MUSICAL PRACTICES IN THE BALKANS: ETHNOMUSICOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES МУЗИЧКЕ ПРАКСЕ БАЛКАНА: ЕТНОМУЗИКОЛОШКЕ ПЕРСПЕКТИВЕ СРПСКА АКАДЕМИЈА НАУКА И УМЕТНОСТИ НАУЧНИ СКУПОВИ Књига CXLII ОДЕЉЕЊЕ ЛИКОВНЕ И МУЗИЧКЕ УМЕТНОСТИ Књига 8 МУЗИЧКЕ ПРАКСЕ БАЛКАНА: ЕТНОМУЗИКОЛОШКЕ ПЕРСПЕКТИВЕ ЗБОРНИК РАДОВА СА НАУЧНОГ СКУПА ОДРЖАНОГ ОД 23. ДО 25. НОВЕМБРА 2011. Примљено на X скупу Одељења ликовне и музичке уметности од 14. 12. 2012, на основу реферата академикâ Дејана Деспића и Александра Ломе Уредници Академик ДЕЈАН ДЕСПИЋ др ЈЕЛЕНА ЈОВАНОВИЋ др ДАНКА ЛАЈИЋ-МИХАЈЛОВИЋ БЕОГРАД 2012 МУЗИКОЛОШКИ ИНСТИТУТ САНУ SERBIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS ACADEMIC CONFERENCES Volume CXLII DEPARTMENT OF FINE ARTS AND MUSIC Book 8 MUSICAL PRACTICES IN THE BALKANS: ETHNOMUSICOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE HELD FROM NOVEMBER 23 TO 25, 2011 Accepted at the X meeting of the Department of Fine Arts and Music of 14.12.2012., on the basis of the review presented by Academicians Dejan Despić and Aleksandar Loma Editors Academician DEJAN DESPIĆ JELENA JOVANOVIĆ, PhD DANKA LAJIĆ-MIHAJLOVIĆ, PhD BELGRADE 2012 INSTITUTE OF MUSICOLOGY Издају Српска академија наука и уметности и Музиколошки институт САНУ Published by Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and Institute of Musicology SASA Лектор за енглески језик Јелена Симоновић-Шиф Proof-reader for English Jelena Simonović-Schiff Припрема аудио прилога Зоран Јерковић Audio examples prepared by Zoran Jerković Припрема видео прилога Милош Рашић Video examples prepared by Милош Рашић Технички уредник Горан Јањић Prepared for print by Goran Janjić Дизајн корица Ивица Стевић Cover design Ivica Stević Тираж 300 Number of copies 300 Штампа Академска издања Д.О.О., Земун, Београд Print Akademska izdanja D.O.O., Zemun, Beograd © 2012 Српска академија наука и уметности Музиколошки институт САНУ © 2012 Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Institute of Musicology SASA Објављивање овог зборника финансијски је помогло Министарство просвете, науке и технолошког развоја Републике Србије These proceedings have been financially supported by Ministry of education, science and technological development of the Republic of Serbia CONTENTS / САДРЖАЈ Foreword ............................................................................................................ 9 Реч уредника ................................................................................................... 11 Danka Lajić-Mihajlović, Jelena Jovanović, Introduction: Music and ethnomusicology – encounters in the Balkans ................................ 13 Данка Лајић-Михајловић, Јелена Јовановић, Увод: Музика и етномузикологија – сусрети на Балкану ........................................ 27 Martin Stokes, How big is ethnomusicology? .................................................. 29 Мартин Стоукс, Колико је велика етномузикологија? ................................ 40 Lozanka Peycheva, Ethnomusicology connected to Bulgaria – a view of the field of fieldwork ............................................................... 41 Лозанка Пејчева, Етномузиколошка истраживања у Бугарској – поглед на поље теренског рада ........................................................... 53 Mirjana Zakić, The application of the semiotic theory by Ch. S. Peirce in ethnomusicology ................................................................................ 55 Мирјана Закић, Примена семиотичке теорије Ч. С. Перса у етномузикологији .............................................................................. 66 Danka Lajić-Mihajlović, Ethnomusicological research of the guslars memory: a pilot study .......................................................... 67 Данка Лајић-Михајловић, Етномузиколошко истраживање гусларске меморије: пилот студија ................................................... 85 Olga Pashina, Area studies in ethnomusicology: on the problem of identification of musical dialects ....................................................... 87 Олга Пашина, Ареална истраживања у етномузикологији: о проблему идентификације музичких дијалеката ........................... 97 Rodna Veličkovska, Areal investigation and typological systematization of the Macedonian traditional ritual folk singing .................................. 99 Родна Величковска, Ареално проучавање и типолошка систематизација у македонском традиционалном народном обредном певању ............................................................... 117 Daiva Vyčinienė, Relationships between Lithuanian and Balkan Schwebungs-Diaphonie: interdisciplinary search key ......................... 119 Даива Вичиниене, Однос између литванске и балканске Schwebungs-Diaphonie: интердисциплинарни истраживачки приступ ............................................................................................... 147 Athena Katsanevaki, Traditional singing: field research or a performing art? Combining research methods and teaching methods in one field (an introductory note) .......................................................................... 149 Aтина Кацаневаки, Традиционално певање: теренско истраживање или извођачка уметност? Комбиновање истраживачких и едукативних метода на јединственом пољу (уводно разматрање) .. 165 Vesna Peno, Methodological contribution to the research of the Serbian church chant in the context of Balkan vocal music .............................. 167 Весна Пено, Прилог методологији проучавања српског црквеног појања у контексту вокалне музике Балкана .................................. 181 Jelena Jovanović, Identities expressed through practice of kaval playing and building in Serbia in 1990s ........................................................... 183 Јелена Јовановић, Идентитети изражени кроз актуелизацију свирања и градње кавала у Србији 90-тих година XX века ............ 202 Sanja Radinović, Notes on physiognomy and identity of songs from Hektorović’s Fishing and fishermen’ talk .................................... 203 Сања Радиновић, Цртице о физиономији и идентитету народних песама из Хекторовићевог Рибања и рибарског приговарања ........219 Selena Rakočević, Musical practice of the Banat Bulgarians: a brief geopolitical mapping ................................................................ 221 Селена Ракочевић, Геополитичко мапирање музичке праксе банатских Бугара ............................................................................... 235 Sanja Ranković, (Re)construction of the Krajina musical identity: the case of the vocal practice of the folklore ensemble ‘Petar Kočić’ from Čelarevo ............................................................................................... 237 Сања Ранковић, (Ре)конструкција крајишког музичког идентитета у Војводини .......................................................................................... 250 Iva Nenić, (Un)disciplining gender, rewriting the epic: female gusle players..... 251 Ива Ненић, Жене гуслари: (рас)кроћење рода, поновно исписивање епског ................................................................................................... 263 Pál Richter, The legacy of Tihomir Vujičić .................................................... 265 Пал Рихтер, Заоставштинa Тихомира Вујичића ....................................... 279 Miroslav Stojisavljević, The role of audience in contemporary gusle practice of the Serbian-Australian diaspora ........................................ 281 Мирослав Стојисављевић, Улога публике у савременој гусларској пракси српске дијаспоре у Аустралији ............................................. 294 Rastko Jakovljević, The fearless vernacular: reassessment of the Balkan music between tradition and dissolution............................................... 297 Растко Јаковљевић, Неустрашиво народски: преиспитивање балканске музике између традиције и поништења ........................ 311 Ventsislav Dimov, A contribution to the research of the media music of the Balkans: A view from the tavern tables to some relation between the musical cultures in the Balkans in the field of media music during the first half of twentieth century .................................... 313 Венцислав Димов, Допринос истраживању музике у медијима на Балкану: поглед од кафанских столова на неке релације међу музичким културама на Балкану на пољу медијске музике у првој половини XX века ....................................................... 324 Ahmed Tohumcu, Gonca Girgin Tohumcu, Merve Eken Küçükaksoy, Dynamics of performance practice in Turkey: three cases .................. 325 Ахмед Тохумку, Гонђа Гиргин Тохумку, Мерве Екен Кућукаксој, Динамика извођачке праксе у Турској: три студије случаја .......... 332 Mladen Marković, Ethno-music in Serbia as a product of tradition – false or true? ..................................................................................... 333 Младен Марковић, Етно музика у Србији као продукт традиције – false or true? ...................................................................................... 344 Marija Dumnić, ‘This is the Balkans’: constructing positive stereotypes about the Balkans and autobalkanism ................................................. 345 Марија Думнић, ‘Ово је Балкан’: конструисање позитивних стереотипа о Балкану и аутобалканизам ....................................... 356 Contributors / Аутори..................................................................................... 357 DVD Contents / Садржај диска ..................................................................... 363 THE FEARLESS VERNACULAR: REASSESSMENT OF THE BALKAN MUSIC BETWEEN TRADITION AND DISSOLUTION RASTKO JAKOVLJEVIĆ Abstract: Scholars mainly use the term vernacular to encompas folk and folk-derived artistry which is the distinctive property of one local-range culture. At the same time, it underlies the significance of oral transmission, non-standardised communication and language usage among ordinary, common people. On the other side, vernacular confronts what is believed to be a mainstream, dominant culture. In music research as in sociolinguistics the vernacular connotates speech and language, a dialect that is opposed to a national language of wider population or lingua franca, native and local derived music, while later the meaning might extend to other aspects of the human behaviour. This paper examines different understanding and meanings of the term in relationship with its application within ethnomusicology and auxiliary disciplines. Keywords: vernacular music, folk, tradition, modernity, popular music, Balkans, ethnomusicology. While describing the past and the present, I want to propose a possible future that is not an extension of the past, but an act of imaginationnot as some sort of self-fulfilling prediction, but as a way of seeing our age with new eyes. Taking our starting point from children everywhere, I suggest a playful, emotionally committed recovery of the pleasures of vernacular culture in the ruins of the industrial age. But the recovery I suggest is neither innocent nor nostalgic. Vernacular culture, by definition, is a moving target. It is always local and improvised. It is necessarily extremely diverse (Mackey 2010: 13–14). (How) do we classify music? Like some of the previous discussions on ethnomusicological theory, this study attempts to contribute to our broad knowledge about the concept, term “around which ethnomusicologists organize their work” as Timothy Rice asserted (2010). The main hypothesis of this investigation emerged from aspiration that ethnomusicology still need to find a way to classify and define a current outstanding number of musical styles that we (ethnomusicologists) can not  This article is a contribution to the project Serbian Musical Identities within Local and Global Frameworks: Traditions, Changes, Challenges (ON 177004), funded by the Ministry of education, science and technological development of Serbia. 298 Rastko Jakovljević entirely encompass under classical systems of traditional, popular or art music without making uncertain judgments and partial referentialities. The location and style of music performed in traditional conditions, and music performed today created sometimes awkward position, marked by inabilities to clearly define the boundaries between ‘traditional’ and ‘folk’ (popular) music practice. In modern conditions and in some forms traditional music still exists, while the permeability between contemporary folk music and traditional music becomes most evident in colloquial term that people use for both kinds of music in Serbia – narodna muzika. The third realm which lies between traditional and popular music is the holistic location of the vernacular what this study aims to argue. Pivoting term: vulgar tongue of the masses Scholars mainly use the term vernacular to encompas folk and folk-derived artistry, which is the distinctive property of one local-range culture. As a concept, it underlies the significance of oral transmission, non-standardised communication, and language usage among ordinary, common people. On the other side, vernacular confronts what is believed to be a mainstream, dominant culture. Initially, the vernacular connotates speech and language, a dialect that is opposed to a national standardised language of wider population or lingua franca, while later meaning might extend to other aspects of the human behaviour. The term vernacular (Lat. vernaculus, native) depicts many simmilar or different things in sociolonguistic research or humanities. Assotiated with Reneissance it could be regarded as a cluster of different dialects and means of language use and communication among the ‘lowbrow’ population, i.e., vulgar languages and poetry of the Provençal troubadours and German Minnesingers (Bergin and Speake 2004). In more general terms, it allowed persons speaking different vernaculars, not understood by each other, to communicate (Wardhaugh 2006: 59). Being the commonly used language of the lower classes in the Middle Ages, the vernaculars emphasized locality, indigenous origin, regional cultural identities, and everything distinctive from the written language and ‘cultivated culture’, such as classical Latin which was the official language of the Western Europe aristocracy and institutions (Anderson 1983: 18–19; Merriam–Webster 2012). The significance of the vernacular however, gradually inclined as it moved towards modernity. Its status, when compared with ‘cultivated’, official, dominant language-and-script classes was treated as a form of peasant and irrelevant folk communication and artistry based on oral transmission. In his seminal study Imagined communities (1983), Benedict Anderson points out that the “older Latin was not arcane because of its subject matter of style, but simply because it was written at all, i.e. because of its status as text” (Ibid.: 39). According to this, it is assumed that the main difference between vernaculars and literary languages was in fact that oral transmission had no THE FEARLESS VERNACULAR... 299 advantage over uncanny written speech or text kept by the nobility or the Church. On the other side, the unification was one of the main attributes of the united aristocracy and religious institutions that preserved the toughness of the class divisions.1 Anderson believes that this general linguistic unification and creation of one uniform communicational model was dispersed with the penetration of the vernacular language, especially by printed materials, which “fragmented, pluralized and territorialized” dominant cultural models, and created conditions for the birth of nations and rise of local differences among them (Ibid.: 19). We could say that from that time, everyday life has been overwhelmed with vernaculars, and not just language-based ones. Every social group has their own distinctive cultural and behavioral patterns that could not fit into the mainstream or which we could not classify under some major predicament. Moreover, we could easily say that we live in what some scholars define as vernacular culture, pointing that “even the most urbanized people have an everyday culture, including everyday speech that is different from the literary language or from the language of straight news reporting” (Lantis 1960: 202–3). The confluence and birth of many cultural forms, distinctions of the popular culture and the rise of art within modernity has made this definition-seeking process even harder. It is because a quest that undertakes to define vernacular actually involves us to think about what is folk-derived, orally transmitted, non-standardised, non-modern or traditional on one side, and what has the proportions, multitudes and acceptance, cultivated in everyday life experience on the other. To some extent, there is a gap between tradition and modernity that stretches from the point where those two forces collide dialogically, or where the proportions of that liminal space become fictionally enormous. Fictionally because although scholars are opted in different contemplations on tradition and modernity, sometimes they are not fully aware of the cultural forms that crossover between the two poles. However, ‘real’ cultural practices and actions, subjects, and in this case music performers, shift between such categories with natural ease, very often without making any strict class divisions and taxonomies. This means that the dialogue between tradition and modernity also forces us to think about the borderless spaces in a time where we lose clear orientation of what is and what is not traditional or modern.2 What seems modern now could become 1 Over large span of time, after the Norman Conquest, French remained the language of ordinary communication among the upper classes in England so “the distinction between those who spoke French and those who spoke English was not ethnic but largely social.” Hence, while the language of aristocracy was dominantly French, the ordinary common speech of the masses remained vernacular – English. See more in Baugh and Cable 1993: 111–12. 2 Aware of the fact that in this investigation I operated with some of the most complex concepts such as tradition and modernity it is also necessary to stress sources which I have used in order to clarify their local meanings. ‘Tradition’ is given as an active process and oral category, “the expressing or transferring our knowledge to others” according to definitions and prerequisites of Raymond Williams (1983: 318–20). However, in plenary session discussion there were 300 Rastko Jakovljević traditional tomorrow, so the real question imposed here is how one could locate vernacular in such movable temporal trajectories? Ethnomusicological and related diciplinary applications In ethnomusicology, vernacular is mainly seen as the locution powerful enough to grasp everything within our pluralistic universe of folk-based music. This is mainly the result of binding vernacular with everything which is orally transmitted. Because of that, the discipline failed to offer a precise, moulded definition, offering a wide range of fluid formulations. Not rarely the term vernacular music becomes nothing more than incantatory word, often used as a pure scholar provocation, positioned synonymously with terms such as indigenous, autochtonous, regional, folk, popular, or traditional. In most cases it has been simply equated with the term ‘folk’ which is movable, but also problematic per se. Moreover, it seems that this concept or term itself was frequently tied to other megarethorical concepts, or instances whith accentuated or ‘fearless’ atrributes of multitudes, the power comprised in conceptions of folk, tradition, and alike, which challenge other crossover fields of general classes. However, could we identify the vernacular under generic term folk art, and how it stands in comparison with the concepts and notions of the tradition and modernity? How the meaning of this concept shifts when tradition itself becomes a vague term, when the dissolvement of the canonical tradition occurs within modernity. Further, the appropriate application and use within etymological case studies, ethnomusicology and related disciplines, indicate on disputes and different perspectives that move accross the borders of scholar disciplines. Such explorations tend to point out some of the deep differences between and within given cultures, as it also indicates on possible existing dissimilarities between Western and Eastern understandings and divisions made among traditional, popular, and folk music. To make more palpable and clear that the vernacular as a concept could be significant for music research and ethnomusicological theory, it seems appropriate to draw on some studies that incorporated this term. imputing suggestions that in fact I tended to use this concept as so called ‘systematic tradition’. Since I was not familiar with this term whatsoever, I have tried to resolve this with simple browsing which ended without results. In addition, I have tried to consult several distinctive and reputable scholars, British sociologist Ser Anthony Giddens and Serbian anthropologist prof. dr Bojan Žikić (correspondence with author) in order to validate that ‘systematic tradition’ exist as scholar term or such qualification. Unfortunately, I have received negative answers. However, in theory we could opt to coin this term, but so far to my knowledge it was not defined as such in existing publications and literature. I wish to express my gratitude to Prof. Giddens and Žikić for their opinion, help and support. ‘Modernity’ as a distinctive concept most commonly refer to modernization, modernism and modern technology era. It is also related as post-traditional, postindustrial age, as the ‘rupture’ between ‘old’ and ‘new’ culture. Implications on modernity is connected to globalization is according to some scholars intertwined. See more in Appadurai 1996. THE FEARLESS VERNACULAR... 301 On several occasions, Philip Bohlman tries to use and define the term in case-specific manner around which the network of other interpretations could be intertwined. Although applications might vary as such, Bohlman tries to define vernacular music not as a style of music, but moreover as a special way of musical acquisition and dissemination. On the other hand, he also tends to draw significant bias between vernacular music as musical dialects, therefore to equate vernacular and folk music. Within hybrids of different traditions of Islamic, Christian, and Jewish traditions, combined in Andalusian music, he saw that mixture is a result of “hybrids of vernacular music, that is, folk music” (2002: 52). This position also becomes exposed in further arguments where he distinguishes “Muslim vernacular repertoires” on the Tunisian island of Djerba, and identifies it as folk or traditional music, stressing the locality of this specific cultural entity. Further ethnic implications could be contextualized within locality, where fragmented traditions, local musics and different native belongings are regarded as “vernacular musical practices of communities united by ethnic identity” (Kaufman Shelemay 2011: 354). Another point that arises from here is that the significance of music knowledge and acquisition depicts the intrinsic relationship among folk, traditional and vernacular music which might be problematic when considered dialogically. Rather distinctive associations of this concept with narratives and textual significance Lawrence Kramer see as productive in defining boundaries between “two modes of presentation” in music, meaning that a line could be drawn between “vernacular mode, in which words and music seem to have a simple, simultaneous existence, and a cultivated mode, in which the music responds to the meaning of an independent, usually preexistent text” (1999: 316). In line with linguistic-oriented meaning, Kofi Agawu draws on Rosen’s determination of the ‘anonymous style of music vernacular’ as a marker of particular historical momentum or residuals of the ‘past tradition’, which could be either connected to temporalities of the tradition, music-language relationship or as a music style of the anonymous (1991: 8). Overall, vernacular music depends on perspectives or scholar treatment in several ways: (1) associated with the music-making process as the acquisition of music without i.e., formal training and contrasted with so called ‘cultivated’ cultural forms (music-oriented); or (2) emphasizing ‘orality’, communication in the vernacular and language status or its treatment within music i.e., the use of distinctive local dialects, particular localized slangs, or local musical cognition and understanding3 (linguistically oriented); and (3) vernacular music as a form 3 In Simha Arom’s theorization of the Aka Pygmy music the vernacular is seen as a concept attached to verbal communication and language, and as equal or close to the qualities of indigenous, emphasizing the local understanding of music. He puts that “the totality of an ethnic community’s music can therefore be presented as a finite set of mutually exclusive categories, named in the vernacular language” (1994: 140). 302 Rastko Jakovljević of fragmented localities of the folk and traditional music (systematically oriented). The meaning that Bohlman pursues in his general definition partially ratifies these positions: Classifications and ontologies of music that distinguish between musical practices in which few or many participate give rise to the concept of vernacular music. Unlike musics known and practised by a socio-cultural and professional élite, vernacular music is accessible to the majority of people because of their familiarity with its forms and functions and because they are able to acquire knowledge of it through everyday practice, that is, without any specialized skills. Unifying otherwise distinctive concepts of vernacular music is the metaphorical relationship between linguistic and musical models. One acquires a vernacular music as one would a language, naturally and through communication with others. Vernacular musics possess aspects of orality, such as dialect differences, which distinguish them from written traditions, whose complex structures and social contexts are rarely accessible to all. Viewed cross-culturally vernacular musics are more likely to be grounded in vocal than in instrumental traditions, especially those vocal traditions expressed through everyday practice (Bohlman, Grove Music Online). In this definition, there are however, several critical points that concerns further use and ethnomusicological application. Distinction between music maintained by ‘many’ and vernacular music which is located as the property of the ‘few’ does not seem logical as such. This is because all music initially is derived by a ‘few’, either folk or art music, while later it becomes disseminated and dislocated by multitudes or public bodies. Charles Seeger has a similar understanding when he implies that the name vernacular music proposes that such music, although not “digested by the dominant culture” is in the possession of the many – “their musical vernacular” (Seeger 1938, qtd. in Green 1993: 40). More clearly, it is the knowledge acquisition that led Seeger to believe that folk and popular musics are vernacular traditions held by many, while at the same time it confronts with ‘cultivated’ or canonical art music, which also suppose multitudes by nature (Ibid.: 43). In this respect vernacular music is a problematic tag which repeatedly asserts its difference to cultivated artistry, and revolves within frames of ‘common’ musical styles such as folk and popular music. Derived from general music anthropology, Seeger actually locates vernacular music “much more broadly than the traditional concept of ‘folk’ music” probably in order to avoid any limitations that folk music as a category could have (cf. Nettl 1991: 268).4 4 Some critics also believe that the concept of vernacular music in Seeger’s studies is a plateau on which he develops and demonstrate his particular ideas that arise outside central ethnomusicological agenda. In his observation, Bruno Nettl assume that Seeger’s “studies of vernacular music…do not really fit into the framework of folk-music studies but, rather, are tailored THE FEARLESS VERNACULAR... 303 An additional critical point drives us in yet another direction. What one must become aware is that vernacular music should not be perceived as solemnly vocal category, attached to the linguistic-centered approach, but to strengthen the dialogue in which music should be acknowledged as a specific form of text, derived as standardized or vernacular without making vocal music privileged only because it contains verbal content. There is nothing unusual for the ethnomusicological doctrine to recognize instrumental music as the specific musical language. What Bohlman asserts in further argument is that vernacular music traditionally has been positioned “against cultivated music” (Ibid.). Unwinding this predicament he believes that in European folksong scholarship the vernacular reflects social hierarchies and “greater concern for class and the distinctions between rural and urban music cultures…trough dichotomy between ‘great and ‘little traditions’, the ‘little’ traditions took on the profile of vernacular musics, whereas the ‘great’ traditions, their wide geographical distribution notwithstanding, were elevated to the status of élite or classical musics” (Ibid.). To some extent, this might be justified trough holistically based perspectives where vernacular music as a concept stretches to touch and integrate both rural and urban music, popular and traditional genres, “time-tested and emerging traditions, to integrate folk and popular wares that remove fences between community-based and professional performers” (Green 1993: 37). It is evident that trough such prism vernacular music envelops all folk-derived music, urban and rural, excluding only canonical art or classical music styles. In his study entitled World Music: A Very Short Introduction (2002), that argues Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music (1997) which gathered commercial recordings of ‘ethnic’ and ‘race’ labels and ‘obscure local companies’, Bohlman located this compilation as a specific, inclusive collection of “vernacular music that found its way to the United States” (Ibid.: 45). He presumed was that the vernacular, at least in this case, located musics of the ‘little traditions’, of nonarticulated, marginalized or obscured ethnic and racial communities with large traditions within American culture in typical postcolonial discourse. Although such divisions of music by its proportions could be faulty per se, significance that every music undermines in fact could not be compromised. Additionally, this particular notion of ‘large’ and ‘small’ traditions could be significant for defining what vernacular music means and how it relates to different proportions of music maintenance, dissemination, and sustainability, hence different musical systems and styles (v. Stokes in this publication). to illustrate, perhaps somewhat dissonantly, his complex philosophical, social, and technological ideas” (1991: 269). 304 Rastko Jakovljević Vulgar ear: Local applications and its contexts In Serbian ethnomusicological practice situation is completely different. Vernacular (in Serbian narodski) as a term that covers the proportions of something which belongs to a large number of people, derived from common folk (narod), determined by its locality may vary. Furthermore, it makes an emphasis on the distinction between folkness, something which is tied more to an expression (narodski), a characteristic that refers to what is folk (narodno). In ethnomusicological theory and Serbian scientific practice this distinction was not used before. This is perhaps due to the strong conceptual delineations among scholars when discussing traditional, folk or popular music. However, although music scholars could frequently hear from their informants that i.e. some song is ‘narodska’ – usually sang by people at some point in time, commonly performed as folk-like, but also distinguished from ‘hard cultural forms’ (Appadurai 1996: 90), such as ritual music and old traditional songs, in theoretical processing this qualification would become merged or mostly associated with tradition. Therefore, the problem occurs when theory appropriates local understanding of vernacular music, which subsequently becomes translated, rectified and further recognized as traditional in our local understanding and writings. It is also logical as an idea because we must always change our conception of what tradition is, especially when we are experiencing the emergence of the new ones.5 It allows us to understand that vernacular music as a concept is a timesensitive issue. To explain this movable and bifurcated signification I will follow one of my previous researches on Serbian traditional instrumental music (Јаковљевић 2009). What was challenging in this research actually concerned issues of different types of one instrument, that is to say how we can make a systematic classification according to organological, contextual, and musical features. The development of Serbian svirala (a type of end-blown pipe) has been marked with three key points in its diachronical progression: (1) a traditional instrument of larger dimensions and specific context and repertoire mainly focused on songs and shepherds improvisations (the invariant model); (2) repertoire refinements and characteristic style of performance, mainly using the svirala as dance accompaniment (standard model); and (3) radical technical modifications by using different materials (exotic wood types, plastic, metal, etc.), instrument division in two pieces to facilitate tuning, and repertoire that emphasizes musical skills 5 In one of her writings on the distinctions between traditional types of musical instruments and their variants related to ‘folklorisms’ Serbian ethnoorganologist Andrijana Gojković puts: “[Village players] consider that our old, original musical tradition still demands those svirala with six holes, which even today (although less frequently) are forged by individuals in known centers of the Western Serbia (Užice, Požega, Gubin Do, Trnava, Karan), while newly composed folk melodies should be performed on ‘tuned’ svirala, which are adapted to this kind of music” (1987: 31). THE FEARLESS VERNACULAR... 305 and virtuosity of the performers (altered model). What is problematic is the distinction of each of these models, the difference between traditional and cultivated practices maintained trough time or in the past, and vernacularisation which leads us to embrace those crossovers between traditionally based and common or popular biases with strong connections to the present moment and modernity. The first model was the most traditional one, in its fundamentally based context and function. This we recognize as traditional or the most authentic, while the performers understand it as dogmatic cultural value, in the past and today. The next one is treated the same, traditional from this time distance, but once it was regarded as novelty. In fact, it is the vernacular (narodski), music that differentiates from canonical tradition described above, which is made and used in different conditions. Village musicians are also aware of the distinctions on contextual level, referring to the first case as dances of ‘old’, ‘shepherd’, ‘old dance’ style (metaphor for something which is traditionally based), and the second which they recognize as newly created dances, used typically for entertainment (narodno veselje, e.g., ‘folk celebration’) as dance events require. The last one is regarded as a pure invention, so today it is located somewhere between traditional (folk-derived) and popular, hence vernacular but in different sense, while in future it could be diversified as traditional as well. In current developments we are witnessing that prominent players such as Sava Jeremić and Bora Dugić made tremendous influence on current musical practice among village svirala players. This influence is so strong that newly composed musical forms, disseminated trough media (radio and television), and local competitions (repertoires) as artifacts of current popular culture, are frequently accepted by local players and further regarded as traditional (see Јаковљевић 2009; Zakić 2011). Although the context situates stage performance of folk music, meaning that the representation is maintained in popular culture, elevated to the status of specific art, the connections to tradition lie in the use of svirala as traditional instrument, basic characteristics of music and repertoire, and simulated ‘handover’ transmission or dissemination. In this sense, media works by the principles of orallity, while stage performance represents gatherings and contextual aspects established by traditional norms. However, the reality is that this music mediates between what we define as traditional and popular. We can no longer treat this musical practice as traditional, at least not in that canonical sense, because traditional context and transmission has changed dramatically, while music itself is commodified. On the other hand, we cannot be absolutely right if we define it as popular only. Therefore, this foremost reaches what we should understand under vernacular music in its local meaning. The second possible meaning of vernacular music goes in different direction. Vernacular could be used also as a synchronical concept. Under this I presume those kinds of music that is folk-derived, transmitted orally, but which does not reflect broad characteristics of the tradition. They are the common 306 Rastko Jakovljević forms of expression in a particular locality that do not always the reflect tradition but resembles it. In such case the vernacular implies local musical forms or styles of the ‘few’, which are somehow different, as some type of traditional ‘anomaly’ that occurs in specific time, without further acceptance on wider scale, or without potentials of large-scale acceptance within broad community, and therefore ‘hand over’ procedures and continuity that tradition in fact encompass. It means that all individual or small-scale group (‘few’), local creative processes that were not absorbed within the wide community and tradition, could also stand for vernacular music. In this sense vernacular is something that the culture is before it becomes standardized, formatted, canonized, hence traditional, and it is fluctuating between the poles of tradition (aspiring to) and it always have fluid character (non-uniformed communication, music with local ‘experimental’ and to some extent ‘accidental’ characteristics). The next developmental level of the previous example could be used to present how some aspects of traditional music could be commodified and used, which at the end could be qualified as vernacular music. The primordial cultural background of traditional music, situated in villages until the second half of the twentieth century, was sustained and developed by distinctive individuals and communities in Serbia. Furthermore, in Serbia, from the second half of the twentieth century the term narodna muzika (folk music) found its way into broad public and media discourses to signify an adaptation of rural folk music styles. The native, village, rural, folk and/or the traditional music practices of the particular geo-cultural area, once located away from an urban settings and its great influences, suddenly became exposed to contemporary contexts, mainly imposed by the State and governmental cultural policies under socialist and communist ideological frameworks in former Yugoslavia (more in: Laušević 2007; Hofman 2011; Jakovljević 2012a). The rise of Cultural-Artistic Associations (KUD) and local houses of culture were a part of great agenda that aspired to represent ‘uncultivated’ village culture as progressive instead of backward. By establishing festivals of traditional music, the state apparatus actually transplanted local musical traditions, placing them in the form of stage performances (Јаковљевић 2012b). The results and consequences were multiple; either traditional music lost its locality, which also demonstrates a subtle reduction of differences between rural and urban conditions, or distinctive and homogenic traditional musical practices became vulnerable to local acculturations and mixtures with other styles. Folklore manifestations de facto are traditional-like music contexts, which represent music in forms close to tradition. However, they are not traditional due to the lack of traditional contexts in which specific music developed, or due to a certain intervention with the general music material and forms of representation, or even because it misses the point: music is not maintained in society in a traditionally established manner. Traditional music now becomes represented as an art and disseminated THE FEARLESS VERNACULAR... 307 trough folklore festivals as an artifact of art or popular culture (Example 1). In those terms, traditional music became closely attached to the artistic and popular which prevents us to treat it as traditional. Furthermore, such constellation gave very strong stimulus for further development of staged folklore, whose effects we feel even today. Every each newly formed Cultural-Artistic Associations actually were not trying to maintain traditional style of performance, to represent traditional, rural musical forms, but to turn to adaptations, compositions and other folklorisms. This is also visible in some of the most prominent folklore competition such as national festival ‘Sabor frulaša Oj Moravo’ (Assembly of frula players Oj Moravo), a competition held annually in village of Prislonica near Čačak, which is strongly influenced by modernisation and image of staged folklore, noticeable in both visual and music features of the performers and their repertoire (see Zakić 2011). Even though every competitor has to perform music within two main categories – traditional and modernised repertoire, folk music on frula (with orchestral accompaniment), this is in fact what could be simply defined as vernacular music in its bifurcated connections. It means thus that performed or represented music is either traditional music, decontextualised or detached from its original context (placed on stage), or popular music with strong attachments to traditional music, that is to say popular music which tends to recreate traditional. It also shows that in this staged folklore form, local music style derived from tradition is transplanted on the stage and further prioritised as popular music for masses, traditional music which by its transferral to popular subsequently might lose its regional or other characteristics, and music which becomes delocalised but still remains significantly far from imposed dominant courses of the urban culture. Given those facts we can assume that traditional music in fact dissolved, and that amalgamated social, cultural, and political conditions altered the status of music in this context, which then became positioned between tradition and modernity. By dismantling the norms, styles, and practices of the canonical tradition, making something as to resemble folklore and tradition, rising almost autonomously, such newly composed music by its status is vernacular. Vernacularisation as the interpretational cycle As mentioned before, the vernacular might lead us to embrace those crossovers between traditionally based and common or popular biases with strong connections to the present moment and modernity at the same time. However, it is not only evolution that brings us closer to the understanding of the concept. In the dissolvent process of traditional music, bifurcated meanings of the vernacular musics could be reached from different perspectives, of ethnomusicology as a scientific discipline and popular music and its ensuing social, ideological, and cultural contexts. Under this I presume that every ethnomusicological study actually dislocates traditional music from its rural (authentic?), non-Western 308 Rastko Jakovljević paradigms to cultivated, scientific, dominant discourse of the discipline and specific or general public. This is also sort of a specific ethnomusicological capitalism, transfer of power from tradition which becomes vernacularised (folk) in our interpretation. More clearly, under this predicament ethnomusicology tends to allocate and attribute traditional music by strengthening social meanings recognized by multitudes, therefore to recalibrate ‘music of the few’ to match established meanings, to become understood close as ‘music of the many’. However, under vernacularisation one should also rethink the nature of ‘making’ something as to resemble or to underline biases derived from music folklore. Moreover, the procedure of vernacularisation has its most palpable meanings in recent developments of popular Serbian world music. Evident examples could be found in music of Goran Bregović and his recent works such as Karmen with a Happy End composed in 2004. In this conceptual opera Bregović amalgamated music from the Balkans, mostly represented trough melodies and styles of the Romani music (including brass bands, characteristic vocal timbre, melodic lines etc.), popular music trough various emblems including commercial capacities of the world music etiquette, and signifiers of specific forms of art music (opera, scene, roles as combination of vernacular and operatic distinctions etc.). Trough this specific ideological blend one can also observe many different levels of music styles which altogether create not just amalgamated form of art, but a postmodern idiosyncratic music style as well, especially evident in combinations of habanera and elements of Serbian folk dances, derived from rhythmical pattern which is generally reffered as užičko kolo.6 Given the previous case it can be obvious that vernacularisation is (mis)used to deploy particular new image and identity of folk music that gravitate to modernisation, and additionally might challenge traditional norms and induce reassessment of the music tradition as such. In addition, in discussions on modernity, Appadurai suggests that in contemporary readings of such cultural manifestations “megarhetoric of developmental modernization (economic growth, high technology, agribusiness, schooling, and militarization) in many countries is still with us. But it is often punctuated, interrogated, and domesticated by the micro narratives of film, television, music, and other expressive forms, which allow modernity to be rewritten more as vernacular globalization [paradoxical case – R.J.] and less as a concession to large-scale national and international policies” (1996: 10). As a result, the previously mentioned case by its form is hybrid; it is at the same time folk, art, and popular, but neither of this could be seen as pure value. For the same reason it is music which has its own roots, generated locally, a common music which extends over local boundaries or even over our conceptualizations of musical systems. Therefore vernacular is not merely a 6 Such idiosyncratic form could be examined in opening section (Ouverture) of the mentioned opera, which describes specific blend on ideological and stilistic or music strata. 309 THE FEARLESS VERNACULAR... buffer zone between canonical music practices as traditional or art music, nor it is a zone in-between those practices and popular ones. It has privileged position – from its vernacular nucleus it can become traditional and even art music, while with its dissolution it can become transplanted, represented amalgamated or molded as popular music (Figure 1). Figure 1: The vernacular – concept trajectories. Therefore such categorisation can be perceived as local-to-the-moment, meaning that the vernacular as a concept is historically defined by what traditionally becomes at the moment! Because of that, vernacular (as native form of music) seems to be ‘standardised’ trough social agency, communal filters and as a set of norms disseminated, handed over trough tradition. It paradoxically becomes lingua franca on local scales, just as traditional music is in (post)modern conditions coprehended as a sort of an alternative musical practice, non-standardised or not permeated by minds of majorities of urban population. Because of lack of historical background knowledge among multitudes, in urban settings every traditional music could be regarded simply (and neutrally) as folk music, knowing that it has roots in folklore, but not knowing particular levels and stylistic strata of such music, which overal indicates on bifurcated meanings and interpretations of the vernacular and all reading possibilities that this term implies within and outside ethnomusicology and other related disciplines. References Agawu, Kofi 1991. Playing with signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music, Princeton University Press. Anderson, Benedict 1983. Imagined communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Appadurai, Arjun 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minnesota University Press. Arom, Simha 1994. ‘Intelligence in Traditional Music’, in Khalfa, Jean (ed.), What is Intelligence. Cambridge University Press, 137–60. Baugh, Albert C. and Cable, Thomas 1993. ‘The Norman Conquest and the Subjection of English, 1066–1200’, in A History of the English Language, 4rd. ed. Routledge. Bohlman, Philip 2002. World Music: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ---------- 2001. ‘Vernacular music’, in Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online. www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/46449 (accessed 14/11/ 2011). 310 Rastko Jakovljević Crystal, David 2003. ‘Vernacular’, Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. Gojković, Andrijana 1987. ‘Štelovane svirale i folklorna koreografija’ [‘Tuned pipes and folklore choreography’], Народно стваралаштво – Folklor XXVI/1–4: 29–33. Green, Archie 1993. ‘Vernacular Music: A Naming Compass’, The Musical Quarterly 77/1: 35–46 . Hofman, Ana 2011. Staging socialist femininity: gender politics and folklore performance in Serbia. Brill Leiden – Boston. Illich, Ivan 1981. ‘Vernacular Values’, in Shadow Work. Marion Boyars, London. Јаковљевић, Растко / Jakovljević, Rastko 2009. ‘Човек – Инструмент – Звук: aспекти развоја свирале у Србији’ [‘Man – Instrument – Sound: Aspects of the Development of svirala in Serbia’], Зборник Матице српске за сценске уметности и музику 41: 93–112. ---------- 2012a. Marginality and Cultural Identities: Locating Bagpipe Music of Serbia, Doctoral Thesis, University of Durham. ---------- 2012b. ‘Традиционална музика и анатомија мреже фестивала између југословенске културне политике и вернакуларних вредности’ [‘Traditional music and the anatomy of the festival network between Yugoslavian cultural politics and vernacular values’], Mузикологија 12: 103–20. www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/ 1450-9814/2012/1450-98141200004J.pdf. Kaufman Shelemay, Kay 2011. ‘Musical Communities: Rethinking the Collective in Music’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 64/2: 349–90. Kramer, Lawrence 1999. ‘Beyond Words and Music: An Essay on Songfulness’, in Bernhart, Walter, Scher, Steven Paul and Wolf, Werner (eds.), Word and Music Studies Defining the Field: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Word and Music Studies at Graz, 1997. Amsterdam – Atlanta: Rodopi. Lantis, Margaret 1960. ‘Vernacular Culture’, American Anthropologist (New Series) 62/2: 202–16. Laušević, Mirjana 2007. Balkan Fascinations: Creating an Alternative Music Culture in America. Oxford University Press. Mackey, Clarke 2010. Random Acts of Culture: Reclaiming Art and Community in the 21st Century. Toronto – Ontario: Between the Lines. Merriam–Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus Online 2012. www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary/ vernacular (accessed 12/03/2012). Nettl, Bruno 1991. ‘The Dual Nature of Ethnomusicology in North America: The Contributions of Charles Seeger and George Herzog’, in Nettl, Bruno and Bohlman, Philip (eds.), Comparative Musicology and Athropology of Music: Essays on the History of Ethnomusicology. University of Chicago Press. Rice, Timothy 2010. ‘Disciplining Ethnomusicology: A Call for a New Approach’, Ethnomusicology, 54/2: 318–25. Seeger, Charles 1938. ‘Music in America’, Magazine of Art 31: 411–13, 435–36. 311 THE FEARLESS VERNACULAR... Swan, Joan (et. al) 2004. ‘Vernacular’, A Dictionary of Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh University Press. Bergin, Thomas G. and Speake, Jennifer (eds.) 2004. The Encyclopaedia of the Renaissance and the Reformation. Revised edition, s.v. ‘vernacular’. Aylesbury: Market House Books Ltd, 488–9. Wardhaugh, Ronald 20066 . An introduction to sociolinguistics. Blackwell Publishing. Williams, Raymond 1983. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Oxford University Press. Zakić, Mirjana 2011. ‘The Presence of Rural Instruments in Serbia Today: The Case of svirala’, in Jähnichen, Gisa (ed.) Studia Instrumentorum Musicae Popularis II, 37–48. Растко Јаковљевић НЕУСТРАШИВО НАРОДСКИ: ПРЕИСПИТИВАЊЕ БАЛКАНСКЕ МУЗИКЕ ИЗМЕЂУ ТРАДИЦИЈЕ И ПОНИШТЕЊА Резиме Стручњаци често користе термин вернакуларни („народски“) како би обухватили народне и народно-засноване вештине које су дистинктивна својства одређене културе локалних размера. Истовремено, термин подвлачи значај усменог предања, нестандардизоване комуникације и употребе језика међу обичним људима. Са друге стране, вернакуларно се супроставља нечему што чини „мејнстрим“, доминантну културу. Испрва, вернакуларно конотира говор и језик, дијалект који стоји наспрам језика нације широког круга популације или lingua franca, док се потом може пренети и на друге аспекте људског понашања. У етномузикологији вернакуларно је у већини посматрано као довољно снажан израз који омогућава обухватање свега што чини плуралистички универзум традиционалне музике. Из тог разлога дисциплина није успела да пружи прецизну дефиницију, нудећи широки спектар флуидних формулација. Неретко термин вернакуларна музика постаје ништа друго до чаробне речи, често употребљена као пука научна провокација, постављена синонимно са терминима „староседелачки“, „аутохтони“, „регионални“, „народни“ или „традиционални“. Међутим, можемо ли одредити вернакуларно према општем појму народне уметности, и на који начин оно стоји у односу на концепте и значења традиционалног и модерног? Како се значење овог концепта смењује уколико традиција сама по себи постаје нејасан термин, у тренутку када настаје поништење канонске традиције у модерном добу. Надаље, одговарајућа апликација и употреба у