Music in culture, culture in music

Introduction. Music. Territories of culture - Magdalena Szpunar, Magdalena Parus

Popular music as a form of cultural memory - Marek Jeziński

The paper focuses on popular music as a particular kind of cultural memory. Music, as a form of cultural activity, is perceived as an vital element of everyday life which represents cultural practices that reproduces social ways of life, the understanding of the world disposed by people, and is imposes certain meanings upon daily activities. It also refers to the past as a special context which people tend to evoke frequently. Therefore, I discuss music as a special kind of memory site that highly influences the meanings individuals used to attach to their past experiences. Music, as cultural memory, is presented as a reflection about contemporary tendencies prevailing in society, that is, music is treated as a mirror in which society reflects itself. Music styles, the production of sounds, music or songs and artists popular at particular span of time are the indicators by which one can “read” broader contexts in relation to social changes occurring in societies. This phenomenon was epitomized by “rock music boom” that emerged in the first half of the 80. in Poland. More importantly, songs, artists, bands, music festivals, charts, and fandoms were interwoven with political events that took place in the country. It is argued that deep economic crisis, political struggles against the socialist authority, and the martial law were constantly orchestrated by Polish songs which were popular at that time. These songs and bands are still remembered and respected as the important part of Polish popular culture of the era, defining that particular sphere.

Musical omnivorousness - Magdalena Szpunar

In this article, the category of omnivorousness is taken up as a new model of cultural consumption, displacing the homologous snobbery of the elite. Referring to the study of musical taste, the author points out that in the place of the elite taste of the privileged classes, appears cosmopolitanand unlimited omnivorousness, which also consumes unapproved species and flavors. At the same time, it has been pointed out that omnivorousness does not mean unreflective consumption of everything, but rather the openness and broadening of the spheres of current cultural consumption. The author convinces that this model of omnivorousness in the postmodern world becomes a way of reaching people from other social classes and understanding habitus different from their own. In this approach, popular culture becomes the only obligatory, far from being a symptom of bad or low taste.

From festive to everyday – music as the audiosphere of contemporary world - Mirosław Pęczak

Technological progress in possibilities of sound recording and reproduction is a part of cultural democratisation. It is also a source of essential changes of the music’s social status (especially popular music). In such a situation there is a big necessity to study those changes, as – for instance – the passage from the era of musical mass styles toward the times of musical niches and narrowing the mainstream. Music which was previously a kind of “cult” and “fetish” became an element of common, everyday audiosphere. In contemporary times people hear music far more often, then they listen to it.

New musical geography: center – resistance – peripheries - Waldemar Kuligowski

Last decades redefined traditional artistic geography. Center (West) – periphery (East and South) system, rooted in Ratzel’s Kunstgeographie, was replaced by new ideas known as “new artistic geography” or “geohistory of art”. An article is based on these new perspectives and it focuses on trajectories of punk rock music in 80’s. in former Yugoslavia and Poland as well. Author tried to transgress old cliché: on the one hand image of cultural hegemonic center (USA, UK) and on the other hand cultural non-hegemonic peripheries. An article describes the very beginning punk in ex-Yugoslavian town Rijeka (bands like Paraf, Termiti), Lublana (Pankrti), Zagreb (Prljavo kazalište). In next section an author presents an examples of cooperation realized by Polish visual artists and Polish punks (Brygada Kryzys, Kryzys, Moskwa). In effect, they created artistic films, paintings, installations and performances. Concluding, at the turn of the 1970’s Yugoslavian and Polish punk scenes were among the most active and most original in Europe east of the Elbe. Yugoslav punks have been very courageously politically involved and even morally related to the situation of homosexuals – becoming the vanguard of resistance to Tito’s power and his heirs. In the Polish case, punk alliances with emerging art, including experimental species such as found footage, are striking. Facing so many original and otherwise “framed” concepts, there is no reason for the punk story to continue to be reduced to repetitive, British and American clichés.

Oral history and research on the history of popular music oral history and research on the history of popular music - Magdalena Parus

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the usefulness of the oral history research method for the exploration of the history of popular music in Poland, especially in the communist era. Existing history research on the subject, however important and extremely inspiring, is based mostly on the available archival resources, whilst personal accounts of participants are used only as a source for popular-science or socio-political commentary publications. Analysis of the Polish propaganda festival phenomenon such as Sopot, Zielona Góra, Kołobrzeg and, most of all, the National Festival of Polish Song in Opole, in this article serves as a vehicle to establish how employing the oral history method can shed new light on the history of Polish popular music as the paper shows that the reception of such music for ordinary people completely differed from the intentions of festival organisers and the communist government.

Emotive aspects of musical reception - Magdalena Szpunar

The experience of music – though often unreflective and unaware – is common. This praxis has been multiplied by media on many levels, giving unlimited character to the reception of every musical genre. It is crucial to realize that the space in which we come to live and function is full of sounds but also of music. Music is an important part of the public sphere, and the quality of reflection on it can be an excellent measure of the overall condition of culture. Music is an abstract art in its own form and at the same time profoundly influences our emotionality. In this article I want to reflect on one of the most important processes determining the reception of music – its emotional layer. Through the emotional layer I understand the bilateral process – submitting to the emotions induced by music, but also projecting our own emotions and moods to music. In this text I will also try to clarify the ontological status of musical emotions and answer the question why emotions in music reception are so important.

From the radio music broadcast to online music streaming - Stanisław Jędrzejewski

Since the 1920s, the primary medium used for music reproduction in the radio was the phonograph disc recording (vinyl record). However, lately, radio listenership and the use of music digital media is decreasing in most countries. At the same time, the availability of alternative music sources through the Internet is rising. Such a drop in the consumption of radio, CD or even MP3 music, relates mostly to the younger generations and is accompanied by the increase of streaming services on the net as they became an integral part of the new audiosphere. This article presents a significant evolution of music reproduction platforms as well as the process of the intensification of Internet use associated with it.

Antennas as roots. Radio as musical instrument - Tomasz Misiak

Radio is in the context of music usually presented as a medium for disseminating and democratizing art. Relevant to the commercial market, radio as a medium popularizing art is linked to music in an unbreakable way. This article outlines another aspect of the relationship between music and radio. Presenting selected artistic projects – especially those related to the avant-garde art of the first half of the 20th century – show various ways and associated artistic strategies and aesthetic goals of using the radio as a musical instrument and a new sound source. Through these activities, aesthetic valorisation of the noise in music has been made, which has allowed for the emergence of new forms of musical compositions emphasizing the role of the random and the indeterminability of selected elements of the musical work.

Music on demand – transformations in the area of audio culture - Szymon Nożyński

Dynamically progressing technological change has led to new developments both in terms of access to music and the way we listen to it. Modern listeners just need a device that communicates with the network to take full advantage of virtual music libraries – anywhere and anytime. Instant and universal access have created a convenient form of music use and have pushed aside the traditional media that has given up before the network transmission. These and other transformations were preceded by decades of changes in the sound areas – which are highlighted in the text. Quality transformations related to the consumption of music – as well as the rituals and habits of the listener – occur at shorter intervals, so it is important to observe and describe them.

Musical entanglements of identity - Barbara Cyrek, Ewelina Dziwak

The article deals with the theme of music as an identity-shaping factor. Music as a source of aesthetic values can affect individuals and communities on many levels, especially as a source of meanings, from which identity is built and through which it is constantly changing. The connotations of the music entourage are not without significance. Its reception depends on the peculiar characteristics of the subject, which decodes the meaning of individual tracks and gives them new ones – which become internalized.

Music – media – culture - Barbara Jabłońska

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate iterative feedbacks between music, media and modern culture. The focal point here is the examination of the music practice specifics in the context of the dynamic development of old and new media, together with transformations of the audial culture of societies. The paper discusses the most distinctive processes defining the character of contemporary socio-musical practices anchored in the media context: first, the digital – analogue dichotomy; second, public – private; third, it refers to music fetishing versus the regression of music listening; fourth, real – simulacrous; sixth, autochtonous – representative. Recognising the significance of the sociological audial reflexive turn as postulated by Welsch provides a framework for the discussion.

Sounds of culture. Music imagination in cultural studies - Maria Flis, Wojciech Klimczyk

Georg Simmel, one of the pioneers of sociology of music, discussed morality as the key form of socialisation. If one follows on this thought, it needs to be postulated that music, as an important type of cultural practice, is a unique form of socialisation due to its relationship-forming role as proven by contemporary psychology research. In this context, music becomes language of a kind, understood not as a set system of rules, but as communication space, a process of symbolisation. As such, it is always a social action in a Weberian sense. This, in turn, requires the research to adopt the ideal type approach, and, additionally, to emphasise “matter itself,” meaning music material, as Theodor W. Adorno posited, “society is reflected in music […] it is possible to learn it from its material”. In this paper, music is perceived in a category of a dialogue; therefore, an appropriate research method proposed here is experiment. As researchers, we could not only analyse culture, but also we could articulate it, ‘play it’ in a musical sense, and, for this, we need music imagination, the theory of which is presented in this article. To understand a society means also to grasp tones that dominate its audiosphere. If we follow Durkheim’s methodological guidelines, then one may assume that in each culture it is possible to distinguish musical facts-signposts, in other words, such empirical phenomena that signify the character of a specific type of ‘musicality’ that denote that particular society. The crux of our proposition is a directive stating that, in the field of cultural studies, it is not enough to establish facts, but it is important to make them audible in their whole, complicated, self. In order to make the investigation worthwhile and to yield rich results, these facts should be assembled in a creative way, treating them as ideal types, but also to musicalise the theory, thereby offering an innovative audial ideal type. The researcher then becomes here, not only a musical culture analyst, but also a creator of cultural music. If music is a union of a creator and a recipient, then the theory must be present simultaneously in both elements: reception and performance.

Trot and rock – the development of Korean music genres as an expression of socio-political change - Agnieszka Mikrut-Żaczkiewicz

The author of this paper traces the history and development of popular music in Korea, and, afterwards, the Republic of Korea, against the backdrop of socio-political change between 1920–1980. The analysis focusses on two musical genres – trot (Korean – t’ŭrot’ŭ) and rock music, whose evolution has been inseparably connected with the history of the Korean society. The paper also unearths a mutual interdependence between local tradition and foreign influences, linking cultural production to Korea’s geo-political situation.

Japanese cuteness. Kawaii in music versus preconceptions about Japanese musical tastes - Rafał Janczarek

The paper concentrates on popular Japanese music. Common preconception about the character of Japanese culture is juxtaposed here with what is dominating currently in the Land of the Rising Sun, the kawaii culture, or, to be more precise, kawaii music. The main emphasis is placed on the song of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu called PonPonPon. The oozing cuteness coming from the song provides a perfect illustration to the titular sweetness, and, therefore, proves the conclusion by demonstrating cultural heterogeneity and diversity in Japan.

Portal bands as space for the exchange of musical inspirations in times of the real virtuality culture - Kinga Śmigielska

This paper examines the notion of ‘portal bands’ proposed by Simon Reynolds in the context of the Manuel Castells’s real virtuality culture. ‘Portal bands’ employ spaces of flows in the form of virtual archives for searching and exchanging inspirations pointing to various music genres and cultures, as well as literary or visual forms. A collage character of their work that blurs time limits conforms to the Castells’s ‘timeless time’ concept.

Words and music of Beckett and Feldman - Damian Binkowski

The article analyses the radio play by Samuel Beckett with musical arrangement provided by Morton Feldman, focussing on a particular relationship developing between the characters described in stage directions as Words and Music. The part of Words develops over the course of the play, which stands in opposition to the process which, according to Giambattista Vico, occurs in the historic development of language. However, the pre-linguist stage remains unattained. Feldman’s music proves capable of reaching this phase as it is preserved by the author in a condition which has been linked, in Julia Kristeva’s theory, with semiotic modality.

Conrad – Hume - Karol Samsel

This study is an attempt to reassess the state of research on Joseph Conrad, his life and literary work. This research is strongly subjugated to only one line of anthropological discourse. It was developed around the cultural anthropology paradigm, and only in accordance with this discipline, thus determining not only basic notions of a narrative, but also the concept of cognition which is organising these narratives. It is not the aim of this paper to distinguish any components of Conrad’s philosophical worldview. Instead, the author would like to present Conrad’s work within the framework of, and using tools proffered by, philosophical anthropology, regardless whether they may be ignored by cultural anthropologists. The comparison of Conrad’s protagonists’ ethics (the author here analyses Victory, Chance, Nostromo and Duel) with the philosophical system of David Hume signifies, according to the author, a shifting emphasis in the perception of the role of auxiliary sciences in building knowledge about the world of values of Conrad’s novels and novellas. Not only has a cultural anthropologist working in the field of philosophy, using the classic quotations from Immanuel Kant, the potential to unlock this convoluted universe, but also a philosophical anthropologist is capable of comparison of fictional moral values attributed to the Conrad world with sophisticated texts such as less known Kants’s essay Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. The final conclusion of these explorations is establishing the somewhat blurry attributes of the Scottish School of Common Sense which impacted Conrad’s work.

Existential tropes in the prose of Joseph Conrad - Monika Malessa-Drohomirecka

The work of Joseph Conrad falls between last years of the 19th century and first two decades of the 20th century. Whilst this was the time of great historic changes, the socio-political phenomena, which provided foundations for such changes, emerged earlier. Stanisław Brzozowski traces origins for the modern approach in the Romanticism era, since, even back then, a conscious in his distinctiveness individual is embroiled in a conflict with the idea of progress subjugating the world. Conrad’s approach is somewhat ambivalent. His Romanticism was in a way ‘filtered through’ British culture – he acquired a rational outlook and a distance to any ideology, whilst cognitive scepticism marked the writer’s attitude towards the world and individual. Conrad recognised undefeated solitude of the individual in an amoral world as a trait enabling one to continue individual existence. The awareness of these conditions, prevalent among Conrad’s characters, generate feelings of absurd and existential tragedy so characteristic for existential philosophy.

Opera interpretations of two works of Joseph Conrad – tomorrow and the heart of darkness - Anna Szczepan-Wojnarska

One of the most important problems tackled in Conrad’s prose is the process of decision-making, its contextuality and dramatism determined by the cognitive crisis. A presentation of this process, its embodiment requires an implementation of means characterised by a wide interpretative margin, and yet distinctive enough to establish clear limits of such a margin. The article indicates the form and aesthetics of opera to be an interesting tool capable of capturing an ever-present in Conrad’s work, its multi-layered dialogue, or perhaps sometimes conflict, about philosophical topics. In such an instrument, music, disentangled from its merely ornamental function, becomes a separate and equal voice.

The Conrad brand in the global culture economy - Agnieszka Adamowicz-Pośpiech, Tomasz Sańpruch

Modern literature, according to theorists of culture, became a material object of culture. On the backdrop of such a conclusion on the direction of cultural changes, together with personal observations of phenomena occurring in the contemporary Polish culture, this article explores a question: is there a Conrad brand? Further, the paper analyses cultural processes involved with a brand creation, illustrating this with chosen examples of the use of the name Conrad in Polish institutions, both financial and cultural.

The myth of Kresy – eastern borderland and mythologised reality in the life and work of Józef Konrad Korzeniowski – Joseph Conrad - Joanna Skolik

The article discusses the role of Kresy in the life and work of Joseph Conrad. Kresy – Conrad’s homeland – has been a special place for Poles, not least during the Partitions, when it was a refuge for Polishness and safeguard of traditions. The Kresy myth enabled Konrad Korzeniowski to become Joseph Conrad, a British and European writer who encompassed his Polish experiences in his work, transferring it to a universal level. Conrad constantly inspires other artists and they admire something elusive for the Western world, which, in fact, is Polishness in his works.

“Between play and art. Cultural choices of child carers”. Results of research - Marlena Modzelewska

This report discusses the research conducted in November and December 2016 on behalf of the National Centre of Culture. The main subject of this study was carers’ preferences of cultural activities for children and its aim was to identify the factors influencing carers’ choices, the barriers, when high quality culture is chosen, and to provide a set of recommendations for the creators of children’s culture. The research was divided into two parts – qualitative and quantitative. The former consisted of ethnographic interviews with parents and grandparents and focus groups with teachers, whilst the latter was realised in a form of an e-survey for parents. The main conclusion is that parents cannot perceive of any other role of culture in child development except to teach children appropriate behaviour, and they are unable to judge the artistic merit of a cultural offer. The report identifies possible reasons explaining this, as well as providing recommendations on how to change this situation.

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