Ok guys heres another one to get your brain going:


How does music identify itself with place?

For me, certain pieces of music identify themselves with a place in my own individual thoughts and memories. Is that a valid response?

Like your last question this is two questions in one.

Firstly,
How does music identify itself?

Surely the question is how do WE identify music with place, not how does IT? (Music in itself is not a living being with neurological function).

And I take Verm's point, firstly how do we (I or you) identify music?

It's a good question - what is musical to one person isn't necessarily musical to another.

Nothing like a bit of philosophy to set off our Tuesday morning, eh!



Amber
x

I suppose music can be identified with a particular place in two ways - music that has a strong local or national flavour conveyed through the music itself and music that an individual associates with a certain place, perhaps because they first heard it there or because it reminds them of past experiences.

In the first category you could include nationalist composers like Dvorák (can't do the accent over the r - sorry), Grieg, Sibelius and Bartók, works inspired by a place, like Chabrier's Espana, and most folk and folk-influenced music. The connections are closer in some cases than others - a lot of Czech music is charecterized by a strong first beat in each bar, reflecting the way stress regularly falls on the first syllable of words in the Czech language. You don't find the same thing in Hungarian or Finnish music, though, although both languages also have the stress falling on the first syllable of each word.

The second category is far more personal. We all have pieces of music that we connect with places we know or have known. These can produce deep emotional responses, happy or sad, and invoke the "nostalgia factor" in us all.

If you're interested in this (and also a connection to language too) it is worth looking at Bartók's dances in Bulgarian Rhythm (Mikrokosmos Volume 6): the unusual time signatures and rhythms he uses are influenced by the rhythms of speach in Bulgarian which aren't found in many other languages or cultures around the world.

I guess that for me, the instruments used make the strongest impression of "where" the music comes from - you can play Happy Birthday on any stringed instrument in the world probably (since it's easier to alter the tuning on a stringed instrument than on a flute/pipe or percussion instrument), but the listener's first impression will be strongly affected by the color of the actual instrument used.

Thanks everyone, always good to get you all thinking!!
I have another question coming up soon, lol ill post it later on today for you all to get thinking about!

On a serious note though thanks to all who replied with their opinions, im conducting a study in collaboration with my university music degree and getting peoples thoughts on various questions is part of it and so you have all helped very much in my studies.

Many thanks
Deborah x

Great Deborah, but how about contributing some of your ideas to the discussion too - after all , these are some interesting issues!

I often identify music with a certain place, namely where I heard the piece the first time or where it had an impact on me. For example, I got a Dido CD the Christmas before last, and whenever I listen to it I have this picture of sitting by the Christmas tree, eating biscuits while playing Monopoly in my head.

Maybe I didn't understood the question, though? For me, music itself can't be identified with a certain place, but the emotions felt in the situation where you heard a certain piece are often connected in memory to a place.