Challenge questions

1. In some of the ethnographies we have read, the researcher plays a part in the transmission of tradition within the community, as Kay Shelemay did. In others, the ethnomusicologist does no such thing and feels very little connection to the community after conducting research. What is the role of an ethnomusicologist, and what does she/he owe to the community being studied? What does the community owe to him/her? Do these roles differ if the ethnographer is "at home" or "away?"

2. We have looked at various examples of use of the internet in ethnographic research, including Miller's idea of A2A transmission via YouTube and Eric Whitacre's "virtual choir." How has the advent of the internet changed the practice of ethnomusicology? How has it made some parts of research more difficult?

Critical Review #8: Kaminsky, "Gender and Sexuality in the Polska"

David Kaminsky's article on gender and sexuality within the Swedish polska dance tradition was extremely interesting, especially as we have not yet looked at dance from an ethnomusicological perspective. Kaminsky begins the article by describing an interaction he had with another male dancer; this ethnography is clearly "from within," as Kaminsky has extensive experience within this tradition himself. Kaminsky provides a quick introduction to polska itself, then describes the intricacies of the "narrative" within the dance; it seems that polska takes an interesting role where it isn't a narrative dance, but yet represents a narrative.

Clearly, as in most types of folk dance, the partner dancing traditionally has male and female (leader and follower) roles. Kaminsky describes these typical roles as "Guinevere and Lancelot" – chivalry (kavaljer) is encouraged from the male. However, new styles of teaching polska teach masculine and feminine roles to both genders; Kaminsky notes that there has been a movement in the past 10 years towards many more male-male pairings in dance, where there had only previously been female-female pairings.

So how do these male-male pairings relate to the use of polska as a flirtation and "coupling" dance? It seems that the instance that Kaminsky describes in the opening of the paper was an anomaly; most flirtation routines involve the use of extreme gender roles. Kaminsky closes the paper by talking about when mixed-gender couples decide to "flip" gender roles, and the difficulties involved in this switch. His interview with Cissi Strombeck was interesting, as she seemed not to agree with his assertions, yet he did not directly address this point.

Discussion question: Is it important to have people within a musical tradition proofread papers such as these? What happens if they don't agree with the author's assertions?

Critical review 7: Back 2002, White power music and the internet

In his 2002 article entitled "Wagner and power chords: skinheadism, white power music, and the Internet," Les Back begins by providing the reader with a very detailed description of the origins and history of the White Power movement. Before reading this article, I knew very little about the movement, as it's not extremely prevalent in the area I live in (or so I thought...two men mentioned from the "Aryan Singles" dating site in this article live very close to my hometown). I do remember reading this article a few months ago, and being shocked at the life that this man had previously led.

After this introduction to the racial supremacy movement, Back begins to discuss how the internet functions as a means of recruitment and communication for people within this movement, and especially how their music has been disseminated through the web. Most simply, the internet has allowed different "pockets" of white supremacists to contact each other and unify their goals. Interestingly, the types of music associated with these White Power groups have diversified in recent years; the movement is still associated most closely with punk/metal bands, but some in the group have discussed the need for music that can appeal to a wider audience.

Discussion question: In what ways have these White Power groups used the internet to further their goals? Are there ways in which the internet has held them back?

Sir Whiskey Richards: interview clips

Here are a few sounds clips from later portions of the interview from my previous post.

The first one comes from a question I asked about how people stay involved in Arrr after they graduate from Brown:

In the second clip, Whiskey discusses how Arrr started and early impressions people had of the group:

Interview with Sir Whiskey Richards

Here's an excerpt from my interview with Sir Whiskey Richards, a current senior and member of Arrr. Names in brackets have been changed.

WR: Well, it was my freshman year and I sang in high school and wanted to sing in college. I tried out for some other groups and didn't get in. I still wanted to sing, and didn't really know what to do with myself. One of my friends who went to my high school told me "you know, there's this weird group on campus that sings dressed up like pirates. It's weird, they know all this stuff about pirates, and to get in you need to know all about pirate lore and you have to be a pirate, and do kinda crazy stuff and drink a lot." I'm like, "that sounds a little strange...unusual. So i found out their email and I emailed the captain…the person before Violet…it must've been, maybe, Cutlass at that point? Anyway, so I went to audition. I still remember my audition - it was really fun. I didn't have any pirate outfit at all, so last minute I went "oh god what am i going to do" and i messed up the buttons on my shirt, and I went over to CVS and I went and was like, "I'm going to get an eyepatch." Unfortunately at CVS they don't just sell pirate eyepatches, they sell eyepatches for people who have, like, eye problems. They're like little cloth things. I was like "well, this isn't piratical at all." They actually like this story a lot, the pirates. I ended up - I wasn't going to buy a box of 20, so I just…I took one out of the box. You know, I was like "if I'm going to be a pirate about this…" So I put that on my face and used permanent marker to make it black and I drew, you know, eyepatch lines with permanent marker. Halfway through the audition I realized it's really hard to see with just one eye, so I took that off. I had a rousing good time. I had taped a cardboard sword with duct tape. It was completely, like, no rigidity. It would just flop. That's why they called me Whisky Dick…I have a floppy sword.

AVM: So, do you get most nicknames when you get initiated?

WR: There are different reasons for names. Leviathan Jack because he's huge. Um…some names are more fitting than others. Some names are closer than people's real names. Meister Jager, his real name is [William] Jager. And Frenchy the Wenchy, her real name is Francesca. But then there are names like mine, that are derived from something that happen. And like Grob, who's kind of a mystical pirate. Grob came into auditions - we always ask "what does grog mean to you?" It became clear over the course of his audition that he didn't know what grog was, nor did he know what word we were asking about. So, he proceeded to call it "grrrb" and "grooob," and it became his name. He's kind of a mystical pirate, since he doesn't come often to many things. He just shows up when we need him. 

AVM: Current student?

WR: Yes [laughs]. 

AVM: I thought he might be an alum, since I know many of your alums come back at some point.

WR: Yeah, there are certainly alums that come frequently.

AVM: So…that's how you got started. Is that a typical story? Do most people sing before? I know [Name] sings in chorus as well.

WR: Yeah, yeah.

AVM: But it did seem to me that at least one of your babies doesn't sing at all.

WR: Yeah, well we have a few who literally have no musical training. They're essentially tone deaf. We don't accept on the basis of musical talent - what really matters is the pirate spirit. They need to be a pirate. For example, one of our members, [James], has a peg leg. We knew we wanted him when he hung out with us. And not just because of his clearly applicable physical attributes. But also because, when we asked him on the main green, "Hey, do you want to audition for pirates?" We were frantically trying to recruit before auditions. We handed him a flyer, and he went "What? Because I have a peg leg?" We went "No, no!" He said, "That's really offensive. What is wrong with you? Are you out of your mind? What kind of group are you??" We're like "God no, we're really sorry. We're handing these out to everyone!" He's like "I'm outraged!"

AVM: And then he showed up?

WR: And then he proceeded to tell us he was just kidding. During our shows, during "Grog," he's taken to doing the following verse, where we sing "where is my leg, my groggy groggy leg…" He'll come out when he thinks it's an appropriate time. He'll say "I'm going to do the leg verse," and we'll go "ok, sure." It's funny, because he'll come out and go, [sings] "Oh, where is my leg…" he just looks down, and everyone goes "oh, shit…" And he just stops. And then we start the chorus. Completely his choosing - he's the one that first thought of this. [...] It's an awkward good hit.

AVM: Do other people have signature verses that they do? I know there's the one in "Grog" that's in harmony, that goes into "Loch Lomond."

WR: That's certainly people who are more into the musical side of things. But, uh…everyone has their different personalities. It's a very crazy group, in the sense that I don't think that I'd be friends naturally with many of these people, and I don't think they'd naturally be friends with me, but together, we're the best of friends, which is really wonderful.

Critical Review #6: Nettl, "Heartland Excursions"

In this reading by Bruno Nettl, the author describes the culture of music departments at "Heartland" (his term for Midwestern) universities in the United States. In the introduction to his book, he describes his experiences at Heartland universities, especially their music schools, and delineates the similarities between many of these departments. There appears to be an overwhelming focus on Western art music (conventionally known as classical music), especially in the areas of performance and theory/composition. Comparing his experiences to mine at Brown, I can clearly see the same is true in our own music department; the majority of concentrators are in the theory/history/composition track rather than MEME or Ethno, and most courses focus on Western art music. However, I do have to challenge his self-acknowledged generalization when speaking of these universities; though he clearly does have experience, the lack of anecdotes beyond the extremely vague is difficult to tolerate in a study of this sort.

In the chapter itself, "In the Service of the Masters," Netll describes the role that the most famous composers, such as Mozart and Beethoven, play as "deities" to the people of a music department. He asks, from the perspective of a Martian ethnomusicologist, just becoming aware of this phenomenon, "why is it true?" Why do we accept these composers as the paradigm of Western art music? Why do we immortalize their names on our concert halls and classroom buildings? The answer is clearly a complex one, but Nettl also brings up the idea of why we see a piece of music as more important when it is from the works of one of these great composers. Why would it lower the importance of Beethoven's 9th symphony if we learned that it wasn't composed by Beethoven, but instead by his neighbor?

Discussion question: How helpful were Nettl's comparisons of "Heartland" music departments to the Blackfoot musical culture?

Fieldnotes: Arrr rehearsal 10/5

On Friday 10/5, I met the members of Arrr for their weekly rehearsal at 3 pm. Due to the gorgeous weather, they decided to hold it outside on the Main Green instead of at a member's house. Here are my (unedited) notes from the rehearsal:

• Chaplain begins with reading
• "Permission to board" from members
• Informal beginning - food, drinks
• Binders (bindarrs) with lyrics - do members just learn tunes through memorization?
• Collection of funds
• People look much more like normal Brown students here than they do at shows
• People randomly begin songs after suggestion made
• Harmonization seems mostly to come from the same group of people
• Really feels like a group of friends, little organized leadership
• Argument about different versions of songs
• About 17 people present
• Some people using "pirate speak" much more than others
• New members are easy to pinpoint - seem scared to speak still
• Music - often a discant over chorus
• Hand symbol for who's going to do the next solo verse (acknowledged by Captain)
• Some reference current events/last night, inside jokes
• Change of emotions quickly between songs (example: "Fields of Athenry")
• Much more harmony here - sung often (I recognize it), so it's more set than other ones

Critical Review #5: Miller, Ch 6 in "Playing Along"

In the "Amateur-to-Amateur" chapter of Miller's 2012 book "Playing Along: Digital Games, YouTube, and Virtual Performance," she uses three examples – conga tutorials on YouTube, pianojohn113's piano lessons on YouTube, and the growing community of people practicing ashtanga yoga via the internet – to illustrate different ways in which people are teaching via the internet. All three of these examples show perfectly how the internet is not just being used by professionals to interact with people trying to learn; instead, these are cases in which amateurs are teaching other amateurs.

The internet is not a place filled with people with credentials – in many cases, this "A2A" form of teaching became necessary because those with actual degrees were busy teaching for money. This is not to say that this is a bad method of learning; I myself have sought out the internet for help when purchasing new viola strings, for example. The benefits of the internet are clear: it's a place where you can "crowdsource" your help. Instead of being taught by one person on the conga drums and never seeing another opinion or style, you have them right at your fingertips.

I similarly agree with Miller's assertion that A2A participants do not entirely "reject structure, hierarchy, and hegemony." This structure and hierarchy is honestly inherent to many artistic practices; the reason we have certain methods of teaching is because they have been found to be the most effective.

Discussion question: how can someone be "qualified" to teach a practice on the internet? Are there certain artistic practices in which this idea of "A2A" teaching is less useful?