ВРАЊАНСКА ПЕСМА КАО ЕКСПРЕСИВНИ ЖАНР
THE SONG OF VRANJE AS AN EXPRESSIVE GENRE

Summary/Abstract: During 2010 and 2012, I initiated research into the Vranje melos, collecting and transcribing fifty-six songs from the region from which I myself originate. The valuable information obtained from interpreters – performers of the then Vranje urban song tradition – proved decisive in shaping the direction of the research. I observed that Vranje, as an exceptionally sensuous cultural environment, is closely associated with a distinctive expressivity of song, inseparable from the affective states of merak, sevdah, and dert. Accordingly, the introductory chapters of the first part of this study first address the musical culture of Vranje during the time of Bora Stanković, as well as his role in defining the specific geographical and musical-cultural identity of the region. This is followed by an analysis of the musical-poetic components of the collected material, including their poeticstructural organisation, metric-rhythmic formation, and melodic analysis of the collected songs within a hemiolic metric framework and a distributive rhythmic system, as well as within a parlando–rubato rhythmic system. The correlation between song melodies and the emotions and musical gestures they generate proved crucial in direct‑ ing the second part of this study (to be published in the subsequent issue of the journal) towards the process of musical semiosis, specifically the identification of these musical gestures from the perspective of Robert Hatten’s analytical methodology. Musical notation examples of all collected songs are provided in the appendix.

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