The song genre survey Is a new useful tool developed by some of our SIL Global partners. The tool was introduced to collect and preserve information about local song genres in one place utilizing the Song Genre Survey. This survey can be a great initial tool to use in communities to get you started.
Each community has its own artistic genres, some of which overlap with language, such as poetry and proverbs. These genres are inherently community-owned and central to their language groups for strengthening identity. However, artistic genres are intrinsically unique and amorphous. To date, there has not been a commonly agreed-upon way of gathering information about the vast array of local arts worldwide. The Arts Dataset is a program that hopes to represent a variety of artistic expressions in the future.
The first step in this program consists of two main prongs: the Song Genre Dataset and the Song Genre Survey. A survey tool was developed for gathering data regarding song genres in a standardized way that builds a structured dataset in order (1) to identify local song genres, their functions in the community, and their potential applications and (2) to uncover patterns and discover correlations between local arts and other known aspects of local language communities. This survey is meant for communities to fill out based on their knowledge of the genres, and can supplement existing research in those places.
There’s no musical expertise needed, and it’s easy to complete (about an hour per song genre once you get in the groove) and could be done online, too. Everyone who has tried the survey has found it both meaningful and enjoyable. Here’s a few Testimonials…
“This was wonderful! Although I have seen [the song genre] all my life, I never thought in detail like this about it, and to look back at the history of it. It was amazing!” – A survey respondent from India
“The excitement on their faces and the passion for their music is what stood out for me; though we kept them for almost three hours talking through the questionnaire, none of them left for any reason and, even after the research, they still remained and discussed some things with us.” – Nigerian data collection team
“In this stage of my ethnoarts engagement with the people that I’m working with here, this could actually be extremely helpful. So, it’s really cool!” – Development worker in Uganda
“Some teams started to write down and take note of traditional songs as they encounter them, more aware of the local arts around them.” – Indonesian data collection team
The survey is now available in 6 languages:
- English
- French
- Indonesian
- Portuguese
- Russian
- Chinese (Simplified and Traditional)
You can find out more and see the survey here:
https://ethnoarts.sil.org/what-we-do/dataset
Questions, feel free to reach out to arts_dataset@sil.org
Contributed by Matt Menger
International Ethnomusicology and Arts Coordinator & Senior Arts Consultant
Ph.D. candidate in World Arts, DIU