TY - JOUR

T1 - Oral perfomances in a (post-) literate society

AU - Sanfratello, Giuseppe

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - The attempt of the present paper is to introduce the following question: How isit possible to still talk about “oral performances” in a literate, indeed “postliterate”society? In order to stress the relevance of such a topic, I will examinesome achievements in research fields both dealing with literary studies andmusicological enquiry. Taking into account some instances of oral musicaltraditions gathered during ethnomusicological fieldwork, e.g. the singing ofmandinàdhes (couplets of improvised rhymed verses) from Crete and theByzantine liturgical chant of the Albanians of Sicily, I will analyse the processboth of (re)writing a poetic-formulaic tradition by adapting itself to the modernmultimedia technology (i.e. the “media literate poets” case on Crete) anddeveloping techniques of oral safeguarding without the usage of musicalnotation (i.e. the case of the Sicilian-Albanian community). This very lastexample will show how one can talk about “aliterate” performers, who choose,on purpose, not to write down their own singing tradition, although they doknow how to read and write.These cases might seem a bit more complicated to look at if one justconsiders that, in the so-called Facebook Era, it has become increasinglydifficult to define a clear border between orality and literacy. Indeed, we shouldobserve the striking switch from the relationship of “writers and readers” tothat one of “bloggers and followers”.Finally, by studying such musical phenomena, it is possible to deduce that– since the systems of oral performance have significantly changed over thelast century – we can still find a relevant bond between techniques of oralmusical transmission and written safeguard in a (post-) literate society.

AB - The attempt of the present paper is to introduce the following question: How isit possible to still talk about “oral performances” in a literate, indeed “postliterate”society? In order to stress the relevance of such a topic, I will examinesome achievements in research fields both dealing with literary studies andmusicological enquiry. Taking into account some instances of oral musicaltraditions gathered during ethnomusicological fieldwork, e.g. the singing ofmandinàdhes (couplets of improvised rhymed verses) from Crete and theByzantine liturgical chant of the Albanians of Sicily, I will analyse the processboth of (re)writing a poetic-formulaic tradition by adapting itself to the modernmultimedia technology (i.e. the “media literate poets” case on Crete) anddeveloping techniques of oral safeguarding without the usage of musicalnotation (i.e. the case of the Sicilian-Albanian community). This very lastexample will show how one can talk about “aliterate” performers, who choose,on purpose, not to write down their own singing tradition, although they doknow how to read and write.These cases might seem a bit more complicated to look at if one justconsiders that, in the so-called Facebook Era, it has become increasinglydifficult to define a clear border between orality and literacy. Indeed, we shouldobserve the striking switch from the relationship of “writers and readers” tothat one of “bloggers and followers”.Finally, by studying such musical phenomena, it is possible to deduce that– since the systems of oral performance have significantly changed over thelast century – we can still find a relevant bond between techniques of oralmusical transmission and written safeguard in a (post-) literate society.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - Oral performances

M3 - Journal article

JO - M&STE: Elektronisk tidskrift för konferensen Musik & samhälle

JF - M&STE: Elektronisk tidskrift för konferensen Musik & samhälle

SN - 2002-4622

IS - Nr 1, 2016

M1 - 7

ER -