I was particularly taken with the passage about Eric Burdi. This piece leads the reader through a brief history of Burdi, explaining how he was one of the two founders of Resistance Records and was very influential in the circulation of Resistance, the company’s magazine. In addition, we learn that he was the lead singer in one of America’s leading Nazi bands. I was very surprised to find out that Burdi grew up in an upper-middle-class home. Before reading this article, I was under the impression that skinheads almost unanimously came from struggling households where they were forced to turn elsewhere for purpose and direction. It was hard for me to grasp what would push a child from a family without racist tendencies toward such a violent group.
When music was cited as an instrumental factor in the recruitment of educated people to the skinheads, I finally understood. With the Internet making the transfer of information so easy, people all over the country and all over the world were able to listen to this music at the click of a button. What once required face-to-face contact with a skinhead could now be accomplished without even knowing the person’s name. Music and technology clearly changed the focus of the skinheads’ recruitment and most likely that of many other groups.
Discussion Question: Can music be used more productively to recruit people into various organizations today? For example, could the army compose some sort of song that would stick in people’s heads and attract more to joining the armed forces?
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Challenge Question Comment on Response
It seems that we both have a similar problem with the definition of ethnomusicology offered by dictionary.com. I think of the definition as having two parts, the first suggesting that ethnomusicology only refers to “folk and primitive” music and the latter highlighting the importance in studying the role that this music plays in the lives of the people and cultures involved. In my mind, the problem with this definition is in the way that the first section confines the field of ethnomusicology.
Drew has done a very good job in describing how this definition reinforces certain generalizations that are simply unfair to make. Ethnomusicology encompasses so much music that it is impossible to categorize all of it as either belonging to a “primitive” or “folk” group. For example, as technology has evolved, new communities have been created that exist only through the Internet. There is no native region to these communities so the music cannot be folk music and it is being created today so it is certainly not primitive. This first part of the definition is clearly outdated and needs to be revised.
At the same time, I think that the second half of the definition is quite accurate and necessary. It is easy to become absorbed in simply studying the music of another culture and to forget about the culture itself. A true ethnomusicologist spends time with the musicians and the people of the community to see what sort of role the music plays in their lives. For example, it is helpful to know whether a particular piece of music is used in a religious ceremony or whether it is played at a celebration.
One cannot gain an accurate image of the field of ethnomusicology from the definition provided on dictionary.com. Part of it is helpful but the other piece is quite misleading. With a little revision, I believe this definition could be much more accurate.
Drew has done a very good job in describing how this definition reinforces certain generalizations that are simply unfair to make. Ethnomusicology encompasses so much music that it is impossible to categorize all of it as either belonging to a “primitive” or “folk” group. For example, as technology has evolved, new communities have been created that exist only through the Internet. There is no native region to these communities so the music cannot be folk music and it is being created today so it is certainly not primitive. This first part of the definition is clearly outdated and needs to be revised.
At the same time, I think that the second half of the definition is quite accurate and necessary. It is easy to become absorbed in simply studying the music of another culture and to forget about the culture itself. A true ethnomusicologist spends time with the musicians and the people of the community to see what sort of role the music plays in their lives. For example, it is helpful to know whether a particular piece of music is used in a religious ceremony or whether it is played at a celebration.
One cannot gain an accurate image of the field of ethnomusicology from the definition provided on dictionary.com. Part of it is helpful but the other piece is quite misleading. With a little revision, I believe this definition could be much more accurate.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Challenge Question
Ethnomusicology has been revolutionized by the emergence of the “virtual field.” Information that once required days of travel, months of living away from home and the struggles of learning new languages and meeting new people to obtain was suddenly put at the fingertips of anyone with a computer. While some were eager to jump into this new technological world, others hung tightly to the past and were critical of those who strayed from it.
As ethnomusicology is a field that deals with the learning of music from other cultures, there is something sacred about it. The classic approach to fieldwork involved relocating so as to become apart of the culture that was being studied. A researcher would live amongst his or her subjects, hoping to become as embedded into their culture as was possible and consequently, arrive at the most accurate conception of what music meant to them and how it affected daily life. While there is much to gain from this method, there are many hardships that are encountered along the way. Lysloff speaks of the difficulties that “travel, physical hardships and loneliness” [1] posed while he was studying in Java. Obviously, the contrast of this to gathering information from the Internet is like night and day. Living away from home in the midst of a foreign people is the extreme opposite of sitting at home in front of a computer and reading about that same people. Those familiar with the first saw the latter as the lazy way out and as simply cutting corners.
At the time that the Internet first came into existence, it was not a part of everyday society. It was impossible to hold this “virtual fieldwork” in the same regard as “actual fieldwork.” There was not nearly as much information available as there is today and it was impossible to come by an accurate perception of a foreign culture via the computer. For this reason, in addition to the fact that living amongst a people had become such an accepted part of ethnomusicological research, many people within the world of ethnomusicology didn’t consider the “virtual field” to be a suitable place for fieldwork.
As the Internet has evolved into a worldwide phenomenon, this viewpoint needs to be reconsidered. Steve Feld knew that the media was going to have a monumental impact on the world of ethnomusicology. In 1976, he wrote, “I hope to demonstrate that there are innovative and exciting potentials for film in ethnomusicological work, but that reaching these potentials requires attaining a kind of conceptual clarity that does not, at the moment, totally prevail.” [2] I believe that today, this conceptual clarity does exist. Cooley references Miller when he says “the Internet, for example, is a socially embedded phenomenon; the virtuality of the Internet is not separated from reality.” [3] As it is impossible to imagine life without the Internet today, the “virtual field” that it creates cannot help but be acknowledged as legitimate. There is so much information that can be accessed on the computer, including some that most likely could not be obtained while living in another land, that it is now possible to arrive at accurate conclusions about a foreign people. As the Internet has grown, ethnomusicologists have grown to appreciate all it has to offer.
There has been much debate as to the role that the “virtual field” should be allowed to play in the world of ethnomusicology. At first, it was hard to imagine legitimate research based on the Internet and as a result, this work was not considered by many to be respectable fieldwork. However, as this “virtual field” has become a vital part of everyday life, I believe this viewpoint must be reconsidered. Not only has the Internet been able to provide accurate and vital information to people all over the world, but it has also created new cultures, with new musical interests that are now being studied by ethnomusicologists.
[1] Barz, Gregory, Cooley, Timothy. Shadows in the Field 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press, New York, 2008, pp. 91.
[2] Feld, Steven. “Ethnomusicology and Visual Communication.” Ethnomusicology, Vol. 20, No. 2 (May, 1976), pp. 293-325
[3] Barz, Gregory, Cooley, Timothy. Shadows in the Field 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press, New York, 2008, pp. 91.
As ethnomusicology is a field that deals with the learning of music from other cultures, there is something sacred about it. The classic approach to fieldwork involved relocating so as to become apart of the culture that was being studied. A researcher would live amongst his or her subjects, hoping to become as embedded into their culture as was possible and consequently, arrive at the most accurate conception of what music meant to them and how it affected daily life. While there is much to gain from this method, there are many hardships that are encountered along the way. Lysloff speaks of the difficulties that “travel, physical hardships and loneliness” [1] posed while he was studying in Java. Obviously, the contrast of this to gathering information from the Internet is like night and day. Living away from home in the midst of a foreign people is the extreme opposite of sitting at home in front of a computer and reading about that same people. Those familiar with the first saw the latter as the lazy way out and as simply cutting corners.
At the time that the Internet first came into existence, it was not a part of everyday society. It was impossible to hold this “virtual fieldwork” in the same regard as “actual fieldwork.” There was not nearly as much information available as there is today and it was impossible to come by an accurate perception of a foreign culture via the computer. For this reason, in addition to the fact that living amongst a people had become such an accepted part of ethnomusicological research, many people within the world of ethnomusicology didn’t consider the “virtual field” to be a suitable place for fieldwork.
As the Internet has evolved into a worldwide phenomenon, this viewpoint needs to be reconsidered. Steve Feld knew that the media was going to have a monumental impact on the world of ethnomusicology. In 1976, he wrote, “I hope to demonstrate that there are innovative and exciting potentials for film in ethnomusicological work, but that reaching these potentials requires attaining a kind of conceptual clarity that does not, at the moment, totally prevail.” [2] I believe that today, this conceptual clarity does exist. Cooley references Miller when he says “the Internet, for example, is a socially embedded phenomenon; the virtuality of the Internet is not separated from reality.” [3] As it is impossible to imagine life without the Internet today, the “virtual field” that it creates cannot help but be acknowledged as legitimate. There is so much information that can be accessed on the computer, including some that most likely could not be obtained while living in another land, that it is now possible to arrive at accurate conclusions about a foreign people. As the Internet has grown, ethnomusicologists have grown to appreciate all it has to offer.
There has been much debate as to the role that the “virtual field” should be allowed to play in the world of ethnomusicology. At first, it was hard to imagine legitimate research based on the Internet and as a result, this work was not considered by many to be respectable fieldwork. However, as this “virtual field” has become a vital part of everyday life, I believe this viewpoint must be reconsidered. Not only has the Internet been able to provide accurate and vital information to people all over the world, but it has also created new cultures, with new musical interests that are now being studied by ethnomusicologists.
[1] Barz, Gregory, Cooley, Timothy. Shadows in the Field 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press, New York, 2008, pp. 91.
[2] Feld, Steven. “Ethnomusicology and Visual Communication.” Ethnomusicology, Vol. 20, No. 2 (May, 1976), pp. 293-325
[3] Barz, Gregory, Cooley, Timothy. Shadows in the Field 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press, New York, 2008, pp. 91.
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