Performing, Engaging, Knowing: Introduction (original) (raw)
Related papers
Ethnomusicology and Audiovisual Communication Selected Papers from the MusiCam 2014 Symposium
This text is an updated English version of an article published in Spanish on the relationship between ethnomusicology, educational, and audiovisual communications (Cámara de Landa 2012), including a discussion of relevant documentaries. The purpose of this study is to address the following questions (which were also proposed to conference participants): Is it possible to bring together, in an AV ethnomusicological project, aspects of the three types of work classified by D’Amico (2012) according to their respective purposes (scientific, didactic, or informative)? Is it possible to achieve this goal while respecting principles of flexibility, versatility, compatibility with written materials, quality of content and format, capacity for distribution, trouble-shooting for errors and security weaknesses, and epistemological issues? Which of the principles specified by Baily in his seminal text of 1989 are suitable, which are necessary and which are essential? Is there a correspondence between objectives, target audiences, and audiovisual formats in ethnomusicological production? Have current conditions of creation and reception brought about the obsolescence of certain formats? What are the most appropriate formats for fulfilling current audiovisual production objectives in ethnomusicological fields? The answer to all these questions would require a much larger space than this paper. My point is simply to emphasize the importance of keeping in mind some general principles (mentioned in the second question above) with regard to some materials recently produced.
Ethnomusicology as the Study of People Making Music ([1989] 2020)
Toward a Sound Ecology, 2020
Ethnomusicology is the study of people making music. People make sounds that are recognized as music, and people also make “music” into a cultural domain. This 1989 conference paper defined ethnomusicology and contrasted music as a contingent cultural category with earlier scientific definitions that essentialized music as an object. It was published for the first time in Musicology Annual (2015). Here it is as reprinted, with a new introduction, in my book Toward a Sound Ecology: New and Selected Essays (Indiana University Press, 2020). The book is available from IU Press, the usual online sources, and your favorite independent bookstore.
2023
This is the text of my presentation to the May, 2023 global webinar, "Why I Am an Applied Ethnomusicologist," sponsored by the Applied Ethnomusicology Section of the Society for Ethnomusicology. Abstract: My work in applied ethnomusicology has moved in the past dozen years from the arena of people making music to the more inclusive arena of beings making sound. Since my appeal for a sound commons for all living creatures (2012) and my essay on the sound of climate change (2016) I’ve been thinking about this new field of eco-ethnomusicology (the term is Jennifer Post’s) and its possible applications amidst the current climate emergency. Among the relevant topics are the expressive sonic cultures of more-than-human beings (2021); traditional, scientific, and Indigenous ecological methods helpful in understanding them; and the applications of those understandings to activism and policy.
The (Musical) Performance at Stake: An Ethnomusicological Review
2020
I have always considered the observation of a musical manifestation more or less as the analysis of a musical "performance." My recent interrogations and research about what is, in fact, a "performance"? have led me to formulate an observation. While looking for an answer in the performance studies literature, it is quite clear that music is not included as a subject of analysis but appears more as an object or a pretext to the analysis of the meaning(s) hidden behind the music, the best example being theater. A simple Internet search for "performance studies" only shows a few titles on music. Even The Cambridge Introduction to Performance Theory (2016) presents performance with keywords like "Drama and Theater" and "Literature." Also, looking to different performance studies programs and courses syllabi from American universities like New York University, Brown, Northwestern, University of California, Davis, etc., it is quite clear that the notion of "performance" is widely associated with communication. 1 Though it surely is, this understanding appeals to a very particular intellectual lineage, characterized by the writings of eminent authors like philosophers John L. Austin (1962) and John R. Searl (1969), cultural anthropologist Victor Turner (1982, and drama theorist Richard Schechner (1988), for whom the performance is at first a way to observe language, ritual, and everyday life interactions.
Engendering Musical Ethnography
Between 2007 and 2015, in a series of trips ranging in length from two to ten months, I conducted ethnographic research with rappers in Dakar, Senegal. Drawing on those experiences, this article explores how primary modes of ethnographic knowing and being are nurtured outside spaces of musical performance and asks how a consideration of gendered moments that are not, per se, research moments—the time spent with families, the eating of meals, the engagement with social norms of greeting and hospitality, but also the often fraught encounters with strangers—might shift our understandings of the nature of the musical field site. Modeling a gendered ethnography of music, I make the following claims: First, models of ethnomusicological fieldwork that center on friendship and participant observation, in their explicit emphasis on collaborative musical performance, implicitly spatialize musical field sites even as they redefine them as experiential. Second, such models prioritize music-centered relationships while obscuring the complexity of power dynamics at play in intercultural research. Finally, both the experiential field site and ethnomusicological research models—and the overlaps and disjunctions between them—actively engender the researcher in ways that necessarily inform fieldwork outcomes. Citation: Appert, Catherine M. 2017. "Engendering Musical Ethnography." Ethnomusicology 61(3):446-67.
SHARED RESEARCH PRACTICES ON AND ABOUT MUSIC: TOWARD DECOLONISING COLONIAL ETHNOMUSICOLOGY (2018)
Martí, Josep and Revilla Gútiez, Sara (eds) (2018) Making Music, Making Society. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. , 2018
The contemporary contexts relating to ethnomusicology and other disciplines interested in music research are changing radically. Two main reasons are at the crux of this change: (1) the presence of music in academia has grown substantially over the last 20 years; consequently, research has considerably increased; (2) the persons who until now have been crucial for our research, especially in the field of ethnomusicology, are now very conscious of their importance for research outcomes and sometimes refuse to accept their " objectification ". The latter can be seen across a large spectrum of contexts, such as those belonging to the field of subaltern studies focusing on depressive urban communities or socially marginalised groups, as well as in the context of " high culture " universes-research developed by art music performers about contemporary composers, for example. In both cases, the researcher represents an academically powered subject of authority. His/her work aims to promote the involved subjects but, mainly, to validate him/herself as the owner of a kind of knowledge which is socially more qualified. This situation generates deep asymmetries and has been discussed by different scholars, proposing methods and research actions based on " participative-action-research " practices.
Rethinking the Engagement of Ethnomusicologists with Performance and Applied Music Curricula
Voices of the Field, 2021
The primary focus of music schools and conservatories in the United States and abroad is on training performers; one of the reasons ethnomusicologists have had such difficulty expanding their employment opportunities within such institutions is because they have not given enough thought to how they can productively contribute to applied curricula, coursework that falls outside of academic pursuits as typically defined. Ethnomusicologists engage creatively with many fields in the humanities and social sciences. But while this interdisciplinarity has resulted in countless insightful publications, it has typically held little immediate relevance for students studying performance. A surprising number of ethnomusicology programs do not require applied musical training, and ethnomusicology as a field does not dialogue sufficiently with colleagues in applied areas. This essay makes a case for the greater centrality of performance as a component of ethnomusicological training, both as a way to generate new job opportunities and to engage more productively with musical institutions. The ultimate goal of such a shift is to challenge such institutions on their own terms (aesthetic, performative), to expand the conservative focus of most large-ensemble and recital repertoire, and to demonstrate the relevance of ethnomusicology to the broader arts community. My essay begins with reflections about ethnomusicology and performance based on my own experience. I continue by considering what aspiring performers of the twenty-first century need to know in order to be professionally successful, and how the expertise of ethnomusicologists might more directly contribute directly to the requirements of BM programs. Finally, I suggest an approach to playing and teaching about world music that focuses both on performance degrees and