ABSTRACT
In the time when globalization 1 is slowly, yet unstopably, conquering the world in all fields of human life, there are still local and regional music genres that surpass the frames of local and regional community and become characteristic of a wider community. Klapa singing and ča-val are examples of a Mediterranean dimension of music that has passed the boundaries of the local and regional in Croatia. 2 Both have originated from the local framework, one as a traditional music that has become popular (klapa singing), and the other as popular music linked to local Istrian cultural tradition and dialect (ča-val). I will be dealing with klapa singing as an insider, based on my rich personal experience (singer, leader, and consultant in klapas). With ča-val I will be dealing as an outsider, concentrating on the media coverage of the musical phenomenon (newspaper clips, radio and TV production, audio recordings), attending concerts of ča-val performers, and field research in Istria. I consider an ethnographic approach that “focuses upon social relationships, emphasizing music as a social practice and process” (Cohen 1993: 123) to be the most suitable for such research. This approach is comparative and holistic; historical and dialogical; reflexive and politically oriented, emphasizing the dynamic complexes of situations that contain abstract concepts and models. At the same time, “it will have to be sensitive to both macro processes of state formation, … media networks, and to the micro level of individual experience within these structural coordinates” (Erlmann 1993: 7).
