CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — An interdisciplinary research project has led to new ways of making music and of approaching engineering design through interactions with Indigenous communities in Bolivia and Sierra Leone.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign music professor and professional French horn player Bernhard Scully and engineer and Carle Illinois College of Medicine teaching professor of biomedical and translational sciences Ann-Perry Witmer led a project to explore place-based music and technological practices of rural and Indigenous communities that have been disregarded by Western academic institutions.
Scully and Witmer were brought together by Jess Mingee, an engineering graduate student advised by Witmer who plays French horn and studies with Scully. Mingee noticed the similarities in pedagogical approach in Scully’s classes, where he encourages improvisation and exploring a broad range of musical styles, and Witmer’s contextual engineering methodology, which emphasizes tailoring engineering design to the needs and conditions of the people and places it will serve. An improvisatory way of thinking and an ability to adapt is essential in collaborating with people with different perspectives and ways of working, the three researchers said.
They visited Bolivia and Sierra Leone in 2022 as part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences’ Global Academy, which provides funding for global engagement projects and collaborations. They recently published a series of essays reflecting on their research trips, “Consilience: Learning About Ourselves by Applying Indigenous Traditions to Western Music and Technology.”
The goal of the project was to learn how the disciplines of classical music and engineering design are limited by a lack of understanding of the intellectual and artistic resources of nonindustrialized places and how they can expand to incorporate such place-based knowledge.
The group visited the Aymara people of the Andean Altiplano in Bolivia and the Mende people in Sierra Leone. They worked with local musicians and engineers in both countries.
In his essay in the book, Scully wrote that the trips were “among the most transformational musical experiences of my life.”
The music they heard in Bolivia was tonal and intense and sounded like cacophony at first, he said. Likewise, the Aymara didn’t like all the Western music that Scully and Mingee played. They enjoyed jazz but didn’t like the classical music or tunes from movie soundtracks that they heard, scoffing that they couldn’t dance to it, Scully said.
The Mende music in Sierra Leone lacked melody and harmony, and featured elaborate drumming and provocative dance movements, Scully said.
“A lot of it was not comfortable. A really important part of the process was learning and accepting that we would be pushing ourselves way out of our comfort zone,” he said. “This whole project has shifted my outlook.”
Witmer said there was not as much adherence to ancestral tradition with technology in either location, likely because it wasn’t as much a part of their cultural identity as is music. Also, in places that were colonized by Western countries at one time, settlers presented their technology as superior, she said. However, it often was unsuitable for a nonindustrialized setting.
“In rural areas, the technology is not nearly as sophisticated from a Western perspective, but the engineering far surpasses what we see in the U.S. because they work with such limited resources in creative ways,” said Witmer, who teaches international engineering design and has expertise in humanitarian work designing drinking water systems. “It’s the same thought process of listening to a completely different style of music and trying to find your way into it. (The project) gave me not only a much stronger understanding of music, but also of the way we perceive our role in both music and technology.”
Scully described hearing a Bolivian trumpet player perform in an unfamiliar but sophisticated style that he struggled to imitate. He later played the traditional Bolivian song he learned from the trumpet player in a jazz concert in La Paz, using it in a well-received improvisation. But he wondered if he did justice to the music, as improvisation is not part of the Aymara tradition.
“We altered and repurposed it in many ways. We honored what we learned to the extent we could, but we didn’t play on the same instruments, in the same tonal system or in the collective way that they did,” Scully said.
Another highlight for Scully and Mingee was performing with musicians from the Sierra Leone National Dance Troupe. The instruments and music were unfamiliar to them, and the French horn had likely never been used in such a setting, but they were able to adapt and play along with them.
“I was blown away by this experience, and it was a moment of clarity for me in how my understanding of music could influence my understanding of engineering and vice versa,” Mingee said. “The way I approach work in both fields has changed rather dramatically. This has strengthened my understanding of how to conduct myself as an engineer and a musician in a way that is welcoming to multiple perspectives.”