and practices of specialists in a co-operative, dialogic way was necessary. It was also necessary to get a picture of how the general public in Chibale thought and felt about this.
The ways of working together with specialists and the ways of working with the general public are covered in this article.

Ways of working together with specialists

The level of knowledge of a small number of specialists in music and ritual, particularly the shing’anga Mika Mwape Chungwa, banaNshimbi and Salati Mukoti and, later, Alube Mika, and the way they were able to place music in a much broader context as well as the observation of recurrence of certain phenomena in spirit possession music and rituals brought me to invite them to co-operate in the uncovering the principles underlying the music of the older and possession cults. In this co-operation, I used a dialogic method aiming at intersubjectivity between exegetes and researcher. The co-operation was also used to uncover other underlying principles in music and the related dance, text and ritual. As an example of how this co-operation worked, let us look into the ways A theory about music was constructed.

Before a theory about music could be formulated only descriptive and evaluative terms and a few stories and song texts were present as a set of at best implicitly related statements. To come to a larger set of related statements I gathered material and discussed it with the shing’anga, incorporated material brought forward by Mika Mwape Chungwa and elaborated consecutive versions of the theory with him, discussed these versions with the other shing’anga and others, brought up subjects of discussion, such as material deduced from practice, song texts, proverbs and stories, and observed differences between the theory in development and practice. Before we could complete this cyclical process, Mika Mwape Chungwa died. The descriptive and analytic materials presented in the article A theory about music all were worked out together with him, though he never heard them or commented on them in exactly the worked-out order in which they are presented here. I continued working on that with banaNshimbi and Salati Mukoti, and, later, Alube Mika.

The day after the conversation in which Mika Mwape Chungwa first brought to light the importance of the mpanga (nature, the deep forest, spirits) for the village (culture, humans) in a conversation about the making of new music and the origin of music, he told me Story 7 that eventually led to the music theory. “Last night, the spirits possessing me have told me to use this story to show the nature of the relation between the mpanga and the village.” We were still far from formulating any theory about music then. I started to present material gathered from the rituals – the symbols and signs, the music, the texts, the healing methods, the use of words, the dance, the clothing, and other aspects of the possession cults – as well as from sources about the Lala region and neighbouring areas. I discussed this material at length with Mika Mwape Chungwa and also with the two other shing’anga, though of course the development of this theory was not the only subject discussed. After that, I made new observations. Gradually, a set of related statements about music and many other things emerged. I discussed versions of this theory in development with other shing’anga, mediums, and musicians from Chibale as well as from Luanshya. Generally, all shing’anga in Chibale, as well as those interviewed in Luanshya, agreed on the central importance of the exchange between the mpanga and the village, but typically did not agree on all of its consequences for healing, music, dance, and other aspects of the possession cults.¹For an example, click here. To obtain an impression of how widely known and accepted verbalisations of these ideas were, a survey was held among forty possessed persons among whom 20 mediums. An example is given here of the spread of the knowledge of the concept ‘cooking a song’ among relative specialists (the 20 mediums). The survey was done after the concepts ‘cooking a song’ and ‘raw song’ were brought forward by Mika Mwape Chungwa. The answers to the question what ‘cooking a song’ was, were: I don’t know (9); that doesn’t exist (4); it is bringing a new song (4); no answer (3). Three of the four persons saying it was ‘bringing a new song’ were shing’anga. This seems to imply that ‘cooking a song’ was a specialists’ concept.

For the repertoires study and the uncovering of underlying principles I co-operated with Mika Mwape Chungwa in the first place, because he was a fountain of musical and historical knowledge. He was the most interested in trying to make things explicit and find accurate verbalisations and examples, as well as giving greater depth to the music theory in development. His motive was wanting his knowledge (‘deep Lala knowledge’) to be recorded before he died. Though amused, he went along with my motive of finding a form to present it outside of a context of direct application. I used the many conversations, interviews, and observations of practice with the other two shing’anga as feedback for further deliberations with him. Later, I co-operated with banaNshimbi on the finalisation of the music theory, the importance of song texts and the interpretation of the results of Survey 1985/86 and Survey 1987. In the 2000s, I co-operated with Alube Mika on issues in music structure and performance.

The goals pursued are neither new nor unusual among musicologists. However, the intersubjective form of uncovering underlying principles (‘theory development’), the prolonged and continuous discussion between researcher and exegetes aimed at the construction of a theory about their music, requires more explicit attention, in my view, than published accounts reveal. Musicological knowledge is not derived only from the answers to questions one person (the researcher) asks of others (the informants). As researchers, we also look for data that are not answers to specific, prearranged questions. These data, of course, are found mainly in performances (in the broad sense of the word) and events. But most musicologists would agree that little improvement has been made if one one-way communication (informants answering questions) is replaced by the other (researchers writing about the structures they find in the performance data). When exegetes are present and prepared, a possible way out of this is a form of two-way intersubjective uncovering of underlying principles that is not only a final aim of the researcher, but a primary aim of both parties.

A number of issues are related to this option.²Adapted from Giannattasio (1987).
To what extent do the basic theoretical assumptions of the researcher determine the observations for the theory and the construction of the theory? In which cases are the researcher’s views more valid than those of the local theorists? Is it necessary for the final formulation of a theory to be explicitly and consciously acceptable for the local theorists? Can the researcher include parts that the local theorists do not agree upon or with? Can parts be included that seem to work subconsciously or unconsciously? Do linguistic data such as terms and other metamusical expressions form a sufficient basis for the construction of a theory? How explicit, accessible, and elaborate is the local theory in question? If the theory is almost completely implicit, does the influence of the researcher become too large? Should we still speak of a ‘local theory’ then? How ‘scientific’ are local theories and their presentations or paraphrases by researchers? To what extent can and should they comply with the classical requirements of falsifiability, coherence, objectivity, and universality? Will cross-cultural comparison between a number of local theories be worthwhile?

These questions draw attention to the fact that in any research the optimal position has to be found in an area of tension defined by the informants’ perspective and the researcher’s perspective, knowledge connected to individuals or groups and ‘objective knowledge,’ data collection and development of theory, and cultural validity and cross-cultural validity³After Kloos 1984: 186).. In this research I tried to come to a certain measure of convergence of the exegetes’ perspectives and mine judging that a set of related statements about music that we created together was worth more than an ‘objective’ construction made by me.
Or, in the terms used in the article about the nature of the research: since, by lack of an explicit original, translatio was not possible, we co-operated to come to an imitatio.

Ways of working for investigating the general public in Chibale

Knowledge of the ways the ‘non-specialists’ in Chibale thought and felt about and reacted to musical phenomena was collected at many occasions, conversations, short co-operations and the like. This knowledge grows rather associatively and therefore has to be contrasted with material on the same subjects collected in a different way. This was done through large surveys and some small surveys directed to specific issues, such as how do selected audience members interpret the song texts live during a particular ritual or what knowledge do non-specialist possessed have of some more specialised matters related to the old, local and the possession cults.

Quantitative data about musical evaluation and knowledge among the general public in Chibale were gathered in three large surveys.
The first one was done in 1985/86 to get an impression about what their preferences were, what they paid attention to in music and dance, and what their knowledge and standpoints were in some matters concerning spirit possession and music and dance. The second survey was performed in 1987. It used music examples and was aimed at gaining more knowledge about (the process of) musi­cal evaluation and song text interpretation in Chibale in general. In 2004, a survey was held combining the subjects of the two surveys of the 1980s. It also made it possible to compare the results of the 1980s surveys with those of the 2004 survey to see what had changed in the twenty years in between.

For more information on this research, see the articles on quantitative research in musicology and on the set-up of the surveys.