Focusing on the fundamentals of social research in music, this textbook guides students through essential questions such as Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. It explores the sociological study of music through a historical lens, offering a comprehensive overview of the field. By examining various perspectives, the book equips learners with the necessary tools to understand the social dimensions of music research, making it an invaluable resource for students in the discipline.
This book consists primarily of papers presented at the international symposium Approaches to Music Research: Between Practice and Epistemology, held in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in May 2008. Scholars from various music research areas offered heterogeneous views of one central issue: the relations between music-research ideals and practices. The intention was to offer a reflection concerning disciplinary intersections as ideal-typical formations in which different contemporary musicological practices meet each other, either positively or in more negative terms. The topoi of the symposium discussed elemental, difficult-to-answer questions about the position that musicology holds within the humanities and sciences. The symposium especially encouraged case studies of basic epistemological reflections with an emphasis on the practice of music research from any field.
The purpose of this study was to examine music preferences across a wide range of cultures in Finland, Slovenia, South Africa and Texas to get a better sense of cultural and demographic moderators of preferences across a wide variety of musical genres. At the same time, this study is confined to a rather specific sample of listeners: especially students, but also faculty and staff at universities. The musical listening habits analyzed here address not only the differences, but are also trying to sharpen the focus on the similarities between the geographically as well as culturally distinct milieus. Discussing the differences in cultural phenomena may make sense only if there are some universals to be discussed along the road. In this respect, the study comparing listeners' habits from four different parts of the world is conceived as a contribution to a rather vaguely defined study of the musical universals in different 'cultural habitats'.
Porträt des Komponisten Uroš Rojko
Uroš Rojko, Komponist und Klarinettist, ist einer der fachkundigsten und aktivsten Musiker der slowenischen Kunstmusikszene, der sich auch im deutschsprachigen Raum einen Namen gemacht hat. Der Musikwissenschaftler Leon Stefanija stellt in „Sisyphusartig schön“ Leben und Werk dieses Ausnahmekünstlers vielschichtig dar. Das erste, biografische Kapitel zeichnet ein detailliertes Bild von Rojkos Werdegang und gewährt gleichzeitig interessante Einblicke in die mitteleuropäische Musikkultur rund um die Jahrtausendwende. Im zweiten Kapitel begibt sich der Autor auf die Suche nach der musikalischen Poetik in Rojkos Werk, indem er den Porträtierten selbst sowie dessen Kritiker zu Wort kommen lässt. Das letzte Kapitel geht anhand von zwei ausgewählten Kompositionen der Frage nach, was Werk und Technik dieses wichtigen Repräsentatnen neuer Musik so besonders macht.