scholarly journals Lost in scales: Balkan folk music research and the ottoman legacy

Muzikologija ◽  
2008 ◽  
pp. 127-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Risto Pennanen
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Musical Characteristics ◽  
Music Research ◽  
Printed Sources

Balkan folk music researchers have articulated various views on what they have considered Oriental or Turkish musical legacy. The discourses the article analyses are nationalism, Orientalism, Occidentalism and Balkanism. Scholars have handled the awkward Ottoman issue in several manners: They have represented 'Oriental' musical characteristics as domestic, claimed that Ottoman Turks merely imitated Arab and Persian culture, and viewed Indian classical raga scales as sources for Oriental scales in the Balkans. In addition, some scholars have viewed the 'Oriental' characteristics as stemming from ancient Greece. The treatment of the Seg?h family of Ottoman makams in theories and analyses reveals several features of folk music research in the Balkans, the most important of which are the use of Western concepts and the exclusive dependence on printed sources. The strategies for handling the Orient within have meandered between Occidentalism and Orientalism, creating an ambiguity which is called Balkanism.

scholarly journals The Balkans of the Balkans: The Meaning of Autobalkanism in Regional Popular Music

Arts ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marija Dumnić Vilotijević
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
World Music ◽  
First Century ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Applied Music ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The People ◽  
Musical Characteristics

In this article, I discuss the use of the term “Balkan” in the regional popular music. In this context, Balkan popular music is contemporary popular folk music produced in the countries of the Balkans and intended for the Balkan markets (specifically, the people in the Western Balkans and diaspora communities). After the global success of “Balkan music” in the world music scene, this term influenced the cultures in the Balkans itself; however, interestingly, in the Balkans themselves “Balkan music” does not only refer to the musical characteristics of this genre—namely, it can also be applied music that derives from the genre of the “newly-composed folk music”, which is well known in the Western Balkans. The most important legacy of “Balkan” world music is the discourse on Balkan stereotypes, hence this article will reveal new aspects of autobalkanism in music. This research starts from several questions: where is “the Balkans” which is mentioned in these songs actually situated; what is the meaning of the term “Balkan” used for the audience from the Balkans; and, what are musical characteristics of the genre called trepfolk? Special focus will be on the post-Yugoslav market in the twenty-first century, with particular examples in Serbian language (as well as Bosnian and Croatian).

Folk Music Research in Hungary

1965 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Maud Karpeles ◽  
Lajos Vargyas
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Music Research

scholarly journals In Bartók’s Footsteps A Folk Music Research Series Among Turkic People (1936–2019)

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 313-326
Author(s):  
János Sipos
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Comparative Investigation ◽  
Theoretical Research ◽  
Current State ◽  
New Findings ◽  
Music Research ◽  
Traditional Songs ◽  
Hungarian Language ◽  
Hungarian Folk Music

The Hungarian language belongs to the Finno-Ugric linguistic family, but several pre-Conquest strata of Hungarian folk music are connected to Turkic groups. Intrigued by this phenomenon, Hungarian folk music researchers launched thorough comparative examinations. Investigations authenticated by fieldwork have also been ongoing to the present day, parallel to theoretical research. Initially, the main goal was to explore the eastern relations of Hungarian folk music, which gradually broadened into the areal research of the Volga-Kama-Belaya region. I further expanded this work to encompass the comparative investigation of Turkic-speaking groups living over the vast Eurasian territory. This paper provides a summary of the findings of this field research examining the folk music of Anatolian Turk, Azeri, Karachay, Kazakh, Turkmen, Uzbek and Kyrgyz people. I briefly describe the sources, the fieldwork, the methods of processing the collected material, and most interestingly, I summarize new findings. After providing an overview of traditional songs of several Turkic peoples, selected results are provided in three tables: 1) a grouping of Turkic folk-music repertoires; 2) Turkic parallels to Hungarian folk music styles; and 3) the current state of Turkic folk music research conducted by Hungarian scholars.

scholarly journals The Essence and Evolution of Song. By Vladimír Úlehla. Translated by Julia Ulehla; edited by Katherine Freeze and Richard K. Wolf.

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-136
Author(s):  
Julia Ulehla
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Poetic Structure ◽  
Musical Characteristics ◽  
Musical Modes ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
Musical Traditions ◽  
Living Organisms

Vladimír Úlehla (1888-1947) uses his expertise in the biological sciences to perform an in-depth and ecologically situated study of folk songs from his native Czechoslovakia. His posthumous magnum opus Živá Píseň (Living Song, 1949) chronicled the musical traditions of Strážnice, a small town at the western hem of the Carpathian Mountains at the Moravian-Slovakian border. Informed by four decades of ethnographic inquiry, transcription, and several music-analytical methods, in Chapter VI Úlehla considers the songs from Strážnice as living organisms, links them to their ecological environs, and isolates musical characteristics that he believes correspond to stages of their evolution. He discusses modulation, vocal style, ornamentation, melodic and poetic structure, and identifies a diverse array of musical modes—evidence that he uses to refute the prevailing assumption of the day that folk music was derivative of art music.

Béla Bartók’s Arab music research and composition

2008 ◽  
Vol 49 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 407-458
Author(s):  
Sylvia Parker
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Music Analysis ◽  
Bela Bartok ◽  
Music Research ◽  
Arab Music ◽  
Musical Elements

In 1913 Béla Bartók traveled to Algeria to research Arab folk music. He took with him the most modern technological device then available, the Edison phonograph, and recorded Arab peasants performing their music. Analysis of his ensuing scholarly documentation and free composition reveals the inspiration Bartók drew from Arab folk music, not only in his treatment of traditional musical elements — melody, rhythm, and harmony — but also in novel incorporation of exotic timbre, scales, drum modes, ululation, and exorcism. This paper elucidates diverse musical elements with examples from authentic folk music and Bartók’s compositions. What emerges is a remarkably comprehensive image of Arab music, seen through the lens of Béla Bartók’s unique scholarship and creativity.

New Methods in Vocal Folk Music Research

1960 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Charles Seeger ◽  
Karl Dahlback
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Music Research
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