Ethnic music in the repertoire of Lithuanian groups of popular music at the end of the 20th century - the beginning of the 21st century: musical aspects

The paper presents the description of the research results of the project Ethnic Music Revival Movement in Lithuania from the 1960s to the 2010s carried out at Vytautas Magnus University in 2011-2015. The research was funded by the European Social Fund under the Global Grant measure (Nr. VP1-3.1-–MM-07-K-01-161). The problems with the reflection of the musical features of ethnic music in the repertoire of the collectives of popular music at the end of the 20th century - the beginning of the 21st century are analysed on the basis of 376 contemporary sound records from the years 1993-2012. The characteristics of ethnic music have been utilized by the 5 Lithuanian post-folklore, 4 folkrock, 3 "pagan" metal, 1 heavy metal, 3 folk-jazz and world music collectives founded since the restoration of Lithuanian independence. There were 155 records of post-folklore, 186 - of the groups playing folk-rock and 58 examples of music played by folk-jazz and world music collectives. Taking the melodic and rhythmic elements of ethnic or late ëliteraryí music as the basis, these ensembles inter-weave them with the rhythms and harmonies of contemporary music, adding electronic music instruments. The repertoire of post-folklore collectives is based mainly on the melodies of folk songs (61%) and dances (34%) which are performed using the means of disco (60-63% of the songs performed), rock (25-37%) and country (10-15% of songs and about 85% of dances) music. Polyphonic sutartinė are of about 5% of the repertoire of these collectives. This kind of ethnic music is mostly performed using the means of disco music (about 75%). Melodies of folk songs and dances make a noticeable part in the music of folk-rock (about 34%), folk-jazz and world music groups (about 70%). The analysis of the styles of folk songs used in the repertoire of these groups reveals that the prevailing style is monophony (about 60%), while the polyphony makes about 40%. About 35-37% of parallel and more than 30-33% of monody songs, 47% samples of vocal and instrumental polyphony and even 84% of instrumental dance music performed by the collectives of post-folklore correspond to the traditional styles of folk music. However, the coordination of the modes of the revived repertoire of post-folklore and the modes of traditional music is less successful, because the main part of the records is performed on the way of temperation. For this reason, only about 33-35% of the modes of the parallel songs and about 25-28% of the modes of the monody and sutartinÎ correspond to the modes of the traditional ethnic music. Melodies of ethnic music in the repertoire of the post-folklore, folk-jazz and world music groups are mostly performed in the authentic way, like quotations, though these melodies in the records of the collectives of rock music are interpreted as paraphrases. In the music of the groups of ëpaganí metal, which are the representatives of the ëheavy metalí branch of world rock music, one can find the fragments of the texts of Lithuanian folk songs, as well as folklore and mythological images that represent the motifs of ethnic, cultural and social history. In general, the connection with the traditions of folk performance and intonation are noticeable in about 84% of post-folklore, about 28% of folk-rock and in about 97% repertoire of folk-jazz and world music groups of popular music. Having done the research, it is possible to draw the conclusion that all the mentioned groups of Lithuanian popular music have a close connection with the heritage of folk music traditions, because a noticeable part of the repertoire of these collectives is based on the features of ethnic music. The means of contemporary music, namely the use of electronic musical instruments while performing folk melodies, are the features of the current point of view on the traditions and modernity which are characteristic of the development of popular music in other countries