The Sunday Night Jammers

photo taken by Camilla 9/23/2008

The Website

Research Questions

• What association is there between a dance (the set of steps) and the music the band plays for it for it?

• How does a caller work with a band?

• What makes a good dance (referring to the event as a whole)?

Dance 11/23/2008

1) Contra-Mixer (learned at a Newport dance called by Lucia Watson) / Reverend Brother's Jig & Out on the Ocean

2) The Good Man of Ballangigh (English)

3) Contra-Bowl of Cherries (by Sue Rosen) / Coffee & Cliffs of Moher

4) Alunelul (International-Romanian)

5) Waltz / Tom Bigbee

6) Gathering Peascods (English)

7) Dola Horse Stomp (Scandanavian Polka) / 1st polka on p. 11 of our set book (just listed as Polka, nameless)

8) Couples Polka (Seattle Polka style) / 2nd polka on p.11 Kerry Polka #1

9) Contra-anon. I picked this up at a dance somewhere along the way. Hope to find its name someday. Great dance. / Mairi's Wedding & Road to Boston

10) The Ox Dance (Swedish)

11) Contra-anon. same notes as #9. / Started w/ Baghad Gus but music just didn't fit dance. Restarted w/ The Woodchuck. To my surprise, this was a huge success, because while watching/calling the dance, I was hysterical w/ how frantic everyone looked trying to make it to the beginning of the next phrase on time. Yet still, they loved it. Next time we'll try this w/ a set of jigs and see if it doesn't play out a little smoother on the dance floor.

12) Waltz / Kevin Keegan

13) Hambo (Swedish) lessons & dancing / Trollspolska & Island Hambo

notes courtesy of Paul

TENTH CRITICAL REVIEW

"Notes on 'World Beat'" by Steven Feld

Feld begins his article by noting the complexities of musical appropriation. On the one hand, it can be born from a sincere love and respect for the original music and musicians, but on the other, it often turns into "a countermelody of power, even of control and domination." Feld then examines this issue more specifically through the lens of Paul Simon's Graceland. He explains why the South African musical styles heard on the album sounded so non-foreign to Simon--there have been serious African-American/American influences on South African music. Feld continues with what I regard as the most important part of his article: examining the issue of ownership. Feld notes that although Simon acknowledges his collaborations, Simon nonetheless owns the copyrights of many of the songs on the album. I find his point that Simon gives greater credit to his South African collaborators than his American collaborators extremely interesting, and Feld's explanation fot the reason this was so: "Simon felt that these songs were in fact more his own, or at least less anyone else's" is thought-provoking even if it is largely unsubstantiated. Feld ends up blaming the structure of the recording industry for perpetuating problems of "power and control," but the purpose of this article is more to point out the problem than propose a solution.

Discussion Question

If you were an elite recording artist making a Graceland-like album, how would this article influence the way you carried out your project?

Response to Joe's Response

Joe's response: http://ethnomusicologyandme.blogspot.com/2008/11/feedback-to-hopes-response.html

You noticed something I wasn't even quite aware of. I really do seem have a pretty rigid dichotomy between the fun part (participating) and the for research part (observing). I admire Titon’s approach a lot and I think it’s something I could learn from. My situation is different than his, though. One of the things I didn't mention was that I am the youngest in the group by at least—I’ll be diplomatic and say fifteen years. So at the same time I am trying to blend in and be an average member of the group, I’m not. I have this project to do for my music class and I’m a teenager. But this is a group where differences are never overwhelming. I had a great conversation with Martha and L. last night. We were waiting for Bob to come and unlock the hall, and they started talking about various college kids who've played with them. L. mentioned that people frequently stopped coming because as the semester changed so too did their schedules and then she turned to me and said, “You’re not allowed to do that!”

People have expressed a great interest in seeing the results of this research. As I mentioned earlier, I emailed out the link to this blog, and I told people I’d give them copies of the interview transcripts and also CDs of their interview if they wanted them. I’m planning on writing my paper on next week’s dance and people have expressed interest in seeing that as well. We won’t talk about how behind I am on those transcriptions because that’s a secondary issue, but being more serious, it does make me much more careful about what I write and what I do. Since I want to continue playing with the Jammers, I don’t want to offend, hurt or annoy anyone. I have enjoyed playing in the group so much and I look forward to doing it for the rest of the year.

Ninth Critical Review

"Representation and Authority in Ethnographic Film/Video: Production" by Jeff Todd Titon

Titon begins this article by addressing the problems of representing another culture's music. He argues that an ethnographer always ends up dominating her ethnography. He writes that there are very definitely inherent problems in representing another culture through video and film, even though they may appear deceptively like "something that 'really happened.'" He points out that the informants' authentic voices do not really appear but are instead presented as the director chooses. He ends by discussion how ethnographic filmmakers can "diffuse" their own authority and make ethically acceptable documentaries.

Discussion Question: This article was from a section of Ethnomusicology called "Call & Response." What responses do you think this call paper generated?

Eighth Critical Review

"Buena Vista Social Club versus La Charanga Habanera: The Politics of Cuban Rhythm" by Robert Neustadt

Neustadt begins by stating the impact BVSC has had on "most people's" perception of Cuban music. He contrasts it with the number one album in Cuba at the time, Tremendo, by La Charanga Habanera. Interestingly, Neustadt emphasizes that he is not interested in arbitrating authenticity, but instead in using these two albums and the response to them to draw conclusions about Cuban identity. He argues that LCH's music, timba, is a direct descendant of the son on BVSC. He defends timba by pointing out that son can also have sexually charged, misogynistic lyrics. And he seems to have a critical attitude towards the "BVSC phenomenon." I find it somewhat strange that he compares Ry Cooder and Nick Gold to men who travel to Cuba for the prostitution industry. It's an effective image but I'm unconvinced that it was necessary. He concludes the article by restating the role of son and timba in the lives of Cubans on the island. Despite his claim that he is not interested in arguing that one album is more "authentic" that the other, I think we can definitely see Neustadt making negative value judgments about BVSC and regarding LCH much more positively, although these judgments do seem to fit in with his point that these two albums represent two very different conceptions of Cuban identity. Unfortunately, in my mind he fails to adequately establish how these two different identities "are performing competing images of Cuban and worldbeat Cuban identity."

Discussion Question: Do Neustadt's value judgments (if you see any) help or hurt his point that La Charanga Habanera and Buena Vista Social Club represent two different images of Cuban identity?

Response to Sam's Answer

I found your answer to be a well-organized and logical argument for the virtual field as a perfectly suitable place for fieldwork. I am curious about this statement from your second paragraph: "As ethnomusicology is a field that deals with the learning of music from other cultures, there is something sacred about it." You follow with this with statements about standard fieldwork (going away to a foreign place, etc) which leaves me a little confused as to what you meant, especially since you don't go on to suggest that virtual fieldworkers were seen as attacking the "sacred practices" of ethnomusicology. I hope I am not misinterpreting/ignoring what you were trying to say! As I see it, the reasons you give for the initial disapproval of the virtual field are:
1. it was seen as a lazy way out
2. the early Internet did not provide culture(s) for study
3. it went against standard practice
Can you think of any more reasons?

You argue that disapproval of the virtual field is no longer relevant/possible, because the Internet creates cultural contact as well as new cultures. I agree! When I posed this question, I was hoping that the person who answered would play the devil's advocate and try to find reasons why the Internet is still an "unacceptable" place for fieldwork. Your response has made me doubt that this is possible, although I think there are probably still people who would look at the kind of fieldwork people like Kiri do with a certain amount of suspicion.

SEVENTH CRITICAL REVIEW

"Dancing With the Enemy," Deborah Pacini Hernandez

In this article, Pacini Hernandez writes about the unique place Cuban music has within Latin music and the world music industry. She writes that until the Cuban Revolution, Cuban music greatly influenced popular music throughout the world; after the revolution Cuban music was isolated until the late '80s. During this time of isolation, the Cuban government supported Cuban music and musicians, paying significant attention to Afro-Cuban traditions. Thus, when this music came to the attention of the U.S. world music industry, it had the African-derived elements that mark this music as authentic and interesting. She concludes by commenting on the consequences of the collapse of state support for music. She seems concerned by the possible effects of musicians trying to sell to a market (world music) that they do not really understand.

I found this article very enjoyable to read. The ideas are clearly-stated and thought-provoking. However, I was left a little confused as to the directions the Latin and world music markets would push Cuban music. To address this, I pose the following discussion question.

According to Pacini Hernandez, what are the potential pressures from on Cuban music from the Latin and world music markets? Does she make a judgment about the effects of these pressures?

RESPONSE TO CHALLENGE QUESTION

Although fieldwork has been an enjoyable experience there have also been some challenges and problems that have come up. I always get a ride to sessions. Dance Sundays provide a whole different experience from a day without dancers. Doing fieldwork on dance Sundays and non-dance Sundays alike can be quite challenging but there seem to be marginal ramifications to what I am doing. There are a few things I would do differently; though on the whole I am content with the way my research has been progressing.

Getting a ride to sessions has an obvious positive: without the ride I would not be there at all. I don’t drive and there are no bus lines to Goff Hall. I usually get a ride with two or three other people. It’s about a half hour drive both ways, which means that there is a lot of time to chat. Sometimes what comes up in conversation is relevant to what I am doing. Usually, especially lately, it is dark outside leaving and coming back, so I can’t write anything down. Also, since I have interviewed most of the people in the car, I consider what is said as conversation among friends and not research material.

Dance Sundays are obvious research material—I plan on writing the performance ethnography paper about the November 23^rd dance—but there are challenges in doing fieldwork there. It’s an extremely small dance, and the potluck that occurs beforehand is a chance for people (the musicians and the dancers) to sit down and talk to each other. I am still a relative newcomer to this community so I generally sit quietly and listen to people, most of whom known each other for at least a decade, talk to each other. I have not asked “research questions” in this setting, although I think it would be fascinating to hear what people had to say about their contra dancing experiences and what makes a good dance. I almost never have a pocket notebook with me and have never brought a tape recorder, so I have no way to take down what anyone says until after the dance.

In fact, I have generally only taken “fieldnotes” after I have gotten back to my dorm room. For the first three weeks, I hadn’t talked about my project all that much, and so it would have felt very weird just pulling out a notebook and starting to write things down. There also isn’t time, in the structure of a session, to do any writing. Each person picks a tune or set of tunes, and calls out the page number and title. Then you have to find it in the book, which has gotten slightly out of order, especially after page 130 or so. If there’s a set of two tunes, you probably need to set up the pages so you can see both of them. After that tune or set has been played three or four times, it is the next person’s turn to pick. It last two hours, encompasses two dozen tunes, and affords very little writing time. At the end of the session, people linger to chat, eat, brownies and put away chairs and music stands. Rather than retire to a corner to scribble, I help out, talk, and eat. Writing this makes me realize that I could take notes if I really wanted to. Perhaps I am focusing more on the participant end of the participant-observation?

I have tried very hard to be a good participant because I would like to keep playing with group after this project is over, which is probably also part of the reason I refrain from taking notes during the rehearsal. Note-taking would probably not set me that far apart from the group. The interviews I have done have given me a very interesting perspective on how the project has been perceived. (Note: I have not transcribed all of the interviews yet, so I am writing entirely from memory.) At least two people told me they enjoyed the interview because it made them think about things they hadn’t thought about before. One person jokingly said, “We’ve never felt so important in our lives before!”

There are several things I would do differently if I were a “real ethnomusicologist.” One would be to conduct much more structured interviews. Although I had a list of ten questions, I tried to let people go in the direction they wished. This has lead to some lengthy recordings (I think the shortest is forty minutes long.) I am so grateful the Jammers were comfortable talking to me, but it means I have a lot of transcription left to do, and I will unfortunately use only a small portion of the fascinating and valuable things all of them said. I would also let everyone know about it a lot earlier, although I would probably still send out the initial request to work with group by email. If I were doing this project as a professional ethnomusicologist, I would probably be a lot more mindful of the observer side of participant-observation, and would find a way to write during sessions and dances and talk to people about the project during social time.

CHALLENGE QUESTIONS

1. Why would someone argue that the "virtual field" cannot be a place for "real" fieldwork? (This question derives from Shadows in the Field, Chapter 6, which you may use or ignore as you wish.)

2. In Chapter 4 of Shadows in the Field, Deborah Wong briefly touches on the idea of ethnomusicology as a force for social change. Do you think ethnomusicology should be a force for social change? If yes, what are some ways this can occur? If no, how should an ethnomusicologist avoid causing social change?

Critical Review #6

"Towards an Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement: Thought on Bridging Disciplines and Musical Worlds" in Ethnomusicology by Kay Shelemay

In this article, Shelemay argues that there should be a connection between anthropology, ethnomusicology, and historical musicology. She also makes a case that the boundaries between Western and non-Western music in the early music movement do not really exist. Her team focused on the "boundaries, workings and participants on the early music world as constituted in the late 1990s in Boston," using four particular groups in this area as case studies (6). They found that boundaries in this field are tricky to define--I particularly like Joel Cohen's made-up word "elephantology" to summarize the role that uncertainty plays in the movement. Shelemay rests her case in two final assertions: that ethnomusicologists should work within living traditions and that these living traditions should be in the neglected "Western Repertories" (24-25).

Discussion Question: I am curious why Shelemay labeled the team's observation that the Boston early music movement is often a family affair as "provocative"(16-17). Does she really expect people will be shocked to find that professionals who work in the same field often marry each other? Is it more surprising that so many of the children from these marriages apparently ended up in early music as well?

Interview

This is a small part of an interview with Joe Griffin, guitar player with the Sunday Night Jammers, done at 5pm on 10/19.

Hope: Alright. Here goes. Okay. So when did you join the Jammers?

Joe: I would say the official date was the Fourth of July party at Camilla’s house in 07. I had just gone to one of their potlucks and they invited me to come along and I didn’t bring an instrument but they did some jamming there and after that I started going Sundays very regularly…

Hope: So you’d known the people before you knew— you started in the group?

Joe: Not that well, because I’d only started contra dancing that same year,
like that maybe March, that same year. For a few years they’d been running an ad in local weekly newspaper for Rehoboth and I didn’t know what contra dancing was but was curious enough one Friday things lined up and I just went there and take a look at it. And didn’t know what to expect. I was probably a little bit overdressed. And I saw one girl, who looked like she knew what she was doing, so I did one dance and then I said to myself I’d go the library and try to get a book about contra dancing.
So I left. Shawn tried to get me to stay, take somebody with interest in, and I said “I’ll be back at another time.” Got three books out of the library—totally useless—so I just went back and I jumped into it after that. Went fine. So that’s when I started meeting those people more and more. Heard about the Jam sessions and that’s about when I started trying to play the guitar too. Well, that’s only half true. When I was about—I used to love music when I was a kid: my family wasn’t that musical and I think
I was thirteen years old and I saved my money $20 for Sears catalogue, mail-order guitar, and I got that when I was not with anybody. We lived in Little Compton, kind of by ourselves, so I, you know, and it never went far. I think some people learn by themselves, but it’s more difficult. You know, I’d put it away for years, and eventually
with the Jammers and these other folks up in Concord I've gotten —just working with other people is, makes a difference to me, that I stick with it, and I get—learn a lot from them and makes it a difference to me or I would never do it. Some people do and I think they deserve a lot of credit for it; could be they just have more innate ability than I do or maybe they just have more time…

Hope: Yeah. I started playing violin in a public school program and switched
to private lessons a year later, but it was never something I would have started on my own I don’t think. Though I always remember wanting to play.

Joe: Yeah.

Hope: Yeah. So tell me about the other group in Concord.

Joe: Oh, okay. Yeah. It’s called Roaring Jelly. Which is sort of a nickname for
an explosive they used to use in the early 20th century--

Hope: Nice!

Joe: A detonator—there’s actually three bands named Roaring Jelly, one in Arizona,
this one and one which is since disbanded over in England. So if you’re looking for the website I’ll send you the link to the right one. And they’re open: you can play at dances with them after you’ve gone to two practices

Hope: Really?

Joe: Yeah, and you know yourself I’m not any great guitarist so you know I mean I go to their third Friday dances and other occasional gigs that they do. They’re different from Rehoboth in some ways they’re much more structured. There’s a bandleader, Deb Knight, who’s in several contra bands, plays the violin and the piano, and she’s good. Not only talented musician but a good leader of the group. And she stands up there and leads and you do what she says and you do it her way. Which is just the opposite of the Jammers where everything’s by committee.

Hope: Yes! Yeah…

Joe: And they’re both good! They both have it good points and in this way I get them both. Uh, they have a CD um and…Let’s see...they have—they’ve been in existence for over thirty years and so a lot of people have passed through, you know it gets…Like for me it’s a long commute and I don’t know how long I’ll stick with it. But the carrot is you get to play at the New England Folk Festival, it must be end March or early April, the Friday opener and for me that’s a big carrot! I don’t know why; I’m not usually like looking for that kind of thing, but I just get a kick out of the whole thing. And good people, just like Rehoboth. People who I find easy to get along with, not trying to manipulate you all the time, things like that just seem to stick with it so far, with that community. And if you look on the web there are other open bands that I hope to be able to progress to…My main goal is small contra band. And you have to be able to do that by ear, you know the real bands—you’ve seen

Hope: The real: without the music?

Joe: Yeah, without the sheet music. Roaring Jelly, like the Jammers—both use sheet music

Hope: Ah, okay

Joe: Which saves me because

Hope: Yes

Joe:I haven’t got to that point. That’s a goal too, that I want to be able to at least
have the songs memorized like from the Portland Collection, and the more popular things like that, and eventually just playing backup. Which—I honestly think is more difficult sometimes—I can remember the melodies to a lot these tunes

Hope: Yes

Joe: but the chord sequences

Hope: Yeah

Joe: It’s tough. A lot of people, somehow, mysteriously to me, like Camilla—she knows the melody, she knows what cord to play.

Hope: That’s so amazing. Like, I felt really badly at the last Sunday session because I
kept picking these tunes with no chords and she would just go with it

Joe: Yeah

Hope: So amazing.

Joe: Yeah. And she told me like a rational way to do it, looking at the notes and all,
but it would take me a half hour or so—it’d be over a long time ago. But I try with the Portland Collection right now, if you have that

Hope: I don’t.

Joe: Oh, it’s—if you get into this thing, in fact I have both the books and what I was going to say, they have two CDs, select songs, a sample from all the different styles, with piano backup and guitar. And I spend hours and hours playing along with that and I still use the book in front of me for most of it, but what I get through, I get through it without the book. And that’s progress! I’m 59, so I have to hurry, you know? But it’s just something you know, I should’ve, I wish I’d…dunno…I don’t want to say regret, but kind of. It seems to be--it’d be good if I’d started a long time ago.

Fifth Critical Review

Agawu, Chapter 3, "The Invention of African Rhythm"

Agawu begins the chapter by stating the commonly held perception of African music as primarily rhythm-based, which he asserts to be false. He quotes and critiques interpretations of African music throughout history, especially focusing on the erroneous ideas of ethnomusicologists. Agawu claims that rhythm is not predominant in many African music-cultures, and makes the extremely interesting point that many African languages have no word for rhythm that corresponds to Western concepts. He also addresses two other problems in the representation of African music: the difficulty of transcribing African music and the invention of African music by Africans.

Discussion Question: Agawu addresses the "invention" of African music by Western scholarship in part by suggesting that ethnomusicologists need an area for imagination and play. What does this mean? Can you think of instances where this need for imagination and play has shown up in other disciplines?

FIELDNOTES

Key to the font colors:

Very general explanatory summary.
things I remember but did not write down
written the same evening as the session
written at the session

I attended three meetings of the Sunday Night Jammers, 9/21, 9/28, and 10/5. Sessions take place in Goff Memorial Hall, in Rehoboth. It's about a half-hour drive from Providence.

9/21 I was not sure where I was going to focus on the Jammers as a research project, so I brought along no notebook to the first session and I stupidly did not write anything down afterwards. Here is a little of what I thought about it beforehand, extracted from a journal entry 9/20:

"I am going to a Rehoboth contra dance tomorrow. Playing fiddle. P came over to bring me the tunes so I could look at them. Most contra tunes go pretty damn fast, so I'm a little scared."

The 9/21 session was a bit unusual in that it was one of the three community dances held by the Jammers. There was a potluck with very good food beforehand. It was a small group of dancers--only about 6 or 7 couples--most of whom I have seen at the Brown dance. And eight fiddle players, one mandolin, one guitar, one pianist, one accordion, one recorder. Other people who play recorder or flute in addition to their other instrument would pick it up when they felt like it. The caller takes a surprisingly long time from the musicians' perspective: M, my stand partner, leaned over and said, "We always get to play more when there's not a dance." I didn't really look up except to notice the crazy "Oxdansen." It's a Danish or Swedish dance about the buying and selling of an ox. Looks pretty kooky. J left the stage to teach a couple of folk dances. P and some other people (I don't know their names yet) called. It was really, really fun!

9/28 This was just a regular session with no dancers. Here is what I wrote later that evening.

the place: Goff Memorial Hall, Rehoboth
the music: Jammers has a 150-page book of tunes people have collected and everyone reads from that. Thus, when we take turns picking out the tunes, we refer to them by page number. The more well-known ones get referred to by name. For example "Gathering Peascods." Should I be keeping a list of the tunes we play?
I'm so excited! J and P have started arrangements to get me my very own tune book. Yes! And B made brownies in a bread machine. J said, "I don't know what the question is, but the answer is chocolate."

This was when I first realized the very flexible nature of the group. I met people who hadn't been at the dance the previous week. I tried to explain the ethnomusicology project to P and J and didn't get very far; I had confused the performance paper and the fieldwork presentation and so it sounded like I was talking about two of the same things. We did get to play a lot more without dancers; I got teased for picking a waltz and then confessing that I love waltzes. (The joke here--I think--is that everyone REALLY does.) C took pictures for the website at the end of the session: I hung back until J asked if I was coming back next week. When I said yes, he said, "then get in the picture!"


10/5 I haven't gotten quite bold enough to pull out the notebook during the session, but afterwards, when people had split into small talking groups, I scribbled the following notes.

10/5/08
Goff Hall
after session

• Baghdad Gus
• Ashokan
• Coffee/Coffee!!
• new green book
• carpool

Later that evening, I wrote:

I dashed out to wait by the Patriot Court Gate promptly at 6:30. Wait for 5 or 10 minutes perched on the ledge that runs along the fence. It's low and I had a fiddle; there was at least one person who nearly tripped over me.
P and J had L in the car. She is a lovely lady. Went to college in the days where the housemother told off the boys who set "one foot" up the stairs to the girls' floor. her response to my living situation: "Times have changed."
The hall was dark and locked when we got there. When we got it all open and lit up we had to set up too--it'd been all cleared because there was a concert this afternoon. Goff Memorial Hall is very much a NE town center. It's got a large room with two pianos and many chairs and then the library takes up the rest of the building. A community place. Great acoustics. But cold. I pulled out my fingerless gloves (which are purple--and I was wearing orange!) and everyone stayed in their coats.
I didn't take notes during the rehearsal. Tonight there were a lot of people I hadn't ever seen before. Everyone else in the group seemed to know them. Membership in the group fluctuates from week to week. So does instrumentation. Here's this week:

• piano (did not play flute)
• guitar
• mandolin
• recorder
• fiddle
• mandolin, fiddle and euphonium. He table-sawed his hand a few hours before and still showed up! Mostly E. because it can be played with one finger out of commission.
• fiddle and recorder
• recorder
• me, fiddle
• everything woodwind
• guitar
• guitar
• fiddle

So many guitars! And a entire recorder section. They all sat near each other.
We played around a dozen tunes, mostly three times a piece. [According to a band member who read the blog, it is closer to two dozen tunes. True!] Each person gets a turn to pick the tunes and so we made about two circuits of the group. Baghdad Gus is a tradition--it's such a great tune and I'm so glad we ended with it. I kept forging onward and missing repeats because I kept having these OMG fieldwork moments.
The end of rehearsal sees B breaking out the brownies his bread maker has produced over the two hours. At that point and in that cold hall, warm chocolate gooeyness was vital to existence. The brownies didn't scorch our mouths because C had more band pictures taken. People made each other laugh. It was claimed that the old picture on the website looks like a bunch of serial killers. In this one, to paraphrase P, we just all look like we need new clothes.
Left with in a carpool. P dropped me off first, which he totally didn't have to do. I got food at Jo's and stored the fiddle back under the bed.

Fourth Critical Review

Shadows in the Field Ch 6 "Virtual Fieldwork" by Katherine Meizel, Timothy Cooley, and Nasir Syed

In this chapter, the three authors examine how changing communications and informational technologies impact their fieldwork. They cite arguments that cyberspace is a part of everyday life, not a work in itself, and they make the point that the virtual field shows how people are affected by these technologies. They also note that in a world of multi-site and multi-disciplinary academic work, their approach is at home. Katherine Meizel worked on "American Idol" and found new opportunities and challenges in the virtual field. Tim Cooley worked with surf musicians in Hawai'i and California and found that a combination of both old-fashioned techniques and new technology worked best (he concludes that he is happy to live in the information age). Nasir Syed, the student of a famous sitar teacher, explains the great resource that the Internet can be to him and to other sitar players, and argues that the Internet augments but does not replace the traditional student-teacher relationship. The authors as a group conclude that "fieldwork should happen where music does."

Discussion Question: Would the fieldworkers who wrote the initial issues of Ethnomusicology agree with the conclusion these authors come to? Why would someone argue that the "virtual field" cannot be a place for "real" fieldwork?

Critical Review #3

Shadows in the Field Ch 5 "Moving" by Deborah Wong

In this chapter, Wong addresses several of what she feels are problems in modern ethnomusicology through her experience of and involvement with taiko. She writes about the problems of the relationship between ethnomusicology and ethnography, and also insists that a place in the discipline be kept for auto-ethnography. She supports the Denzin's idea that performance and political engagement come together to become performance ethnography. She concludes her chapter by with a few thoughts about how ethnomusicology can intersect with identity and social change.

I found this reading very difficult to understand. Because of this, my discussion question is simply: What are the main points of this article? How does ethnomusicology intersect with identity politics? And how can ethnomusicology be a force for social change?

SEM

There were several surprising things about the early issues of Ethnomusicology. One of the most surprising was how small it started out. The first issue appeared in December 1953, and although its Introduction says that there were three hundred copies sent out, it looks as though all three hundred ten-page pamphlets were done on someone's typewriter. The first several issues of the journal seem to have been very focused on finding and uniting all those who self-identified as ethnomusicologists. It seems to have been a very tightly knit community: the Notes and News reads almost like a family newsletter sent out during the holidays (look what productive and wonderful things we've been up to!). I absolutely love the Exchange section; it is introduced in the first issue as something that "will appear only as needs and problems are suggested." James Van Horn's earnest plea that someone record the singing of the elderly Snoqualmie Indian chief, Jim Kamin, is the first thing to appear in that section. I'm not quite sure what the attitude in the field of ethnomusicology is today, but that request really encapsulates the sense of mission that ethnomusicologists of the past seem to have had--if we do not preserve it, it will be lost.

In the August 1954 issue, one of the notes in "News and Notes" is about a paper that Willard Rhodes (future president of the Society for Ethnomusicology) presented at the 1953 meeting of the American Anthropological Association. In the paper, which was about Chippewa songs, Rhodes suggests that music can be used to track the movements of peoples. In a lot of the other early articles one can see the very close association between ethnomusicology and anthropology. Also in the August 1954 "News and Notes" is a lengthy response in agreement with an article in the London Times which claimed that musicologists and anthropologists ought to work together. I find it interesting that the journalist used the word musicologist--I guess the term ethnomusicologist still hadn't come in to common use.

Another one of my favorite things is the list of ethnomusicology classes at different institutions. I can think of several reasons why they did this. These lists certainly give an excellent idea of where one would want to go to study if one were a prospective student of ethnomusicology in the fifties. But I really don't see the early years of the journal something that would find a wide audience among pre-college kids. Perhaps they were more directed towards anthropology students with a strong interest in music seeking graduate programs. Or it could have been a way to let ethnomusicologists at different universities know what their colleagues were doing, so they could create similar courses for their own students. The list of classes seems to be one of the many ways in which ethnomusicologists used the journal to share resources. It's impressively exhaustive.

The class names themselves are very entertaining. I wonder what Willard Rhodes talked about in his class at Columbia, "Folk and Primitive Music" a graduate music class to which undergraduates were admitted. And why was a class with the exact same title give by Indiana University's anthropology department? Some of these classes make me want to take a time machine back to the fifties and shop them--I think "the Rise of Music in the Ancient World" sounds fascinating. (It was also taught by Curt Sachs, who wrote an amazing one-volume History of Musical Instruments.) For all the fact that the new discipline of ethnomusicology had been founded, Richard Waterman (an author we're going to read soon) still taught a graduate seminar in Comparative Musicology at Northwestern. Why was that? Brown is not on any of the lists--I'm not sure we even had a music department in the fifties.

One final thing that I enjoyed was the little article January 1957 issue noting that the Society for Ethnomusicology had spent $437.17 and was left with only $567.21 in its budget! It seems like such a tiny sum of money for an international academic society to have.

2nd Critical Review

James Clifford, "On Ethnographic Authority"

In this chapter, Clifford writes about the changes that have occurred in beliefs about who is the authority in ethnography. He writes about how university-trained anthropologists came to supplant other ethnographers (missionaries or travelers) who did not share their scientific viewpoint and methodology. The next major wave of anthropologists he writes about shared many of the following beliefs: they did not feel it necessary to be fluent in the language of the people they studied; they emphasized observation and theoretical abstractions; their research was relatively short-term; they focused on particular social institutions; and their personalities tended to be a part of their work. At this time, the method of participant-observation and an emphasis on the fieldworker's experience also came into the fore. In interpretive anthropology, the next school of thought Clifford presents, a culture is looked a bunch of texts to be interpreted. Discursive anthropology, which follows interpretive, recasts the fieldworker's experience in the form of a dialog, but Clifford concludes that this too can be unsatisfactory. He concludes by writing about models of "polyphonic authority," including an example of an anthropologist who included her informants on the title page of the book she wrote about their culture.

Discussion Question: In this chapter, Clifford claims that there is no "neutral standpoint" for an ethnographer to take when writing about a culture. How does his suggestion of "polyphonic authority" (among other things, use of informants who are ethnographers within their culture) address this problem?

Fieldwork Topic

I am hoping to do research on contra dance bands. Specifically, I hope to work with a friend of mine and the group he's a part of, the Sunday Night Jammers. I met Paul at a Brown Contra dance last year, but I don't remember hearing about the Jammers until the middle of last year. They are a group of all sorts of instrumentalists who get together and play dance tunes of all descriptions, Sunday nights at Goff Hall in Rehoboth, MA. They have three FREE community dances this fall: Sept 21, Oct 26, and Nov 23. By some stroke of divine luck, all of these work with my current schedule, so I will go to all of them. (Hope knocks on wood, and then makes a sacrifice to the Gods of Free Time.) Alternately, if that doesn't work out, I will try to work with another band.


I'm not sure exactly what I should be posting here, but I feel like I should say a little bit about what contra dance is and my background in it. (Warning: my definition of "what contra dance is" is based on personal experience, with no scholarly knowledge or research yet thrown in.)


Contra is a form of traditional American community dance. It's based on British community dance and was brought to this country by British settlers. Couples start standing two-by-two in long lines running down the hall, and a caller tells them a pattern of steps for traveling up and down the line. All of these patterns have names ("Petronella," "Chorus Jig," etc) and most were made up by a particular person. The band plays the music. One dance--one repeated pattern of steps--can last about 10-15 minutes, and then you find a partner for the next one. There is a first half, with 3-4 easy dances, followed by a waltz, and then a break to get water, talk to friends, announce when the next dance is going to be, etc. Then the second half contains slightly harder dances and again ends with a waltz. Then everyone goes home. (If you have any familiarity with square dancing, contra is a bit like that, except in a long line, not a square.)

I was introduced contra dancing in summer 2004. Apple Hill, which is the awesome place where I go to play chamber music, takes all the campers to the Monday-night contra dance in Nelson, NH. So from 2004 until college, I danced there once or twice a year. Then I came here and discovered that there are dances here at Brown and in Rehoboth. I go to the one here pretty regularly (which is to say, once or twice a month) and slightly less often to Rehoboth.

A Few Possible Research Questions:

• What association is there between a dance (the set of steps) and the music the band plays for it?
• How does a caller work with a band?
• What makes a good dance (referring to event as whole)?

I also think I could possibly do something about how one becomes and learns to be a caller, since my friend started that process last year.

And finally, just because I want to, and also in case you're curious, here are links to things I wrote about in this post:

Brown Contra dance

Sunday Night Jammers

Rehoboth Contra Dance

Chorus Jig at Nelson!

Critical Review #1

Handler, Richard and Jocelyn Linnekin
TRADITION, GENUINE OR SPURIOUS Journal Of American Folklore, 97, 1984, p.273-290

In this article, Handler and Linnekin argue for a new definition of tradition. They point out that previous definitions of the term viewed tradition as something fixed in time and consciousness and they argue that modern definitions, although they acknowledge the reality of constant change in traditions, do not move far enough away from this stereotype. In the authors' view, tradition is a "symbolic process," something created and assigned meaning by people, which involves continual change and reinvention.

Discussion Question: Are there ways in which musical traditions defy this definition? Or do they reinforce it?

24 Hour Music Log for Saturday, 9/13

• 12:00am

chiming of grandfather clock in stairwell

• 12:30am

until I fall asleep, I hear pop music from a Thete party across the quad. I don't know any of it.

• about 8:30am

I am eating breakfast in the Ratty when music from a commercial catches my attention.

• 9:30am-1pm

I practice violin: scales, Kreutzer Etude #12, and Mozart 4th Violin Concerto. Also the few fiddle tunes I know.

• 12:05pm

My cell phone goes off.

• 2:50pm

While doing homework, I listen to Mozart String Quartets K 168, 168, 160, and 589. The last is a piece my string quartet plans to read when we pick a piece for the semester. The recording is by the Eder Quartet. (Thank you, Naxos!)

• 3:39pm

Briefly from across the way: "WHO LET THE DOGS OUT" followed by static, possibly from another source (a saw?). Mozart still playing.

• 3:41pm

At least one of my neighbors is playing electric guitar.

• 3:46pm

From across the way: hip-hop and an arrhythmic bounced basketball.

• 3:48pm

No more Mozart.

• 4:13pm

A cell phone goes off outside.

• 4:29pm

Acoustic guitar from a neighbor.

• 6:19pm

More distant pop music. It was probably going on continuously but it only came to my attention periodically.

• 7:51pm

Phone call from my sister.

• 9:46pm

Solitary whistler outside.

• Sometime close to, or possibly after, Midnight

I retrieve butter from my refrigerator and hear people singing sea shanties in the bar.