Third Critical Review: Knowing Fieldwork (Titon)

Jeff Titon's chapter, Knowing Fieldwork, addresses a few contrasting ideologies - some related to ethnomusicology and fieldwork, others more related to the idea of understanding, perception and knowledge. He begins by, and addresses throughout, the difference between explanation and understanding. His brief statement concludes that explanation 'drives toward law', and understanding 'drives toward agreement ... through lived experience'. He discusses a few examples of his own experiences with fieldwork - listening to Son House tell stories about the 1920's and seeking experience with an old time string band. One of his concluding statements is "In this chapter I have maintained that we have usually sought to explain musical sounds, concepts, and behavior rather than to understand musical experience."

I'm not sure if one can reduce the spectrum of human perception to two (ambiguous) titles. Is it not experience when a young physics student measures the acceleration due to the gravity of the Earth? Are performing musicians not exploiting known 'laws' or musical 'facts' when they play within a certain paradigm? Is explanation really sufficient when trying to wrap your mind around difficult concepts in any discipline? Obviously the scholar strives for understanding in every part of his or her education, not just the humanities.

I think that Titon is over simplifying 'knowledge' and the rest of his article suffers because of weak foundation he established.

Second Critical Review: Virtual Fieldwork

This chapter in Shadows in the Field is a set of case studies done by Timothy Cooley, Katherine Meizel and Nasir Syed. The three authors discuss the advantages and disadvantages of virtual fieldwork, which is to say fieldwork done via new media (also described as 'hypermedia') as well as more traditional modes of communication, such as the telephone or letter writing. All three come to the conclusion that while this new media helps bring people together, it is by no means a replacement for fieldwork done in a face to face setting. Cooley concludes that "fieldwork should happen wherem usic happens" (page 106). This seems to be the underlying theme of the case study.

At one point in the conclusion, Cooley states "we must consider to what degree the World Wide Web actually brings people closer together, and to what degree distance learning means that we are learning distance." This made me wonder if we are, in fact, distancing ourselves from other cultures by using new technologies to study and learn. How do you define this "distance"? Because two different cultures adopt different technologies, does create more distance (as opposed to the situation where the two are on the same technological level, but just separated by practices, traditions and values)?

Also, will this new availability of virtual fieldwork will entice ethnomusicologists back into a sort of "armchair musicology"?

SEM History Post

In Volume 1, No. 2 (Aug 1954) of Ethnomusicology, various readers contribute to a section of the periodical called “Notes and News”. In this section, a reader and ethnomusicologist named F.A. Kuttner wrote a short blurb voicing his concern about the direction of this young field of study. He states:

Again, I am concerned about ... the question of methods and methodology of ethno-musicology ... I have come to believe that the whole system of comparative methods is obsolete and inadequate, and that something else and much better will have to replace it if we are going to expect any significant progress in the near future.

In this second publication, F.A. Kuttner plainly states that he feels ‘comparative musicology’ is an inadequate form of study. He doesn’t offer an alternative and it seems to me (after some Google-ing), that his name and works are lost but for perhaps a small group of ethnomusicologists.

On the other hand, the ethnomusicologist Bruno Nettl has written volumes about the subject. His name lights up the Internet when Google’d. Soon after reading the first volume of Ethnomusicology, I stumbled upon the article Transposition as a Composition Technique in Folk and Primitive Music (Volume 2, No. 2, May, 1958). On page 56 Bruno Nettl begins his paper with the sentence, “Among the various composition devices found in folk and primitive music, transposing a section to various pitch levels is one of the most widespread.” I’m not as interested in the note about transposition as I am in his rhetoric. As we read in Helen Myers’ first chapter on ethnomusicology, a lot of these terms were commonplace and slowly died out. However, upon continuing, I discovered that one of his most used devices is comparison to Western music. His third paragraph starts with,

The use of a section, theme, or motif at different pitch levels is part and parcel of Western art music and has been so for centuries... But in folk and primitive music we rarely, if ever, find development of themes and motifs, and thus transposition does not function, as it does in most art music, as a development device.

The blanket statement that no ‘primitive (in reference to ‘other’) music’ develops themes or motifs (or in other words, does not develop ideas) is a clearly an employment of comparative methodology. Another example can be found on page 62. “Music with a small range must of necessity make use of small transposing intervals; here are included those very simple cultures whose scales and melodies are restricted to a small number of tones.” His use of the word ‘simple’ astounds me, as he isn’t even referring to the music of the culture, but the culture itself. While I’m not surprised at the content and comparative musicology presented in this early issue, I am surprised at Bruno Nettl’s prevalence as an ethnomusicologist, even today. His tune and technique must have gone through some changes in his papers dating from the 1970’s through today.

Despite F.A. Kuttner’s lack of alternative to comparative musicology, his forsight has garnered my respect. I would imagine that upon reading Nettl’s article in this later issue, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disgust. This backward step in the discipline surprised me.

Fieldwork Topic - Klezmer Band

I've decided to study the klezmer band at Brown, Yarmulkazi.  Part of my interest is that I've never studied (or really listened to) any music of this genre.  Perhaps a more traditional background would be best before I listen to Yarmulkazi, including listening to some recordings and reading about klezmer music.  

The klezmer band at Brown, Yarmulkazi, describes itself as playing "traditional klezmer (Eastern European Jewish folk music) as well as modern interpretations including klezmer-jazz and klezmer-rock fusion."   This description immediately reminded me of the Mauvais Sort YouTube video.  Yarmulkazi raises questions associated with 'tradition'.  What exactly is there tradition?  Is this music secular?  Is it founded upon liturgical roots?  Is the music, as interpreted by Brown's Klezmer band, in the same style as 'traditional' klezmer music, or is there a discontinuity?  

I hope to be able to answer those questions as well as come up with new ones.  

Shelemay Critical Review (Barz and Cooley, ch 9)

Shelemay discusses the active role of the ethnomusicologist in the field.  She approaches this subject through the dichotomy of the ethnomusicologist and the anthropologist-musicologist.  She clearly falls in the former group, as she has become an active member in the communities she has studied.  In the ethnomusicologist's role of transmission, she sums up three common ways a fieldworker is implicated - preserving tradition, memorializing tradition and mediating tradition.  After discussing these three points, she concludes that all three are important roles for a fieldworker, and then lays out a set of guidelines for anyone studying in the field.  Ultimately she concludes that people aren't studying some "culture" or "field", but instead establishing relations with a "stream of individuals to whom we are subsequently linked in new ways" (page 153).  

One question I have is why does an outside observer have to infiltrate a culture to extract information?  I know Kiri mentioned the professor at Harvard who felt that instead of educating ethnomusicologists here, they should be educating ethnomusicologists in other cultures.  This would make it easier to establish a relationship built on a foundation of sharing knowledge.  

24 Hour Music Log

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

9:54 am - I wake up to silence and try to fall back asleep
10:20 am - I give up and turn on the TV. 'Live Free or Die Hard' is on. I hear lots of sound effects and Marco Beltrami's pretty standard action score. This is all heard through monitors attached to my computer.
11:45 am - A friend and I drive to a nike outlet store. We listen to my ipod through the tape deck in the car stereo.
- We listen to a muffled Miles Davis (My Funny Valentine Concert) underneath some conversation
- We switch to the Secret Machines, 'Now Here is Nowhere' 
12:30 pm - In the store rap and hip-hop is playing over the store's PA system. I don't recognize any artists.
1:25 pm - We drive back to campus. We listen to my ipod again. I'm driving this leg and my friend turns up the speakers louder than I had before.
- Smashing Pumpkins - first few songs of 'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness'
- Radiohead - 'Hail to the Thief'
2:00 pm - I meet with other Comp Sci TAs. I hear no music.
4:00 pm - I work on a CS project for a few hours in the CIT with only sounds of typing and chair swivels.
4:30 pm - A friend's ringtone emits some techno music
8:00 pm - I walk to Wickenden St. I hear a car drive by with a loud bassline thumping, but I cannot hear the higher frequencies.
12:00 am - Back in my room I turn on Johnny Greenwood's score for 'There Will Be Blood' and listen to it while I work. I listen through monitors in my room.
1:55 am - I fall asleep to sounds of the movie 'Waiting'. It's soundtrack consists of some rock songs, and I don't really notice the score.