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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment