I SUPPORT THE POPULAR CULTURE

How becoming a Volunteer of

Italian Network of Popular Culture

TESSERA_DEF_1-1

If you want to support the Popular Culture, you can join as Volunteer the Italian Network of Popular Culture.

You will:

- be constantly updated on developments of the Italian Network of Popular Culture’s projects, concerning the entire world of Popular Culture;

- take part in events organized by the Italian Network of Popular Culture, by becoming an active trader for the protection, valorization, innovation and research of folk tradition.

Then, you will get:

- detailed information and material concerning the activities of the Italian Network of Popular Culture, delivered straight to the address you will communicate us;

- Italian Network of Popular Culture’s newsletter.

To became a Volunteer fill the form an send it by mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ,
or by fax to +0039 011 4368630

download the form

Massimo Bubola supports the Popular Culture

The popular culture is our path, our map, our memory and our identity. If we do not have awareness of our roots, we can not even build a future.

The dramatic problem of compositional consistency in many authors of new generations is due to this lack of knowledge of native folk traditions. This problem does not exist in countries with a strong folk tradition, which are often great exporters of their music in all its metabolites. It happens not just in English-speaking nations, but also in little-known countries, which are often decentralized and very little influenced on international communication.

It is important for popular culture not only to be nourished by new authors, who develop the tradition, but also to be recovered and taught, especially in country, like Italy, where most of the music unfortunately is just imitation of the most foolish and inconsistent foreign models, supported by radio, TV and mass-media.

I was born in a patriarchal Venetian family, where music was ritual and celebration, especially in agricultural and religious events. There were dance and listen music, composed basically of cante, ballads, nursery rhymes. Then there were songs about the Great War. While the adults were singing those songs, it was a sacred silence. I think this is the main reason why I began writing popular songs and later it became my job.

I have seen the film-interview dedicated by Martin Scorsese to Bob Dylan, who was without doubt the most important song writer of ‘900, and his profound work still amazes me. At the beginning of his career, he discovered, listened and played the great American folk repertoire, mostly of European origin. All this before writing his first masterpieces, which are obviously the results of that path and that knowledge. As the great Canadian poet and singer Leonard Cohen said, “ A new skin for an old ceremony”.

Massimo Bubola

Giovanna Marini supports Popular Culture

It’s sure that music of oral tradition taught me a lot, both in contents and ways of its diffusion.

Studying the texts of these songs let me think about the kind of life and the philosophy existing in Italy until ‘50s, namely before the Italian economic boom. It was a philosophy addressed to the spirit to mack up for the material lacks. This school put away every kind of violence to encourage the man to think and to win the adversities.

Reflection but not resignation, as it could seem. It helped us to consider our not-permanence on this planet, it taught us to wait, taught children to endure the boredom and overcome it with the talent. A song from Friuli tells:

“...Si saviessis fantazzinis ce che sont sospirs d’amour

e a si mour si va sottiare encia mò se sint dolour...

Tony Esposito supports the Popular Culture

Esposito

The popular culture is the base from where we should start ...It is the solid reference that gives us identity. Without it we would be homologated in a sea of purely aesthetic events devoid of content, rituality, magic...

The market of arts’s fast consumption inclines to play down and devalue tradition. Depriving works from contents may adapt tradition to a style which does not require a great effort in the listening and in the vision of it, so that we obtain products well insert in the global market of “ fast food/ disposable” of art.

In music ( my responsibility) the lack of popular references has resulted in the poor quality of products, made of sounds almost similar in all genres, and a frantic run to the “ easy consumption” tune, similar to other thousands tunes already heard...If an arrangement is appreciated, then, for almost one year, there will be equal clones...everything is so far from the huge and multi-colored variety of popular music.

I must add that, all that some wicked artistic directors of discography wanted, resulted in a profound crisis in the sector and in a loss of references in the listeners, especially young people, as just a few of them are able to do an arduous journey of personal research. Popular music as historical consciousness, as the root to evolve and as continuity. I was born in a territory where folk culture is deeply felt, so I took the gesture, the invention, the instruments of it and I used them for my personal dreamy and visionary path

Tony Esposito

Francesco Guccini supports the Popular Culture

Guccini

We have caught up Guccini, thanks to the important Lele Chiodi and Carlo Pagliai’s mediation, two components of the historic group “ I Viulan”, which during its thirty-years activity have played and still plays an irreplaceable role in the recovery and study of this particular art form.

“ That was- Guccini tells- the most important resource; I still remember when we went to interview elderly and we recovered the old traditional songs. Now, unfortunately, is more and more difficult to find this material. That’s why the work of individuals and groups, trying to preserve this tradition, is so important and should not miss their adequate support. These fans are almost like archaeologists, who dig looking for traces of the past. It is sure that the great archaeological discoveries are more important than a song, but it also has its importance within a culture.”.

Did the research in the popular culture field influence your artistic career?

“ No, even if when I compose, good or bad, I always look for the so-called melody in the third. I learned to sing by following a certain tradition and it comes easily out: it is spontaneous and natural. Among the songwriters, then, I believe to be the only one coming from the folk tradition. Even De Andrè, who did many interesting things, has anyway already studied them. Gaber did not love so much folk music and De Gregori discovered it after long time.”.

“ The loss of this immense “world” would be a defeat. I realize that it is difficult to understand for people not belonging to this particular “world”. Even cultured men have difficulties in understanding it, so they often rejected it. Popular culture was often considered as inferior than “ official” culture. Actually, they are just different. We risk to lose a very important heritage and it would be really a pity.”

Enzo Jannacci supports Popular Culture

More than questions, they are already answers. They put together a path showing how popular culture is the result of telling about things and feelings; it comes from the tradition that renews itself with the experience of sharing.

Without this memory, living of music, story and fantasy, the daily reality relies on neologisms (“ slang”) of an exasperated technology, which fills the emptiness of content with confused sounds, letting us lose the desire to discover and to pass the meanings of words.

It is a call to revive the school’s sense of being and its task to teach, by overcoming the injustices due to economic and social differences and by standardizing the different stories and cultural differences in level, through exchange of knowledge.

In this way, the archive of popular culture can be enriched by using the technology. Thus, the webcam could encourage the opportunity to continue to tell our own experiences. Modernly and networking.

More Articles...