Directed Practicum Flashcards
Aubert, Laurent. 2007. “Chapter 10.” In The Music of the Other: New Challenges for Ethnomusicology in a Global Age. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing.
In this chapter Aubert is outlining in more detail how the student can go about learning the “Music of the Other.” The author acknowledged Mantle Hood in the first paragraph, and to me this reading builds naturally on the foundation laid by him to move to more practical considerations: how does the student go about learning this music? Aubert mentions the hazards, the challenges, the difficulties, teaching methods, concerns about appropriation, oral vs. written methods (along with imitation and rote learning), and much more.
Beaudry, Nicole. 2008. “The Challenges of Human Relations in Ethnographic Inquiry.” In Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology. Oxford: Oxford University.
Beaudry uses a quote from John Steinbeck in the opening of this chapter, and I think it summarizes this reading quite well: “We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” Through anecdotes from her own field experience the author addresses the human, relational element to fieldwork and discusses many of the pitfalls, joys, opportunities, and challenges of working with people. The overarching theme of objective vs. subjective research and the need to confront one’s assumptions recur frequently. This chapter exposes the reader to the messy complexity of relationships within research.
Hood, Mantle. 1960. “The Challenge of Bi-Musicality.” Ethnomusicology 4: 55–59.
Hood’s basic premise is that a good student of ethnomusicology needs to become fluent in a musical tradition outside their own culture, and he discusses how one might go about doing so. He considers developing the ability to hear (56), or rather, to hear in a new way, and suggests methods of “imitation and rote learning” that can be more beneficial to the student (56). Hood encourages the aspiring student of world music to not forget that real, hands-on application and practice are important; one cannot immediately move into understanding the theory and meaning of another music without developing musicality in it first.
Kisliuk, Michelle. 2008. “(Un)Doing Fieldwork: Sharing Songs, Sharing Lives.” In Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology. Oxford: Oxford University.
Kisliuk discusses the changing landscape of research and how the acceptability of the subjective (reflexive ethnography) has opened the floodgates for a wide variety of approaches to documenting and sharing the results of research. She considers how the process of doing fieldwork and research also changes the researcher and their perspective on what they observe; they leave different than they came.
Shelemay, Kay. 2008. “The Ethnomusicologist, Ethnographic Method, and the Transmission of Tradition.” In Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology. Oxford: Oxford University.
This chapter considers the ethical implications of ethnomusicological research and contrasts the values of a community with the values the Western-music–trained ethnomusicologist might bring to their field. Shelemay would like us to consider the impact we have on communities and individual with whom we spend time, as much of the ethical discussion has only centered on the relationships established during fieldwork (144). She describes some of her interactions with a Syrian-Jewish community in Brooklyn over the past 10 years to give case studies and illustrations to demonstrate some of the ethical and relational complexities of how ethnographic research is done.
