Controlled Disorder in Polymusic: The Case of the Seto Wedding Song Genre Kaasitamine

Abstract

The term ‘polymusic’, which has been in use in ethnomusicology since the 1990s, designates musical practices where two or more autonomous musical entities are deliberately performed in the same space and time in a largely uncoordinated manner. The musical texts – which may be the same or different – that are juxtaposed in a polymusical performance may also be performed separately; when performed together, however, they constitute a new complex hypertext which has new meanings and functions and may to some extent be musically coordinated. Nevertheless, polymusical performance always engenders some kind of musical disorder which, being deliberately produced, can be characterized as a controlled disorder. Such disorder is a means to accomplish the ritual functions to which the polymusical genres are usually related and to induce some specific psychological effects, which are often connected with the manipulation of time and space. In this study the theoretical, ethnographic and cognitive questions of polymusic are discussed with reference to the case of the kaasitamine, the Seto wedding song genre from South-East Estonia. This research reveals the different traditional forms of kaasitamine performance characterised by the different balance between coordinated and uncoordinated components, analyses the more subtle mechanisms for the creation of controlled disorder, and considers the possible psychological effects of polymusic in relation to an altered perception of time.