Performativity in Game: The Case of “Yüzen Oda” in Ankara Jam Sessions

Year 2021, Issue: 20, 19 - 34, 07.12.2021

Selim Tan

Abstract

Yüzen Oda, a musical collective formed by a gathering of musicians with common tendencies and intentions, is a game builder agent that leads jam sessions in venues that include Noxus, Alerta, and Haymatlos Mekân in Ankara, Turkey. Yüzen Oda, continuing the jam sessions in Haymatlos Mekân since 2018, organizes a process whereby non-collective/guest musicians can participate as they wish without limiting themselves to a certain music genre or style. Yüzen Oda plays a pioneering role in determining the jam session etiquette, which includes sociomusical aesthetic values that are effective in the functioning of the jam session and influence the participant as soon as they are involved. This paper uses Butler’s and Hajer’s approaches to examine how performativity works in jam sessions, which are conceived as a Bourdieusian game, from an ethnomusicological perspective. With the ethnographic fieldwork carried out in this context, the performative functioning of the game is revealed through the data obtained from agents such as collective member musicians, guest musicians, audience members, and the venue manager.

Keywords

Jam session, Game, Performativity, Ankara, Yüzen Oda, Ethnomusicology

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