Critical Review #10: Meintjes 1990

Louise Meintjes in "Paul Simon's Graceland, South Africa, and the Mediation of Musical Meaning" discusses a number the semiotics of Paul Simon's Graceland album. She asserts that the album is primarily understood as a symbol of collaboration, which is interpreted in a number of different lights by various populations in South Africa. Simon encodes the idea of collaboration into his album by emphasizing the creative process which involved a number of indigenous South African musicians and the union of multiple distinct indigenous musical traditions. While Simon prominently gives credit to a few of his collaborators -- particularly Ladysmith Black Mambazo -- he does so inconsistently. There is a subtext of colonialism and a power dynamic in his work due to the work's commercial nature, and the fact that Simon is from a powerful Western nation. He also leaves the album's message open to interpretation by making no overt references of the state's political situation. White South Africans have a number of responses which emphasize the nonracial aspects of collaboration. The album can serve a nationalist purpose by facilitating the creation of a nonracial South African music culture in which White South Africans can claim indigenous music as their own. Also, it serves to Westernize African music and make it more palatable to White South African audience. Liberal and Conservative Whites alike can utilize Graceland as a tool for reform; either as a vision of future racial cooperation, or as an example of such successful cooperation under the current regime. Black South Africans, on the other hand, emphasize the international aspects of the Graceland collaboration. Recognition from a prominent Western artist lends them international legitimacy and establishes their music as potentially lucrative commodity both abroad and at home. While this serves to give more power to Black South Africans, it also compromises the music's value to some. Furthermore, the records relationship with the liberation movement is controversial, as it both promotes Black culture and violates international sanctions on the South African for the maintenance of Apartheid. Clearly, Graceland's multifaceted relationship with South Africa makes it a topic for much debate. Its collaborative nature allows it to be utilized for a number of different purposes by groups with vastly different interests.

Discussion question:
Meintjes assumes that collaboration is the basic message of Graceland to be interpreted by South Africans. But what else might it signify either in South Africa or the international community?

Critical Review #9: Miller 2004

In her essay "First Sing the Notes" Miller discusses modes of transmission in the Sacred Harp tradition. She explores a dichotomy between oral and written transmission. On the one hand, aspects of the tradition are passed down orally to knew members, simply because so much of it is unwritten. Practices such as raising the sixth scale degree in the minor mode, conventions for leading, and parameters for embellishment on the musical line must be learned from attending singings and gaining experience. In addition, non-standard local practices are passed down orally. Most striking is the case study of the Lee family, which developed its own highly idiosyncratic tradition in isolation from the larger Sacred Harp community over the course of a few generations. Because so much must be learned from experience, most new members, even musically literate ones, face similar challenges acquiring fluency with the shapenote notation. Nevertheless, Sacred Harp also has a rich written history. The Sacred Harp book has been revised multiple times, each revision changing the repertoire from which the singers may choose. The book is not merely an artifact with symbolic significance. It is a living document that changes and develops, and has the power to alter tradition.

Discussion question: In what ways does the emphasis on oral transmission in Sacred Harp strengthen the tradition's bonds to the past or distance modern practice from older practices, or both?

Critical Review #8: Campbell 1997

Campbell's essay discusses the period of fracture and change in shapenote singing around the turn of the 20th century. In the late 19th century, a number of innovative styles branched off from the original tradition, including new pedagogical systems using seven shapes instead of the older four and the new genre of gospel singing. While the original shapenote tradition had been born of innovation during the time of the Second Great Awakening at the beginning of the 19th century, many Southerners nearly a hundred years later began to view the tradition as immutable, representing their uniquely rural way of life and way of worshipping. This yearning for constancy in the tradition was especially relevant in light of socioeconomic changes in the "New South," including to the growth of urban areas, cultivation of cash crops, and industry. After a number of revisions to the Sacred Harp failed to integrate the new notational system and songs into the tradition, Joseph James's The Original Sacred Harp was published in 1911. James promised that his edition was not trying to be new, but rather upholding tradition and preserving the old style. Nevertheless, Campbell points out, James's various publications are really a milestone in the invention of tradition. In other anthologies, he included a number of new gospel songs in the original four-shape notation that was able to cater to more conservative singers. Perhaps more importantly, he mediated the invention of a shapenote singing tradition that valued preservation, history, and nostalgia.

Challenge Question Response

In this post, I consider Kenna's first challenge question:

 In her chapter Moving Deborah Wong states that people invested in “elite western forms of performance are susceptible to certain ideological problems, including… the understanding that performing is categorically different from everyday life.” (Bartz & Cooley 2008, p. 80). In your opinion, is this understanding problematic, and if so, how? Do you feel that this assumption reflects any truths about the nature of performance? Does Wong’s described disconnect between performance and everyday life exist uniquely in western art music, or does it also apply to other musical cultures? Draw from your own experiences and thoughts as well as examples from readings and web supplements.   

Wong's indictment of "elite western forms of performance" is certainly controversial. Rather than decide immediately whether it is right or wrong, it is perhaps better to first discuss different conceptions of what a performance truly is. 

Titon in his textbook Worlds of Music would argue that a performance is fundamentally "separate from  the flow  of ordinary life" (Titon 2009; p. 15). Indeed, performance often has significant ritual elements that strive to separate it from "everyday life" in a number of music cultures. Notably, normal social dynamics are altered during performance in many cultures. Certainly, one can see an orchestra performance as an ornate ritual which prescribes certain roles to the participants that they may not occupy outside the performance. The concert hall is silent awaiting the entrance of the conductor, even when many spectators have come with friends and family with whom they would normally talk. The conductor is applauded by the audience upon his appearance, even by world leaders who would command that sort of deference from the conductor himself outside the context of performance. Similarly, Agawu describes from his experiences in the field in Ghana the tradition of "songs of insult" (2003; p. 208). Normally egalitarian African societies that rely on cooperation between members to function condone the explicit insulting of individuals in the highly specialized context of musical performance. Similarly, Peruvian performers of pumpin music began to use musical performance as a platform for controversial political criticism and social commentary. The privileged status of music encouraged these performers to engage in such risky behaviors despite the consequences for political dissidents in Peru at the time. In these cases, the rules for everyday life seem to checked at the door to the metaphorical concert hall. In performances such as these, participants enter into mutual agreement to behave within a certain set of parameters. This not to say that all music cultures strive to establish this boundary which sets performance apart, but it appears at least to be a goal of many music cultures.

On another level, however, it may not be possible for any human activity to exist apart from everyday life. Are not the societal rules that govern ordinary behavior also the same one's that dictate when performance is to occur? In this sense, performance is subservient to everyday life. In Titon's view of performance, a Sacred Harp singing is separate from everyday live, able to operate under its own code of conduct, which would demand that all singers be treated and viewed equally. However, if the Queen of England were to come to a singing, no participant could truly isolate her relative importance in everyday life from her equal role at the singing. Even more than that, all the singers belong to a society which allows the singing to exist and places value on the context of Sacred Harp performance. Without the permission of the broader society, the singing could not exist. This is perhaps the view that Wong is espousing. Performers and spectators of western art music want to act as though attending an orchestra concert is fundamentally different from brushing their teeth or driving to work. However, like those mundane "everyday life" activities, musical performance occurs in a regular, predictable way. Every week on Friday night, you can hear the James Levine conduct the BSO in Symphony Hall, just like every morning at seven you can see James Levine brush his teeth in his bathroom. It would be just as inappropriate for him to brush his teeth in a tuxedo as it would be for him conduct the BSO in his bathrobe.

In this case, perhaps it is the attempts of the society to separate and elevate performance, not the inherent separateness of the performance itself, that helps to define it. Wong's criticism cites this goal of western art music as problematic, when in fact it is a very common attitude in music cultures of the world. While this may be a music culture that is often exclusionary, that perpetuates strict class structures, and that is used to devalue other musics, it does not necessarily follow that this elitism is due to the separateness of performance. Such class dynamics are characteristic of western society over its long history. Even relatively egalitarian Sacred Harp or African music cultures strive to establish boundaries between performance and non-performance. In response to Wong, then, while it may be problematic for the ethnographer to view performance as fundamentally separate in his or her efforts to contextualize the music culture within its respective society, it is not problematic for music cultures to value such a separation.

Critical Review #7: Miller

The introduction and first chapter of Kiri Miller's Traveling Home provides a brief overview of the history and modern landscape of Sacred Harp singing. Originally part of a movement of democratizing musical training across the United States, Sacred Harp singing eventually found its stronghold in the rural south, where it became associated with poor, white, Scotch-Irish populations. Today, as singing spreads to more diverse urban populations across the country, the historical, racial, and regional origins of this music culture have a number of implications. Among Sacred Harp singers, nostalgia and reverence for a disappearing era, an agrarian "medieval" South clashes with the invention of tradition in contemporary diaspora communities. These diaspora communities have a number of distinctive features that are having widespread affects on the practice of Sacred Harp singing. Pilgrimages to faraway conventions, particularly to those in the South, are an important aspect of joining this community to a number of members of these new diaspora communities. People are no longer motivated primarily for the sake of worship within Southern Protestant systems, but have a number of reasons for singing, including emotional expression, musical appreciation, and more individualized forms of worship.

Discussion question: How is it possible that so many people can respond to Sacred Harp singing both with a fascination with its exoticism and "otherness" and also with its familiarity? How does this paradoxical state relate to other liminal or insider/outsider states that members of other music cultures, such as Deborah Wong and Kofi Agawu, occupy?

Challenge Questions

1. The crisis of representation brought around major shifts in how ethnographers textualized their research. Modern ethnography is reflexive, based on the ethnographers own subjective experience, far removed from the positivist approach of the past. In this class, we have been exposed mostly to work done after this theoretical upheaval. As students, how does reflexivity affect how we relate to ethnographic work? In comparison to the the few examples of older ethnographies we have read, in what ways are these modern works more and/or less easy to understand and learn from? How might other groups of people potentially interested in this work, such as hobbyists and ethnomusicologists, be affected by reading these newer works?

2. The ethnographer's relationship with the people who are his or her subjects is both highly essential and complex. Titon describes forming friendships with subjects as both a goal and a consequent of fieldwork in his "friendship model" (in Barz and Cooley 2008: 37-40). On the other hand, Wong asserts that "the ethnographer is always an outsider" (in Barz and Cooley 2008: 82). And Shelemay becomes somehow both an outsider and more of an insider than her subjects when she is asked by them to mediate tradition to the community she studies itself in the role of "expert" (in Barz and Cooley 2008: 151). How is it possible for the ethnographer to assume these many roles at once? How can these roles be seen as beneficial, harmful, or incidental to the processes of fieldwork and ethnography?

Critical Review #6: Kaminsky

In this article Kaminsky explores the role of gender in Swedish Polska dancing. Like many folk dance traditions, the genre typically reinforces a gender binary, prescribing different roles to men and women encouraging flirtation between the sexes. However, in modern Sweden, Kaminsky notes, gender roles are less strict and gender equality is actively sought out, leading to a number of changes in the dance tradition. Same sex dancing partnerships, regardless of the participants' sexual orientations, grow more common, and dancers are beginning to take on certain roles in the dance characteristic of the opposite gender. The element of flirtation, however, remains largely heterosexual (or homosexual interactions are underreported), or heteronormative in the few cases of overt homosexual flirtation. Women usually take on weak, submissive roles and men chivalrous, dominant roles in flirtations. A number of factors also discourage flirtation, such as the danger of assault or of appearing loose, and even the choreography of the dance itself.

Discussion question: Why are the sexual undertones of Polska not so openly discussed if they are generally present? What does this tell us about the nature of sex in this culture?

Field Research Interview

Below are some excerpts from my interview with Simon, a sophomore and Brown, who has been involved in BUGS in a various capacities since his first semester.

Alex: What is the history of your involvement with BUGS?

Simon: I read the website of the organization the summer before I joined Brown...and I though, “Oh, I should totally audition for this,” and having never auditioned for any opera, music theater, anything before, I just ended up in the chorus....And then in the spring semester I auditioned a bit more seriously and I got cast is Wilfred in Yeomen of the Guard.

...

Alex: Do you think a lot of people that join BUGS haven't had a lot acting experience, like yI ou?

Simon: ...Perhaps maybe a fifty/fifty split of the new recruits between those who have theater experience and those who don't. Although, those who do have theater experience going into BUGS, perhaps that theater experience is more likely to be like operatic experience rather than regular theater.

Alex: Do you think that there's any kind of divide between people who are theater veterans and people who are sort of new to the craft...?

Simon: I do feel that sometimes people who end up in BUGS, end up in the choruses of BUGS sometimes kind of realize that there's no real hope of progressing for them because they're not really good enough...to actually have a lead role and so are destined to be stuck in the choruses, so maybe there's a divide there.

Alex: Do those people tend to stick around?

Simon: Actually those do tend to people the people who sometimes stick around in BUGS, although obviously they sometimes leave because of that. But what I'm saying is that the kind of people who would more reliably get proper acting roles in BUGS shows kind of then, despite the fact that they can get it, don't have much interest having done it a couple of times. They want to go on to bigger and better theater things.

Alex: So are you saying that BUGS sort of occupies a lower rung on the ladder in terms of theater at Brown?

Simon: Yes. For example, BUGS, I've noticed always makes sure to mention other theater productions going on just before they start each performance, but I went to the Musical Forum review on Saturday evening, and they had a similar segment just before their show began, but they specifically omitted BUGS's show. BUGS's show is going up not for a while, however they mentioned a show that was going up in December, so I found that curious.

Alex: How about the social life of BUGS? Do you feel like it tends to a close knit group?

Simon: I get the impression that in the past it was a quite close knit group. I don't know if you know anything about BUGS parties, but there's been a kind of tradition in BUGS that there are these parties, both around the show and at random points in the year in which lots of Gilbert and Sullivan will be sung, not the current show, just Gilbert and Sullivan for the pleasure of it. And then there were people who got involved in BUGS who like to go to parties that aren't really like that. So there's a little sort of divide, that's one rift within BUGS.

Alex: So you're saying there's kind of a hard-core group...defined by their interest in Gilbert and Sullivan?

Simon: Yeah, I feel like there was that hard-core group and they've kind of disappeared...Those people have kind of vanished. They've mostly graduated, to be honest. And most of the new people they recruited while they were at Brown enjoy Gilbert and Sullivan, but not in that way. And that may be one reason why BUGS is kind of, in my view, declining.

….

Alex: So what is your current involvement with BUGS?

Simon: I sit on the board of BUGS....I offered my services for accompanying their rehearsals because I play piano, and then I kind of backed out of that arrangement because of my frustration with how I think their show is going to turn out this semester...I've become involved in other theater groups on campus, specifically Production Workshop and Musical Forum, and I've been accompanying. I haven't transitioned to acting for any of those groups yet...but I think it's a possible thing for the future.

Alex: And how has your experience with those other theater groups compared with your experience with BUGS?

Simon: I mean, it's just when it comes to auditioning and calling back people, it's just the complete reverse. Rather than BUGS which has a dearth of people, and particularly a dearth of talented people, who want to be involved with the show, things like PW and MF have many, many people....They could pick and choose for every part, and they can pick and choose for their choruses as well. Unlike BUGS, I guess...you can question the cause and effect here, BUGS actually has, I believe, something in their policies so that anyone who wants to be in the chorus for show can be. It's not like they turn down people....We've had a couple of kind of difficult people in the past, one still now, who wanted to be on the board but weren't elected to the board but then wanted to turn up to meetings and were essentially told that they could not do so. But that's a consequence of having this policy where you're kind of open to anyone being involved.

Alex: So are there sometimes people who the rest of the group would rather that they weren't sticking around and singing and acting and being involved in politics?

Simon: I think you could say that...I don't know what it is, but Gilbert and Sullivan is certainly a niche appreciated piece of culture in the twenty-first century, and for whatever reason the people who do appreciate it perhaps tend to not be your people who are most easy to get on with.

Critical Review #5 -- "Confronting the Field(note)" (Barz)

In his article "Confronting the Field(note) In and Out of the Field" Gregory Barz discusses the fieldnote from an epistemological viewpoint, and argues that its role in the process of learning in the field and textualizing experience in an ethnography outside of the filed is an active, not a passive, one. He uses his own research on Tanzanian kwayas as a case study throughout the article. In practice, he explains, a fieldnote is the intermediate step between experience and textualization, but it is not a simple memory device or lifeless artifact from the field. He explains that writing notes is not the only way to learn, especially in light of the fact that members of the kwaya are expected to learn by ear. He goes on to explain that a dialogue between experience and interpretation occurs during the process of writing and reading field notes. One's "original experience" is altered by the very fact of writing and organizing one's thoughts in note, and the ethnographer may have very different views after writing a note than before. Similarly, interpreting field notes outside of the field makes the ethnographer aware of new points of view that he or she may not have understood while writing the note. In fact, writing and reading themselves are experiences distinct from the "original experience." Rather than a linear progression from field research to fieldnote to ethnography, Barz proposes a model in which the fieldnote is a movable fulcrum whose position affects the balance between experience and interpretation. Barz's article challenges ethnographers to think about the nature of the notes that they write and view them as more than simply texts.

Discussion question: In Barz's view, a fieldnote is a trigger for experience rather than a memory. The point of ethnography is to relate experience. But can an experience that must be translated and transfigured through writing, reading, and finally writing again into an ethnography really accomplish this goal?

Fieldnotes excerpt

I observed a rehearsal for Brown University Gilbert and Sullivan on 10/8/12 from 9:30-11:10. All names are changed for privacy.

9:25 -- I arrive 5 minutes early. I am a little put off by how empty the building is. Where is everyone? Am I in the wrong place, or are the directors so disorganized that they don't even show up on time?

9:30 -- Emma, the music director [who I know previously from music classes and work and with whom I previously corresponded], arrives. She is on the phone talking to the director (?) and seems as confused as I do. Apparently rehearsal starts at 10...

9:35 -- Emma I and sita chat waiting for rehearsal to start. She mentions that the singers are going to start rehearsing with the pit soon, something she is pleased about. Apparently in the past, singers didn't rehearse with the pit until tech week. Is there a big divide between cast members and pit members? Do the two groups get to know each other/make friends by the time of the show?

I mention some of my own experience as a singer in musicals not getting enough time to rehearse, particularly egregious when I was in Sweeney Todd. Emma is excited that I was in Sweeney and starts talking to me about Sondheim's music, which she seems to know well. What is here theater experience outside of BUGS?

Emma also mentions offhand that they like to rehearse the leads separately from the chorus because the chorus members are usually slower to learn music and don't all read staff notation. Is there a major divide in skill level between members?

9:45 -- Two men arrive. One is middle aged, does not appear to be a current Brown student. He expresses dismay that rehearsals are so late at night recently, especially in light of the fact that he is working. What is his history with BUGS?

Emma introduces me, they introduce themselves as Kurt and Dave, after which Emma adds that Kurt, the older one, is "our duke." Kurt seems amused at my ethnography, and starts talking about BUGS, apparently trying to help out with my project. He explains that it is unusual that there is a director and an assistant director, as well as a music director and assistant music director (Emma corrects, "co-music director"), ironic in light of the fact they are short-casted.

9:50 -- We get into the rehearsal room. It has a big mirror along the long wall like a dance studio and no chairs or piano. It strikes me as rather a bad location.

9:57 -- Emma starts playing the keyboard and Kurt and Dave sing along informally.

10:00 -- Rehearsal starts. Only three singers are rehearsing, but all four directors are present. I start to see Kurt's point from before.

One of the warmups that Emma leads is just rhythmic. The singers say "ta" on the beats and she conducts them, speeding up, slowing down, and giving them expressive cues. She clearly has a musical vision that she intends to communicate to her musicians with her conducting.

10:10 -- They do a harmonic warmup singing a simple chord progression. Dave is having a lot of trouble holding his part. Emma halts the exercise to teach Dave his part alone. Aaron, the other music director, interrupts and starts explaining triadic harmony to Dave, which seems to be confusing him more than anything. Dave keeps trying to sing the part, but always stops himself and apologizes.

Kurt is quite a strong singer, and appears to be more "in character" than the other cast members at rehearsal.

10:15 -- The start rehearsing a trio. Dave continues to have trouble holding his part. Aaron sings with Dave to give him more confidence. Emma sometimes corrects Dave's intonation even when he sings the right contour. Aaron seems more concerned with Dave singing the right notes, poorly tuned or not, and gives him more encouragement than Emma, saying after Emma's criticism "but the notes were all right." Is there a little tension or power struggle? Emma certainly is taking the lead, and Aaron is struggling a little to get his voice heard. Is Emma more senior, a more experienced musician? Or do they have a good cop/bad cop thing going?

10:22 -- A loud band is rehearsing in a nearby room, and the door to the BUGS rehearsal room is open. Emma jokingly mentions something she calls the "shock therapy group" that was rehearsing last time. Annie (one of the directors) is confused and Emma explains that there were people wailing in another room at a previous rehearsal and she gave them that name.

10:35 -- Emma makes a mistake while giving Dave some more one-on-one help. She jokes, "I need to loop [i.e. sing over and over] this myself!" trying to relieve the awkwardness of Dave's relatively slow learning.

10:37 -- Emma tries to help Dave by suggesting that he think of the note C for the whole passage to help ground himself in the key. She then refers to the passage as "one big Shenkerian C," which I laugh. Clearly a joke not meant for Dave, so I wonder why she mentioned it.

10:40 -- I notice that the directors have hardly said anything and are just on their laptops. What is the point of their presence at music rehearsals?

10:45 -- Kurt gives Dave advice every once in a while, now about holding a single pitch. Is he some kind of de facto authority or paternal figure?

11 -- Dave gets frustrated, and Aaron takes the lead for the first time and proposes an exercise. Everyone must tell an embarrassing secret in order to feel more comfortable and not be embarrassed or feel vulnerable while singing in rehearsal. He turns to me and tells me that I need to also, and I very enthusiastically accept.

Aaron starts with a very intense and personal secret, and everyone is a little put off. No one quite knows how to follow him. The rest of the secrets are much lighter. It's a bit tense. I'm not convinced the exercise is helpful. Why did Aaron do this? Was he trying to assert his authority a little?

Critical Review #4: The Ethics of Representation (Agawu)

In his article "The Ethics of Representation," Agawu explores ethicals in ethnographic research by focusing on ethical issues in fieldwork done on African music. He begins by discussing ethics broadly, and raises a number of rhetorical questions about who determines what is ethical and whether anything can truly be ethical. Moving on to fieldwork in Africa, it is often difficult to determine what constitues ethical performance in African music. Is it ethical if sacred aspects of music are obscured with increasing commercialization or if traditional songs use a canonical form of insult? Since ethical though in Africa and Euro-America are quite different, it is often unclear to the ethnographer writing for a Western audience how to act ethically. Agawu himself has had to use deception in the field to preserve the integrity of his research or to protect his and his team's wellbeing, actions that he argues are not unethical. Turning to the question of ethics in representation, he proposes that fictional ethnography may be ethical if it is somehow more true than reality. In reflexive ethnography, he asks, is it ethical to excludes elements of one's own experience in the ethnography or to emphasize certain details excessively? Agawu's article raises a lot of important questions, and does not seem to answer them in many specific ways. The crux of his argument, it seems, is that ethics is highly subjective and context dependent. It is not specific rules regarding action, he concludes, but an attitude that defines ethics.

Discussion question: Agawu's reference to an "ethical attitude" is very brief and barely elaborated on. What might this attitude consist of? What examples that he provides earlier in the article might illustrate it?

Critical Review #3: "Knowing Fieldwork" (Titon)

In his article "Knowing Fieldwork," Titon explores the issue of epistemology in ethnomusicology, or, more simply stated, what ethnomusicological knowledge consists of and how it is acquired and understood. He defines two different kinds of "knowing," explaining and understanding. The latter, with its emphasis on subjective human experience rather than the formulation of natural laws, is what he argues contemporary methods in ethnomusicology and fieldwork seek to accomplish. He refers to this modern ethnomusicological paradigm as the "study of people making music." Following these methods, knowledge is accessed phenomenologically, that is through the consciousness of the ethnographer as he or she experiences music. Titon adds that this knowledge can be presented in a number of ways, including narrative, film, and multimedia. In his postscript, he discusses friendships that arise from the process of making music and participant-observation. Two types of friendship, instrumental friendship -- in which there is a mutual, material benefit for each party -- and friendship based on mutual admiration and a shared musical experience, result from fieldwork and also affect the nature of knowledge acquired from fieldwork.

Discussion question: What does Titon's phenomenological sort of understanding actually allow us to know? Is it possible to translate an individual's experience into language and then for an outsider to glean meaning from it? Does this approach solve the "crisis of representation?" Does it result in other crises, perhaps even one's more serious than those it sets out to resolve?

SEM Post

Apparently, Ethnomusicology – both the field and the journal – has come a long way in the past 60 years. Just looking at the first issues from the 1950s, even the appearance of the journal looks outdated. The font looks like it came off a typewriter. In the “Notes and News” from 1953, the journal seems oddly quaint boasting about its mailing list of 437. It is also clear that the term ethnomusicology is not yet full accepted. It is still rendered sometimes as ethno-musicology and an early publication from the journal titled “On the Subject of Ethno-musicology” seems to be a defense of the title of the journal in which it is published. As far as actual fieldwork and ethnographic work being published in the journal, much of the language seems offensive.

In the article “A Study of Norms in the Tribal Music of Uganda,” the region being studied is described as a “laboratory for students of music,” as if these cultures are no more than classrooms for students that have been shipped overseas to learn from. This is an obvious representative of the colonial attitudes that later ethnographers tried to distance themselves from. The use of the phrase “vigorous jumping dances” is almost comical, but is in danger of being condescending and reductionist. Other ideas, however seem quite modern. The author states that the goal of this exhibit is “to get away from all tribal, savage or primitive valuations in the mind of the European.” In addition, the article seems more concerned with the arrangement of a museum exhibit on Ugandan instruments – dedicating an entire paragraph to the background colors display cases.

Other articles seem oddly lacking in ethnography. They are almost all under ten pages, and frequently very narrow. Many read like handbooks, like “The Rhythmic Orientation of Two Drums in the Japanese No Drama,” which is a technical inventory of terminology and rhythmic patterns. It is certainly not centered around the “affective experience” of the performers or the ethnographer, and it is not even clear who performed the fieldwork. Other articles, such as “The Society for Research in Asiatic Music; Its Aims, Functions, and Achievements” just alert readers to the formation of new institutions devoted to the study of Ethnomusicology. These articles, short in duration and very precursory in their treatment of topics, seem like articles from a newspaper, not an academic journal.

Letters to the editor provide a fascinating perspective on the minds of readers. “The Phonograph and Primitive Music” shows signs of colonial attitudes and positivism in statements like, “the phonograph is destined to become a most valuable aid in the investigation of savage music, but it must be used scientifically.” This contributor's choice of language juxtaposes with the proclamation in the article on Ugandan music discussed above that strives to European perceptions of “savageness” is non-Western music. Clearly, the world of Ethnomusicology at this time was very heterogeneous, and signs of both shockingly outdated and surprisingly modern viewpoints are present.

Ethnography Project Proposal -- BUGS

For my ethnography and fieldwork project, even before I decided on a topic, I knew I wanted to research a music culture that is well outside of my comfort zone. With that in mind, Brown University Gilbert and Sullivan (BUGS), is a rather surprising choice. BUGS is a student-run theater company at Brown that specializes in the comedic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, a librettist and composer whose collaborative works are hallmarks of Victorian English culture. As a singer who performed works of musical theater in high school, and whose good friends and sister have performed for BUGS, the group does not seem like one that would be very uncomfortable or unfamiliar to me. However, I always thought of myself as an outsider in theater -- a performer who resents the music culture that he is a part of. In high school, personal conflicts and changes in my musical taste led me to dislike my theater company and the works that I performed as a member of it, and since then I have avoided performing in stage works. Furthermore, though I am close with many participants in BUGS individually, I have always felt excluded socially from them as a group. In my experience, they are an extraordinarily close and dedicated group of people with a vibrant and sometimes perplexing culture that seems to repel outsiders. Clearly, I have considerable personal reasons to be interested in this music culture. I am determined, however, not to let my preconceived notions of BUGS and musical theater cloud my judgment and scholarship during the course of my research.

In order to conduct my research, I will attend rehearsals for BUGS's upcoming show Patience. I will also attend a performance and cast party. In addition, I will hold an interview with the music director of Patience and, if possible, with performers (past or present), crew members, and audience members. I am interested to see how, as a student-run group, authority is distributed and tasks accomplished. I am also curious as to how the Brown student body perceives this group of artists and their performances.

Questions that I will consider during my research include:

What is the experience of a performer in BUGS?

How do participants in BUGS view their theater company and other theater companies at Brown?

How do participants in BUGS evaluate their own performances?

How does the Brown community from individuals to members of other theater companies to the BDH evaluate BUGS?

How do members of BUGS interact both in the formal setting of the rehearsal and administrative tasks and in the informal setting of social gatherings?

Why do participants in BUGS choose this theater company over other theater companies at Brown?

How do participants in BUGS view the works of Gilbert and Sullivan?

How are past members and shows remembered by current members of BUGS?

How has BUGS changed during the course of its history?

How does my experience in musical theater compare to both the experiences of members of BUGS and  to my perception of BUGS gained from this fieldwork?

Critical Review #2: Anthony Seeger "Ethnography of Music"

Anthony Seeger in his article "Ethnography of Music" provides a very brief ethnography of a performance as a illustrative, generalizable example of a method of performance ethnography that he advocates in the article. This method is centered around asking a number of questions about the content (what and how), the significance (what and why) and the context (where and when) of a performance. These questions are asked not only of the researcher, but of the audience, performers, and other participants such as club owners. These various perspectives constitute the final question, who, and lead to a deeper understanding of the motivations and interpretations of those people involved in a performance. Seeger closes by urging the ethnographer to strive for a holistic view of the music culture, not a microscopic or exclusive view.

Discussion Question: What is the danger of viewing a performance from a single perspective, if indeed there is one? Are multiple perspectives always objectively better than one?

Soundscape: The Ivy Room

Soundscape in the Ivy Room 11:15-11:45

electrical buzz

chatter

laughing

spring loaded ice cream scoop

shoes squeaking

beat from unidentifiable song on radio

blender

knuckle cracking

chip bags crinkling

ice rattling in soda fountain

my housemate's voice

singing and electronic beat on radio

nails tapping

bottles clanking in trash can

slurping from straws

hands clapping in a high-fiv

plastic bottle cap snapping

banging on table

door slamming

metal trays banging

pencil tapping

I chose to observe the soundcape of the Ivy Room because I spend a lot of time there socializing and especially studying, and because I like to study there primarily because of the sounds there. Usually, I study alone because my preference for noise confuses many of my friends, who prefer quieter library settings. I like to study in a loud place with a lot of repetitive or constant sounds, which I find paradoxically to be a less distracting than relative silence. Paying attention to the level of noise in the Ivy Room, therefore, was a very different experience for me, as I am used to tuning it out. The very first thing I noticed was that the total resting level of noise was quite high. The constant electrical buzz from the lights and the refrigerators and chatter -- and the very frequent sound of the blender from the smoothy line -- were the biggest contributors to noise. The level of noise was so high that virtually no outside or natural noise was perceptible. Almost no sound was heard only once, so for the sake of brevity I only listed a given sound the first time I heard it. 

Grouping the sounds is an interesting exercise that I tried during my observations. One dichotomy was between human and non-human sounds. The vast majority of sounds were directly caused by humans present in the space, either with their voices or by making contact with inanimate objects. The only sounds that were not were the sounds of the radio and the electrical buzz. The human sounds can organized by the purpose of the actions with which they are associated. For instance, the sound of the ice cream scoop, blender, and soda fountain were associated with food production; chip bags crinkling, slurping from straws with food consumption; chatter, laughing, high-fiving with social interactions; and nails and pencils tapping with studying. 

In a bustling cafeteria, the sounds heard are associated with actions and with purpose. Even though the musical sounds that I heard were mostly unintelligible, this very fact suggests that their purpose was more for atmosphere than to be listened to. Most of the other sounds were just incidental to human activity. Even these sounds, however, contributed to an atmosphere that is interpreted by many groups of friends as conducive to socializing by a few people like me as conducive to studying.

Critical Review #1: Handler and Linnekin

In "Tradition, Genuine or Spurious," Handler and Linnekin discuss the concept of tradition, which, although popularly understood in an informal sense, is difficult to define rigorously. Two definitions of tradition are presented: the naturalistic one, which defines tradition as stable and objective, and the symbolic one, which argues that tradition is constantly in flux and subjective. Drawing from case studies in Quebec and Hawaii, the authors find that in those and presumably in all cultures, tradition is constantly reinterpreted in the present. Cultural elements that are perceived as traditional are so not because of some external reality of past practices and beliefs, but because of this perception itself. Additionally, in the cases of both Quebec and Hawaii, there is a sort of "chicken and the egg" question concerning the relationship of nationality and tradition. The desire for a national identity provides the impetus for the development of tradition, while shared tradition helps to define the nation itself. Ultimatiely, Handler and Linnekin find that the symbolic definition of tradition is the more useful one.

Discussion question: Edward Shils posits that culture develops in almsot imperceptibly small steps in a way that Handler and Linnekin compare "organisms that grow and change while yet remaining themselves." Although the authors' phrasing of this viewpoint states that cultures do not stop being themselves, could a form of cultural speciation in which cultures do indeed morph into new cultures be possible? Why or why not? And if so, how might this process come to be?