Transcript Music 1253 Music and Society

Music 1253
Music and Society
Terms for Discussion
Syncretic
• Syncretism involves the fusing of different
beliefs, ideas, systems of thought, or
cultural attributes
• The result is a new idea or system that
retains aspects of the contributing elements,
but represents something new
Deterritorialization
• Deterritorialization of cultural products
involves the dilution of culturally-specific
attributes to create a more generic product
with universal appeal
• Examples of this include “new age”
recordings of South American pan pipes, the
Irish pop band “The Corrs,” and Canadian
music acts such as Bryan Adams, Shania
Twain, and k.d. lang.
Slendro and Pelog
• Slendro and Pelog are scale systems (laras)
used in Indonesian Gamelan music
• Slendro is a 5-note (or pentatonic) scale
• Pelog is a 7-note scale
• Each Gamelan orchestra is tuned to one of
these scales
• Also, each Gamelan orchestra has a unique
version of one of these scales
Reterritorialization
• Reterritorialization involves the marketing
of a cultural product’s specific ethnic origin.
• Unique sounds, accents, culturally-specific
images, and exotic histories are emphasized
to create tokens which suggest a sense of
foreigness and exoticism
Groove
• Groove is a complex phenomenon that
involves the acoustical repeating of a
rhythmic idea that forms the metrical
underpinning for a piece of groove music
• Also a social phenomenon whereby people
react as individuals but in synchrony with
the beats of the groove
Musicking
• A term coined by Christopher Small
• Suggests that music is not a thing but an act
• All parts of music: listening, performing,
composing, dancing, teaching, air-guitar
playing etc. considered musicking
• Musical actors and participants called
“musickers”
Emic and Etic
• These terms refer to perspectives or positions from
which data is gathered about a culture or group
• Emic accounts are culturally-specific, using terms
and ideas from within the culture itself - an inside
perspective
• Etic accounts are more culturally neutral, using
terms and ideas that can be objectively applied to
any culture or group - an outside perspective
Tala and Tal
• These terms refer to the system of time-keeping in Indian
Classical music
• Tala is the South Indian term
• Tal is the North Indian term
• Roughly equivalent to metre in the Western system
• Consist of a number of divisible beats (could be any
number - 8, 11, 15)
• Indian musicians use vocables (bols) to learn rhythmic
groupings of the tala - like a rhytmic solfege
• Indian audiences can oftn be seen “keeping tala” using
hand gestures
The Folk
• This concept developed as a byproduct of
nineteenth-century European Romantic
nationalism wherein the social elite sought the
cultural “artifacts” of a preindustrial, undiluted
society from a “Golden Age” of social cohesion,
untainted by the racial diversity and class
complexity of modern, urban society.
• Mythical “pure” group that is a source of
“authentic” culture - does not really exist
Raga and Rag
• The pitch equivalent to Tala and Tal
• Indian scale systems
• Comprised of at least 5 notes from which a
composition or improvisation develops
• Ragas are often prescribed for certain
seasons or times of the day
• Not just a set of notes, but a way of playing
those notes
Ethnomusicology/ist
• A branch of musicology that deals with music and
people or culture
• Less concerned with the music itself (though this
is changing) and more concerned with the why
and how of musical production in a social context
• Ethnomusicologists often conduct fieldwork
similar to anthropologists whereby they study a
musical culture (often by participating) from
within
Cultural Imperialism
• The imposition of a cultural package against
the informed will of the recipients
• Dominant cultures “invade” weaker cultures
with their cultural products, thereby
replacing or permanently altering the
recipient culture
• Overly simplistic concept - accepts the idea
that people are passive consumers of
culture, not active shapers of it
Ethnography
• A complete descriptive study of a culture or group,
resulting from fieldwork
• Ethnographies detail the relationships among
social systems and ideas within a group with the
belief that no system acts in isolation
• Recently scolars have made use of “virtual
ethnographies” by studying internet group sites,
fanzines, blogs, email lists, and chat groups
Globalization
• The integration of local or regional
phenomena into a unified, global whole
• This can involve culture, economies,
political systems, religious ideas etc.
• Often dictated by the power of transnational
corporations that drive the flow of goods
and services around the globe
Maqam
• Scale system used in Arabic music
• Basic maqamat are similar to Western
modes but are always ornamented and
altered
• Each maqam (scale) has its own rules
governing the use of microtones,
ornamental pitches, trichord and tetrachord
subdivisions, and overall mood
• Over 120 maqamat
World Music
• An umbrella term often used to describe all
non-Western musics as well as ethnicallyderived or traditional Western musics
• Typically does not refer to popular or
Western classical genres though fusions are
prevalent
• Term is more useful to music industry and
tourism than in music scholarship
Ring Shout
• Ritual practiced by African slaves in
America and the Carribean
• Involves moving in a circle, stomping, and
clapping while chanting or singing
• A Christian ritual
• Thought to be the precursor to Africanbased genres of music including jazz, rock,
rhythm and blues etc.
Acculturation
• Process whereby different cultures come
into contact and adapt their cultural
attributes
• Similar notion to that of Cultural
Imperialism except that it allows for active
shapers of culture to adapt and evolve from
contact with foreign sources, rather than
simply having culture imposed on them
Glocalization
• The attempt to retain local identity in the
face of the overwhelming forces of
globalization
• This term can also be used to to describe the
creation of local products that are marketed
globally
Global Village
• Term first used by Canadian philospher
Marshall Mcluhan in his 1962 book The
Gutenberg Galaxy
• Describes an historical period whereby
mass-communication (at the time - radio
and television) will eliminate individualism
and move society towards a more
integrated, collective identity and restore
aural-based cultural communications
Gamelan
• An Indonesian percussion orchestra consisting of
metallophones, gongs, flutes, drums, and singers
• Individuals play interlocking parts as one unified
whole
• Used as court music, religious music, and popular
music, predominantly in Java and Bali
• Also popular in the West in educational
institutions