Cult3120 Group 7

Group 7 – Newcastle Music Activity

Group 7 - Activity

Cultural Festival

Cultural festival overview By providing Newcastle with a Cultural Music Festival, members of the community are able to indulge in a wide span of musical tastes, ranging from pop/rock to country to hip hop. Activities offered will both promote local bands and musicians, as well as expose members of the area to the cultural mix existing within the region via the vehicle of music. Using information about Newcastle's demographic scope, cultural events can be relevantly presented at different times and locations.

Theme/Genre The theme/genre presented at the festival will change weekly (e.g. pop/rock, hip hop, country etc), however there will be different types of cultural music every week (e.g. indigenous music, Latin dancing etc). This aims to both draw members of various cultural groups in, as well as expose members of the community to a variety of genres and styles. Having this broad range of cultural music, the potential audience covers a number of cultural groups existing within the Newcastle area.

Location The festival will take place at two different venues, with activities at the location where the relevant cultural group is most densely located. The desired locations are:  Speers Point Park  Civic Park

Music The aim of the festival is to show case what the local music scene has to offer, presenting local bands and musicians, as well as provide various music workshops to aid in the development of Newcastle's music scene.

Duration The festival will run every Sunday over a one month period during November.

Other activities As well as show casing local talent and running music workshops, other activities will be offered to interest other members of the community. These include Singstar and Guitar Hero competitions, and events to involve and promote local school bands.

What do Novocastrians want?

What is “popular” music?  widely

available to the general public,  deliberately constructed to win favour of the people,  circulated by the mass media,  belonging to any number of musical genres,  a site through which cultural reproduction and change takes place,  sought after/popular

Is popular music always popular? Scholars such as Theodor Adorno believe that because the production of popular music is driven by practical demands of consumption the resulting music becomes standardised and sacrifices its autonomy. Therefore popular music is aesthetically deficient, simplistic, repetitive and boring. (Adorno, 2002)

Popular music? However, when considering Adorno’s harsh criticism of popular music it becomes apparent that he is judging the value of popular music in ways that are really only appropriate to the assessment of classical music, and, although popular and classical music are frequently compared to each other they are in fact two completely different types of music that require separate methods of evaluation (Gracyk, 2008).

Popular music? Therefore, rather than using the ideals of aesthetic theory to judge popular music we should be valuing its ability to represent social relationships and values that are a part of the culture which created it (Gracyk, 2008). Treating popular music as simply another ‘popular’ activity that people indulge in is therefore, simply not sufficient.

Why support popular music at this cultural event? We believe this is the best musical activity that can be offered to Newcastle because it combines the social and cultural value of popular music with the benefits of live musical performances. The social and cultural value of popular music is a result of the way in which it involves both a mental context of cultural values and goals, as well as an institutional context of societal structures, and relates to all kinds of interactions between different people.

Live performances The element of a live performance strengthens the positive impact of popular music upon the community by offering what David Pattie describes as the complete musical “experience” which allows for communication between the performer and the audience. As a result the audience is included in the performance and are able to invest it with their own meaning whilst also socially sharing the experience (1999).

Live performances The social benefits of a live performance emerge in the way that people respond to each other during a concert or festival event which provides the opportunity to discover others that appreciate a similar type of music and offers a sense of belonging for an individual. Simon Frith describes this communal appreciation of music as a feeling of “oneness” of which popular performance is framed upon (1998 p 216).

Live performances Live performance also offers listeners with the oppurtinuty to experience music physically by dancing. This is surely the fundamental way in which music can be appreciated by all people of any culture or society and does not serve to alienate people by forcing the audience to listen to music in an intellectual way without moving (Baugh 1993).

Live performances Frith argues that through this experience of live performance the usual cultural constraints on expression are suspended: “at the height of enjoyment at a rock concert, one can and does hug strangers, leap into the mosh pit, turn cartwheels on the floor” (1998 p216).

Therefore... Popular music, through live performance, can be seen have an extremely positive impact upon the community by:  reinforcing social and cultural integration by transcending social and cultural barriers  contributing to the self confidence of individuals and communities  participating in the expression of cultural diversity  building upon an “inclusive Newcastle”

Supporting (practical) Evidence

Location The city centre has a much younger population than the larger outer suburbs. Due to this we have decided to cater activities to particular age groups when we change the locations of the festival.

Location Cont.

http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/newcastle/key-issues/demographic-context/

Location Cont. Example: Days in the Diocese were held in the week leading up to World Youth Day all over the Hunter. 5, 000 people attended.

Ethnicity We have chosen a cultures of the world theme because Newcastle is a cultural hub. The city centre has 17% and the larger Newcastle area has 11% of the population born overseas. This is greatly increasing and does not include numbers of offspring with parents born overseas. The overwhelming majorities are German, Sudanese, Polish and Italians.

Ethnicity Cont.

http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/newcastle/key-issues/demographic-context/

Ethnicity Cont. Example: Mattara Festival running now for 45 years, pulling on all aspects of culture and society to create a nine day event.

Cost – Free event Middle income brackets are the most common in Newcastle, with a greater % of people being considered ‘poor’ in comparison to Sydney. For this reason we have decided to make the event free and therefore accessible to more people.

Cost Cont.

http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/newcastle/key-issues/demographic-context/

Cost Cont.

Example: L!vesites, a cultural program running successfully since October 2003.

Supporting (academic) evidence

Functions of Music in Society There are many positive impacts of music on society. Some of these are: • It allows emotional expression • Gives aesthetic pleasure • Creates physical responses, • Entertains • Promotes social interactions • Enhances one’s mood • Can help one relax, concentrate, workout etc. (Levetin, D, 2007)

Functions Cont. Our activities include acts from all different cultures, and the purpose of this is to be aesthetically pleasing to all the members of society • Within the different cultural acts we have chosen, there is a mixture of music that will appeal to the young (German DJ) and music such as classical and opera that will appeal to an older crowd. •

Functions Cont. Music as a form of entertainment/Social interaction • As it is an activity that is ongoing over 4 weeks, we created activities that would encourage the guests to keep coming back. • Another major function of music is that it facilitates and influences social interaction (Levetin, D.J, 2007) and one of the festivals aims is to promote social integration and create an ‘inclusive Newcastle.’

Functions Cont. Mood Enhancement • We need to provide music that will influence the mood of the people in a positive way. • There will be predominately upbeat, feel good music, and other activities such as dancing and didgeridoo lessons that will all have a positive influence on the atmosphere of the event. North, A.C, Hargreaves, D.J & Hargreaves, J.J, 2004)

Potential negative impacts Some music genres such as rap and hip-hop are seen to be bad influences on the youth that listen to it and a negative influence on society. • The lyrics and essence of the song can sometimes be violent and aggressive, and many people are concerned about the detrimental effects that this promotion of violence can bring. •

Potential negative impacts •

•

It can be seen to be promoting unhealthy lifestyles and exploiting young adolescent girls. (SaeNgian, K, 2008) To address these concerns, we will not include hip-hop or rap music that contains violence and aggression, and for those who are against hip hop and rap music all together, there will be many different alternate styles of music to choose from.

References 

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NSW Department of Planning, 2006, Newcastle Planning, (Accessed 22 April 2009). Levetin, D.J (2007) Life Soundtracks: The uses of music in everyday life, McGill University, Montreal, QC Canada North, A, Hargreaves, D, Hargreaves, J (2004) Uses of music in everyday life, Vol. 22, No. 1, 41-77 SaeNgian, K, (2008), Researcher cites negative influences of hip-hop, Pittsburgh PostGazette, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08165/889550-51.stm Adorno, Theodor W (2002) “On Popular Music” In Essays on Music. Ed. Richard Leppert. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press pp. 437-69 Baugh, Bruce (1993) “Prolegomena to Any Aesthetics of Rock Music.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51:1 pp. 23-29 Frith, Simon (1998) Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music, Harvard University Press, Gracyk, Theodore (2008) “The Aesthetics of Popular Music” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Minnesota State University Moorhead, Pattie, David (1999) 4 Real: Authenticity, Performance, and Rock Music Enculturation, 2:2