DP with CLAT Steps Flashcards
Main Idea(s) of Beaudry (2008)
Nicole Beaudry. 2008. “The Challenges of Human Relations in Ethnographic Enquiry” In Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology, edited by Gregory Barz and Timothy Cooley, 224-245. New York: Oxford University Press.
Relationships dictate the research process and outcomes. We must allow the community to decide the direction of the research, while maintaining a broader awareness of our purpose for being there.
Main Idea(s) of Kisliuk (2008)
Michelle Kisliuk. 2008. “(Un)Doing Fieldwork: Sharing Songs, Sharing Lives.” In Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology, edited by Gregory Barz and Timothy Cooley,183-205. New York: Oxford University Press.
Necessity of engaging and immersing of researcher in community life so that the ethnographer and community “share the same narratives” (204).
Main Idea(s) of Hood (1960) Hood, Mantle. 1960. “The Challenge of Bi-Musicality.” Ethnomusicology 4:55–59
Bi-musicality is the ability to learn a new musical tradition by taking part actively in the music making process. Five challenges: 1) the ability to hear correctly, 2) the rhythm element, 3) the technical demands to master instruments, 4) to sing in the traditional style, and 5) the art of improvisation.
Main Idea(s) of Aubert (2007)
Aubert, Laurent. 2007. The Music of the Other: New Challenges for Ethnomusicology in a Global Age. Translated by Carla Ribiero. Ashgate Publishing: Burlington, VT.
To effectively learn the music of the other, the student must understand the original context on how that music is performed, be aware of the possible limitations he may face, and find a reliable teacher from that culture.
Main Idea(s) of
The Ethnomusicologist, Ethnographic Method, and the Transmission of Tradition, Kay Shelemay (2008)
Kay Shelemay. 1997. “The Ethnomusicologist, Ethnographic Method, and the Transmission of Tradition” In Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology, edited by Gregory Barz and Timothy Cooley, 141-156. New York: Oxford University Press
- “ethnomusicological participation in the transmission of tradition” (143)*
- “Most of us are well aware that we do not study a disembodied concept called ‘culture’ or a place called the ‘field,’ but rather encounter a stream of individuals to whom we are subsequently linked in new ways…I would suggest that human relations may be the most promising residue of a field once conceptualized as local, stable, and bounded.” (153)*
PREPARE YOURSELF (3 APPROACHES)
(Hood 1960)
Hood introduces three types of ‘musicality.’ (1) The first form of musicality is described by someone’s ability to become proficient in a form of musical training. (2) There is also ‘alternative musicality,’ where someone of one cultural context becomes skilled in an outsider’s musical domain at the expense of their local/indigenous one. (3) The last is ‘bi-musicality’ and it is characterized by a musician who is proficient at both an indigenous musical form and that of another culture. Hood argues that we should get rid of the assumption that a foreign musical expression has very specific cultural characteristics that make it inaccessible to anyone else outside that culture.
“Perhaps it is not necessary to remind the reader that we are speaking of the world of music, that training in basic musicianship of one order or another is characteristic of cultivated music wherever it is found and to some extent is unconsciously present in the practice of ingenuous music.” (p. 55)
PREPARE YOURSELF - (Kisliuk 2008)
WHO DOES WHAT
Relation with researcher and community: The identity of the researcher in the field is in constant formation while he develops a relationship with the people, being improved through time.
PREPARE YOURSELF - WHO DOES WHAT? (Beaudry 2008)
Ethical Issues, questions - be honest with your intentions, to have a balanced relationship by treating the community as friends instead of informants. Consider yourself to be an arts advocate, instead of the main researcher.
Dual Identity: be aware of our dual role as researcher and friend, and the community’s as friend and informant.
“I am constantly shifting between recognizing them as either friends or informants and between my own roles as friend and observer…We need the friendships—they ensure the depth and truth of our understanding, but we also need to be able to detach ourselves from these same friends for the sake of observation.” (244)
STEP 1 - (Hood)
Meet a community and learn about its culture and context—get to know the artists. Practice the ability to hear without prejudice. The arts advocate must begin by listening without correcting the artists or art.
“The most difficult conditioned prejudice to overcome among Western musicians is the sense of perfect pitch. Such an individual must come to realize that in the world of microtonal inflections his sense of pitch is actually imperfect, and unless he manages to set aside this prejudiced standard, he will have to relinquish the field to those who can manage a more democratic approach to the world of sound.” (Hood 1960, 56)
STEP 1 (Kisliuk 2008)
STEP 1
Fieldwork and research: To do effective field research, the ethnomusicologist must properly understand what qualifies fieldwork and how his personal experiences and relationship in the field influence his writing.
Relation with researcher and community: The identity of the researcher in the field is in constant formation while he develops a relationship with the people, being improved through time.
Field location: The location of the field is not only defined geographically because what matters, in the end is the quality of the research.
Research Methods: what kind of questions do we ask? what do we share?
Personal experience and Field Research: When personal experiences are included in the ethnography, they locate the research in real-life situations. Additionally, the active participation of the researcher in the people’s life and musical performance will ground his learning process.
The purpose of research is to communicate truth to its readers by including personal experiences. That would make academic text more vivid and close to the people. To decide what kind of personal experience should be included in the writing, the research must identify how that experience affects the research material.
“There is no definable border between the field and the space of writing – we write when we are doing research, and we research while we write.” (202)
STEP 1 (BEAUDRY 2008)
STEP 1-6
Nonmodel Approach: The community decides the direction of the project
Rather than entering the community with tightly held assumptions, keep an “open” and “learning” attitude.
“The importance of human interactions and the development of relationships as the real sources of learning in the field” (230)
“I leave it to informants to choose the manner in which they wish to instruct me and to decide which directions they will channel me.” (230)
Participant observation: participation and observation of a tradition can not be easily separated because when you live with a people you’re taking place in their daily lives. Thus, it’s better to understand how the people see the research in terms of involvement and participation in their culture (235).
Presence is participation— “Just being there is a demonstration of willingness to engage in social interaction that comprises both those doing and those watching. Just ‘watching’ or ‘observing’ in an anthropological sense is meaningless because in itself it is asocial and therefore threatening.” (235)
STEP 3 (Aubert 2007)
STEP 3
To identify artistic genres, it’s important to observe that: a) some genres must be played only in a group; b) others should be played for people from a specific stratum of that society; c) vocal genres are considerably more challenging to master than instrumental ones; d) some genres can only be executed in a specific event, losing their meaning if played outside those events. (71-72)
STEP 3 (Beaudry 2008)
STEP 1-6
Nonmodel Approach: The community decides the direction of the project
Rather than entering the community with tightly held assumptions, keep an “open” and “learning” attitude.
“The importance of human interactions and the development of relationships as the real sources of learning in the field” (230)
“I leave it to informants to choose the manner in which they wish to instruct me and to decide which directions they will channel me.” (230)
Participant observation: participation and observation of a tradition can not be easily separated because when you live with a people you’re taking place in their daily lives. Thus, it’s better to understand how the people see the research in terms of involvement and participation in their culture (235).
Presence is participation— “Just being there is a demonstration of willingness to engage in social interaction that comprises both those doing and those watching. Just ‘watching’ or ‘observing’ in an anthropological sense is meaningless because in itself it is asocial and therefore threatening.” (235)
STEP 4 (Hood 1960)
STEP 4 - Learning to hear and see the genre according to the community’s definitions. It’s important to liberalize our “aural perception,” which means being open to recognizing different patterns of sounds in other cultures’ music (i.e., microtones).
“The initial challenge, of course, is the development of an ability to hear. The tendency of Westerners to ‘correct’ unfamiliar intervals, usually without being aware of doing so, can itself be corrected only by repeated exposure to listening and by singing. This beginning stage of training is directed at aural perception rather than vocal production…” (56)
STEP 4 (Aubert 2007)
STEP 4
To analyze Music domain use local notation systems. Most non-western learning is based on orality, without a musical score. Using a notation system, in this case, is more to guide the performance generically (descriptive and indicative) than to restrict it to specific rhythm and notes (prescriptive). The video/audio recording might be a better resource for oral traditions to aid the learning process. Besides, variation and improvisation are part of the oral musical tradition, and that feature could be limited with a western notation system. (72)
In participant organization, the master’s role is “direct transmission to the pupil”, even when there is notation.
