Challenge Questions

In the first chapter of Heartland Excursions, Bruno Nettl describes the workings of American music conservatory culture. "Why do the denizens of the Music Building," he asks in conclusion, "love so well a kind of music that grows from principles they would probably dismiss as characteristic of an unkind society?" Addressing a musical culture with which you have experience, examine the relationship between the political structure of that culture and the views of its members toward the structuring of power in general. To what degree is the political structure of the culture explicitly discussed by its members?

In the same chapter, Nettl examines the myths surrounding Beethoven and Mozart, and what they suggest about the values of Western classical music. Do the same with a specific musical tradition of your choosing - consider the mythology surrounding one or more of its prominent members, and what this mythology suggests about the values inherent in the tradition.

Critical Review - Bruno Nettl, Ch. 1 "In Service of the Masters"

In the introduction and first chapter of Heartland Excursions, Bruno Nettl begins to describe the "Music Building" (i.e., midwestern American classical conservatory/music department) culture - a culture to which he belongs. He compares its structure to that of a religion; the music faculty constitute the clergy, while the master composers of Western art music are the pantheon of deities. Mozart and Beethoven are particularly prominent, and Nettl examines how the myths surrounding them affect the performance and perception of their music (the tendency, for example, to insist on finding greatness in all of their work).

Nettl says that he intends to remain as impartial as possible, but suspects that his readers will feel his work is critical of the culture he describes. In light of the following question, it's not hard to imagine why. "Why do the denizens of the Music Building," Nettl asks, "love so well a kind of music that grows from principles they would probably dismiss as characteristic of an unkind society?"(42) Our class seems, for the most part, to be comprised of these very "denizens." So how do we answer Nettl's question? Is his portrayal of Music Building culture as based on "principles...characteristic of an unkind society" accurate (or relevant)?

Critical Review - Gregory Barz, "Confronting the Field(note) In and Out of the Field

In "Confronting the Field(note)," Gregory Barz reconsiders the role of the fieldnote in the process of reflecting on musical experience. Instead of the traditional model, in which field research leads to fieldnotes which leads to ethnography, he posits a more interactive system in which the three categories affect one another. In particular, Barz notes the difficulty of understanding exactly how the act of recording a fieldnote (or even carrying a notebook) influences the experience in the field.

In what circumstances (if any) ought the ethnomusicologist, perceiving her note-taking to influence those around her, forgo normal note-taking?

Critical Review - Deborah Wong, "Moving"

In "Moving," Deborah Wong examines some of the problems of performative ethnography in an interesting way; she alternates between outlining the problems in theory and attempting to write about taiko while explicitly avoiding the problems. Two characteristics of the performative ethnography she calls for:

"...it evokes the choreographies and modalities of performance in order to break down the subject/object binary and to deliberately draw on the generative power of performance." (79)

"It shows rather than tells. It is specific and particular." (79)

With regard to the first point, I agree that writing that draws on the "generative power of performance" would be effective. I don't, however, that Wong provides guidelines for (or examples of) doing so. Instead, in the section where she describes a performance, having claimed she would rely on relating the "specific events" (85), she says things like "It was incredibly loud and driven by a youthful energy that was infectious...[toward the end of the jam] the sudden sense of conjoined, coordinated playing was powerful in an entirely different and satisfying way." (86) Statements like those don't exactly evoke the power of performance. They simply assert that a particular performance was moving - telling, not showing.

Earlier, describing her first exposure to taiko: "I had a powerful, unequivocally visceral response to it. I responded as an Asian American watching other Asian Americans, and I am hard put to convey how commanding an experience it was" (79). Granted, she does try, but I don't find her description particularly moving. I don't mean to say that Wong is a vague writer - overall I thought her descriptions of the taiko jams gave a good picture of what was happening - I just don't know whether the type of powerful personal response she hopes to impart on the reader can be transmitted in this context.

Wong writes that "the inevitability of multiple subjectivities on the part of both ethnographer and interlocutor is now usually understood, and the task of representing the overlap is thus difficult and necessary" (83). But what is it exactly to do so? Even when the ethnographer attempts to note all these subjectivities, we're still accepting her subjective assessment of them.

Honestly, I just don't understand what "writing in an awareness of of such mobility [on the part of the ethnographer and her interlocutors] creates vital performative possibility" (83) means, so I feel like I'm missing a significant part of what Wong wants to achieve.