ICTM Study Group on Multipart Music

Multipart music represents one of the most fascinating phenomena in numerous local musical cultures in Europe. It can be defined as follows:

Multipart music is a specific mode of music making and expressive behaviour based on the intentionally distinct and coordinated participation in the performing act by sharing knowledge and shaping values. 

(see also http://www.multipartmusic.org/multipartmusic/node/4)

Multipart music has therefore been a favoured object of research for a long time, particularly in the national framework. Regional studies, which extend beyond political boundaries, are, however, rare and sporadic.

Therefore a network of researchers, many of them ICTM members, is working since 2003 focusing on multipart music traditions in Europe in the framework of the “Research Centre of European Multipart Music” established at the Institute for Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology of the Vienna University of Music.

The works of this Centre served as basis upon which we were able to draw during the negotiations with the ICTM Board for the establishing of a Study Group on Multipart Music. The board reached a positive decision on the formation of the group in July 2009 after the ICTM World Conference in Durban, South Africa.

An ICTM Study Group on Multipart Music is of a great help to extend the existing network and our views on multipart music traditions worldwide, by means of research, documentation, interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study, intending a tight collaboration with local singers and musicians also in the scholarly discussion processes.

Our Study Group shall promote multipart music through research, documentation, interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study and shall provide a forum for cooperation among scholars and students of multipart music by means of international meetings, publications and correspondence, intending a tight collaboration with local singers and musicians also in the discussion processes. The Study Group may undertake such projects as are in support of its stated objectives, including, but not limited to, organization of Study Group symposia, and formation of sub-study groups.

See our web site: www.multipartmusic.org  

Links to works by members of the Study Group:
-- Ignazio Macchiarella, ed, Multipart Music: a Specific Mode of Musical Thinking, Expressive Behaviour and Sound. Nota, Udine 2012, 506 p. (ISBN 9788861630925) http://www.multipartmusic.org/multipartmusic/node/4

-- Jean-Jacques Castéret, La polyphonie dans les Pyrénées gasconnes. Tradition, évolution, résilience, L’Harmattan, Anthopologies et musique, Paris, 2012, 367 p. (ISBN 978-2-336-00821-9) http://www.multipartmusic.org/multipartmusic/node/2