Titon Critical Review

Jeff Titon's article "Representation and Authority in Ethnographic Film/Video: Production" addresses the perennial problem in ethnomusicology: authority. He discusses film and video as ways to represent musical cultures, compares and contrasts them to traditional ethnographies, and offers ways to diffuse authority.

The problem with traditional ethnography is that "as long as ethnographers assume the authority to represent other people, they control how others will appear in their texts." Basically, the filter (ethnographer) between culture and audience adds a degree of separation that has the potential to be damaging. Titon begins with a discussion about how traditional documentaries, despite their claims of showing what is "really there," employ conventional methods that make them just as dangerous as traditional written ethnography. Because the director edits and puts the video together, and because time and experience are so compressed, representation in film becomes very difficult.

Titon offers a way to diffuse the authority problems that arise from making a film. He offers moving away from the narrator-as-God method to making it from the point of view of the person doing the research or allowing the observed to participate in the making of the final project. I think that this is a good solution--though it might feel strange to let people edit themselves. I wonder what other collaborative tools will be open to us in the future, especially with the internet.

Titon ends by saying that problems of representation and authority are even more intense in film and video because documentaries have a much wider audience than journal articles. I just finished responding to a question about representation and wonder if researchers would feel more pressure making a film, since the obligation to be accurate is stronger because there is a larger audience (including the people the films are about).

Response to Jonah's Reponse!

I agree with Jonah's answer, "it all depends," but think that statement itself depends on whether or not you believe that music should be preserved or advocated for. He mentions two papers that outline the importance of advocating for the music they have studied, but warn people to do so responsibly, offering a few guidelines. In such a case, it is easier to say that these musics should be preserved.

However, the Back article on White Supremacy portrays a culture that is repulsive to mainstream Americans. Though repulsive to me, it appeals to a group of people who have chosen to make it their lifestyle. Beyond arguments of cultural relativism, I feel uncomfortable drawing a line between "objectionable" and "acceptable" music to study and I think that such a line is impossible to draw because when talking about music, you will undoubtedly end up in a conversation about culture.

It is very messy to have a code on what music is allowed to be "advocated" for, because the researchers we're talking about have an obligation to accuracy and to unbiased reporting. Jonah brings up a point that is impossible to avoid--it is impossible to avoid bias. However, you can reduce conflicts of interest. Furthermore, preservation and advocacy increase the chances for misrepresentation and blocking the musical culture from organic changes it would have undergone without intervention. Though it is sad when musical cultures die, there is merit in studying why it died out in the first place.

Qhen the academic writes about a musical culture, are they playing a part in its advocacy? What is advocacy really? I personally feel that explicit instances of preservation and advocacy conflict directly with the goal of accurate ethnography.

Neustadt Critical Review

This article discusses the perennial problem in which musicians alter their practices or enter the industry to fit the tastes of outsiders. Neustadt presents La Chanraga Habanera, a group that presented an album the same time the Buena Vista Social Club was put together, to illustrate how contemporary Cubans perceive themselves and Cuba. There were many different points raised in the article, but the most interesting to me was the way in which Americans and the rest of the first world responded to the Buena Vista Social Club and the movie made about them.

The article briefly mentions the embargo and the fact that Cuba remains one of very few communist nations in the world. I think a larger discussion on U.S.-Cuba relations would have supported this article a lot. The back and forth between the nostalgia-based tastes of the outside and the more "authentic" tastes on the island is really a consequence of the U.S.'s staggering purchasing power and regional hegemony.

The nostalgia is very strong, but there is an ideological component here too. The fairytale elements of the BVSC movie are satisfying in that they gives first-world audiences affirmation that they are living in an economic system that rewards musicians like the BVSC and that communism is backwards and traps societies in static states.

I had a difficult time deciphering what exactly Neustadt was trying to achieve beyond offering a view on Cuban identity. I feel that La Charanga Habanera was an interesting group to compare BVSC to, but ultimately it felt auxiliary and forced.

To what extent does politics affect the perception and creation of music?

Challenge Question Response

...or, "I be misrepresentin'"

Academia is a very insular community, so it is difficult to ask whether a researcher has any obligation to provide a wider angle on the music they study to the general public. The perspective they give will rarely be read by anyone outside the field or in the classroom. What is the role of the researcher in society, exactly? Many times, what they produce becomes policy, new business practices, drugs, and things with what we call "real world" applications. But a lot of the time it echoes around in the ivory tower. So who exactly will have the misrepresented picture? Fellow academics would likely be tuned in to the problems in writing an ethnography and will always find critiques with that in mind. A mainstream audience would not have very much exposure to this anyway.

However, many ethnomusicologists play the role of cultural advocate to make their research available to a broader audience. Here is where accuracy and misrepresentation become real concerns. This is the position in which researchers should feel like they have an obligation to provide that wider angle, but there are dangers that come with this. It is hard to preserve something that is constantly changing, so a researcher risks presenting something that, in twenty years' time, will be very different. Just think about how much American pop music has changed over the past 20 years! Researchers do have an obligation to present a wide, accurate picture. The question is how exactly they can accomplish this.

But there is such thing as bad research. If the culture in question is completely misrepresented, then something is wrong. No one can really know if an ethnographer misrepresented a now extinct musical culture and no one can do anything about it. However, I feel that there is a very strong taboo against this dishonesty and fact-checking has become easier than ever. There is and should be an ethical code guiding the actions of researchers.

Academics really do try and provide the most accurate picture they can of the cultures they study. Their participation in the music they study is probably the most useful trend in ethnomusicology. We have talked about the observer-participant dynamic and how it should be carefully considered going into any project. Being a westerner automatically associates you with larger "western" musical society, making you somewhat of a participant even if you claim to be observing it. Observer participation seems to be a nice little way of getting around this conflict. Furthermore, non-western ethnomusicologists are also now giving their perspectives on their once-misrepresented musical cultures. Ethnomusicology at home means very different things depending on where home is.

Finally, consider that misrepresentations are still representations and can at least give us an idea or some facts about the topic studied. Although many of the articles published in the 50's are to us amusingly misrepresenting the cultures they're studying, we still read them beyond the context of examining the history of ethnomusicology. If work misrepresents a musical culture, was it worth it to study the culture at all in the first place?

Critial Review: Waxer

"Of Mambo Kings and Songs of Love" is a great introduction to Cuban musical styles and the influence it had on the American construction of the "Latin" sound. Waxer does a great job proving that there are too many similarities between the New York and Cuban jazz styles for them to have developed independently.

Waxer talks in detail about performing identities and the relationship between the performer and the audience. I thought the discussion on White-Black integration in Cuba and the subsequent change in mainstream Cuban musical tastes was fascinating and once again brings up racial essentialism as a major theme in music. I think it is interesting then how much influence what earlier generations thought of as African American music now dominates as the American pop sound, because though African Americans now have the same legal rights as other Americans, you could not say that they have become economically integrated.

And this touches on something I often forget: the economics of the musician-audience relationship. So much of what musicians do, despite what many of them might say, caters to the tastes and desires of their audiences because music is their job. I have the image of the independent musician who creates music based on what their soul tells them, but most musicians are more like Haydn--court musicians who write what their King wants. Musicians are mostly servants to the tastes of their audience, because in the end it is their audience that feeds them.

Waxer then addresses a consequence of this economic asymmetry: performers playing a part in the misrepresentation of their music. We discussed how Peruvian musicians play this one song in Cusco because it is a song tourists know and will respond to. Should performers have an obligation to be faithful to their musical roots if they've been transplanted somewhere else?

The article also begged to ask a larger question about transnational musical scenes and cultural, economic, and political communities. Waxer says "...the stage was set for the creation of a pan-Latin cultural identity that has paralleled the emergence of other macro-regional alliances..." I wonder if it was the music that created this cultural identity or if the music was merely a byproduct of other forms of integration.

Interview: Brian Guest and the Tuba

...or, "Kegs and Kettledrums" and "OH! LORD NELSON!"

My first interview of two I did today was with Brian Guest, a freshman who plays tuba in the Brown Band.

JR: Singing on the bus?

BG: Yeah, Singing...partying...

JR: Partying?

BG: Yes, partying. A lot of band is partying.

JR: What made you join in the first place? Were you searching for a musical group?

BG: Well, I joined for musical reasons. I heard it was fun, but I didn't know about the singing about the partying. I would say it is split between partying and music.

JR: Can you talk more about the social aspect?

BG: Well, when you're on a bus for the two days, those are the people you're hanging out with. Overnight trips happen for, let's see...Cornell is two nights, Columbia was one night...and the winter trip is one night. Almost everyone in band is friends with each other--it's extremely inclusive.

JR: How different is the Brown band from high school band?

BG: Well, I wasn't in a marching band in high school. I was in an orchestra before. I guess the fact that there are student conductors, student arrangers, and everything is run by students.

JR: How do you think that changes the dynamic of the band?

BG: Well, it's really laid back...you still have a chance to make music whenever you want to.

JR: When I came to ADOCH, I remembered hearing this incredibly raunchy script.

BG: Yeah, I've seen that on the internet (laughter) Well, at sports events you still have to get it by the athletics department. But usually at away games, you don't have to run it through the other schools. You have to keep the other schools in mind...I mean, we got kicked out of Holy Cross for being too offensive.

JR: So how to other bands react to you guys?

BG: I would say that the other bands we play with...they're pretty similar to us and have the same attitude. All the ivy bands except for Cornell are scatter bands. Some are a bit more organized, but they are all mostly student-run.

JR: So what do you play at these games? I remember hearing "Bad Romance" at the hockey game. Who chooses the music?

BG: We just had a song-reading practice to try out songs. These were mostly arranged by professional arrangers, like Dr. Worm. Bad Romance...Nick Hagerty just arranged it. I mean, Bryan Chu does a lot of arranging--he's the conductor.

Discussion of the band structure.

"Some of the seniors go to the GCB"

BG: There's a historian in charge of leading singing on the bus.

JR: Singing on the bus?

BG: A lot of them are based on fight songs of other schools. And there are some that are just based of of...other songs. Most of them are Brown songs. I mean, we have a lot of raunchy songs like ADPhi songs.

JR: What's an example of one of those songs?

BG: Well, we have one we can't sing to Freshman until october to not scare them away. It's called the S&M song (laughter). A lot of the songs we sing we also play, because they're Brown songs. Like "I'm a Brown Man Born." So we play those at games a lot too...and the pop songs, which we sing on the bus. Like at the last trip we ran out of songs so we started singing "Don't Stop Believing" and "Bohemian Rhapsody." But usually at the parties, the soundtracks are all band songs, like the pop songs.

BG: We added a bong. (In reference to the Clarkson cup)

(discussion of Clarkson cup here)

(Story about Brown Band's relationship to Clarkson)

(Discussion of band relationships)

JR: So what keeps you in Brown band? What about your involvement in the future?

BG: That's kind of what I look forward too. It's sad that we're done with games this season for a while. Our next thing is lacrosse in the beginning of May. We do other things like surprise shows.

JR: Surprise shows?

BG: Oh, like we hide in the bushes and jump out...like when people are going to classes.

JR: You guys should surprise me. I would really like that.

BG: Especially...I dunno there's a really great draw for me. The people, and just being able to play music without worrying about whether you're perfect or not. There's this one girl who just started to learn trumpet. It usually starts with percussion. There's a kid who kept on coming to home games and he always sat near us so we said "oh, you should join Brown band" but he said he was really busy but maybe next year and he didn't play an instrument. And we said "it's just another hour and a half on Tuesday you come to the home games anyway." And in the future, I don't really know what band board position would be good for me, but I would definitely consider running.

Nettl Critical Review #6

...or "I gotta get me some of them Mozart balls"

Nettl's article talks about ethnomusicology at home and is a self-reflective (though I think he claims it isn't) look on western art music, the people who produce it, and the people the study it. By studying the way a group of midwestern universities ("Heartland U") are organized, he tries to make a larger argument that cultural structures tie into musical structures and the structures of musical societies.

He begins by presenting an approach to music in relation to the culture that produces it. Music is a part of culture, it is a microcosm of culture, and it is a commentary on culture. Though he makes a disclaimer that there should be a healthy bit of skepticism towards this view, this is the stance he decides to take. I understand that what a culture produces (in this case, music), will obviously be a reflection of it. But I am skeptical that the power structures within a musical culture reflect the culture at large. More on this later.

Then Nettl goes into a fascinating, tongue-in-cheek discussion about the way Heartland U. treats the great composers in the western art music canon. An ethnomusicologist from Mars would see Heartland U's society worshipping a Pantheon of great and lesser gods. This deity-worship is something I am familiar with and I think it is a good way of presenting the treatment of figures like Wagner, Mozart, and Beethoven and it highlights the musical hierarchy-cultural hierarchy connection pretty well.

The most interesting part about this section was the connections Nettl constantly makes between talent, genius, and the divine. The way we think of "genius" is a figure who almost can do no wrong in terms of what he or she produces. Nettl mentions this in the way we catalog composers' works and release them in compilations, as if all their works are masterpieces by virtue of being associated with the composer. The little bit about relics was cool too.

Then Nettl attempts to consolidate his argument. I don't think this was particularly well done. Essentially, he is trying to make the argument that the polytheistic nature of Western Art Music is reflected in the culture of Heartland U. I found his Mozart-Beethoven inspiration-hard work dualism frame very weak and forced.

He then discusses uniforms, the orchestra, and how they relate to Western society. I liked the idea of the rise of the modern orchestra corresponding with industrialization or militarization and the power structures that formed as a result. In my experience, orchestras are like machines, where the individual is obliterated in favor of a collective existence lol. Uniforms would probably help in doing this. The discussion of the clothes people decide to wear were also interesting because I see people go to the opera dressed very formally. Dress codes are a very potent reflection of societal power structures and it was cool to see it addressed in the article.

One question I didn't feel like was answered very well: Why did "western" society gravitate towards the composer as deity set-up?

more somewhat related questions:

Why has the orchestral set-up remained so static for the past 50 or so years?

Most "pop" music "deifies" the performer and their body of work (the Beatles come immediately to mind) as opposed to the composer. Is this a reflection of the shift away from the composer-performer setup of WAM, or does this reflect a change in societal attitudes towards music and its production?

Agawu, Waterman Critical Review 5

In his article, Agawu describes the pervading exotification and misrepresentation of Africa and African musical cultures. He talks in depth about "rhythm" and criticizes other academics' practice of ascribing a "unique rhythmic sensibility" to "Africans" and as a result marking them as somehow inherently different.

He describes how people have misrepresented African rhythms as inherently more complex and incompatible with any sort of western notation system.The misrepresentation he describes has many problems. Though it helps in simplifying the discourse, it simplifies it to the point that it fails to address the huge amount of musical, linguistic, and political diversity on the African continent. In that respect, I see very little difference in saying "African music" as opposed to "the African," the latter being a political incorrect term but functioning the same way in the former. Most importantly, it marks "Africans" as inherently different, which is really what racism is. In the Waterman article, "the American Negro" is referred to as having different musical sensibilities by virtue of his/her race.

I wonder, though, if we misrepresent European music in the same way. In all the discussions where European music was compared and contrasted to African music, many people seemed to make similar generalizations like "more complex harmonies" and "less complex rhythm."

The Waterman article was interesting in that it helped contain the "otherness" concept within the United States. Continentalizing Africa in the colonial period was largely the product of the clash of unequal powers. In the United States, the same thing occurred (and still occurs) except on a smaller scale.

I found his discussion about the shortcomings of western notation interesting. He says that even in our own musical systems, the way we notate things do not ever really take into account things like timbre. When I play a melodic line on the cello, I was taught that I had to phrase a line with small breaks, going slower and some portions, faster in others. I see none of this notated on the page, yet we call this ability to interpret "musicianship."

Agawu then makes the argument that it is okay to try and notate other musics with notation familiar to scholars. Though some of the notation systems he discusses were interesting, I fail to see how they could be helpful to anyone.

The only solutions to the myriad problems Agawu presents that he offers is a relatively weak one. He suggests that African musicians make their own notation systems and hopes that they can one day represent themselves to the world. Though it is a weak conclusion, a system developed by the performers would make the most sense to the performers, which is really the only reason a notation system should exist anyway--to be read and understood.

What was interesting about the Waterman article was how it had a disclaimer at the opening which made clear that the music of Africa was very diverse, and that he was oversimplifying it throughout his article. It was written in the 50's and still addressed what Agawu criticized. Cool!

Can a discussion about musical sophistication ever occur? I feel like different cultures value very different things in their music, and you will always be appraising another musical culture's music through comparison with your own. If your own musical values differ, how "sophisticated" can anything be?

How much of the language of race and colonialism play in the discussion of non-Western music by western authors? I found some great examples in the two articles.

And now a somewhat personal experience with musical representation::

Samulnori is a Korean drumming style that serves as a blanket term for Korean folk music. I learned the four basic instruments and was trained as a vocalist during my childhood. When I learned Samulnori, I learned from repetition and vocal instruction. When notation was presented to us, it was similar to the way western percussion instruments are notated. It was helpful, but we were told to only use it for basic learning because there were things we could only learn from our instructors.

Samulnori music can be broken down into units, each unit with its own time signature, dances, and transitions. Within each unit each instrument has their own sub-rhythms. However, they all share the same downbeat at the beginning of each sub-unit. At the "heart" of the music is the breath, which everyone is expected to share.

More on this later!

Critial Review: Wong

"Finding an Asian-American Audience: The Problem of Listening" uses one man, Rod Ogawa, to tell a larger story about Asian-American musical consumption and how people's tastes are formed in general. Wong's focus is on listening, or where "considerable slippage occurs between agency and coercion."

The focus of her article is to present ideas on a seldom-explored topic: the consumption of American music by Americans who perceive themselves outside or in between the Black-White dichotomy of American "culture." I do not think that she ever pretends to present the musical tastes of Asian-Americans. I'm sure she is well aware that it would be impossible with only one person's life experiences to draw from. I personally found it a relaxed and compelling way of presenting the subject.

I found her choice of subject really interesting. Rod isn't "any more or less interesting than any other Asian-American listener," but he gives a very thoughtful picture of the listening habits of a Californian Japanese-American during the 50s and 60s. Most contemporary papers on Asian-American communities that I've read address immigrant enclaves of non-English speakers. Rod's experience as a post-internment Japanese American before the massive influx of Asian immigrants in the 60s was interesting for two reasons. The first is that Japanese Americans are now considered among the most "assimilated" of Asian ethnicities. The second is that he came of age and went to college during the civil rights movement, which probably gave him a different perspective on the place of Asian-Americans than someone growing up now.

It is also interesting because Deborah is also Asian-American, yet chooses someone else to write about. She is probably extremely aware of her own musical tastes and where they come from and could easily have written about herself. Is there a taboo to do this in an ethnography? As a participant in the group that "listens," she is as good a candidate as any. But interviewing Rod adds legitimacy to her arguments and in some bizarre way, allows her to find a narrative to compare hers to, which probably helped inform her conclusions.

I find her discussion of listening the most interesting. She claims that there is nothing inherent about music that makes it compelling--people make choices about what they listen to. She discusses the coercive aspect of listening later, which makes me think that your taste is really the combination of choice and coercion. I think is especially interesting when considering the unique place of Asian Americans in American society.

On a personal note, this article made me think more critically about the music I consume and the contexts I do that in as an Asian-American. The "otherness" ascribed to Asian Americans is something I'm constantly reminded of in a variety of contexts, whether it is in pop culture, the media, or in everyday social interactions.

My parents were avid listeners of "classical" music and I was encouraged to think that it was the only music I should consider "music." I'm a huge fan of it and listen to and participate in its production even now. To what extent was this a personal choice? My immediate social environment (my family) growing up put a high value on the appreciation and consumption of this kind of music. I wonder where and when this value was assigned.

Ultimately, I think it boiled down to the "immigrant mentality," a term I take issue with, but works in this particular case. To the Asian immigrant's mind, I think there exists some hazy conception of "American." Or, more accurately, "upper-class White American." Although its arguable the extent to which immigrants want themselves and their children to "assimilate," the particular community I grew up in placed a large emphasis on involvement in what were perceived to be "White" institutions like Ivy League universities and classical music ensembles.

However, a lot of my peers rejected their parents' musical tastes. Coming of age as an Asian-American in the United States was a bizarre and often confusing experience for me. Many New York Asian Americans live in or on the border of immigrant enclaves, where one sees signs in foreign languages as far as you can see. Therefore, there was a constant influx of immigrants, bringing the tastes they developed in their home countries with them. I had as much Korean pop music as I did American pop music on my computer. I spoke in English and had American friends, but participated in a variety of communities (mainly church), that consisted of a mixture of immigrants and their immigrant or American children.

The section on the "army of clarinets" was really interesting, because I had a similar experience with string instruments in high school. If you wanted to learn the definition of "AZN invasion," you would just have to look at our string orchestra. For some reason, all our parents made us learn an instrument. There were a variety of hypotheses--to get us into college was a particularly compelling one. I liked Wong's idea of the "imagination of social mobility." In the same way people around the world consider it a good investment to learn the language of the hegemon, I think people decide to participate in a musical culture.

What makes music "White" or "Black" or even "Asian?" In my particular case, it seemed that one small subsection of what my non-Asian peers deemed to be "music Asians listened to" was more than often not produced, performed, or composed by Asians at all.

Critical Review #3 Agawu

The "ethical attitude" Agawu advises ethnographers to have didn't do anything for me. He gave a weak survey of ethics within the ethnomusicology community and didn't offer any real solutions, approaches, or conceptual frameworks that I felt particularly satisfied with.

I had some issues with Agawu's discussion on how to approach the ethical systems of other communities. He cites another researcher in saying that African ethical thought are "as follows: traditional societies are communitarian...rights are essentially 'corporate'...the structure of thought is antiuniversalist." According to him, "...this is only true of precolonial or traditional society." Coming into another society with this "knowledge" might encourage aligning experiences with these generalizations, which I personally am uncomfortable with. Assigning this sort of inherent cultural character to a group of people seems irresponsible.

He then asks about how to approach communities who have "encountered" Christianity, Islam, and "modernizing forces." We've discussed in class how ethnomusicology has acquired a normative component of preservation and advocacy. I wonder if it is ethical to do this. There may be a desire among ethnomusicologists (a self-interested one, even) to thematize and align their experiences in the field with the world views they encounter in academic research. Agawu brings up a great question: "Could it be that protecting the BaAka...is a way of protecting our research? Do we want the BaAka to remain different so that we can continue to thematize them in our writing, exploit them intellectually?" I've discussed before the perils of wanting to separate and isolate a musical tradition from modernizing forces because it just isn't the way things work. Field researchers of popular music address these forces all the time and seem to be fine.

However, he says some interesting things about how an conceptual framework for ethics can only come from a community. But is the imagined community of academia really that different from our more traditional conception of a community? With better communication and more opportunities for exchange, is it possible for it to synthesize a system of ethics?

Wagner

...or "Walla walla"

I watched "Das Rheingold" today. It was the 1976 staging directed by Patrice Chereau. It accomplished three things.

1. reinforced my fear that I am just a cog in the industrial machine

2. inspired a game called "Bayreuth" similar to another one with a similar name.

3. Wagner was an asshole

I enjoyed it immensely and will be watching a more traditional staging of die Walkure very soon. I also listened to a lot of rain hitting my window. Why practice with my "Studying Rhythm" book if I can just learn from nature? I suspect professor Cole will not appreciate that question.

SEM POST

Or..."Dear Society for Ethnomusicology: Is that seriously your journal cover?"

I went to town!

The first thing you notice when you go through the earliest issues of Ethnomusicology is how it seemed to function as a networking journal as opposed to a place where people published their findings. It's historical roots as an offshoot of musicology and its relative novelty are really highlighted by the first few issues. There is a clear intent to really try and flesh out the discipline

The earliest issues are dominated by studies of decidedly "exotic" cultures. Throughout many of the earlier articles, I got the distinct impression that these ethnomusicologists perceived the people they were studying as "primitive." They also read very scientifically, with very little usage of the first person and almost no personal narrative. The scientific approach to ethnomusicology and the purposeful placement of distance between them and their subjects was probably intentional, almost in the same way scientists avoid "contaminating" their samples.

They earlier articles tend to focus more heavily on notation, recording, and form. In "A Transcription Technique Used by Zygmunt Estreicher," Roxanne McCollester talks in very precise detail about how to transcribe a melody. "The transcription process should now proceed by listening again to the music at half speed...to pick up as many as possible of the 'microrhythmic' relations..." It seems that early ethnomusicology was very involved with finding new ways to fit (more like force in) and bend non-Western music systems into the Western tonal system.

The articles we've read and the articles posted in 2000 and beyond tend to focus more on music and its cultural context. The earlier articles seem to treat music as a product of the society, to be taken back to the laboratory and examined like a physical object. The earlier articles also seem to be more like research papers than what we would consider an "ethnography." We talk about how the ultimate goal of fieldwork is an ethnography, but that doesn't seem to be the goal of these ethnomusicologists. Perhaps our modern conception of "ethnography" is drastically different? Or maybe they were trying to do something else completely!

I think as a modern student, it's great to look back at some of these articles and see how attitudes have changed in society as a whole. In a 1961 article by Ed Cray entitled "An Acculturative Continuum for Negro Folk Song in the United States," the tone and language strongly suggest that the author thinks of music produced by African Americans should be considered in a context completely separate from the music of "mainstream America." I think this is an interesting snapshot of how people perceived the "otherness" of African Americans in the period before the civil rights movement went into full swing. Also, I think any modern listener of American music would agree that it is impossible to separate it from its African American influences. "R and B records are being replaced by rock and roll, essentially a white musical style." lol.

Titon 2002, Barz 2008 Critical Review

Jeff Titon has such a reassuring and gentle writing style. Jeff Titon WILL teach you how to do field work! I like the idea of a video series.

There were a few things I thought were interesting about the Titon article. I get the impression from this and our past readings that modern ethnomusicology is all about the participant-observer dynamic and is concerned with the balance field research has to strike between the two. The consistent warning is to always be self-aware, because "your very presence as an observer alters the musical situation...In many situations you will actually cause less interference if you participate rather than intrude as a neutral and unresponsive observer." (Titon, 2) But if there is such an emphasis on interfering as little as possible, why do modern fieldworkers believe they must "give back to the people?" By acting as a cultural and musical advocate, don't you change the musical situation even further by adding even MORE observers? I think what that does is freeze the group in a place and time and wall it off from the natural changes it would have gone through had an ethnomusicologist not acted as an advocate.

The introductory and instructive way the Titon article is constructed forces is it to make a few simplifications and generalizations. He says "ethnomusicologists say..." or "fieldworkers think..." as if there is a consensus among them. An instance he uses this is when he talks about cultural advocacy: "It is humankind's advantage to have many different kinds of music, they believe. For that reason, they think advocacy and support are necessary..." To me, this sounds like even more intervention and touches on a debate I've encountered in other classes about globalization and homogenization.

If forces were at work to make music "sound alike" the world over, is that a bad thing? Does a musical culture ever willingly accept one of these homogenizing forces, or is it imposed upon them? I think there are some really interesting parallels with language. When students in other countries learn English, do they have agency? One could argue that they make a conscious decision to learn it, but others would argue that Anglo-American power structures necessitate the adoption of English. If an indigenous language dies out as a result of this, whose fault is it?

I hesitate to argue that the death of musical cultures is just the way things work, but musical cultures and languages have been disappearing and being replaced by new ones ever since people have been making music. Does being a cultural preservationist mean you're opposing the "march of history?" (I hate saying that).

But returning to the idea of observing as opposed to participating, Barz brought up something I didn't really think about when he mentioned that taking field notes was a performative act. But so is being in a musical group. When I am in my samulnori ensemble, I go through a series of rituals throughout the rehearsal that people expect of me. Photographing, tape-recording, and taking field notes would require me to deviate from these standard rituals and norms. If you are a participant in a string quartet, for example, and you whipped out a notebook during rehearsal, that's just weird. What if you just recorded things without them knowing?

Titon emphasizes that you need to make sure you have consent. I wonder if a more genuine observation of a group would arise if you observed them without their consent.

Film Scoring

...or, "Why Listening to James Cameron's 'Avatar' Soundtrack Left Me Throughly Uncomfortable and Unimpressed. Also Kind of Offended," and "This Chorus Singing in Latin Does Not Belong in This Movie."

I love movies! I go to them all the time for the feeling of being in a large theater surrounded by other people. I also like watching previews and often enjoy them no matter how terrible they are. I love going with friends and sometimes even go by myself!
...Actually, I just actively seek out socially acceptable settings to eat entire boxes of junior mints.

But really, I rarely go because of the score. In many instances, the score is supposed to be background music--stuff composed so you are supposed to ignore it, but should intensify your experience. I hate to say this, but the New Moon soundtrack did a good job of this. Not gonna lie.

But I always notice the background music. Maybe it is because of my musical training, but sometimes I just space out and just pay attention to the music. And sometimes when I do this, I feel uncomfortable. Here are some of the things that make me uncomfortable in a film score:

1. The usage of non-western instruments to make something sound more exotic (wtf is that erhu doing there?)
2. The Random Latin Chorus3. When I know what the next four chords are going to be
4. When a solo female voice starts to sing modal-y melodies in another language/with no words at all
5. Similar to 4, those goddamn boy sopranos.
6. Any time anything by My Chemical Romance makes its way into a soundtrack
Okay, so my main problem with the "Avatar" soundtrack was when there were these scenes that were totally taken out of the Pocahontas "Colors of the Wind" scene in which the attractive indigenous woman takes the white dude out and shows him her culture. In the movie, this involved lots of DRUMMING. It came out of nowhere. Why do all "natives" enjoy percussive instruments? I don't know.

I don't know about you, but if I were a blue, humanoid alien organism, I would probably play the French horn. Think about it. Think about it really hard.

Of course it is wise to use the instruments of a culture you are trying to depict in a movie. I just thought it was a bit offensive because the Avatar Na'vi were supposed to be extraterrestrial. Not African.

Next, let me take a moment to describe a phenomenon called "Random Latin Chorus," or RLC. Yes, I actually use this terminology in real life and enjoy instances when it comes up. You probably know exactly what I'm talking about. RLC happens during seriously epic scenes during a war with a bunch of dudes charging towards the enemy or when there are a swarm of demons, or when there are a bunch of vampires standing around in a candlelit room doing something dramatic like sacrificing a virgin. Or attacking the president! RLC in X-men 2

Sometimes, it is totally okay. I mean, "Gladiator" was all about Romans, so it makes sense. It's a context thing. I know this is all my opinion, but sometimes it just makes me uncomfortable. It doesn't even have to be in Latin to unnerve me. There are, however, instances when it's done pretty well.
Next thing. When I saw the Lord of the Rings, I enjoyed the soundtrack. I did! I promise. Did you know that the "Hobbit" theme sounds almost exactly like the Lutheran hymn "This is My Father's World?" Beyond that though, the Hobbit theme also sounds like every wistful, pastoral, village-y song ever written. Wind instrument playing over strings! While this doesn't really make me uncomfortable, it gets annoying when you hear it everywhere! Off the top of my head: Avatar, Eragon, Stardust, Harry Potter.

Another film scoring phenomenon I like to talk about that makes me uncomfortable is something I am going to call "Everything goes silent except for solo female voice singing in another language." You know what I'm talking about. Picture a hero in battle. He is running towards the enemy and he has some bad wounds already, but you know he will keep on going. Suddenly, it goes silent and a woman starts to sing in the background while he raises his sword and starts slashing at a Persian or something. Why is that woman singing? More importantly, why is it in a harmonic minor/mode? Also, what are all these semitones I hear? Most imp

ortantly, WHY IS IT ALWAYS ENYA?!

Going off on this, I hate boy sopranos. This is an opinion. I used to be a boy soprano (and in a way, I still am). They pop up EVERYWHERE!

Unlike boy sopranos in real life, they have many uses in film scoring. They can be really angelic and uplifting OR absolutely terrifying. Actually, I take that angelic and uplifting part back. Boy sopranos are inherently terrifying. This is a fact. I challenge you to challenge this fact.

Finally, I hate "My Chemical Romance." I was unable to enjoy "Watchmen" for this reason.

Yes, I know discomfort is a really awkward and subjective way to describe my feelings about these musical idioms, but it's true. I think the most interesting thing though is the fact that these musical idioms exist. I don't believe there is something inherent about the music and the performance style that lends itself to be used in a particular place in a film. However, I think that each sound has a social context and has a lot of social meaning ascribed to it.

For example, the whole boy soprano thing. We think of little boys as innocent and cute, so a scorer might have a vocal line sung by one to suggest something like paradise. However, when they're used in a creepy way, it highlights the drama because it sort of twists are expectations.

The Latin chorus too. I think it's supposed to invoke images of church, of the middle ages, and the institutions associated with those things because that's what we think of when we think of a chorus singing in Latin. I have no goddamn clue where the solo woman singing thing comes from though.

In conclusion, My Chemical Romance sucks and if you've composed it, there's probably already a Lutheran hymn of it.

(left) MCR. Worse than every boy soprano ever? Make your call.

Clifford, 1988 Critical Review

Clifford, in "On Ethnographic Authority," attempts to explain the "new anthropology," a system he describes by pointing out patterns and trends in recent ethnography and by examining them historically. The breakup of "ethnographic authority" is described as a post-colonial shift towards integrating scientific methods with meaningful interactions with the people being observed. He outlines the difficulty of depicting concretely a society from the perspective of an outsider, even when the observer is also a participant. The most interesting aspects of the "new anthropology" he describes were the language and institutional aspects. Apparently, the observer-participant must be able to "use" the language, but not required to have a mastery over it. To me, this seems like it would be a tremendous block in accurately portraying the people you are interacting with because linguistic nuances seem to figure tremendously in the ways societies organize themselves and their environments. Thematic focus on institutions within the society to understand the society as a whole is another aspect of new anthropology. Although institutions often provide a valuable lens with which to see how social, cultural, and economic structures within a society interact, I would hesitate to say that they are microcosms of the society as a whole. It would be unwise to concentrate focus on a single institution and not attempt to connect it with other institutions and realize its unique place in its society.

I am also a bit troubled by the participatory aspect of new anthropology. Fieldwork is a post-colonial development that I personally feel is one of the most legitimate ways of examining another group of people, but there's a very Schrodinger's cat sort of overtone to the discussion about observer participation. I think Clifford does not touch upon this as much as he should have, since it leaves "new anthropology" vulnerable to criticism.

Does modern ethnography do a good job of the goal of ethnography, which is to accurately portray the "essence" of a people? There seems to be a lot of complications and shortcuts involved with it. Were there any advantages to having "ethnographic authorities?" and is there any merit in trying to be a "pure" observer or "pure participant?

The Face of Opera

...Or, "Nathan Gunn's Washboard Abs Made Me Enjoy 'Billy Budd' Way More Than I Should Have" and "Why is That Obese White Woman Playing a Delicate Fifteen-year-old Japanese Geisha?

One of the most fascinating "trends" I read about today in opera magazines and blogs and the like is the shift in the opera world towards hiring young, attractive singers. I do not know what this means.

There has been a large push in the opera world for presenting opera as a cinematic event. A lot of powerful houses around the world have been hiring film directors to stage their operas as well as film them. I think that this is generally a good thing, though I'm sure there is a lot of vocal opposition out there.

A recent movie of "La Boheme" was just released starring Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon and I enjoyed it a lot. The only vocal opposition most people had to this production was that Anna's humps didn't take as prominent a role as they should have. Okay.

This brings up something I am consistently fascinated by. It is the whole "suspension of reality" thing that people experience when they go see something on the stage. There is a fourth wall and you are peering into these peoples' worlds and watching as they do it with and kill each other and dream and feast and get married and throw themselves off ramparts.

I think a large portion of what modern opera audiences have trouble doing is suspending reality for the duration of the performance. The media we see every day is full of people who are cast or perform a role we expect them to. For example, a heroic archetype calls for a tall, muscular, handsome, White (at least in American media) male. In movies, we see this over and over again (Think Brad Pitt in "Troy"). When these archetypes are subverted, we are left either feeling intrigued, confused, or amused. Why do I think it's funny that the young, heroic Siegfried is being played by a fat old man? Because it is.

(right) Anna Netrebs, Soprano. The disturbing part is how google autocompleted "Anna Net..." to "Anna Netrebko Naked" Nice lingerie, Anna.

Large, Wagnerian sopranos are an example I would like to use to illustrate a nuance of this phenomenon. People expect their Wagnerian sopranos to be large women. When they see a large woman with breastplate, spear, and horned hat, most people think "Oh, yeah I totally get that." Wagnerian sopranos are an archetype in themselves. People expect them to be large and have big voices.

(Above) Deborah Voigt, Soprano, before and after her stomach surgery, or "Brunhilde" and "Not Brunhilde"

However, when faced with something like "Madama Butterfly" by Puccini, it is much more difficult to see a very large, White woman playing a delicate Japanese geisha of 15 years. I've seen a lot of Asian and Asian-American sopranos cast in the role as of late. Although I'm not a fan of typecasting, it makes opera much more believable. So many operas are about idealized, beautiful, tragic men and women. Having what you see match what you hear in the libretto ("Oh, the most beautiful woman in Scotland!) probably makes it more accessible. It makes it easier to suspend reality and requires you to deny less of what you are seeing and hearing. Because how many Italian peasant villages know the SATB parts to an 8-minute song about village life? The answer is three.

Is this a bad thing? I don't know. Traditionally, the voice was the most prized possession a singer had. But you have to admit that the physicality of a performance determines a great deal of what you get out of it.

I frame this phenomenon as fairly recent, but it's been going on for a while, especially among female singers. Interestingly, men haven't been hit as hard by this casting trend.

(Left) The only thing harder than casting an all-male Britten opera is Nathan Gunn's body. You would think an opera about sailors couldn't get any better.

Ultimately, I think that the opera community will continue trying very hard to find a way to keep themselves "relevant." Their crowds are getting older and older. But I'm sure they'll find different ways to cope. The Met's HD broadcasts are a great way of presenting opera without the ritual attached to it, which is a big turn-off for many potential opera-goers. It's just like going to a movie!

You will be seeing many more attractive and young singers populating the world's great stages. Good thing or bad thing?

I refer you to the picture to the left and ask how it could possibly a bad thing. I thought so.

Ethnomusicology Fieldwork Presentation: Proposal

...Or, "Slap on some valve oil, and GO TO TOWN, yo!"

I have decided that I will do my ethnomusicology fieldwork presentation on the Brown University Band. Founded in 1924 by Irving Harris, the band plays for a variety of events like athletic games, commencement, convocation, and 7 in the morning before my Macroeconomics final.

School bands are student musician groups who rehearse and perform instrumental music together with the purpose of performing in a concert or athletic setting. They tend to consist of wind, brass, and percussion instruments. The idea of the "band geek" is something that many who went through high school in the American public school system will be familiar with. How this translates to a collegiate setting will be interesting to see.

Most people are familiar with band culture through the movies "Drumline" and "American Pie: Band Camp" (Disclaimer: I love both movies so much). Interestingly, they depict band culture in two very different settings: a historically Black college in the South and a summer camp.

Ostensibly, the Brown Band has a culture of sexual subversion. A lot of their buttons range on the raunchier side of things you can put on a button. The scripts they write for their performances and their song choices (e.g. Stacy's Mom, Bad Romance) also seem to reinforce this. Of course, I say this tongue-in-cheek, but maybe it's something I should keep in mind.

I have asked the current music director if I could observe rehearsals and was promptly asked to join. I have been solicited to join on multiple occasions. Bear in mind that I play the cello.

"Don't worry. If you can blow or bang, I'm sure you'll fit in."

"Yes, I excel at both those things."

"Excellent."

They are a very welcoming group and I look forward to working with them.

24-Hour Music Blog

Or..."Lady Gaga is a larger presence in my life than God," and "This Morning, I Woke Up and Did Not Feel like P. Diddy"

All the music I hear/heard within the past 24 hours whether I wanted to or not. Let it begin.

~6:30AM
Chopin's Black Key Etude from my roommate's cell phone. It sounds like your typical cell phone ring tone. i.e. it is one of the worst sounds in the world.

~6:40AM
Chopin's Black Key Etude from my roommate's cell phone.

~6:50AM
Chopin's Black Key Etude from my roommate's cell phone. WAKE THE HELL UP.

~6:55AM
I get up and turn my roommate's phone off. I do not care if he misses his 9AM class. I make a note to ask his girlfriend to change his alarm.

~7AM I go on my computer and open Sibelius. The opening music plays. I compose a few bars of a mini-musical about music theory and decide that it's too early for any constructive composition. Plus, I am having a hard time counting eighth notes.

~8AM-9AM
I try to go back to sleep but I hear a knock on my door in the same rhythm as the Mario theme song. I know it is my friend Phil and I get up and give him the tableslips he needs. Can't go back to sleep so I take a shower. I sing "Der Erlkonig" and "The Ants Go Marching" to myself.

~9AM-10:30AM
Open itunes and it is on shuffle. Here is what I listened to while doing some reading (From my recently played list):
"Flying Home" Jason Robert Brown from the musical "Songs From a New World"
"My Name Is" Eminem
"I Don't Want to Wait" Paula Cole
"Gute Nacht" Schubert from "Winterreise" sung by Ian Bostridge with accompaniment by Daniel Harding.
"Der Erlkonig" Schubert, sung by Dietrich Fischer-Diskau
"Womanizer" covered by Lily Allen, orig. Britney Spears
"Party in the USA" Miley Cyrus
"Sleep" Eric Whitacre
"Good Girls Go Bad" Cobra Starship, feat. Leighton Meester
"Tik ToK" Ke$ha
"A Woman is a Sometime Thing" Gershwin from Porgy and Bess
"Main Theme" Nobuo Uematsu from Final Fantasy VII
"Valenti" BoA
"Don't Stand so Close to me" The Police
"Gay Bar" Electric 6
"Dum Maro Dum" Asha Bhosle, R.D. Burman

~10:30AM-11AM
I literally spent this time just sitting and reading in silence. It makes me wonder. What are birds? I don't even know. And then the bells! The bells! Ring ring ring ring ring

~11AM-12PM
The Law and Politics of International Human Rights Class. A cell phone went off, and it was Flo Rida's "Low" Featuring T-Pain. Noticed that there is a distint rhythm to Professor Tannenwald's lecture.

12PM-1PM
MUSC56 Lab with Arlene Cole.
We had to listen to two dictation examples repeatedly. Then a few examples of appogiaturas and passing tones. This hour is full of sounds and chords and noises and music.

~1-2PM
Went to the Ratty to eat. It's always interesting to hear the way crowds make sounds.

~2:00-2:30PM
Someone is warming up their voice. They warmed up extremely high and then very low. I heard strains of Mozart coming from the ADPhi lounge. Sarah Hersman was singing the alto part from "Sularia" from The Marriage of Figaro.

~2:30-3PM
I rehearsed part of the Marriage of Figaro duet (played piano) while Sarah sang
Then we moved onto Schumann's Song Cycle "Frauenliebe und Leben" and ran through the entire thing.

~3PM-4:30
Listened to "Knoxville Summer of 1915" by Samuel Barber on the walk to East Side Mini-Mart
Heard a rock song at ESMM coming from a speaker. I was unable to identify it.
Rehearsed "The Turn of the Screw" opera with Gabriel
Went through Act II Scene 1: Soliloquy and Colloguy, Act II, Scene 2: Miss Jessel and listened to Act II Scene 7: Flora. We listened to recording by Mahler Chamber Orchestra multiple times. I was teaching the part to her, so many sections of it were repeated.

4:30-6PM
Andrew Wong and I rehearsed selections from Benjamin Britten's "The Turn of the Screw"
Rehearsed Act II Scene 4: The Bedroom, Act II Scene 5: Quint, Act II Scene 8: Miles, and played through all of the Prologue. F*ck you, Benjamin Britten.

~6PM-6:30PM
At Orwig library studying.
Opened up my Taylor Swift Pandora radio station.
"Our Song" Taylor Swift
"You Belong With Me" Taylor Swift
"Some Hearts" Natasha Bedingfield
"Forever and Always" Taylor Swift
"My Life Would Suck Without You" Kelly Clarkson
"Picture to Burn" Taylor Swift
"Stay Beautiful" Taylor Swift

~6:30-7
Is the quiet hum of the computers
in Orwig music? Yes.
It is.
The high Eb beep of the library scanners
soothes me
I hum the musical example on the page
the printer turns on
vroom vroom
I count 14 pages

~7-7:45
Masumi made a recording of me improvising on "Paparazzi" by Lady Gaga on the piano.
Joe Rim and Lady Gaga I listened to this and was inspired to arrange it for string quartet because Renaissance and Medieval Music reading is stupid. The Sibelius opening music turns on! I decide in the end that I don't want to do it. Instead, I listen to "Starstruck" and "Das Rheingold: Prelude" by Wagner because it is so epic. Just like Lady Gaga.

~9-11PM
Gilbert and Sullivan Pirates of Penzance womens' Rehearsal. We rehearsed the chorus part in "I am the very model of a modern major general," "hail poetry," and "what is this and what is that." Heard "glitter and be gay" during break while one of our sopranos practiced for an aria concert on Saturday. Near the end, I set the keyboard to "church organ" and played the chords to "Paparazzi" while Meghan sang along. We also played some common chord progressions. A few of the songs demonstrated were "Poker Face," "Living on a Prayer," "99 Red Balloons," "Take a Bow," "Bad Romance," and "Heart and Soul"

~11-11:10
Went to the Ivy Room. Heard Cascada's "Evaculate the Dance Floor" and Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance." Also heard a lot of people yelling. Possibly drunkenly. Who gets wasted on a Monday night?

~11:10-1:00AM
Headed off to the SciLi for some work. Some douchebag had "Party in the USA" on repeat in the corner. Besides this, no music. Listening was interesting though. All the clicks. Once you pay attention to the mouse clicks and the clickity clack of the keyboard, it can really drive you crazy.

~1:00-?
Went back home. Someone is playing the piano right now. Some New Age stuff. Gah!! I also talked to the roommate about the alarm clock and he told me to shake him awake when it rings. I am going to sleep now.

So what I would say is that today I didn't go many places that imposed its music on me. A lot of the music I heard today was within my control, which I think is interesting. Overall, I think it is a good summary of the kind of music I listen to. Also, at some point, I am sure I heard "Chocolate Rain" by Tay Zonday but do not remember what the context was.

Also...What is music?
Hey Now, Little Mouse

...We don't even know.