Tuk Music Tradition in Barbados

Sharon Meredith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781351877336
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medios de comunicación y artes escénicas
• Subtopic: Etnomusicología

Barbados is a small Caribbean island better known as a tourist destination rather than for its culture. The island was first claimed in 1627 for the English King and remained a British colony until independence was gained in 1966. This firmly entrenched British culture in the Barbadian way of life, although most of the population are descended from enslaved Africans taken to Barbados to work on the sugar plantations. After independence, an official desire to promulgate the country's African heritage led to the revival and recontextualisation of cultural traditions. Barbadian tuk music, a type of fife and drum music, has been transformed in the post-independence period from a working class music associated with plantations and rum shops to a signifier of national culture, played at official functions and showcased to tourists. Based on ethnographic and archival research, Sharon Meredith considers the social, political and cultural developments in Barbados that led to the evolution, development and revival of tuk as well as cultural traditions associated with it. She places tuk in the context of other music in the country, and examines similar musics elsewhere that, whilst sharing some elements with tuk, have their own individual identities.

Chapter 1

Introduction

In the late twentieth century there was an increasing awareness of the lack of scholarly work on much of the Caribbean region’s music, and a common topic of conversation at the Inter-American Conference on Black Music Research held in Trinidad in 2001 was the need to research and document more Caribbean musics, especially the traditional musics, before the few remaining practitioners die and the music dies with them. It was the lack of published works on Barbadian music that had led me to focus on Barbados for my doctoral study, but it was only during my first field trip in 1997 that I decided to focus on tuk. Up to that point I had found very little written on the music, or any recordings, so when I went to my first tuk performance I wasn’t certain what I was going to hear.

Sitting among tourists at an all-inclusive hotel on the south coast of Barbados, I was entertained by a fire-eating limbo dancer; a group that performed popular music numbers that were, at the time, in the charts in the US and the UK; and an MC who interspersed the acts with light banter, jokes, chats with audience members and some sales talk about organised trips that could be arranged through the hotel. Eventually he introduced the tuk band, providing a potted history of tuk, explaining it as an imitation of British military marching bands fused with African music to create a uniquely Barbadian sound. Gradually the rhythmic sounds of the tuk band approached as the band wove their way through the audience, playing well-known tunes such as The Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss II and My Grandfather’s Clock by Henry Clay Work.¹ As the tempo increased, the band was joined by a tiltman (as stilt walkers are known in Barbados) and a Mother Sally, both Barbadian folk characters. These characters performed in front of the audience as well as moving throughout the audience interacting with people, and Mother Sally would select someone to go onto the stage and dance with her, encouraging them to imitate her, at times, suggestive movements, whilst the tiltman would pick up a child and swing them to and fro between his stilts. I was fascinated by the blending of the complex sounding drumming patterns with the tunes of popular and classical pieces, and my hands and feet could not stay still. The next day, my research into tuk began.

The last 40 years of the twentieth century saw many changes for the people of Barbados, and of much of the Caribbean region. Barbados gained independence from Britain in 1966 which, after more than 300 years of colonial rule led to, among other things, an official desire to establish and promulgate a national identity that demonstrated the heritage of the majority of the population – those of African descent. One facet of this heritage was tuk music, little known outside the country but known to all Bajans (a colloquialism used to refer to anyone or anything from Barbados), though often dismissed by them because of its historic connections with the working classes. Tuk is usually played by a four-piece band (see Figure 1.1): the kittle drum (snare), the bass drum, the penny whistle (called a flute) and the steel (usually a triangle), though sometimes I have seen bands performing without a steel player.

Figure 1.1 Ruk-a-Tuk International Tuk Band

Source: Photograph taken by and reproduced courtesy of John Meredith.

Tuk seems to have originated during slavery and was a popular entertainment of the working classes during the early twentieth century, played on public holidays, at celebrations and in the village rum shops, as well as providing the musical accompaniment for the drills of the Barbados Landship (a friendly society whose organisation and drill activities are modelled on the British Royal Navy), another facet of the country’s cultural heritage.

As a result of the social and political changes and developments that took place in the twentieth century, tuk had gradually declined in popularity and by the time independence was gained had dwindled considerably. However, the postindependence search for a new Barbadian national identity led to a small, but gradual revival of tuk. This revival was slow, but has really developed since the 1980s under the championship of Wayne Willock, who has been pivotal in tuk’s revival and recontextualisation. In the early twenty-first century tuk enjoys an official place in Barbadian national identity, despite the negativity still attached to it by some. Tuk has been placed into new performance spaces and is accessible to all, regardless of social background, should they wish to hear it. Tuk is now performed as part of hotel ‘cultural’ shows, at official functions and at national festivals. The traditional performance contexts for tuk have practically disappeared and its future seems to lie in these new roles within education and tourism. It has undergone changes, as all traditions do, for without such change they are likely to die out – as John Blacking observed, ‘unchanging cultural tradition is dead and of no use to people except perhaps as an inspiration to do something else, and music without social situations […] ceases to be music as a performing art’ (Byron 1995, 156).

After my first encounter with tuk, I was captivated by the music and set about scouring the Barbados Department of Archives, the Barbados Museum Library and the library of the University of West Indies, Cave Hill campus for anything I could find on tuk. Such information was, however, both scarce and difficult to find. Considering that tuk is claimed by its supporters to be the true indigenous music of the country, and the fact it has been recontextualised and promulgated as the national music of Barbados, it seemed strange that a comprehensive study of tuk had not then been undertaken.² The lack of historical material on tuk is likely attributable to the fact that very little was actually written about it as it was not considered worthy by the people who wrote books and newspapers (if indeed they were aware of it), and thus much historical information was simply never available. Historically, Larry D. Gragg has identified a scenario which has perhaps contributed to this negative attitude regarding documentation, noting that in the seventeenth century English colonists were considered to be materialistic and immoral: ‘the men who developed Barbados appeared to care little for education or culture; there were few schools, books or newspapers on the island’ (2003, 8). Even in relation to music that has developed in the twentieth century, there can be a paucity of material. Tina K. Ramnarine notes this in relation to chutney in Trinidad, attributing this partially to a ‘general lack of documentation on Indian music in the Caribbean’. Other reasons relate to gender issues, and the fact that chutney has not long been performed in public (2001, 17). I would suggest that a lack of documentation, particularly relating to little-known traditions or those from smaller islands, may be because for a long time it was outsiders who undertook the majority of such research. Perhaps, as Olive Lewin suggested, ‘indigenous researchers were still unsure of the worth of their own cultures and, subconsciously, even held them in low esteem’ (2000, 311).

During my fieldwork in Barbados much of my time was spent interviewing people including government officials, musicians, teachers, school pupils and tourists. These interviews were invaluable for gaining a wide range of opinions, memories, thoughts and hopes about tuk which bring this study to life, and revealed much more about Bajans and their culture than could have been gleaned purely from secondary sources. Because tuk has long been disparaged by many in Barbadian society, there were times when a formal interview was not possible or appropriate, but an informal conversation could reveal useful information. Sometimes it was necessary to let people tell me what they wanted to tell me and then they were often more amenable to being asked specific questions. This strategy was particularly useful when interviewing elderly people who often enjoy reminiscing about times gone by, and very often they would arrive at relevant information by a rather roundabout way. There were also many times where I had informal conversations with people at the bus stop, at the house where I was staying, or in various places I was visiting, that offered insights into many aspects of Barbadian life that have informed and enhanced my work.

Undertaking ethnographic fieldwork on tuk was not, however, a straightforward process, perhaps hampered by the negative connotations often attached to tuk. Bruno Nettl describes some scenarios I can relate to in trying to break into the field of study, such as the problem of engaging strangers in conversation in the hope of getting some information or a lead. It can be quite an unnerving experience, perhaps made worse by the knowledge that with a limited amount of time to spend in the field, any missed opportunity is a waste of time. Nettl says, of trying to strike up a conversation in the field, that ‘the great significance of the occasion, so obvious to me, is nothing to them’ (1983, 247). That is a feeling I know very well from my fieldwork – I was excited by my work, keen to gather information, enthusiastic to make new contacts and hopeful to find that elusive key piece of information which would give me the answer I was searching for (or even one I was not searching for). However, some Barbadians I spoke to were dismissive about tuk. Sometimes these were people I engaged in informal conversations and, without explaining to them about my research, I asked what the local music was, or mentioned that I had heard about tuk and wondered if they knew where I could hear some. Such questions received a variety of answers and, specifically about tuk, were sometimes negative or dismissive about the music. For example, a member of staff at an institution in Barbados, where I was carrying out research, expressed disbelief when I explained the subject of my research, asking why I wanted to research tuk, telling me ‘it’s a low class thing’. Conversely, other people were interested, and sometimes intrigued, by my research and happy to help however they could.

I attended many concerts and musical events to gain an appreciation of all musics in Barbados, not just tuk. My attendance at concerts and festivals allowed me to observe tuk and other musics, to participate in Barbadian culture and to observe Barbadians participating in their culture. This was invaluable in developing an overview of what they consider to be enjoyable and what is important to them. I was interested to observe tourists at such events and their reactions to what they heard and saw. I also visited a number of primary and secondary schools, observing music lessons and the operation of the Cultural and Historical Exposure for Kids in Schools (CHEKS) scheme as well as interviewing staff and pupils about the scheme, and about tuk.³ Many evenings were spent following tuk bands performing specifically for tourists at hotels and other venues. At these I observed and talked to the bands, observed the audience reactions to the bands and interviewed members of the audience to gain their impressions of tuk.

This study is the first major publication about tuk, providing a comprehensive history of this little-known musical genre as well as documenting an important facet of Barbadian cultural heritage. This book is unique in that it examines music in Barbados from its earliest history and follows tuk’s development right through to the current day. It draws on a diverse range of sources, predominantly ethnographic fieldwork and primary and secondary sources, but the research also utilised newspapers, photographic collections and sound recordings. Since I started my work on tuk, there has been a steady growth in the study of Caribbean musics. Some have been researched extensively, generally because of their popularity, and there is a wealth of texts on, for example, Jamaican reggae and Trinidadian calypso. It is however becoming more common to find texts on lesser-known musics and those from smaller places, such as Tina K. Ramnarine’s work on chutney from Trinidad (2001), Lorna McDaniel’s work on Big Drum from Carriacou (1998) and Ron Emoff’s work on gwo ka drumming from Marie-Galante in the French Antilles (2009). This work also adds to the small collection of texts specifically on Barbadian music, which includes anthropologists Jerome S. Handler and Charlotte J. Frisbie’s ‘Aspects of Slave Life in Barbados: Music and its Cultural Context’ and Folksongs of Barbados, a collection made in the 1970s, which has a section devoted to tuk band songs, collected, researched and notated by three Barbadians, historian Trevor Marshall, educator Peggy McGeary and musician Grace Thompson.

I carried out extensive library and archival searches in Barbados and the UK. Unfortunately at the Barbados Department of Archives and Barbados Museum Library some of the materials have suffered from humidity and insect damage, which means that some of the older materials are disintegrating and are therefore unusable or very difficult to work with. The library at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus proved particularly useful for pamphlets, programmes and government papers as well as a comprehensive collection of texts on Barbados. The Bridgetown Public Library has a fairly small collection of old texts, a small West Indies collection and some holdings of newspapers on microfilm. The Nation News Library holds very useful archives, but access was very restricted. Access to the collections of the other national newspaper, the Advocate, was similarly restrictive, and by 2001 research services had been discontinued.

The British Library was an invaluable source of contemporary travel writings and many texts not available elsewhere, and its Newspaper Library holds the largest collection of Barbadian newspapers in existence, including the oldest surviving from 1783, though regrettably the collections ceased in the late 1960s after Barbados gained independence. More recent newspapers are available via the Internet, and these online sources have been invaluable in allowing me to keep up to date with events in Barbados and provide an insight into developments in Barbadian musical life. Research was also undertaken in various university libraries and special collections, and at the UK National Archives.

When I began my research on tuk music, I was already aware of a paucity of studies on Barbadian, and indeed, Caribbean musics, which has arisen for a number of reasons. In the case of Barbados it is widely believed that the country has no music to call its own, and that belief is held by Barbadians as well as outsiders. This is a view that I came across numerous times during my fieldwork in Barbados which I found surprising considering the wealth of music on offer, particularly at the annual Crop Over Festival, which is attended by many thousands. A common belief held by outsiders is that the music of anywhere in the Caribbean must be reggae. This is because many people seem to band the Caribbean region together as one place, being unaware of the size of the region and the diversity of its territories and peoples, and assume that Bob Marley, reggae, steel bands, Rastafarians and drug taking are typical of Caribbean culture. The music of Barbados has long been held in low esteem by many Barbadians, but over the last 20 years or so the music industry has developed significantly, and music such as soca has given Barbados a firm foothold in the Caribbean music market and, through the diasporic communities, further afield. It is more difficult for popular artistes to break into the international music scene, but it can be done – and Rihanna has proven in recent years that Barbados is capable of producing artists who can top the UK and US charts. With her eclectic mix of R&B, reggae, dancehall and other genres, she has sold in excess of 20 million albums and won numerous awards, including the 2011 Brit Award for Best International Female Solo Artist.

At the outset of my research, I had little idea of where my work would lead. Some people in Barbados doubted there was very much to find out and so little to write about tuk. Others said that everything there was to write had already been written. This however was clearly not the case, and the few short articles on tuk that existed prior to my work do not address the depth or breadth of my study. None of them is written by an ethnomusicologist or a musicologist, and so do not provide a musical analysis of tuk. Whilst links between tuk and West African and European musical traditions are alluded to, the lack of musical analysis prevented any firmer conclusions being reached. These articles did provide useful starting points in my research, offering a brief historical background to tuk; describing instruments; the relationship between the tuk band and the Landship; parallels between tuk and West African customs; possible links between tuk bands and military bands; and tuk’s repertoire and role in society.

‘Landship and the Tuk Band’, written by historian John Gilmore (1988), provides an overview of the Barbadian Landship and its ‘engine’, the tuk band. The article is illustrated with photographs of tuk bands performing in various contexts, which is significant as few photographs exist of tuk before the late twentieth century. This was the first article I read on the Landship and, learning of the strong link between the tuk band and the Landship, it led me to question whether the tuk band had existed independently before the Landship was created, or whether the tuk band developed as part of the Landship, and subsequently developed a separate role.

Curwen Best’s ‘Rhythm of Tuk’ (1995), approached from a cultural studies perspective, opens by analysing the contemporary tuk band’s instruments and playing techniques. After offering a brief historical background on the development of tuk and its association with the Landship, Best explores some of the social aspects of tuk, notably its role as ‘a medium of entertainment’ and how tuk has been appropri...