Geography Of Music Research Articles

Rural songs for COVID‐19 times? UK folk music's resurgent engagement with the countryside

AbstractThe COVID‐19 pandemic somewhat unexpectedly promoted resurgent interest in the attractions of rural places, not least associated with nature, in many countries for especially urban people. The paper argues that this link was very fecund for many within the broad UK ‘folk music’ community specifically. After introducing COVID‐19's pro‐rural turn, the paper gives a brief overview of now substantial music geography scholarship, paying particular attention to what has been studied in respect of folk music, not least its examination of the latter's problematic links to English identities. It argues that folk music's resurgent rural links call for attention. It then introduces how the rural‐folk music COVID‐19 experience worked at three non‐exclusive levels. First, there was rural influence on the music being produced. Second, some musicians were also personally impacted strongly by rural experiences, evident not solely through their music. Third, some musicians developed original rural initiatives that saw audience members also gaining direct rural inspiration, not just via the strong growth in internet‐facilitated connections but through direct in‐place encounters with the musicians in the rural. Each reading is illustrated by two brief case studies, with the rural‐folk combination becoming increasingly alive and more‐than‐representational. It is suggested in conclusion that there remains a strong ‘life’ to these rural‐folk music connections in less predominant COVID‐19 times.

Exploring music geography beyond the West: Clustering and mobility of Chinese musicians in the digital era

This study explores music geography beyond the Anglo-American circle through an investigation of the spatiality and mobility of musical workers in a Chinese context. Drawing on a dataset containing the information of 3,689 influential musicians in China’s music market, we investigated the (1) geographical landscape of China’s music industry, (2) spatial mobility of musicians at different stages of their careers, and (3) impact of digital technologies on the clustering of creative musical workers. Our study discovers a conspicuous clustering of post-work musicians in large metropolises, which reflects both the dynamics of scale and scope economies and the influence of state on the offering of cultural infrastructures and institutions in China. Most Chinese musicians have high trans-regional mobility and target locations (increasingly on the Chinese mainland) with large consumer markets or important art education institutions. The impact of geographical distance and agglomeration economies on musicians’ mobility varies at different stages of their careers. In addition, while digitalisation generates certain decentralising effects, enabling more musicians in formerly peripheral areas to enter the market and reducing the need for long-distance mobility, it also strengthens the advantages of dominant music clusters and produces precarious and volatile consequences in China’s music industry.

Progress of international music geography research and its implication for China

Progress of international music geography research and its implication for China

It’s All About “Being There”

Ethnomusicologists often move into the field to observe, analyse, and describe the knowledge creation and negotiation practices of a musical tradition. However, the scenarios caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have proven to be a challenge to the practice of our ethnographic work. We were prevented from going to the field and musicians could not meet physically to develop their musicking, partially transferring their practices to various digital platforms. Although the pandemic confronts us with previously unthinkable challenges, some of these situations are not new if we think about musical practices like those of TikTok. Beyond the time of the pandemic, these practices have already shown to be a challenge for various theoretical and methodological conceptions of our ethnographic work, since they do not materialize in concrete practices in a given place. In this article, drawing on my ethnographic research on TikTok musicking from an Austrian perspective, as well as my reflections as an ethnomusicologist during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, I will discuss the idea of musical geography through practice, as well as the concepts of presence and co-presence, to critically reflect on the ideas of “being there” or “being present”, so important in ethnographic work. In addition to these reflections, I will examine and discuss various experiences lived throughout the musicking of TikTok under a multimedia reality before and during the pandemic, in order to discuss the idea that musical geography through practice can change our perspectives on the field pre- and post-pandemic.

Exploring the Affective and Spatial Politics of Choral Music Performance through Focus Groups with Singers

This paper builds on focus groups with singers from a chamber choir that rehearses and performs in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. It explores the spatial politics of performance and singers’ understandings of the impact of choral music, in particular in music with social justice themes. Discussion centers on two compositions about forced migration. Singers reflected on their experiences rehearsing and performing these and other works, exploring the function of choral music, the politics of performance, and race and whiteness in choral singing. We argue that focusing on singers’ experiences allows musical geographies to further explore an affective politics of performance. Participants described singing as a form of political engagement—though one different from electoral or activist politics—but one that they navigate ambivalently, through affects that include hopefulness and (sometimes productive) forms of anxiety and discomfort. We contribute to discussions in cultural geographies and geohumanities around race and musical geographies, the affective (geo)politics of performance, and art-geography collaboration.

After the Dance, the Drums Are Heavy: Carnival, Politics, and Musical Engagement in Haiti

After the Dance, the Drums Are Heavy: Carnival, Politics, and Musical Engagement in Haiti

When Brazil Got the Blues: The Diffusion of Blues in Brazil

The focus of this article is to understand and examine the phenomenon of the introduction of blues as a musical genre in Brazil (1985-1992), which has never been studied. By highlighting the processes of globalization and the Brazilian blues band from Rio de Janeiro, Blues Etílicos, I ask what were the spaces, places, and venues that helped to disseminate blues throughout Brazil? How does an African-American-based genre adopted and popularized by upper-and-middle-class white urbanites in Brazil? To answer these questions, I examine political, musical, and cultural backdrops, and the end of Brazil’s military dictatorship in 1985, which overlapped with a major Brazilian rock festival, “Rock in Rio,” and Brazil’s first blues festival in Ribeirão Preto in 1989. This article adds to the scholarly literature of blues and music geography by looking at ongoing discussions of Brazil’s changing political, cultural, and musical landscapes.

When Brazil Got the Blues: The Diffusion of Blues in Brazil

Thisarticlewillexamine theintroduction of blues in Brazil (1985-1992), a phenomenon thathas not yet been addressed in scholarly spheres until now. By highlighting the processes of globalization and the Brazilian blues band from Riode Janeiro, Blues Etílicos, I ask what were the spaces, places, and venues that helped to disseminate blues throughout Brazil? How does an African-American-based genre adopted and popularized by upper-and-middle-class white urbanites in Brazil? To answer these questions, I discuss the process ofglobalization and the Geography of music, political, musical,and cultural backdrops, and the end of Brazil’s military dictatorship in 1985, which overlappedwith a major Brazilian rock festival, “Rock in Rio,” and later, Brazil’s first blues festival in Ribeirão Preto in 1989. This article adds to the scholarly literature of music geography by looking at ongoing discussions of Brazil’s changing political, cultural, and musical landscapes.

Purple Current: Streaming Popular Music in the Name of a Local Heritage

The Current, a broadcasting service, which is a part of Minnesota Public Radio organization, has launched a special online radio stream called Purple Current in 2018. Based in Minneapolis, it focuses on the life and legacy of Prince, emphasizing his inspirations, influence, culture in which he grew up and recorded. While Purple Current can be seen as a reactive venture after musician’s death in 2016, the stream is much more complex cultural project, especially given very specific cultural environment of Twin Cities. The research aims to analyze Purple Current radio stream as a cultural text, using the perspective of music geography and American studies, and through studying the discourse it presents – its mission, programming, music, image-building via Twitter, and statements by its founders – to understand its purpose and deeper social functions. The study shows that Purple Current is much more complex venture to be considered simply an homage to an important cultural figure as Prince. It integrates local community, exposes listeners to historically neglected minority culture of Black Minneapolitans, while being involved in the processes of popularization, education, and image-building. This results in a project, which is relevant and valid culturally, socially, politically, or even historically.

A Research on music geography: Manisa folk songs

Müzik coğrafyası yeni kültürel coğrafya içinde önemli bir yere sahiptir. İnsan çevre etkileşimi müzik coğrafyasında ele alınan konulardan biridir. Bu çalışmada Manisa türküleri insan çevre etkileşimi ile coğrafi yönden ele alınmaktadır. Türkülerin seçiminde Salih TURHAN-Manisa Türküleri ve Oyun Havaları, TRT İl İl Türkülerimiz, Türk Halk Müziği Sözlü Eserler Antoloji-1ve2 adlı eserler kullanılmıştır. Türkü başlıkları içindeki coğrafik kelimeler dikkate alınmaktadır. Çalışmada kaynak tarama, türkülerin sınıflandırılması ve alan gözlemleri yapılarak ele alınmaktadır. Sonuçta görülmektedir ki Manisa türkülerinde tarımsal ürünlere ait bulgular ön plandadır. Bu durum uygun coğrafik koşullara bağlı olarak ortaya çıkmaktadır. Aynı özellik ağaç motifine ait bulguların yaygın bulunmasını da etkilemiştir. Hidrografik özellikler de yaygın olarak bulunmaktadır. Ev motifine ait bulguların azlığı dikkat çekicidir.

Main Approaches in Music Geography: A Comparison of Anglo American and Turkish Geographic Agenda

Müzikologlar ve halk bilimciler tarafından domine edilen müzik çalışmaları, 1960’larda diğer bilimlerin de ilgilendiği bir alana dönüşmüştür. Bu dönemde ortaya çıkan müzik coğrafyası, kentsel ve kültürel coğrafyanın altında gelişmeye başlamıştır. Müzik coğrafyası çalışmaları, insanın çevresi ile kurduğu ilişkiyi peyzaj, mekân ve yer kavramlarını müzik ekseninde ele almaktadır. Coğrafyacılar, müzik bölgelerinin belirlenmesi, müzik türleri ve sanatçıların mekânsal dağılışı çalışmaları ile müzik coğrafyasının temelini atmıştır. 1990’lardan itibaren müzik coğrafyasında “kültürel dönüşe” paralel olarak epistemolojik bir atılım yaşanmış ve müzik, yer duygusu, mekân, yer, kimlik, kentsel imaj ve kültürel ekonomik coğrafya kavramları altında çalışılmaya başlamıştır. Bu çalışmanın ana çerçevesi Carney’in (1998) yaptığı tematik sınıflandırma üzerinden belirlenmiştir. Türkiye coğrafyasında müzik coğrafyasının ortaya çıkışı, tarihsel gelişimi, dönüşümü, temel yaklaşımların değerlendirildiği ve literatürün detaylı değerlendirildiği teorik bir çalışma bulunmamaktadır. Çalışmaların Anglo Amerikan literatürdeki çeşitliliği taşımadığı ve hatta Türkiye’de yapılan müzik coğrafyası çalışmalarının anakronik bir görünümde olduğu belirlenmiştir. Eleştirel bir pozisyona sahip bu çalışmanın amacı coğrafya ve müzik coğrafyasının bilgi kuramsal gelişimini ilişkili bir şekilde değerlendirmek ve müzik coğrafyasının konu ve metodoloji konusundaki güçlü potansiyelini ortaya koymaktır.

Music Geography as a Subject of Geographical Research

Toplum bireylerin biyolojik, kültürel, düşsel ve düşünsel varlıkları ile oluşturduğu bir bütündür. Dolayısı ile toplumların özellikle sağlıklı toplumların oluşumu bireylerin fiziksel, duygusal, düşünsel ve ruhsal gelişimleri ile yakından ilgidir. Bireylerin bu gelişiminde bilimden teknolojiye, spordan siyasete, edebiyattan sanata çok sayıda bileşenin etkisi bulunmaktadır. Müzik de günlük yaşamın içinde her an, her yerde hayat bulan bir sanat dalı aynı zamanda bir yaşam aracı olarak bireylerin dolayısı ile toplumların gelişiminde önemli bir etkiye sahiptir. Küçük topluluklardan ulusal devletlere ve de çok uluslu kültür ve şirketlere kadar her yerde müziğin birleştirici ve bütünleştirici etkisini görmek mümkündür. Müziğin sadece kulağa değil aynı zamanda akla, kalbe ve ruha da hitap etmesi müziğin bireyler ve toplumlar üzerindeki etkisini arttırmaktadır. İnsanı etkileyen her konu mekân ve coğrafya ile de ilişkilendirilebildiğinden coğrafyacının bir araştırma alanı olarak müzik ile ilgilenmesi kaçınılmazdır. Bu çalışmada müzik coğrafyasının kapsamı fenomenolojik yaklaşım perspektifinde ele alınırken, müzik coğrafyasının yeri ve önemi de müzik coğrafyası ile ilgili yapılmış çalışmalar bağlamında açıklanmaktadır.

Geography and film music: Musicology, gender, and the spatiality of instrumental music

Film and music are key concerns in human geography. But rarely has film music been considered. Here, the scores of James Horner (1953–2015), one of the most successful Hollywood composers of recent decades, are used to explore future directions in the geographies of music. Through engagement with the fields of musicology and film music studies, the paper calls for greater engagement with instrumental, in addition to lyrical, music. Hitherto, the latter has encountered the overwhelming majority of attention in human geography. But instrumental music’s style, form, and structure convey distinctly spatial knowledge and thought. As such, instrumental music represents a crucial addition to the topics considered by musical geographies. Through attention to such music, the conceptualisation of music in musical geographies is expanded.

Melogeography of the Zhnivo and Dozhinki (harvest) period tunes of the Western Polesie and Poneman’ie borderland

The subject of the research are tunes of the Zhnivo and Dozhinki (harvest) period of the Western Polesie and Ponemanie borderland. The material for the study are musical notations from song collections, archival expeditionary musical notations, phonographic materials mainly from the archives of the Cabinet of traditional musical cultures of the Belarusian State Academy of Music, as well as field recordings from private archives.The purpose of the research is to reveal the song tradition of the Zhnivo and Dozhinki (harvest) period of the Western Polesie and Ponemanie borderland in its modern functional-genre, structural-typological and melostyle content; to reveal the melogeography of tunes in the territories of the Western Polesie and Ponemanie borderland. The relevance of the work lies in an integrated approach to the study of calendar and ritual tunes and identification of the dynamics of the local Zhnivo tradition. The novelty of the work is expressed in the first realization of the picture of the distribution of the Zhnivo and Dozhinki (harvest) period on the territory of the Western Polesie and Ponemanie borderland.The article uses methods: comparative and structural-typological analysis, documentary mapping and phonetic transcription.Research result. Based on the analysis of the genre, structural-typological, melostylistic characteristics, their melogeography (musical geography) is revealed. Several types of Zhnivo tunes stand out. They are included in the group of all-Belarusian harvest lyric-dramatic monologues-statements, which are based on the harvest tune-formula (Z. Ewald). Among them, there are several types of two-line tunes (the upper reaches of the Yaselda River, the locus of the White, Sporovskoye and Black Lakes) and three-line tunes (Vygonovskoye Polissya), based on the “chanting” of 8 or 7-syllable verse norms.Separate groups of festive quint Dozhinki-tunes are distinguished: 1) with the textual opening “Vylitay, perepilko” (localized in the basin of the Lesnaya river), 2) with the refrain “Plon nyasyom, plon” (outline the southern isomela of this type of tunes in the Western Belarusian territories). Conditionally confined to harvest and haymaking mainly quint tunes complement the “classic” harvest repertoire.Local features of the Zhnivo and Dozhinki period tunes of the Western Polesie and Poneman’ie borderland can be traced, a sufficient variety of their song types and varieties within these types are shown. Less quantitative fixation of the Zhnivo-repertoire from the “Poneman side” of the West Polesian-Poneman borderland is noted. On the basis of a comparison of expedition materials from different years the picture of the spread of harvest calendar-ritual tunes in a synchronous layer as well as the dynamics of the decay of tradition in a diachronic layer are clearly traced.The article is accompanied by a melogeographic map.

Musical orientation in virtual space: videogame score and the spatiality of musical style and topic

ABSTRACT Digital geographies and musical geographies are proliferating. This article considers a topic at the intersection of both: videogame music. It argues that, through attention to such music, geographical approaches to videogames, and to music, can be radically expanded. Specifically, it argues that instrumental score, increasingly employed in major videogame franchises, should be subject to greater focus. Close analysis of instrumental score offers new ways of understanding the spatiality of musical style, structure and form. This article illustrates the potential of greater geographical engagement with instrumental music through the case study of the Legend of Zelda: one of the most popular videogame franchises. It concludes by suggesting new directions for research in the geographies of gaming, and in the geographies of music.

Music geography in Russia: non-auratic places and institutionalization “in becoming”

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on the Tsoi Wall in Moscow, an iconic place on Russia's music map that appeared in Moscow in 1990 in memory of the cult Soviet rock musician Viktor Tsoi, to develop a framework for studying non-auratic music place – that is, places that are not connected with the biographies of musicians or musical events, but emerge directly from the experiences of visitors and fans. These places are constantly negotiated and only lightly formalized, but are nevertheless enduring. To analyze this type of place, we propose a concept of institutionalization “in becoming”. The case of the Tsoi Wall reveals that light formalization (vague and changing positions and rules, and openness to different interpretations of a place and ways of using it) leads to the recognition of the place as a significant one and to its popularity. We put institutionalization “in becoming” in a wider context and juxtapose it with well-studied musical places in Europe and the US.

Considering Matthew Shepard: normative and anti-normative queer spatial narratives and the politics of performance in choral music

I present a cultural geographical analysis of the recent choral composition Considering Matthew Shepard. I explore the cultural, musical, and emotional geographies of this piece of music, in terms of its content and my experience of rehearsing and then performing the piece as a member of the choir. Drawing on cultural geography, musical geography, and queer theory, I argue that the memorializing of Matthew Shepard’s killing through this musical setting both repeats and challenges the normative popular and academic framings of Shepard’s murder and, more generally, queer critiques of the memorialization and historicization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer pasts. I explore this by examining three spatial themes in Considering Matthew Shepard: its representations of (1) Wyoming, (2) the fence (where Shepard was left by his assailants), and (3) universality. I also point to what musical geographies might gain in looking more closely at choral music performance.

Music Geographies and Iconic Music Legends: Mapping Céline Dion’s Outstanding Contribution to Music and Global Popular Music Culture

Music Geographies and Iconic Music Legends: Mapping Céline Dion’s Outstanding Contribution to Music and Global Popular Music Culture

Sound art and the making of public space

ABSTRACT This paper draws on a collaborative sound art project that aimed to explore how sound art as a non-representational method might attract and produce new publics and re-signify iconic public spaces. We describe how the project, AGORA, proceeded and to what extent it transformed the spaces it was performed in and made new, if transient, publics in the moments of performance. This paper focuses on the British Museum and St George’s Church, Bloomsbury. In the Museum, the contemplation and resignification provoked by the intervention enlivened the sacred character of the museum. We argue that this (re)sacralization can be experienced as a practice of decolonization, albeit perhaps limited to the space and time of the performance. The Church, already signified as a sacred space, provoked another kind of encounter with the sacred and the colonial. The extended period of reflection provoked by the performance made visible the etchings of colonialism in the fabric of the building. Our contribution is primarily to the geographic literature on non-representational theory in relation to sonic geographies and music geographies. This paper points to the potential of sound art to make us listen to spaces more attentively.

¿Eso es tradicional? Contexto, geografías y trayectorias musicales en la construcción de una noción sobre lo “tradicional”. El caso del Trío Los Cholos en Lima Metropolitana

The present article exposes the results of a research project developed between 2011, 2012 and 2016 with Trio Los Cholos in the city of Lima, in which I sought to problematize the sense and use given to the notion of «traditional» within the musical practice of the ensemble, in interaction with its performance contexts. Our departure point was not to consider such term as an objective trait, characteristic of a variety of cultural artifacts according to authenticity rhetorics or academic folklore theories, but as an abstract principle constructed based on a set of meanings, perceptions or valuations defined by the ensemble’s performers. In this sense, it is not sought to determine what is «traditional» but which processes operate to determine the applicability of that category and the actors involved in them. To do this, we reconstructed the life histories of the members of the ensemble and conducted controlled sessions of musical exposition. This allowed us to observe that what we understand as «traditional» responds to a process that starts from the identification of sonorities and styles, which in turn activates representations of place associated to musical geographies and abstract performance contexts.