Traditional Music and the Notion of Authenticity
Abstract
One of the key issues surrounding ‘traditional music’ or ‘folk music’ seems to be the notion of ‘authenticity’, a term, which is foregrounded by many folklorists and music revivalists and is often the cause of highly emotional controversies. Since traditional music lives of the momentary performance, which before the invention of recording devices could not even be acoustically reproduced and only vaguely noted down, the grey area of what the music really sounded like in the past, leaves much room for interpretation. Based on a vast amount of research, folklorists and revivalists tend to establish a ‘historically informed performance practice’, which then becomes the norm. However, quite often contemporary artists challenge this universality and offer alternative interpretations instead – an undertaking, which often leads to great tensions between folklorists and artistic performers.
The frequently heard dichotomy ‘purists’ versus ‘innovators’ seems to arise from the fact that both factions seem to have different understandings of ‘authenticity’, to which they refer. While the former look for ‘historic authenticity’, e.g. based on field recordings, the latter are rather interested in the ‘contemporary authenticity’ of traditional music and how it might integrate with the artist’s personality and contemporary way of living. The debate around ‘authenticity’ becomes especially interesting during performances, where in addition to the performers the audience constantly questions the ‘authenticity’ of the music they hear.
This paper takes the ethnomusicological documentary “Beyond Tradition” (Hagmann/von Gunten, 2023) as a basis and traces how the Swiss and the Sami protagonists reflect upon their musical traditions and how they find their own ways in balancing the notions of tradition and innovation within their musical performances.
The frequently heard dichotomy ‘purists’ versus ‘innovators’ seems to arise from the fact that both factions seem to have different understandings of ‘authenticity’, to which they refer. While the former look for ‘historic authenticity’, e.g. based on field recordings, the latter are rather interested in the ‘contemporary authenticity’ of traditional music and how it might integrate with the artist’s personality and contemporary way of living. The debate around ‘authenticity’ becomes especially interesting during performances, where in addition to the performers the audience constantly questions the ‘authenticity’ of the music they hear.
This paper takes the ethnomusicological documentary “Beyond Tradition” (Hagmann/von Gunten, 2023) as a basis and traces how the Swiss and the Sami protagonists reflect upon their musical traditions and how they find their own ways in balancing the notions of tradition and innovation within their musical performances.
Date Issued
2024
Publication Type
Conference Item
Subjects
traditions
•
authenticity
•
Beyond Tradition
•
ethnographic cine-documentary
•
audiovisual anthropology
•
yodelling
•
yoiking
Language(s)
en
Title of Event
Access(Rights)
metadata.only