DOING ETHNOMUSICOLOGY REFLECTION
In this reflective essay, I intend to broadly outline a range of pertinent questions, issues and methodologies in ethnomusicology, and their relevance across the disciplines. The seminars were guided more in a way of deep contemplation on global concerns and musical customs rather than hypothesis driven inquiries, introducing us to a vast array of literature in a highly interactive and interdisciplinary environment. I made some rousing discoveries in my assigned readings of articles by Jonathan McCollum-David G. Hebert, Thomas Turino, Émile Durkheim, Steven Feld, Timothy Rice, John Blacking, Bruno Nettle and Carol Silverman among others. I will categorise my reflections under general sub-headings, which I hope, …show more content…
To this end, broadly defining, Etic (objective) and Emic (subjective) approach is particularly useful. The “field” in fieldwork has come to imply not only remote locations but complex, sophisticated literate societies, displaced communities, diasporas, marginalised groups, and even abstract places within cultural industries, as evident in essays like Sara Cohen’s 'Ethnomusicology in Popular Music Studies.’
Essential skills were outlined such as, advance preparation for short-term ethnographic fieldwork, interpersonal tactics in formal and informal interviews, editing and translating field data to academic text, understanding implications of new technologies for documentation purposes.
INTERDISCIPLINARY
Following a discourse on Karl Marx 's economy driven theories, Durkheim’s societal-moral structures and Theodor W. Adorno’s criticisms in cultural industry, we began to decode forms of knowledge, system of meanings, social structures and hierarchy of values implicit in musical performances and lives of cultural groups. In its institutional setting, ethnomusicology is an interdisciplinary approach to studying human behaviour, as it reflects in their music making practices. From a multi-disciplinary viewpoint, I applied the concepts in cinematic diegesis, organology and ethnography to put together a research skills presentation on ethnomusicology in films, enlisting ethnic instruments used in Life of Pie (Ang Lee 2012). I found a strong correlation …show more content…
We often run the risk of glorifying one cultural tradition over the other. It is evident, despite globalisation, cross-cultural awareness is constrained. In my view, ethnography in music, bridges that gap in an academically concentrated way, eventually influencing the wider cultural discourse. Drawing on Appadurai’s ‘scape ' model, Turino’s semiotics, case studies on 'El Sistema ' and writings on children’s musical cultures, I intend to explore cross-cultural perspectives of music cognition and examine the social impact of music education on children from economically weaker communities in India. The ‘field ' in this case is riddled with complex challenges of urban landscape crisis, immigrant influx, arbitrary nature of government-run organisations, language and ideological barriers. My broader aim is to adapt and modify the theoretical constructs in order to provide an adequate account of socially mediated musical experiences, keeping in sight, the startling diversity of music in the
In this reflective essay, I intend to broadly outline a range of pertinent questions, issues and methodologies in ethnomusicology, and their relevance across the disciplines. The seminars were guided more in a way of deep contemplation on global concerns and musical customs rather than hypothesis driven inquiries, introducing us to a vast array of literature in a highly interactive and interdisciplinary environment. I made some rousing discoveries in my assigned readings of articles by Jonathan McCollum-David G. Hebert, Thomas Turino, Émile Durkheim, Steven Feld, Timothy Rice, John Blacking, Bruno Nettle and Carol Silverman among others. I will categorise my reflections under general sub-headings, which I hope, …show more content…
To this end, broadly defining, Etic (objective) and Emic (subjective) approach is particularly useful. The “field” in fieldwork has come to imply not only remote locations but complex, sophisticated literate societies, displaced communities, diasporas, marginalised groups, and even abstract places within cultural industries, as evident in essays like Sara Cohen’s 'Ethnomusicology in Popular Music Studies.’
Essential skills were outlined such as, advance preparation for short-term ethnographic fieldwork, interpersonal tactics in formal and informal interviews, editing and translating field data to academic text, understanding implications of new technologies for documentation purposes.
INTERDISCIPLINARY
Following a discourse on Karl Marx 's economy driven theories, Durkheim’s societal-moral structures and Theodor W. Adorno’s criticisms in cultural industry, we began to decode forms of knowledge, system of meanings, social structures and hierarchy of values implicit in musical performances and lives of cultural groups. In its institutional setting, ethnomusicology is an interdisciplinary approach to studying human behaviour, as it reflects in their music making practices. From a multi-disciplinary viewpoint, I applied the concepts in cinematic diegesis, organology and ethnography to put together a research skills presentation on ethnomusicology in films, enlisting ethnic instruments used in Life of Pie (Ang Lee 2012). I found a strong correlation …show more content…
We often run the risk of glorifying one cultural tradition over the other. It is evident, despite globalisation, cross-cultural awareness is constrained. In my view, ethnography in music, bridges that gap in an academically concentrated way, eventually influencing the wider cultural discourse. Drawing on Appadurai’s ‘scape ' model, Turino’s semiotics, case studies on 'El Sistema ' and writings on children’s musical cultures, I intend to explore cross-cultural perspectives of music cognition and examine the social impact of music education on children from economically weaker communities in India. The ‘field ' in this case is riddled with complex challenges of urban landscape crisis, immigrant influx, arbitrary nature of government-run organisations, language and ideological barriers. My broader aim is to adapt and modify the theoretical constructs in order to provide an adequate account of socially mediated musical experiences, keeping in sight, the startling diversity of music in the