Step 4C - Relate the event's genre(s) to its broader cultural context Flashcards
Broader cultural context categories
- artists
- creativity
- language
- transmission and change
- cultural dynamism
- identity and power
- aesthetics and evaluation
- time
- emotions
- subject matter
- community values
- community investment
Artists main points
who are the artists-what are their roles?
how do artists in this genre relate to the community?
how do people become artists in this genre?
Who are the artists? sources
Small, Christopher. 1998. Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. 207-221.
Ruskin, Jesse D, and Timothy Rice. 2012. “The Individual in Musical Ethnography.” Ethnomusicology56(2): 299-327.
Small (1998)
ACTIVITY (not thing) of musicking; everyone involved, down to the trash cleaner at the end of the concert
Ruskin, Jesse D, and Timothy Rice. 2012. “The Individual in Musical Ethnography.” Ethnomusicology56(2): 299-327.
Ruskin and Rice (2012)
4 types: innovators, key roles, ordinary, anonymous; artists are the ones influencing new social structures
Creativity main points
o who are the creators of new works?
o how do new examples of this form come into being?
o what does “new” mean in this art form?
o where do components [creators; language/symbolic systems; audience/gatekeepers] lie?
Creativity sources
Csikszentmihalyi (1996); Toynbee (2003)
Csikszentmihalyi (1996)
- creativity = people draw on personal competencies, symbolic systems, and social patterns to produce event of heightened communication that has not previously existed in that exact form [note that is systemic, between person’s thoughts and a given context]
- domain = set of symbolic rules/procedures
- field = gatekeepers of domain (have to accept the new creation—creativity not just judged from innovation, but recognition of that innovation—creativity cannot be separated from its recognition)
Toynbee, Jason. 2003. “Music, Culture, and Creativity.” In The Cultural Study of Music, edited by Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert, and Richard Middleton, 102-112. New York: Routledge.
the listener ultimately determines creativity! artist interacts
“• Creativity doesn’t attract much attention in cultural studies because it is seen as symptomatic of high art and therefore elitism (2003:102).
• Creativity in ethnographic traditions is seen as symbolic and, Toynbee suggests, dissolves it into the ordinary.
• Meaning is incomplete without an audience because creativity requires evaluation (2003:103).
• Romanticism ignores social aspects of creation and makes it entirely egocentric. “We should all be creators together, and in this way transform the limited social practice of music making into something universal and collective” (2003:111).
• Music is essentially “an ensemble of coded voices” which the creative identifies and interprets (2003:105-106). They are code shapers and changers.
Not happy that creativity left out of cultural studies because associated with ““high art.”” Argues that listener ultimately determines creativity–music is coded voices. (Audience needs to recognize symbols, but also differences that create delight. Creators know how to both make/keep and break rules appropriately.)
Even solitary/intense moments of creative passion require creator to monitor choices from a place outside own subjectivity, based on culture in which working (104).
Align these two factors to get innovation: (1) field of production artist chooses; (2) who artist is due to social elements comprising person.”
where do components lie? sources
Rice, Timothy.2003. “Time, Place, and Metaphor in Musical Experience and Ethnography.”Ethnomusicology47(2): 151-179.
Clifford (1997)
Rice (2003) - creativity: where do components lie
with world in flux, 3 dimensions to describe individual’s music experiences: time x2, space, metaphor (perception of what art is)
Clifford (1997)
emphasis on intercultural connection, routes, not roots
Language main points
o which language(s), dialect(s), register(s) appropriate?
o what status/identity associated with each language choice?
o [see also Dye (2009), esp. #1, appropriate language/dialect/orthography, and #2, good translation]
Transmission and change main points
how passed on to others?
how has the form changed historically?
Transmission and change sources
Nettl (2005); Coulter (2011); Fishman (1991); Lewis and Simons (2010); UNESCO (2003)
Nettl (2005) - transmission and change
ethnomus now more interested in change; 4 types (concentrate on changes to essential character); musical change slowest where….; music focused on either innovation or variation, but not both
Coulter (2011)
sustainability—language survey tools SEQ and RTT for GMSS, 8 steps, addition of “locked” (fixed repertoire for tourists—not everyday part of community)
Fishman (1991)
GIDS
