Orfeo

The paper acknowledges some of the challenges which face
scholars and performers as they attempt to translate data and
opinion into musical forms appropriate to film, television and theatre.
It proposes that the essential requirement is clarity, and that clarity
requires agreement on relevant terminologies. In the 1970s music
archaeologists such as Cajsa Lund began to demand clearer
distinctions between kinds of technological experiment,
distinguishing scientifically accurate facsimiles and replicas of
instruments from interpretive reconstructions and working models.
Since then we have begun also to recognize the need for
discrimination in performance, devising genres which enable us to
distinguish between, at one extreme, attempts at 'authentic'
recreative performance of notated texts and, at the other, improvised
demonstrations and imaginative explorations which seek to exploit
the capabilities - and reveal some of the latent beauty - of
instruments of pre-literate cultures. The paper seeks to initiate a new
dialogue in the nomenclature of music-archaeological performance.

Whilst we blur such definitions at our peril, with proper clarity and
transparency all manner of creative and recreative endeavours
become not only possible but worthwhile. Absences of written music
need be no barrier to musical exploration of finds. Indeed there is no
reason to limit our imaginations in any way - so long as we and our
audiences are clear about what it is that we are doing.

UPDATE IN PROGRESS

cambridge music-archaeological research
<http://www.orfeo.co.uk>

Continuity, Change and Invention in ancient music's
material record: some case studies in the evolution of
sound-related behaviours.

[Read at Durham University, June 2007]

The evolution of music and related sound-use behaviours has long been
a source of fascination to philosophers and scholars, especially music
historians and anthropologists; but it was only in the 20th century that
hard evidence from archaeology began to add substance to their
speculation about music's origins. From this substance, since the
1960s, have emerged the modern, scientific archaeologies of music
and sound-use known today as 'music-archaeology' and
'archaeoacoustics'.

Recently neuro-science and cognitive studies have offered welcome
new perspectives on how and when such acoustic behaviours may first
have evolved, and how they may have impacted upon the emergence
and evolution of our species. But if to 'music archaeologists' such
studies have seemed to have a weakness it has been in the curious
way they have sometimes engaged - or not engaged - with the ancient
evidence. Their direction has often seemed partial: shaped too tightly
by biological and ethnographical considerations of present-day human
and animal populations. Too often they have seemed to choose as their
target date the point at which evidence first appears in the
archaeological record, ignoring the music-rich archaeology of the
succeeding millenia. In trying to model the void before that first
evidence, they often neglect to consider how archaeology itself might
test their theories. Thus the premature excitement - and inevitable
disappointment - arising from the recent bear-bone find from Slovenia:
the so-called 'Neanderthal flute' of Divje babe I. It seems the quest for
origin has too often sidestepped the question of evolution.

This paper argues that an understanding of the modern human mind
and a knowledge of some prehistoric sound-use behaviours does not
excuse us from the need to understand the processes, as they appear
in the wider archaeological record. Whilst music archaeologists today
feel increasingly equipped to contemplate the 'origins of music' they
also embrace the need to address broader evolutionary questions: of
the nature of continuity and change, of tradition and originality and
invention, in the development of musics through long - sometimes very
long - periods of time.

Epistemology and Imagination: reconciling music-
archaeological scholarship and ancient music
performance today

[Read at Berlin, September 2008]

Time and again, historians have held their heads in disbelief at the
liberties taken by journalists and by film and television producers.
Music-archaeology is no exception. Music archaeologists are often
embarrassed to see, and hear, how their discoveries and their work are
misrepresented, whether through misunderstanding or carelessness or
oversight. It highlights two important questions: how essential is it to
bring music-archaeological ideas and conclusions - especially
recreations of ancient music - before the general public? And how can
music archaeologists turn media interest to the advantage of their
subject without compromising its and their integrity?