CAML Review / Revue de l'ACBM (Canadian Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres / Association canadienne des bibliothèques, archives et centres de documentation musicaux)

Johnston, Lucinda

 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER /DÉCEMBRE 2023) PAGE 3 
Message from the President / Message du présidente 
 
 
 
Dear CAML Members, 
At the time you are reading this, it will be 
December, a long time from our annual 
conference and AGM in May!! (Though oddly, 
the weather may not be all that 
different…there was a snowstorm in Quebec 
City the day before the CAML conference 
started!) Regardless of where you are, and 
what the weather is, I hope you have all been 
safe, healthy, and at least somewhat 
productive in the last 6 months. 
Our 2023 conference and AGM, held May 19 
and 20, was part of a larger congress of 
Canadian music societies, hosted at Laval 
University in Quebec City, to celebrate the 
100th anniversary of Laval's School of Music. 
We had our share of technical difficulties, but 
with some perseverance (in person) and a lot 
of patience (online), we successfully held our 
first ever hybrid conference! This was also the 
first time that members of our community 
were able to meet in person since 2019 (at 
UBC), and much joyful dining and ice cream 
was partaken of! 
The Board has met 2 times since our AGM, per 
its regular schedule: a post-conference 
meeting, from which a few improvement 
actions were noted (particularly regarding 
future hybrid conferences); and the fall Board 
meeting. One major activity of the board is to 
address the revision of some of our bylaws 
(especially the section relating to committees, 
as mandated at the AGM). 
 Cher·ère·s membres de l’ACBM, 
Au moment où vous lisez ce message, nous serons en 
décembre, bien loin de notre conférence annuelle et 
de notre AGA en mai!! (Curieusement, le temps n’est 
peut-être pas si différent… il y a eu une tempête de 
neige à Québec la veille du début de la conférence de 
l’ACBM!) Peu importe où vous êtes et la météo, 
j’espère que vous avez tous été en sécurité, en santé 
et au moins quelque peu productifs au cours des six 
derniers mois. 
Notre conférence et notre AGA de 2023, qui ont eu 
lieu les 19 et 20 mai, faisaient partie d’un congrès 
plus vaste des sociétés de musique canadiennes, 
organisé par l’Université Laval à Québec, pour 
célébrer le 100e anniversaire de sa Faculté de 
musique. Nous avons eu notre part de difficultés 
techniques, mais avec un peu de persévérance (en 
personne) et beaucoup de patience (en ligne), nous 
avons tenu avec succès notre toute première 
conférence hybride! C’était aussi la première fois que 
les membres de notre communauté pouvaient se 
rencontrer en personne depuis 2019 (à l’Université 
de la Colombie-Britannique), et beaucoup de repas 
et de crème glacée ont été appréciés!  
Le Conseil s’est réuni deux fois depuis notre AGA, 
conformément à son calendrier habituel : une 
réunion après la conférence, à partir de laquelle 
quelques mesures d’amélioration ont été notées (en 
particulier en ce qui concerne les futures conférences 
hybrides) et la réunion d’automne du Conseil. L’une 
des principales activités du Conseil consiste à 
examiner la révision de certains de nos règlements 
(en particulier la section relative aux comités, 
conformément au mandat de l’AGA). 
 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER /DÉCEMBRE 2023) PAGE 4 
Also as mandated at our AGM, the CAML 
Board sent out a survey to members during 
the month of August, to receive direction for 
planning future annual conferences. We sent 
the survey results out September, but very 
briefly: 
We received 34 responses (47% member 
response rate). 
General preferences for conference format 
and participation in Congress are as follows: 
Preference for the conference format: 
 64% supported hybrid only 
 18% did not have a preference 
 9% preferred in-person only 
 9% preferred virtual only 
 Support for alternating conferences 
every year between hybrid and virtual 
 73% supported alternating every year 
between hybrid and virtual 
conferences 
 18% were unsure if they would 
support this 
 9% would not support this 
Preference for participating in the Congress of 
the Humanities and Social Sciences: 
 43% did not have a preference 
whether we participated in congress 
or not 
 33% preferred to participate in 
Congress periodically 
 15% preferred not to participate in 
Congress 
 9% preferred to participate in 
Congress as much as possible 
Additional responses: 
 Respondents cited equity, accessibility, 
dwindling institutional funding, and 
De plus, conformément à notre AGA, le Conseil 
d’administration de l’ACBM a envoyé un sondage aux 
membres au cours du mois d’août afin de recevoir 
des directives pour la planification des futures 
conférences annuelles. Nous avons envoyé les 
résultats du sondage en septembre, mais très 
brièvement : 
Nous avons reçu 34 réponses (taux de réponse des 
membres de 47 %). 
Les préférences générales pour le format de la 
conférence et la participation au Congrès sont les 
suivantes : 
Préférence pour le format de la conférence : 
 64 % étaient en faveur de l’hybride 
seulement  
 18 % n’avaient pas de preference. 
 9 % préfèrent en personne seulement. 
 9 % preferent le virtuel seulement. 
 Soutien à l’alternance de conférences chaque 
année entre hybrides et virtuelles  
 73 % ont soutenu l’alternance chaque année 
entre conférences hybrides et virtuelles. 
 18 % ne savaient pas s’ils appuieraient cela. 
 9 % n’appuieraient pas cela. 
Préférence pour participer au Congrès des sciences 
humaines : 
 43 % n’avaient pas de préférence que nous 
participions ou non au Congrès. 
 33 % préfèrent participer périodiquement au 
Congrès. 
 15 % préfèrent ne pas participer au Congrès. 
 9 % préfèrent participer au Congrès autant 
que possible.  
Réponses supplémentaires : 
 Les répondant·e·s ont cité l’équité, 
l’accessibilité, la diminution du financement 
institutionnel et les changements climatiques 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER /DÉCEMBRE 2023) PAGE 5 
climate change as reasons for 
preferring hybrid/virtual conferences 
as much as possible 
 Many acknowledged the advantages 
to being able to meet colleagues in 
person for fostering community. 
 We were reminded that it is important 
to have dedicated technology 
assistants moving forward. 
 
The Board has determined that it makes sense 
to move forward with an alternating schedule 
of virtual/hybrid conferences, recognizing that 
it does not have to be a strict 1:1 ratio, 
depending on opportunities that may present 
themselves each year. We will plan to 
participate in Congress at least periodically. 
In the coming months, the Board will be 
sending out another survey to CAML members 
to find out their preferences for CAML's 
membership in various societies, and we will 
share the results with you as well. As well, 
watch for messaging regarding our conference 
and AGM being held next year at McGill 
University in Montreal, from June 12 to 21, 
2024. Please note that CAML's conference 
dates are June 12 and 13.  
I was very excited to attend the IAML 
conference held in Cambridge last August, but 
unfortunately, once there, I was immediately 
struck down with covid, so was only able to 
attend one day's worth of presentations! 
However, fortunately for all of us, we had 
many members who attended and presented, 
including Jan Guise, Houman Behzadi, Katie 
Lai, Sean Luyk, Brian McMillan, Katherine 
Penner and Marc Stoeckle. (I sure hope I did 
not overlook anyone!) 
comme raisons de préférer autant que 
possible les conférences hybrides/virtuelles. 
 Beaucoup ont reconnu les avantages de 
pouvoir rencontrer des collègues en 
personne pour favoriser la communauté.  
 On nous a rappelé qu’il est important d’avoir 
des assistant·e·s technologiques dédié·e·s à 
l’avenir.   
 
Le Conseil a déterminé qu’il est logique d’aller de 
l’avant avec un calendrier alterné de conférences 
virtuelles/hybrides, reconnaissant qu’il n’est pas 
nécessaire d’avoir un ratio strict de 1:1, selon les 
occasions qui peuvent se présenter chaque année. 
Nous prévoyons de participer au Congrès au moins 
périodiquement. 
Au cours des prochains mois, le Conseil enverra un 
autre sondage aux membres de l’ACBM pour 
connaître leurs préférences quant à l’adhésion de 
l’ACBM à diverses sociétés, et nous partagerons 
également les résultats avec vous. De plus, surveillez 
les messages concernant notre conférence et notre 
AGA qui auront lieu l’an prochain les 12 et 13 juin à 
l’Université McGill à Montréal, dans le cadre du 
Congrès 2024 (du 12 au 21 juin).   
J’étais très excité d’assister au Congrès de l’AIBM à 
Cambridge en août dernier, mais malheureusement, 
une fois sur place, j’ai été immédiatement frappé par 
la Covid, donc j’ai seulement pu assister à une 
journée de présentations! Cependant, heureusement 
pour nous tous, nous avons eu de nombreux·ses 
membres qui ont assisté et présenté, y compris Jan 
Guise, Houman Behzadi, Katie Lai, Sean Luyk, Brian 
McMillan, Katherine Penner et Marc Stoeckle. 
(J’espère que je n’ai oublié personne!) 
 
 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER /DÉCEMBRE 2023) PAGE 6 
I would also like to acknowledge and 
congratulate Jan Guise on her election to the 
IAML Board as one of four Vice-Presidents, 
and Houman Behzadi, who is chairing IAML's 
Advocacy Committee. As well, a warm 
welcome and congratulations to Kyra Folk-
Farber, Associate Dean of Library & Learning 
Resources at California State University 
Channel Islands, on her recent appointment as 
Co-Lead Editor (with Carolyn Doi) of CAML 
Review. 
And so, as we usher in the new year, I wish 
you all a warm, fun-filled holiday season, with 
best wishes for 2024; and will let one of my 
favourite composers (Irving Berlin) have the 
last word… 
Happy holiday (happy holiday), Happy holiday 
(happy holiday) 
While the merry bells keep ringing, Happy 
holiday to you (happy holiday!!) 
 
Lucinda Johnston 
CAML President (2023-2025) 
University of Alberta Library 
lucinda.johnston@ualberta.ca 
 
Je tiens à féliciter Jan Guise pour son élection au 
Conseil de l’AIBM en tant que l’un·e des quatre vice-
président·e·s, et Houman Behzadi, qui préside le 
Comité de défense des intérêts et de représentation 
de l’AIBM. Je souhaite également la bienvenue à Kyra 
Folk-Farber, vice-doyenne de la bibliothèque et des 
ressources d’apprentissage à la California State 
University Channel Islands, et je la félicite pour sa 
récente nomination à titre de co-rédactrice en chef 
(avec Carolyn Doi) de la Revue de l’ACBM. 
Alors que nous entamons la nouvelle année, je vous 
souhaite à tous une période des Fêtes chaleureuse et 
amusante, avec mes meilleurs vœux pour 2024; et je 
laisserai un de mes compositeurs préférés (Irving 
Berlin) avoir le dernier mot… 
Happy holiday (happy holiday), Happy holiday (happy 
holiday) 
While the merry bells keep ringing, Happy holiday to 
you (happy holiday!!) 
 
Lucinda Johnston 
Présidente de l’ACBM (2023–2025) 
Bibliothèque de l’Université de l’Alberta 
lucinda.johnston@ualberta.ca 
 
   
 


English

Message du présidente

Doi, Carolyn

Hare, Maddie

 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 1 (JUNE /JUIN 2023)  PAGE 9 
Spotlight on Music Collections: “Freedom to Improvise: What the Paul 
Cram fonds Taught Me About Creativity and Archival Research” 
 
In this edition of Spotlight on Music Collections, practicum student Madelaine Hare describes her 
work experience with the multimedia-rich Paul Cram Fonds in the Dalhousie Archives. She speaks to 
the challenges of working with archival description and draws parallels between approaches to 
archival research and the free jazz genre.  
Spotlight on Music Collections aims to profile interesting or unique music collections and archives in 
Canada through the voices of those who work with them. If you have a suggestion for a collection or 
individual to be featured in a future edition of this column, please email: camlreview@caml-
acbm.org. 
 
 
Can you introduce yourself, your background, and how you came to work in the 
Dalhousie Archives?  
As a student in Dalhousie University's Master of Information program, I had been looking forward 
to the workplace practicum component of the degree (a work-integrated learning opportunity) 
since, well, before I applied. I completed my Master of Arts at Dalhousie before starting the 
program and dreamt of working in the Archives that are situated on the fifth floor of the Killam 
Memorial Library. Upon being placed at the Dalhousie Archives for a three-week period, I 
anticipated my spring 2022 start date with nothing less than absolute enthusiasm. A winter term 
class on Archives held in the Nova Scotia Archives familiarized me with the provincial institution, but 
the Dalhousie Archives remained a mysterious place to me, though I studied just two floors below it 
for the better part of a decade. I had utilized archival collections for my MA and undergraduate 
theses research but had not experienced the other side of the relationship: appraising, arranging, 
describing, and preserving materials for other researchers' access and use. As a historian, I 
appreciated access to the online archival collections I studied but had only a modest conception of 
the theory and practice involved in making archival material accessible to the public. 
I was fortunate to work under the expertise of Dalhousie's Digital Archivist, Creighton Barrett, and 
other staff who introduced me to the space, the practice of the core archival functions, and 
answered my barrage of questions.1 The practicum placement stipulated 100 hours as a 
 
 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License 
 
 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 1 (JUNE /JUIN 2023)  PAGE 10 
requirement of completion, but I dreaded that limited period coming to an end. I resolved to learn 
as much as I could in the field that I have had a longstanding desire to contribute to. My 100 hours 
were fulfilled in just under one month, signalling the end of my brief term in the Dalhousie Archives. 
By then, my conception of archival theory and practice had expanded more than I could have 
hoped.  
Can you tell us a bit more about Paul Cram and the types of materials in his fonds? 
Paul Cram [1952-2018] was a prolific Canadian jazz musician and composer who toured the country 
extensively.2 He was a founding member and artistic director of the Upstream Music Association 
and formed many jazz ensembles and orchestra groups throughout his career. He composed for 
such entities, as well as for radio (primarily CBC), film, and theatre. Cram's multimedia fonds 
comprise manuscript scores, audio cassettes, DAT’s, CD’s, VHS tapes, and other materials. The 
collection consists of 15 boxes of multimedia materials accessioned in 2021 supplemented by a 
second accession in 2022 which included a folio containing oversized and graphic scores.  
What did your work with the Paul Cram fonds look like? 
I was tasked with processing the Paul Cram fonds during my practicum, and I completed my 
placement by beginning the development of a finding aids for the multi-level fonds. I processed 
these materials by learning my way through the core archival functions: appraisal, physical 
arrangement, rehousing, and description. After the material was first accessioned by staff at the 
Dalhousie Archives, I conducted my own initial appraisal of the material to get a sense of what was 
in the collection and to gain experience with the archival function. Cram kept his records well-
organized and had arranged them in logical groupings for his own access and reference. I started 
with arranging and rehousing bound score and other loose folders of score in their original order. I 
began with silent film scores, moved to concerts, and then to Cram’s various live sets and 
performances. After this, I worked my way through paper files: I rehoused a few personal items 
such as his day planner, his personal notebook and various ensemble promotional kits. After I 
finished with the paper files, I moved to sound recordings and arranged Cram's extensive collection 
of cassettes and DATs. We decided to use 8 different groupings as rational subseries for cassette 
description: concert works, film/video, theatre/radio drama, saxophone quartet, small jazz 
ensembles, Paul Cram Orchestra, and other works. I then logged each cassette and DAT into an 
Excel sheet detailing their information: title, subseries grouping, ensemble/artist, date, and other 
 
1 My experience working with the Paul Cram fonds is just one small part of the larger efforts that went into 
preserving the material. Staff at the Dalhousie Archives began processing the Paul Cram fonds before my 
placement and continued with the project after I left. I reflect here on my small, but hopefully meaningful, 
contribution to preserving the career work of an individual who touched countless lives through his music and 
leadership.  
2 “Cram, Paul,” Dalhousie University Archives Catalogue, Dalhousie University Archives, accessed October 9, 2022, 
https://findingaids.library.dal.ca/cram-paul. 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 1 (JUNE /JUIN 2023)  PAGE 11 
physical attributes. During my placement, I processed 352 cassettes and DATs and managed to 
describe the complete concert work subseries in the online catalogue- approximately 60 tapes. 
Creighton recommended I gain experience describing the regular and oversized concert scores, and 
so I described 3 folders of oversized scores and one promotional poster on the online catalogue. I 
also described one box of silent film scores (around 30 folders) in Dalhousie's online archival 
catalogue. 
What would you describe as the main learning takeaways in working with a personal 
fonds such as this one? 
Working through the core archival functions of a personal fonds while attempting to understand 
Cram as an individual was an interesting intellectual exercise for me, as it is I am sure, for many 
professional archivists. Cram was part of many different ensembles throughout his career in music. 
As I described material in the online catalogue, it was often difficult to distinguish whether entities 
such as the ETC (Ellis, Tanguay, Cram) Trio or the Paul Cram Quintet- two examples of groups Cram 
established- should be described as corporate entities or as people as they did not neatly fit into 
either category. Traditional archival definitions of entities are narrow indeed, and the controlled list 
did not offer a third option for "collective" or "community." Creighton explained how this often 
presents conceptual issues and ontological challenges in archival work. This dilemma provoked 
reflection on my part about how theory translates (or does not) into practice. 
I found myself comparing the concept of entity types to my limited understanding of the genre of 
free jazz. For a free jazz musician, having a score to follow has many positive benefits: it provides 
structure and can be referenced for direction on how a piece should be approached by an individual 
instrument. However, free jazz musicians use scores as a guide to the overall piece, and "improvise" 
off them. Stuart Broomer referenced his take on the Paul Cram Orchestra album "Campin' Out" in a 
feature for The Whole Note, which summarizes the concept well: 
The two streams in Cram’s music, the improvised and the composed, come together in a very 
special way. The composition is less about giving the improvisation structure than the improvisation 
is about giving the orchestration fluidity and vice versa. Part of Cram’s ambition is to have the 
composed portions move with the energy and spontaneity of collective improvisation, and it’s 
something he achieves frequently here.3   
In this respect, I could not help but see some parallels, or perhaps paradoxes, between the 
structure I was trying to impose on Cram's materials, while I was also just coming to know him as an 
individual, and as a creative.  
 
3 Stewart Broomer, "Looking Back: Risk and Promise: Paul Cram (1952-2018)," The Whole Note, April 27, 2018,   
https://www.thewholenote.com/index.php/newsroom/feature-stories/28026-looking-back-risk-and-promise-paul-
cram-1952-2018. 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 1 (JUNE /JUIN 2023)  PAGE 12 
Can you expand on the process of coming to know Cram, and the impact of that insight 
in your work with his fonds? 
As I went about processing Cram's personal collection, Creighton encouraged me to get to know 
Cram as a person by researching his life and career. I spent my 100 hours arranging, rehousing, and 
describing, but also listening to Cram's cassette tapes, reading his day planner, and developing a 
newfound regard for free jazz. I read the notes he left himself in drafts of score, sorted through 
pictures of him and his bandmates making goofy faces as they played their saxophones, and 
developed a profound sense through personal material, of how adored Cram was as a musician, 
friend, and family member. I am appreciative of Creighton's guidance in this respect; my 
consideration of Paul Cram's fonds as an amateur archivist was enriched by a deeper awareness of 
his lifetime of work, and how he touched the lives of the musicians and communities around him. 
Perhaps it was the jazz, or the desire to dive as deep as I could in a short period of time, but I 
extended my research and understanding of Cram by trying to immerse myself further into his 
world. When an email invitation landed in my inbox to a concert celebration of Upstream Music 
Association's 32nd anniversary at the Dalhousie Arts Centre, I promptly bought myself a ticket. 
The Upstream Music Association, of which Cram was a co-founder, held their "birthday celebration" 
in June 2022. Upstream celebrated their musical legacy, now entering its fourth decade, through a 
live performance featuring the works of Cram and new pieces from contemporary members of the 
group joining from Symphony Nova Scotia and Dalhousie's Fountain School of Performing Arts. I sat 
in the Rebecca Cohn auditorium's left mezzanine. Gift bags provided at the entrance to the show 
equipped me with a shaker (and others with kazoos) to use for the audience engagement 
components of the concert. The Upstream Birthday party began with conductor Jeff Reilly offering a 
few words about Cram, his long-time friend. Reilly spoke of Cram's talent and unique way of writing 
"one-pagers" of score. Having processed such one-pagers, I was given more context and 
appreciation regarding their importance for preservation. I had read the names of Reilly and other 
members: Steven Naylor (piano), Chris Mitchel (saxophone), Dawn Hatfield (saxophone), Lukas 
Pearse (bass), Doug Cameron (drums), in Paul's scores many times. I had registered their names in a 
visual ontology I built with software one of my professors developed for a Data Management 
course. I used the tool to illustrate the relationship each musician had to one another, and Cram, to 
track all the different groups and ensembles Cram had formed and been part of (see Figure 1). 
Reilly spoke about Cram with immense love and admiration at the Upstream Birthday celebration; 
his influence and positive impact on the musical community was instantiated by the musicians on 
stage that night and the songs they played. Witnessing Upstream's members play together made 
those colourful connecting lines come alive. I had struggled to interpret the visual scores found in 
the Cram fonds. It was difficult to conceptualize how a piece could be structured and offer its 
players the freedom to improvise in tandem. As the Upstream birthday party rolled on, I found 
myself laughing, humming, tapping my feet, elatedly waving my shaker, and tearing up at some 
points. Reilly and the other musicians created an atmosphere that made newcomers in the 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 1 (JUNE /JUIN 2023)  PAGE 13 
audience feel like a part of the established Upstream community, which was evidently full of family 
members and friends. The music informed a more complete understanding of free jazz in my mind, 
which had previously perplexed me. The Upstream orchestra performed Cram's composition "Silent 
Movies" live that night alongside projected images of different animals dancing, offering context to 
the story the music was telling. As the music reached its crescendo, I thought about the parallels 
between a silent movie and a personal fonds. One can gain a sense of its plot- and really follow it 
too- if they are paying attention. The addition of other sensual elements, however, truly animate it. 
Witnessing the impacts of Cram's relationships, his musical legacy, and hearing his compositions 
played by his friends and bandmates rather than through a cassette player gave me a newfound, 
nuanced understanding of him and his work. Working with Cram's collection was like watching a 
silent film. Hearing Upstream play brought his legacy to life. 
 
FIGURE 1. A VISUAL ONTOLOGY OF CRAM'S MUSICAL ECOSYSTEM.4 
 
What takeaways do you have from this experience and what advice would you give to 
other students or early-career archivists or researchers? 
As a second-year LIS student who is new to the field, I can only reflect on my brief fragment of time 
working with Cram's personal fonds, finally on the other side of the archivist-researcher 
relationship. Gaining this perspective both inspired me and provoked reflection about conducting 
 
4 By no means a complete account of all of Cram's relationships and ensembles he established, with probably more 
than a few errors, this is how I went about making sense of the impact Cram had on the musical community. Even 
incomplete, it is apparent that Cram (the yellow dot in the centre) had a profound influence as a connector in 
Canada's jazz scene. Creating this supplement to my learning helped me to visualize the impact of Cram's life and 
cognate influences on his life. Interactive visualization available at: https://maddshare.github.io/Paul-Cram/Paul-
Cram-Network 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 1 (JUNE /JUIN 2023)  PAGE 14 
archival research and supplementing it in creative ways. As a researcher, I use available archival 
material and augment it with secondary sources. Working with Cram's materials pushed me to 
search for living traces- ongoing evidence of legacies and relationships- and extend them into new 
experiences of my own (such as attending a jazz concert) to supplement them. I submit this 
reflection in hopes that it might resonate with fellow early career archivists or researchers and 
encourage them to explore what sparks their interest and afford them greater confidence to 
improvise in their own intellectual pursuits. Thinking outside the box can truly lead to deeper 
understandings; I was lucky to work on the personal fonds of someone who was masterful at doing 
so. 
How do you think your work with the Cram fonds will impact your approach to archival 
work in the future, and more broadly in the music community? 
I deeply enjoyed my brief foray into archival work. Cram's multimedia fonds were a terrific entry 
point for an amateur archivist: they presented a diverse range of material to explore, intellectual 
challenges to contend with, and they taught me something new about music, and research. It was 
fascinating to learn about Cram as a musician and community-builder. I was grateful for the 
experience of glimpsing both his "inner soul", as Hobbs describes the discoveries of personhood in 
personal fonds, alongside the outer manifestation of his work in the public sphere.5 These personal 
connections made all the difference in generating my interest in free jazz, something I previously 
had no concept of. When archival material generates intrigue in researchers- or perhaps spurs them 
to buy a ticket to a free jazz show- then a legacy is not only kept alive but given new life. I hope this 
reflection inspires contemplation about how researchers can take inventive approaches to research. 
I will continue to consider how archivists can contribute to provoking this creativity when patrons 
might not have 100 hours, but only a few. Perhaps it begins with giving ourselves the freedom to 
improvise, and subsequently, the freedom to develop new understandings. I think Cram would 
approve.  
 
5 Catherine Hobbs, “The Character of Personal Archives: Reflections on the Value of Records of Individuals,” 
Archivaria, no. 52 (Fall 2001): 126, https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/12817.  
 


Spotlight on Music Collections

MacRitchie, Jennifer

 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 1 (JUNE /JUIN 2023)  PAGE 27 
Performing Music Research: Methods in Music 
Education, Psychology and Performance Science. By 
Aaron Williamon, Jane Ginsborg, Rosie Perkins, and 
George Waddell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. 
544 pp. ISBN 978–0–19–871454–5. 
Reviewed by Jennifer MacRitchie, The University of 
Sheffield 1 
 
 
Research in music education, music psychology, and the 
newer area of performance science has grown to consider 
how individuals or groups of people learn and engage 
with music across a wide variety of ages, cultures, and 
contexts. These fields have increasingly harnessed 
methods from different disciplines to aid the discovery 
and understanding of what can be considered a complex 
phenomenon, whether discussing music itself,2 or extending this to examine the use of music as an 
intervention.3 It is for this reason that current research students, and anyone looking to start 
critiquing and performing music research, often need a crash course in multiple methods that can 
steer them in choosing the correct approach for their research question.  
What Performing Music Research offers is an easily digestible and highly practical guide that starts 
off with considering how to form an answerable research question, and then takes the reader 
through every step required to design and carry out the research to answer it. Placing this guide to 
conducting research squarely within music education, music performance, and performance 
science, the book contains a number of references and accounts of recent music performance 
studies throughout. These give examples of the types of research question that can be asked as well 
as giving the reader a focused reference list for further reading. The multimedia sources included on 
the companion website and the suggestions for further discussion in each chapter give readers an 
easy way to test their knowledge of the approaches, methods, and statistical analyses covered in 
 
 
 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License 
 
 
2 Andrea Schiavio, “Constituting the Musical Object: A Neurophenomenological Perspective on Musical 
Research,” Teorema 31, no. 3 (2012): 63–80. 
3 Psyche Loui, “Neuroscientific Insights for Improved Outcomes in Music-Based Interventions,” Music & Science 3 
(2020), https://doi.org/10.1177/2059204320965065. 
 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 1 (JUNE /JUIN 2023)  PAGE 28 
the book. The films, in particular, are another useful way to demonstrate the types of research 
question that can be developed, and importantly, what the results of these research projects 
actually contribute to the knowledge and practice of music performance. 
The book is divided into four parts to reflect the different stages in the research cycle: planning 
research, conducting research, analyzing research, and communicating research. In Part 1, chapters 
look at devising research questions, choosing from various methodological approaches, and 
applying for research ethical approval. As well as considering how to form a research question and 
the various epistemologies and methodologies that the proposed question might imply, the authors 
provide various practical guides, such as the steps necessary in conducting a literature review (or 
systematic review). Strengths and weaknesses of main methodologies (quantitative, qualitative, and 
multistrategy) are discussed and placed alongside aims that focus on the ability either to generalize 
across a wide population or to elucidate the in-depth experiences of individuals.  
In Part 2, chapters are devoted each to observations, documentation, interviews, surveys, and 
experiments. Williamon et al. provide different options for data extraction for materials ranging 
from participant observations and transcriptions of conversations through to diaries and 
programme notes, depending on whether structured, quantitative data or more open, qualitative 
data (or both) are required. Similarly, they discuss a variety of types of interview and survey 
questions (open, semi-structured, and structured). In every chapter here, regardless of the type of 
data being considered, there are lots of practical tips on how to arrange data collection, whether it 
be how to set up video recordings or how to organize interview questions (as well as practicing the 
art of interviewing). Once the book reaches designing surveys and experiments, discussion turns to 
how to select participants, options for randomization, and how to develop and test new protocols.  
Part 3 turns to analysis techniques. In qualitative analysis, readers learn how one might transcribe 
and code data. For quantitative analysis, readers find examples of how one might describe the 
incidence of data from any particular question, and how to proceed to analyzing relationships 
between different variables. Here, there is a lot more space dedicated to explaining the background 
of various quantitative measures and how these might be used to then compare differences 
between groups of individuals or conditions. This can be incredibly useful in explaining statistics to 
students who may be encountering quantitative analysis for the first time. 
Part 4 closes with tips on structuring writing for various venues. Readers are also guided in 
constructing a narrative for their research that conveys both its motivations and the particulars 
about how a research project was conducted.  
Overall, the book and its companion website give readers an immense amount of information at 
their fingertips, quickly and accessibly introducing them to performing music research. It deftly 
covers vast ground, only leaving the reader hoping the authors will turn to other areas for 
expansion in a similar vein. Although it can hardly be expected to give an exhaustive account of all 
forms of analysis, the book is weighted more toward the quantitative and provides many resources 
for practicing these types of analysis. I look forward to the authors developing some music-related 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 1 (JUNE /JUIN 2023)  PAGE 29 
resources around the qualitative analysis methods mentioned in the book, as it is often difficult to 
source examples for students so they can practice the techniques before handling data for their 
own projects. Of course, it is more difficult to check ‘correct’ answers here, but seeing how other 
authors might have approached a sample dataset, in similar ways to the small number of extracts 
already provided in the book, would be useful with a discussion on how to evaluate the integrity of 
the student’s individual approach. Again, although the authors provide a few methods on automatic 
extraction of data from various sources, e.g., text analysis and audio analysis, it would be ever more 
valuable if this discussion could be extended to cover the state of the art on what can be extracted 
from text, audio, and video (which is currently overlooked) regarding music performances. It is here 
that we start to think philosophically about what is being measured, or gleaned, from these sources 
and what it means for a musical performance. What is the beginning/end point of a glissando 
between two notes for a singer? Is a performance measured as deviations from an idealized 
performance of the score (if it exists?) and if so, what does that mean? How do we define the 
variables underlying a musical intervention so we can assess its impact? Current information on 
types of variables being extracted and manipulated and how they are defined for a complex 
phenomenon such as music performance would provide students a starting point for discussion on 
how they are operationalizing variables to use in answering their research question. 
As a book to enter into the world of music performance research, Performing Music Research 
adeptly introduces the aspiring researcher to various approaches, making sure the reader can easily 
understand the strengths and weaknesses of each, with roadmaps of practical points to consider 
when designing research using these methodologies and methods. Undoubtedly this book will 
become a key reference text, staying with readers long after they have trained as an excellent 
resource.   
 


Performing Music Research: Methods in Music Education, Psychology and Performance Science by Aaron Williamon, Jane Ginsborg, Rosie Perkins, and George Waddell. (Book)

Risk, Laura

 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 1 (JUNE /JUIN 2023)  PAGE 18 
 On Record: Audio Recording, Mediation, and Citizenship in 
Newfoundland and Labrador by Beverley Diamond. Montreal & 
Kingston: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2021. 434 pp.  
ISBN: 9780228006558. 
Reviewed by Elsa Marshall1 
 
On Record is a rich ethnography of audio recording in 
Newfoundland and Labrador from the early twentieth 
century to the present day. This meticulously researched text 
is a scholarly tour de force, full of the voices and sounds of 
Newfoundland’s many communities and the diversity and 
complexity of this reluctant Canadian province. Diamond’s 
nuanced analysis, which draws on her own alliance studies 
model as well as Bruno Latour’s actor network theory, brings 
together threads from the many areas with which she has engaged across her career, including 
Indigenous musics and modernities, gender, technological production and mediation, and various 
settler musics in Canada. This is a local study with far-reaching implications and promises to be 
widely applicable across the fields of ethnomusicology, musicology, and folklore, as well as 
Newfoundland and Labrador studies. 
The introductory chapter details Diamond’s source materials, including access to an impressive 
discography of over 3,000 recordings made in Newfoundland and Labrador, and presents key 
themes and historical contexts. Notable is the discussion of citizenship, understood here not only as 
relations between people and the state but also as those between individuals. By connecting 
citizenship to the mediation of sound, On Record argues that audio recording has shaped the fabric 
of civil society in Newfoundland and Labrador. The following three chapters are roughly 
chronological. Chapter 2, “The Lure of Audio Recording,” discusses the use and impact of early 
recording technologies and radio, and considers how access to those technologies intersects with 
gender and social class. Of particular interest is Diamond’s retelling of the story of early folklore 
collecting in Newfoundland and Labrador from the perspective of locals who assisted “come from 
away” folklorists. By focusing on those who provided housing to folklorists, directed them to 
singers, and, as informants, curated their own musical offerings, Diamond reinscribes this narrative 
with local agency. Diamond also reminds the reader that Newfoundland and Labrador in the early- 
 
 
 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 1 (JUNE /JUIN 2023)  PAGE 19 
and mid-twentieth century were anything but isolated, with silent films arriving via boat almost 
immediately after their release and radio airwaves transmitting tunes from West Virginia. 
Chapter 3 profiles four musicians—Wilf Doyle, Dick Nolan, Joan Morrisey, Harry Hibbs—who 
established recording and performing careers in the 1950s to 1970s. The narratives presented 
herein are wide-ranging, engaging with repertoire selection, intended audience and reception, the 
availability and affordances of recording technologies, and the impact of gender as it shaped the 
career of Morrisey vs. her male peers. Diamond is particularly attentive to the dynamics of home 
and away—both Nolan and Hibbs lived away from the province for much of their careers and all 
four of these artists were signed with mainland companies—and, following alliance studies, the 
means by which these musicians positioned themselves as simultaneously mainstream and 
regionally distinctive. The introduction of recording studios and labels to Newfoundland and 
Labrador is the subject of Chapter 4, “A Unique Music Industry.” Diamond deftly connects larger 
social issues, including resettlement and the cod moratorium, to recording as a site of 
documentation and an outlet for individual and community voices. This chapter also expands the 
alliance studies model to include a continuum from professionalization to democratization. Sound is 
at the forefront and differences in recordings produced by different studios are described in 
engaging detail: one studio’s recordings are “brighter, with shimmering percussion and with the 
accordion forward in the mix” while those of another are “intentionally softer and more blended” 
(p. 98). 
Chapter 5 is organized as a series of “troubles with genre,” and offers a sharp examination of the 
dissonance between genre labels and musical practice in Newfoundland and Labrador. Referencing 
recent scholarship on genre and the categorization of recorded sound, notably in North American 
popular music, Diamond documents the many difficulties of assigning genre labels to music and 
musicians in Newfoundland and Labrador. These range from the practical—in small communities, 
the ability to play in multiple genres is often essential to making a living—to the ideological: what 
repertoire and performance/recording practices, for instance, count as “traditional”? This chapter 
closes with a set of particularly “troubled” genre labels, notably choral music, Indigenous musics, 
and “other linguistically or ethnically distinct music” (p. 167), including music from francophone 
communities. This is followed by a chapter on the specificities of recorded sound itself, or “Sonic 
Signatures.” Decisions made in the recording process shape listeners’ perception of the sonic space: 
instruments step to the center to take the lead or move to the side; microphone placement makes 
the labour of playing more or less audible. Diamond profiles the varied sonic signatures of the 
accordion, an instrument closely associated with Newfoundland and Labrador, and asks, “How has 
studio production created and re-created its sounds and social imaginaries?” (p. 181). She then 
analyzes multiple recordings of the Newfoundland hit “Sonny’s Dream” and closes with a discussion 
of the use of sonic signatures to evoke place.  
Chapter 7, “Audio Recording and/as Action,” shifts away from production to intended output and 
reception. Diamond examines the use of recordings to sustain public memory, to memorialize loss 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 1 (JUNE /JUIN 2023)  PAGE 20 
and disaster, and as forms of political action, including through parody. She ties these seemingly 
disparate threads together through a discussion of vulnerability, arguing that, in Newfoundland and 
Labrador, vulnerability is often recognized and expressed through music rather than hidden away 
(p. 205). This chapter has particularly powerful sections on both Indigenous and settler “lineages 
and generations”: that is, how music has been used to trace and maintain connections between 
generations in spite of, or in response to, displacement, resettlement, and, for Indigenous 
communities, residential schools.  
For the final chapter of On Record, Diamond invites guest author Mathias Kom to reflect on the 
RPM Challenge—a call to make and record an album of original music in under a month—as it plays 
out in St. John’s. This is a largely celebratory chapter focusing on the participatory nature of this 
challenge, notably the intentional decentering of technical musical competencies, and the way that 
its fleeting nature generates a sense of nostalgia for the present. Kom also touches on efforts to 
make the challenge more accessible, noting a gender divide between those with the equipment and 
skills to record themselves and those without. 
On Record will easily find its place on seminar reading lists in ethnomusicology, musicology, folklore, 
popular music studies, and area studies. If, as Diamond asserts, the recording studio is a microcosm 
of society, then this monograph is a new history of Newfoundland and Labrador, one shaped in 
sound, engraved on vinyl and tape, and now shared via digital formats.  
 


On Record: Audio Recording, Mediation, and Citizenship in Newfoundland and Labrador by Beverley Diamond (Book)

Lai, Katie

2023 SQACBM Annual Meeting Report

Behzadi, Houman

Pipe, Melissa

 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER /DÉCEMBRE 2023)  PAGE 51 
Spotlight on Music Collections: The CBC Montreal Radio Broadcasts 
Archive at the Marvin Duchow Music Library 
 
In this edition of Spotlight on Music Collections, Houman Behzadi and Melissa Pipe discuss their work at 
the Marvin Duchow Music Library and the acquisition of archival music radio broadcast files from CBC 
Radio Montreal including programs, photos, sound recordings, and other ephemera. 
Spotlight on Music Collections aims to profile interesting or unique music collections and archives in 
Canada through the voices of those who work with them. If you have a suggestion for a collection or 
individual to be featured in a future edition of this column, please email: camlreview@caml-acbm.org. 
 
Welcome! Can you each give a short introduction to your roles at the McGill Marvin Duchow 
Music library and the type of work that you do? 
HB: My name is Houman Behzadi, and I am Head Librarian of the Marvin Duchow Music Library, 
McGill University. In this capacity, I oversee the staff, operations, spaces, and services of the library. 
I am also quite involved in the life of music library professional associations. I currently serve as a 
Board Member-at-Large of the Music Library Association, Chair of the IAML Advocacy Committee, 
and Local Organizer for the CAML 2024 conference, which will take place June 12-13 at McGill 
University.  
MP: My name is Melissa Pipe, and I am the Senior Documentation Technician in the Audiovisual 
Archives of the Marvin Duchow Music Library, McGill University. I oversee the library’s archival 
audiovisual collections, provide reference and service desk support, and am part of the library’s 
outreach team, which works on a number of initiatives including social media and exhibition 
curation. 
Can you describe the Montreal CBC Radio archive for the readers and how it came to be at the 
Marvin Duchow Music Library? 
HB & MP: In early 2022, the Marvin Duchow Music Library received the archive of several CBC 
Montreal music radio programs produced chiefly by Frances Wainright, Kelly Rice, and Robert 
Rowat. The collection’s most frequently represented programs are Music from Montreal, Quebec in 
Concert, Arts National and In Performance, all drawing from musical events in Montreal and 
surrounding areas. The bulk of the content in the archive ranges from the 1980s to the early 2010s. 
The archive is comprised of over 1000 individual broadcasts, each manifested by a folder containing 
textual materials (including background research, concert programs, production sheets, 
correspondence, and newspaper clippings) and, in many cases, sound recordings related to the 
broadcasts. 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER /DÉCEMBRE 2023)  PAGE 52 
IMAGE 1. FOLDER: MARCH 28, 1988, KREMER/ARGERICH. SHOWN HERE ARE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE ARTISTS ON STAGE, A 
CONCERT PROGRAM, A MEMO FROM THE ORCHESTRE SYMPHONIQUE DE MONTRÉAL, AND AN INTERNAL CBC MEMO. 
PHOTO CREDIT: MARVIN DUCHOW MUSIC LIBRARY 
 
What is significant to you about this archive? 
HB & MP: Archives of radio music broadcasts can provide unique insights into local artistic history, 
bearing witness to musical events of a given time and place. The study of broadcast materials 
documenting productions, collaborations, musical programs, and venues offers an overview of the 
curatorial work of radio producers and the dissemination of music to broad audiences. The breadth 
of this cultural heritage collection provides a narrative in conjunction with the Quebec musical 
scene at large, as well as offering a snapshot of many music organizations and concert series active 
in Montreal and other Quebec locations. Select source materials within the collection also 
document a chapter of McGill University’s artistic history, for example, a significant number of the 
broadcasts were recorded in the Schulich School of Music’s concert halls and feature many former 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER /DÉCEMBRE 2023)  PAGE 53 
and current faculty members. Furthermore, a review of the archive reveals McGill faculty members’ 
collaborations amongst each other as well as with non-McGill performing artists.  
Do you each have a favourite item from the archive? Can you tell us what makes it interesting to 
you? 
HB: The Martha Argerich and Gidon Kremer 1988 performance at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier was a 
delightful discovery for me (see Image 1). As a violin student, I used to gain inspiration from the 
collaborative work of these two giants of the performance world. Beyond that, the representation 
of the artistic life of the Schulich School of Music is of highest importance to me and to the 
mandates of the Marvin Duchow Music Library when it comes to preserving our local history.  
MP: I can’t say that I have a particular favourite item from the archive; there is a lot to choose from!  
From an institutional perspective, I find this fonds particularly rich in how it enhances our 
documentation of the Schulich School of Music’s history (see Image 2), providing insights into 
events, collaborations, and choice of repertoire. The “Début” series represented in the archive 
features young performers from years past, many of whom have gone on to have careers in music, 
among them alumni and faculty from the Schulich School of Music. 
What has been most challenging about working with the archive? 
HB & MP: As with many archival collections, the conceptual and physical organization of the 
materials can be approached in multiple ways. For this collection, we decided to maintain the 
original physical organization while imposing a taxonomy that aims to capture the essential 
information which will be needed to represent the contents on McGill’s Archival Collections 
Catalogue via AtoM (Access to Memory) in the future. 
In thinking about the archive, it became clear that the broadcast itself was the main overarching 
event, encompassing both the performances and the surrounding research and production work. 
The textual materials are organized in folders that are primarily labelled by performer or group. 
Within each folder, broadcasts are described at the item level to capture each individual instance 
and enhance discoverability. Our descriptive work follows the Rules for Archival Description (RAD), 
the standard used in McGill’s Archival Collections Catalogue. 
As the spreadsheet was being populated, a parallel controlled vocabulary list was created to have 
consistent entries for: 1) document types; 2) radio program titles; 3) events and concert series; and 
4) performance venues. Given the growing list of item types and locations, the vocabulary needed 
to be reviewed regularly to ensure single entries for each entity, and to disambiguate places of 
performance (e.g., churches with two near-identical names could refer to two separate physical 
places, or one physical location could be referred to by both its French and English names). 
 
 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER /DÉCEMBRE 2023)  PAGE 54 
IMAGE 2. FOLDER: ARION ENSEMBLE. SHOWN HERE ARE CONCERT PROGRAMS AND CBC CUE SHEETS. ARION IS A 
MONTREAL-BASED BAROQUE ORCHESTRA FOUNDED IN 1981. IT HAS STRONG TIES WITH BOTH THE LOCAL MUSIC SCENE 
AND MCGILL AS THERE HAVE BEEN, AND CONTINUE TO BE, A NUMBER OF MCGILL FACULTY MEMBERS AND ALUMNI AMONG 
ITS MEMBERS. THE ARION FOLDER CONTAINS PROGRAM NOTES, PRODUCTION NOTES, CUE SHEETS, RADIO SCRIPTS, 
CLIPPINGS, BIOGRAPHIES, CORRESPONDENCES, AND PRESS RELEASES FOR OVER 20 CONCERTS HELD IN COLLABORATION 
WITH THE CBC. PHOTO CREDIT: MARVIN DUCHOW MUSIC LIBRARY. 
 
Are there any plans to digitize the Archive? 
We are currently prioritizing transferring the audio recordings contained in the Archive for 
preservation purposes as most of them are on CDRs which are prone to deterioration. As for the 
textual documents, we’ll assess this at a later date according to our digitization priorities. 
How can readers learn more about the archive? 
HB & MP: The archive is currently in the process of being re-housed and the inventory will soon be 
ingested into McGill’s Archival Collections Catalogue. We look forward to making the collection 
discoverable by researchers at the library and beyond! In the meanwhile, if readers would like to 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER /DÉCEMBRE 2023)  PAGE 55 
obtain more information about the archive, we invite them to contact us at 
music.library@mcgill.ca. We will be happy to share insights into this rich and multi-faceted archive! 
In closing, we wish to acknowledge the significant contributions of our colleagues Anna Dysert, 
Manuel Lopez Tovar, and Sofie Tsatas to the description of the CBC Montreal Radio Music 
Broadcasts Archive. 
 
IMAGE 3. FOLDER: ELLY AMELING. SHOWN HERE ARE AN ANNOTATED FOLDER, A CONCERT PROGRAM, A HEADSHOT, AND 
AN INTERNAL CBC MEMO. ELLY AMELING IS AN INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED SINGER. THE FOLDER CONTAINS PROGRAM 
NOTES, A PHOTO OF THE SOLOIST, A CUE SHEET, MEMOS, A PRESS RELEASE, A RADIO SCRIPT, AND CLIPPINGS AROUND A 
RECITAL WHICH WAS HELD AT MCGILL’S POLLACK HALL, IN COLLABORATION WITH THE CBC.   PHOTO CREDIT: MARVIN 
DUCHOW MUSIC LIBRARY. 
 


Spotlight on Music Collections: The CBC Montreal Radio Broadcasts Archive at the Marvin Duchow Music Library

Evison, Fiona

Community Music at the Boundaries by Lee Willingham (Ed.) (Book)

 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER / DÉCEMBRE 2023)  PAGE 9 
CAML Milestones 
This column aims to share organization news, celebrate our colleagues’ accomplishments, and 
document professional changes in the area of music archives, libraries and documentation centres. 
Have news to share? Contact the co-lead editors to have your news published in the next issue! 
 
Annou ncements 
Janneka Guise (University of Toronto) was newly elected to the role of incoming Vice-President on 
the IAML Board during the 2023 IAML General Assembly. 
Staffing News 
Avery Brzobohaty has been appointed the Library Services Manager at the Royal Conservatory of 
Music effective July 25, 2023. Avery holds an MA in Musicology (West Virginia U), a BMus (U 
Ottawa), and a Master of Information (U Toronto).  
Kevin Burke was appointed as the Creative Arts Librarian at the University of Manitoba on August 1, 
2023 for a 12 month term. Kevin is responsible for managing the Alfred Whitehead Music Library, 
along with managing collections and providing library instruction and reference support in Fine Arts, 
Drama & Screen Studies, Classics, Visual & Material Culture Studies, and Museum & Curatorial 
Studies. 
Samuel Plato (Learning & Instruction Support Librarian, University of Manitoba), began a new 
position (July 1 - Dec 31) as Music Librarian at the Eckhardt Gramatté Music Library on a leave-
replacement contract. He also joined the CAML Board as the Secretary in June 2023. 


Milestones

Attas, Robin

 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER /DÉCEMBRE 2023)  PAGE 82 
On Music Theory, and Making Music More Welcoming For 
Everyone by Philip Ewell. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan 
Press, 2023. 332 pp. ISBN: 9780472075027 
Reviewed by Robin Attas, University of Manitoba  
Philip Ewell is perhaps the most (in)famous living music theorist. 
After beginning his career in the discipline as a scholar of Russian 
music and theories, Ewell shifted focus to the topic that has led 
to his notoriety: exposing the white supremacist1 structure of 
music theory, with a focus on the central role of Heinrich 
Schenker in the development of contemporary music theory in 
the United States (and by extension, Canada). Ewell expands this 
focus in his new book, On Music Theory, and Making Music More 
Welcoming for Everyone, and also offers greater insight into the 
personal and professional experiences since 2019 that have 
shaped disciplinary discourse on these topics. It is an essential component of a longer anti-racism 
reading list for anyone engaging in academic music disciplines today. 
Given the topic of this book, it is important to state my positionality at the outset, particularly as it 
impacts my review. Among my many identities, I am a white, cisgender heterosexual woman, a non-
Indigenous settler Canadian who used to be a professional music theorist and now works in 
educational development supporting teaching and learning initiatives related to equity, diversity, 
and inclusion. All of these identities impact my positionality when engaging with Ewell’s book, but 
in particular I want to name my whiteness. This social identity means that I am part of the dominant 
race that is the main target of the book’s critiques, and I benefit from the power and privilege this 
belonging affords me in music theory and society at large. My whiteness makes a critique of this 
book difficult. I regularly engaged with my own critical self-awareness to question whether my 
responses to particular passages were legitimate concerns or white fragility responses.2 Even if on 
careful self-examination I believe my critiques to be valid, they might still be taken as anti-Black 
racism given my white identity and the highly charged and polarized nature of these conversations 
both within music theory and in society at large. I hope this review is received in a spirit of 
generosity, collegiality, self-reflexivity, and a desire to continue to dialogue across difference in the 
grey areas between polarized positions, but I acknowledge that its impact might not be thus. 
 
 
1 Note: the term white supremacy is often associated with explicit white supremacist hate groups such as the Nazis 
or the Ku Klux Klan. However, it also refers to institutional and structural systems of oppression that are designed 
to privilege, support, and center white individuals, ideas, values, and practices (including artistic ones), while 
explicitly or implicitly situating all other racial groups as inferior or marginal. 
2 Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018). 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER /DÉCEMBRE 2023)  PAGE 83 
I should also disclose that I know Ewell a little; we worked collaboratively for several months on a 
joint keynote as part of the 2022 Pedagogies into Practice conference,3 and I also read an early draft 
of his 2020 Music Theory Online (MTO) article4 when he shared it as a response to a symposium for 
which I was a contributing author.5 
Now, to the book. On Music Theory includes six chapters, plus an introduction and conclusion. The 
introduction establishes key ideas, but also introduces readers to Ewell’s overall tone, which mixes 
breezy personal anecdotes with more conventional academic music scholarship to craft an overall 
argument about race and racism in music theory. Chapter 1, “On Music Theory, Race, and Racism” 
introduces important concepts such as the white racial frame (from sociologist Joe R. Feagin6) and 
white supremacy. It also presents evidence of structural racism in music theory as practiced in the 
United States through a discussion of some historical precedents, partial data on racial 
demographics in the Society for Music Theory (SMT), and more fulsome data on seven leading 
music theory textbooks’ overwhelming emphasis on white male composers in prose, analytical 
method, and musical examples.  
Chapter 2 deepens the historical discussion begun in Chapter 1, sketching a history of white 
supremacy in Europe, its manifestation in historiography generally and the discipline of classics 
specifically, and the resulting implications for the “standard” understanding of the history of 
Western music and music theory through discussions of classic works including A History of 
Western Music7 and The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory.8 Ewell’s goal seems to be to 
outline a history of white supremacy in broad strokes and occasionally connect it to specific 
examples in music, which is a helpful overview but often left me wanting more, both in terms of the 
general history and the specific musical details. 
One of the strongest sections of the book is Chapter 3, a reworking of Ewell’s 2020 MTO article. 
Here Ewell takes aim at Heinrich Schenker, one of the core figures of US academic music theory, 
exposing not only Schenker’s racist views but how they have been overlooked and outright 
suppressed in order to maintain the white racial frame of the discipline. Ewell reframes Schenker by 
bringing together consideration of his racist ideas with his theory and analytical methods and offers 
advice for those who question whether Schenker is still worthy of attention. 
 
3 Robin Attas and Philip Ewell, “Beyond Inclusion, Toward Justice: Dismantling Racialized and Colonial Music Theory 
Pedagogical Structures,” Pedagogy into Practice conference, June 4, 2022. 
4 Philip A. Ewell, “Music Theory and the White Racial Frame,” Music Theory Online 26, no.2 (2020), accessed 
October 6, 2023, https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.20.26.2/mto.20.26.2.ewell.html.  
5 Philip A. Ewell, Robin Attas, Noriko Manabe, Mitchell M. Ohriner, John J. Mattessich, and James Bungert, 
“Symposium on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly,” Music Theory Online 25, no.1 (2019): 25.17-25.1-12, 
accessed on October 6, 2023, https://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.19.25.1/toc.25.1.html.  
6 Joe R. Feagin, The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing (New York: Routledge, 
2013). 
7 J. Peter Burkholder, Donald Jay Grout, and Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 10th edition (New York: 
W. W. Norton, 2018). 
8 Thomas Street Christensen, ed., The Cambridge History of Music Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 
2002). 
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER /DÉCEMBRE 2023)  PAGE 84 
Chapter 4 (“On Volume 12 of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies”) might be characterized as the 
“juicy gossip” section of the book. Ewell takes an unapologetic “calling out” approach9 as he offers 
details on the fallout from the nuclear meltdown that was volume 12 of JSS, which featured a 
symposium of ten articles responding to Ewell’s 2019 SMT keynote address.10 The symposium was 
of dubious (to put it mildly) academic rigor, with many submissions likely not subject to anonymous 
peer review, and most submissions reading more as personal opinions (if not outright attacks) 
rather than thoughtful scholarship. Apart from an opportunity to tell his side of the story, Ewell uses 
the events as a real-world example of how white supremacy operates in music theory, although his 
tendency to rebut specific elements of the journal and its authors’ behaviours both in the issue and 
in private emails and social media conversations is a bit tedious for those who haven’t read the 
issue (particularly as it is difficult to find in print, owing to the scandal that ensued). I often found 
myself sympathetic with Ewell’s views, but felt a bit excluded from an insider music theory club, 
since I limit my participation in social media (upon which Ewell draws heavily) and no longer keep 
up with SMT politics. 
“On Music Theory’s Antiblackness” (Chapter 5) is where Ewell expands beyond the JSS affair to 
other instances of anti-Black racism in music theory, including SMT’s attempt to create a specific 
publication award for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) scholars; problematic music 
theory journal peer review practices as demonstrated by Ewell’s own difficulties with Music Theory 
Online; and discussion of racism in popular music analysis and the absence of jazz in the core music 
theory curriculum. At times the examples lack the more careful and detailed research and data 
analysis found in places like Chapter 3. I agree wholeheartedly with Ewell’s claims, but I found 
myself wishing that Ewell had more data and specificity to support them. This could have included 
data on publication awards to match the textbook data Ewell uses elsewhere, integration of other 
scholars’ work on the role of racism in awards generally (academic or otherwise), discussion of 
popular music analysts and jazz music pedagogues who are practicing what Ewell suggests in 
analysis and classroom practices, and more. Without such evidence, Ewell’s generalist statements 
risk losing support from less sympathetic readers than myself. 
Ewell writes that several reviewers found Chapter 6, “On Classical Music’s Antisemitism [sic],” to be 
out of place, and I agree. In making this assessment, I am in no way suggesting that a discussion of 
antisemitism in music is unimportant (as Ewell seems to imply of anyone who would reject this 
chapter, on p.241). Rather, I think the topic would benefit from a more thorough treatment than 
Ewell gives it here. In a sense, this chapter exposes for me a major gap in the book: while Ewell 
claims in his title to be “making music more welcoming for everyone” (emphasis mine) and 
 
9 “Calling out” is an expression describing a blunt or forceful declaration of an individual or group’s actions as 
unjust, oppressive, or discriminatory; “calling in” is an expression describing a more gentle approach that invites 
the individual into a conversation for educative purposes. See, for example, Harvard University Office for Equity, 
Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, “Calling In and Calling Out Guide” (2023), available at 
https://edib.harvard.edu/calling-and-calling-out-guide.   
10 An expanded version of the keynote address is published as Philip A. Ewell, “Music Theory’s White Racial 
Frame,” Music Theory Spectrum 43, no.2 (Fall 2021), 324–329. 
 
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throughout the book mentions connections between anti-Black racism and sexism, anti-Asian 
racism, transphobia, and antisemitism, his book does not go far enough towards a true reckoning 
with all of these intersectional systems of oppression, and in fact, leaves some out almost entirely. 
(As a Canadian non-Indigenous settler who is a strong advocate for decolonization and Indigenous 
resurgence, I found the discussion of Indigenous ways of knowing to be cursory at best and 
sometimes bordering on Indigenous erasure, such as in the discussion of the “1619 Project” in the 
book’s conclusion.) Yes, music theory is problematic in many ways, but Ewell’s book does not do as 
much as his title claims for other forms of discrimination and oppression, and I think his argument 
would be strengthened were he to focus exclusively on anti-Black racism and its nuances. 
The conclusion returns to Ewell’s overall goal of reframing music theory as white supremacist, with 
the bulk of the chapter focused on recommendations for change. Recommendations feature in 
other parts of the book, too, but the ones in the conclusion are more explicit, more specific, and 
more actionable. Librarians might be disappointed (or perhaps are used to?) the lack of 
recommendations around music library collections and their role in white supremacy, but many of 
Ewell’s suggested actions are helpful starting places for those working in academic music settings, 
and intersect well with recommendations in the Canadian context for working towards the Calls to 
Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, such as Dylan Robinson’s “To All Who 
Should Be Concerned.”11 
This book is an important part of music scholarship around racism and other systems of oppression 
and joins numerous calls for change of academic music disciplines and institutions. I can imagine 
that people with privilege or power, or whose social identities are called out in this book, might 
dismiss Ewell’s book as irrelevant: it’s a US perspective not relevant in Canada; it’s about music 
theory, not my music discipline; it’s about a few music theorists who don’t represent my music 
theory; it’s about a few explicitly racist white people, but I’m not racist like they are; it’s too general 
without specific context in terms of citations or theoretical grounding; it’s not music theory; and so 
on. Some of these may be legitimate concerns, but many are rooted in white fragility, settler moves 
to innocence, and defense mechanisms for those who are complicit in systems of oppression to 
maintain their power and privilege through maintenance of the status quo. I urge you to critically 
examine your own reasons for hesitating on this book and engage anyway.  
But I also urge you to go beyond this book. Use it as a conversation-starter with your colleagues, 
friends, and family to listen and learn from each other. Use it to spur you towards the vast amount 
of existing material on related topics, whether broad discussions of white supremacy and racism, 
critical race theory, intersectionality, anti-oppression, and different forms of discrimination; or 
music-specific work on the problematic history of academic music disciplines, and work by 
racialized or otherwise minoritized music academics that demonstrates what music theory can look 
like when it smashes the white racial frame. One book can only do so much, and while Ewell’s On 
 
11 Dylan Robinson, “To All Who Should Be Concerned,” Intersections 39, no.1 (2019): 137–144. 
https://doi.org/10.7202/1075347ar.  
 
CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 51, NO. 2 (DECEMBER /DÉCEMBRE 2023)  PAGE 86 
Music Theory does good work exposing some of the white supremacist frames of music theory and 
music studies, there is much more to learn than what is presented here, and many more 
opportunities for each of us to act. 
 


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