Gamelan gong kebyar emerged around the turn of the 20th century in North Bali’s Buléléng region, which came under Dutch colonial control in 1849. At the time, Bali was divided among eight kings whose rivalries allowed the Dutch to pit one kingdom against another. Dutch economic control was the intention, but their campaign was framed with moral arguments rooted in the Balinese slave trade (from which the Dutch had long benefited) and in widow sacrifice tied to royal cremations. In succession, the Balinese kingdoms fell to Dutch attacks: Lombok in 1894, Badung (Denpasar) in 1906, and Klungkung in 1908. As the historian Adrian Vickers notes, “The Dutch moved on the capital of Denpasar. On the morning of September 20, the king, his family and thousands of armed followers all dressed in white and ready to meet death in battle, marched out to meet the Dutch. Each of the leading warriors ran amok in turn, marching on as if bullets would bounce off their bodies. The Dutch opened fire on women with weapons in their hands, lance or kris, and children in their arms who advanced fearlessly upon the troops and sought death . . . surrender was impossible.”
A drawing of Balinese forces attacking Dutch troops in Kusumba on Bali’s southern coast in 1849.
The reasons that led to the artistic flowering that followed the collapse of the Balinese kingdoms are open to speculation. The Balinese musician I Nyoman Catra has suggested that the surge of experimentation functioned like medicine, helping to heal the trauma of social upheaval and colonial occupation. With the dismantling of the power and wealth of the regional courts, the arts broadened beyond the capitals and spread into the banjar (village) effectively democratizing artistic life. Furthermore, new fashions and technologies associated with modernity arrived with the Dutch, alongside a small but steady flow of European and U.S. travelers who, in the 1920s, began traveling to Bali on cruise ships.
Around this time, gamelan gong kebyar and related dances were beginning to be heard and seen across both North and South Bali. Kebyar’s innovations took shape between 1910 and 1915 in North Bali’s Buléléng region, then the Dutch colonial administration center. Across the island in the late 19th century, Balinese-language literary life–sometimes blended with Kawi (known as old Javanese)–entered a particularly creative phase. Traditional poetic genres and their song forms took on mystical, romantic, historical, and sociopolitical themes, while renewed interest in classical kakawin texts also inspired a wave of Balinese literary clubs devoted to teaching Kawi recitation and translating the material into Balinese language. Another popular genre, palawakya, refers to a non-metric Balinese form of storytelling, chanting, or prose narration with themes inspired by the Mahabharata. Clubs from different villages often competed with one another before larger, growing audiences at ceremonial religious events and at night markets.
Balinese gong kebyar musicians, circa 1906. Photo by Colin McPhee, courtesy of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive.
At these gatherings, the juru baca (singer/reader) and the juru basa (translator) might sit within a gamelan while kakawin verses from the Mahabharata were intoned. Alternatively, musicians within the ensemble could sing a kakawin verse on the spot–since performers were expected to know kakawin well enough to respond musically to the sung text. The gamelan would punctuate these moments with brief instrumental interludes drawn from the classical repertoire, increasingly animated by the brighter, more improvisatory phrasing that would come to define the gong kebyar tradition.
This according to the commentary by Edward Herbst that accompanies the CD The roots of gamelan: The first recordings—Bali, 1928; New York, 1941 (World Arbiter, 1999; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 1999-38076).
RILM’s Commission Internationale Mixte plays a crucial role in directing global musicology by influencing how researchers engage with music literature. Established in 1968 under Barry S. Brook, RILM’s founder, the committee ensures that RILM’s digital collections and bibliographies reflect a comprehensive representation of global music scholarship across various languages, subdisciplines, and cultural contexts. Acting as the primary governing and advisory board, the Commission functions as an international steering committee, overseeing that digital tools and bibliographies accurately encapsulate the diverse landscape of music research. It serves as a crucial link between RILM’s overarching mission and its daily operations at the International Center, thereby enhancing the relevance and effectiveness of music scholarship worldwide.
The Commission Mixte does more than provide administrative oversight; its decisions directly impact how scholars locate music literature. By merging historical musicology, ethnomusicology, popular music, and library science, the board safeguards diversity so that no genre, geographic region, or culture is overlooked. They guide how RILM adapts to shifting digital publishing standards, which simplifies how students and professors uncover niche articles, dissertations, and conference proceedings. Furthermore, they facilitate connections with a massive network of national committees worldwide, ensuring that data pipelines remain active across geopolitical borders. This collaborative framework provides modern music scholarship with an essential interconnected digital map that supports daily research and exploration.
The hydraulis of Dion (above), dating to the 1st century B.C.E., is the world’s oldest surviving archaeological example of a pipe organ. Photo taken by RILM Executive Director Tina Frühauf while in Greece for the International Association of Music Libraries Congress (IAML) in June/July 2026. The hydraulis of Dion has been extensively discussed in the scholarly literature. For further reading, see RILM Abstracts.
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This post is the second in a series that features annotated bibliographies on performing arts inscribed in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. To promote open knowledge and preserve these traditions through scholarly writings, a monthly post is curated for Bibliolore over the course of the year.
The organ is a truly global instrument. Over the centuries, it has crossed seas and lands, finding a place in ceremonial contexts, in churches and synagogues, and later on in concert halls and movie theaters. Its earliest known ancestor, the hydraulis, was developed in Alexandria during the Hellenistic period. From there, the organ and the knowledge of organ building spread across the Mediterranean and beyond, as communities found new uses for the instrument, adapted its design, experimented with its possibilities, and responded to its distinct sound. By the eighth and ninth centuries, the organ reached Western Europe, where it was sometimes given as a gift to dignitaries, a gesture to establish or mend diplomatic ties among nations. In the medieval Islamic world, too, organs were known and used in centers such as Baghdad, Cairo, and Córdoba.
By the Middle Ages, the organ had become increasingly important in the Catholic churches of Europe. Its incorporation into liturgical practice developed over several centuries, with important early evidence emanating from Anglo-Saxon England as well as on the European continent. In the German-speaking lands, monasteries became important sites for the construction and development of organs. By the 15th and 16th centuries, numerous cities had emerged as centers of organ building and innovation. In the centuries that followed, German organ builders and craftsmen continued to make significant contributions to the instrument’s development, establishing a living tradition of craftsmanship. Even as this tradition remains deeply rooted in the region’s heritage, German organ builders transmitted their knowledge across borders, sharing their mechanical precision and musical artistry with the world.
RILM Abstracts includes tens of thousands of references to scholarship on the instrument’s music and construction in 51 languages, reflecting how this truly global instrument was adopted and adapted across geographies throughout the centuries. The database also includes rare sources featuring 80 references to the hydraulis organ, 313 to the theater organ, 40 to portative organs, and lesser-known references in Chinese, Japanese, and Afrikaans.
This annotated bibliography celebrates UNESCO’s inclusion of organ craftsmanship and music on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2012 by presenting selected writings on German organ building from the 442 entries on the topic found in RILM Abstracts.
Fidom, Hans. “Nederlandse orgelbouw in de vroege 20ste eeuw: Duite achtergrondeng” [Dutch organ building in the early 20th century: German backgrounds], Het orgel: Uitgave van de Koninklijke Nederlandse Organistenvereniging 97:5 (2001) 27–40. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2001-23570].
Dutch organ building traditionally followed developments in Germany and France. At the end of the 19th century, the German moderne orgel was particularly influential. Consequently, understanding Dutch organ building in this period requires examining developments in Germany. The roots of the German moderne orgel can be traced to the early 19th century, when organ building became rationalized. Georg Joseph (Abbé) Vogler presented his system of simplification, and Johann Gottlob Töpfer published his Lehrbuch der Orgelbaukunst. Organ builders such as Walcker followed Vogler, while others, including Ladegast, followed Töpfer. At the end of the 19th century, the modern organ appeared to be an instrument with one basic pitch (represented by the 8’ stops) and one basic tone color (which could be varied endlessly). Electro-pneumatic action and stop channel chests made this organ type possible. After 1900, the modern organ was modified by Oscar Walcker according to the ideas of Emil Rupp and Albert Schweitzer (Rupp named this the Alsacian Organ Reform), resulting in giant organs with relatively more pipes and mixtures and larger swell boxes than the modern organ. Following World War I, the Orgelbewegung, oriented toward Baroque organ culture, became important: Its leader, Christhard Mahrenholz, hoped to develop a contemporary organ type based on historical principles. In the Netherlands, however, the Alsacian Reform was not very influential. After the 1930s, the organ builder Flentrop seemed to make a strong Orgelbewegung-related statement with his new organs with slider chests, tracker action, and Baroque-like dispositions, but in the 1950s the Danish firm Marcussen received the important Dutch projects. After 1970, the “Scandinavian episode” made way for the historicism of many Dutch organ builders. Meanwhile, a contemporary organ style was developed abroad, based on the Alsacian Reform interpretation of the modern organ and some of the principles of the Orgelbewegung. Because these builders depend on research, they are related to historicizing organ builders: Both are rationalists.
Fischer, Hermann, and Theodor Wohnhaas. Georg Friedrich Steinmeyer (1819–1901) und sein Werk: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des bayerischen Orgelbaues im 19. Jahrhundert [Georg Friedrich Steinmeyer (1819–1901) and his work: A contribution to the history of Bavarian organ building in the 19th century], Das Musikinstrument (Frankfurt am Main: 1978). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1978-5827].
Georg Friedrich Steinmeyer, a pupil of Eberhard Friedrich Walcker in Ludwigsburg, founded his own organ workshop in Oettingen in 1847. Steinmeyer’s biography, the development of his workshop into a factory, the constructional features of his organs, their specifications, and the Steinmeyer facades are discussed. His co-workers, surveyors, and architects are also named. Steinmeyer’s oeuvre up to 1899 included 676 organs; they are arranged alphabetically and described briefly. Tables, sketches, and drawings of the facades are included. Special attention is given to Steinmeyer’s position in Bavarian organ building and to the history of 19th-century organ facades. A list of Bavarian builders is included. (abstract by Hermann Fischer)
Frühauf, Tina. The organ and its music in German-Jewish culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2009-235].
Examines the presence of the organ in synagogue music and the musical life of German-speaking Jewish communities, chronicling the history of the organ in Jewish culture from the earliest references in the Talmud through the 19th century, when it had established a firm and lasting presence in Jewish sacred and secular spaces in central Europe. The introduction of the organ into German synagogues was part of the significant changes which took place in Judaism after the Enlightenment. Indeed, the organ became a symbol of the division of the Jewish community into Orthodox and Reform congregations. Newly composed organ music for Jewish liturgy, after this division, became part of a cross-cultural music tradition in the 19th- and 20th-century Germany, when a specific style of organ music developed, which combined elements of Western and Jewish cultures. Concluding with a discussion of the organ in Jewish communities in Israel and the U.S., the book presents in-depth case studies (analyses of selected organ works by Deutsch, Lewandowski, Samuel, and Würzburger), which illustrate how the organ has been utilized in the musical life of specific Jewish communities in the 20th century. The original German edition, Orgel und Orgelmusik in deutsch-jüdischer Kultur (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2005), is indexed in RILM Abstracts as well.
Hofner, Hans. “Der ostfränkische Orgelbau. Geschichte und Ausstrahlungen auf andere Orgellandschaften” [Organ building in East Franconia. Its history and effects upon other organ districts], Archiv für Geschichte von Oberfranken 52 (1972) 7–116. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1976-1476].
Traces the history of organ building in the former margravate of Bayreuth and illustrates how this style spread to Saxony, Thuringia, Coburg, Lower Franconia, and Württemberg. The biographies of the following organ builders are provided: Matthias Tretzscher of Kulmbach (1626–86), Tobias Dressel of Falkenstein/Buchholz (1635–1717), Johann and Adam Heinrich Gruber of Hof/Adorf (1690–1725), Daniel Felix Streit of Kulmbach (1619–1730), the Puruckers of Marktleuthen im Sechsämterland (1670–1730), the Leubes and Hollbeck of Hof/Zwickau (1650–1700), Graichen and Ritter of Hof/Erlangen (1739–65), Gottlob Hubert of Bayreuth/Ansbach (1714–93), and the Heidenreichs of Hof/Bayreuth (1741–1860). Thirty photographs of organ facades, documents, and seals, as well as 120 descriptions of dispositions, are included.
Kaliberda, Sergej. “Органы немецких колоний Причерноморья, или еще одна органная ‘Атлантида’” [The organs of the German colonies at the Black Sea, or, another organ Atlantis], Organ: Žurnal ob organnoj kul’ture 3-4:19:20 (2013) 21–27. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2013-17438].
Discusses the history of organs in the German colonies located between the Pìvdennyj Bug and Dnìpro rivers, which appeared after the Russo-Turkish War (1768–74) with permission from Empress Ekaterina II, Emperor Pavel I, and Emperor Aleksandr I. The history and disposition of the late–19th- and early–20th-century organs of the German firms Walcker and Steinmeyer in the Mykolaiv and Odesa areas, and in Ekaterinoslav are examined. Facsimile documents of the organ-building firms are included.
Kocourek, Jiří. “Orgelland Böhmen” [Organ country Bohemia], Ars organi: Internationale Zeitschrift für das Orgelwesen 57:1 (March 2009) 5–18. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2009-1111].
Traces the history of organ building in Bohemia from the 13th to the 20th century. The exchange between Czech and German organ building is considered, and the names of towns in the border region are given in both Czech and German. Characteristics of Bohemian organs are described, and an overview of known organ builders is provided.
Ladegast, Walter. Friedrich Ladegast: Der Orgelbauer von Weißenfels [Friedrich Ladegast: The organ builder from Weissenfels], Weidling (Stockach-Wahlwies: 1988). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1998-17613].
Friedrich Ladegast was one of the preeminent 19th-century organ builders. After a difficult start, he established himself in Weißenfels, where he built organs that still testify to his exceptional sense of sound and craft. Famous Ladegast organs are still to be heard in Merseburg, Köthen, Ronneburg, Wernigerode, Schwerin, Biederitz, Parum, Hermsdorf, Leipzig, Weißenfels, and Wittenberg, to name just the most important surviving instruments. All current information about Ladegast is presented in this first monograph on the subject. The many illustrations of his organs also reveal the visual variety of the instrument. In addition, a survey of Ladegast organs built before 1888, a map of locations, and a glossary of organ registers are included.
Lampl, Sixtus. “Orgeldenkmalpflege in Bayern” [Preservation of organs in Bavaria], Jahrbuch der bayerischen Denkmalpflege 38 (1990) 161–179. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1990-2058].
A survey of the development of organ building in southern Germany from the 17th to the 20th centuries, the builders and their workshops or factories, and the various mechanical systems and problems of their conservation and restoration. This is an enlarged version of a report given on the occasion of the inauguration of the St. George organ in Munich (Obermenzing) in July 1985.
Main organ of the St. Lorenz Church (Lorenzkirche), Nuremberg. With over 12,000 pipes and 165 registers, the organ stands as one of the largest organs in the world
Prost, Dietrich. “Der norddeutsche Orgelbau des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts auf dem Gebiet der DDR: Bestandsaufnahme, charakteristische Merkmale, Probleme der Werterhaltung” [North German organ building of the 17th and 18th centuries in East Germany: Inventory, characteristic features, and problems of conservation], Bericht über das 5. Symposium zu Fragen des Orgelbaus im 17.-18. Jahrhundert [Report on the 5th symposium on questions of organ building in the 17th and 18th centuries], ed. by Eitelfriedrich Thom. Kultur- und Forschungsstätte Michaelstein (Blankenburg: 1985) 19–123. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1985-5172].
Provides examples of instruments from the three periods of North German organ building during the 17th and 18th centuries. The 17th century was characterized by construction corresponding to antiphonal musical practice, while the following century was characterized by the concertato style, and the third by the Empfindsamer Stil.
Vlagsma, Auke H. “Andreas en Marten de Mare: Orgelmakers van de Renaissance. I: Inleiding en werken van Andreas de Mare” [Andreas and Marten de Mare: Organ builders of the Renaissance. I: Introduction and the works of Andreas de Mare], Het orgel: Tijdschrift van de Nederlandse Vereniging van Organisten en Kerkmusici 109:6 (2013) 36–41. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2013-12076].
After the Reformation in the 16th century, many organ builders left the Netherlands to seek work in Germany. One of these was Andreas de Mare from Gent, who had previously had enough work in the northern Netherlands because the Spanish troops, who hindered the Reformation, stayed in control there much longer—in Groningen, even until 1594. Andreas worked both in the city of Groningen and in the province. His work is known in the city (1558, the Der Aa-Kerk), in Midwolda between 1564 and 1566, and in 1578 in Zuidbroek. From 1566 to 1567, he expanded his work area to include the Lutheran region of Ostfriesland, where he built his first organ at St. Ludgeri in Norden. In 1577 to 78, he rebuilt the organ in the Grote Kerk of Emden with his son Marten. Later, they worked together in Verden, Bremen, and then in Hannover, Stadthagen, and Loccum. Andreas died in 1599. Marten became a citizen of Bremen in 1595. When the opportunities for work in Ostfriesland also diminished, the De Mares moved to Hannover. A list of Andreas de Mare’s works is provided.
Vogt, Franz-Josef, and Gabriel Isenberg. “Der Kölner Orgelbauer Ernst Seifert und sein Werkverzeichnis” [The Cologne organ builder Ernst Seifert and his catalog of works], Acta organologica 38 (2024) 179–366. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2024-27413].
Ernst Hubert Seifert was born on 9 May 1855 in Sülzdorf in the Thuringian district of Hildburghausen. After completing his training as an organ builder, he served as foreman for Franz Wilhelm Sonreck in Cologne and for Clemens Schneider in Mudersbach. It was during this period that Seifert developed his first purely pneumatic wind chest system (“communication chest”), which was later patented. At the beginning of 1885, Seifert established his own organ building company in Cologne-Mannsfeld. While the sound quality of his instruments undoubtedly adhered to the spirit of the times at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, it is remarkable how certain Ernst Seifert must have been of the function of his pneumatic system, which he used exclusively from the start. One of the most important instruments from Seifert’s workshop is the large, recently restored organ in the Marienbasilika in Kevelaer. Built in 1907, this instrument remains one of the most important examples of late–Romantic-period organ building in Germany and was the basis for the opening of a Seifert’s branch in Kevelaer. Only a small number of the instruments from the company founder’s time have survived. It is therefore critical to care for the few remaining Seifert organs from this era that have been preserved unchanged, including the small organ (restored in 2022) located in Seifert’s birthplace of Sülzdorf. The handwritten catalog of works compiled by Ernst Seifert lists a total of 209 instruments that were built between 1885 and 1914. The information in the catalog is transcribed and commented on in detail. Important findings on the prehistory of Seifert organs have also been added, and details on the instruments’ subsequent development have been compiled. Such detailed information provides insights into the construction and disposition of Seifert’s instruments. The fifth generation of the Romanus Seifert family branch of the company still operates in Kevelaer today.
Ernst H. Seifert
Voigt, Markus. “Orgelbouw en “Orgelbewegung” in de DDR” [Organ building and the Orgelbewegung in the German Democratic Republic], Het orgel: Tijdschrift van de Nederlandse Vereniging van Organisten en Kerkmusici105:5 (2009) 26–43. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2009-19576].
The organ culture of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) can only be understood against the background of economic, political, and ideological circumstances. Organ-building firms (including four state firms and 17 private firms), employing 250 people, were organized into the Artikelgruppe Orgelbau in 1981. The firms were strongly dependent on each other, and there was no competition: The only relevant factors were the shared need to acquire materials and to get along collectively with the socialist government. To judge the style of life and standard of living in East Germany, it is essential to consider the subtle influence that the government, particularly the Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, Stasi), exerted on citizens. The true tragedy lies in the ongoing struggle between intellectuals and the highest levels of government. Many highly placed employees of organ-building firms were involved in this struggle. The churches, as main clients of the organ-building firms, played an important role at the end of the DDR as key supporters of the opposition, in which employees from the organ-building branch participated. Organ-building firms functioned as a reservoir of people working and living creatively who–without theological or (church-)musical diplomas–attempted to escape the narrow limits of socialist life. The marked rise in interest among citizens (especially the younger generation) in organs and organ concerts at the beginning of the 1970s was closely related to the advanced process of secularization imposed by the state. At the same time, the intellectual Marxist dogmas were apparently unable to satisfy people’s emotional and religious needs, and organ concerts filled the gap. Great interest among members of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED, Socialist Unity Party) led the government to build concert halls with new organs. This solved the dilemma faced by SED members, who had to visit church buildings to hear an organ concert. By placing organs not in churches but in concert halls, a statement was also made that the instrument, despite its association with religion, could still find a place in socialist art.
Windelen, Magnus, and Markus Zimmermann. “Wie geht es weiter?: Firmenübernahmen im Orgelbau—Risiken und Nebenwirkungen” [What happens next? Company takeovers in organ building—Risks and side effects], Organ: Journal für die Orgel 26:4 (2023) 10–13. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 2023-17480].
In the next ten years, of the 300 or so workshops in Germany currently involved in organ building, around half are expected to see changes in management or ownership structures. These mostly small or micro-enterprises have often been family-run for generations and have accumulated enormous specialist knowledge. Risks and potential advantages of the different possibilities—takeover from within the family, takeover from outside, takeover through a distribution of shareholdings—are considered.
Wohnhaas, Theodor, and Hermann Fischer. “Sieben Jahrhunderte Nürnberger Orgelbau” [Seven centuries of Nuremberg organ building],Der “schöne” Klang: Studien zum historischen Musikinstrumentenbau in Deutschland und Japan unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des alten Nürnberg [The “beautiful” sound: Studies in the history of music instrument building in Germany and Japan, with special consideration of old Nuremberg], eds. by G. Ulrich Grossmann and Dieter Krickeberg. Germanisches Nationalmuseum (Nürnberg: 1996) 158–170. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM 1996-5376].
Offers a history of organ building in Nuremberg. First, it introduces the builders themselves, from the late Middle Ages to the present, both citizens of the imperial city and residents, with particular attention to the office of municipal organ builder. Second, it takes up the history of the organs in the various churches of Nuremberg within the historical boundaries of the imperial city. An extensive bibliography is appended.
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The record is titled “The Filipino national anthem” by Adrian De Leon (Journal of popular music studies 35/4 [2023] 4–13; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2023-16951).
Growing up in Toronto’s Filipino Catholic community, the author witnessed firsthand the power of Lemonade–a 2003 SoundClick track by Jeremy Manongdo, better known as Passion, that became an anthem at Couples for Christ camps. Far from just a nostalgic hit, the song represents a unique slice of the Filipino diaspora that resists the flattening of Asian American identity. Passion’s journey from bedroom singer-songwriter to digital icon mirrors the birth of the modern internet. He built momentum first on SoundClick and MySpace before riding the first wave of YouTube stardom following its 2005 debut, showing how early music platforms grew largely on content of racialized creators. The resulting musical repertoire became a touchstone for generations of North American Filipinos, born at the intersection of 2000s youth culture and the dawn of the platform economy.
A performance of Lemonade by Jeremy Passion.
Fan videos of Lemonade.
The effectiveness of Passion’s Lemonade lies in its formal simplicity as a serenade, easily performed on a guitar or ukulele. As a serenade, it addresses an unnamed woman, rooted in Filipino musical traditions influenced by Spanish colonial practices like the harana and kundiman, which involved love songs sung by men outside women’s homes. While contemporaries such as Gabe Bondoc, David Choi, and A.J. Rafael also achieved online popularity with their serenades, none have reached the cult status of Lemonade, which has become emblematic of a vernacular Filipino American national anthem.
A painting depicting harana singers in the Philippines. Image courtesy of Max Adlao.
Lemonade also illustrates the complexities and frictions between Filipino American life and the dominant Northeast Asian American culture, while also showcasing the impact of viral Filipino American performers within the broader Asian American musical landscape. The song’s resonance among Asian American youth in the 2000s underscores its significance in shaping a diverse and multifaceted sonic identity.
Nigerian music genres, particularly Afrobeat, have historically sparked social consciousness, with Fela Anikulapo Kuti as a prominent figure. His energetic performances aimed to confront oppressive regimes in Nigeria and beyond, addressing neocolonial influences from Western powers. Despite facing assaults and imprisonment, Fela remained dedicated to his enduring belief that an artist’s role extends beyond entertainment; it includes provoking public thought and raising awareness about social issues. His commitment to these ideals has left a lasting impact on the cultural and political landscape of Nigeria.
Fela remained a steadfast opponent of Nigerian military rulers until his death in 1997. While some musicians have attempted to carry the torch of his activist legacy, few have been able to mobilize a significant following or resonate with the public as he did. Other genres, like Nigerian hip hop, have often faced criticism for promoting misogyny, materialism, and hedonism. In contrast, Fela’s counterculture has evolved into a broader global movement, gaining traction alongside the rising international popularity of Nigerian hip hop, now widely recognized as “Afrobeats.”
Cover art for the 1976 album Zombie, which was a scathing critique of the Nigerian government and military. Listen to the title track Zombie here.
One musician who has taken up this challenge is Falz (Folarin Falana), a dynamic Nigerian artist who combines humor with bold social commentary in his music. Like Fela, he uses his art to spotlight societal issues and foster awareness aimed at inspiring positive change. The son of renowned human rights lawyer Femi Falana and his wife, Funmi Falana, a lawyer and advocate in her own right, Falz initially trained as a lawyer before pursuing music, reminiscent of Fela’s own journey. Gaining fame through humorous social media skits that critique everyday Nigerian life, Falz’s music has evolved to address pressing social problems, urging ordinary Nigerians to recognize their role in perpetuating state repression and to advocate for change.
The Nigerian rapper Falz.
Falz initially garnered attention as a humorist on social media, creating skits that satirize everyday Nigerian life. As his music career progressed, his performances became more impactful, drawing inspiration from Fela both musically and politically. In his songs, Falz tackles pressing social issues in Nigeria and encourages listeners to actively resist and advocate for change. Notably, Falz emphasizes the collective responsibility of ordinary Nigerians, highlighting how the broader populace contributes to the state repression faced by citizens.
This according to “Re-imagining Afrobeat(s): Juxtaposing Fela and Falz’s social commentary and lyrical activism”, by Paul Ayodele Onanuga (African identities 23/3 [2025] 584–603; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2025-1229).
Below are two Falz music videos.
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RILM staff periodically contribute writings to EBSCOpost, a lively blog run by our partners that publishes pieces pertinent to librarianship, higher education, and beyond. Over time, some of these posts are removed, and even those that remain generally recede from view, following the ephemeral nature of much digital content. With 60 years of preserving the world’s writings on music and music-related topics behind us, we are now adding a small rescue project: bringing these blog posts back into circulation. However modest, they help document our history as an organization, and we hope they will continue to resonate with our international readership as well as with any music enthusiast who happens upon them.
The series continues with another short piece by retired RILM editor Jim Cowdery. It relays a little-known (and perhaps surprising) meeting between two very different individuals who shared an interest in music’s ability to evoke powerful emotional responses.
Thakur and Mussolini
Near the end of his visit to Rome in 1933, the Hindustānī vocalist Omkarnath Thakur (1887–1968) received an invitation to dine with Mussolini; Il Duce had caught wind of Thakur’s theories and experiments regarding the inducement of emotional states by rāga performances, and he wanted a demonstration.
After a specially prepared vegetarian dinner, Thakur began with hindolam, which depicts valor. “When I was soaring in the high notes of the rāga,” he later recalled, “Mussolini suddenly said ‘Stop!’ I opened my eyes and found that he was sweating heavily. His face was pink and his eyes looked like burning coals. A few minutes later his visage gained normalcy and he said ‘A good experiment.’”
After Thakur brought him to tears with rāga chayanat, which is meant to depict pathos, Mussolini said, after taking some time to recover, “Very valuable and enlightening demonstration about the power of Indian music.”
Il Duce then returned the favor: Producing his violin, he treated Thakur to works by Paganini and Mozart. Again, both agreed on the music’s power to evoke emotion.
“I could not sleep at all the entire night,” the vocalist recalled, “wondering whether the meeting had really taken place; I thought it was a part of a dream.” The next day, two letters from Mussolini arrived—one thanking him and one appointing him as director of a newly formed university department to study the effect of music on the mind (an appointment that he was unable to accept).
This according to “Omkarnath Thakur & Benito Mussolini” by B.K.V. Sastry (Sruti 163 [April 1998] pp. 19–21; RILM Abstracts 1999-26342).
Although the exact date of this meeting is not recorded, we know that it took place in May 1933—80 years ago this month! Below, Thakur performs rāga bhairavi.
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During the 2000s, various minoritized groups in Brazil achieved unprecedented levels of self-representation and political visibility, attracting increasing attention from mainstream society. Nevertheless, legal recognition of transgender identities remains constrained. In Brazil, transgender individuals can only obtain official recognition of their gender identity upon reaching the age of 18. Moreover, despite the diversity of transgender experiences and identities present in everyday life, state institutions and public policies continue to rely largely on the concept of transsexuality. This framework, inherited from the previous century, tends to define a legitimate transgender person as someone who has undergone–or intends to undergo–some form of bodily modification. Some contemporary works in Brazilian teatra address these issues and the challenges faced by transgender people in everyday life.
Ofélia, a travesti gorda (Ophelia, the fat transsexual, 2018) presents a transgender reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s Ophelia. Through the protagonist’s journey, the play explores how a sense of belonging and self-recognition emerges for a transgender person within a society structured by exclusionary norms. Fat trans individuals experience a form of double marginalization, confronting both cisnormative expectations and dominant ideals of thinness. In this context, the play challenges conventional assumptions about who is entitled to embody certain identities and roles. A thin cisgender boy, for instance, is portrayed as fundamentally unsuited to the role of Ophelia–not only within the fictional universe of the play but also in relation to its broader social commentary. The work advances a radical critique of cisnormativity, framing it as a mechanism of coloniality that regulates bodies, identities, and social belonging. Through a narrative of self-discovery, the dramaturgy traces the social construction of gender while drawing explicit connections between the protagonist’s gender transition and the pressures imposed by beauty standards that privilege thinness.
The Brazilian artist and philosopher Magô Tonhon performs as Ophelia in Ofélia, a travesti gorda. Photo courtesy of Lenise Pinheiro.
Another example is As 3 uiaras de SP City, a play written by trans playwright Ave Terrena Alves and performed by trans actresses Verónica Valenttino and Danna Lisboa. The work stages the struggle for civil rights by proposing a reinterpretation of the past through the lens of issues that continue to affect trans people in contemporary Brazil. Alves suggests that historical forms of exclusion and violence persist in the present, and that meaningful social transformation depends on confronting these enduring legacies. In doing so, As 3 uiaras exposes the racist social structures that sustain the oppressive logic of transphobia, revealing what may be understood as an ethno-cis-centric order. This configuration can be seen as a direct consequence of the colonial foundations of cisnormativity.
The play also invites reflection on the relationship of Christianity and colonialism in Brazil, highlighting how Christian institutions and discourses have historically functioned as mechanisms of domination and social control. This critique is not unique to Alves’s work; the impact of Christian colonialism on Brazilian society has become a recurring theme in the artistic production of prominent Afro-Brazilian trans artists, including Ventura Profana, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro, Alice Guél, and Linn da Quebrada. Through their diverse practices, these artists examine the intersections of race, gender, religion, and coloniality, contributing to broader critiques of normative structures in Brazilian societies.
This according to “Gender in danger: Transdanger people in performing arts in Brazil” by Dodi T.B. Leal (Theatre research international 46/3 [2021] 398–406; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2021-12171).
RILM staff periodically contribute writings to EBSCOpost, a lively blog run by our partners that publishes pieces pertinent to librarianship, higher education, and beyond. Over time, some of these posts are removed, and even those that remain generally recede from view, following the ephemeral nature of much digital content. With 60 years of preserving the world’s writings on music and music-related topics behind us, we are now adding a small rescue project: bringing these blog posts back into circulation. However modest, they help document our history as an organization, and we hope they will continue to resonate with our international readership as well as with any music enthusiast who happens upon them.
Next up is a piece written by editor Jason Lee Oakes that shows how RILM curates a music research experience that is itself quite musical. Focusing on popular music as an example, Oakes notes the importance of relationships (musical and otherwise), the process of finding valuable information (while filtering out what is not needed), and the delicate balance between novelty and familiarity that researchers receive in RILM’s search results.
Mastering the mix: Choosing authentic popular music material for libraries
Long before huge databases of music recordings could be shared and filtered with such efficiency, academic databases like RILM Abstracts of Music Literature developed a similar approach to information about music. Drawing on a “peer-to-peer” network of shared music research, today there are nearly a million records about music in RILM Abstracts of Literature, searchable through the EBSCO interface. But how can searches of this massive database be made as “musical” as possible, quite apart from the content itself? Taking a page from Napster and from other digital music algorithms, how can we best enhance the quality and the impact of information retrieval in academic databases through increased musicality?
A good starting point can be established through a simple observation: Music is defined by relationships. A single note doesn’t mean much in isolation. Even Tuvan and Mongolian throat singers subtly alter timbres/overtones over time to make a “single note” musical. In the broadest possible sense, then, music acquires meaning through how notes are arranged relative to other notes: arranged pitch-wise in relative intervals to form melodies and harmonies; arranged relative to time through structured rhythms, metrical systems, and other temporal modes; and through the relative arrangement of voices and instruments to create compelling timbres and textures. Musical meaning is also found in how humanly organized sounds are used to organize people—acting as a powerful symbol for cultural identity, social belonging, individual uniqueness, and other methods of negotiating human relationships.
Moving from music itself to music scholarship, database search results are usually at their most effective and appealing when a query is posed in relational terms. Taking an inverse example at first, if you search RILM Abstracts for records on “popular music” with Major Topics chosen from EBSCO’s pull-down search menu, more than 82,000 records are returned. The search result isn’t likely to be “effective or appealing” to anyone due to its single-note quality and the lack of focus that results.
But now let’s try turning this into a multi-parameter search. One quick, easy and useful parameter that can be added to the mix is “Full Text”. By clicking the Linked Full Text box on the left side of the screen, only records with attached PDFs are returned, saving the user a trip to the library in the process. At the time of writing, this search returns more than 7,000 entries. It’s still a large number, but a lot less than 82,000 and the content is just a click away.
From here it’s easy to take more steps to get a more “musical” search result by throwing more parameters, and thus a broader array of relationships, into the mix. Adding an EBSCO Subject parameter to the parameters already chosen, the search is narrowed to records where the chosen word or phrase appears in RILM Abstract’s indexing for a given record. For instance, choosing “heavy metal” as the subject returns around 100 full-text citations, a much more manageable number than 7,000.
Most important of all, the results are musical. They strike a useful balance between uniformity and diversity, a balance likewise found in music that strikes an aesthetically appealing balance between repetition and variation. While all the records in the dataset are uniform in addressing heavy metal directly and thoroughly, there’s a good bit of variation otherwise: spanning writings that examine “metal studies” as an academic field, sonic traits of drone metal in light of genre theory, the sociology of Caribbean heavy metal scenes, and perceptions of sexuality and gender around female metal fans, among many other topics.
From EBSCO to Excite, the ultimate goal of most search engines is to return a good mix of results. This helps explain the shift from the directory model of first-wave search engines like Yahoo Directory to the second wave of webcrawler search engines (Google most famously) that utilized algorithms to locate sites, collect metadata and build an index. I would submit that the latter won public favor due to two main factors: it was more likely to deliver exactly the results the user was looking for (indexes are more granular than top-down categories); and it was more likely to return unexpected results.
Needless to say, random and irrelevant results are not widely desired. They are equivalent to “wrong notes” in a melody and just about as popular. Instead, results that provide a novel yet purposeful perspective on a query are often the most impactful—like the surprising yet logical-after-the-fact twist in a melody that serves as the “hook”. Returning to the example of Napster, it hooked users not just because it found the music they already knew they wanted, but also because they ended up discovering new and unfamiliar music they went on to fall in love with—often by searching laterally through a given user’s music collection. This mix of the familiar and the novel is a sure-fire formula for a successful search interface.
With this in mind, the digital-age database manager must work to be a master of the mix—all the more so when it comes to popular music studies and other interdisciplinary fields. The popular music researcher is sure to need materials published in non-music journals and publications. What’s more, she is likely to seek out other important data strewn across magazines and fanzines, posted on blogs and other websites, and located across a range of other non-traditional sources. To accommodate their needs, RILM has been seeking out and compiling more of these “outside the box” materials, curated for potential use value as primary or secondary data.
Given the risk of information overload that comes with the widening and the blurring of traditional boundaries, effective curation becomes all the more important. Approaching a database from a musical point of view offers a step in the right direction. Editors at RILM and at other databases are increasingly placed in the role of “record collectors” who don’t just “collect” but who also filter, organize, and interpret the data we collect. Like the crate-digging DJ, we dedicate ourselves to digging for data and creatively integrating new materials. This DJ mindset also highlights the necessity of working across various old and new media and of delving into unexplored spaces to find hidden gems.
The Alash Ensemble sings “Ediski deg boostaamny” (My throat, the cuckoo), an old Tuvan tune re-worked by the group that compares the singer’s voice to birds. It exemplifies the manifold sonic and interpersonal relationships on which musicality depends.
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Asha Bhosle and her sister Lata Mangeshkar stand as the undisputed leading voices of Bollywood film music. Across decades of cinema, both singers built extraordinary careers, contributing to thousands of film soundtracks and shaping the sound of Indian popular culture. Asha Bhosle, celebrated for her versatility and high‑energy performances, became a household name across generations in India. Her collaborations brought her international recognition, further expanding her global appeal. Over her prolific career, she earned two Grammy nominations and received India’s highest artistic honor, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, as well as the Padma Vibhushan, the nation’s second‑highest civilian award.
In the Indian film industry, playback singing refers to the practice of recording film songs in advance and then synchronizing them with actors on screen. Professional singers record the tracks, which are later inserted into the soundtrack while the actors lip-sync to them in the film. During shooting, the recorded song is played back over loudspeakers so the performers can match their timing, which is how the term “playback” originated. This method emerged in the late 1930s, once film technology made it possible to record sound separately from the image. Before that, actors and actresses had to sing their own songs while filming.
Asha Bhosle (left) and Lata Mangeshkar. (Photo courtesy of Britanica.com)
Since the late 1940s, Bhosle has been acclaimed as a playback singer, recording an unparalleled range of songs across genres and languages. Her vast body of work earned her a Guinness World Record for the most studio recordings by any artist. Known for a vocal style that was flirtatious, rhythmically bold, and refreshingly modern, she broke from traditional playback conventions and connected with a younger, more cosmopolitan audience. Alongside Lata Mangeshkar, she has also performed extensively around the world, leaving an enduring legacy in Indian music.
Asha Bhosle passed away on 12 April 2026.
This according to the entry on “Women and music” by Jennifer C. Post in The Garland encyclopedia of world music. South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent (2013). Find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias.
The first image of the post is of Asha performing in 1966, courtesy of Britannica.com
RILM staff periodically contribute writings to EBSCOpost, a lively blog run by our partners that publishes pieces pertinent to librarianship, higher education, and beyond. Over time, some of these posts are removed, and even those that remain generally recede from view, following the ephemeral nature of much digital content. With 60 years of preserving the world’s writings on music and music-related topics behind us, we are now adding a small rescue project: bringing these blog posts back into circulation. However modest, they help document our history as an organization, and we hope they will continue to resonate with our international readership as well as with any music enthusiast who happens upon them.
We follow up an inquiry into What is musicology? with a piece written by Executive Director Tina Frühauf that inspects how music education is conceived and practiced across cultures and time periods, as well as its establishment as a discipline, modern institutionalization, and more.
What is music pedagogy? Universality of education in sound and sound in education
Learning music is as old as music-making itself, tracing back to the earliest times of civilization, that is prehistory. Since then, the world’s cultures have developed different systems of teaching and learning – one may think of maguru panggul, literally, “teaching with the mallet” in Bali and Java; or the system of the Xhosa in Ngqoko, South Africa, which is based on the progression incentive–songs–techniques–terminology. Master–apprentice approaches have been common in many cultures around the globe and throughout history, from the troubadours to the guru-śiṣyaparamparā tradition in India to the Bach family. But as a field of study, music education has only been established in later modernity and it was not until the 20th century that it moved towards becoming a discipline in its own right: music pedagogy.
In its broader sense, music pedagogy refers to all practical, application-oriented, as well as scholarly efforts aimed at teaching and instruction. The tasks of music pedagogy focus on ability, knowledge, experience, understanding, and interpretation in all areas of music. As such music pedagogy includes the related concepts of music education, didactics, teaching, and instruction in music, although their distinctions are neither clear nor consensual.
In its narrower sense, music pedagogy has come to refer to the scholarly reflection of and theory formation within all its fields. Systematic music pedagogy thus provides the practical, applied areas with a theoretical basis for their actions and reflects on aesthetic, psychological, and sociological questions on the meaning and effect of music and on the reception of art in the most diverse forms of music. As such it serves artistic, scholarly, and didactic practice.
With music pedagogy’s evolution in the 20th century, many distinctive approaches further developed or received refinement and new methods came to the fore. Among them, the Kodály method named after Hungary’s charismatic composer and pedagogue, eurhythmics developed by the Swiss musician and educator Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, the Schulwerk of Carl Orff in Germany and the Suzuki method created by the Japanese violinist and pedagogue.
Paralleling its establishment as an independent discipline, the institutionalization of music pedagogy began as well. Aside from its place in the academy, music university or college, and school, music education also takes place in individualized, lifelong learning and community contexts. Both amateur and professional musicians typically take music lessons, short private sessions with an individual teacher. In all these diverse efforts and approaches, all share the goal to educate people how to produce organized sound, make and transmit music, and do it well.
RILM abstracts and indexes music pedagogy topics, representing as many countries and languages as possible. RILM also offers a selection of music-pedagogy journals in full text, which you can explore at https://www.rilm.org/abstracts/.
Above: Phnom Penh, Cambodia. 2002. Ek Son (top left), one of the first four masters hired to teach for the Cambodian Master Performers Program in 1999, along with students, including sisters Yim Chanthy playing kloy (bamboo flute) and Yim Poukunthy playing takhe (behind Chanthy in white shirt); below, an excerpt from Music für Kinder (Music for children), Orff and Keetman’s own realizations of the Schulwerk material.
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Afrobeat, hip hop, and Nigerian activism
Nigerian music genres, particularly Afrobeat, have historically sparked social consciousness, with Fela Anikulapo Kuti as a prominent figure. His energetic performances aimed to confront oppressive regimes in Nigeria and beyond, addressing neocolonial influences from Western powers. Despite facing assaults and imprisonment, Fela remained dedicated to his enduring belief that an artist’s role extends beyond entertainment; it includes provoking public thought and raising awareness about social issues. His commitment to these ideals has left a lasting impact on the cultural and political landscape of Nigeria.
Fela remained a steadfast opponent of Nigerian military rulers until his death in 1997. While some musicians have attempted to carry the torch of his activist legacy, few have been able to mobilize a significant following or resonate with the public as he did. Other genres, like Nigerian hip hop, have often faced criticism for promoting misogyny, materialism, and hedonism. In contrast, Fela’s counterculture has evolved into a broader global movement, gaining traction alongside the rising international popularity of Nigerian hip hop, now widely recognized as “Afrobeats.”
One musician who has taken up this challenge is Falz (Folarin Falana), a dynamic Nigerian artist who combines humor with bold social commentary in his music. Like Fela, he uses his art to spotlight societal issues and foster awareness aimed at inspiring positive change. The son of renowned human rights lawyer Femi Falana and his wife, Funmi Falana, a lawyer and advocate in her own right, Falz initially trained as a lawyer before pursuing music, reminiscent of Fela’s own journey. Gaining fame through humorous social media skits that critique everyday Nigerian life, Falz’s music has evolved to address pressing social problems, urging ordinary Nigerians to recognize their role in perpetuating state repression and to advocate for change.
Falz initially garnered attention as a humorist on social media, creating skits that satirize everyday Nigerian life. As his music career progressed, his performances became more impactful, drawing inspiration from Fela both musically and politically. In his songs, Falz tackles pressing social issues in Nigeria and encourages listeners to actively resist and advocate for change. Notably, Falz emphasizes the collective responsibility of ordinary Nigerians, highlighting how the broader populace contributes to the state repression faced by citizens.
This according to “Re-imagining Afrobeat(s): Juxtaposing Fela and Falz’s social commentary and lyrical activism”, by Paul Ayodele Onanuga (African identities 23/3 [2025] 584–603; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2025-1229).
Below are two Falz music videos.
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Filed under Africa, Performers, Politics, Popular music
Tagged as Africa, Afrobeat, Hip hop, Hip hop music, Humor, Nigeria, Politics, Rap music, social commentary