Music and collective identity: One song, many identities

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來自 Universiteit Leiden 的課程

The Importance and Power of Music in our Society

36 個評分

Universiteit Leiden

The Importance and Power of Music in our Society

36 個評分

Music plays an important role in our daily lives and is woven into the fabric of society. We listen to music while alone or in company, in a dance club or at home, through simple headphones or via high-end speakers, as background or as foreground, after we get up or before we go to bed. Music accompanies us when we are traveling, doing sports, shopping, working or relaxing. This omnipresence of music raises several questions: how does music affect our lives? What is the relation between the society we live in and the role, function, and position of music within that society? How is music influenced by and does music influence social, political, economic, technological, and multiple other developments? Do these questions trigger you? Music and Society provides a thorough introduction to the various ways in which music and society are connected through engaging lectures, insightful interviews, challenging assignments, interesting readings, and of course a lot of musical examples. The course aims at increasing your insights on where, how and why we listen to music, how music contributes to shaping our identity, how music forms, expresses, and subverts political ideas, and how music affects our norms and values.

從本節課中

Music and Identity

How does music affect identity and how does identity influence music? Is music only an expression of personal taste or is there more to say about this relation? In this module we will discuss and explore the relation between music and identity. We'll do this by discussing (1) how music influences personal identity and (2) how music influences collective identity and (3) how the 'structure of society' influences music as well as identity.

Music and personal identity: the power from outside vs. the freedom from inside8:04

Music and collective identity: One song, many identities8:10

"I will survive": Music between repetition and difference9:50

與講師見面

Marcel Cobussen
Prof.dr.
Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, Faculty of Humanities
Hafez Ismaïli M'Hamdi
PhD
Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, Faculty of Humanities

Hi.

Welcome back to this module on music and identity.

In a previous video Hafez has

told you something about music in relation to individual identity.

Here, we will discuss music influence on collective identities.

And as a kickoff, let me tell you a rather funny, but also maybe tragic, story.

Imagine for a moment that you are sitting in a restaurant

somewhere in Turkey with four friends, all of different nationality.

A Greek, a Serb, a Macedonian and a Turk.

Your animated conversation is accompanied by live music, and at a certain moment,

the band strikes up a familiar folk tune.

A rather peculiar dispute breaks out, as each of you claim that the tune

is a well-known traditional and national song that belongs to your country.

Fact or fiction?

This is what happened to the Bulgarian filmmaker, Adela Peeva,

in the beginning of her documentary, "Whose is this Song".

And what follows is a fascinating road movie through

southeast Europe to find the roots of that tune.

It takes Ava from Turkey to Greece, Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia,

Serbia, and Bulgaria respectively.

In most of these countries, the tune is a love song with varying domestic lyrics.

But in others, such as Turkey and Bosnia, it has also been used as a war song.

In each country, however, people display shock, anger or disbelief

when Peeva suggests that the same tune is also claimed by their neighbors.

Well, let's have a brief look at a trailer of "Whose is this Song".

[MUSIC]

[FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN]

>> [FOREIGN]

>> [FOREIGN]

[MUSIC]

>> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN]

>> [FOREIGN]

>> "The Serbs can never do a song like

this, they have no traditions," a young Albanian man says curtly.

"It might be that the Turks took it from us," the conductor of a local Albanian

orchestra replies to Peeva's remarks that the Turks regard it as their song.

For [INAUDIBLE] the song is Bosnian only,

forbidden during the Communist rule in former Yugoslavia.

Confronted with the Bosnian version,

the Serbs tell Peeva that this is theft, it is a Serbian love song.

And the reaction in her home country of Bulgaria,

when she suggested the song might be Turkish,

is "you risk being stoned if you say that it's a Turkish song".

The documentary is open-ended in its findings.

Suggestions that song might have Jewish or

central Asian origins are conditional, requiring federal investigation,

although this will probably not serve to sooth tempers.

In several of his books, the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk

brings up the idea that already in prehistorical groups,

sounds were important to create a proper identity.

Rhythm, music, and language united the members of these earliest communities so

that they formed close groups.

For these nomads, bellowing together meant approximately the same thing

as being able to hear and understand one another.

In woods and grasslands, a primary and

invisible boundary was drawn between the self and the other.

How?

By differentiating between group sounds, and sounds of the world around that group.

With its own specific talking, mumbling, singing, drumming and clapping,

the small group secured an acoustic particularity, and

ascertained that it was, indeed, a group.

Establishing a boundary between self and other.

Isn't that exactly what creating an identity is all about?

Marking a difference between something on this side and something on that side.

And that something can be one person, for

example my own identity as an individual human being.

It can be a group, one group against another group.

Or a struggle over a piece of land.

It can gendered, male versus female.

It can be racial, ethnical, religious, social, or economic.

The "haves" versus the "have nots".

It can be humans versus animals.

Et cetera, et cetera.

In fact, one could say that what humans do to create order out of chaos

is to establish identities.

However, the result is often to impose a single,

drastically simplified group identity, as "Whose is this Song" makes clear as well.

How can one song cause so much emotions, so much animosity, so

much outspoken hatred?

The documentary shows, in a rather brilliant way, what music's powers are.

How music can become a source of conflict between communities, how it plays

a role in the creation, as well as abolition, of collective identities.

A sociologist Tia DeNora writes her music in everyday life.

"Music is a medium for making, sustaining, and

changing social worlds and social activities".

Consistent with DeNora's ideas, literary theoretician Edward Said

states that "Music cannot be separated from political and social processes.

Music is a social force influencing how people conduct themselves,

how they feel about themselves, about others and about situations.

Music seems to be a key to identity

because it offers a sense of both self and others.

It stands for, symbolizes, and

offers an experience of collective, social, and cultural identity.

However, music does not, or not only, represent identity.

It intervenes to rearrange things and bodies into identities.

There's not music one side and

social reality on the other, music is part of that social reality.

Music makes identities out of individual bodies through sonic interventions.

So to summarize,

besides playing a role in the construction of a personal identity,

music also functions as a tool to create collective identities.

And the word create is important here,

as music does not only represent already-existing identities.

Through music, through solid interventions, identities are made.

Now, in order to learn a bit more about this rather difficult concept of identity,

the next item in this module is a short philosophical text on construction and

deconstruction of identities.

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