Vidas musicales en el espacio

urbano

• Mapping Sound and Urban Space in the Americas

• Cornell University
• October 24 – October 25, 2014

José Luis Fernández

Universidad de Buenos Aires
www.semioticafernandez.com.ar
Jimena Jáuregui: jimenajauregui@gmail.com
Christina Veronelli: christianveronelli@yahoo.com.ar
Germán Rosso: ger.rosso@hotmail.com
 Introduction

 Nobody here are thinking that music and social spaces have
independent lives, the notion of soundscapes is on this line

 Everybody knows the experiences of Llaurenç Barber making music

with urban objects (bells concerts crossing the cities)

 Orquestra del caos, en Barcelona have been studied political and

stylistical conflicts in political movements on the street

 But music and social space live together, in direct contact

 Our point here:
 Mediatization, in both their models (broadcasting and networking)
is indispensable part for the construction and understanding of
these relationships (López Cano)
Two cases:

 Tango & milongas in

postbroadcasting era
 Subway Music: circuits or
emergent musicians?
Tango & milongas en épocas de
postbroadcasting
 Tango & media

 Pre-mediatic: nothing equivalent with tango, but interaction spaces

between country and city; in the ‘urban night’ the marginal tango
begun into de bad life…
 Audio + graphic broadcasting: one of the popular genres born and
developed together with mass media
 Audio-visual broadcasting: since the fourties the tango never
rebuilt its profile adapted to the audiovisual hegemony
 Networking: globalization opportunities, tourism and a new
generation of compositors, singers and dancer, bringing back
again the tango at the center of the scene

 Post-broadcasting: Tango is not now the exclusive music of the

city as well as Buenos Aires is not its exclusive city but recently is
working on net
 The f2f universe:
performances, interpretations, shows
 Tango have had differences respect other genres of popular music:
 Pre-mediatic: from marginalised to recognised scenarios
 Audio + graphic broadcasting: in the forties there were tendencies
into tango musicians to differentiate tango to listen from tango to
dance
 Audio-visual broadcasting: tango performances were confined to
small spaces, international sucess and tourism have rescued them
 Networking: from of the end of broadcasting hegemony new
network of milongas and musical spaces begun to be developed,
at the first time by oral networking
 Post-broadcasting: perhaps the tango networking generate new
experiences to be made massive by the broadcasting system
remaining.
 Networking and f2f living together
Classification
 Traditionalist:
 Only a few have come from the
dark period of the tango,
 Strong profiles based in the
well style to dance
(http://www.lavirutatango.com/;
http://estilourquizatango.blogsp
ot.com.ar/)
 Tourist entertainment:
 tango dance it is only one of the
activities into the space
 they are named as tanguerías,
more than milongas
(http://www.turismo.buenosaire
s.gob.ar/es/article/casas-de-
tango)
 Segmented milongas is expected
as the main experimental
postbroadcasting space facing
the future
 Segmented milongas:
 this is the main space of the new
tango; they are musical spaces
 most of them are offering tango dance
classes
 frequently they have fixed dance
spaces and times
 new tango has traces of fusion with
different genres and consider the
electronic tango style as a genre
 The most accepted segmentation
includes youth, alternative or queer
tango
(http://www.tangoqueer.com/espanol/
milonga.html.;
http://conti.derhuman.jus.gov.ar/2012/
07/m-ciclo-tango-joven-2x1.shtml;
http://www.tangocity.com/electrotango
/7461/Tango-Fusion-Club.html)
 Subway Music: circuits or
emergent musicians?

(In the future this presentation will be,

beyond doubt, basically audiovisual)
 Musicians & subway
(initial typologies)

From the institutional

Technical devices
 Sponsored and subsidized  Acoustics or
by the institutional authority
(the subway company itself  Amplified sound and
or the city culture electronic instruments
authorities)
 Living in a quasi-illegal
situation depending of the
contributions of random
audience 2
1
Three spaces into the subway
 Long corridors and large spaces that 3
exist in the great crossings lines (1)
 Big spaces of new designed stations
with the purpose of cultural action (2)
 Inside the trains with obliged to be
audience (3)
 Musicians & subway
(initial segmentation)

Pauper musician
 close-up on his needs of help or money
 attitudinal pattern or musical skills fault?
Quasi-professional musicians:
 his interpretation follows the musical rules of a genre or an style
 can mix different musical universes but not under the idea of fusion
 includes pieces of music that permit to show special skills (velocity,
complex scales, etc.) as Pájaro campana or Taquito militar. The audience
should contribute as award not by help him (offering mediatizated
products, as CDs.)
Special-performers:
 interesting, but eclectic, category
 Musicians performing sophisticated instruments (cellos, saxophones,
sikus…)
 groups with musical arrangements
 sophisticated performers mixing, genres and styles
Musicians & subway
(first cases)

Case 1
 saxophonist, about 30 years old
 accompanied by a musical base
reproduced with amplifier equipment
 Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, from the
cuban musician Osvaldo Farrés.
 The interpretation was in rhythm and
phrasing of jazz, with a good
reception from the public.
 Quasi-profesional segment
 Musicians & subway
(first cases)

Case 2
 A 60 year-old singer
 tango Sand throat, of the Argentine
composer Cacho Castaña.
 accompanied with a soundtrack
reproduced by an amplifier.
 Tells his story as a singer, and
mentioned it was "embarrassed"
when he started singing in the
subway, but that "loves living what
you like".
 Get a great repercussion in the
public.
 Quasi-profesional segment
Musicians & subway
(first cases)

Case 3
 More than 40 years old man
 plays charango and sikus at the same time.
 He performs boleros and folk music from
the north-west from Argentina.
 He has skill-full musical even though his
expression looks as limited.
 “has spent 20 years playing in the line B”
and claims “it's hard to live with
competitors, the ambulant sellers” and
“before we got the police and they carried
me to the police station".
 It has very good reception his music and
even some young girls dance while he
plays
 Special performer
Conclusions
 General Syntesis
 Rather than conclusions, synthesis and some visions about the
future of our work will be presented here

 To understand these themes semiotics of media will be related, in

conceptual and methodological convergence, with observational
ethnographic and traditional audience studies and with the
ethnographies of networks and the big-data.

 The presence of tango into de urban space of Buenos Aires have

been developed in partial but evident relationships with the steps of
its mediatization

 Today, these relationships could permit to switch between

networking and broadcasting to open new alternatives on
segmented mass media
 General Syntesis
 Subway musicians look belonging to another universe but, however,
they capture audiences in the worst conditions

 Mobility, distraction, another individual sources of music…

 Why can survive them? Because something are representing about
their environment

 To understand the phenomena the case of the subway musician

must be included into the mobile communication

 Genres and styles will be described with details

 At the end, perhaps, subway musicians will be consider as
emerging nodes of the complex and unknown network --
mediatizated and face to face-- that explained the idea of urban
culture itself.
Thanks!
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Anexo
 A two-way theory to detect the specific nature
of the mediatization of sound…

Theory of social
Semiotics of media
discourses
(Metz, Eco, Verón, Bettetini,
(Pecheux, Verón, Van Dijk, Steimberg, Traversa, etc.)
etc.)

Semiotics of the mediatizations

 (the technical devices to the speeches and their associated practices)

from broadcasting to networking

(sociosemiótics + networks etnography + big data)
 Music on networking and urban spaces
(Postbroadcasting)

Para cada sitio y texto

Sociosemiotics of 1. Semiohistoria (3 series)
mediatizaciones 2. Situación sociosemiótica

Etno 3. Statistical
Análisis textual
(operaciones)
approaches approaches

 En el nivel de observación del investigador:  Población vs. Explosión de

interfaces, usos, acciones datos del individuo

Observational Neworks Samples Big Data

Etnography Etnography Surveys Data mining

Estables / Networks Clicks

Habits
aleatories penetration accounting/
Uses
relationships U&A users
Chating
Ego vs. Total Brand images Links / nodes
 Brief History music & media relationships

 Pre-mediatic: instruments, spaces to play music, repertoires

 Broadcasting: the phonographic production of the record
companies but supported in the mass media. Two sub-periods:
 Audio + graphic: from the center of the phonographic production
and the radio support, but with strong graphic meta-
discursiveness too
 Audio-visual: focused on television and in the musical comedy
films
 Networking: the empire of the downloading, mp3 and various
successors of Napster as LastFM, Spotify, Soundcloud, etc.

 Post-broadcasting: broadcasting and networking living together,

including several hybridations, as www.vorterix.com which
combines web & broadcast phenomenon
 The f2f universe:
performances, interpretations, shows
 Each one period have favored a type of music live:
 Pre-mediatic: from rites to concerts; from multi-languages to
musical language
 Audio + graphic broadcasting: popular music from outside the city
and the cabarets inside the city, to the live shows
 Audio-visual broadcasting: since the stereophonic revolution, from
the theatres or stadiums without visual effects to mega audiovisual
concert.
 Networking: new and sustainable circuits of small concerts, linking
by the web with loyal audiencies

 Post-broadcasting: perhaps big and multimediatic shows still

living together with small circuits of show