Q&A/After years of studying the music of her native South Africa, Carol Muller has brought her fascination with indigenous musical culture to Penn, exposing her students to the rich local traditions of gospel and jazz.

“It's very boring to just tell people how to do things.” 

By JUDY WEST

	Cover story: Culture clash The smoke must clear, expert says Developing trust, and finding answers

As a girl growing up in South Africa, Carol Muller was an enthusiastic piano player and an accomplished flautist. Never very comfortable performing, her musical interests soon shifted into the academic sphere and, after graduating from the University of Natal, she earned her Ph.D. from New York University with an award-winning dissertation on Nazarite song, dance and dreams among the women of South Africa.

After publishing several books on South African music and a stint at the University of North Carolina, Muller came to Penn as an associate professor of music six years ago.

The classes she teaches focus on ethnomusicology—the study of music of different cultures. To help her students—connect with the knowledge,  she has designed several courses that engage directly with the West Philadelphia community. So far, she has had students record and research gospel music in the local churches and track down the history of the Philly jazz scene through interviews with some of its past luminaries.

“I was doing this kind of stuff in South Africa,”  says Muller. “Here in America, it has a name. There, it was just part of what I did in my teaching. Basically I was out in the townships all the time, recording stuff.” 

Muller has been gratified to find pockets of real innovation  in Philadelphia’s musical history. She still finds it a challenging place to live, though, because of what she perceives as a fundamental lack of integration. “Integration is very difficult in this country,” she says. “It’s much harder than it is in South Africa. Because there, white people are in the minority and you know you’ve got to reach out.” 

Q. How did the idea for your first community project, the gospel class, come about?

A. I teach an upper level undergraduate and graduate seminar on field methods in ethnomusicology. And it's very boring to just tell people how to do things. I thought it was much better to teach field research by doing than reading about it, and it coincided with Ira Harkavy at the Center for Community Partnerships calling me and saying he wanted to have a gospel project happen. So I went and had a conversation with Winnie Smart-Mapp there and she's completely fanatical about gospel music. The overall idea is to build a publicly accessible history of gospel musicófrom the spirituals, to contemporary religious practice, to the more commercial forms. The first time around we brought local African-American music experts into the classroom and then we had students select their own small research projects and we created a web domain .

Q. And the students gathered material for their research projects at churches in the community. Did they take to it readily?

A. They had to be convinced that they could engage with it. A couple of students said, “I don't believe in this religion—how can I do this? How can I write about this? ” There was a level of discomfort. I said, “You don't have to believe. Just like you don't have to live in the medieval period to do work on it. ” So these are the things we had to grapple with.

Q. But obviously it was successful, since it has continued.

A. Yes, my colleague Tim Rommen ran the field methods class the second time round. I suggested they focus on two churches in West Philly, Monumental and Millennium Baptist. We'd worked with Millennium Baptist, which was Winnie's church so we had a sort of an in. Students undertook research projects in small groups, and then they produced a 30-minute movie each. They were very different pieces. The one about Millennium was really about the spirituality, using lots of physical texture interwoven, and the other one was very observant and scientific. At the end of the semester we played them back to the communities at Irvine. We figured about 60 people would show up. It was a very cold night in December and we got about 150. A truly amazing moment. .

Q. What are you doing this semester? .

A. This semester I have an undergrad class, Thinking Globally About Music. Once you've done a broad overviewóif it's Tuesday it must be tuvaóI've struggled with how to teach to people who haven't had much exposure to ethnomusicology. So my idea was to take a single theme. At the moment we're doing music and spirituality, and we are working with another church, Second Antioch Baptist. It's in a very rundown neighborhood but it's a really extraordinary community. The pastor is high energy, really dynamic. He put a computer lab in the basement. I mean, just amazing stuff. They're divided into groups of five or six. Each group will produce about five minutes on a particular topic and then we'll weave them together and make another 30-minute film. It's mostly about the music but they are doing stuff about the art history of the church and there are lots of different musical groups [they're studying].

Q. And you also have a class on West Philly's jazz history. Tell me about that.

A. We're working on a project to document Philadelphia's jazz history through oral history interviews. The goal is for the students to interview people who were part of the really thriving jazz scene in the past. The hub of this project is 3901 Market St., the retirement community, some of whom used to live in ìthe Bottomî and performed in the neighborhood.

Q. What is “the Bottom”?

A. It was an African-American community that was basically moved when the campus grew. A whole community of people was moved and some of them live at 3901 Market.

Q. You've had jazz people visit the class, too, including Penn's own Director of City and Community Relations, Glenn Bryan.

A. Yes, he's this Penn person in community relations, but he's also a jazz player. And he was wonderful. He's playing every Monday in the month of April at Zanzibar Blue and he's invited us all. He said he needs a fan club. And [the students] have to attend a concert as part of the course.

Q. What do you think your students take away from your classes?

A. My hope is that it's making people who would not normally talk to each other, who would not normally engage with each other but who live in the same neighborhoodóit's bringing them together. This is why I love this work.

Q. You're taking them out of their comfort zone.

A. I'm about exactly that.

Q. How about your comfort zone? Moving here certainly took you away from what was familiar to you?

A. Yes, [when I was teaching] in North Carolina it actually felt more like South Africa. Race, sex, religionóthey have all the same issues, so you feel a kind of familiarity. It was easier, much easier. This is a hard city. It's not hard like New York City, but there's a lot of anger, the way people drive. It used to affect me much more than it does now. In other ways Philadelphia is actually kind of like South Africaódiferent people trying to live together with huge differences. I live on 48th Street and you're really aware of extreme differences.

Q. Are you working on any books now?