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Usually when we read poems or novels and when we look at paintings or sculptures we find ourselves transported away from our ―ordinary world‖ into ―imaginary worlds‖ that these works of art create. The movement into these imaginary worlds becomes possible when we immerse ourselves into the works of art in question. In some of these imaginary worlds, we encounter people sing, play music instruments and dance to music. Some other times we also encounter people talk about music and their musical experiences. On my part, every time I encounter such musical moments, as it is the case when I am in my ordinary world, I pay attention and enjoy the musical experience. Most often these musical experiences call for subsequent reflections. As a student of the music cultures of Tanzania, I have witnessed in recent years the increasingly growing number of scholarly works concerning music cultures of Tanzania. However, none of the studies I know focus on the imaginary music cultures which I often encounter in the works of art. Since imaginary musical cultures are part of everyday human experiences, these imaginary music cultures need our scholarly attention for a more comprehensive understanding of music cultures in Tanzania, an attention that the present study pays. The aim of this study, therefore, is to explore the imaginary music cultures created in and through literary and visual works of art by Tanzanian artists, and to examine how music or some of its elements such as music styles, music instruments or voice are used in the context of the imaginary music cultures within selected works of art as figures of social identities and/or relations. |
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