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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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).
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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).
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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).
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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