A composer's imagining of musical tradition and the reinvention of heritage (original) (raw)
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Global cultural process in the continuity and prospective of musical tradition
Global cultural process in the continuity and prospective of musical tradition, 2014
When we mention the word “tradition,” we immediately think of the past. Certainly, the past, in a semantic sense, associates something passed that cannot be returned. However, we are witnessing that in the construction of new and contemporary tradition, we often return to the past and in that way we continuously relive it again. The new achievements are not only the product of adaptation and cultural processes, but they are also new qualitative systems of creative motivations that differ from traditional values. We are considering this study through the prism of the Turkish population in rural settlements, which in certain periods has changed and transformed in its way to modernity as evidenced by today's material and spiritual cultural heritage. They are a reflection of this path, which often passes through contrasts and inevitable contradictions that model the emergence of some new values. In this paper, we traced this complex process from the perspective of the most striking indicators of the spiritual and material musical tradition: musical instruments, performing ensembles, repertoire, and dance. We observed these aspects through the most massive and most abundant ritual ceremonies––weddings that were observed and recorded by field research in the rural settlements of several geographical locations in eastern and western Macedonia. Regardless of the location of settlement, new–modern forms of expression of musical culture are prevailing through the dominance of western provenance instruments, imported repertoire that inevitably entail changes in other ethnological features, as in the costume and during the ritual.
In Defence of the Term and Concept of Traditional Music
Musicologist 2021. 5(1): 1-30, 2021
Regardless of Eric Hobsbawm's negativistic understanding, 'tradition' is a powerful and dynamic (and in no way traditionalist) concept in academic folkloristics. The widespread scepticism against 'traditional music', both as a recognizable field of research and a matter of theoretical thought, is based on an insufficient and sometimes stereotypic understanding of a term and concept with a fascinating history. I argue that there is good reason to maintain a term which is intrinsically linked to core issues of ethnomusicology, among them community-based music, cultural innovation, oral/aural transmission, sonic orders, and stylistic pluralism.
Traditional Music as "Intangible Cultural Heritage" in the Postmodern World
Texas Scholarworks, 2013
Compared with its roles in pre-modern societies, traditional music, previously called "folklore," has been playing very different roles in the globalized world. These new roles, however, are rarely articulated in a systematic manner. While most discourse on the contemporary use of traditional music comes from the case studies of ethnomusicologists, the concept of "intangible cultural heritage," which is usually associated with the initiatives of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (including traditional music), provides a new perspective to understand the new roles that traditional music plays in the postmodern world. A systematic examination of these roles is crucial, because it allows an in-depth analysis of the hidden power relations behind the contemporary use of traditional music. Furthermore, with the idea of "salvation from disappearing" being more and more problematic in contemporary practice, the project of preserving traditional music cannot be firmly grounded unless its contemporary values are demonstrated. In order to systematically identify and analyze the contemporary use of traditional music, this paper examines the current literature on intangible cultural heritage and the related international initiatives undertaken by the United Nations and its specialized agencies such as UNESCO and UNDP, in combination with the major issues raised by ethnomusicologists regarding the use of traditional music in creative industries. Using two major case studies-Kunqu and HAN Hong's new Tibetan music-to demonstrate the aesthetic, political, economic and ethical dimensions of the use of traditional music in contemporary society, I argue that there is a fifth dimension, the social dimension, of the value of traditional music in the postmodern condition. The articulation of this social dimension of the contemporary use of traditional music serves to establish its universal relevance and to identify its unique character that makes it a powerful tool to serve as a counter-hegemonic force.
The Other Classical Musics : Fifteen Great Traditions ( Boydell & Brewer , 2015 )
2010
he Other Classical Musics is an intriguing contribution to what Patrick E. Savage and Steven Brown have in this journal (2013) and on their website, compmus.org, called “the forgotten agenda of comparative musicology,” an endeavor to which Savage and Brown say ethnomusicology is the “modern-day successor,” and which David Locke (2014) suggests ought to be called “comparative ethnomusicology ... a sub-discipline within ethnomusicology.” Savage and Brown provide extensive bibliographies on this concept, to which Clarke (2014) and Grauer (2014) contribute further in responses that have appeared in this journal. In this context, the volume under review here is also a welcome companion to Peter Fletcher’s (2001) monumental World Musics in Context, though the two differ in that the former attempts to define (and thus limit) its interests to musics that it defines as “classical” while the latter ostensibly aspires to more global aims. Fletcher (2001, 31) seems to resist the mantle of ethno...
Composers' Intentions?: Lost Traditions of Musical Performance
2015
These selected essays by conductor Andrew Parrott reflect the thinking behind some four decades of his ground-breaking performances and recordings. Bringing together seminal writings on the performance expectations of, amongst others, Monteverdi, Purcell and J. S. Bach, this volume also includes the full version of a major new article calling into question the presumed historical place of the 'countertenor' voice. Focusing primarily on vocal and choral matters, the time span is broad (some five centuries) and the essays multifarious (from extensive scholarly articles to radio broadcasts). Authoritative, provocative and readable, Parrott's writing is packed with information of value to scholars, performers, students and curious listeners alike. ANDREW PARROTT is the founder and director of the Taverner Consort, Choir and Players. His book The Essential Bach Choir (The Boydell Press, 2000) has been acclaimed as 'a brilliant piece of research' (BBC Radio 3); 'ut...
2010
This Ph.D. research explores the blending Chinese and western musical idioms. Research questions include: What are the criteria for choosing a new context for confronting the western and Chinese idioms? What is the aesthetic behind this new context in terms of sound quality? What particular compositional techniques are the best in the new context? How can structural coherence be maintained within the chosen aesthetic? The submission consists of a portfolio comprising five compositions for Chinese traditional instruments together with western orchestral instruments and an Exegesis. The five compositions are: Five Studies for Three Instruments, A Character Piece, A Little Suite, Cycles of Destiny and Concerto Grosso for sheng, erhu and pipa. The aim of this portfolio is to explore possibilities for blending Chinese and western musical idioms through the compositional techniques of mosaic progression and juxtaposition. It examines the techniques in terms of the aesthetic standpoint, th...
THE WAY WE LOOK TO A SONG: Five compositions and the envoicing of musical inheritance
PhD dissertation, UC San Diego, 2022
This dissertation discusses a portfolio of five recent compositions: 'Onomastic Gymnastics' (2019), a three-part contrapuntal song for flexible instrumentation; 'a loose affiliation of alleluias' (2019), a concerto for an instrumental improvisor, three offstage vocalists, and orchestra; 'the way we look to a song' (2020), for three voices; 'Pierre' (2021), an orchestral score for the dance-theater work by Bobbi Jene Smith; and 'the power of moss' (2021), for voice and instrument. In all five works, the singing voice plays a central role: both in the performing musical forces, as well as in the processes by which the works were composed. My discussion of these pieces therefore reflects on the various ways in which my compositional practice navigates between historical knowledge and technique—especially that which guides and shapes my singing voice—and creative agency. Drawing from scholarly frameworks such as Ben Spatz on technique, Carrie Noland on agency, and Diana Taylor on the “scenario” and the “repertoire”, I understand this negotiation of historical knowledge to be neither limiting nor regressive, but rather precisely the means by which creative and artistic agency can be exercised. At the same time, I discuss my critical engagement with historical materials and technique in my compositional practice, which seeks to excavate the socio-political structures within which musical practices resonate, both historically and in the present day. These reflexive efforts to trace and highlight the historical formations which shape and animate my compositional practice I liken to Edward Said’s insistence on making explicit the “affiliations”—between practices, individuals, classes, and formations—which tend to be covered over, but whose excavation is a precondition for political change. All in all, I see this creative practice as contributing to a broader artistic and scholarly current of efforts to challenge the cultural and artistic hegemonies inherited from Eurological classical music, and instead build creative practices out of highly particular, provincial, and personal inflections of our musical inheritances.
Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, 2023
The difficulty of capturing or deciphering music in words is largely why the same questions continue to be asked and the same tensions continue to be explored. Contributors to this special issue add fresh perspectives and new insights to these enduring themes and inquiries, looking at music in both the general sense and examining specific musical pieces, movements, and moments. Each article has its own focus, makes its own arguments, and occupies its own branch(es) of philosophy: ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, politics, and, of course, aesthetics. Beyond the centralizing subject of music, what ties them together and into the best of philosophical traditions is that they not only ask big questions but also, in seeking to answer them, add more questions to the ongoing discourse.