The sonic presence of bagpipes has become a ubiquitous and necessary aspect of line-of-duty funerals and 9/11 memorials, much like “Taps” in military ceremonies honoring fallen soldiers. But the direct line between Irish or Scottish musical traditions and recent invented traditions for those in public service are blurry or imagined. This presentation will discuss areas in which the porous nature of Irish or Celtic identity – especially in musical settings – allows for a personal identification with the performed identity of a bagpipe band, regardless of one’s ethnicity or heritage, in moments of ceremony, memorialization, and pageantry. It will explore the idea of a New Celticism (James, 1999) in performed rites of passage (Corcoran, 1996), how these traditions are staged (Negra 2006), how they have been disseminated through media (Gibbons, 1996), and how they have been embraced by expanding groups of people (Miller, 1996). With an eye to the material (bagpipes, kilts, balmorals) and an ear to the sonic spectacle (drone, marches, drums), this discussion will explore the changing nature of identity in this (mostly white and almost exclusively male) musical performance. The results will include a new perspective on how public traditions form and become vital to different groups of people; the role of gendered performance in assembling and demonstrating heritage; and the importance of sonic spectacle in performing ethnicity and identity.
Scott B. Spencer is an Assistant Professor of Musicology (World Music) at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, and a Fellow in the USC Society of Fellows in the Humanities. His latest book, Pipers for the Fallen: The NYPD Emerald Society Bagpipe Band, will be published in the Oxford University Press American Musicspheres series soonishly.
Part of the Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy Colloquium Series, this event is sponsored by The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music Department of Ethnomusicology