Abstract:

The ustoz-shog’ird (master-apprentice) system of transmitting musical practices from teacher to student has been a through line in Uzbek and other Central Asian musical cultures for centuries. Historically, this system has allowed a student to learn technique and repertoire from a master teacher via oral-imitative method. Oral-imitative methods, the bond between student and teacher, and the sense of lineage that such long-term musical intimacies allow has persevered through centuries of systemic change. Such changes facing teachers and students include the innovation and now common use of musical notation, the creation of various music education institutions, and extramusical societal shifts. This paper examines how the ustoz-shog’ird system is perpetuated via 21st century music institutions and media specifically on the dutar, a two-stringed, finger-plucked, fretted lute common in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan (with related versions common throughout Central Asia). Based on ethnomusicological fieldwork focused around dutar lessons (in-person and online), ensemble rehearsals, concerts, and other performances since 2002, this work examines musical transmission and enculturation throughout those complex settings. It further elucidates cross-cultural transmission and understanding accomplished when master dutarists collaborate with US ethnomusicologists to instruct American university students in the dutar via a “world music ensemble” structure that has been standard in US universities since the 1960s. With this collaboration between Uzbek State Conservatory faculty in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and music department faculty in the University of California system, issues of pedagogical strategy across online media, linguistic, musical, and cultural translation, representation, and belonging arise. Though the Tashkent-California collaboration is at the center of this inquiry, it also considers the significant musical work accomplished by the dutar ensemble at the Uzbekistan-Japan Center in Tashkent that has inspired multiple social media accounts dedicated to Japanese dutarists. The dutar, with its easily transported form-factor and light weight, has traveled throughout Central Asia for centuries. The age of online education has allowed the ustoz-shog’ird system to travel with the dutar’s international traversals. While technological issues of sound latency provide ongoing challenges for teachers and students, the desire to continue learning from afar persists. The perpetuation of dutar learning across time and space inspires a broader consideration of the concept of living tradition.