Towards Applied Ethnomusicology – The Traditional Music Laboratory of the Institute of Music and Dance

Abstract

The text describes the activities of Traditional Music Laboratory of the Institute of Music and Dance, which was established on 17 June 2015 in Warsaw. The main objective of the Laboratory’s programs is to support traditional music transmission in a direct „master-apprentice” relationship and to facilitate an interdisciplinary, long-term collaboration between animators, researchers, scholars, artists, pedagogues and civil servants under subsidy of Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Ideas discussed in this paper arise from the content of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) as well as the assumptions of applied ethnomusicology (the International Council for Traditional Music, Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology). The question that needs to be asked in the context of the above-mentioned perspectives is how to describe the problem of the continuity of the traditional forms of musical practices in the context of new phenomena, such as the “revival”, “return”, “revitalization” or “reconstruction”, in Poland. The paper focuses on a brief overview of educational and cultural actions taken by chosen NGOs, foundations and associations organized in an informal initiative known as the Forum of Traditional Music.