The Appropriate Scale of Music : Swedish and Scottish Musical Colonization in Southern Africa, 1770–1850
Dodds, Philip LU
(2026)
Global Music History and Northern Europe in the 18th and 19th Centuries
- Abstract
- From the 1770s onwards, Scottish and Swedish travellers published detailed ethnographic descriptions and categorizations of southern African musical practices. Scots and Swedes, as overseers of the major missionary organizations in the region, led the large-scale projects of hymn-based “civilizing” and “musical education” that started in the 1810s. It was, furthermore, Scottish folk songs and nationalist anthems that could be heard in the settlements of the colonial frontier from the 1820s onwards, and, at the end of the 1840s, explorers’ collections of African musical instruments were put on display in Stockholm’s museums. A key theme connecting all these diverse processes of musical colonization – including varied transcriptions,... (More)
- From the 1770s onwards, Scottish and Swedish travellers published detailed ethnographic descriptions and categorizations of southern African musical practices. Scots and Swedes, as overseers of the major missionary organizations in the region, led the large-scale projects of hymn-based “civilizing” and “musical education” that started in the 1810s. It was, furthermore, Scottish folk songs and nationalist anthems that could be heard in the settlements of the colonial frontier from the 1820s onwards, and, at the end of the 1840s, explorers’ collections of African musical instruments were put on display in Stockholm’s museums. A key theme connecting all these diverse processes of musical colonization – including varied transcriptions, performances, collections, categorizations and compositions conducted by disconnected groups and individuals from smaller nations beyond the imperial centres – was a focus on music’s scalar dimensions. (I mean here scale in the geographical rather than musical sense, although the two are connected.) Many musical colonizers assumed that music must address particular scales of social and cultural-geographical experience, including the nation and the landscape, as well as the musical performer’s internal or emotional landscape. This formed the basis of their denigration of African music. Others – including but not only the missionaries – suggested that music should adhere to certain universal principles could address no other scale of purpose but the divine or the heavenly. This was the basis of an often-violent outlawing of indigenous musical practices, to be replaced with a new standard set in northern Europe. This conference contribution will discuss all this with reference to travellers like Anders Sparrman and Lady Anne Barnard; missionaries like Hans Peter Hallbeck and Mary and Robert Moffat; and Thomas Pringle, the settler, abolitionist and Romantic poet. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/2037f9d8-5c59-499b-b7d3-e8633c1d9a8f
- author
- Dodds, Philip
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2026-05-15
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- published
- subject
- conference name
- Global Music History and Northern Europe in the 18th and 19th Centuries
- conference location
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- conference dates
- 2026-05-15 - 2026-05-16
- project
- Musical Colonization: Scots and Swedes in Southern Africa, 1770–1850
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 2037f9d8-5c59-499b-b7d3-e8633c1d9a8f
- alternative location
- https://globalhumanities.ku.dk/events/2026/global-music-history-and-northern-europe-in-the-18th-and-19th-centuries/Global_konference_programme_and_abstracts.pdf
- date added to LUP
- 2026-09-01 11:22:22
- date last changed
- 2026-09-29 09:02:49
@misc{2037f9d8-5c59-499b-b7d3-e8633c1d9a8f,
abstract = {{From the 1770s onwards, Scottish and Swedish travellers published detailed ethnographic descriptions and categorizations of southern African musical practices. Scots and Swedes, as overseers of the major missionary organizations in the region, led the large-scale projects of hymn-based “civilizing” and “musical education” that started in the 1810s. It was, furthermore, Scottish folk songs and nationalist anthems that could be heard in the settlements of the colonial frontier from the 1820s onwards, and, at the end of the 1840s, explorers’ collections of African musical instruments were put on display in Stockholm’s museums. A key theme connecting all these diverse processes of musical colonization – including varied transcriptions, performances, collections, categorizations and compositions conducted by disconnected groups and individuals from smaller nations beyond the imperial centres – was a focus on music’s scalar dimensions. (I mean here scale in the geographical rather than musical sense, although the two are connected.) Many musical colonizers assumed that music must address particular scales of social and cultural-geographical experience, including the nation and the landscape, as well as the musical performer’s internal or emotional landscape. This formed the basis of their denigration of African music. Others – including but not only the missionaries – suggested that music should adhere to certain universal principles could address no other scale of purpose but the divine or the heavenly. This was the basis of an often-violent outlawing of indigenous musical practices, to be replaced with a new standard set in northern Europe. This conference contribution will discuss all this with reference to travellers like Anders Sparrman and Lady Anne Barnard; missionaries like Hans Peter Hallbeck and Mary and Robert Moffat; and Thomas Pringle, the settler, abolitionist and Romantic poet.}},
author = {{Dodds, Philip}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{05}},
title = {{The Appropriate Scale of Music : Swedish and Scottish Musical Colonization in Southern Africa, 1770–1850}},
url = {{https://globalhumanities.ku.dk/events/2026/global-music-history-and-northern-europe-in-the-18th-and-19th-centuries/Global_konference_programme_and_abstracts.pdf}},
year = {{2026}},
}