Jan Giffhorn, Vienna
Any Port in a Storm – Corroded Aesthetics in the Age of the Global Economy Crisis
This contribution deals with the repercussions of the economic crisis for compositional aesthetics. As early as in the 1990ies, sociologists and economists like Sennett, Giddens or Rifkin called attention to the dangers of the »New Capitalism« and the effects of »Neo-Liberalism« on the conditions of work. In particular, »flexibilization« has been put out as a main feature. It is obvious that flexibilization has finally reached the realms of a composer, too. That is, by means of technical developments, the composer's duties and responsibilities have vastly increased. Possibilities like sampling, sequencing or score-editing urge the composer to be a performer, arranger and producer simultaneously. Furthermore, the chances of internet labeling or of social networking platforms constrain him to become distributor, manager and promotor of his own music at the same time. This process of creating the composer a homo oeconomicus has immense aesthetic implications.
A comparison of different points of views (e.g. Sperber, Gebser, Dewey, Lukàcs with e.g. Sennett, Giddens, Bourdieu) reveals that, some time ago, the factor »risk« was an integral part of the artistic life. But it turns out that nowadays the economic changes make the composer a defensive member of society, who cannot afford to run any kind of risk; in order to succeed in his 'business', his aesthetic views, craftsmanship and artistic maxims must be subordinated to the demands of the general public. Strength of character and audacity are replaced by adaptability and opportunism. There is no 'natural' solution; the contribution concludes with the claim that composition, being part of a society's »cultural capital« (Bourdieu), must always protected or at least extensively supported by a government.
Steffen Rother, Vienna
The Rise of Gay and Lesbian Musicology
Lesbian and Gay Musicology as a recognized field of study has been established in the US during the past decades around the leading academic figures Philipp Brett, Elisabeth Wood and Gary Thomas. With the creation of a Gay and Lesbian Study Group for the American Musicological Society in 1989, and Brett's groundbreaking Queering The Pitch – The New Lesbian and Gay Musicology from 1994, this discipline has brought up many new ways of looking at and talking about music.
This paper wants to present Lesbian and Gay Musicology as a musicological field of study, which seems much less recognized in Europe than in the New Musicology movement from the US. Queering The Pitch as the now standard work will be presented, as well as the struggles between Brett and Wood and the editors of the New Grove Dictionary about the entry on „Gay and Lesbian Music“. The long-lasting difficulties with this entry show many fundamental problems and challences this new way of thinking brought about. Even within the discipline, many different approaches and beliefs lead to a vivid and multicoloured academic debates.
I will argue that Lesbian and Gay Musicology in Europe needs not simply copy an US-American tradition, but shall also come up with new ideas. It can help to rise people's awareness for queer issues, but at the same time must also stay accessible for non-queer academics. Foremost, Lesbian and Gay Musicology can teach every musical scholar a broader way of thinking. Queer research is necessarily interdisciplinary and approaches questions from new angles. It is a challence and a chance to open one's mind for unheard-of questions.
My methodology will be a paper with a discussion afterwards as an integral part. It will rise central issues and key questions, but is majorly thought as an inspiration for the audience and students to develop own thoughts. No prior knowledge of the field is necessary, but only an open mind.
Ana Petrov, Belgrade
New Tendencies in the Sociology of Music: A Revival of the ’Classics’
Since the 1970s, various discourses on music have been changing rapidly. Given the diversity of new theories, methods, perspectives and debates that marked the discourses, it seems difficult to come to the agreement about final definitions of the scope of the specific disciplines on music. New topics (including politics, ideology, identity, social groups, gender, concepts of modernity, postmodernity and culture) have caused linking music to a wide range of social phenomena, and, consequently, linking musicology to sociology of music. Even though the subjects of these disciplines did overlap in certain points, sociology of music has had its own reconstructions in the past decades, one of them being a revival of the ’classical’ social thinkers. Namely, the music sociology literature has experienced a notable growth in the number of works considering authors who played pivotal roles in the sociological discipline, including Georg Simmel, Karl Marx, Max Weber and Theodor Adorno. This paper surveys these recent works and provides some indication of the various perspectives now employed in the literature. It proceeds by focusing on the receptions and interpretations of the ideas of the authors that were neglected until recently in the sociology of music (like Marx and Weber) and, finally, showing how most of the new tendencies in the sociology of music were actually found in some of the early works in the field of sociology.
Tjaša Ribizel, Ljubljana
Popularnost v glasbi v času vedno izrazitejšega soobstajanja različnih glasbenih kultur (Popularity in music in intensive coexistance of different musical cultures)
V glasbi 21. stoletja srečamo glasbena dela, ki so si na kompozicijski in estetski ravni med sabo različna. Na eni strani imamo dela, ki so nastala izpod peresa tistih, ki jim je komponiranje nuja in na drugi strani tistih, ki v svoja dela vnašajo precej inovativne ideje, ne glede na okus množice. Pri tem se nam postavljajo pomembna vprašanja dejavnikov, ki vplivajo na glasbeno recepcijo del zgornjih skupin skladateljev, vprašanja kaj to sploh je popularna in na drugi strani umetnostna glasba in kje je viden napredek.
(This article shows a line between contemporary artistic works in 21. century which are different on the composition and aesthetic level. We have artistic works which were written because of necessity on the other hand and works, which includ a lot of innovations. We can raise here a lot of questions about factors which have influence on reception of music, questions about popular and artistic music and where can progress really be seen.)
Nina Jukić, Zagreb
Radiohead and the Reception of Popular Music
What is popular music? If you had asked Theodor Adorno, he would have said that popular musical compositions follow familiar patterns and introduce little originality. They belong to the culture industry, thus they are not authentic, unlike “serious” music, which does have artistic value. Some fifty years later, Nick Hornby agreed on this, but his question was primarily “what popular music should be like?”. He gave his answer to this question in his notorious review of Radiohead’s album Kid A (2000), where he complained that the album is too experimental, too arty and too non-commercial. What Hornby wants Radiohead to be is a stereotypical rock band who should give you “your money’s worth”. But what Radiohead did with Kid A and continued to do since then is quite the opposite. They resist fitting into stereotypes and mainstreams of pop/rock music in many different areas – from experimentation and innovation in music and visual art to challenging the music industry’s requests for a sellable music product; from usage of many different technologies besides the traditional guitar-band line-up and referring to influences in contemporary art music to questioning the notion of the rock star as a sex symbol. Radiohead challenge the distinction between the so called art and pop music in a truly postmodern manner, which makes them a relevant research topic and an important phenomenon in contemporary popular culture.
So, is Radiohead a pop band or not? They belong to neither the world of pop nor high culture in the traditional sense, but at the same time, they somehow belong to both of the worlds. In this paper I will try to explain this postmodern situation by focusing especially on the critical reception of Radiohead’s album Kid A and what it meant for the reception of pop music in general.
Adriana Sabo, Belgrade
“All you need is money, money, money”: Songs of “The Beatles” and “Abba” in the movie narratives of Across the Universe and Mamma Mia!
Across the Universe (2007) and Mamma Mia! (2008) are two musical films that incorporate music composed by “The Beatles” and “Abba” (Mamma Mia! is a stage-to-film adaptation of the 1999 West End musical of the same name). Given the fact that both movies use songs that were not written especially for the use in the movies, the question how the songs were incorporated in the narrative seemed interesting, especially due to the fact that both narratives point to a certain social issues such as identity, growing up, gender, war and revolution. This paper will, therefore, explore ways in which these pre-recorded songs are used in both movies and ways in which they were incorporated in the narrative. Also, a note will be made about the changes that were made in the original songs in order for them to fit better into the atmospheres and moods in which they are sung.
Srđan Atanasovski, Belgrade
The Sound of the Space: Serbian Ethnic Music of the 2000’s and (Re)defining the Core National Territory
Following the exclusion of Kosovo from the authority of the Republic of Serbia in 1999, and the fall of Slobodan Milošević’s regime in 2000, Serbian music production scene witnessed the burgeoning of a new music genre – ethnic (Serbian) music. This new genre has renounced links with popular ’folk’ music of the 90’s, charged with perpetual accusation of low artistic value and ostensive connections with the former regime, and has offered a novel approach in appreciating and enjoying the folklore music material. New arrangements of the folk tunes have been modelled after world music production, and the audiovisual presentation has usually featured images of ’traditional’ art. The new approach to Serbian folk music has gained broad appeal, and the performers range from well-known stars featured by national media to grassroots amateurs which commonly acquire their audience through Internet-based social network service. My aim is to examine how described music practices become involved in redefining the core Serbian national territory. Following recent development in nationalities studies and human geography, I understand nationalism as fundamentally territorial phenomenon engaged in building spatial power relationships. The concept of ’core territory’ represents the territory through which a nation is being defined; in the last decade, Serbian national identity has been increasingly mediated through both utopian and nostalgic image of Kosovo. Examining Serbian ethnic music, I will show how most of the used folklore material has been commonly labelled as being from ’Kosovo and Metohija’ or from ’Southern Serbia’, and this message is also clearly imparted to the audience. Investigating different strata of ethno music production, from state-sponsored to private initiatives, I will try to present processes of constructing the national identity as rooted in daily practices and to investigate nationalism not as a monolith ideology, but as a heterogeneous multifaceted discourse shaped by individual’s tendencies.
Alexander Forstner, Graz
(Not So) Postmodern Authenticity: The Case of Pearl Jam
Background
Authenticity is a central term not only in music criticism but also in general discourses on the value of popular music. Leach (2001) observes two basic strategies to ascribe value to a certain piece of music (or an artist/a band): either to position it on the positive side of the dialectically related pair of oppositional terms, or to question the underlying binary itself. Doing both of these things simultaneously is considered a typical postmodernist strategy, because it transforms the good-bad-dichotomy into ambiguity. In Rock music however ambiguity seems not to have arrived yet. In showing how the ideals of Romantisicm are prevalent within the notion of authenticity in popular music, Marshall (2005) identified seven key aspects of rock authenticity:
1. Being true to oneself
2. Showing an antipathy against the commercial side of the music industry
3. Valorising the anti-rational characteristics of music
4. Being suspicious towards technology
5. Being related to the “roots” of Rock music
6. Stressing the importance if live-performance
7. Being related to a certain community.
Aims
The aim of this paper is to show that even in postmodern times authenticity is still constructed and perceived on the basis of “Adornian” value dichotomies.
Main Contribution
Pearl Jam gained world wide knowledge for their debut album Ten (1992) and are generally associated with the Grunge-Genre which emerged in the early 1990´s. In constructing their authentic image they rely on the traditional markers of Rock music like emphasising live-performance or opposing the commercial aspects of the music industry. On the basis of Peter Wicke`s concept of “pop songs as media” (Wicke, 1992) the analysis will not refer to particular songs or lyrics but will take a different approach accounting the band’s general image cultivation. I therefore will be looking at different aspects of the band`s image construction and try to show how these aspects serve the purpose of authentication.
Implications
Although authenticity may no longer be the exclusive mode of distinction it still is of vital importance to discourses on the value of popular music (cp. Grossberg, 1993). In addition to that many of these discourses (especially in Rock music) share Theodor Adorno`s late-romantic definition of musical art, highlighting autonomy from its commercial value (Middelton, 1990).
Primož Trdan, Ljubljana
Estetika sodobne umetnosti in estetika sodobne glasbe: primer V. Globokarja (Aesthetics of Contemporary Art and Aesthetics of Contemporary Music: The Case of V. Globokar)
Avtor v prispevku izpostavi nosilne estetske ideje sodobne konceptualne, performativne in zlasti novomedijske umetnosti, kakršne prepoznamo v umetnostno-teoretskem pisanju J. Strehovca. V umetnosti (vseh) avantgard dvajsetega stoletja je opazna sprememba estetske in estetiške paradigme, ki se kaže v ključni prevetritvi znotraj pojmovne dvojice aesthesis – poiesis. Podoben zasuk opazujemo tudi v nastavkih glasbeno-estetske misli Vinka Globokarja, obenem pa se na koncu postavlja vprašanje o smiselnosti in resničnosti sopostavljanja estetskih idealov oddaljenih umetniških fenomenov.
(The author exposes fundamental aesthetic ideas of contemporary conceptual, performance and especially new-media art as recognised in theoretical writing of J. Strehovec. Twentieth century avant-garde arts developed a crucial change of aesthetic paradigm, which manifested in redefining within the duality aesthesis – poiesis. A similar switch is also being revealed in Globokar’s aesthetical thinking on music. Author, however, raises a question of problems that occur as a result of comparing aesthetic ideals of thinking on music, already firmly developed by the 80’s and new-media art, which is only present in last decade or two.)
Vilena Vrbanić, Zagreb
Bagpipes in modern musical practice in Croatia
Because of their presence in many European regions and the fact they were connecting different social classes, bagpipes may be considered to be one of the symbols of European music. In the 19th century they have started fading from the artistic musical practice although they still remained very important in folk music: bagpipes used to be played in all kinds of feasts and ceremonies in the country (especially accompanying dance), during different holidays, weddings and harvest... However, at the turn of the 20th century bagpipes started fading out in many European countries and the number of bagpipe-players became significantly smaller. In Croatia, bagpipes also slowly disappeared from musical practice, being gradually substituted by other instruments, mostly tamburas. Besides the fact that bagpipes have accomplished their role in folk musical life, this situation was also a consequence of various social and political factors. Although they have almost completely vanished, bagpipes have confirmed as instrument with special ability of recovering. They have evolved again in 1970s within the so called revival movement. At the present Croatian bagpipe-scene especially noteworthy are activities of Stjepan Večković, player and maker of traditional instruments in the National Folk Dance Ensemble of Croatia Lado. Thanks to numerous bagpipe-seminars he is frequently holding, bagpipe-playing is becoming more wide-spread and there are now many good amateur bagpipe-players. From 2007 Večković is actuator of Center for Croatian traditional instruments, Croatian Bagpipe Orchestra and Croatian Bagpipe Festival. Thanks to Večković bagpipes are increasingly present in contemporary musical practice in Croatia and they are represented in various musical genres such as ethno, jazz, pop and rock.
Ondřej Pivoda, Brno
Perspectives of Czech Musical Semiotics at the Beginning of the 21st Century
The paper attempts to evaluate the methodological contribution of the Czech musical semiotics to musicology. The ideas of the Czech semiotic school were formed from the half of the 1970’s by a free association of musicologists internationally known as the Prague Team for Musical Semiotics. Internal disunity and unexpected passing away of its leading figures led to the end of its activities in the 1990’s without striking deeper roots. In spite of that the team offered some interesting approaches and solutions to the semiotic problems that met with a good response. The collective methodological principles were set up by Jaroslav Volek in his article Hudební struktura jako znak a hudba jako znakový systém (Musical structure as a sign and music as a sign system, 1981). The consequent reasearch pointed out especially the question of metasigns in music and these of musical semiosis (Jiří Fukač, Ivan Poledňák), then the theory of semantic analysis having its origin in Boris Assafiev’s conception of intonation (Jaroslav Jiránek) and the interpersonal hypothesis of musical semantics (Jarmila Doubravová). Are these problems relevant also today? Does the current musicology remain opened to the semiotic issues or has it entered the „postsemiotic“ period?
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