RMWA Flashcards
Alaghband-Zadeh, Chloe. 2015. “Sonic Performativity: Analyzing Gender in North Indian Classical Vocal Music.” Ethnomusicology Forum 24 (3): 349–79.
Themes: Gender and Music in North India
Similar to Koskoff 2014
Performance Features vary by who performs genre:
Men – NO ornamentation, flourishes, or improvisation; USE syncopation (“gamak” a shake in the voice); more classical, prestige, higher hierarchy; lyrics imply it’s masculine
Women – highlight female voice qualities, female protagonists, romance, etc., use ornamentation.
Style that can be performed by Either – mix between the 2 categories.
performer embodies the music and expresses the emotion from within themselves
- “authentic expressions of the performer’s inner life
….if they do not feel the emotions of the music they are performing, then neither will their audience”
in North Indian classical music: its sounds are inescapably embedded in the social world…
- musical performance can participate in the social construction of gender
Bauman, Richard, and Donald Braid. 1998. “The Ethnography of Performance in the Study of Oral Traditions.” In Teaching Oral Traditions, 108–22. New York: Modern Language Association.
Themes: performance; purpose; arts profile; culture meanings; OVA analysis
Performance is a way of communication to the audience for: entertainment, persuasion, information, stories, etc.
Ethnography with performance is the study of the performance in context to the specific culture meanings.
- different performance frames give audience cues on how they should understand something
- different arts are associated with different events
“performance involves a way of using language, a way of speaking, that is available as a communicative resource to the members of a given speech community”
“situational context” = “the culturally defined scenes or events in which the conduct, interpretation, and evaluation of speaking take place”
“The speech event” = “a central unit of description and analysis in the ethnography of speaking”
“The classic questions, ‘Who says what? To whom? How? For what purpose? Under what circumstances?’ all point to essential components of the speech event and, by extension, of the performance event as well”
different performance frames that give the audience cues on how they should understand something
“Interpretive frames” = “The notion of frame rests on the recognition that every communicative act incorporates elements that serve to convey interpretive guidelines, signals that suggest how the act is to be understood.”
“keys to performance” that “turn up frequently in the world’s cultures”:
o Special framing formulas
o Formal patterning principles or devices (ex rhyme)
o Special speech styles, or registers
o Figurative language
o Appeals to tradition (“The old people say…”)
o Special kinds of bodily movement
o Special settings associated with performance
o Disclaimers of performance
“Traditionalization” = “the creation in the present of ties to a meaningful past that is itself constructed in the act of performance”
“Entextualization” = the process “of rendering a stretch of discourse extractable, of making a stretch of verbal production into a unit that can be lifted out of the contexts in which it is grounded” - This process is related to decontextualization and is “at the heart of the decontextualization process”
Bauman, Richard, ed. 1992. Folklore, Cultural Performances, and Popular Entertainments. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Themes: characteristics of arts; characteristics of culture performances; drama analysis
3 characteristics of arts
- Aesthetically marked
- Heightened form of communication
Involves social, culture, and aesthetic features
- Framed as special display for audience
focus on manipulating form while having rules behind the form and “bounded spheres.”
6 characteristics of “culture performances”: (Send Him To See Cuddly Pandas) - Scheduled - Heightened occasions - Temporally bounded - Spatially bounded - Coordinated - Programmed
- Performance takes skill and uses expression to communicate a message to the audience.
- “All performance…meaningful within socially defined situational context”
“Every act of communication includes a range of explicit or implicit framing messages that convey instructions on how to interpret the other messages being conveyed.” - “how performance is keyed”
Theater:
- type of performance
- uses different types of gestures to communicate to the audience and does not have to have spoken dialogue and sometimes the most important part is what the performers do and their other nonverbal communication
- can bring unreal characters to life
- Theater is not universal
7 possible stages of development: (Ted Will Read While Picking Cold Apples) training workshop rehearsal warm-up performance cool-down aftermath
Bruner, Edward M. 1986. “Ethnography as Narrative.” In The Anthropology of Experience. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Themes: research process; interviews
ethnographies tell a story “The key elements in narrative are: story, discourse, and telling”
WHO you talk to and WHEN will impact the stories the informants give.
- The narratives of the Indians in 1930 (resistance) and 1970 (acculturation) because they take place in different parts of that culture’s story.
- When a new narrative takes over the old one becomes part of the past of that culture instead of the present.
the story the culture has vs how we interpret it and make our story
- outsiders researching will never have an emic view of the culture as the insiders do.
- be careful of going into field with a story already in mind and finding info to fit that
Coulter, Neil R. 2011. “Assessing music shift: Adapting EGIDS for a Papua New Guinea community.” Language Documentation and Description, 10:61–81.
Coulter saw obvious connections between language strength and expressive arts traditions during his work in PNG.
Music shift surveys to see where the shift was happening
GIDS evaluation = gather info about the musical knowledge, experience, and confidence among community members.
EGIDS = Expanded GIDS (13 stages) –safe, vulnerable, endangered, extinct
GMSS (focus on music use by home community) = Graded Music Shift Scale (back to 8, but added “locked”- only performed for tourists and nonfunctional events) –levels of international use to extinct
Survey tools used by Coulter that he adapted for music:
- SEQ = self-evaluation questionnaire
- set of questions about a person’s perceived ability in or experience with language use
- RTT = recorded text testing
- exercise in listening to and identifying a number of audio samples
Daughtry, Martin. 2006. “Russia’s New Anthem and the Negotiation of National Identity.” In Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader, 243–60. NY: Routledge.
Themes: music analysis; identity and sustainability; symbols; shift
National anthems consist of group image and ideologies.
Russia 2001- national anthems can change to reflect new ideas and images the country wants to have.
The collective singing of national anthems gives a sense of community to the people singing.
When Stalin died the national anthem was changed again to mark a new era. There was lots of debate in deciding on a national anthem. The melody of the anthem was more important to the Russian people than the lyrics, but the same melody couldn’t be used that had been associated with different lyrics because of that connection
Dyrness, William A. 2001. “Chapter 7: Making and Looking at Art.” In Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
Themes: art shift; artists not having place in church; beauty; redemption
Art has power and affects us deeply. Art is a kind of critical cultural compass- concentrates the values and questions of a particular cultural moment.
Christians have not embraced the arts in their community. Artists are usually seen as doing a “harmless hobby.”
What we see can unconsciously affect us. The beauty one sees can draw them to God, the creator of the beauty in the world that we see. Art can stretch the traditional rules and make people stretch their thinking and consider new ideas.
-“We deeply long not only for such beauty but…for relationship with the personal presence lying beneath such beauty. As a result the experience of great beauty often moves unbelievers to seek God just as it often moves believers to praise, even to song or dance.”
The art in a culture can reveal values and what the culture considers beauty to be.
“Art…just as biblical imagery, must be experienced holistically, in ways that integrate intellectual, visual, and emotional elements”
Our God is creative and we too can create things for God’s glory. Art captures a moment and makes a person stop and think. Art can express redemption and point us to God. Some art can turn people away from God, depending on the art. Making art and being a disciple of Christ have similarities including servanthood, suffering, and giving themselves up for something new to be born.
“As professional artists, they are a rich potential resource for the church. Indeed, the depth of perspective they bring, the solidly grounded spirituality, may be just the thing the church needs to connect with an art world that exhibits newly awakened spiritual sensitivities,”
“The painting that arrests our gaze in the gallery insists that we ignore all the need and duties of everyday life and look at life, as it were, from a distance,”
“Discernment is rather a skill that is learned over time and that varies from culture to culture. Moreover, it is a process that is learned and practiced in community, for it is together as the body of Christ that we come to understand what is good and what is not…It is in corporate discussion and prayer that we come to ‘discern what is good.’”
Feld, Steven. 2000. “A Sweet Lullaby for World Music.” Public Culture 12(1): 145-171.
Themes: copyright; shift /globalization
The use of a West African singer in the song “Sweet Lullaby” combined the West African singing with Western techno drums and beats. Not only was the recording used in that song but then it appeared in a shampoo commercial. Deep Forest used some recordings they had permission for and others that they did not. Later a saxophonist started playing pigmy style lullabies and played it in the jazz world. The African style of lullabies was being used in Western music but not in the traditional way and was being morphed with Western music. There arose many copyright issues and discussions over the use of recordings from African music in the music Westerners were incorporating to their music.
“A particular melody at a particular place in a particular work, considered as a specific sequence of notes, each with a specific duration, in an individual relationship to an individual set of chords — that can be copyrighted. A chord progression in the abstract, or the idea of a gapped scale, or even the inspiration to drop a fuzzed-out guitar riff into a rock song that sounds like a horn — that cannot,” (Fink).
Fitzgerald, Daniel, and Brian Schrag. 2014. “But Is It Any Good? The Role of Criticism in Christian Song Composition and Performance.” Global Forum on Arts and Christian Faith 2: A1–19.
Themes: improving works
•How to become a good judge and critic of music. We must understand the song as a complex sign and criticize it in relation to its purpose.
I. Understand the song as a complex sign
- Identify the signs at work in a song
- Textual (song text), musical (musical techniques), associative (connection of song to something else outside of the song)
- Determine how these signs work (the HOW)
- Assess the effects of these signs (IMPACT)
II. Criticize the song in relationship to its purposes
- Identify the purposes of the song
- Determine how the song’s signs effect its purposes
- Determine the virtues of a song’s purposes and their relative effect on each other
Fujimura, Makoto. 2017. Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life. Downers Grove: IVP Books.
Themes: artists not having place in church
Mearcstapa describes a role where people walk on the borders of different groups.
- artists typically in this category
- can bridge gaps being in this category
- more likely to reach out to outcasts
- may struggle fitting into the church
- can be gifted in reaching outside world with Gospel
Artists may be “different” but artists can show other people new ideas and connect church communities to outside communities.
“Many more who might thrive in this role go through life with their potential untapped or misused. But the leadership quality that lurks within them is too valuable to be dismissed or left dormant,”
Grotowski, Jerzy, and Maureen Schaeffer Price. 1989. “Around Theatre: The Orient-The Occident.” Asian Theatre Journal 6(1): 1–11.
Themes: drama analysis; art not universal
Even simple actions can be done in different ways that have meanings behind them. The way that Westerners and Orientals look at things are very different. The little details we may not think about can mean different things in different cultures so it’s not good to assume anything.
oriental theater - the energy is very important and how they do each gesture.
“If a phenomenon can be defined simply in terms of “it is that, and only that,” that means it exists only in our heads. But if it has a real-life existence, we can never hope to define it completely. Its frontiers are always moving, while exceptions and analogies keep opening up”
Huron, David. 2008. Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Themes: emotions
through using different techniques emotions can be expressed through music.
Author lists 7 different kinds of laughter – [learn what they mean culturally]
Culture can affect the response someone has to music because of what their expectations are to the music, and what would surprise them evoking these emotions.
Our bodies have two reactions when an event that spurs emotion happens; there is a quick response of an immediate unthinking response and then a slower response of thoughtful appraisal, which is called a limbic contrast.
Three emotions that are expressed with surprise are laughter, awe, and frisson. Laughter is more common when people are in the presence of other people.
“Listening to music can give rise to an enormous range of emotions. Music can engender a joyous exuberance or transport us into a deep sadness. It can evoke a calm serenity or generate spine-tingling chills. It can lead to a sense of ominous darkness or convey a mysterious sense of awe and wonder. Music can even cause listeners to laugh out loud,”
Jackson, Bruce. 1987. Fieldwork. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Themes: fieldwork; research process; interviews
In much of the published fieldwork, the researchers rarely talk about how their presence impacted the results and the community and how they gained the information such as recordings from their fieldwork. They also don’t include things that failed/did not work out, feelings they had while doing the research and towards people. “Though not as satisfying as successful ones, certain failures give information that is truly useful,”
Have a genuine interest in what you’re studying -the interviewees will feel if you are actually interested or not and respond to that.
In fieldwork: (have a clear goal in mind)
o plan
o collect data
o analyze the data found
figure out what is needed and practice using those tools beforehand, and take good notes. If something is being done outside weather forecasts should be checked.
“code switching” - where we speak differently for different situations. Impacts how the person responds.
Through interviews you want the majority of the conversation to be from the informant. Can use tape recorders. Do not make people feel afraid or nervous, if you give them a reason to be then they will. It usually is better to start using a tape recorder from the beginning rather than introducing it later if it is going to be used. Sometimes the interviewee changes the way they speak when a tape recorder is used.
There’re directive interviews, ask specific questions, and indirective interviews, which are open. Asking follow up questions helps dive in deeper to the response. Pay close attention during the interview and don’t just rely on recording the material.
“You’re there to get information you don’t already have. You want to know what the other person or persons think about certain things: you want to hear things from their repertoires,”
Keil, Charles. 1995. “The Theory of Participatory Discrepancies: A Progress Report.” Ethnomusicology, 39(1): 1–19.
Themes: music analysis; emotions; relationships
Process over product (what was the experience like over a top-quality performance)
music is not so much about abstract emotions and meanings, reason, cause and effect, logic, but rather about motions, dance, global and contradictory feelings
Value of Groove
- “Surely the excitement of playing a little out of time and a little out of tune in the paths that all genuine cultures require will bring more and more children into musicking more of the time,”
- there’s something deeper in the mysterious textures and grooves of music than the theories look at.
- feelings expressed in music are culturally defined that the analyses and transcriptions don’t reveal.
Playing the music helps a person understand it better. They know what its like in the moment of playing music. Focus on mimesis (=imitation) to guide the analysis of how to improve the mimesis to encourage more people to want to be part of the music.
Koskoff, Ellen. 2014. A Feminist Ethnomusicology: Writings on Music and Gender. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Themes: gender’s impact on ethnomusicology (similar to Alaghband-Zadeh 2015); arts profile
Author writes about “seeking to gain a historical understanding of the connections between feminism, gender studies, and music”
She looks at feminism, gender, and music together. Gender along with age, race, social class, etc. impact not only social power but also the arts, such as music. Who composes and who performs what is defined by these categories, which is stricter in some places than others.
Gender stereotypes:
e.g. woman -nurturing; raising children; natural processes of human life; (sometimes out of control)
continuum of what the separation between genders
- can vary greatly among different cultures
- Inner-oriented societies blur the line of genders
- outer-oriented societies have sharp bounded categories for each
- Age also affects the continuum
Music has a lot of power and the performance of music can take a person to another place (mentally). In places where women are seen as out-of-control this could impact their ability to be allowed to play music or the response the society has to them performing music.
In some societies, music could break down the walls between gender boxes societies have. Music could cause integration or destruction.
Notions of men and women change
“Furthermore, tensions surrounding power and control that exist between women and men can be exposed, challenged, or reversed within musical performance”
Merriam, Alan P. 1964. The Anthropology of Music. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Themes: aesthetics; emotions; beauty; music not universal
Musicians:
- specialists
- known for their superior ability
- can be professional or unprofessional (spectrum of this)
- status can be achieved or ascribed
- different stereotypes and expectations for musicians
- seen as different from rest of community
- can sometimes get away with behaviors/actions that are not normal in society.
- status in community can vary but all communities still valued musicians
e. g. In the Basongye village even though musicians had low status, the community knew they needed musicians and valued them. - “Thus the attitude toward musicians among the Basongye is ambivalent: on the one hand, they can be ordered about, and they are people whose values and behavior do not accord with what is considered proper in the society; on the other hand, their role and function in the village are so important that life without them is inconceivable,”
Aesthetic are culturally bound.
• The factors looked at in determining aesthetics are:
o psychic or psychical distance (for a person to be able to take themselves out of the music and analyze it)
o manipulation of form
o ability to produce emotions
o beauty of product or process
o purposely working to create aesthetic
o the presence of a philosophy of an aesthetic
How arts are classified and what they represent and are looked at in societies varies in different cultures.
“…no object or action is, in itself, aesthetic; that is what is aesthetic comes from the creator or the observer who attributes something aesthetic to the object or action. Thus the aesthetic implies an attitude which includes values held, and if this be true ten the Western attribution of an aesthetic to a non-Western object is of no value to analysis, except that it sheds light upon our own aesthetic concept.”
Morphy, Howard. 1999. “Encoding the Dreaming - A Theoretical Framework for the Analysis of Representational Processes in Australian Aboriginal Art.” Australian Archaeology 49: 13–22.
Themes: culture meanings; connection to spiritual world; aesthetics; symbols; arts profile (who has access to the art genre)
The meaning of the art is important and must look into the artistic expression and aesthetics.
“We shall see that the structure of Aboriginal art systems is ideally suited to encoding multiple meanings within a system of restricted knowledge.”
Aboriginal Australia art is…..
- a way of passing info to new generations
- a connection to the spiritual world
- based off their ancestors
- seen as sacred because of connection with their ancestors of past generations
- Knowledge about their arts is only acquired through increase status that only some people have the opportunity to gain.
- Forms can be stable or malleable.
In Aboriginal sacred art:
- fixed association between form and content
- Each place and each Ancestral Being has a set of designs associated with it
Symbols can change meanings over time. The codes/symbols of their art can represent how something is seen or understood. The codes and symbols used in the geometric art tends to restricted knowledge that only certain people have access to.
Art can be interpreted through:
1) identification/non-iconic (used for geometric forms)
- used for restricted knowledge
2) interpretative/iconic (used for figurative forms more of what object looks like)
- public knowledge
“However in Australia ‘what does the art mean? is not only an outsider’s question; it is an insider’s question too,”
