Critical Questions: Miller

Questions for the Ethnomusicologist:

When you began with ethnographic detail, did you think to yourself "hmm, what technique would be effective here" or did you just write what seemed natural without really intending to use this technique, and only noticed it upon reflection?  The larger question, in a sense, is to inquire into the distinction between actively using techniques to write and using techniques to label what you write.  

You mention on page two that you sing with the groups that you study.  I also know from the strategically placed flyers around Brown's campus that you actively bring Sacred Harp singing to the Brown community.  Do you feel that at some point, you became an insider to the culture (alternatively, was there a point where you weren't)?  Do you think this has affected your research in a significant way?  Do you you promote Sacred Harp singing at Brown because you enjoy it, or because you feel it is your responsibility to in some sense preserve the culture (though, from reading the article, it doesn't really seem as though this tradition is in any immediate danger)?

Discussion question

"Like much rural Southern music, Sacred Harp singing has long been marked as explicitly and indigenously American" (p. 14).  American culture is relatively young, when compared to other world cultures.  Additionally, America is a country of immigrants; arguably, the only truly "native" culture with historical roots in this country is that of Native Americans.  Indeed, during the colonial times to which this music traces its roots, the individuals practicing it could very likely have considered themselves British citizens.  What does it mean to have an "American" tradition/culture when so much of our culture is imported?  Given that our national identity is often one of the "melting pot" (though I do understand that this term is no longer fashionable), would an American tradition embrace the notion of imported culture, or define itself by a rejection of the imported?

Challenge Questions

1) Many of the ethnomusicologists we have studied raise the issue of bias and how it affects their work.  Imagine that you are comparing two hypothetical sets of field-notes--one by yourself, in a culture in which you consider yourself to be an insider, and one by a Martian studying that same culture as a theoretical outsider.  How do  you think they would be the same?  How how do you think they would be different?  Address in the manner of your choosing, although the norm seems to be a 2-3 page paper.  

2) Some of the readings we have done (Agawu, for example) have offered the view that ethnomusicology in some way perpetuates the colonial relationship between cultures of unequal status in world influence.  These views range from the historical observation that ethnomusicology was born from the ideals of a western-centric society to the claim that the very act of studying another culture imposes, to some degree, a different culture upon it.  Rather than discussing a specific reading, please focus on your own opinions as to where ethnomusicology falls on this admittedly broad spectrum.  Feel free to offer suggestions for improvement, if you have them, but don't feel pressured to offer a solution to an issue that has plagued the entire field for decades.  Please address this topic in either a 2-3 page paper or a 4-6 minute interpretive dance.  

Interview Excerpt with Samantha Kuo

How did you get involved with the choir?

Freshman year, sorry. Um, freshman year, I was kind of looking, you know how freshman kind of look for things that they’ll fit in to, that they want to do. I’m catholic, but I had never really gone to church in high school, so, um, but I wanted to be in choir, but I didn’t want to do a cappella, so I was like well, what can I do. I ended up joining Jewish a cappella, by the way, but um, I came to church, just to check out the choir, and they were like yo, we need people, you know how they announce that, and then I went up and I just joined, and I’ve been with it ever since. It’s a lot of fun, it’s kind of scary starting out as a Freshman though, kind of intimidating, but it got a lot more fun as the years went by.

How do you feel like the choir affects your faith?

Umm, honestly, like I wouldn’t have gone to church if I wasn’t in the choir. Like, I go to church, now, I go to church twice, um, a weekend, and then, I guess, sophomore and junior year, um, no, sophmore year, I went to church once a weekend, and same as freshman year. But I really would not have gone to church as often; um, in high school, I was a baptized catholic, but I wasn’t a practicing catholic, and I didn’t believe in a lot of the things, but the choir has definitely forced me to, like, sit here, and listen to Father Bodah and he’s such, like, an intellectual priest, I think, he knows how to like I guess preach according to like, students, who are, like, I don’t know, at the stage in their life where they are learning about their faith still. So, um, just sitting here, because of the choir, definitely has brought me closer to god, and, um, a lot more religious, and faithful, I guess.

How do you feel about the people you sing with?

I absolutely love them, I mean, umm, they make me so happy. They make choir so worth while, um, we have so much fun, um, we laugh all the time, and I feel like that’s, I mean, my fault, a lot, and I don’t, I, well, I feel like sometimes we laugh too much, and that this is like a church choir, and I feel like we should be a little, a little more restrained, but like, this is like the one time in the week where we find, I think a lot of us feel this way too, where we really just find joy with people who share our faith, and who we just know are good people. And, um, I just absolutely love everybody in the choir, umm, yeah, they make me really happy.  

Interview Excerpt:

For your listening pleasure:

Critical Review #1

Overall, I found this reading compelling and interesting.  I was very impressed with the depth into the history and current internet culture of the white power movement, especially the first hand accounts, which I felt added a level of authenticity to discussion of a subject that is all to easy to judge from a distance.  I found the personals section both entertaining and revealing, and it added a touch of pathos to a group of people I find difficulty sympathizing with.  There were a few issues I have with the article, though.  First, I found the title to be very misleading.  The Wagner/Power Chord dynamic is attention-grabbing, to be sure, but I don't think the one line where it was mentioned merited titular status.  Furthermore, the title implied that the central focus of the article would be music, whereas I found that music was more of a periphery.  

On the other hand, the discussion of upper-middle class youth joining the movement was riveting.  The progression from a group searching for soldiers to searching for leaders is a telling step in their evolution.  It marks the point where they stop being a collection of people and start becoming a group that is bigger than the sum of their parts--in this context, a very scary thing.  Interesting, but still scary.  

Discussion Question (having very little to do with my review, and I am assuming I don't have to post it seeing as I am one of the discussion leaders): Can white power music be appreciated on it's purely musical merits?

Critical Review: Barz, ch 13

I'm very thankful that I was able to experience taking fieldnotes before reading this chapter.  The issues of how the fieldnotes affect our final opinion of our research seems particularly relevant, for obvious reason.  I think that before this reading, I had seen fieldnotes as a very specific kind of document, similar to the notes one takes during class.  However, I really enjoyed reading about the different kinds of documents--such as letters home--that Barz included in his catalogue of fieldnotes.  It was striking to me that some things he never intended to note wound up being a large part of his final research.  For example, the picture where he did not realize his writing supplies were so prominent.  His ability to have such dynamic aspects of his work be fieldnotes was very beneficial, I think, in ensuring that the his research was as faithful to the experience as possible, not just to his perception of the experience.  His point on the affects of fieldnotes upon our final research is certainly valid, and it makes me wonder how if we should take our fieldnotes with this in mind, or just take them in a way that seems appropriate at the time, and then try to allow our research to take the shape the notes seem to suggest.  

Discussion question:  Should we keep our research in mind when taking fieldnotes?  Or should we try to 'forget' any aspect of our ultimate aim when taking notes of any kind, just take them as we become inspired by the situation, and trust that even if we cannot see any pattern at the time, they will form a coherent whole when we look them over from our desks at home?

Fieldwork Notes

10-02-2008 Manning Chapel Choir Rehearsal

Odd assortment of accompaniment--2 acoustic guitars, 1 electric guitar, 1 piano, 2 clarinets.  This suggests that the group is formed of whomever is interested, rather than with the ideal of acoustic excellence.  In music, more is only sometimes better, but I am guessing that in the church world, more is always better.  This leads me to believe that the group considers itself a church group first and a music group second.  

Interesting guitar techniques--despite the untraditional inclusion of the electric guitar, most educated classical musicians are aware both of the historical relevance of the harpsichord in church music as well as the relatively simple technique of using an acoustic guitar to imitate the harpsichord's distinctive plucking sound.  These guitars, however, were not making this attempt, rather than plucking the chords, they were vigorously strumming them on a consistently elaborated downbeat.  This either suggests ignorance of the classical church music tradition, or an active attempt to "modernize" the music.  

The guitars would play while the singers would try to learn their parts--While any musician is experienced with the boredom that occurs while the leader is working with another group of musicians, most consider it unprofessional to occupy oneself by idly playing during this time.  

The rehearsal atmosphere is very relaxed, with no clear authority figure.  While there is a group leader, they seem to only have authority over the musicality of the group, rather than social authority as well (such as the ability of a respected conductor to instantly silence a noisy orchestra)

The singers blend well.  This suggests to me that they most likely sang in a high school choir, if they do not at Brown.  

The singers are pleasantly surprised when they end on the proper pitch.  This suggests a lack of rigorous ear training, such as is found in most college theory courses or choirs.  

The rehearsal consisted purely of teaching music, there was no refinement of technique, or group shaping done by the leader.  The leader acted more as a teacher than the leader of a musical vision.  

The clarinets are not always doubling the soprano, they sometimes play independent lines or harmonies.  This suggested (which I later confirmed) that there is music specifically written for clarinet.  Because a clarinet is not a traditional church choir accompanying instrument, this in turn suggests that the books were written with a very diverse group of instruments in mind, designed specifically for a rotating series of instrumentalists designated by availability and interest, rather than an aural standard.  

evaluation

I have noticed in my notes that most of what I focus on is the musicality of the group, and much of what I write is somewhat critical.  I believe this is because of my bias as a music major and someone who is experienced with opera.  While I would like to be honest in what I write, I think that the biggest thing that makes this group special is not excellence in musicality, but rather the reasons they come together to play.  While I suspected this from the beginning, I did not suspect how much my personal experience with music would influence the things I notice and record about this group.  I would like to focus on more than their music in the future, and hopefully this will allow my research to be much more positive in nature.  

Critical Review: Agawu

Agawu's essay brought up issues involved in the ethics of ethnomusicology--though he refers to himself as a music theorist, not an ethnomusicologist.  This is clearly an area that is very difficult to deal with.  I believe this is because we hold our ethics so close to us.  Though it is difficult to initially give up a western-art-music-centric view of the world, with a bit of thought and understanding it is quite possible.  This, I believe, is largely because of the work done by ethnomusicologists promoting cultural relativism.  The difficulty, I feel, arises mostly from the fact that western art music is such a large part of our culture and heritage, and it is difficult to view unfamiliar music as being equal to something we hold so dear.  

Ethics, though, are different.  We hold ethics far closer than we hold our culture; indeed, ethics are the rules we live our very lives by.  Surely, while music and culture are matters of taste, ethics are based upon something far more important--an internal barometer of right and wrong, given and accepted by all.  Much of western philosophy (and eastern philosophy, to be inclusive) is aimed at verifying and codifying this barometer.  Even if you look at our so called ethical debates, they are not about the barometer itself, but rather where issues fall on it.  Take abortion for example.  The pro-choice crowd argues that fetuses in their second trimester are not considered babies, while pro-life supporters argues that they are.  No one would argue that if the fetus was morally a baby, it would be OK to abort it.  While this is a heated topic, it allows us to see that fundamentally, our society agrees about our ethics, we just disagree on the details of interpretation.  

This is why it is so difficult to accept that other systems of ethics can be legitimate.  Surely, there is one internal system that all humans live by.  It is not that the western way is better, it is that the human way is the only way.  What else could there be?

We know, of course, that indeed other cultures, both past and present, have had drastically different systems of ethics from our current system.  We like to think that we are moving forward, nearing a more perfect system, so that our actions mirror our internal understanding of right and wrong.  Slavery, for example, while once accepted, is now not accepted.  We see this as movement forward, a righting of a wrong, so to speak.  Do we not have the responsibility to use the wisdom our culture has gained through a history filled with tragedy to help other cultures progress without having to suffer as we did?  This is a tricky issue, and leads to my discussion question.  I apologize for straying a bit off topic, and pontificating so much about the nature of ethics, but it seemed warranted.  

Discussion Question: Should the ideals of cultural relativism and bi-musicality be extended to ethical-relativism?  Are ethics somehow above the non-interference policy ethnomusicologists try to adhere to, or should ethical systems that may seem unjust be allowed to continue?  Does it make a difference whether we allow them to go on because we feel we should not interfere with a different culture, or because we want to accurately represent it to the scholastic community?  I would like to stress that I have not yet figured out where I stand on this issue.