From the Editor

Issue 1 of the 70th volume of Ethnomusicology showcases wide ranging approaches to ethnomusicological research, documentation, and analysis. In “Songs of Senegalese Rain Priestess Aline Sitoé Diatta: Collaborative Musicking for Audible Futures,” Scott V. Linford documents a creative repatriation project, in which he and Jola musician Joël Bassene, composed new music to accompany sets of song texts attributed to Aline Sitoé (1920–1944). Linford traces not only the creative process to make an album, conducted in collaboration with local community members, but also Sitoé’s importance as a religious leader and the ways her song texts encoded local knowledge regarding agriculture, the environment, and resistance to the French colonial regime in Senegal. This article provides a model of collaborative musicking in a fieldwork context and also serves as an example of how one might address musical practices that appear lost to the past by thinking through Nannyonga-Tamusuza and Weintraub's notion of “audible futures.”Ruby A. Erickson's article, “‘Sometimes you can just sing free’: Vocal Transmission, Intradiasporic Diversity, and Belonging in Cabo Verdean New England,” and Boris Hei Yin Wong's article, “Dayung Sampan” Re-signified: Network Traces of the Tune's Circulation in East and Southeast Asia,” share common themes of how musical practices transform as they circulate across transnational networks. The two authors, while conducting fieldwork in very different contexts and song traditions, consider how the transmission of songs, particularly in varied learning environments, plays an important role in how musicians and listeners understand their relationship to these traditions and the transnational networks they make audible.In “The Authoritarian Ear: Reorienting Political Aurality and Acoustic Citizenship in Hong Kong,” Winnie W. C. Lai explores the way that changes to the law, public policy, and enforcement have reshaped the ways in which Hong Kongers protest. Sound, which encompasses not only protest slogans but also songs such as “Glory to Hong Kong,” serves as an entry point to better understanding how increasing government surveillance and intervention have shaped a recent transition from an urban soundscape that Lai describes as noisy and known for expressive protest movements to one where only the viewpoint of the government is heard.DJ W Hatfield also attends to notions of citizenship and sovereignty through a case study of ‘amis (Taiwanese Indigenous) dance. The article focuses on a debate over props—umbrellas or spears—used in the kulakul. Hatfield uses ideas of density and scale to explore how seemingly aesthetic concerns instead reflect broader issues of Indigenous sovereignty within different contexts in which dancers and community members understand kulakul.In the final article in this issue, “Hearing is Smelling is Tasting is Knowing: Music Analysis and Sensing Otherwise,” Anna Yu Wang explores the relationships between the senses in Sinophone opera and thought. Yu Wang draws on ethnographic research, particularly interviews with opera singers, as well as iconographic and linguistic data to argue for a more culturally-informed notion of hearing as it is applied to music theoretical analysis.Long-time readers of the journal may recall that Ethnomusicology has traditionally published a 10-volume index, last released in 2016, to provide an overview of articles published over the previous decade, organized by author, title, subject, and geographic area. Reviews were indexed by title, author/creator, and reviewer. For researchers studying and working before Google Scholar or even the availability of online versions of databases such as Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), ProQuest's Music Periodicals Index, or Music Index, the paper copy of the 10-volume index was an indispensable tool. The editorial board, in conversation with the leadership of the Society for Ethnomusicology and our liaisons at University of Illinois Press, made the decision to discontinue the 10-volume index because it has been supplanted by a variety of online tools, including the ease of searching by author, keyword, subject, or title in a multitude of databases, including the Scholarly Publishing Collective. Younger ethnomusicologists, who grew up with digital databases, were unaware of the 10-year index, and even those of us who recall using the index in our own graduate study, no longer teach them in music research courses. I invite readers to think about what research tools and ways of taking stock of the journal over a 10-year period would be useful to them. What would improve accessibility and understanding of how the field of ethnomusicology has developed?With this issue, we also welcome two new members of the journal's editorial team. Jenna Przybysz, a PhD candidate at Stanford University, joins the journal as assistant editor. Nasim Ahmadian now serves as Book Review Co-Editor. I am grateful for their willingness to contribute to the operation of the journal.As always, I thank the many people who make each issue of the journal possible: the authors and their peer reviewers, review authors and review editors, the journal editorial board, assistant editor Jenna Przybysz, the Society for Ethnomusicology Business Office staff and executive board, and Kate Kemball at the University of Illinois Press.Please continue to submit your work to the journal and consider serving as a peer reviewer or writing a review if invited!