Agawu Critical Review #3

Agawu raises a lot of interesting questions about ethics in ethnomusicology, but ends up shying away from answering them in favor of a conclusion that is a bit of a cop out. Some solid points he makes are ethnomusicology being a study for the west, by the west; and that a universal system of ethics is hard to come by when cultures each have their own sets.

Agawu falls into some traps later in the article: picking on other ethnomusicologists while basing the complaints on speculations and assumptions, overemphasizing the flaws of self-reflexivity, presenting some false dilemmas and slippery arguments to defend his own questionable ethics, and raising some truly ridiculous hypothetical examples (What does it matter if Herbie Hancock stole the idea of a pygmy whistle sound? Music is all about this kind of "theft." I get the point he was trying to make, but it was through raising a question that was moot.)

Finally, Agawu concludes with a wishy washy conclusion that the only way to go about ethics is to have an "ethical attitude." It seems silly to me to put so much effort into counterexamples and reducto ad absurdum techniques to come up with this answer, which could have been reached in a far more concise and linear fashion.

Berger Critical Review #2

Berger's perspective and tone start off unsettling, in what feels almost like a grad school personal statement, name dropping all of his professors and mentors and describing his personal journey through ethnomusicology. At least he is admitting that this is his path and his line of thought and stumbling blocks, and not trying to generalize it to all ethnomusicologists, and it eventually settles down to a place where serious ideas can be brought up.

He makes good points about ethnomusicologists exoticizing their subjects, and arrives at a good conclusion that ethnomusicology studies experience, which is not always accurate/consistent, but still is a separate entity from imagination. He is well aware of many of the slippery slopes of ethnomusicology, and how to maintain a balance between extremes.

SEM History Post

A first look at the first issue of "Ethnomusicology" yields some surprising results. Because it began as a newsletter out of the ashes of the American Society for Comparative Musicology, the initial purpose of "Ethnomusicology" was to create a network or community of people interested in this field of study. To this end, most of what is featured in early versions of the journal can be categorized as resources and requests - lists of people and what they are working on, lists of books to read, lists of available courses, lists of places in need of ethnomusicologists, and lists of musical cultures recommended for study. An interesting, but separate, topic of discussion would be how much simpler this all would have been to establish in a time like now, where the internet thrives.

The states of individual projects mirrored the state of the field of ethnomusicology as a whole. There were lots of people and projects waiting for resources, like flowerbuds waiting for the right time to bloom, and there were lots of works in progress steadily gaining momentum. It was well-established that this was a pivotal time for the field; F.A. Cuttner writes in the second issue, "I have come to believe that the whole system of comparative methods is obsolete and inadequate, and that something else and much better will have to replace it if we are going to expect any significant progress in the future." This foreshadowed the changes in approach to ethnomusicological methods, but also demonstrated that the newsletter was a way to spread sentiments like these across a large group of researchers.

Interesting points of emphasis in these early project descriptions were quantities of material recorded (probably because one can't actually include the recordings themselves in the newsletter), technologies used in recording (possibly as advice / setting a standard), and Native American study subjects (probably convenient cultures to study). The structure of the content being presented is questionable at points, with concise summaries of a project and the hypotheses involved sometimes being all too general. The tone, at points, seems like the main purpose of "Ethnomusicology" was to record all these people and projects for posterity's sake. There are also examples of ethnomusicologists trying or hoping to extrapolate their specific studies to universal truths about music too quickly, one of my pet peeves in the world of ethnomusicology.

As the decade progressed, "Ethnomusicology" changed its format greatly, to that of a journal. Content was emphasized much more, featuring full articles on specific topics. Why wasn't it this way in the first place? I would say that by this time, one of the original goal of the newsletter, establishing a community network of ethnomusicologists, had been accomplished. Now the content of the journal could move past "resources useful in establishing a community" to "resources useful to an established community." "Ethnomusicology" seems to have done a good job keeping in step and evolving with the state and the needs of both the field and those who studied it in the 1950's.

Fieldwork Topic

For my fieldwork topic, I intend to study chiptunes. I have had some, but not much, experience with the genre, so I'm looking forward to diving into it.

A few nice things about chiptunes as a topic:

-They are somewhat fringe

-They have all sorts of interesting cultural and historical cross-ties (i.e. to videogames and a certain era of computers, as well as a movement of chiptune cover songs)

-The genre (hopefully) will be a little more easier to "bound" than other options I was considering.

-I know one person who makes chiptunes as part of his musical work, and another who could be inclined to start.

A few not so nice things about chiptunes as a topic:

-They are somewhat fringe

-From what I can tell through preliminary research, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of a chiptune scene in Rhode Island. Fortunately, there is a huge chiptune scene in New York and I believe a decent-sized one in Massachusetts, so hopefully those can work out.

Handler Critical Review #1

The Handler article was unclear in the points it was trying to make, until the very end, where fortunately it came to some reasonable and accurate conclusions. The section on Quebec seemed to have a bit of a negative tone, and to be dancing around what it really wanted to say (calling Quebecois out that culture does not imply nation). Both sections, but the Quebec one especially, seemed to be making statements about the people under discussion without backing them up / citing research. The article concludes that tradition is always created/defined in the present, and that preservation attempts inevitably alter the culture. I just don't happen to think that either of these is a huge revelation.

Discussion Question: How quickly do you think tradition becomes / can become self-conscious?

Can you think of things you've done only a few times, but then classified as tradition? How did that change the experience and the motivation for doing it?

24-hour Listening Log

A log of all the music I heard for 24-hours (voluntarily or involuntarily), along with a guide of where I heard it. [And fun commentary in brackets. And some sweet links.]

Begin: 02/04/10, 12:57pm

Ipod, walking to class: [Helpful note: Throughout the 24 hours, I was shuffling through my 4 and 5 star playlist, a.k.a. songs I like and songs I love]

-Ben Folds - "Philosophy (Live)"

In MUSC 56 - Tonal Theory:

-Various musical examples played on piano or sung by the class.

-Richard Strauss - "Also Sprach Zarathustra" [Fucking awesome. Especially blasting it on decent speakers.]

-Singing and playing piano through "Also Sprach," focusing on relevant musical theory points

-Richard Strauss - "Also Sprach Zarathustra" [Just as awesome the second time.]

-More various musical examples played on piano or sung by the class, including Happy Birthday

-Robert Schumann - "Dichterliebe" exerpt, played by the professor on piano

-Johannes Brahms - "3rd Symphony in F Major" intro, repeated several times as a dictation exercise.

In the OMAC Weight Room: [Most of these were looked up after the fact]

-Ludacris ft. Jay Z and Nas - "I Do it For Hip Hop" [didn't really know the song, recognized Luda and Jay Z though]

-Lil' Wayne - "Got Money"

-Yo Gotti ft. Gucci Mane, Trina, & Nicki Minaj - "5 Star Chick (Remix)"

-Foxx ft. Webbie & Lil Boosie - "Wipe Me Down (Remix)"

-Sean Paul, or someone who sounds like Sean Paul [Just flipped through 30 Sean Paul Youtube vids, no luck]

-Rihanna - "Hard" [didn't know the song, recognized Rihanna. 2 days later, came into the gym again and the cd was on this song again.]

-Chris Brown - "I Can Transform Ya"

-DJ Lil Roy[?] - a mix that included among other things, Gang Starr - "Just to Get a Rep," LL Cool J - "Mama Said Knock You Out," DNA [remixing Suzanne Vega] - "Tom's Diner," A Tribe Called Quest - "Bonita Applebum," and KRS-One "Step into a World (Rapture's Delight)."

-GLC ft. Kanye West & T-Pain - "Flight School" [didn't know the song, recognized Kanye and T-Pain]

-Kid Cudi - "Day 'N' Nite" [might have been a remix]

-[Another Rap song, lyrics I remember: "that's why I got the fiends on the block right now," "trying to unload what I got right now," something about if things start going badly, being totally willing to going back to selling crack.]

-[Some reggaeton song, lyrics unintelligible]

-Jay-Z - What We Talkin' About [didn't know the song, recognized Jay-Z]

Songs I Sang to Myself Walking Home from the OMAC: [all of these were just snippets]

-The Receiving End of Sirens - "... Then I Defy You Stars"

-Taking Back Sunday - "Bike Scene"

-Taking Back Sunday - "Timberwolves at New Jersey"

-Brand New - "Vices"

-Paramore - "Franklin"

[I wonder if this section gives a coherent picture of my musical interests...]

Walking to Manning Chapel:

-Manchester Orchestra - "In My Teeth"

-The Decemberists - "The Infanta"

-Pink Floyd - "Goodbye Blue Sky" [half of it]

In Manning Chapel:

-A friend and I fooling around on the pipe organ.

Atrium of an Art Show:

-The Shins - "New Slang"

-The Wonders - "That Thing That You Do"

-Jason Mraz - "The Remedy"

-Rolling Stones - "Beast of Burden"

iPod, Walking Back from Art Show:

-Pink Floyd - "Goodbye Blue Sky" [the rest]

-The Killers - "When You Were Young"

-Third Eye Blind - "Never Let You Go"

-Lights - "Drive My Soul" [I WANT TO MARRY THIS GIRL] [Seriously though, I used to classify this as "The Best Guilty Pleasure Music Ever," until I stopped feeling guilty. She's on tour with The Poor Man's Postal Service Owl City Now, I'm predicting she's a big deal in 6 months to a year. LET THE RECORD SHOW THAT I WAS WAY INTO HER OVER A YEAR AGO]

-My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow" [half of it]

At Home:

-Crash Kings - "Evolution of Rock - With No Guitars" [Sent to me from a friend as a reason why I should have been going to their concert that night. It was tremendously awesome, and in fact made me very sad I was not going.]

iPod, Walking to Class the Next Day:

-My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow" [the rest of it]

-Marcy Playground - "Sex and Candy" [about 15 seconds, just long enough to realize I was sick of this song, rate it 3 stars instead of 4, and skip to the next one]

-Michael Jackson - "Beat It" [was having a less than stellar morning, so this was a good pump up]

In MUSC 56 Lab:

-Me and a classmate struggling through chord progressions in minor on the piano

-Intervals, seventh chords, and a melody for dictation, all played on the piano as a quiz

End: 02/05/10 12:57 P.M.

Thoughts: A pretty interesting sample. I slept kind of late and was doing homework in the morning on the second day, so less listening occurred there than would be usual. Scribbling down song lyrics while trying to work out was a pain, but in a humorous way. It was also funny having 25 tabs open on my browser searching for a rap song that had the words "cars cash rims wheels." I feel like my tastes manifest themselves a little bit here, but probably not as much as other days (not that that's the point). But what it lacks in that department, it makes up for in range of styles of music experienced.