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silpayamanant.bsky.social
Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท
@silpayamanant.bsky.social
2.7K followers 150 following 580 posts
Intercultural & Southeast Asian Music Researcher, Composer, Educator. Founder Saw Peep Intercultural Orchestra. Host of BBC "World of Classical." he/him 🖤 🩶🤍💜
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silpayamanant.bsky.social
Something I always keep in mind, especially as this was my experience as a young student and a reason I founded the Saw Peep Pan-Asian Ensemble and Global Cello projects!

p105 of Lucy Green's "Popular music education in and for itself, and for ‘other’ music" doi.org/10.1177/0255...
"For children of school age, not only does „popular music‟ change every few weeks, but there is evidence that some pupils conceal their „real‟ musical tastes when at school, in favour of appearing to be a part of the mass mediated music of the Top 40. This may be particularly so in the case of children from minority cultures.2 It is therefore reasonable to suggest that mass music provides a „safe‟, if not always authentic, cultural space which pupils can inhabit, and behind which they can conceal private cultural identities." From page 105 of Lucy Green's "Popular music education in and for itself, and for ‘other’ music: current research in the classroom" https://doi.org/10.1177/0255761406065471
February 7, 2026 at 3:39 PM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
Joshua Han's 2026 "On the politics of 'music theory' and the implications of its importation into research on music and meaning"

Open access here: doi.org/10.1515/jwl-...
February 6, 2026 at 7:15 PM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
Currently working on a database and resource page for solo cello works by women composers. I'm still in the A's but already have 60 works by 30 composers. This may take a while! 😆
February 6, 2026 at 5:46 AM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
I've almost doubled the number of entries in the music notation timeline this year alone--and it's hard to believe that in a year this resource will have been online for a decade!

silpayamanant.wordpress.com/timeline-of-...
February 1, 2026 at 6:16 PM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
Seen in a comment in the music theory group. Lot's to be said about the whole post, but the highlighted part is one of the many reasons I refer to these communities as "safe spaces for colonialist harmony"-as if the entire body of music theoretical works deals only with [invariably Western] harmony.
January 3, 2026 at 1:57 AM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
*Phew* I haven't read something like this since the last time I read an 18th/19th century European music history/theory treatise.

JK--this is a pretty common sentiment at this (and other) online music theory forums and I come across this daily.

www.facebook.com/groups/87619...
Image text: "Vasiliy Antipov Experience shows that whenever a post like this is published in a group, a certain type of “progressive” immediately rushes in and begins asking, with feigned astonishment, something along the lines of: “But what about the drumming of a savage or a cannibal on a tambourine — why isn’t that included here on an equal footing with Western European music?” And here comes their other favorite trick: they will seriously pretend that there exists yet another “layer of musical culture” — say, cannibals jumping around a fire — and on that basis declare Kharlap’s observations irrelevant, outdated, or biased. And you won’t even be able to tell them the obvious truth: that, at this point in history, Western European civilization has produced the most powerful and the most relevant body of musical culture. The moment you say that, you will instantly be accused of supremacism. Such is one of the characteristic pathologies of contemporary society."
December 28, 2025 at 10:54 AM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
Saw Peep is halfway through its COLLIDER Residency and I've been enjoying the smaller talks given in the studio as much as the big workshops we've given.

Pics from the Shadow Puppet workshop (12/14), Asian Fiddles (12/13) and Music Notations of Asia (12/10) presentations!

www.lfpl.org/collider
December 17, 2025 at 5:49 PM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
I know, I probably shouldn't bother. 😑

Comment here: www.facebook.com/groups/87619...
Image text: "Chad Grimes Shortcomings?????? Then you would know that African, Indian, Asian, and Afro-Cuban has a long history of NO notation! Western history of music went out of their way to further develop a music notation system and actually have a system that every style of music in the world can notate their styles. Musicians in western style of music have spent their entire lives learning and appreciating all styles of music. Way more than Asian and Indian music history is learning western!" Jon Silpayamanant Chad Grimes Here's a timeline of over 1800 entries documenting the long history of nearly 5000 years of "No notation" in "African, Indian, Asian, and Afro-Cuban." https://silpayamanant.wordpress.com/timeline-of-music-notation/ "
November 28, 2025 at 6:57 PM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
"As I'm compiling a bibliography of primary sources about orchestras and ensembles of enslaved musicians I've decided to map their locations."

silpayamanant.wordpress.com/2025/10/25/m...
October 25, 2025 at 12:31 PM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
I keep forgetting to post on the micro-platforms. Here's the beginnings of a South Asian Music Theory & Treatises Bibliography I started last summer. Eventually I would like to include info and links to translations as well.

silpayamanant.wordpress.com/south-asian-...
October 24, 2025 at 10:40 PM
Reposted by Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท
sawpeep.bsky.social
Raqs Maqom: Dances & Music of Central & West Asia

Sun-Oct 19-2PM
World Affairs Council Lobby
223 S 5th St, Louisville

Free-limited seating; RSVP: worldaffairscouncilofkentucky-bloom.kindful.com/e/see-paw-ra...

Raqs Maqom: collaboration between Crescent Moon Dance Co. & Saw Peep Pan-Asian Ensemble
September 28, 2025 at 4:28 AM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
Always makes me chuckle when r/musictheory mods just refer folks to r/GlobalMusicTheory. 😅

www.reddit.com/r/musictheor...
September 9, 2025 at 5:14 AM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
Some of my more scholarly work is contributing to the expansion of string pedagogy in surprising ways. Esteban Hernández Parra's recent dissertation "Resuena Abya Yala: Otherwise Practices in Bowed Strings Learning and Performance" cites 1 of my pieces abt slave orchestras!
hdl.handle.net/2022/33684
Image text: 'This is what cellist and researcher Jon Silpayamanant (2020) describes as “how Imperialism and the Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific slave trade enriched European countries to the point that they could afford to create a music ecosystem with large scale and expensive orchestras, operas, and ballet companies which might not have emerged absent those conditions”'
September 5, 2025 at 2:35 AM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
“[T]he evolution of the orchestra was brought to a standstill”

silpayamanant.wordpress.com/2025/08/28/t...
“[T]he evolution of the orchestra was brought to a standstill”
“There is a landmark moment in which the evolution of the orchestra was brought to a standstill.” William Bolcom wrote in his 2013 “The Future of the Orchestra.”1 Later in t…
silpayamanant.wordpress.com
August 28, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Reposted by Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท
sawpeep.bsky.social
Next Friday, Aug 29, we'll be at the World Affairs Council's inaugural WorldFest Kick-Off Reception. We hear it's already sold out, but you can come see us at WorldFest mainstage on Saturday at 3-4pm!

www.sawpeep.com/events/ @silpayamanant.bsky.social @divyakrthk.bsky.social
August 24, 2025 at 4:02 AM
Reposted by Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท
globalmusnotation.bsky.social
Examples of bird songs from Simeon Pease Cheney's 1892 "Wood Notes Wild: Notations of Bird Music" (Cheney died in 1890, so this was published posthumously).

Images are from pages 39, 94, and 101. Cheney's book is downloadable here: archive.org/details/wood...
August 24, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Reposted by Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท
globalmusnotation.bsky.social
200+ more entries added to the Timeline of Music Notation since the last update. 1700+ entries total now!

silpayamanant.wordpress.com/timeline-of-...

A number of Korean notations; systems for animal songs (esp. for birds/whales); accordion/free reed tabs; & some dutar/fiddle/folk instr. tabs.
August 24, 2025 at 3:48 AM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
Love how the implication here is that there are "non-ethnic" instruments. It's the classic way to normalize supraethnic/macro-ethnic (e.g. Western/European instruments) phenomena as neutral and/or universal.

www.reddit.com/r/composer/c...
From the composer community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the composer community
www.reddit.com
July 29, 2025 at 2:57 AM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
Open Access here: escholarship.org/uc/item/64k2...

"Historical evidence suggests that the fiddle may be one of the oldest uninterrupted instrumental traditions in African American culture, yet most people in the United States, including African Americans, do not identify it with Black music"
July 23, 2025 at 3:47 AM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
I guess we'll be hearing more from Timothy Jackson and the Journal of Schenkerian Studies going forward...
July 22, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Reposted by Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท
globalmusnotation.bsky.social
"Score-type notation of Maibataraki made by an amateur musician, Tazaki Enjirō. Ōtsuzumi in blue, kotsuzumi in red, taiko in green and red, and the chanting text and nohkan’s shōga in black from right to left in a column."

noh.stanford.edu/music/notati...
"Score-type notation of Maibataraki made by an amateur musician, Tazaki Enjirō. Ōtsuzumi in blue, kotsuzumi in red, taiko in green and red, and the chanting text and nohkan’s shōga in black from right to left in a column." https://noh.stanford.edu/music/notation/
July 21, 2025 at 4:57 PM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
Just added another 50+ entries to the Timeline of Music Notation the past couple of days which brings the total to over 1300 entries.

silpayamanant.wordpress.com/timeline-of-...
Timeline of Music Notation
Jon Silpayamanant DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.22723760 Link: silpayamanant.wordpress.com/timeline-of-music-notation PUBLISHED 2/4/2017; UPDATED 7/12/2025; (1345 entries) INTRODUCTIONTIMELINEBCE Music …
silpayamanant.wordpress.com
July 12, 2025 at 3:05 PM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
@kcommons.bsky.social
How do we login into our hcommons profile if the only login method was via twitter?
July 8, 2025 at 1:10 PM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
Listening to some Raag Malkauns to calm after the earlier barrage of sound...

www.chandraveena.com/blog/r25-mal...
Chandraveena | Raga Malkauns - The Calming Melody
Raga Malkauns is one of the oldest Ragas in Indian Classical Music. It is considered as one of the six principal Ragas in the Raga - Ragini classification of Ragas in Indian Classical Music.
www.chandraveena.com
July 5, 2025 at 4:52 AM
silpayamanant.bsky.social
From Mark Slobin's 1993 "Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West" (page 30)

archive.org/details/subc...
www.weslpress.org/978081956261...
"Erasure is implicit in the unsung melodies of a hundred micromusics, missing from the classrooms of Euro-America. Like the lack of one's language, the absence of familiar music sends a clear supercultural signal to children. Stereotypes blossom everywhere, often as a part of officially sponsored cultural pluralism. American school music books, have tended to include songs from a variety of "homelands," each item brand-naming whatever subculture is depicted." Mark Slobin "Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West" (1993; page 30) https://archive.org/details/subculturalsound00slob https://www.weslpress.org/9780819562616/subcultural-sounds/
June 29, 2025 at 1:38 PM