Critical Review #10: Feld 1994

Steven Feld's "Notes on 'World Beat'" examines the interplay between American and African popular musics and the dynamics of the relationship. He highlights the dual nature of musical appropriation; that of both respectful admiration and homage and that of domination and asymmetry of ownership and power. As an example he uses Mick Jagger's recording of music by Muddy Waters. Jagger has great respect for Waters and said that he "wanted to record great songs associated with [Waters] to draw attention to rock's debt to blues" (Feld 238). However, the relationship is fundamentally unbalanced: Jagger benefits vastly more than Waters, and there is a certain cultural arrogance to the idea that a recording by a global pop star is necessary to draw attention to the music of a lesser-known artist.

Feld goes on to discuss how African American music went back to Africa and influenced African pop music, leading to the familiar sound that Paul Simon found when he went there in the 80s. He also emphasizes the idea of ownership as it relates to music. All of the songs on Graceland are "Copyright...Paul Simon", and some of the artists did not even receive writing credit for their songs (in a further example of ownership dynamics, Simon gave writing credit to the African groups for the songs on which they collaborated, but not to the American groups). Feld concludes by suggesting that the issues of power and control in the global recording business have created a situation such that African and African-American artists and musical styles are kept "at the levels of labor, talent, or 'influences'" which are used for profit by the white record company executives and their global pop stars.

Who has the power to alter the system as it currently stands? Could and would the African and African American artists mentioned by Feld bring change to the system by refusing to play a backing role? Could and would the pop stars change the system by refusing to take advantage of others' music? Or can change only occur if the record company executives decide to reform the system to eliminate the dynamics of control and domination?

Critical Review #9: Hamm 1989

Charles Hamm's article is a strong critique of Paul Simon's Graceland album. Hamm first summarizes the defenses of Graceland from "Simon and his apologists" (Hamm 1), namely that Graceland brought attention to South African musicians who benefited economically from the album and the exposure, that any political commentary on the album would have put the musicians in danger back in their home, and that the mixed-racial nature of the album was in itself a commentary. Hamm attacks each of these points in turn before turning his argument against other Western artists who released similar "African-influenced" albums in the aftermath, such as Makeba, Baez, and Belafonte. He attacks their politics and motivations, eventually building up to a condemnation of the entire 1950s and 1960s American folk revival, stating that it took advantage of indigenous musics from around the world without providing any benefit or credit to the authentic practitioners of the music. He sees the new Graceland-influenced albums as a continuation of that unjust relationship.

Music is constantly changing; the nature of music is that new forms arise as different existing forms interact, mix, and influence each other. Often, popular new forms emerge due to tragic social circumstances: jazz, blues, rock, and countless other forms essentially emerged because of the musical influences from Africa that came on account of the slave trade. Where is the moral dividing line between musical interactions that arise from unfortunate circumstances but are accepted and those that are viewed as objectionable, as Hamm viewed Graceland?

Challenge Question Feedback Response

Mike's Original Question

My Answer

Mike's Feedback

Feedback Response:

Hi Mike!

I originally wrote a comment on your actual post last week, because I forgot that we were doing another round of feedback, so I've taken my original comment and revised it somewhat.

I definitely agree with you that currently there is an over-representation of outsider ethnographies. I think the solution is an attempt to equalize the status of ethnographies. Neither insider nor outsider ethnographies should be seen as better than the other, merely different, and there should not be an overabundance of either one. Ideally, readers would be able to discern the qualities and advantages of each view, and they would be able to glean useful information from both. Whether such a state of equality is achievable is another question! One problem with this is establishing standards of quality. What are the characteristics of a good, thorough ethnography? If we base them off of what we're familiar with, then we would be forcing people from other cultures to write ethnographies in the Western academic tradition. What if their concept of an ethnography is completely different from our own? How do we evaluate the quality of their ethnographies, and how do we compare/combine insider and outsider ethnographies when they are written by people from different cultures who are going about the observation and writing processes from completely different points of view? There are a lot of issues to discuss here, and I think that in principle you are right that outsider ethnographies are over-represented, but I believe that this observation merely raises a whole host of new issues if we want to “fix” the problem. This is definitely a conversation that could continue for some time.

I also agree that the dominance of outsider ethnographies from the West is unfortunate. I would definitely like to see more outsider ethnographies done by non-Westerners, but as long as ethnomusicology remains a Western-dominated field, this seems unlikely. I'm not sure what a good solution to this would be. Any ideas?

Best,
Joe

Critical Review #8: Titon 1992

Titon's article deals with ethnographic film and the issues of representation and authority that an ethnographer must deal with when producing such films. He discusses the dangers in film, including the fact that viewers are more likely to accept film representations as "reality" than written representations. According to Titon, modern viewers have come to mistrust representations of authority on the behalf of the filmmakers, so it can be advantageous for filmmakers to diffuse their own authority through techniques such as allowing subjects to interpret their own actions on film. He argues that by diffusing or undercutting the symbols of their own traditional authority, filmmakers can create a document that viewers will accept as more authentic and accurately representative of the subjects. Titon concludes that there is substantial potential for positive, powerful results when ethnographic filmmaking is done carefully and thoughtfully.

In his article, Titon suggests that there are different considerations to take into account when creating a documentary about humans as opposed to, for example, a nature documentary. Do you think that there are also additional issues that an ethnomusicologist filmmaker must consider as opposed to someone documenting another aspect of human life? For example, is there a greater burden to provide good sound quality, since music will be the focus of the work? Are there any other additional responsibilities or considerations for ethnomusicological filmmaking?

Critical Review #7: Neustadt 2002

Neustadt's article is a comparison between two albums of "Cuban" music: "The Buena Vista Social Club" and Charanga Habenera's "Tremendo". Both albums came out around the same time, but BVSC, which consisted of traditional son music from the 40s and 50s (which is no longer the popular music of Cuba) was a tremendous commercial success in the Western world, selling better than any other Cuban music album in history. Tremendo, which consisted of timba music, a more modern electric style, was the #1 hit in Cuba at the same time. Neustadt compares the albums and styles, drawing comparisons between the two in terms of lyrical content and showing how some elements of timba are descended from son. In the end Neustadt brings the issue around to how the reception of BVSC has affected Cuban music. Because Westerners believe that son is the music of Cuba, that is what they expect from Cuban artists. Modern Cuban musicians are forced to conform to a 70-year-old tradition if they hope to have any international success.

This article raises important questions about the power dynamics of the global music industry. Did BVSC become popular because it had Western marketing forces behind it, or because son is just more appealing to non-Cuban audiences? A similar situation is the way in which many people around the world find American jazz from the same time period as son to be much more appealing than modern American popular music. The son issue is definitely clouded by the way in which BVSC came to non-Cuban audiences. Discussion Question: Musical styles are constantly evolving and changing due to countless exterior influences from other styles, cultures, and time periods. The popularization of son around the world has influenced timba players to go back and explore their musical roots to an extent. Do you think that this can be seen as a positive influence, or does the way in which son reemerged (through Western marketing) mark the re-exploration of son by modern Cuban musicians as inauthentic?

Feedback to Hope's Response

Hope's Challenge Question Response: http://hayforfour.blogspot.com/2008/11/response-to-challenge-question.html

Hi Hope,

Nice response, I enjoyed your thoughtfulness and depth of detail!

I was interested by what I perceived as your overall attitude that you had to be in “research mode” in order to get information that you could use for your project. This came out in comments such as the ones concerning your car rides to the sessions, where you noted that what was said was “conversation among friends and not research”, and the potlucks where you do not ask “research questions”. In some of Titon's articles, I got the idea that he had a very loose view of the boundary between friend and researcher. His friends knew that he was an ethnomusicologist, so in many respects he felt free to include any observations from his musical interactions with them (though I'm sure that he asked permission where relevant). Anyway, do you think that you've been approaching the field work as a dichotomy between the “fun” part and the “serious” part? You noted that in the beginning you didn't talk about your project all that much and that in the future you would like to keep playing with the group. There must be unique difficulties involved when you are starting to get involved in a group from two points of view at the same time: both as an academic observer and a future participant. This situation seems to be somewhat unique to you in this class; as far as I can remember no one else is intending to continue participating in their group after the project is over (though I may have forgotten someone, I apologize if I have). Do you think that your desire to continue playing with the group has caused you to act differently than if you felt that you would never see any of the people again after the completion of your project?

I like you comments about the difficulty of taking fieldnotes—I believe we've all been wrestling with this issue, and Barz's article on the different kinds of fieldnotes, headnotes, and the such was definitely helpful in thinking about it.

It sounds like you're learning a lot and that your subjects are also enjoying the project, which is awesome! Keep up the good work.

Best,
Joe

Materials for Presentation

Gavin


Moira 1


Moira Closing

Challenge Question!

The ability to learn about a culture’s music and the role of that music within culture is easier because of technology. Information can “come from the source;” people from around the world can publish their work for a wider audience. If insider ethnographies exist with more frequency, what is place of outsider ethnographies? Do we need an outsider’s ethnography on a culture when we can readily get an insider’s? (Mike Sokolovsky)


This is a very interesting question which is quite relevant both to the field of ethnomusicology and to this class—this year Kiri made the decision to not allow insider ethnographies as fieldwork projects from the students of MUSC1900. Does this indicate that Kiri believes it necessary for us to learn the skills of outsider ethnography over those of insider ethnography? There are definite advantages and disadvantages to each technique, but I believe that outsider ethnographies serve to explicate certain aspects of tradition that insider ethnographies might overlook. No matter how careful, detached, or professional an insider ethnographer is, I believe that there will always be subtle observations and details that only an outsider will think to record because the insider takes them for granted. In some ways, the best kind of ethnography is that of someone who begins as an outsider and makes the transition to insider, inasmuch as they can. We can only see the full picture, however, by combining the perspectives and learning what we can from each.
A convenient example of this is the Sacred Harp unit that we just studied. The documentary was an instance of insider ethnography. We saw and heard how the filmmakers crafted the work in a way that explained Sacred Harp in the way that they understood it. This included a focus on historical perspectives (“how it used to be”), and an occasional lack of context or explication of such details as the identities of the interviewees or the modern perspectives of people who came to the tradition quite recently. Certainly an element of this omission was due to time and topic constraints, but I believe that part of it was, as we discussed in class, the fact that there were just some pieces of information that seemed so common-place from their insider perspective that they didn't feel the need to explain them. An alternative view comes from Kiri's writing, which is that of an outsider who, over a long period of time, achieved a fair amount of insider status, or at least a strong familiarity with and knowledge of the culture. Because of this, she was able to provide the sort of detailed observations of an insider, but she retained the ability to put herself in the shoes of an outsider and remember to explain every detail.
Neither of the ethnographies was perfect on its own. The documentary had the flaws and omissions that I mentioned, and Kiri's writing is of course limited by the fact that she simply cannot offer the perspective of someone who grew up from birth in the tradition. There are intricacies and subtleties to any tradition that even the most experienced members might not notice if they were not raised in the tradition. My point is that you can never rely on one perspective, be it insider, outsider, or a mix (the outsider who gains elements of insider status). Even as insider ethnographies proliferate, outsider ethnographies continue to contain interesting observations. I remember being impressed at the relatively objective, detached account of Western art music that we read, but I would still love to read an ethnography of this culture from an African drummer or a Tuvan throat-singing ethnomusicologist, as I'm sure that there would be countless insights that I've taken for granted and never thought about.
Ethnomusicologists have gone through a great deal of debate in terms of the ethics of outsider ethnographies, and there is no doubt that such studies have the potential to be very exploitative and inaccurate. I believe, however, that ethnographers should continue to write outsider perspectives, while bearing in mind the hazards and pitfalls that we have been learning about all semester. Through a combination of insider ethnographies and thoughtful, respectful outsider ethnographies we can come to a greater insight into many musical cultures.

Critical Review #6: Miller 2004

Questions for Kiri:
I've noticed that several times the issue of "minor does not mean sad" has been mentioned in the Sacred Harp context. I find this refreshing, as I often have trouble explaining to my friends that major keys are not inherently happy and minor ones are not inherently sad. Is this deeper understanding of the joyful potential of minor keys and the tragic potential of major keys common among Sacred Harp singers, or do you still encounter many members of the community who carry over the preconceived notions of major and minor keys from the world of popular music?

Have you heard of any modern Sacred Harp communities starting out purposefully ignoring the traditions of the music? For example, have you heard of any Northern groups that learned about the tradition and tried to start their own group, like the people in Chicago, but successfully did so without any help from people experienced with the Southern convention tradition? I'm not sure what motivation such a group might have, but it could provide an interesting (and perhaps bizarre) interpretation if they merely followed the directions in The Sacred Harp without learning the additional details from experienced singers.


Discussion Question for class:
What do you think about the modern composers who specify the raised or lowered sixth in minor key songs? Do you think that they have the right to make such specifications, or should they merely let different communities go on singing the sixth in whichever form is traditional for them?