Ingrid Åkesson
University of Umeå, Sweden
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Published in: Current Issues in European Cultural Studies; June 15-17; Norrköping; Sweden 2011
Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 62:55, p. 521-526
Published: 2011-11-22
ISBN: 978-91-7519-993-1
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
Much discourse on contemporary musicking focuses on institutionalized and professionalized music; whether commercial or connected to elite institutions; and is often limited to a binary relationship between producer and consumer. When music is primarily regarded as a product we risk becoming blind to the dynamic character of music as an unfinished process; as a fundamental and widely disseminated human activity and behaviour.
This paper discusses the fact that present Swedish and global music milieus also include activities with a stress on multi-directional communication within small community and affinity groups; usually including strong elements of the oral-derived and the spontaneous. When music-making is multidirectional and partly improvised; and performed in an informal context; the boundaries between performer and audience may become fluid and blurred. What space is there for this kind of activity? Are music market and small-scale participatory activity always dichotomies? I will discuss these issues on the basis of key-words like everyday music-making and creativity; lifeworlds; flow; meaning-making and orality versus mediation in late modernity.
