Engaging creatively with a traditional soundscape: goat bells—from landscape to performance

ABSTRACT

This article offers an insight into a creative process that relies on ways of engaging creatively with a folk approach to sound. It discusses the adoption of elements of the Calabrian use of bells for herd animals in a composition titled All’Erva Radicchia. Positioned at the intersection between ethnographic and artistic practice in the wake of Steven Feld’s ‘mixed genre’, the piece complements the author’s research into Calabrian animal bells. The piece draws on the network of relationships that animal bells initiate between various agents in Calabria and reproduces in performance the sound of a goat flock. The article discusses the adoption of structural elements of a sound tradition and the exploration of new composition and performance practice to generate music that is able to communicate knowledge about folk phenomena that would unlikely be communicated otherwise.

KEYWORDS:

• Animal bells
• composition
• soundscapes
• mixed genres

Introduction

This paper offers an insight into a creative process that relies on ways of engaging creatively with a folk approach to sound. It discusses a compositional practice that adopts structural elements of a sound tradition as generators of new music and uses them to explore new composition and performance practices that can communicate knowledge about folk phenomena. This paper discusses All’Erva Radicchia, a contemporary music piece inspired by a traditional approach to sound. The piece is inspired by the use of bells for herd animals in Calabria and complements my ethnomusicological research. As a saxophonist trained with the methods of Western musical institutions and a bagpiper trained in the traditional method based on imitation, I kept my two musical identities apart for a long time, afraid of applying the Western models of interpretation to my folk tradition. In my quest for bridging my musical identities, I resolved that my background as an ethnomusicologist and my long-lasting research activity in Calabria would serve as a methodological and ethical framework for my creative exploration. Far from attempting a fusion of folk and contemporary music, I aim to incorporate Calabrian techniques, conceptual frameworks, vocabulary, and performance practices in new contemporary music compositions. I am interested in exploring the cultural and symbolic importance of sound and music in Calabria, in addition to adopting traditional instruments and melodies. In All’Erva Radicchia, the aural, spatial and symbolic elements of Calabrian bells for herd animals became the core materials around which this composition revolves. The piece translates the complex harmonies of goat bells, the animals’ behaviour and the dynamic spatial patterns created by Calabrian flocks into music that adopts spatialisation and indeterminacy as fundamental techniques.

Folk music has often been an important source of inspiration for composers and improvisers, whether for the germination of specific techniques or the development of a whole musical language. Music practitioners have drawn on European and non-European folk music throughout the entire history of Western music.¹ Similarly, anthropology and ethnomusicology have crossed their paths with artistic practices in ways that relate to Clifford Geertz’s blurred genres (Geertz 1983) to explore new ways for communicating research. The encounter between ethnography and art ‘occurs with increasing frequency both at the level of scholarly reflection and at the level of concrete musical practice’ (Scaldaferri 2017: 219).² Much of Steven Feld’s production can be described, using his own words, as ‘mixed genre: experimental ethnography and musical composition’ (Feld 2012a: 268).³ About Feld’s work, Scaldaferri notes that ‘listening, more than observation, […] stimulates a very clear analysis of the ritual, revealing the importance of aspects often considered secondary in ethnographic texts, and becoming a concrete tool of investigation and reflection’ (Scaldaferri 2016: 378). From this perspective, musical composition becomes an ethnomusicologist’s tool capable of revealing aspects of a phenomenon that would unlikely be communicated simply by ethnographic text.

This encounter between ethnographic and artistic practices is the leading theme of this paper. As a composer, an ethnomusicologist and a folk-trained musician, I have consolidated a compositional practice that is grounded in an enquiry into the musical culture of my native land, Calabria.⁴ In the wake of the experiences presented above, my music explores ways of dealing with folk musical elements in contemporary music composition. My enquiry into the musical realm of Calabria includes the study of the traditional approach to sound and encompasses the soundscapes that define the communities in the region. Using ethnographic methods, such as structured and unstructured interviews, participant observation and listening, and sound and video recordings, I study Calabrian sounds and music and investigate their sonic, cultural and symbolic value. I researched animal bells in Calabria through ethnographic methods: over the course of three years, I interviewed shepherds and bell makers; I observed, listened to and recorded flocks at pasture. My primary research method consisted of what Italian anthropologist Antonello Ricci calls participant listening (Ricci 2016). Similar to participant observation, this method focuses on hearing and listening as a primary research strategy. It prioritises the way the person being researched perceives and codifies sound. My study concerned the perception, production and symbolic signification of the sound of animal bells in Calabria, as well as the composite network of relationships the sound initiates among humans, animals, and landscapes. The outcomes of these studies became the source materials for generating new music.

First, I present All’Erva Radicchia, what inspired me and how I composed it. I offer a self-reflective analysis of the composition process and describe how the data that emerged in my ethnomusicological study informed the composition. I discuss how the representation of space and the complex network of aural relationships that Calabrian goat bells create was translated into a piece of spatialised music. I describe how goat bells’ ever-changing counterpoints led to the indeterminacy methods adopted in the composition and the performance of the piece. I analyse the reception of the piece and discuss the responses of different audiences. I also describe how unforeseen links between the sound of the bells and the performers’ personalities emerged in the performance. I then discuss the theoretical framework that I adopted in my enquiry into Calabrian sounds, I define my research methods and discuss my analytical approach to sound. I provide an overview of the folk phenomena and outline the results of my research. I describe the use of animal bells in Calabria and how their sound enables a network of signification and communication among diverse human and ‘non-human’ agents (animals, space, symbolic entities). In the conclusion, I discuss a possible solution to the ethical issues related to this type of artistic practice and briefly touch on the future development of this work.

All’Erva Radicchia

During my research in Calabrian sound, I was fascinated by the beautiful sound of bells for herd animals and by the complex network of relationships they establish between various human and non-human agents. Despite being functional devices used to locate the animals, bells hold great aesthetic value. Shepherds look for specific characteristics in the sound of their bells and carefully tune their flock to produce a pleasurable harmony. All’Erva Radicchia was inspired by bells in goat flocks for the complexity of harmonies and the rich sonic environment they shape. I was struck by the complex personalities that goats exhibit and how these are reflected in the sound of their bells, creating a composite counterpoint. The piece translates in performance the sound of a medium-small goat herd in the pasture and recreates the sonic relationships between listeners, bells, and space.

With All’Erva Radicchia, I wanted to reproduce the almost relaxing and meditative sonic experience induced by goat bells in the pasture. I enjoy the chaotic and energetic sound of the compact flock when the goats run as they leave the pen headed to the pasture or during the transhumance. However, I mostly like the sound of goat herds in the pasture, when the animals sparsely occupy a large space, move around, graze or rest and their bells toll rather gently. In this situation, despite the absence of a predetermined structure, the listener perceives emerging patterns in the spatialised melodies and rhythms created by the bells. In the pasture, the bells also create diverse melodies with different sets of pitches and different sonic densities as individual animals rest or move around (listen to Recording 1 online under Supplementary tab).

I wrote the piece for a bespoke set of bells I purchased in Figline Vigliaturo from Rocco Greco, who comes from a family with a long legacy of bell-making in Calabria. Rocco’s bells, and even more those made by his father and grandfather, are among the most admired and used in the region. When assembling the set, I chose 23 bells whose dimensions could reflect a small-to-medium goat flock. I assembled the harmony of the set in close dialogue with Rocco, who perfected and refined the tuning. We discussed the possible combinations of bells and tuned them to suit my aesthetic needs, similar to what shepherds would do with their flocks. The fundamental tones of the bells recall the modes found on the local bagpipes centred around C and E to create a polymodal ambiguity. A less rational and more situated choice involves putting together various bells according to the spectral interactions, clashes and matchings emerging in their overtones Table 1.

Table 1. All’Erva Radicchia, bells and relative tuning.

Label	Tuning	Quantity	Label	Tuning	Quantity
A	B6 −9	x1	G	F5 −3	x2
B	E6 −30	x3	H	E5 + 10	x2
C	B5 + 9	x1	I	D5 + 26	x2
D	A#5 + 34	x3	J	C5 −2	x2
E	A#5 −37	x1	K	B4 + 19	x1
F	G#5 + 23	x3	L	G#4 −5	x2

In All'Erva Radicchia, I wanted to reproduce the dynamic spatial pattern drawn by goat bells and play with the varying trajectories of the animals as they move through the pasture. Animal bells enable a complex network of relationships between humans, animals and the landscape. Shepherds use bells to locate the animals: they construct a sonic map through the sound of bells and receive detailed information about the animal’s position, state and activity (see Video 1 online under Supplementary tab).

The spatialised experience is achieved by placing the audience within and around the performance space. Audience members can be seated, stand or move around as long as the performers are not impeded to move around. The pages of the composition are distributed among nine stations placed around and within the audience according to the stage plan shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Stage plan of All’Erva Radicchia.

Each station is supplied with one of the nine pages of the composition. At each performance, the performers are given a series of stations they must visit or rests they must take, expressed in seconds. Figure 2 shows an example of All'Erva Radicchia’s instructions given to the performers before each performance. The performers, who receive only their corresponding part of the instructions, wander through the performance space, moving from one station to another.

Figure 2. Instructions prescribing the performers’ paths and rests.

The audience members experience the sound coming from different directions and recognise the path and position of each performer by locating the sound of their bells as they move through the performance space. The aural network between shepherd, animal and pasture is translated here in the relationship between listener, performer and performance space. The listeners follow the movement of the bells and construct an aural map of the performers’ positions as they move through space.

Initially, I had planned to write the piece for a group of percussionists and adopted the traditional metered staff. I soon realised that percussionists would try to read the score as precisely as possible, giving the piece a much different character than I originally intended. Being a consequence of the animal’s movements, the sound produced by a bell hanging from a goat’s collar is variable and uncontrolled, as the same activity or movement results in different types of tolls. Notating precise tolls for a group of percussionists would have resulted in much cleaner and more controlled tolls, a completely different sonic result than the sound of goat bells. I spent most of the composition process looking for ways to loosen up the performer’s control, attempting different types of traditional and bespoke notations. To reproduce goat bells’ uncontrolled and variable tolling, I opted for a graphic notation that prescribes wrist movements rather than precise musical events. These wrist movements exemplify the possible movements of a bell hanging from a goat collar: frontal, lateral and circular. Figure 3 shows the signs and corresponding movements: the star indicates a side movement of the wrist so that the beater hits the wide part of the bell’s body; the square indicates a single movement of the wrist back and forth so that the beater hits the narrow side of the bell’s body; the circle indicates a circular movement of the wrist so that the beater rotates around the bell’s opening. The performers hold the bells by the handle, vertically in line with their bodies so that the bell is free to move, similar to a bell hanging from a collar. This way, the bell’s movements produce a relatively controlled outcome: sometimes, the beater strikes the bell only once; other times, it hits the bell more than once. They also limit the performer’s control over the sound’s clarity and loudness, which may change at each strike.

Figure 3. All'Erva Radicchia: signs and corresponding wrist movement.

To reduce the performer’s control over the sonic result, I also introduced some level of uncertainty regarding the temporal placement of each sonic event. The bells in goat herds do not follow steady metres, and I wanted to reproduce this type of fluctuating tempo in my music. The composition is written on a square paper and arranged according to a non-explicit 10 × 10 grid. Figure 4 shows one of the pages of All’Erva Radicchia. Although it is possible to recognise the underlying grid, the positioning of each single event may not be obvious, especially during the performances.

Figure 4. A page of All’Erva Radicchia.

The composition is printed on square-shaped paper that must be read from left to right and top to bottom. Each page contains ten rows, each lasting 10 s, totalling one minute and forty seconds of music. The performers individually count sequences of ten seconds and play the bell at the corresponding signs. I avoided using a stopwatch in order to let individual and fluctuating tempi emerge. Individual tempi also introduce elements of variation in the way performers interpret the score and result in a slightly different rendition of the same line each time (see Video 2 online under Supplementary tab).

When writing the piece, I did not want my inner ear to drive me into known structures. Rather, I wanted to imitate the absence of recognisable patterns in the different densities and counterpoints of the flocks’ sound. Although the movement of an animal is not determined by random choices but rather by meaningful ones, a listener perceives the resulting bell’s sound as random, unexpected events in time. This effect is amplified when listening to the sound of an entire flock. I composed the piece through chance operations defined by two dice to reproduce this perceived randomness. One die determined note duration in seconds; the other defined the wrist movement required to ring the bell. Using dice would also create random densities of sonic events for each page of the composition, which may correspond to the diverse sounds goats produce in different situations in the pasture. Also, the prescription of long rests, determined before the performance (see Figure 2), contribute to creating varying densities. Adding to that, I also wanted to produce different sonic outcomes at each performance. Since the movements of the animals are not pre-determined, the sonic events produced by the flock are constantly changing: listening to the same flock multiple times produces different and ever-changing counterpoints. My attempt to recreate the variability of sounds that a flock produces in different situations and introduce elements of variation in the performance resulted in the adoption of different levels of indeterminacy in All’Erva Radicchia.

I could have mapped the trajectories of the animals in the pasture and translated their paths and sounds into a fixed score composition, producing a picture of one specific moment that would repeat itself at each performance. However, I was more interested in having an open and mobile structure that could recreate, in different performances, different and unexpected counterpoints, much like it happens when listening to a flock in different situations. Being an improviser, I often incorporate open elements in my compositions. However, in this case, I did not openly resort to improvisation for various reasons. Unfortunately, finding experienced improvisers among contemporary music performers is not always possible. Furthermore, I wanted to recreate a very specific sonic experience and produce varying densities similar to those heard in the pastures. Resorting to improvisation would mean setting considerably restrictive rules for the performers’ agency, whereas adopting open elements seemed a better and more effective choice to recreate the type of sound I was after. Moreover, while composing the piece, I realised I did not necessarily need professionals to perform my composition. In fact, I did not need musicians at all since the score calls for the ability to count sequences of 10 s and memorise three signs associated with wrist movements. Writing music that professionals and non-trained individuals can perform seemed a more stimulating experiment. Inexperienced performers can be easily overwhelmed by an excess of agency, thus making my music less suitable for non-trained individuals. Limited variability in the outcomes would also recreate the deep interrelation between stable and mobile elements found in Calabrian music (Ferlaino 2019). All these reasons led to the formulation of a very simple yet open score that conveys instructions that can be grasped within minutes by everyone.

Elements of indeterminacy are found in the notation and the page layout, the way the composition is distributed in space, the preparation of the performance and the approach to tempo. The piece is printed on square-shaped paper, and the notation system is composed of symmetric signs. These two features allow each page to be read in four different ways, depending on which side the paper is laid on. Consequently, each page contains four different sequences of events that produce different sonic outcomes and densities. Furthermore, the slightly confounding underlying 10 × 10 grid and the limited control of the sonic outcome determined by the wrist movements adds elements of uncertainty and indeterminacy. The fixity of the text is transformed at each performance by chance operations resulting from the random distribution of pages among the stations. The nine pages on which the composition is printed are unbound and unnumbered. Featuring only one page of the composition, each station contains only 1/9th of the written music. Being the pages unnumbered and square-shaped, the positioning of each page and the side on which it is laid change at each performance (see Image 1).

Image 1. All’Erva Radicchia in Nardodipace on 24 July 2021 (credits Claudia Olivadese).

Chance operations also determine the way the performance is structured. The performers’ instructions shown in Figure 2 are defined before each performance by tossing a 12-faced die. Numbers 1–9 of the die correspond to station numbers; 10 prescribes a 30-second rest; 11 prescribes a 1-minute rest; 12 prescribes a rest of 1 min and 30 s. The performance duration is indeterminately open, although a minimum duration is required to be determined by seven rolls of the die. The variable performance instructions defined by chance operations and the distribution of the composition scattered across the nine stations determine a variable structure at each performance. Even more so because the composition is not necessarily performed in its entirety as sometimes some pages are not performed at all (see Video 3 online under Supplementary tab).

The non-synchronous beginning of the performance, the freely chosen paths to reach the stations, and the absence of a common tempo also determine variable outcomes at each performance. At the beginning, all the performers enter the space and move slowly towards their first assigned station. When reaching the designated station, the performers start to play without waiting for the others to be in place. This determines the non-synchronicity of the events prescribed by the performers’ instructions. The performers read the content of a page in one uninterrupted sequence by silently counting series of 10 s. After playing a page, the performers move slowly to the following designated station or remain still if the instructions prescribe a rest. While walking between stations, the players do not mute their bell so that if a toll is given by accident, the bell is free to ring. The performers choose their way to the next station freely, following the directions given in the stage plan. All the measures described make it possible for the music to change at each performance, although it maintains a clearly recognisable character. The musical materials preserve an intrinsic structural unity that is transformed each time, similar to the sound of a flock in different situations. The interrelation between stability and mobility is also achieved by combining controlled compositional techniques with indeterminate ones. Of the nine pages of the piece, I composed the music contained in four and a half pages using the chance operations described earlier; I obtained the remaining four and a half by retrograde to produce a coherent form that might contain recognisable features throughout. However, the listeners do not perceive the palindrome form or any sense of symmetry, as it is concealed by the simultaneous performance of the nine pages and by other elements of indeterminacy.

Reception and reflection

The piece has been performed four times at the time of writing. A preview occurred in the woods at Geosito B in Nardodipace, a stunning geological site on the Serre Calabresi mountain chain. The première took place in the town square of Conflenti during the 2021 edition of Felici & Conflenti, a folk music event in central Calabria. A workshop on the use of bells for herd animals in Calabria preceded both performances. The third performance occurred in the town square of Motta Filogaso during the folk music festival Facimu Rota. The fourth performance took place on the banks of the Ostravice River in Ostrava, Czech Republic, as part of the Ostrava Days 2023 festival programme. The first three performances involved different groups recruited among the audience and festival attendees. The performer’s groups consisted of people of ages ranging from 7 to over 60 years old, all non-professional musicians and, in many cases, non-musicians. The last performance involved trained musicians recruited among the resident composers at the Ostrava Days 2023 festival (see Image 2).

Image 2. A particular from the rehearsals in Conflenti on 30 July 2021 (credit Ivan Arella).

The audience’s feedback revealed three types of reception. Common to every type of audience is the reception of my composition as a piece of music in its own right, with comments pointing towards the aesthetic value of my music. Generally, the comments regarded the beautiful sound of the piece, the tuning of the bells, the emerging complex interwoven lines and the almost meditative atmosphere. The contemporary music audience of Ostrava Days also commented on the tuning of my bells and the spectral component emerging from the interactions of the rich partials. Expert composers commented on the effectiveness of my idea, the strength of the concept and the simplicity of execution, resulting in beautiful music. A second type of reception emerges in those who participated in the workshops on the Calabrian use of animal bells that preceded some of the performances. In these cases, the piece works as a complement to the ethnographic research. The comments revolve around receiving a clearer picture of the information conveyed during the workshops. A third type of reception emerged in people with direct knowledge of animal bells. In these individuals, the aesthetic appreciation is coupled with the recognition of known patterns in the music that recall experiences of the flocks’ sound. The insiders’ comments were particularly valuable to me regarding my attempt at recreating the sound of goat flocks.

The performance in Conflenti was particularly noteworthy in this regard because it was attended by people with first-hand knowledge of animal bells. All’Erva Radicchia opened for Mimmo Morello’s Suoni di Famiglia, a trio performance in which members of the Morello family present their rich repertoire of peasant and urban Calabrian folk music (Morello and Ricci 2018). Mimmo and his family come from a community where animal bells are still widely used, and some family members are shepherds. I perceived their presence as a test of the piece’s ability to represent and reproduce the Calabrian use of goat bells and the culturally defined aspects of their sound. My level of anxiety heightened when Mimmo’s uncle and his son came to check my bells while I was preparing the performance space. They tested the quality of my instruments, picking them up from the box where I had stored them. I saw them evaluate the bells the same way I had often seen shepherds evaluate instruments before purchasing at markets and fairs. Indeed, as I found out shortly after, when they asked for the bells’ price, they thought I was there to sell my instruments. The information that I would perform music with those bells was met with a particularly puzzled gaze, blasting my anxiety to the roof. The two shepherds received the idea of playing music entirely written for animal bells with enormous scepticism and surprise. Despite the refined aesthetic value traditionally attributed to animal bells, they are not perceived as instruments that can be used to make music in their own right. However, after the performance, the two commented on my work with words of appreciation. They enjoyed the sound of my bells and told me they could recognise in the piece the various sounds that goat herds produce in different situations. To them, the various parts of the compositions evoked specific images of the animals in the pasture. They said that, at times, they could recognise the slow-paced and almost gentle tolling of goats grazing grass. In denser parts, they pictured the resounding tolling of the strolling animals. In the more sparse-sounding sections of the piece, they recognised the sound of the flock during the slow, warm afternoons when the animals are less active. In their words, I could again register the strong evocative power these instruments exert on those whose community’s soundscape is defined by animal bells. People with first-hand experience of animal bells established a connection between my piece and their lived, embodied experience. Even in the context of performance far from the pasture, the sound of bells evoked lived images and familiar relations with space and animal behaviour, demonstrating again the powerful network of signification and communication that these instruments enable. For me, the Morello’s appreciation marked All’Erva Radicchia’s success in correctly translating the sound of a grazing flock into a piece of music.

An interesting and unforeseen element emerged in performance: how the performers’ personalities shine through the bells’ sound, especially when working with non-trained individuals. During the composition and pre-composition phases, I wrote signs that prescribed wrist movements and asked the performers to count ten-second sequences individually to loosen the performers’ control over the sound result. The former made it possible to reduce control over the attacks; the latter would allow for multiple individual fluctuations in the piece’s tempo. However, I did not foresee how much these two factors would let the personalities of inexperienced performers emerge. The most apparent personal traits appeared in the perception of time across different people and age groups; it was amazing to see how much the duration of ten seconds can vary from person to person. Children generally showed faster tempi, almost rushing through the pages and moving rather quickly from station to station in excitement. Older people generally showed a slower perception of tempo, not only in how they moved through the performance space but also in how they counted seconds while playing the music.

The following is an extreme example of the variable perception of time. A performer in Conflenti approached his designated station and started reading the corresponding page. After about 20 s, a second performer joined the station, read the page at a tempo close to actual seconds and moved to the following designated station. Yet, the first performer took another 30 s to get to the bottom of the page. Probably due to the lack of time-keeping skills that musicians master through extensive training, the musically inexperienced performers showed more variability in the perception of time that spoke more of their personalities. How the performers approach their tasks also lets their personalities emerge. Some individuals, primarily children but also many adults, took their participation in the performance as a game, and their way of performing the music exhibited their joyful exuberance. Others took the task more seriously, exerting stricter control on their actions, which also transpired in the performance. Such a strong display of the performers’ personalities was unexpected and surprising, especially considering the traditional use of bells for herd animals.

Shepherds attribute certain bell sounds to specific animals according to their personalities to make them more recognisable and easily traceable within the flock. Consequently, the bell’s sound becomes a marker of the animals’ personality, which allows the shepherd to establish more direct and quicker sonic connections with the individuals who wear them. Similarly, the performers’ approach to performance, the way they ‘interpreted’ the music, spoke of their personality and age, which shone through the sound of their bells, enabling the listeners to establish more direct connections with the performers through the sound of their bells.

Sound as a vector of meaning

Oral cultures rely on sound and listening as a primary means for conveying information, whereas in modern Western society, that function is mainly given to visual media (Feld 1984; McLuhan 1994; Schafer 1994). Before the advent of printing, sound had a central role in shaping the spaces and lives of people in European societies, too (Caporaletti 2005; McLuhan 1994; Ong 2002). Historian Aron Gurevich (1985) describes an ear-based perception of time in the Middle Ages when different bell tolls regulated the temporal arrangements of daily life. Although we rely primarily on visual media for conveying information, the power of sound is still observable in modern society. For instance, the internet community has abundantly lamented the absence of the start-up chime in the 2016 generation of MacBook Pro. Over the years, the peculiar chime had established for Apple’s aficionados an emotional bond with the machine.⁵

Sound has great importance in Calabrian rural communities, and it is an integral part of people’s daily lives, rituals, and celebrations (Ricci 2012). The celebrations for San Leone in Saracena are accompanied by music and sound from various objects (including bells). In the propitiatory ritual of Jam’a scuntré Marz in Villapiana, people parade the streets at night, producing loud sounds using various objects and instruments such as cans, boxes or cooking pans. Numerous celebrations of the Easter Triduum feature the sound of horns, reeds, rattles, drums and many other objects and instruments. In my current research, a plethora of devices solely intended to produce sound have emerged. Many of these sounding objects were widely used by children until the 1960s as toys. These devices are not used for making music but rather as a pastime or in ritual contexts. Many informants, now over 65, still use these toys to produce sound as a pastime. Sound is also featured in sayings: during a conversation, a farmer said, ‘One walnut makes no sound’, to express the concept that ‘unity is strength’.

Sound shapes our world and our perception and understanding of it (Feld 1984; 2015; Schafer 1994), and it has increasingly become a subject of study in its own right. John Cage’s focus on sound has exerted a strong influence on both contemporary musicology and composition. Anthropologists and ethnomusicologists study sound as a cultural artefact that bears signification in relation to the culture that produces it. Various approaches to the study of sound have emerged: examples might include Murray Schafer’s soundscape (1994) soundscape, anthropology of sound (Feld and Brenneis 2004), acoustemology (Feld 2015), anthropology of listening (Ricci 2016) and echo-muse-ecology (Feld 1994). Acoustemology combines epistemology with acoustics. It postulates that sound is a way of knowing. It investigates sound and listening as a knowing-in-action, a form of knowledge mediated through the audible. Steven Feld maintains that ‘knowing through relations insists that one does not simply ‘acquire’ knowledge but, rather, that one knows through an ongoing cumulative and interactive process of participation and reflection’ (Feld 2015: 13–14). Acoustemology contends that sound can convey meaning even beyond the human presence: as an evolution of anthropology of sound, it takes the human component out of the equation. It favours enquiry in situated listening in a close relationship with space and time, and it is grounded in the assumption that life is shared in a relational network with numerous sources that are ‘variously human, nonhuman, living, nonliving, organic, or technological’ (Feld 2015: 15). Sound and soundscapes become bearers of cultural and natural meaning.

Closely related to acoustemology and expanding on the ecological implication of music is ecomusicology. Ecomusicology ‘considers the relationships of music, culture, and nature’ (Allen 2011: 392). It studies music as a ‘ means of mediating environmental matters; […] as a creative, aesthetic, symbolic, and affective expression of environmental meanings’ and as ‘an attempt to inform, inspire, and persuade audiences’ (Pedelty 2012: 7). Involving the culturally informed sound of domesticated animals in space, All’Erva Radicchia can be read within the scope of ecomusicology. All’Erva Radicchia successfully explores in music the aesthetics of animal bells and the network of communication that they establish among humans, animals, and space. Not only does it communicate about the original phenomenon, but it also offers a situated experience of space and sound. Having taken place in natural or urban environments—woods, town squares and the banks of a river—the performances have invited audiences to establish a sonic exploration of the surrounding space. Furthermore, All’Erva Radicchia contributes to critically examining and communicating a local approach to sound in a changing society. Although once widely practised throughout the entire region, pastoralism is now found only in rural and sometimes remote areas. Especially when performed in Calabria, the piece communicates a local approach to sound unknown to the many who have grown in the more urbanised areas of the region. All’Erva Radicchia also explores a new approach to making music together with a participatory performance with a low environmental impact.

In drawing on animal-made sound, All’Erva Radicchia also relates to multispecies ethnomusicology. Multispecies ethnomusicology studies the relationship between human and nonhuman sound to better ‘comprehend human musicking […] via an ethically and empirically motivated acknowledgement that we live among nonhuman beings who help us make our world meaningful, who affect us, and whom we affect in return’ (Silvers 2020: 201). All’Erva Radicchia attempts to reproduce the way goats (appear to) use sounds that they have been attributed by humans: it reveals musical aspects of a sound produced by non-human agents. In returning to humans for performance, the bells may also reveal links to the animals’ behavioural patterns. Furthermore, the piece sets a common ground for multispecies musical and sonic communication in which aspects of the personalities of both goats and human performers can emerge.

Bells for herd animals in Calabria

Bells are widely used in Calabria to keep track of the animals in a flock. Beyond being mere functional devices, animal bells are imbued with aesthetic, social, cultural, and symbolic value. Bells establish connections between different human and non-human agents; they shape the soundscape of a community and are a significant factor in the shepherds’ family identity.

By referring directly to the object that produces it, sound testifies to the object’s presence in the world; at the same time, the immateriality of sound allows for a symbolic representation that transcends the object (Ricci 2012). Bells are one of the clearest examples of this power of sound: found in churches and temples worldwide, they are charged with symbolic and spiritual meaning. Animal bells hold a similar symbolic value; it manifests in many apotropaic rituals that adopt bells as a sonic device, such as Greek carnivals (Panopoulos 2003), the Sardinian ritual of the Mamuthones (Turchi 2011), and the propitiatory winter rituals in Basilicata (Scaldaferri 2005, 2009). In Calabria, animal bells are also used in the carnival celebration in Alessandria del Carretto as a part of the Połëcënellë’s costume or as a complement to some costumes in the many farse (folk satirical theatre) that take place in the region during the carnival celebrations. Symbolic connotations are also manifest in the way animal bells are used to adorn the flocks: the sounds produced by the bells are infused with meaning referring to each animal’s species, gender, age, social rank and personality (listen to Recording 2 online under Supplementary tab).

In Calabria, there are two main types of animal bells: campane and leccisi. They differ mainly in their shape and, consequently, in their sound character. Both instruments are made of a sheet of metal cut, hammered, and curved into shape. The margins are then riveted at the two narrow sides of the bell, and a handle is attached: this consists of an elliptical metal rod that passes through and is fixed to the inside of the bell, where the beater hangs. Both bell types have an internal beater: sound is produced by the strike of the beater against the inner edges of the bell opening. Bells come in different sizes and are normally defined by their weight, which may range from 0.1–5 kilograms. Bells up to 1–1.5 kg are used for goats, whereas the heavier ones are reserved for cows, especially for transhumance, the seasonal migration of livestock between lowlands and nearby mountains.

Bells are functional devices that are used to identify and keep track of the animals of a flock. Their multiple sounds create a sonic representation of the flock in space, which helps shepherds to locate the flock at a distance or even to single out individual animals in the fields. Shepherds carefully ‘tune their flock’ so that the sound produced is unique and therefore recognisable: they must distinguish their flock from a different one even when two flocks pass each other or mingle.

In Calabria, three main species of animals are farmed: cattle, sheep, and goats. In my observations it emerged that each species is assigned a different set of bells’ sounds in accordance with their specific social structure and behaviour. Sheep are mostly gregarious animals. Consequently, they are given only two sounds: a low-sounding bell for the male and higher-sounding bells, all of the same pitch for the females. Cattle are organised by clans ruled by the oldest female of the family and have two sets of bells: one for grazing and one for transhumance. For grazing only some cows are given a bell: these can be either the dominant female or another member with a prominent social role. The members of a family are said to identify themselves with the peculiar sound assigned to the clan and are driven together by it. For the transhumance, all cows are given rather large bells. Goats have complex social behaviours and more unpredictable personalities than cattle and sheep. Bells are distributed according to social rank, gender, and individual personality. The dominant male is assigned the lowest-pitched bell of the whole flock. As with sheep, the gregarious members of the flock are assigned bells that all produce the same pitch. Other particular members are assigned different tones according to their behaviour and personality: animals with peculiar behaviours (such as usually walking ahead or behind the flock) are assigned distinctive sounds that uniquely identify them. Also, animals that show too independent an attitude or usually ‘misbehave’ are assigned characteristic bell sounds to be tracked more easily across the pasture.

Animal bells are associated with different levels of symbolic signification and create a complex network of relationships. Flocks anthropise the environment as they shape the soundscape of valleys, rivers, and villages, thus establishing relationships with space. Bells also establish a relational network between humans and animals. They are carefully chosen to match the animals that will wear them. Shepherds recognise their animals and receive information about the position and activity of each animal through the sound of their bell. They know where an animal is and what it is doing by the way its bell tolls. By the way sound is reflected, echoed or absorbed, they also get an image of the type of terrain on which the animal is moving. Sounds also initiate relationships among animals: they play a significant role in the animals’ representation of self. In the absence of a visual reference, the animals identify their flock by its bell sound, which drives them together. Bellmaker Rocco Greco says that some shepherds give a small bell to a kid to ‘trick’ the other flock members. Kids typically do not require a bell because they tend to stay close to their mothers. However, giving a kid a bell induces other animals to believe it is an important member of the flock, making them gather around it.

The sound of the flock is a substantial identity factor for the shepherds’ families. Each family identifies itself with a specific sound. Bells are a precious part of the family inheritance and are often passed on to the firstborn male. Losing the bells, or having them stolen, is considered a tremendous disgrace as it means being deprived of a marker of the family identity (Ricci 1996). Animal bells are also charged with spiritual symbolism. Some shepherds put the bells on their animals on Easter morning when the resounding tolls of the church bells symbolise and celebrate the resurrection of Christ.

Despite being functional devices used to keep track of the animals in the pasture, animal bells are chosen and appreciated for the beauty of their sound. Despite not being considered musical instruments, their use involves highly specialised skills and holds a very refined aesthetic value that can be associated with musical behaviours. Shepherds choose carefully before purchasing their bells: they look for purity, clearness and richness and carefully tune the bells in search of a sound that is both personal—therefore distinguishable from that of other shepherds—and pleasurable. The sound of each bell must possess specific sound qualities and be clear of undesired overtone collisions, which is referred to as grastiare. The aesthetic component of animal bells is also evident in the attention shepherds put into purchasing new bells or tuning them. Despite the roughness of the tuning process, achieved by hammering the bell’s body on an anvil, the results are surprising: skilled individuals can make different bells produce the same pitch and sound quality with extreme precision. Most importantly, shepherds perceive their flock as producing a single sound, a unique sonic entity that must produce a pleasurable harmony. The tuning of a flock is also the subject of appreciation and comments within the community. A flock adorned with good bells and collars is a matter of pride and a mark of the shepherds’ value because of their good impression on community members. Shepherd Antonio Vescio says, ‘uno chi cce capisce ti cce merca’ (a knowledgeable person checks it out), to remark on how goats with nice collars and beautiful-sounding bells are noticed and appreciated in the community.

Scientific literature addresses the influence of music on animals and non-human beings (Kriengwatana, Mott, and ten Cate 2022) and the potential adverse effects of bells sound on goats in experimental environments (Johns, Patt and Hillmann 2015). My observations in field research showed behavioural effects of the bells on the animals, although rarely evidently negative. Animals that had already experienced the transhumance were at ease just after being given a bell and seemed to fully understand what would happen as they lined up, waiting to start the journey. Young members who received the bell for the first time in their lives showed evident distress after being given it: they kicked around in evident confusion for a few minutes. In some cases, shepherds recognise their animals’ agency. Antonello Ricci (2012) observes that some shepherds let the animal choose their bells: they ring various bells and eventually assign an animal the one whose sound attracts it the most.

Conclusion

Research on animal bells and Calabrian soundscapes showed a complex system of symbolic signification associated with sound. The study also highlighted an intricate network of relationships initiated by sound. Clearly defined aesthetic choices drive the way flocks are tuned and consequently shape the soundscape of the community. Beyond the mere functional use of bells, shepherds create a pleasurable and meaningful sound by drawing on their remarkably refined aural skills. All’Erva Radicchia explores the complexity of Calabrian soundscapes and reproduces the animals’ sounds in a flock through indeterminacy techniques in composition and performance. Through spatialisation, the piece invites the listeners to establish aural relationships with the bells and follow their sounds as they move across the space.

All’Erva Radicchia offers a new perspective on the use of animal bells in contemporary music practice. Other composers have used animal bells and even included animals in their performances.⁶ However, in All’Erva Radicchia, the sound of the flock becomes the essence of the musical discourse, a platform that enables the listener to engage in a dynamic relationship with space and sound through the tolls of animal bells. The bells do not simply evoke space (imaginary or real) but speak musically in their own right. All’Erva Radicchia can be compared, to some extent, to Steven Feld’s The Time of Bells (Feld 2004a, 2004b, 2005, 2007, 2012a, 2012b) insofar as it attempts to convey, albeit in performance, a culturally informed approach to sound and space (Robair 2006). The sound coming from different sources and propagating throughout the performance space recalls that of goat flocks in the pastures. It allows the listener to engage in relationships with the sound of specific bells and to follow them as they move.

This article has demonstrated a way of creatively approaching the analysis of folk music and the related cultural phenomena beyond the mere adoption of melodies, modes, or musical instruments. The emic concepts, techniques, theoretical frameworks, and musical materials that emerged in the ethnomusicological enquiry offered new ground for explorations in contemporary music. An ethical imperative drives my choice of methods: the avoidance of a superficial approach to Calabrian music to prevent a colonialist or an exoticist view of that culture. Although I was trained in that folk tradition, a superficial and non-thoughtful adoption of musical materials from Calabrian music could lead to the exploitation of my folk legacy, giving rise to some kind of self-cultural colonialism. I am afraid of applying models of interpretation of a (dominant) culture to the processes, artefacts, and theoretical structures of a different one.⁷ My research methods aim at a careful understanding of Calabrian sound and music’s idiosyncrasies through a thorough investigation of their fundamental principles. This leads to an investigation with and among the actors of that tradition. By studying Calabrian material and immaterial culture, my enquiry aims at understanding the aesthetic, poietic, social, and symbolic context in which sound and music are produced. Ethnography-derived disciplines set the methodological framework for my investigations. Far from being immune to ethical issues, ethnography offers a rigorous methodology and, most importantly, a controllable research framework for studying the data that I subsequently adopt in my creative enquiry. In my approach to musical research, I seek to celebrate diversity by respecting the idiosyncrasies of the two musical languages while offering new solutions for establishing connections and dialogues. The result is a creative enquiry conducted entirely in the realm of contemporary music, with respect to its experimental approach to music-making that involves a critical questioning of established practices (Gottschalk 2016; Griffiths 2010; Nyman 1999). Pieces like All’Erva Radicchia are able to convey knowledge of folk sound phenomena that are not communicated simply through ethnographic text and become a valuable complement to the ethnomusicologist’s work. The appreciation of shepherds and people with direct experience of goat bells mark All’Erva Radicchia’s success in conveying knowledge of the folk phenomena.

A final consideration concerns the research’s present and future development emerged with All’Erva Radicchia. Initially started as a piece for percussionists, the more I notated the music, the more I realised I did not necessarily need professionals or musicians to perform it. All’Erva Radicchia was composed as a partial submission of my PhD thesis in Creative Music Practice at the University of Edinburgh. The possibility of having a piece that non-musicians or amateurs can perform opened new paths for future explorations. These eventually led to the formulation of a research project that I am currently carrying out as a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow on using sounding objects and contemporary music resources to enhance the participation of non-trained individuals who would otherwise be excluded from music-making. The research is conducted at the crossing between ethnomusicology and contemporary music, as both have challenged our definitions of music and of a musician. It builds on the assumption that alternative social, aesthetic, educational and cultural contexts can expand musical participation and make non-musicians become producers of music. Sounding objects are easy to play, so they are accessible to non-specialist performers without effort. Calabrian sounding objects and participatory approach to music-making, combined with some techniques and practices of contemporary music—such as open structures, graphic notation, non-conventional use of musical instruments and extensive recourse to improvisation—can be used as inclusive tools that allow amateurs and non-musicians to create and perform music. From this perspective, the compositions produced within the context of that enquiry, besides complementing the communication of research on sound, will also include a social and community music component, extending the benefits of musical participation to individuals otherwise excluded from music-making.

Acknowledgements

Part of this work has been funded by the European Union under the Marie Skłodowska Curie Action Post-doctoral Fellowship for the research project Local Sound for a New Musicality—Enhancing Musical Participation through a Local Sonic Practice (LoMus). The implications of writing music for and with non-musicians as emerged in All’Erva Radicchia eventually led to the formulation of LoMus, which is currently developed at Università della Calabria in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Research Executive Agency (REA) under Grant 101060695.

Notes on contributors

Christian Ferlaino

Christian Ferlaino is an Italian-born saxophonist, improviser, composer and ethnomusicologist. He is a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow at Università della Calabria with a research that couples ethnomusicology, contemporary music studies and community music to enhance the participation of non-trained individuals in music-making. As an ethnomusicologist, his research focus resides in the music and sound of Calabria, in southern Italy, about which he has published various articles and a monograph. As a musician, his artistic practice incorporates the sonic and musical realm of Calabria in the composition of contemporary music. His work also explores the expressive potential of improvised music and the relationships between composition and improvisation.

Notes

1 For a historical account of the crossings between folk and Western classical music, see Peter van der Merwe (2004) and Matthew Gelbart (2007). More recent examples may include forefather of ethnomusicology Béla Bartók, Harry Partch (Granade 2014), Lou Harrison (Griffiths 2010), Walter Zimmermann (Gottschalk 2016), Anthony Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music (Haring 2012), Tan Dun (Rochester 2016) and Chen Yi (Shaw 2015).

2 Francesco Marano (2013) traces the history of the intersections between artistic and ethnographic practice and depicts how artists and anthropologists have increasingly adopted common methods of representation and analytical tools. Similarly, Schneider and Wright explore ‘the border zones between art and anthropology practices’ (Schneider and Wright 2021: 1). Nicola Scaldaferri (2016) describes the intersections between artistic and ethnographic practice in multimedia artist and composer Yuval Avital’s opera Samaritans, and in Steven Feld’s approach to the soundscape composition published in I suoni dell’albero. Il Maggio di San Giuliano ad Accettura (Scaldaferri and Feld 2012).

3 A few examples are Voices in the Rainforest (Feld 1991), The Time of Bells (Feld 2004a, 2004b, 2005, 2007, 2012a, 2012b) and I suoni dell’albero (Scaldaferri and Feld 2012).

4 Placed between Basilicata and Sicily, Calabria is one of the southernmost Italian regions; it is among the richest in traditional music and instruments (Scaldaferri 1994) and still maintains a diversified and lively oral culture that has been an object of study for decades. For a quick overview of the variety of the instruments and practices found in Calabria, see (Ricci and Tucci 1988, 2004; La Vena 1986, 1996; Lomax 1999).

5 A quick internet search gives an idea of the forum discussions and web articles that followed the withdrawal of the start-up chime.

6 Examples include Misha Mengelberg’s situationist piece Le Musiche della Città presented at the Italian theatre festival Santarcangelo dei Teatri in 1978, and Iannis Xenakis’s the situated performance Polytope de Mycenae (Schiffer 1978).

7 Cultural appropriation, especially in relationship to art, thrives on notions of the ‘extra-historicity of art and the Eurocentric bias of our thinking on culture’ (Coutts-Smith 2002). It consists of the ‘imitation of foreign languages, customs, and feelings, that is, in the absolute loss of the national idiosyncrasy’ (Ferro Gay 1974).