The Sakakeeny and Miller articles are both representative of recent ethnomusicological study as demonstrated by the questions they address, their strategies for addressing these questions, and their knowledge and use of the work of other ethnomusicologists. Sakakeeny focuses heavily on music and the politics of place, while Miller’s focus is more on performance, personal authenticity, and gender/sexuality. In addition, both authors explore to some degree the question of noise, the evaluation of sound according to different people. These themes have all been brought up previously this semester in our study of ethnomusicological literature.

The emphasis on fieldwork is also clear in both examples. I don’t believe either of them mentioned reading an article on fieldwork techniques in their bibliography, but it is clear from how they describe their experiences that they are familiar with particular contemporary fieldwork strategies. For example, they both participated in the activities described and explicitly talked about the fact that they did so – Sakakeeny attending (and filming) the second line under the bridge, and Miller playing hours and hours of guitar hero/rock band. They were surely not taking the “armchair” approach, although they did, fortunately, also read up on their topics of study.

Which brings us to the evidence of other works (some technically ethnomusicological, some just important to ethnomusical study) in their articles. In Sakakeeny, a couple of the authors that stood out to me were Steven Feld, Charles Hirschkind, Murray Schafer, and Emily Thompson. The heart of Sakakeeny’s article is about the place under bridge I-10 in (or on the edge of) the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans. His discussion of this space, in my opinion, may have been heavily influenced by Thompson’s writings on acoustics and architecture, as well as perhaps the physicality of listening to music as ventured by Hirschkind. Miller’s bibliography included notable authors such as Jacques Attali, Philip Auslander, Mark Katz, Murray Schafer, and Brian Sutton-Smith. Auslander’s work appears to have resonated with Miller on the topic of discussing the complexity performance, a critical theme in her discussion of the virtual games. Schafer was included in both bibliographies, which I think is notable, as I think his writing is applicable to most any study on sound, at least tangentially. In addition, it is important to include that the variety of types of sources in the bibliographies in itself is suggestive of the approach of an ethnomusicologist, from local to international subjects, scholarly works to blogposts, and historic as well as contemporary literature from a handful of disciplines (especially history, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and musicology, or a combination thereof).

The Sakakeeny and Miller articles are both representative of recent ethnomusicological study as demonstrated by the questions they address, their strategies for addressing these questions, and their knowledge and use of the work of other ethnomusicologists. Sakakeeny focuses heavily on music and the politics of place, while Miller’s focus is more on performance, personal authenticity, and gender/sexuality. In addition, both authors explore to some degree the question of noise, the evaluation of sound according to different people. These themes have all been brought up previously this semester in our study of ethnomusicological literature.

The emphasis on fieldwork is also clear in both examples. I don’t believe either of them mentioned reading an article on fieldwork techniques in their bibliography, but it is clear from how they describe their experiences that they are familiar with particular contemporary fieldwork strategies. For example, they both participated in the activities described and explicitly talked about the fact that they did so – Sakakeeny attending (and filming) the second line under the bridge, and Miller playing hours and hours of guitar hero/rock band. They were surely not taking the “armchair” approach, although they did, fortunately, also read up on their topics of study.

Which brings us to the evidence of other works (some technically ethnomusicological, some just important to ethnomusical study) in their articles. In Sakakeeny, a couple of the authors that stood out to me were Steven Feld, Charles Hirschkind, Murray Schafer, and Emily Thompson. The heart of Sakakeeny’s article is about the place under bridge I-10 in (or on the edge of) the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans. His discussion of this space, in my opinion, may have been heavily influenced by Thompson’s writings on acoustics and architecture, as well as perhaps the physicality of listening to music as ventured by Hirschkind. Miller’s bibliography included notable authors such as Jacques Attali, Philip Auslander, Mark Katz, Murray Schafer, and Brian Sutton-Smith. Auslander’s work appears to have resonated with Miller on the topic of discussing the complexity performance, a critical theme in her discussion of the virtual games. Schafer was included in both bibliographies, which I think is notable, as I think his writing is applicable to most any study on sound, at least tangentially. In addition, it is important to include that the variety of types of sources in the bibliographies in itself is suggestive of the approach of an ethnomusicologist, from local to international subjects, scholarly works to blogposts, and historic as well as contemporary literature from a handful of disciplines (especially history, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and musicology, or a combination thereof).

Studying music is one of the many approaches taken to investigate critical questions of politics, ethics, and experiences of the local-cosmopolitan dynamic. Music plays an important role in influencing politics, ethics, experiences, and other aspects of individual and group identity. The study of music can be highly intriguing, challenging, and elusive, but ultimately good at increasing the understanding of said complex questions. However, the argument that the study of music plays an integral role in shaping politics, ethics, and experiences of the local-cosmopolitan dynamic may be a different story.

Music itself plays an important role in the lives of individuals, groups, nations, and on the transnational level. It is a medium of self expression, and a medium from which one can infer how a person or group of people view themselves. It is poetically a cyclic metaphor for revealing to the outside world that which is within, taking in the outside world, and allowing each of these processes to inform one another. It allows people to facilitate their relationships with other people and their association to ideas, socioeconomic classes, gender divisions, or other social strata through the practicing of music of that strata. Music is both congelatory and divisive. It is used to define both the essence of a group of people as well as the boundaries between them and others.

As music is recognizable as an indicator for how groups of people see themselves in relation to others. It provides reference with numerous limitations, as any medium of documentation) from which we can infer trends over time and space. From studying these trends, we can learn not just the facts of what happened, but how people reacted, what they were thinking or feeling, at the time of political events or events of moral question. In relation to political and ethical questions (although it may be quite pertinent to any musical study), music is both problematic and particularly useful in its ability to be simultaneously expressive and ambiguous. Its expressiveness can at times access parts of the self or ideas that are not satisfactorily explainable by words or other forms of art (depending on the person or environmental factors). The ambiguity of musical meaning can be particularly important in the expression of oppressed or conflicted people in reaction to an unstable environment, in which explicit negative reactions to those in power might be dangerous for an individual to express. However, this ambiguity also leaves a lot of room for inference when the musical practice is interpreted by a person of another temporal, spatial, or otherwise personal background.

Researchers of music in relation to society are faced with the same dilemma as perhaps every other researcher – they may have an effect on the population studied, and the results of the study can only be understood in relation to their interpretation of their subject(s), whether they take a social science approach or that of humanities. This is not a trait specific to music alone, but it does appear to be perceived as more problematic in musical studies than, for example, science, because of the subjective conceptions of music.

But does the study of music play an important role in informing local-cosmopolitan dynamics? It is true that ethnomusicological recordings have been reappropriated for commercial and other means, contributing to the schizophonia (for better or worse) of studied musics. It is also true that any researcher of sound is likely to have an effect (for better or worse) on the subject(s) he/she is studying, and they on him/her. Perhaps it is through the study of music, particularly through social science approaches, that people in charge of financial appropriations are convinced that music is worth investment in schools. Perhaps the study of music increases cross cultural understanding, as well as revealing cross cultural misunderstandings. Perhaps using music to talk about cross cultural differences is less antagonistic (e.g. talking about the global prevalence of Bob Marley seems somehow less negative than the global prevalence of McDonalds) and closer to home (e.g. someone telling you about how a guy in Kabul listens to the same music as you might be more interesting than knowing that the same guy is somehow connected to you by a series of economic transactions) than other themes. Perhaps. There is a lot of focus in ethnomusicological study on what music does in different places and times, and how ethnomusicologists study music, but there is room for a study on what results from ethnomusicological studies. There will always be more people, places, and times to study, but a satisfying paper on purpose would be worthwhile.

Feld’s article appears to have two principle threads. One is that he is recognizing and shining a little more light on the work of Colin Turnbull after his death. The second, probably more important, is his discussion of schizophonia, the splitting of an oral sound from its original source. He draws heavily on Turnbull’s work with pygmies in Central Africa, but uses a variety of examples of modern artists sampling or imitating the sounds from recordings. One of the principle discussions within the scope of schizophonia is that of copyright, fair compensation, and the distribution of sounds in general. Feld’s article is highly relevant to Greene’s article, which includes discussions of both rural sound being imitated and sampled in an urban setting, as well as Indian and “Western” sound being practiced and mixed into Nepali music and identities.

-Is it common to write an article in memory of another anthropologist or scholar? How is the structure different from other articles?

-When did the shift happen from the “it’s a brothers thing” era to the fair compensation for copyright era? How did it occur, how gradual was the shift?

-Feld’s question “Doesn’t research rationalize schizophonia?” – does he mean justify, perhaps? What exactly is he trying to say by rationalize?

-Is schizophonia bad? Do the negative effects outweigh any positive effects?

-I understand the difference of the meanings given to “unempowered” and “disempowered,” but I’m not sure why the meanings go with the two words – why is it not disempowered in two different senses?

-What is the difference between world beat and world music?

Greene is principally arguing that a binary lens is insufficient for discussing Nepali music and identity. He presents this argument, and then goes on to give a brief review of broad shifts in music in Nepal, from aadhunik gut to trash metal. He touches on the more prominent role of the government in influencing nationalist trends in the 1950s-70s, then the determination of music genres appears to shift more into the hands of the emerging youth culture. The role of the government is revisited when the Maoist regime appears to be a significant factor in stimulating youth to rebel through metal music. I agree with Greene’s main argument, although I feel as though he is kind of trying to cover a lot and doesn’t quite bring out some of the complexities I wanted to hear about. For example, I think he could have probed at the idea of how Nepali youth were, in a sense, being very “Nepali” in their use of metal music – it seems as though it was a reaction to their current situation in Nepal, not a love of “Westernism”, that drove them to practice (through listening and playing) trash metal.

-Is the scope of Greene’s article principally urban middle and upper class youth?

-How much did/does rural Nepal interact with translocal music scenes? Are people there as affected as urbanites? Is there a time lag?

-How is music in general viewed in Nepal? It doesn’t appear to be treated cautiously in this article (as it might be in an article speaking of an Islamic country).

-Why did they want “to scold the family”? Did the family or the family system lead to the Communist regime? Or are the two unrelated?

Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man

Bendix is well summarized by Brenneis’ response, noting the three strongest themes of her work –the importance of acknowledging the intimate connection between sound and emotion, the tension between communicating the emotional effects of sound versus conventions of rigorous documentation, and the counterposition of the acoustic and textual as scholarly subjects.  While I feel as though the first two (sound and emotion, and emotion versus rigor) were well explained, the third category is a little more slippery. Both Bendix and Brenneis are rather vague about the changing of goals from comprehensive texts to a “somehow richer and more aesthetically compelling account”.

(sparked by the last paragraph of Brenneis) Why do different disciplines exist? I think they probably should, but at a liberal arts school and in the process of completing two heavily interdisciplinary majors, it appears to me that disciplinary differences tend to get in the way from time to time. One turns so often to discussions of the progress of one or another discipline, the differences between disciplines, etc. rather than how researchers of any discipline can have some effect on the research of any other discipline. What is the purpose of labeling Alex Corbin a historian and speaking of his work as separate from the body of “some sort of musical studies” (this is a conscious evasion of saying specifically either ethnomusicology or musicology). That being said, I am not sure I agree with my own potential argument. Interdisciplinary work is absolutely valueable, but it is likely dependent on having individual (though not exclusive) disciplinary structures. While relevant to this and many previous readings in this class, this is also simply the liberal arts student’s dilemma.

Brady’s review is also very favorable, although she seems to add a little more to Bendix than Brendeis ventures. I am in agreement with her call for more investigation of sound and the supernatural, which I think could be very relevant in terms of sound and emotion. I also am intrigued by her interest in investigating sound and memory, not an entirely new concept, but still worth mentioning. Her third plug, pushing for the more research on the impact of recording (perhaps technology in general) on ethnomusicology, seems a little strange, perhaps only because we have read a fair amount about it recently and because she herself has already published a work on it.

-How are ethnographers going to document the emotional reactions of the researched and researcher? Is the difference between the two more important than each individual experience?

-Why is there a supposed “gigantic soundscape” that affects individual identities today? Is it really more influential than “circumscribed groups”?

-Could a similar article be written on any of the other non-visual senses? Smell? Taste? Touch? What of this is specific to sound/hearing?

-How does the ethnology of solitude play into this? Is Michael Bull’s work on the individual connected to the idea of the global “cacophony”?

-How can she be arguing that sound is less subject to social ordering, and at the same time be emphasizing the impact of early infant sonic interactions?

-How is sound less affected than visual arts by society?

-How strong is the split between emotion and scholarly writing in the past as compared to today?

-When reading scholarly works, how much do we edit out  the “romantic” phrases of the author?

-How does Brady’s call for more studies on technology and music relate to Bendix’s original article? Perhaps through the impacts of individual soundscapes (I don’t think this would be it, as she is more focused on the phonograph, it appears)?

-How would an ethnomusicologist be able to pin down concepts of the supernatural and sound, or especially how would they be able to understand well the emotions tied up in sound and the supernatural?

-Is sound and memory not already a subject fairly common for research? Or perhaps this is more in a scientific/psychological sense and Brady is more interested in a more emotional study?

-Is it uncommon for responders (like Brenneis and Brady) to criticize the original author? Is this not the proper outlet for expressing criticism?

Kapchan’s definition of performance is rather broad. She claims it includes any aesthetic practice “whose repetitions situate actors in time and space, structuring individual and group identities.” From this definition, she is able to discuss the difference between habitual practice and heightened performance, and from there she works her way into a principle question of folklorists: What is reproduced versus what is newly created? Also relevant to previous readings, Kapchan demonstrates how performance genres provide for the negotiation of the politics of identity, as in the example of the halqa in Morocco. Her discussion of the halqa takes up the majority of the article, going into various aspects of identity in Morocco, especially in relation to gender.

-Is communitas more than just the idea of connection through shared experience?

-How clearly defined is the line between habitual practice and heightened performance?

-How exactly is the public performance of blessing different from public blessing (page 492)

-What is ethnographic performance? Is it the actions of the researcher? The actions of the people he/she is studying? Both?

Stock is discussing the fieldwork of a participant observer. He starts out explaining how a participant/observer ethnomusicologist differentiates himself/herself from a comparative musicologist or a folklorist, the principle difference being the anthropological approach – spending time in the community and learning to participate. He discusses how to prepare, and how a field worker’s age/gender/ethnicity/etc can affect the reaction of the “informants”. He’s not a big fan of formal interviewing, but he agrees that sometimes it is an important part of the research, depending on the situation. Ethnomusicologists are mediators between informants and the academic world, but also have a responsibility to their audience

-What are the principle differences between Stock and Madison?

-Do researches ever try to alleviate issues caused by their own gender/age/ethnicity/professional background by bringing in other people? Or just coming across differently through the language they use?

-How is folklorist’ search for authenticity an empirical investigation?

-Does the statement ‘the authentic of today was the radical of yesterday’ always hold true?

Barz finds field notes to be undervalued, or at least under-utilized in ethnographic writing. Through examples from his own fieldwork, he demonstrates how field notes can reveal not only what we know from the field, but also how we know it; they document the process of learning and experiencing. Field notes are no longer “what they do and how we observe it,” but a record of the researcher’s engagement in their place of study. The field note today places emphasis on the participant rather than the observational role of the researcher.

-Are field notes in ethnographical writing respected? Why?

-Were field notes in the past as participatory as those today, but only observational notes were used in writing the ethnography? Or did researchers just not write down their experiences as much? Or perhaps they were just much less engaged…

-When do field notes stop being about the subject of study and start being more about the researcher as an individual?

-Should an individual try to keep his/her fieldnotes to being more about the place of study or about themselves as well?

Marcus is speaking generally about the shift from single-site ethnography to multi-site ethnography. It seems as though, especially since the 1980s, single-site research has not been adequate for understanding local issues within a broader context, a capitalist world system specifically. Following connections appears to be at the heart of the “new” multi-site research (“postmodern”). However, this shift to multi-sited research raises concerns of ethnographical limits, the power of fieldwork, and losing the focus on the subaltern.

-How is the “mystique and reality of conventional fieldwork” lost in multi-sited ethnography? Does it matter? Why/why not?

-Can both single and multi-sited ethnography be conducted simultaneously? By different ethnographers?

-Is it all bad to lose such focus on the subaltern? Could there not have been some negative effects of such a focus which may now be relieved somewhat?

-What exactly is “high theoretical capital”? Why is it associated with postmodernism?

Wong starts out exemplifying an ethnography of the particular. This section of her book is focusing on the Viatnamese American culture, with strong focus on technology and a fair amount of reference to politics. Vietnamese American identity appears to be intimately linked with technology, although the non-uniform access to technological resources, related to socio-economic class, is a limitation of this linkage. Pham Duy, a principle character in Vietnamese American music and Wong’s article, discusses how changes in music technology also inform the political scene, “new” music providing better means to express emotions than the old Chinese and French tunes and more adept at stirring patriotic emotion.

-How differently was Pham Duy received by the public through CDs than through the radio?

-How is the distribution of karaoke tracks changing with the shift from CD to MP3?

-Is Vietnamese American identity more intertwined with technology than other subcultures?

-Is there concern over identity crisis as technology shifts, or is that an integral part of the identity?

Nettl’s chapter starts out talking about Malinowski’s approach to fieldwork, a father-like figure of the process. Malinowski focused on texts, structure, and “imponderabilia of everyday life.” Beyond this, Nettl goes on to discuss the evolution of ethnomusicological fieldwork methodology as opposed to anthropological. It begins with the late 19^th/early 20^th century collection of artifacts, then large collections of artifacts for preservational purposes, then adding on extended residence in a single community, greater contextual sensitivity to the context and music in culture, as well as attempts to understand the entire musical system. The lines then started to get blurry between ethnomusicologists and people interested in playing musics from other cultures, as participation became part of an ethnographer’s fieldwork. The interest in full comprehension decreased and fieldwork became more intensely focused on individual projects, then ethnomusicologists were meant to be well versed in both music and anthropology. Nowdays, an ethnographer can’t possibly be excellent in all the fields required of them, which means teamwork has become an important part of the job, recognizing one’s capacities.

-How often did non-ethnomusicologists who were merely interested in playing music of other cultures publish writing on their experiences?

-Do ethnomusicologists often give up on their subjects or show disrespect for the artifacts?

-Do “ethnomusicological teams” ever write collaboratively? Or is it a principle ethnomusicologist who draws on the expertise of others?

-Do some ethnomusicologists today still stick to older styles of ethnomusicological fieldwork methods? Are they frowned upon in the discipline for doing so?

Yow’s chapters are discussing how to conduct a successful interview and the effect of an interview on all parties involved. The essence of the first article is basically that you want to make the narrator feel comfortable, useful, and understood. The four stages of building rapport with the narrator are apprehension, exploration, cooperation, and participation. The end of the article focuses on how to deal with particularly delicate situations and hard questions. The article feels relatively intuitive, although it may not be so for some people. However, I think interviewing is something that would be really hard to learn from a reading. Yes, there are rules you can follow, but it is really all about reading the other person and sensing how you are coming across to them. Still, I think her writing is important for thinking through the process. The second article basically breaks down the strangeness, for both narrator and interviewer, of analyzing someone else’s life with your questions.

-If an interview is not going well, if the narrator does not seem to take the interviewer particularly seriously, likely due to age, is bolstering the perception of informed-ness an option?

-Do some interviews only make it as far as exploration/cooperation?

-In terms of ethnographical writing, how in-depth are our interviews likely to be this semester?

-What are the legal issues regarding interview recording?

The first chapter read of Madison is discussing the relationship between method and theory in approaching fieldwork. While there are many people who may stick to either an all-out theoretical approach, this comes across as being overly subjective and lacking in structure for those more supportive of a methodical approach. Madison appears to be pretty strongly methodical, but at the same time wants to emphasize the fact that the two are not by any means exclusive, constantly informing and guiding one another, and at times indistinguishable. After an overall approach has been determined, Madison goes through various steps in the process of starting a study. Main points include the creation of a research design and lay summary, various models for formulating interview questions, being aware of threats to the narrator during and after the interview process, and coding materials post-interview. Much of Madison’s work overlaps with that of Yow, although her way of approaching the process is a little more zoomed out.

-Why, on page 19, is the “discussion” section never noted in the method models? Is it assumed that you discuss results at the same time that you present results? I’m just curious, as this would be rather different from scientific method models to which I have been exposed (and sensibly so, as this isn’t the same scientific realm).

-How does coding work? I get that it is important and that you cluster and organize, but what does it look like? Do you take notes on all of your interview tapes and organize them like that?

-I agree that starting with yourself is important. However, is it not difficult to hold back your own personal attachment to the original question or subject during the writing process in particular?

-Should you keep yourself somewhat out of it? This has been discussed in classes previously, I believe, talking about how removed an author is from the “story” in his text.

The second chapter of Madison that we read includes a distillation of the Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Association, although it doesn’t capture all of what is stated in the Code by any means. The Code and Madison are both quite thorough in discussing the ideals of what anthropologists (and others, depending on context) should strive for. However, I also appreciated Madison’s acknowledgement that the Code is just that, an ideal, and that we live in an imperfect world in which a code can only be that for which we strive and by which we can be judged. Madison’s ethics also move beyond that of the code and speak of more broad, conceptual errors, such as faulty generalization, circulatory arguments, inadequate paradigms, and falsification of the states of knowledge.

-In terms of renumeration, what should a researcher do if paying them equal pay as they would elsewhere has the potential to create tensions in the community?

-In the example of studying cannibalism in an already marginalized culture, how could one approach the problem without entirely giving up on it? Downplay the role of cannibalism? Explain its importance in a manner relatable to the readership?

-How does the unequal representation of hate group opinions/values/etc. work? It makes sense, but it is also rather subjective, right?

-Fine suggests that ethnographers should not focus on the language of their writing, that it can lead to a lack of evidence. How can anyone writing anything think that the language of the writing is not important to focus on?

Mattern’s main argument is that, while the history of Cajun music since the 1960s can be analyzed in terms of confrontational political action, the importance of deliberative and pragmatic political action is integral to a comprehensive analysis. Not only do Cajuns not think of themselves as essentially confrontational, but also the examples of confrontational political action are much more rare. He clarifies that deliberational music is potentially political, but that it is not inherent, that it could be merely dialogism, basically talking between and among groups of people. Part of the deliberational debate is over how much change Cajun music/style can incorporate without becoming non-Cajun. Examples of pragmatic political action are abundant, including concerts, festivals, workships, contests, the development of educational programs. Often times they established collaborative relationships with governmental agencies.

-Is the Rendez-vous radio program still around?

-What changed in the 1960s to instigate cultural revival?

-Why are festivals and concerts so effective in establishing relationships, as the technique has been noted in previous articles as well (Ukraine/Poland)

-Who instigates the festivals/concerts/etc.?

Briggs and Bauman are discussing genres and intertextuality, arguing that, although genres can be fairly ambiguous, they have been and are important in the discourse of linguistic anthropology, as well as other disciplines. They start off with the Boas tradition, which uses relatively ad hoc genre distinctions in order to classify Native American music. They run through numerous other discussion about genres and intertextuality, coming down to the 8 axes of comparison for approach strategies. In the end, they argue that form and functional patterning alone is not sufficient to understand intertextuality, but rather that ideology, political economy, and power must be addressed as well.

-Is linguistic anthropology just the study of language of different people? Is it different from linguistics? Does it focus more on how language influences/is influenced by culture?

-Is intertextuality, using texts to shape the meaning of other texts, being used here only in terms of categorical/taxonomical/etc. analysis (such as genres)?

-How do invocations of genre build “imagined communities”? (p150)

-Why is gender regarded as part of the same axis of comparison as emotion?

Kallberg’s principle focus is the functions performed by genre in the composer’s and listener’s experience of music. His discussion begins with the work of Dalhaus and Dalhaus’ fallbacks, notably the failure to consider in depth the communicative and persuasiveness of genre in how an audience experiences a work of art. Kallberg prefers to talk about genre in terms of a “generic contract” between the composer and listener that guides the responses. He then analyzes Chopin’s composition process by looking at a sketch of the piece pre-publication showing elements associated with mazurka and chorale (possibly ternary as well) genres. Finally, Kallberg discusses the piece in context, as it relates to the influences of Polish Romantic nationalism.

- Why does Dalhaus/Kallberg use the term “functional” music? How is this category title useful? What is more functional about it? Just the fact that it is not conceived as “autonomous”?

- How is Kallberg differentiating between genre and style? Don’t the two overlap?

-Are Chopin and Wolff among the composers discussed previously, those who were valued both for their ability to overcome their Polishness, but also for embracing their Polishness?

-In his reference to the “future” in Chopin’s Nocturne in G minor, was Schumann referring to techniques/styles that foreshadowed those coming up or to features in the song that exhibited the “essence” of “future”?