Sound identity as a phenomenon. Research on the cultural significance of music in ethnic and subcultural communities

Abstract

The topicality of the issue of developing and reflecting the identity of various ethnic and subcultural groups by music is conditioned by the importance of preserving the unique heritage of the world for subsequent generations. The purpose of the study was to highlight the means by which music reflects the original code of communities, and the mechanisms for its modernisation. To achieve this goal, the study analyses the means of reflecting and renewing ethnic and subcultural identity; compares and synthesises them in the context of 21st century artistic practice. The results of investigating the topic indicate that the music of different ethnic groups and subcultures concentrates their identity and is open to modernisation due to the presence of such factors as: tools, timbre, texture, style of interpretation, genre, compositional form of works; relationship with global society; integration into the sphere of information and communication technologies; dialogue between different ethnic groups and subcultures; synthesis of their own unique features and characteristic features of other communities. The renewal of the music of one of the ethnic groups of China (Yunnan) took place through the synthesis of its traditional and European tonal and functional, genre and structural, and timbre systems. Aspects of modernisation of the musical traditions of the Azerbaijani ethnic group (mugham) are the transformation of texture through linear polyphony and complex chords, timbre renewal through the use of symphony orchestra instruments. The enrichment of the folklore of the local culture of the Cossacks of Ukraine was implemented through the timbre sphere, where, in addition to male voices, musical instruments of various types and texture sound, through a polyphonic choir and orchestra, structural and compositional, in the context of which the song turns into a vocal and symphonic miniature. The music of church communities in Europe, in particular, Great Britain, and the United States of America, on the example of the world-famous song “Amazing Grace”, has passed the path of its renewal through interaction with the style of jazz and its varieties of later times, achievements of academic, pop music, the main elements of which are a certain style of vocals, its accompaniment by a number of acoustic, electronic instruments and chords of a complicated system of the 20th and 21st centuries