Marguerite Coetzeen

MUSICAL FUTURES: SINGING FUTURES INTO BEING

By Marguerite Coetzee

IF the future were a song, what song would it be? Or rather, if the future were like a song, what would it sound like? Consider, for a moment, how different the future would seem if we were to think of the future as something that is creatively composed and collectively heard, but individually decoded and intelligently entangled with meaning; adaptable and enigmatic, imaginative and improvisational, harmonious and enduring. Music - like the future - can be personal, practical, and even political. To illustrate this, I experimented (Coetzee, 2019) at the intersection of creativity and Futures Studies to see what could emerge. Focusing on South African musician and anthropologist, Johnny Clegg, I explored the nodes and networks of his musical career; his lyrical stories, ethnographic performances, and prophetic songs.

Familiar to many futurists is the Sigmoid Curve (or the S-Curve); a ‘curve of life’. By mapping Clegg’s musical career onto this curve, it exposed the contextual conditions that potentially contributed to his sustained success and continuous transformation as an artist; changing with and adapting to the times to meet new needs, expressing new experiences and ideas, and dreaming new futures and possibilities (Coetzee, 2019, p. 4-5). Below is an excerpt from those findings:

The Johnny and Sipho duo of the 1970s was born in a time of police control, border wars, and a racially divided nation. They sang in small, private venues; their collaboration against the law. They then formed the multi-racial band, Juluka, in the 1980s with their music preserving the traditional Maskandi genre and giving a voice to a largely silenced population, and their shows being raided by police. Sipho then left the band to return to a life of farming, and Johnny went on to create the crossover band, Savuka, in the 1990s, which seemed to mirror the transition in South Africa; the country crossing over into a new era and starting to see more interaction between its previously segregated parts. After the death of a band member in political violence – during this time of transition – Savuka disbanded. Johnny Clegg then took on a solo career in the 2000s, his music becoming more multifaceted as if to incorporate the growing trend of globalisation. He incorporated styles from around the world – Hindi, French, Celtic, and others. He sang of the influence of technology, of uncertain futures, of loss of tradition, and other topics that were relevant during this time of national growth, followed by gradual decline (Coetze, 2019, p. 5).

Following Clegg’s death in the late 2010s, his original music partner, Sipho Mchunu, has since returned to a musical career with the release of a solo album, and Clegg’s incomplete memoirs have been published as an autobiography of his early years. Clegg’s sons are both in creative fields and numerous local artists uphold Clegg’s lyrical legacy. The S-curve continues.

Another approach popular amongst futurists is Causal Layered Analysis. It is usually used when unpacking the interacting forces that generate a particular future, followed by creatively, actively and systematically transforming that future.

The very first layer at the top - the litany - identifies the obvious problem as discussed in everyday conversation and presented in the media. The language we use to describe the future tends to be mechanical, technical or digital. In this sense, the future becomes an almost contained entity that we think we can predict, control, replace, replicate, and define. The second layer - the systems - contextualises the problem and explores the driving forces that contribute to its existence. The way we behave in the present moment is largely influenced by our relationship with the future. While the future does not exist, it can be anticipated and imagined in the present (Miller, 2018, p. 58-59). The third layer - the worldviews - analyses why we think about a problem in a particular way or view it from a certain perspective. We often think of the future as a time and place beyond the here and now. Many of us assume that we inherit a past and that the future does not belong to us, or at least it is not our responsibility. The fourth layer - the archetypes - grounds what we believe, how we come to believe, and why we believe in deep-rooted myths and metaphors. Our inherent, instinctive or intuitive beliefs about the future can be embedded in philosophical interpretations of who we are as human beings.

Now let us reframe our view of the future by using music as a method for talking about, thinking through, engaging with, and believing in the future. The future is a song, composed of individual interacting sounds that produce a collective, harmonious whole. Music exists in the semiosphere; a language with which we can code, decode, and re-encode meaning into messages. It allows us to communicate or express futures that do not exist in words, but in ideas and intuition. Participants collaborate as facilitators and creative agents of change who contribute to musical futures, as well as audiences who interpret, absorb, and express these futures in their own ways.

It is through storytelling that we are able to invent and reinvent dialogues, social constructs, and identities. Musicians, as enablers of emergence, are storytellers that craft memories, narratives, and scenarios for us to make sense of ourselves, our world, and our place in it. Music plays a role in the “imagination and achievement of freedom” (Coplan, 1985, p.2); of initiating, guiding, and embodying a process of change, reflection, and transformation.

What does your future sound like?

WFSF HAPPENINGS