Wedding songs’ melodic models of eastern Šumadija and Pomoravlje regions: A contribution to Serbian vocal dialects and identity studies Cover Image

Mелодијски модели свадбених песама источне Шумадије и Поморавља: прилог методологији проучавања вокалних дијалеката и идентитета у Србији
Wedding songs’ melodic models of eastern Šumadija and Pomoravlje regions: A contribution to Serbian vocal dialects and identity studies

Author(s): Jelena Jovanović
Subject(s): Customs / Folklore, Music, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Culture and social structure , Sociology of Art
Published by: Muzikološki institut SANU
Keywords: central Serbia; vocal dialects; identities; melogeography; "phase boundary";

Summary/Abstract: Extremely complex picture of Šumadija region musical tradition(s) could be explained not only as the result of long-lasting encounters and overlapping of different inhabitants’ groups, but also by the fact that in this region even three dialects of Serbian language meet. Moreover, there is a basis for an assumption it is about cultural dialects in wider sense, comprising musical culture as well. Structural-typological analyses of wedding melodic models (glasovi) and identifying of their morphological dominants (term coined by V. Maciewskii) provided the basis for comparative insight in the elements of vocal tradition in the area in focus – on the fi rst place within wedding genre, but within other genres as well. The cartography technique, applied in melogeographic researches (Goshovskii), provides insight in certain musical phenomena in their territorial dissemination, so that the regularities that could be in direct connection to dialectal features of traditional culture could be seen. The paper is about geographical and cultural space intersected by folklore dialectal borders, and thus it is also the region where the transitory areas between the consistent cultural spaces are placed. This situation has been explained and illustrated through the application of “fuzzy” concept. Musical material from this region and its elements geographic distribution shows it could be about the “fuzzy” border between two cultural and vocal dialects. This paper could be the basis for future research and analyses, including more data from this and surrounding regions, primarily in the East, South and Southeast, which would lead to the differentiating of the musical idiom that characterises great part of central, Eastern, Southern and Southeastern Serbia.

  • Issue Year: 2/2013
  • Issue No: 15
  • Page Range: 29-59
  • Page Count: 31
  • Language: Serbian