Amateur and semi-amateur musical practices (prezentacja)

W dniach 8-10 września 2016 roku w Porto w Portugalii odbywa się konferencja „Arts and creativity: working on identity and difference„. Jest to 9 kongres organizowany przez The ESA Research Network Sociology of the Arts.

Razem z Ziemkiem Sochą zaprezentowaliśmy referat: „Amateur and semi-amateur musical practises. Empirical evidence from Poland„. Z prezentacją można się zapoznać TUTAJ.

 

 

Abstrakt wystąpienia:

The last few decades are a remarkable period in the music history. As David J. Hargreaves and Adrian C. North (1997) pointed out in their book ‚The Social Psychology of Music’, three processes occurring in music culture (ie. digital revolution, transformation of cultural practices built around the music and the blurring of boundaries between genres and musical styles) make that we are witnessing exceptional transformations. Looking at the music history as a whole, the currently observed changes, are happening rapidly and their impacts are visible far beyond music culture. Therefore, it seems necessary to investigate how in the context of the processes mentioned above social actors shape their individual musical practices.

We present the results of the empirical research conducted within a comprehensive project ‚Musicking in Poland: study of elementary musical activities of Poles‚, carried out in years 2014-2015 by Foundation „Music is for everyone” and financed by Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

The quantitative module consisted of two parts:
1. Nationwide sample: n=1200, CATI & CAWI.
2. Specific groups (ie. people who were assumed to be more active in musical practices, but music wasn’t their profession): n=745, CAWI, purposive sampling.
The qualitative module encompasses the findings obtained from 50 In-Depth Interviews. The respondents were recruited from people, who engage in (semi-)amateur music activities (purposive case selection). The empirical material is analysed from a perspective of interpretative sociology.

The main goal of this presentation is to trace specific features of Poles musical practices and an attempt to illustrate the differentiation of these activities regarding age, gender, education level and  respondents overall commitment to the music. We focus on musical practices such as informal and non-professional playing musical instruments and singing, because they are core activities of (semi-)amateur musical practices. In order to show variety of strategies of music usage, empirical material is introduced in form of typology.

The empirical data is presented in the context of the following topics:
1. Musical practices against the other forms of leisure activities,
2. Characteristics of playing instruments,
3. Characteristics of singing,
4. (Semi-)amateur practices as a social phenomenon,
5. Education and family as determinants of music activities.

Keywords: sociology of music, musical practices, (semi-)amateur,  triangulation, comparative study.