Folk Music
Part Five: The Future of Folk Music
In the previous parts of the Folk Music series of articles, we tried to briefly draw the attention of the elite music community to folk music. In the last part, we briefly mention the solutions that can improve the future of folk music.
The past has shown us that art and human beings are two intertwined subjects, and as long as human beings exist, art will continue to exist. Perhaps the existence of art should be considered beyond human activities because the existence of the world is the result of art, and the objectivity of art exists in every atom of creation and behavior of the material things in the world. Music is also one of the basic pillars of art throughout the world, which exists in various forms; as a result, no event can ever separate music and human beings from each other.
One of the strongest genres of music that acquired a special identity after the formation of human civilizations is folk music. Folk music has sprung from the daily life of the people and the community and has manifested itself throughout history according to the time and situation (for example, compare the folk music of Iran, Africa, and America). Therefore, it is wrong to imagine that folk music will disappear, but in this article, we will refer to the ways in which folk music can be expanded and given different dimensions, including educational, training, recreational, etc.
In advance, we must point out that in our country, for various reasons, even activities with strong legal and executive roots cannot continue to exist as they should, and perhaps in the current situation, a solution that can truly and deeply expand music is unattainable because music in Iran does not have deep and strong legal and executive support, but since man will lose his identity without hope and movement, we entered this discussion and offer solutions:
First, experience has proven that governmental and state movements have a one-sided and specific orientation, so in the first step, we need to create independent popular structures (such as popular NGOs that have popular financial support beyond governmental and state support) to start specific, small, numerous, and continuous programs to create a national demand for the purpose of creating a trustee for music. While maintaining independence and agility, popular structures must have the art of using the government and the state (as well as private organizations) to meet the needs of the people and regulate the relations between the government, the state, and the people. The most important task of part of these popular structures is strong, extensive, and long-term dialogue and diplomacy to manage and direct resources towards popular goals, and another part of popular organizations should put short-term and executive programs on their agenda (for example, we can refer to the Barbad Society, which implemented a model of a successful popular organization with short-term executive programs in its time).
The second stage is the movement of the popular organization towards being placed in the position of the trustee of music. It is natural that governments and states make decisions based on the diagnosis and interests that they see before themselves and the people under their supervision, and they will show strong resistance to this movement, but prudence, politics, patience, and management are the main keys to breaking this resistance and reaching an agreement.
History has proven that as long as the diagnosis of governments and states does not conflict with the diagnosis of the people, no problem arises, but as soon as a conflict arises in this relationship, many insoluble problems arise for all three parties. Therefore, if the trustee of music is an institution independent of the government and the state, it can largely simultaneously ensure the interests of the people, the government, and the state with powerful diplomacy. Of course, it should be mentioned that independent organizations that are designed in any way or are puppets of governments and states or are composed of people who have come to power through unprofessional relationships are like musk that does not smell itself, but the perfumer says!
The third point is that we need to provide the necessary tools for the music trustee organization, and in this regard, the parties (government, state, people) must cooperate, otherwise, this organization will not have a strong executive guarantee to carry out its activities. Among the important tools that the trustee organization needs is an efficient and trained human force for various levels of management, expertise, education, and so on.
Fourth, the popular organization must design and implement transparent and phased executive headings for different levels of society, government, and state. For example, moving towards expanding the culture of music and promoting the correct behavioral literature among the elite body of the music community as the flag bearers of the country’s music is necessary because it has been seen in these years that some of the damages to music have not been from the government and the state, but because of the unethical and unprofessional behavior of the music community, and in this regard, culture building is necessary. Other important headings include research on the harms and challenges of folk music and creating preliminary platforms for the movement of Iranian music towards industrialization.
In conclusion, it should be noted that the world of human beings in the current era, in addition to speed, has become very deep and has many branches, and the importance of accuracy and definitions has become more important than ever, so defining folk music and its main indicators is necessary. We must be careful that we are defining folk music, not government music or political music that has an expiration date. Throughout history, different governments and thoughts have come and stopped and ended at a specific time, but the feelings springing from the flow of people’s lives have never stopped and ended, so we must move beyond governmental and political definitions in defining folk music, and this requires creating a national dialogue and movement.
Mohammad Mostafa Mehrabani (Bidel) | January 2022
