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MUSICOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM

25/02/2014

Sounding Stereotypes: Construction of Place and Reproduction of Metaphors in the Music of Goran Bregović

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap
Dr. Aleksandra Marković

March 20, 2014, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01

In her recently defended dissertation, entitled Sounding Stereotypes: Construction of Place and Reproduction of Metaphors in the Music of Goran Bregović, Aleksandra Marković explores the labelling of the Balkans in the popular/world music market. Goran Bregović successfully markets his music by tapping into well-known stereotypes about the Balkans, construed over centuries and in various realms as Western Europe’s antipode. A related pillar of his international image, next to the Balkans, is his representation of Roma and his identification with the romanticised image of Gypsies. Through discussing recycling and collage as Bregović’s main compositional techniques, this talk also deals with the musical features of Bregović’s “Balkanised” sound.

05/02/2014

What does it mean to have a “good ear”?: Transfer of learning from musical training to perception of audio-visual materials

Colloquium Muziekwetenschap
Dr. Makiko Sadakata

February 20, 2014, 15:30-17:00
Universiteitstheater, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01

A growing body of evidence demonstrates the enhancing effect of musical training on various cognitive skills, such as social interaction skills, working memory, and general IQ. This talk will focus on a specific case among these, namely, enhancing effect of musical training on an ability to perceive non-musical sounds. The first half of the talk will present a cross-linguistic experiment demonstrating that musicians are more accurate in discriminating various linguistic features. The second half will ask the question of what it means to have such a “good ear” in our daily-life multi-modal communication. It is well known that information of both face and voice contributes to our perception. What happens if you are good in perceiving information of voice here? Our recent findings will be presented and discussed.