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About Wim van der Meer

Wim is a cultural musicologist. What? Yes, a C U L T U R A L musicologist! What do musicologists do anyway? Frankly no idea, I'm retired and I do what I want. When I was young I did what my mother told me to. What happened in between is vague. And what is culture? Everything we learned somehow. More: Press MOI in the top menu.

Against Facebook

I joined Facebook soon after it started, back in 2004. It seemed like a wonderful idea, setting up a community, communicating easily with friends and colleagues. Less work than a blog, more charming than email or text messages. In 2008 I left. It is not so easy to get out of that cobweb. But I managed. And some of my friends and colleagues did the same. I forgot about it, didn't need it for anything. Then recently it became clear that facebook isn't just annoying and useless but it is [...]

Against Facebook2020-06-22T08:58:06+02:00

Chalukya music sculpture

The Badami cave temples are a complex of four Hindu, a Jain and possibly Buddhist cave temples located in Badami, a town in northern part of Karnataka. The caves are considered an example of Indian rock-cut architecture, especially Badami Chalukya architecture, which dates from the 6th century. Badami was previously known as Vataapi Badami, the capital of the early Chalukya dynasty, which ruled much of Karnataka from the 6th to the 8th century. Badami is situated on the west bank of a man made lake ringed by an earthen [...]

Chalukya music sculpture2020-06-07T20:27:43+02:00

Musical instruments in Hampi sculpture

Hampi is located in east-central Karnataka India. It became the centre of the Hindu Vijayanagar Empire capital in the 14th century. Chronicles left by Persian and European travellers, particularly the Portuguese, state Hampi was a prosperous, wealthy and grand city  with numerous temples, farms and trading markets. By 1500 CE, Hampi-Vijayanagara was the world's second-largest medieval-era city after Beijing and probably India's richest at that time, attracting traders from Persia and Portugal. The Vijayanagara Empire was defeated by a coalition of Muslim sultanates; its capital was conquered, pillaged and destroyed by sultanate armies in 1565, after which Hampi remained [...]

Musical instruments in Hampi sculpture2020-06-08T07:29:52+02:00

Musical instruments in Mysur temple sculpture

In 2006 we visited some towns in the southern part of Karnataka, near the city of Mysuru (Mysore). The pictures presented here show a sample of musical instruments mostly from the 12th century. We come across two types of drums, barrel shaped and hourglass shaped. The latter could well be the melodic drum we know today as the iddaka or eddaka. The flute we see—often in the hands of Kṛṣṇa—is a rather thick transverse flute. And then there are the vīṇā-s, typically stick zithers with or without frets. They [...]

Musical instruments in Mysur temple sculpture2018-04-04T13:15:14+02:00

Gandhara in Darbari Kanada, the mother of all shrutis?

Post created 26 Feb 2015, last updated 24 January 2017. On my academia.edu page there is a pdf of this post, but it is not updated as often as this web page. Possibly the most famous of all shrutis of Hindustani classical music is the komal gandhara (ga, minor third [1]) of Darbari. It is often said to be ati-komal (extra flat), which would supposedly mean it is lower than an also supposedly 'normal' komal ga (Levy 1982: 109 cites Vilayat Khan, see also Parrikar 2000; my teacher Dilip Chandra Vedi considered this to be common knowledge, although there are [...]

Gandhara in Darbari Kanada, the mother of all shrutis?2020-06-07T20:29:12+02:00

Retired?

On April first 2014 I retired, no fooling. My colleagues and friends had prepared an amazing farewell party on the 20th of March, and I later wrote to them: Beste collega's, lieve vrienden en vriendinnen Veel van jullie waren op mijn afscheidsfeestje en hebben daar actief en/of passief aan deelgenomen. Middels dit schrijven wil ik jullie hartelijk danken voor die prachtige avond en de mooie jaren die ik heb beleefd aan de UvA. De samenwerking met collega's en de gedachtewisselingen met studenten hebben tot grote voldoening en vaak ook tot onverbloemd [...]

Retired?2018-02-25T09:03:36+02:00

Conference on Cultural Musicology, January 24-25, 2014

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT OF MUSICOLOGY International Conference on Cultural Musicology 24-25 January 2014 University of Amsterdam Nieuwe doelenstraat 16 1012 CP Amsterdam On January 24-25, 2014 the musicology department of Amsterdam University organised an international conference about cultural musicology on the occasion of the retirement of Prof. Wim van der Meer. As a cultural anthropologist and a musicologist Wim van der Meer has contributed significantly to the field of cultural musicology. For the last thirteen years he and Prof. Rokus de Groot were at the very core of the [...]

Conference on Cultural Musicology, January 24-25, 20142018-02-25T09:02:24+02:00

The art of music

Before reading this post you may want to orient yourself: Music and Art in the Urban Dictionary. Notice there are 150+ contributions on music, and only 50+ on art. Also, the number of likes and dislikes on music runs into many thousands, whereas art gets a few hundreds. Music From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Music is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture. [...]

The art of music2018-02-25T09:07:25+02:00

On classifying music

Why do people want to classify anything at all and in particular music? On the one hand because classifying is the human need to understand and control. On the other because it's practical. For instance, if you have lots of music in a shop, in your record, cassette, cd or digital library, classification can help you find something you're looking for more quickly. Unless you have put the music in the wrong bin, then you'll never find it again. That's the downside of classifying. In a way, this relates directly [...]

On classifying music2018-02-25T22:14:49+02:00

Muziek en tijd in India

Muziek en tijd in India Het lijken twee tegenovergestelde benaderingen tot tijd in muziek; de vrije raga-alap en het strakke tala. Misschien is die tegenstelling en die reikwijdte typerend voor de manier waarop tijd in India wordt beleefd. Enerzijds de bijzonder strikte, bijna rituele benadering, en anderzijds de totaal open conceptie van tijd als een diffuus continuüm. © Artikel verschenen in Mens en Melodie #5 2009 p. 7-9 Inleiding Muziek is een uitvoerende en dus een tijdgebonden kunst. We kunnen muziek loskoppelen van de tijd door haar op te schrijven, [...]

Muziek en tijd in India2018-04-11T07:07:33+02:00
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