Marcia Herndon
Marcia Herndon | |
|---|---|
 Herndon in 1975 | |
| Born | Marcia Alice Herndon October 1, 1941 Canton, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | May 19, 1997 (aged 55) Hyattsville, Maryland, U.S. |
| Parent(s) | George Everett Herndon and Harline Simmons Herndon |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Tulane University, BA, MA, PhD |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | anthropologist, ethnomusicologist |
| Institutions | University of Texas at Austin; University of California, Berkeley; and University of Maryland, College Park |
Marcia Alice Herndon (October 1, 1941 – May 19, 1997) was an American
Herndon's works have been used as university textbooks. Her contributions to the field of ethnomusicology were recognized by the
Early life and education
Marcia Alice Herndon was born October 1, 1941, in Canton, North Carolina, close to where her grandparents lived. She spent her early years in the Tennessee and North Carolina hills and performed country music with her family. When she began her formal music training, she turned away from country music, focusing on classical music and performance.[1] She played several different instruments including the organ.[2][3]
In 1962, Herndon graduated from H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in New Orleans, now known as Tulane University, with a bachelor's degree in German.[4] Although she also studied music, covering piano, voice, and organ, Herndon completed her master's degree in German at Tulane University in 1964.[5]: 128 [6] Besides German, she spoke English, French, Malagasy, and Spanish.[4] After several years of classical music performance, she returned to school and earned a Ph.D. in anthropology and ethnomusicology in 1971 from Tulane.[2][4][6] Her doctoral thesis, under the direction of Norma McLeod, focused on the impact of Maltese music upon the religion and politics of the country. It would become the basis for her article Analysis: The Herding of Sacred Cows?.[5]: 128
Career
Herndon started her career as an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin in 1971. She taught ethnomusicology and anthropology at the university for seven years.[6][1] Before she arrived, the university did not include ethnomusicology in their folklore studies.[7]: xiii While teaching in Texas, Herndon developed a course which returned to her roots in country music and examined the genre from an anthropological perspective. Students of the course looked at how country music was viewed culturally as music of white, unsophisticated and lower-class people, even for those who gained fame. It also examined how the genre was used as a gateway for singers like Charley Pride and Johnny Rodriguez to gain acceptance in white society.[1] In 1975, Herndon and McLeod hosted the symposium "Form in Performance: Hard Core Ethnography" in Austin. The conference brought together for the first time scholars of various disciplines to discuss performance as a reflection of culture and societal values.[7]: 7 The subsequent publication of the conference proceedings was edited by Herndon.[5]: 128
In 1978, Herndon was hired as the director of Native American Studies the University of California, Berkeley. She became active in the civil rights movements sweeping the country at that time, including the Women's liberation movement in North America.[5]: 129 [8] Wanting to create a venue which would support independent scholarship without censorship in ethnomusicological research, in 1984, she founded the Music Research Institute, in Hercules, California.[4][5]: 129 She encouraged research into issues such as the demise of American community orchestras, censorship of lyrics, and the effects to hearing caused by amplified sound. Her activism and support of alternative research led to a fissure with the university and she left in 1985.[5]: 129
Herndon continued working at the Music Research Institute, expanding it from its location in the
Community involvement
Herndon was the
Herndon and her partner, Billye Talmadge, were together twenty years until the time of her death. Despite her desire for privacy surrounding her personal life,[5]: 131 Herndon was an active member of her community, focusing on the cultural issues of racial equality, sexual and gender diversity, and religious freedom and tolerance. She encouraged academic cooperation rather than competition, and believed that cultural studies were imperative for a full understanding of global situations and catastrophic events, such as aggression, censorship, and ethics, as well as health, power, and war.[4]
Contributions to ethnomusicology
Herndon's work encompassed a broad spectrum of cultural examination. She examined symphony orchestras in New Orleans and Oakland and studied the jazz funerals of those African American carnival revelers known as
Herndon wrote about Eastern Band Cherokee music and performance. Her contributions to the field included The Cherokee Ballgame Cycle: An Ethnomusicologists Viewpoint (1971) and Native American Music (1980).[5]: 128 In The Cherokee Ballgame Cycle, Herndon discussed how she believed Cherokee ballgames reflected the cultural organization of their society through performance,[9]: 347 with the ballgames organized to reflect the political and religious organization of the local settlements.[10]: 327 Each town, and the game, had a division of white peace officials and red war officials with representatives from each of the seven matrilineal clans.[10]: 328 She wrote that labor was divided by sex,[10]: 329 as were the songs sung during the game to motivate the players. In Native American Music, Herndon took an anthropological analysis of culture, via comparison of Euro-American and Native American traditions.[11]
Herndon saw music as an expression of culture; Cynthia Tse Kimberlin wrote that she was one of the pioneers in evaluating music from a gender perspective.[4] For example, in her work Music, Gender, and Culture, co-written with Susanne Ziegler, Herndon explained that sex and gender are different things. She states that sex describes the physical body, and that gender describes one's individual cultural role and status.[12]: 115 The book describes how individuals perceive their gender and gender traits based upon their society, and details some of the ways society rewards and punishes certain behaviors related to one's gender – for example, by restricting or allowing who can be a vocalist or instrumentalist.[13]: 236 Her study The Bormliza: Maltese Folksong Style and Women with McLeod noted that women in Malta who sing in public places are considered to be prostitutes, while those who refrain from public performance are deemed to be of good moral character.[14]: 34 Music as Culture written with her former doctoral advisor McLeod, has been used as a university textbook.[4] The premise of the book was that music was not simply an activity that was part of culture, but a representation of culture itself. Steven Feld, in his review of the work, clarified the point that "sound structure is a social structure, every musical organization a social organization, learning to sing is learning to be a social being, good rhythm is socialization, and so forth".[15]: 91
Death and legacy
Herndon died on May 19, 1997, in Hyattsville, Maryland, from complications of lupus, breast cancer, and liver cancer.[2][4] Herndon worked with the Society for Ethnomusicology beginning in 1971. She served on its council for three terms – 1976–1979, 1980–1983, and 1988–1991 – and on its board of directors between 1981 and 1983.[5]: 130 In recognition of her service to both the organization and the field of ethnomusicology, the Society of Ethnomusicology created an award in her name, which recognizes excellence in studies of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and two-spirit communities.[16] Her papers are held in the collection of the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library on the campus of the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland.[6]
Selected works
- Herndon, Marcia (September 1971). "The Cherokee Ballgame Cycle: An Ethnomusicologist's View". Ethnomusicology. 15 (3). Champaign, Illinois: : 128
- Herndon, Marcia (May 1974). "Analysis: The Herding of Sacred Cows?". Ethnomusicology. 18 (2). Champaign, Illinois: : 128
- Herndon, Marcia, ed. (1976). Proceedings of a Symposium on Form in Performance: Hard-core Ethnography. Form in Performance: Hard-core Ethnography, Held at the University of Texas, Austin, April 17 to 19, 1975. Austin, Texas: Office of the College of Fine Arts, : 128
- McLeod, Norma; Herndon, Marcia (January–March 1975). "The Bormliza: Maltese Folksong Style and Women". OCLC 5548782943.[14]: 34
- Herndon, Marcia; McLeod, Norma (1979). Music as Culture. Norwood, Pennsylvania: Norwood Editions. : 128
- Herndon, Marcia (1980). Native American Music. Norwood, Pennsylvania: Norwood Editions. : 128
- McLeod, Norma; Herndon, Marcia (1980). The Ethnography of Musical Performance. Norwood, Pennsylvania: Norwood Editions. ISBN 978-0-8482-4416-3.[4]
- Herndon, Marcia; McLeod, Norma (1983). Field Manual for Ethnomusicology. Norwood, Pennsylvania: Norwood Editions.
- Herndon, Marcia (1988). "Cultural Engagement: The Case of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra".
- Herndon, Marcia; Ziegler, Susanne (1990). Music, Gender, and Culture. Intercultural Music Studies. Vol. 1. Wilhelmshaven, Germany: Florian Noetzel Verlag. : 128
References
- ^ Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b c "Obituary". EOL 3. Baltimore, Maryland: University of Maryland, Baltimore County. 1997. Archived from the original on July 23, 2020. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
- Newspapers.com.
- ^ from the original on February 25, 2021. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
- ^ OCLC 5556203488. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
- ^ University of Maryland. Archivedfrom the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4724-1583-7.
- Newspapers.com.
- ISBN 978-0-8153-0232-2.
- ^ OCLC 79679423.
- OCLC 7781098289. Retrieved May 20, 2022.
- OCLC 5548113640. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
- OCLC 820817847. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-252-03849-5. Archived(PDF) from the original on May 20, 2022.
- OCLC 5556232857. Retrieved May 20, 2022.
- ^ "Appert Receives 2021 Marcia Herndon Prize". Music Department Cornell. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University. December 6, 2021. Archived from the original on May 19, 2022. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
