202 research outputs found
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(Re-)imagining improvisation: discursive positions in Iranian music from classical to jazz
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âOur Angel of Salvationâ- Towards an Understanding of Iranian Cyberspace as an Alternative Sphere of Musical Sociality
This article explores the emergence of the internet as an alternative sphere of musical circulation, focusing on the case of Iran and specifically certain kinds of music for which the internet has become the primary arena of musical sociality, in some cases replacing its physical public presence entirely. In particular, it asks how the spaces opened up by new media technologies have shifted the conceptual boundaries between public and private. The article begins with an overview of recent scholarly work on Iranian cyberspace and on the relationship between âpublicâ and âprivate,â which provide a grounding for the case examples that follow
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The Language of Rock: Iranian Youth, Popular Music, and National Identity
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Jazz and its Social Meanings in Iran: From Cultural Colonialism to the Universal
How is it that musical styles acquire particular social meanings in specific times and places? This chapter explores the case of jazz in Iran, examining various aspects of jazz and its social meanings in Iran from the 1950s onward, focusing in particular on the period of cultural liberalism that followed the election of the reformist president Mohammad Khatami in 1997. When Euro- American popular music continued to be branded as a form of cultural imperialism, jazz remained largely outside this category. Instead, the positioning of jazz since the late 1990s has served to define its meanings largely through the metaphors of music âas artâ and, more recently, as a form of âuniversalâ musical expression
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Windows onto Other Worlds: Music and the Negotiation of Otherness in Iranian Cinema
This article examines the role of music in exoticising processes of representing and negotiating otherness in Iranian cinema, with reference to two main case examples. It explores the ways in which film narratives have been mobilised in the service of, or resistance to, differing visions of nationhood, in the context of which music facilitates an affective sonic marking of difference
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Beyond the Radif: New Forms of Improvisational Practice in Iranian Music
This essay explores new forms of improvisational practice being developed by Iranian musicians in a tradition where the canonic radif repertoire has been central to improvisational practice for more than a century. I focus on the work of two musicians, Amir Eslami (nei) and Hooshyar Khayam (piano), and discuss pieces from their 2010 album All of You (Hermes Records, Iran). This music takes inspiration from the radif but lies outside the radif tradition and differs in important respects from âtraditionalâ forms of improvisation, not least in the discussions that precede performance and in the discursive foregrounding of compositional thinking by the musicians themselves. I ask what the work of these musicians might tell us about the future direction of creative practice in Iranian classical music
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Hip-hop Tehran: Migrating Styles, Musical Meanings, Marginalised Voices
A great deal of ethnomusicological writing in recent years has explored the impact of global processes on the creation and consumption of music in specific locales. Whether expressed in terms of cultural âdeterriorialisationâ, the emergence of transnational networks and flows, or migrancy (both physical and virtual), it is clear that previously accepted ideas about the intimate connection between music and place â in the sense of specific kinds of music âbelongingâ to particular places and peoples â have become disrupted. Musical migrations throughout most of human history have depended on the physical movement of people; however, the rise of mediated technologies since the late nineteenth century made it increasingly possible for musical genres and styles to âmigrateâ independently, without any necessary connection to a people, their culture or to the musicâs âoriginalâ meanings. Moreover, styles or genres could be âadoptedâ in new contexts by people who had no cultural or ethnic connection to the music. As Eisentraut (2001) discuses for the case of samba in Wales, in such situations the music can serve as a catalyst for the creation of new communities and identities focused around the music itself, and associated lifestyle choices, rather than around cultural or ethnic affiliation.
The complex cultural configuration of many urban centres globally (including but not exclusively those of the metropolitan ânorthâ) encompass musical genres which are closely tied to diaspora and other migrant populations. At the same time, some of these genres, and others, have spread well beyond their âownâ culture: gamelan, samba, salsa, rebetiko, klezmer, bhangra, and so on, are fast gaining a global presence, not in the sense of being heard literally everywhere, but in a growing number of physically noncontiguous sites. This includes musics where there is a connection with local diasporic or immigrant populations, but also and increasingly others where genres are disconnected from such populations, even where they have a presence. As musics migrate, and some achieve a near global presence, authors are increasingly attending both to the local as the site of meaning-construction, and to the potential emergence of trans-national meanings.
In this chapter I explore the reasons why certain musics appear to be particularly âmobileâ, focusing on hip-hop, a genre which has gained a notable global presence over the last 20 years or so, going well beyond its roots in the Bronx area of New York, as is well documented in the literature.i Specifically I focus on the case of hip-hop in Iran, and examine some of the reasons for its remarkable rise in popularity since the mid 2000s, taking on distinct local meanings including, significantly, a reconstructed sense of connection to place, in this case the capital city Tehran. Hip-hop might be regarded as the migrant music par excellence in that its migration has been almost entirely effected through mediation and rarely through the movement of âtradition bearersâ. As such, itâs interesting to explore the new meanings that music acquires in contexts which are culturally distant from its origins
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âWhose Liberation? Iranian Popular Music and the Fetishisation of Resistanceâ
This article explores a number of issues concerning the representation of Iranian popular music outside Iran, and specifically the somewhat romanticized discourses of âresistanceâ and âfreedomâ which have tended to characterise both journalistic and scholarly writings. The article discusses a number of examples, but focuses primarily on the case of the music video âHappy in Tehranâ, which was posted on YouTube in 2014 and which challenged certain local cultural and legal boundaries on behaviour in public space. As a result, those responsible for the video were arrested, prompting an outcry, both within Iran and internationally; they were released soon after and eventually received suspended sentences. The article discusses the ways in which the âHappy in Tehranâ incident was reported in the media outside Iran and offers alternative readings of the video and its meanings. Ultimately, the article considers how such reductionist views feed into wider regimes of orientalist representation and asks whose agenda such fetishisation of resistance serves
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'Subversion and Countersubversion: Power, Control and Meaning in the New Iranian Pop Music
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