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We feed off the spirit of the audience' : an ethnographic study of musical storytelling in the street music of South Africa
Includes abstract.
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| Main Author: | |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
College of Music
2014
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| _version_ | 1867613171168051201 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Gillham, Alice |
| author2 | Nixon, Michael |
| author_browse | Gillham, Alice Nixon, Michael |
| author_facet | Nixon, Michael Gillham, Alice |
| author_sort | Gillham, Alice |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Includes abstract. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/8148 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:31:53.390Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publishDateRange | 2014 |
| publishDateSort | 2014 |
| publisher | College of Music |
| publisherStr | College of Music |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/8148 We feed off the spirit of the audience' : an ethnographic study of musical storytelling in the street music of South Africa Gillham, Alice Nixon, Michael Street music Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 119-123). Street musicians in South Africa work within a challenging macrostructure. In order to maximise their success within this performance environment they must develop strategies to overcome the difficulties that South Africa's streets present. Various social issues: unemployment, crime, health and xenophobia, have a direct impact on its street musicians, who predominantly come from lower income groups. The changing tourism industry, which is a vital source of income for these musicians, also presents challenges and opportunities. Together these aspects create a unique street environment within which to examine the role of the musical storyteller, and a performance space that requires the development of specific skills by the street performer to maximaise its advantages. Watching a performance by a group of South African street musicians, telling a complex narrative to their audience, I realised that these performers might not only be fulfilling various social functions, but might also be playing a role in actively performing, and contributing to, genres of South Africa's traditional musical heritage. I wished to explore this and began to interview selected street performers, and to observe and record their performances. The boom in the South African tourism industry encourages street musicians to develop styles of performance and musical storytelling that rely heavily on styles of traditional music. However, their repertoires are extensive, and keep altering. There is no pre-established, repeated canon of material to study and draw conclusions from. I therefore had to approach this study with a different intention. I did not look for single musical narrative items, which I could then dissect and present, but rather I attempted to identify unique aspects of this performance environment and the patterns, or frames of behaviour these cause and inspire. 2014-10-06T11:32:06Z 2014-10-06T11:32:06Z 2008 Master Thesis Masters MMus http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8148 eng application/pdf College of Music Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Street music Gillham, Alice We feed off the spirit of the audience' : an ethnographic study of musical storytelling in the street music of South Africa |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | We feed off the spirit of the audience' : an ethnographic study of musical storytelling in the street music of South Africa |
| title_full | We feed off the spirit of the audience' : an ethnographic study of musical storytelling in the street music of South Africa |
| title_fullStr | We feed off the spirit of the audience' : an ethnographic study of musical storytelling in the street music of South Africa |
| title_full_unstemmed | We feed off the spirit of the audience' : an ethnographic study of musical storytelling in the street music of South Africa |
| title_short | We feed off the spirit of the audience' : an ethnographic study of musical storytelling in the street music of South Africa |
| title_sort | we feed off the spirit of the audience an ethnographic study of musical storytelling in the street music of south africa |
| topic | Street music |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8148 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT gillhamalice wefeedoffthespiritoftheaudienceanethnographicstudyofmusicalstorytellinginthestreetmusicofsouthafrica |