Paper/Proposal Title
The Emergence of Anti-Coup Songs in the Wake of Myanmar’s Military Coup: Musical Advocacy on YouTube
Location
Room S2006, Curran Place
Start Date
12-2-2021 11:30 AM
End Date
12-2-2021 1:00 PM
Keywords
Burma, Myanmar, music, protest, military coup
Abstract
On February 1, 2021, after a decade of so-called democratic transition, a military junta took control of Burma/Myanmar’s government in a coup. Protests against the coup were mounted immediately, and many of these protests featured protestors singing as they marched in defiance of the coup. As the protest movement continued over the next months, musicians created a corpus of new songs which they uploaded to YouTube and to other social media sites. In this presentation I will argue that these songs constitute a new genre of Burmese music which I am provisionally calling “anti-coup songs.” This genre is marked by great stylistic diversity (the recordings range from hip hop to classical piano) but a number of elements can be found in many of the examples. These elements - including the words “Do ah-ye,” the banging of pots, and references to protests in earlier eras - all derive their significance from the shared cultural knowledge of the mass of Myanmar people. These songs are therefore distinctly Burmese. At the same time, their presentation on global social media, with English-language translations included in most cases, reveals that these songs were created not only to build a sense of solidarity among Myanmar protestors, but also to advocate on an international stage for the respect of their human rights. This presentation seeks to contribute to the scholarly literature investigating protest musics around the world (e.g. Peddie ed. 2011, Levine 2015, Favretto 2015, Manabe 2015, Lebrun 2016), revealing how the form and function of Burmese anti-coup songs both confirm and expand the findings of this literature.
Author/Speaker Biographical Statement(s)
Dr. Heather MacLachlan is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology in the Department of Music at the University of Dayton. Her research focuses on a broad range of musical expressions in Burma/Myanmar and in North America. Her work includes numerous scholarly articles as well as two books: Burma’s Pop Music Industry: Creators, Distributors, Censors (University of Rochester Press, 2011) and Singing Out: GALA Choruses and Social Change (University of Michigan Press, 2020).
The Emergence of Anti-Coup Songs in the Wake of Myanmar’s Military Coup: Musical Advocacy on YouTube
Room S2006, Curran Place
On February 1, 2021, after a decade of so-called democratic transition, a military junta took control of Burma/Myanmar’s government in a coup. Protests against the coup were mounted immediately, and many of these protests featured protestors singing as they marched in defiance of the coup. As the protest movement continued over the next months, musicians created a corpus of new songs which they uploaded to YouTube and to other social media sites. In this presentation I will argue that these songs constitute a new genre of Burmese music which I am provisionally calling “anti-coup songs.” This genre is marked by great stylistic diversity (the recordings range from hip hop to classical piano) but a number of elements can be found in many of the examples. These elements - including the words “Do ah-ye,” the banging of pots, and references to protests in earlier eras - all derive their significance from the shared cultural knowledge of the mass of Myanmar people. These songs are therefore distinctly Burmese. At the same time, their presentation on global social media, with English-language translations included in most cases, reveals that these songs were created not only to build a sense of solidarity among Myanmar protestors, but also to advocate on an international stage for the respect of their human rights. This presentation seeks to contribute to the scholarly literature investigating protest musics around the world (e.g. Peddie ed. 2011, Levine 2015, Favretto 2015, Manabe 2015, Lebrun 2016), revealing how the form and function of Burmese anti-coup songs both confirm and expand the findings of this literature.
Comments
My presentation will require connection to the internet, a screen and a projector. Thank you.