"Lead guitar" presentation
All:
Please read and respond (via "Comments") to at least 3 of the following observations/queries arising from this presentation. Both team members and other class members should comment, and should particularly focus on ways in which insights from this presentation reflect, nuance, or contradict insights from your own fieldwork. Make sure your comments address this latter point.
Website at http://leadguitar.group.googlepages.com/
Please read and respond (via "Comments") to at least 3 of the following observations/queries arising from this presentation. Both team members and other class members should comment, and should particularly focus on ways in which insights from this presentation reflect, nuance, or contradict insights from your own fieldwork. Make sure your comments address this latter point.
Website at http://leadguitar.group.googlepages.com/
- Very effective use of website layout. What are all the ways in which data format and linkage help to set up, reveal, or clarify relationships?
- Great commentary about physical location/neighborhood/environment. How do such "material culture" factors reflect or reveal your target communities' "social landscapes." Remember, "landscape" is a cultural/identity idea, not a physical entity.
- How do musical style characteristics, like song texts, and their selection, help to reveal not only musical aesthetics but also social, cultural, or identity beliefs? What tools do you need to link the two? How do they apply in each of our examined situations?
- Notice the team's good commentary about enhanced insight as result of this seminar: even in a situation which may be somewhat familiar (e.g., in which you or a team member may be a quasi-insider), it is possible to use ethnographic approaches to gain new, fresh, or different insights on that familiar situation. In other words, just as it is possible to use ethnomusicological approaches to "find a way in" to an alien situation, it is also possible to use the same approaches to make a familiar situation more alien, thus enhancing your ability to observe previously-unnoticed factors.
- I was glad that team members spoke of the human relationships that you both discovered and developed. These relationships between informants and fieldworkers, like the relationships between sub-community members, are real (even if often ignored by conventional scholarship) and they should be valued and respected.
- Great phrase “transit of property” – can you relate this "passing of the torch" to concepts of lineage, as discussed in class?
- How do patterns of genres studied or valued reveal the sociology and/or demographics, of both musicians and of audiences?
posted by CJS at 11:14 AM
24 Comments:
7.) People tend congregate with others that share similar values and ideas. The study of musical genres will reveal such aspects. However, do not judge a book by its cover; a man or woman may be dressed in business attire when you first meet them, but you may run into that same person in a mosh pit later on. Also, because a person may dress that is not normal in a particular society; it does not mean they have a diminished moral character.
2-3.) I relate these questions to whether or not a musician chooses to play cover or original material. One aspect is the paying of the bills by playing in a cover band, let’s say a country band, which is popular music for the West Texas area. However, the musicians own music may lie within other genres, such as the blues. Secondly, if a musician plays the same music they like, the song selection will reveal a lot about the person. For example, a country musician may choose to play with a contemporary style as opposed to a classic country sound. The choice of musical sound/style will often determine the venues the musician will play in and to what type of crowd including economic, age and gender factors. A great tool/method is an extensive oral history that not only covers the musician’s professional work but also their personal life form birth to present. To learn about a person’s family and where they came from can reveal much about a person and the choices that they make. These types of comprehensive interviews are usually best conducted/scheduled outside of the musicians working environment.
2. Some of these guys seem to fit the “big fish – small pond” description whether they planned it that way or not. Regardless of the planning aspect, they seem to accept this position in a positive way that I fear many of the students my group observed might not. I wonder if the inclusion/exclusion of a significant educational investment could be a significant factor in this difference. Might people who have invested 2 or more years in program of education designed to boost them beyond the local level be more likely to carry late-career baggage in the ambition department?
5. I noticed the same thing. Depending on your personal world-view, these sorts of relationships may be more important, in and of themselves, than the paper you type or the website you publish (which is the case for me).
6. A defining aspect of genre is subject matter (with regard to text). This obviously reveals much about the values of a community.
#3) Song selection, musical style, song-text, genre etc... all these aspects of musical repetoire in the arena of live music performance seem to weave the rug of cultural influences that affect this (a) region. I've seen anglos in boots, jeans and cowboy hats dancing to Motown ballads and I've seen latinos and african-americans two steppin' to Johnny Cash tunes. I've even seen an entire venue dance to a punk-rock version of Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba". Specific songs become regional facets, with boundaries as narrow as what side of town a venue is located. Most all sides of town (Lubbock)will react favorably to Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville", whereas a performance of Widespread Panic's "The Airplane song" would only "fly" at Cricket's or Bashes. Song selection seems to be as much a part of audience contribution and response as it is a function of musicians' influences and desires. To examine this , I,as a "quasi-insider", could make a list of 5 to 10 songs that are most frequently requested (and thus most frequently preformed) and survey audience members as to reasons why these songs are so desired.
3.I believe song text is very important when studying ethnomusicology. Song texts can be analyzed in so many different ways and open so many different doors to metaphors and information about its creator that one wouldn’t normally see in any other situation.
4.I don’t understand how some people can do this sort of work and not find them selves creating friendships with their informants in some way. I believe that most of this study is based around human relationships. How we chose to study one another, what we accept as their culture and our culture, what we deem acceptable in certain “foreign” situations. I think these relationships are absolutely pertinent to getting a valuable and “real” study about each of our designated sub-cultures.
7. I definitely agree with “cpeoples” comments about how people tend to congregate with those similar to themselves. Yet, like cpeoples mentioned, although these people share one aspect of interest it doesn’t mean they can’t be completely different people concerning personality, life style, ect.
1. The website has a linear quality about it. Ideas and links seem to flow into each other. This is very akin to traditional prose but still retains dynamic quality of websites.
5. Human relationships is at the heart of so much of this type of research and is sometimes absent in scholarship. Sharing the personal challenges and attitudes of the informants helped to give a more complete, "real" idea of these people and their music.
7. The variety or lack thereof of genre communicates social acceptability. For the musician, his or her value of musical styles of various demographics is evident in those tunes learned and performed. For the audience, the acceptance of certain types of musical genre speaks to some level of their value of varying genres and people groups.
3. The selection process that goes long with what will be played and what wont tapes into what is acceptable in the mind of the player and the audience. Does it fit within the values and intent of the performer? Will it be accepted by the audience (Conservative West Texas)? I found this in an interview with a Ballet Folklorico leader. She picked songs that the community would likes (not, as she said, the boring ones). She also picked ones that the performers would dance. Ex: Her girls would not do Aztec dances because the outfits were too revealing.
5. True, we are dealing with humans as persons, not humans as test subjects. This insight can lead to understanding and entrance into a community and eliminates the hierarchy of researcher vs. researched. We experienced this when working with our interviewees. If the intent of the researcher is seen as friendly and not threatening, informants are more likely (theoretically) to help out.
7. Also see #3. What is performed could be vastly different in the ‘Lead Guitar’ community of Lubbock than in the community of Austin, or even Dallas. What is done in the Ballet Folklorico community of Lubbock can be (and probably is) different than that of Mexico, New Mexico, or California because of distance from an ‘original’ source, amount and quality of information, and because of intent.
1. Our relationship chart on the salsa webpage is a very good example of a way in which relationships between people have been shown in a very efficient way. In addition to the chart showing who knows whom and how, each name is link to their own individual bio that tells a little bit about our own personal experiences with these individuals.
2. The layout in which the bars where set up was very revealing as to what the main goal of the location was. At Jakes it was an environment that was set up in such a fashion that alcohol sales was of great importance and the salsa night was something to keep the guest occupied. At Melt the room was set up with the tables all around the dance floor making the dancing experience much more personal and interactive with the crowd that wasn’t even dancing. This is significant because not only does it show a difference of priority but at Melt it also shows a desire to involve everyone, even if they are not dancing.
4. I really agree with this concept and I have noticed myself thinking more like an ethnographer in my day-to-day activities. I think more specifically this class has just made me more observant and has taught me to search for significance in even the small details that may seem irrelevant.
7) The genre of music that is studied and valued by a person may tell you some things, and in this situation I feel it could reveal alot, but as we found in our project, these mariachis were really into classic rock. Which surprised me. One was even jealous of Tony and Rob for going to a Tower of Power concert. These guys had a passion for mariachi music, but like most of us, you have to get away from what you do for a living.
3) I think by talking to the informant you can find out alot about the values they have. Then by examining the song texts you could probably make a connection between what they value and what they sing about. Maybe you could just ask them how their music reflects their personality, I know that seems a little direct, but it seems sometimes you just got to do it.
Danielle’s Lead Guitar Comments
2. “Material culture” factors often determine how and why a particular group chooses to spend their money. This, in turn, can reflect priorities to a large extent. Also, the excess or lack of finances can reveal how the community views itself. For example, the salsa night at Melt (by no coincidence) happens to occur across the street for the Mercedes dealership. This reflects the “classy” and “upscale” landscape they sought to create.
1. Data format and linkage can help to display complex relationships. Since a great deal of information can be both posted and linked in a variety of ways, this can help the reader draw many connections. It can help release data from strictly linear or direct relationships only.
3. Song texts are particularly revealing of musical aesthetics as well as beliefs. This is done quite often through conscious choices of language, slang, and vocabulary/word choice. Song texts also can be inspired through sacred or secular means. It is important to know how the informants are individually and collectively affected by the message sent in the music.
1. The only way we could think of to communicate the nature of the relationships between choir and leader in VoL was to show them using video. The unique interactions between the leader and choir members, both in pedagogical and performance situations were difficult to describe and best presented by being seen.
3. Some of the most illuminating elements of song texts can come from looking at the process for choosing songs. The original contexts for a song, though changed when taken by another group, can show the thought process behind many of their selections. It also contributes to understanding where informants place value or importance.
3. I think that in order to understand the link between style characteristics and the performer’s identity beliefs, you first need to understand the choices that the performer had to make in the first place. This comes from knowing what the person had to choose from which comes from more historical information about the person. I also think you need to understand why these style choices were made, such as if they were made to bring a crowd into the venue.
4. I agree with ALG, its really cool going out everyday with this “enhanced insight.” I’ve found myself looking at other music as well as my own in new ways, and with different approaches thanks to this class.
5. Developing these relationships made me very appreciative of not only the music-making itself, but also the various human processes going on simultaneously. It was very inspiring to me to be able to connect to other people that I might not have had the chance to without music.
1. I loved the use of applying a picture to an informant’s face and bio. This really helped me get a feel for the informant, much more than only a description and “resume” could provide.
3. Song texts are extremely revealing of one’s personal and cultural beliefs. The person performing the song must be exact on agreeing with a song’s lyrics, or quick to refute the lyrics and give a testimony as to why those chose to sing the song anyway.
5. I envy this group’s human relational interaction. Unfortunately for our subcommunity there were not a specific group of people in which we constantly interacted. People came in and out of our fieldwork, but only the DJ’s really hung around. Perhaps on my next fieldwork adventure I will be able to interact with more people.
2. With regards to the Meadow Musical, the small and confined room that the bluegrass players were in leads me to believe that the music is much more personal and helps to create closer bonds between the people present in the room. From a larger view, the country music was in the large assembly area while the bluegrass was in the small add on room. This says to me that the country music is less personal than the bluegrass. Country being for entertainment of the mass community and bluegrass being the wholesome, home grown music sticking to subject matters more relevant to the community. As I mentioned in the presentation, Meadow is a very small town, entertainment and community socials appear to be the main, and possibly the only, form of interaction between community members. With country and bluegrass music present I believe that this speaks clearly to the identity of the community, at least from the musical standpoint.
3. While I was unable to hear the words at some of my fieldwork, I was able to get the gist of the songs from what I did catch. With the bluegrass jam session, the songs stuck to community relevant issues, such as religion. With RTB, the songs were more personal, with experiences used from him life to form the basis of the songs, for example, “The Bitch Next Door”. I believe that title is pretty straight forward in showing that there were some personal issues with a one time neighbor.
5. Having to switch the focus of our topic I feel had a negative effect on the relationships that could have been formed through the course of observation. With the fieldwork I did, there were different people to interact with and no re-occurring meetings within the time allotted for the project.
5. Human relationships ARE very important (present tense…still ongoing). I really liked talking with Kelly and Alfred during the set breaks and I will continue to do so. The relationship that was built really solidified any doubts about our fieldwork and observations. Every time I took pictures, I made sure to e-mail them to them so they could keep them and show them to their families. I’m not going to say that all this made me an “insider,” but it definitely helped.
6. One of the better examples of passing lineage we have talked about in class is of the peoples in South America that go from village to village playing their music to find a partner. When I think about that, I wonder how long those people have been facilitating that tradition. Their kids are going to grow up and learn the music style of their village to perform it elsewhere and find a partner.
7. Demographics of the audience are an immense part of the song choices the informants make in their performance. For our informants, it’s what they played to. They played what the audience wanted to hear and they could gain some insight just by looking at them. For other groups (mariachi), the demographics of the musicians made many of those decisions for them. They play in the mariachi style, which is a Hispanic heritage. BUT, we also found out that they will play “Brown Eyed Girl” if they are performing at River Smith’s…a mostly non-Hispanic performance venue.
1. When designing the webpage, I did the best I could to keep the layout simple on the homepage, and then have each page linked to related comment so that one subject would "naturally" lead to another. For example, I wanted the biographies of DJ Mario, and George to link to their interviews, since that seemed the most natural and logical place to go. I also had interview and field note links on the "people" page, because in order to know more and understand more about the people we encountered in our project, one would have to read either the bios, the field notes, or the interviews. For clarity, I added a site map which included links to all pages within the website. This was specifically to provide someone looking at the webpage the chance to "jump" between ideas and subjects with out the progression that I set up. I also provided the site map so that I could have a space in which to explain the layout of the page, if nothing else than to prove that there was, and is, a method to my madness.
6. One of the principal examples in our field work of "passing the torch" was the story of how DJ Mario got involved in salsa night. He first encountered salsa music, and salsa night, working at a radio station. He had colleagues who loved salsa, and got him hooked on it. At that time, there were two DJs circulating through Lubbock doing that salsa night "gig", but for one reason and another, they wound up out of the scene. DJ Mario felt that left him with two options; Option One: Stay where he was and let salsa die, Option Two: Step up and start taking DJ gigs for salsa, to keep salsa alive in Lubbock - which is what he did. Salsa is a two part process that involves music and dance, and you can't really have one without the other.
4. Unfortunately, we ran out of time in class to show our video footage. I put together a 3 minute DVD depicting the "stages" of salsa night at Melt they was very telling of what the typical atmosphere is like. When we captured that footage (which I later edited) we set the video camera on a short dividing wall in the back of the room, facing the bar. It was very unobstrusive and we were a little excited to see that with the camera unmanned, people forgot it was there and went on with their nights like the camera didn't even exist.
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2/7. Actually, I saw once John's band concert at cricket. When I watched their playing, I could notice obviously that John was leading the band. From their playing, I realized several things. They seemed they have been played long time in Lubbock because they looked like they knew each other between audience and band member very well. They played many requested songs from the audience. They were very strong on Blues style music and they also played many 70s and 80s rock music. When they performed, they seemed like just playing for old friend. These facts told me that they are Lubbock local musician.
4. I think that J.T play drum-set for John's band. I think that J.T's project team had many advantage from that. We also could have more intimate information from J.T.because he could dig their insight more than any others. They also had another team project,Kelly's band so they did fair and awsome job.
Danielle’s Lead Guitar Comments
2. “Material culture” factors often determine how and why a particular group chooses to spend their money. This, in turn, can reflect priorities to a large extent. Also, the excess or lack of finances can reveal how the community views itself. For example, the salsa night at Melt (by no coincidence) happens to occur across the street for the Mercedes dealership. This reflects the “classy” and “upscale” landscape they sought to create.
1. Data format and linkage can help to display complex relationships. Since a great deal of information can be both posted and linked in a variety of ways, this can help the reader draw many connections. It can help release data from strictly linear or direct relationships only.
3. Song texts are particularly revealing of musical aesthetics as well as beliefs. This is done quite often through conscious choices of language, slang, and vocabulary/word choice. Song texts also can be inspired through sacred or secular means. It is important to know how the informants are individually and collectively affected by the message sent in the music.
1. I agree with Amber in the use of pictures for the informants. It helps give a sense of knowledge of the informant with a picture. It is not as linear and dry if just a description was used. I think it is good to use photos of such things and events because it does help the reader see what the reader had to go through.
3. I think the use of music texts does help reveal social, cultural, and identity beliefs. People will associate themselves with different songs, and that is why everyone has a different pallate of music that they listen to. Some people enjoy soft rock, while others as just as content with death metal. The song choice also makes a big difference in how the choir or band wants to be perceived from the audience perspective.
6. I do like the term "transit of property" because I think it does deal with a sort of lineage. I think this is true in the VOL project because the song leader instills lineage to the singers all the time. He wants to make sure that they know what he as a member has been through and has to remind them of why they do this. I also agree with Holly in the South American singers that go from village to village raising money.
5. I think human relationships are the most rewarding part of fieldwork. I’m wondering why these relationships are ignored by conventional scholarship. Obviously they can’t be quantified, but the best data/product isn’t necessarily quantifiable. The best part of my fieldwork project was when I went to the Meadow session and D gave me a big hug when he saw me. The presence or absence of these relationships speaks a lot to the ethics of our particular field of study. Without these relationships, or at least the attempt at these relationships (and the recognition of them), we’re still just wearing our pith helmets and safari shorts. If ethnomusicology involves culture, then how can we NOT talk about personal relationships?
6. “Passing of the torch” is the concept of lineage. The idea that certain musical/cultural roles/priorites will be passed through musical interaction from one generation to another is what lineage is. Lineage can also be measured through the physical representation of the passing on of certain items (in SPC’s case it was bridges for banjos). Material-culture as well as intellectual culture both represent concepts of lineage.
7. Patterns of genres studied show a prolonged value of certain musical priorities. These musical priorities are valued by both the musicians and the audiences, especially in this presentation as the lead guitarists aren’t going to keep playing music the audience doesn’t like. Over time an audience and the musicians will go through a delicate dance to find songs that have the desired musical value/effect, and those genres will become the repertoire played in this subcommunity. The interaction between the audience and musicians that chooses the repertoire will reveal a lot about the sociology/demographics/cultural priorities of a given subcommunity.
2. This type of music lends itself to the local bar. People like to be close to home when they're older. They know better than to "drink and drive." This could have been learned the hard way or through common sense. This is one way how these bars can be so different in the makeup of the clientele.
5. When a bar caters to an older crowd, people are usually more than happy to chat. The bar is a social event that doesn't involve close friends, but also strangers. People who are older that go to bars on off nights are there not just to drink or "pick up chicks," but to socialize.
3. Many lyrics in this situation would deal with other secular musics (love lost or gained). But, there is the issue with drug use (legal or illegal) and the positive and negative consequences. Hard times (law problems, debts, love lost) is another factor. The blues is called the blues for a reason. This social interaction is a "church" for people whether they are currently on good or bad times. Everybody experiences the majority of these things in life and has to deal with them. This creates the aformentioned social interactions that take place.
4. Even if there is a quasi-insider, there are ways to approach something new. I think it was Stefan who earlier in the semester said that you just don’t say things about yourself and you keep it about them. If you are use to a situation or atmosphere, you can force yourself to look at it a new way. Check out the people working,
6. I can relate to the “passing of the torch” concept. As we mentioned, Zeniada is training one of her 14 year-old boys to be a leader. Zeniada was taught from the person before her. This will keep her group’s traditions and teaching styles intact. Because the art of Ballet Folklorico is all oral and there is hardly anything written down, there is a lot of “passing the torch” going on.
7. This makes me think of last Saturday when I was at Crickets. There was an older man who looked like Santa, playing songs from the 70’s. I personally enjoyed cause I grew up with that, however I heard many people talking about how they wanted some up to date stuff played. Saturday night at Crickets was covered with people 21-25ish. So is this a case of the audience using them as back ground music, the performers not knowing their audience, or that the audience didn’t know good music? Heh. I was wondering if this band would be more appropriate for a different night or a different venue.
4. This sums up, again, the nature of my group as well. One of the many solutions that we brainstormed was that we all avoid learning through participant observation on an instrument with which you already posess significant skill in a different (or even a similar) musical genre.
In our case, that would keep me away from the drum set and Curtis away from the guitar. I had perhaps the most informative journey because I was being informed from the time we all got in the car until we parted ways for the evening!
5. I can't say that we developed any completely new relationships because Curtis already knew everyone. However, as our field notes demonstrate that we had no lack of experience with negotiation of relationship status during all of this. !
Our experience with the "front desk attendent" really taught us about the absolute unpredictability of any situation in a "foreign" context. Heck, the actual air time proved that tenfold!
6 "Transit of property," sounds like a pretty great term for the reaquisition of the Buddy Holly legacy. It is a type of heritage-intellectual property once sent onward and outward from popularity by his home town, he later was re-inserted the "visible" cultural landscape and thus began an early portion of musical Lubbock as we now know it.
1. Format and Linkage are very important because they help show what can be grouped together based on your certain research and i believe definitely show the relevence to each huge sub heading and then give all the information provided in the smaller sub-sections of each big heading. This helps organize the information in the way you want it to be recieved by others you are informing.
2. our community is not confined to cetain venues by any means which is the idea of their group so that they can play more venues, but definitely is most common seen at Mexican family functions because that is the ideal situation for a mariachi group.
3. Song choice was a huge topic in our research. We found it very interesting that the mariachi group knew how important it was for such a contained genre to find a way to reach out to all audiences so that they could please all no matter what race, this also definitely helped bridge gaps between certain communities that might not be so close to begin with.
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