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Paper presented at the 43rd ICTM World Conference, 16-22 July 2015, Astana, Kazakhstan. The paper discusses some aspects of the shanty choir phenomenon in the Netherlands and contains a methodological discussion concerning ethnomusicology-at-home, 'neo-classical fieldwork' and the place of participant observation in ethnography.
Met een consortium van muziekdocenten die zich gespecialiseerd hebben in ouderen en muziek voerde het lectoraat Lifelong Learning in Music van 2010-2012 onderzoek uit naar het leren bespelen van een instrument op oudere leeftijd. Maar hoe is het om voor het eerst een instrument te leren bespelen in de drukste levensfase in combinatie met kinderen en werk. Linda Hendriks leerde klarinet te spelen in deze levensfase en reflecteerde op de uitkomsten van eerder onderzoek naar muziekbeoefening door volwassenen en de rol van oefening daarbij. Zij relateert deze onderzoeksbevindingen aan haar eigen vertrekpunt en ervaringen. Ze gebruikt hierbij onder meer de uitkomsten van literatuuronderzoek uitgevoerd door Peter Mak naar de versnelling van het uitvoeringstempo voor oudere instrumentalisten, dat deel uitmaakte het lectoraatsonderzoek naar ouderen en muziek.
Sinds de invoering in 1998 van de Tweede Fase in het Middelbaar Onderwijs is er een nieuw elan geslopen in discussies die gaan over wat interdisciplinariteit in de kunsten precies betekent en hoe deze van betekenis kan zijn voor het kunstonderwijs. Tot het moment van invoering werd het kunstonderwijs op de middelbare school op een monodisciplinaire wijze vorm gegeven, maar met de invoering kwam het fenomeen interdisciplinariteit veel directer in de schijnwerpers van het onderwijs te staan. De vakken CKV 1 – 3 (Culturele en Kunstzinnige Vorming) hadden veel nadrukkelijker een gemeenschappelijke benadering van de kunsten als vertrekpunt en die benadering richtte zich heel direct op gemeenschappelijke kenmerken van de kunstdisciplines.
Invited lecture for Symposium CityProms, Leeuwarden, 26/6/2015
This study focuses on the uses and functions of music in the life of individuals in the province of Groningen at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The study is an ethnomusicological study representing the sub-discipline of ethnomusicology-at-home. It uses Andreas Reckwitz’ formulation of practice theory as a theoretical starting point and introduces methodological principles from the field of qualitative sociology. Central in the study is the individual. 30 theoretically sampled individuals recounted their musical biographies in narrative-biographical interviews, which were analyzed in detail and eventually led to a sufficiently suggested grounded theory of the uses and functions of music in Groningen AD 2010. The theory consists o three interrelated compartments. The first compartment contains a description o the uses o music a expressed b the interviewees. ‘Use’ refers t the ‘customary exercise o music’ i concrete musical social situations. The result o this study i of this study. The study describes how three cultural codes seem to be shared amongst many (though not all) of the interviewees: the codes of playing an instrument, craftsmanship, and musicality, together forming the supercode of the music specialist. These three more general codes are combined with two further codes to form the highly specific and culturally hegemonic musical subject culture of art music, expressing that music is a specialism; it is the craft of playing an instrument by talented individuals; that this craftsmanship must be combined with expressivity; and that through this form of specialized expression musical objects come into being which represent the ideal realm of the artistic. By discussing this attempt at a grounded theory of the uses and functions of music in Groningen AD 2010, a picture is delivered of how individuals become musical individuals. Through their musicking in the context of concrete musical social situations they use music for the functions of affirmation, connection and regulation of the self; and they do this in the context of a web of cultural codes labeling shared and disputed – and sometimes hegemonic – ways of doing and talking. An evaluation of the theory and methodology used in this study shows that both assist in further developing the field of ethnomusicology(-at-home); an evaluation of the results in the light of existing research shows that they contribute to further insights into the uses and functions of music. Four areas for further research are mentioned: typologizing the uses and functions of music, musical discourses, musical subject cultures, and the place of the musical subject order of art music in contemporary society. The study ends with a description of the possible implications for conservatoires. Conservatoires are recommended to encourage students to think of their future audiences in the broadest possible terms, taking into account the wide variety of uses and functions of music figuring in the daily lives of musicking individuals. They are encouraged to make students look upon themselves (also) as service providers, and as such to be open and non-judgmental in their relationships towards the musical other. Conservatoires are recommended to translate this into their curricula by devising transformative projects in which students meet ‘musical others’, and by encouraging their students to take their possible audiences into account consciously in any musical social situation they devise or find themselves in.
