Cultural Memory and Music

This article aims at discussing the relationship between cultural memory and music in the scope of folklore and music by mainly analysing the functional aspects of music in terms of formation, transmission and maintenance cultural memory’s vitality and the role of cultural memory in building the social identity. In this sense, rather than discussing the subject with a specific sample, the article intends to analyse the subject by taking its basic characteristics into consideration. Within this scope, this article attempts to address the effects and contributions of “recording”, “invitation” and “communication”, or in other words “poetic from”, “ritual offering” and “group participation”, which are essential conditions for the formation, transmission and maintenance of cultural memory’s vitality, the transmission and maintenance of cultural memory in the scope of music. It is seen that music is a structural part of cultural memory_ beyond its function in the formation, transmission and maintenance of continuity of cultural memory_ in collective or individual performances and impersonations for the rituals which we have exemplify in various parts of our article as in conducting rituals, in performances and presentations of arts such as folk dances and theatre, in teaching of the professional holders of cultural memory in the frame of master-apprentice relationship and transmission of their performances by communicating with audience, in transmission of poetical texts of folk literature, such as myth, epic, folk story, mani, lullaby etc., in rituals or different performances and in many more fields. The article does not have any purpose but to present in general the functions of music in the transmission and maintenance of continuity of cultural memory. As a matter of fact, a more in-depth study or studies on such a comprehensive subject will exceed the limitations of a single article. At the same time, it is certain that the studies with a more limited coverage over different examples will provide a wide analysis on the functions of music in the transmission of cultural memory