A "black Box" of Music Use: on Folk and Popular Music

There is no simple answer to the question o f the relationship between folk and popular music. If we discuss folk and popular music from the point o f view o f the active participants in the musical activities, and especially if we analyse the ways of music use in the particular life contexts of individuals and groups of people, it becomes clear that almost all the characteristics of the old folk music appear in modern popular music, although in changed circumstances. Popular music is not universal and it cannot be a means o f homogenisa t ion , for it is more democra t ic than totalitarian. In a case study o f the "autochthonisation" (indigenisation) of punk rock music in the village o f Trate in north-east Slovenia between 1979 and 1992, the author emphasises the essential characteristics of the local popular music scene, with the same (or at least a similar) meaning and purpose in the life o f the local subculture, and that it is being used by individuals and groups in the same (or a similar) way as was the old folk music. This becomes clear in the context of dance the function of dance is essential to both. The ethnography of music use is, as the author suggests, one of the essential steps toward a better understanding of any music.