Folk Songs of Montenegro – from the First Field Recordings of Miodrag A. Vasiljević to Published Collections

Abstract

The goal of this work is to introduce the general public to the enthusiasm, dedication and engagement of Miodrag A. Vasiljević (1903-1963), Serbia’s most renowned ethnomusicologist and music pedagogue, to melographical work. His melographic journey through the lands of Montenegro has been reconstructed from, among relevant sources, documents from the Miodrag A. Vasiljević Archive. A survey of the numerous collections of recorded folk songs has led to an in-depth look at the ethnomusicological collection Folk Songs of Montenegro in the Published Melographic Records of Miodrag A. Vasiljević, published by the Montenegro Academy of Science and Art and the Montenegro Music Centre in 2019. Vasiljević had, through melographic records, notes on folk singers, and studies, worked creatively by offering not only a written record, but also active communication across a great distance, thanks to the layered nature and levels of meaning in his approach to ethnomusicological material. His familiarisation with the formula of folk songs and with the creative functioning of folk singers is transmitted through written material and studies, and he searched for and found ways to rework a layered musical whole and operationalise it for a practical music-pedagogical application. The work also contains a look at this intriguing link between ethnomusicology and pedagogy which, through the creative work of one man, blazed a trail for both sciences in Serbia. At the same time, this connection is what makes Vasiljević unique as an ethnomusicologist and a music pedagogue, and that dialectic makes his legacy priceless. Keywords: Folk Song, Montenegro, M.A. Vasiljević, Ethnomusicology, Music Pedagogy.