Music Against the Challenges of Digital Society

The aim of the article is to separate the concepts of musicology, music anthropology, music, and instrumentalism. This very division and reflection of the interrelations of concepts provide a starting point for a detailed study of the problems of musical instrumentalism. The article is methodological in nature. It contains a number of important settings that are necessary for the anthropological analysis of music. The Central theoretical explanation of the article is the separation of musical anthropology and the anthropology of music. For this purpose, a number of tasks, namely, the definition of the theoretical fields of musical anthropology and the anthropology of music, and the disclosure of the role of music in traditional and modern society are proposed. The concept of musical action is introduced. Solving these problems allows to give a more complete analysis of the relationship between a person and music. It is this problem that becomes the main problem in the music media mainstream, where popular music is used as a way of producing moods and experiences. Music becomes a particularly valuable commodity in a networked society, which is made not so much for the purpose of incorporating into the values of high culture but to control the behavior of people in the music market. In addition to commercialization, music is becoming an effective political technology that provides consensus among voters. In this regard, there is a cultural problem, how high art in general and music, in particular, can preserve its traditional purpose – to promote humanization

Introduction

This chapter focuses on Jewish musicians and Jewish music-making in the Polish lands. It examines the astounding variety of music of all genres and styles produced by musicians of Jewish heritage in Europe since 1750. It also places the modern study of Jewish music between Jewish studies, cultural studies, and the anthropology of music as a fascinating opportunity for a multi-disciplinary approach to the issues of Jewish musical life. The chapter explores the activities and creativity of Jewish musicians as they worked in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and its successor states. It describes the character of traditional cantorial and religious music and the way this was transformed by the changes in Jewish religious practice.

La antropología musical: informe sobre sus objetivos y trabajos de investigación

Desde 1951 en que el filósofo alemán Hans Plessner publicó su artículo «Anthropology of Music», se ha intentado descubrir desde diferentes disciplinas cómo se interrelacionan el ser humano y la música. Los libros Sound and Symbol (1956) y Man the Musician (1973) de Viktor Zuckerkandl, Anthropology of Music (1964) de Alan B. Merriam, How Musical is Man? de John Blacking (1973), Der musizierende Mensch. Eine Anthropologie der Musik (1984) y Música humana (1986) de Wolfgang Suppan constituyen los pasos más importantes hacia una nueva e interdisciplinaria ciencia de la música. Pero el pensar sobre la necesidad de la música por parte del hombre y la sociedad aparece ya en las antiguas filosofías de China y Grecia. Nuestro estudio y repaso bibliográfico sobre el desarrollo de la investigación antropológico-musical toma asimismo en consideración al jesuíta español P. Antonio Eximeno y Pujades, quien en el siglo XVIII publicó en sus poco conocidos libros importantes ideas sobre nuestra temática.

FUNGSI GENDING AYAK WOLU PADA WAYANG KULIT GAGRAG JAWA TIMURAN KI SURWEDI

ABSTARCT This article originated from the interest of the author when he saw the phenomenon that occurred in the East Javanese leather puppet show Ki Surwedi, especially gending Ayak pathet Wolu which is very dominating. The discussion is focused on the gending function of Ayak pathet Wolu which concerns the relation of the song with the gamelan, so that it can conclude about the role and function of the song. Therefore, this article is qualitative with priority on the form of interview data and literature, and presented in descriptive-analytic. The data collected from various sources was analyzed using the function theory initiated by Alan P. Merriam in a book entitled The Anthropology of Music, translated by Hajizar in the form of "Concept as Source of Analysis". From this research, it can be concluded that the gending function of Ayak pathet Wolu in wayang Ki Surwedi is one of the art forms from ancestors that has been passed down from generation to generation. Therefore, it has become our collective duty to preserve it in order to avoid extinction. Kata kunci: ayak wolu, fungsi gendhing, wayang Jawa Timuran, Ki Surwedi

Hungarian Ethnomusicologist Oszkár Dincsér (1911–1977) as a Pioneer of Musical Anthropology

There are marked differences between Hungarian and American ethnomusicology in incentives, aims, interests, and methods. Hungarian research was based in the early twentieth century on study of musical form, while the Americans approached music in terms of social context and functions. However, Hungarians from the mid-1930s onward moved toward an increasing interest in the social aspects of folk music. Oszkár Dincsér, a lesser known researcher of Kodály's school, exemplifies this trend in his 1943 study of chordophone instruments in the Csík (in Romanian: Ciuc) County region of Transylvania Két csíki hangszer. Mozsika és gardon (Two instruments from Csík. Fiddle and gardon). A comparison with Alan P. Merriam's fundamental work The Anthropology of Music (1964) reveals that Dincsér's study includes almost every topic and approach set out by Merriam twenty years later. Although Dincsér's scholarly career ended with his emigration in 1944, he remains an important forerunner of musical anthropology.

The dynamic phenomena of strékan music from colonial to contemporary era in Situbondo

<p class="IsiAbstrakIndo"><span lang="EN-GB">This research is an anthropology of music which discusses the dynamics of <em>strékan </em>music from colonial to contemporary era in Situbondo. In Situbondo, <em>strékan </em>is a term which refers to music for welcoming guests. By ethnography method and postcolonial perspective, this research will discuss social problems and phenomena of <em>strékan </em>music. The result of this research shows that a change of <em>strékan </em>music signifies a change of social condition in Situbondo. In colonial era <em>strékan </em>is assumed by people like music for elite class. The field data show that there is unequal power relation between colonized and colonizer. In pasca-colonial era the hierarchy relation becomes ambivalent. It appears negotiation space between colonial signs and Madurese culture of Situbondo people, considered to be symbolic resistance. <em>Strékan </em>music is reinterpreted as music for low class. In the contemporary era, <em>strékan </em>music tends to market oriented. <em>Strékan </em>music includes <em>dangdut</em> music, following market taste as a consequence of commercialization of art.</span></p>

The War of the Romantics: An Alternate Hypothesis Using nPVI for the Quantitative Anthropology of Music

This response offers an alternate interpretation for the data described in Joseph Daniele's 2016 article "A tool for the quantitative anthropology of music: Use of the nPVI equation to analyze rhythmic variability within long-term historical patterns in music." I examine Daniele's argument that there is an overall rising trend in rhythmic variability in German composition from 1600-1950, and offer an alternate, historically informed explanation based on the re-examination of the data. The rising trend does not appear to be consistent throughout time, and rather than being the result of the waning influence of Italian music on German music, I suggest an alternative hypothesis concerning documented differences between late 19th century German composers and their compositional styles.

A Tool for the Quantitative Anthropology of Music: Use of the nPVI Equation to Analyze Rhythmic Variability within Long-term Historical Patterns in Music

The development of musical style across time and geography is of particular interest to historians and musicologists, yet quantitative evidence to support these trends has been lacking. This paper illustrates a novel application of the nPVI ('normalized pairwise variability index') equation to probe and quantify the rhythmic components of music over time. The nPVI equation quantifies the average difference between adjacent events in a sequence (e.g. musical notes in a melody, successive vowels in a spoken sentence). Building upon an earlier finding that German/Austrian composer nPVI values increased steadily from 1600 to 1950 (while Italian composers showed no such increase), the nPVI 'distribution' of themes from individual composers was quantitatively explored. Interestingly, the proportion of 'low nPVI' or 'Italianate' themes decreases rapidly with time while 'high nPVI' (more Germanic) themes concomitantly increase in frequency. 'Middle range nPVIs' exhibit a constant incidence, arguing for a replacement of 'low nPVIs' (Italianate) with 'high nPVIs' over a short time instead of a more modest, long-term progressive shift. Thus, the precise rhythmic components of complex stylistic shifts in music can be quantitatively extracted from music and support the historical record and theory.