Abstract
This chapter applies Thomas Turino’s account of musical participation to an 2018 ethnographic study of ukulele groups in Hamilton, Aotearoa/New Zealand. Ukulele playing can occur in many contexts, from solo to small friendship-based groups meeting privately, to tuition (classes), to large semi-public “jams.” Turino regards participatory music as a means of creating and sustaining group identity, in contradistinction to live “presentational” performance. However, most ukulele groups also perform live and this can conflict with the participatory model. Moreover, most ukulele groups use written scores, not mentioned by Turino, who defaults to an idealised model of oral, participatory culture. Scores introduce questions about how ukulele groups relate to modernity, the Internet and “participatory culture,” and also power and hierarchy that stretch Turino’s model.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Questions concerned participants’ musical background, when, how and with whom they started playing ukulele, their playing habits, the relation of playing and singing, the experience of playing, the make-up of the groups they play in, performing for audiences, “best” and “worst” experiences, who or what participants “follow” when playing, questions about musical taste and how far they influence repertoire, where participants find repertoire, approaches to learning, and a general question about the popularity of ukulele playing.
- 2.
Tia DeNora’s work (2000) is also relevant, although she emphasizes women listening rather than performing.
- 3.
This might be considered relevant to the increasing literature on “covers” (Homan 2006).
References
Atkin, Albert. 2013. Peirce’s Theory of Signs. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/peirce-semiotics.
Bannister, Matthew. 2010. Boys and Girls Come Out to Play: Gender and Music-Making in Hamilton, New Zealand/Aotearoa. Genders Online 52. https://www.colorado.edu/gendersarchive1998-2013/2010/09/01/boys-and-girls-come-out-play-gender-and-music-making-hamilton-new-zealandaotearoa.
Bayton, Mavis. 1998. Frock Rock: Women Performing Popular Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bennett, Andy, and Jodi Taylor. 2012. Popular Music and the Aesthetics of Ageing. Popular Music 31 (2): 231–243.
Bourdieu, Philip. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi. 1988. Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cull, Laura. 2012. Performance as Philosophy: Responding to the Problem of “Application”. Theatre Research International 37 (1): 20–27.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. 1980/1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
DeNora, Tia. 2000. Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2013. Music Asylums: Wellbeing Through Music in Everyday Life. Farnham: Ashgate.
Gibson, Chris, and Shane Homan. 2004. Urban Redevelopment, Live Music and Public Space. International Journal of Cultural Policy 10 (1): 67–84.
Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity.
Giebelhausen, Robin. 2016. So, You’re Thinking About Starting a Ukulele Program? General Music Today 29 (3): 38–41.
Greenberg, Marvin. 1992. The Ukulele in Your Classroom. Music Educators Journal 79 (3): 43–48.
Homan, Shane. 2006. Access All Eras: Tribute Bands and Global Pop Culture. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Jenkins, Henry, Ravi Puroshotma, Katherine Clinton, Margaret Weigel, and Alice J. Robison. 2005. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. http://www.newmedialiteracies.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/NMLWhitePaper.pdf.
Johnson, Bruce. 2013. Cognitive Ecology: Music, Gesture and Cognition. In Communities, Places, Ecologies: Proceedings of the 2013 IASPM Conference, ed. Jadey O’Regan and Toby Wren, 155–163. Brisbane: IASPM Australia/New Zealand.
Kaul, Adam. 2014. Music on the Edge: Busking at the Cliffs of Moher and the Commodification of a Musical Landscape. Tourist Studies 14 (1): 30–47.
Masemola, Michael Kgomotso, and Pinky Makoe. 2014. Musical Space as Site of Transculturation of Memory and Transformation of Consciousness: The Re-affirmation of Africa in the Black Atlantic Assemblage. Muziki: Journal of Music Research in Africa 11 (1): 63–70.
Small, Christopher. 2011. Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Thibeault, Matthew D., and Julianne Evoy. 2011. Building Your Own Musical Community: How YouTube, Miley Cyrus, and the Ukulele Can Create a New Kind of Ensemble. General Music Today 24 (3): 44–52.
Tranquada, Jim, and John King. 2012. The Ukulele: A History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Turino, Thomas. 2008. Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wise, J. MacGregor. 2017. Assemblage. In Keywords for Media Studies, ed. Laurie Ouellette and Jonathan Gray, 16–17. New York: New York University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bannister, M. (2019). Taken by Strum: Ukuleles and Participatory Music-Making in Hamilton, Aotearoa/New Zealand. In: Braae, N., Hansen, K. (eds) On Popular Music and Its Unruly Entanglements. Pop Music, Culture and Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18099-7_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18099-7_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-18098-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-18099-7
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)