’Roots in the age of YouTube’: Old and Contemporary Modes of Learning/Teaching in Serbian Frula Playing

Abstract

During the first two decades of new millennium Serbian frula playing has been transformed from traditional to neotraditional practice, grew from aural to digitally mediated musical expression and shifted from a relative continuity with the past to specific revivalistic tendencies. The mode of learning of the music has also transformed from aural transmission and memorization without a teacher to combined tutoring and learning via listening to digitally available sources.  This paper traces the modes of learning of folk aerophone frula throughout the twentieth century and up to the present, and moreover analyzes how the relation of the teacher and the pupil, although being a recent invention in frula practice, serves as a counterbalance to the mediatized way of learning (of) music.