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.