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Atlantic Sounds: Ships and Sailortowns > Colloquia > Colloquium 2 - Falmouth, 14 June 2013

Colloquium 2 - Falmouth, 14 June 2013

Colloquium 2: Music, Heritage, Regeneration, Tourism

National Maritime Museum, Falmouth; Friday 14th June 2013

Music is a defining feature of maritime tradition. In addition to the working music of sea shanties, and the impromptu foo foo bands on board ships, musical performances on passenger liners were a critical medium through which to promote new, popular compositions. Historically, music has played an important role in transatlantic tourism, both as entertainment on board cruise ships and liners and in destination towns and cities, often acting as the prime impetus for making the journey. This topic remains relatively underdeveloped in academia, to the extent that a 2005 publication (Gibson and Connell’s Music and Tourism: On the Road Again) purports to be ‘the first book to comprehensively examine the links between travel and music’. Similarly, the recent regeneration of many UK port areas and associated attempts to connect the public with maritime heritage might prompt consideration of the role of music in the (re-) development of sailortowns on both sides of the Atlantic as contemporary tourist destinations, but yet Day and Lunn report a lack of critical engagement with maritime music in heritage studies (2003). For museums and heritage organisations, music provides an effective way to engage visitors with maritime history, through festivals and performance. However, collecting and interpreting this intangible heritage and ephemera proves more challenging and, as a result, the musical dimension of seafaring and shipping history remains under-represented within galleries and exhibitions.  

Programme

In this second colloquium of the ‘Atlantic Sounds’ project, we will consider the role of music in maritime heritage, regeneration and tourism and the challenges and opportunities that music offers to maritime museums and heritage organisations. We hope that the colloquium will enable the sharing of ideas and good practice.

10am-noon Remembering Maritime Music - oral history drop-in session
  • Are you interested in maritime music?
  • Do you have memories of the maritime folk music revival since the 1960s?
  • Do you have views about the role music can play in maritime history and heritage?
If so, we'd like to talk to you! Please drop in any time during the morning, no need to book.
 
2pm Music, Culture and Maritime Regeneration Panel Discussion - including David Prior, Associate Professor for Music and Sound Art, University of Falmouth and Richard Gates, Falmouth Town Manager
 
3pm Shanty Singing Panel Discussion – including representatives from the Wareham Whalers, Shake a Leg and the Exmouth Shantymen
 
4pm International Keynote Lecture – ‘The Contribution of Liberian Kru Seamen to the Development of Early West/Central African Popular Music' - Professor John Collins, University of Ghana and BAPMAF African Music Archives
 
Abstract
There are a number of current African urban popular music styles that involve a  distinct  form of African guitar playing  that was first pioneered by Liberian Kru sailors  who worked onboard  sailing ships  and steamers in the 19th century. In pre-colonial times these coastal Liberian people had been long distance canoe fishermen  and so their sea-faring   qualities were appreciated onboard European and American  ship plying the Atlantic. Cultural blending  took place on the high seas  and ports of call,  which resulted in the  Kru  making significant  contributions to African popular culture.  They developed an early form of Pidgin English and created  the African ‘Mammy Water’ mermaid cult. This presentation  focuses on the musical legacy  of the Kru who blended  African music with the sea-shanties of sailors played on banjos, mandolins, concertinas, harmonicas,  penny whistles and most importantly the guitar. Besides criss-crossing the Atlantic these cosmopolitan African  mariners also established Krutown settlements in many major port-towns on the Atlantic seaboard of Africa. There they introduced their distinct  two finger guitar picking style to the local people – who absorbed  this into  their various regional   forms of emerging  African popular music. In the presentation these will also be discussed -  and they include Ghanaian Highlife, Nigerian Juju-music, Sierra Leonian Maringa, Cameroonian Makossa and Congolese  Soukous.   
 
5pm Atlantic Sounds Lecture - 'Music and the Sea' (illustrated with recordings) - Dr Catherine Tackley, principal investigator of the Atlantic Sounds project

6.30pm Why not stay around for the opening of the Falmouth International Sea Shanty Festival? We are delighted to be supporting the Festival by sponsoring a performance by Shake a Leg at Events Square, just outside the Museum, at 7pm.

Venue

This event will take place at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, Cornwall. It has been timed to coincide with Falmouth International Sea Shanty Festival, which takes place from 14-16 June 2013.  www.falmouthseashanty.co.uk

Keynote

We are delighted to welcome the musicologist Professor John Collins from the University of Ghana as international keynote speaker for this colloquium.  Professor Collins' biography can be found at www.bapmaf.com/biography

Accommodation

We recommend The Falmouth Hotel:

The Falmouth Hotel
Castle Beach
Falmouth
Cornwall
TR11 4NZ
Website: www.falmouthhotel.com

Reservations: 0800 005 22 44
Enquiries: 01326 312671
Email: reservations@richardsonhotels.co.uk