11.06.2018: "Toward a Dialogic Approach in (Ethno)musicology"

Guest lecture by Ignazio Macchiarella (University of Cagliari)

This week we had our guest Ignazio Macchiarella (University of Cagliari) talking about “Toward a Dialogic Approach in (Ethno)musicology” as part of our lecture series on recent trends and new directions in ethnomusicology.

 

 

ABSTRACT: The musical practices we study inevitably affect our theoretical-methodological approaches. And even more, the music-makers’ attitudes and thoughts have a substantial relevance on the researcher’s choices: in the final analysis, carrying out (ethno)musicological research is a matter of personal relationships, of human interactions. 
In my case, Sardinian multipart singers usually show a peculiar awareness as regards their music making which has a substantial impact on their sound outcomes. They reflect on what they do, imagine their performance in advance, discuss their sound makings with other performers and/or with the listeners, reflect on aesthetic categories expressing their opinions and listen to performances of other interpreters of ‘their music’. Multipart singing is embodied in the performance as creative meetings/interactions between individual men. In order to interpret this special “music micro-world”, I have been trying to develop a dialogic approach for several years. As an interpretative strategy, this approach is oriented towards achieving an active space of mutual confrontation between scholar/music-makers. My paper deals with this approach by trying to focus some points that can be extended to music scenarios other than Sardinia.