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Soundscape of Prague Psychedelic Guitar Rock Scene
Poděbradský, Oldřich ; Jurková, Zuzana (advisor) ; Stavělová, Daniela (referee) ; Kratochvíl, Matěj (referee)
Since its beginnings in the 1960s, psychedelic rock music and "psychedelic sound" sound has become an integral part of rock and Western popular music. This scope of this PhD thesis covers the performance of psychedelic rock music in Prague, Czech Republic, i.e. Prague's psychedelic soundscape (Shelemay 2006). The structure of the thesis is loosely inspired by the scapes concepts as defined by Arjun Appadurai (1996). First, it summarizes the development of the "psychedelic sound" and employs ethnographic research in order to elucidate what this sound means to its agents within the studied soundscape. Subsequently, it proceeds to discover who the agents of this scene are, how the roles of the performers and the audience blend together, how the agents understand their music within the multi-genre context of the scene, and what the phenomenon of psychedelic rock music means to the agents - both in terms of its sonic elements and the "ritual" (Turner 1969) aspect of live performances, often associated with the use of mind-altering substances. The aim of the thesis is to describe the psychedelic soundscape of Prague as a large organic network based on reciprocal friendship and support, rather than as a mere set of music groups that refer to themselves or are referred to as psychedelic. Key words:...
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Musical aspects of the Living History phenomenon in the Czech historical fencing through the perspective of ethnomusicology
Novák, Josef ; Jurková, Zuzana (advisor) ; Seidlová, Veronika (referee)
The aim of this musical anthropology thesis focuses on "medieval music" as practiced by fans of historical fencing in the form of living history on the example of two Czech bands - Subulcus and Medieval Open Band as part of project Prácheňská manství. In my thesis I focus not only on sound and musical instruments, but also on the behavior of actors and their conceptualization of the Middle Ages, according to the concepts of music as culture of Allan Merriam, resp. of music as social life of Thomas Turino. I combine here the basic ideas of ethnomusicology with the ideas of musical memory in connection with the contemporary concepts of social memory and, last but not least, with the concepts of "golden age", nostalgia, staged authenticity and invented traditions. The point of this work is to bring about the origin and form of music that the actors understand as medieval, although not always comes the repertoire from the Middle Ages.
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SLOVAKIAN PROBE. Negotiation of local identity of alternative bands in Moravian Slovácko.
Svobodová, Veronika ; Jurková, Zuzana (advisor) ; Seidlová, Veronika (referee)
The goal of this musical anthropology qualitative research, mainly based on the field work, is to describe, analyze and interpret the process of construction of local identity of an alternative bands in Moravian Slovácko. The subject of this research are mainly two music bands from Slovácko - PSCrew and 12:PIET. PSCrew band represents hip-hop style and 12:PIET ranks among punk style bands. The musical production of these bands is defined (using an emic term) as an alternative folklore. With a use of theoretical concepts of stereotype and partially also retro and revival, I tried to demonstrate how these alternative musicians with an emphasis to their authenticity by the means of their musical spheres (so called soundscapes) pursue their notion of what is considered to be related to Slovácko and how the negotiation of their local identity is involved. For that the locally defined stereotypes are often used. These are typically recontextualized by its adaptation into the form that reflects the postmodern period.
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Acculturation Strategies in Musical Self-presentations of Immigrants in the Czech Republic
Skořepová, Zita ; Jurková, Zuzana (advisor) ; Stavělová, Daniela (referee)
This thesis is based on my research dealing with musicians - members of different immigrant minority communities, who explicitly identify themselves with their ethnicity and the region of their origin. The musicians mention that they come, e.g., from Cuba, Ukraine or generally from "Central Asia" and the music offered to the audience is presented as "Cuban", "Ukrainian folk" or "traditional music of Central Asia". The subject of study are their concerts, regarded as musical occasions - performances - with defined modes of participants' interaction. In the Goffmanian sense, the meaning of each selfpresentation is determined by the behavior of the musicians during the performances, and the repertoire, place and occasion of the event and type of audience are considered as "bearers of sings". In their self-presentations, the musicians expose in various ways who they are, where they come from and in various ways present the musical (not only) culture of their origin. Inspiring myself by typology of acculturation strategies formulated by John W. Berry (Berry et al., 1997), I try to identify acculturation strategies based on factors determining the character of the respective musical self-presentations of the immigrants. When can we observe behavior according to the principles of integration on the one...
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Journey of Mantra from India to the Czech Republic: Contribution to Ethnography of Music and Globalization
Seidlová, Veronika ; Jurková, Zuzana (advisor) ; Stavělová, Daniela (referee) ; Matoušek, Vlastislav (referee)
This PhD thesis is a multi-sited ethnographical study (Marcus 1995) of globalized world through focusing on the social life (Appadurai 1986) of one of the well-known Vedic mantras (the Gayatri Mantra) as a globalized phenomenon and a commodity. Chanting of mantras (Hindu sacred chants in Vedic Sanskrit; pronunciation, intonation and rhythm of which is prohibited to change in the Brahmanic discourse) which had been a local cultural practice, has become a globally known phenomenon. During the globalizing process of their cultural transmission from India to the West and later to the Czech Republic, the mantras have gained new sound forms, new social and cultural contexts, new functions and new meanings. Contemporary cultural productions of mantras are a thick example how the present inter-continental connectedness works in everyday life, music and in the relationship to the Sacred. Selected places on this trajectory will be sites of the fieldwork. The project will research, how the transmission process happens, what music forms it takes, and what meanings are attached to them by their agents.
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Viennese Czechs and their music in the 21st century from an ethnomusicological perspective
Skořepová, Zita ; Jurková, Zuzana (advisor) ; Matoušek, Vlastislav (referee) ; Bittnerová, Dana (referee)
Around 1900, Vienna became the city with the greatest number of Czech-language speakers. Members of the Czech minority founded important community institutions and engaged in a wide range of cultural activities - music among them. The most important markers characterizing the contemporary Czech minority in Vienna are (1) several variously motivated and differently politically determined waves of voluntary, but also involuntary, migration, (2) presence of descendants of those Czechs who stayed on the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, and (3) coexistence of several generations and groups of people with different political orientation and attitudes towards integration into Austrian society. At present, the Czech Viennese minority is a heterogeneous community with different "culture cohorts". Using fieldwork, thus the participant observation of musical events together with the semi- structured interviews and combining the theoretical perspectives of ethnomusicology and diaspora studies, this dissertation deals with the three interrelated questions: How do the musical creativity and participation at musical events reflect the heterogeneity of the contemporary Czech Viennese minority? How does the migrant situation determine the creativity, respectively the participation at musical events? And how...
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