For my sake as much as yours, I’m rounding up some themes from the last year (cf. my post for 2018)—do click on the links, both below and in the posts themselves! There’s plenty more to explore under the monthly archives as you scroll down in the sidebar.

I continue to add vignettes on the Li family Daoists (always bearing in mind my film and book!):

• A flawed funeral
• A new memorial stele
• A meditation on impermanence
• Li Manshan’s latest diary
• Grave charts
• Changing ritual artefacts
• Drum patterns of Yanggao ritual

and I augment my post Walking Shrill with

• Blind shawm players in Yanggao
• A secret language in north Shanxi

On my other main fieldsite of Gaoluo (summary here),

• New Year’s rituals
• A village elder
• A village scholar

Bearing on both the Li family and Gaoluo is

• Customs of naming.

And under the main menu, it’s always worth exploring the many fieldnotes under Local ritual, and the various pages under the Themes sub-menu.

Among many posts on the great Yang Yinliu are

• A 1956 fieldtrip to Hunan
• The Confucian ritual in Hunan.

For links to ritual life around south Jiangsu, see

• Roundup of posts on south Jiangsu,

and for the rich cultures of Fujian,

• Fujian, 1961 and onwards.

Note also

• Suite plucking
• Amateur musicking in urban Shaanbei
• A Czech couple in 1950s’ Tianqiao.

For more on China, see

• Images from the Maoist era
• Archive Chinese recordings
• Famine and expressive culture
• Buddhism under Mao: Wutaishan
• Chau on “doing religion” in modern China
• Religion in Chinese society
• A Tang mélange
• A Confucius mélange.

The plight of the Uyghurs is a pressing concern (see also Uyghur tag):

• Uyghur culture in crisis
• Shrine festivals of the Uyghurs
• Uyghur drum-and-shawm.

Note also

• The Cultural Revolution in Tibet.

Further afield, see

• Life behind the Iron Curtain: a roundup.

The category of “world music“, or rather musicking in societies around the world, continues to grow. For salient perspectives on musical cultures worldwide (notably the brilliant, accessible work of Bruno Nettl), see

• Society and soundscape, as well as
• World music abolished!!!
• What is “serious music”?!
• Unpacking “improvisation”.

For diverse regional genres, see e.g.

• Morocco: Paul Bowles
• Noh drama (and the meretricious sequel Oh Noh!)
• Two guttural vocalists
• Polish jazz, and Some jazz fiddling
• Dream songs.

For the musics of Iran, see

• Shawm bands of Lorestan
• Iran: chamber music.

Pursuing my shawm theme. see

• Shawm and percussion bands of south Asia.

Among several posts on Italian folk culture are

• Italy: folk musicking
• Enza Pagliara.

See also

• Italian cinema: a golden age.

Note also new posts on flamenco.

On English culture (roundup here):

• Morris dancing
• Das Land ohne Musik
• Northern soul,

and having given Alan Bennett time off for good behaviour, he stars in several recent posts, notably

• A career highlight.

Under the WAM category, posts include

• Barbara Hannigan
• Hélène Grimaud
• Meredith Monk
• Playing with history
• Popular culture in early modern Europe
• Janáček and Moravian folk (see here for a roundup of Czech stories)
• Reception history
• The art of conducting: a roundup (with the brilliant Oxana Thaili alongside Bernstein, Rozhdestvensky, Rattle, and Co.)

and recent additions to the Mozart tag, like

• Mozart for winds, and genius
• Vocal trios.

Under the Messiaen tag, major new posts are

• Des canyons aux étoiles
• Éclairs sur l’au-delà …

On a lighter note are two classics on rubber chicken:

• Pachelbel’s capon
• Mahler 5 as you’ve never heard it.

In my Must-Listen Playlist of songs (complementing the sidebar playlist for local Chinese traditions, with commentary here), most spellbinding is

• Billie Holiday.

And I continue the theme of stammering:

• Chinese stammerers
• More stammering songs
• Representations in opera (with more Mozart!).

Also well worth a read is

• The wonders of juggling.

And don’t forget the *MUST READ* category—among which my personal choice remains

• That is the snake that bit my foot.